[mb-style] [Clean up CSG] Box sets, aka, what defines a unique release?

[Brian Schweitzer]

<snip>
> why treat classical box sets any different to normal box sets?
>
> if released separately: don't add the box set
> if only released in boxset: add the box set
> http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/BoxSetNameStyle
>
> if part released only in the box set, and part not, add the whole box
> set for context
> (my interpretation of what we seem to do in these cases)

I'm not disagreeing with you - if it's released separately, add just
the standalone release.  If it's added in a box, add the box.

The problem I'm describing is the cases like the Brilliant Classics
Master Composers series, or the Philips and Brilliant Classics
Complete Edition box sets.

Each of these is released, not only (and perhaps not initially) as a
mega 80 to 180 CD set.  To take the Philips Complete Mozart Edition
example, it has had each CD released first by other labels such as BIS
and Naxos (1992 and before), then re-released as standalone CDs by
Philips (1992 and before), then released as 45 volumes box sets
(1992), then 17 larger box sets (2000), 2 "half-the-series" sets
(1992), then finally one last huge set of all the CDs (2006).

This isn't just theoretical - right now, we have several editors
working on adding these mega-sets.  I just added the entire huge
Brilliant Classics Mozart set a few months ago, and a few editors and
I have been working on adding the entire Philips one.  Some discs are
already present, but in their single disc or smaller volume versions.
So the question is, should we have editors who wanted to add the
discs, does it really make sense that we would have:

BIS standalone
Philips standalone
Philips, one volume out of the 45 volumes
Philips, one volume out of the 17 boxes
Philips, one volume out of the 2 half-the-series boxes
Philips, one volume out of the complete series box

plus any other standalone releases by other labels who also have
licensed that same CD from BIS?

I'm suggesting that, in these cases, all the standalones list as one
listing, and for the boxes, so long as it still is the same label, all
combine into the largest set - so in this case, the 45, the 17, and
the half-the-series would all be listed once, as part of the complete
series box.  If another label - Brilliant Classics, for example - then
licenses that CD for a different BC box, that too gets a separate
listing, within the same "largest BC box" concept.

Thus we end up with 2 or 3 listings, not one for each time a label
adds more CDs and resells the same CD.

This isn't what we normally see outside of classical though.  First,
labels outside of classical don't tend to license off to other labels
entire CDs for inclusion in a box.  Second, While you might get that
25 CD single Oasis box set, you typically don't get a 5, then a 10,
then a 25, then a 50, then a 70, etc box set, reissuing the same
smaller boxes over and over again into larger boxes.  Thus, whereas
the BoxSet guideline of "we allow multiple listings for CDs in boxes
and outside of boxes" normally makes sense, the business practices of
the classical labels, reissuing the same CDs over and over in
progressively larger boxes, stretches this principle, such that we end
up with largely redundant listings, different only in the name of the
box and the CD # within that box.

Brian