[mb-style] [no label]

[Lauri Watts]

On Jan 9, 2008 12:14 PM, Bogdan Butnaru <bogdanb at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 8, 2008 9:52 PM, Olivier <viapanda at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2008/1/7, Bogdan Butnaru <bogdanb at gmail.com>:
> > > I'm not sure if it's possible to use label disambiguation comments
> > > (without having two "unknown" labels)
> >
> > It is possible. There is an editing trick detailed in
> > http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/LabelComment but feel free to enhance the
> > wording of it, as, apparently, nobody understand what I wrote :]
> I did a bit of rephrasing, maybe it helps.
>
> > As for the reasoning whether it's appropriate to split things or not,
> > my only concern is maintainability (I don't actually "really" care
> > about the rationale of the splitting): having multiple separate
> > entries with smaller lists of releases is more easy to keep tidied
> > than an enormous one thing. Question being, is it worth it or not?
> >
> > I tend to think that people will keep creating White Label (or keep
> > using the actual "White Label" in the database, which is a *real*
> > label using that name :] for what it's not), and that people will keep
> > adding  (as in "too lazy to search") things to the [unknown/no label]
> > label.
> >
> > Based on these two facts (?), I would probably feel more comfortable
> > with small (and kept tidied) sub-entries (whatever the names /
> > rationale), and a pair of catch-all (unknown/no label) acting as
> > "dumps" for the inevitable mis-editing.
>
> I'm sure you're right about the mis-editing, though I do prefer a
> single accepted "[no label]" and a list of do-not-use labels for
> damage control. It's harder to do a one-time cleanup like that, but
> it's easier (I think) to do maintenance via subscriptions. (Although,
> I don't remember if subscriptions work correctly for labels.) My main
> concern is actually finding things, it's harder to do it with multiple
> destination labels because (a) you might not know them all and (b) the
> difference between them might be ambiguous.

Splitting them a little may encourage someone to actually take a look
though.  Speaking for myself, the entire [no label] category would
probably end up huge, and intimidating. But I'm familiar with white
label releases, have a fair idea where to start looking to track them
down, and cruising a smaller, more defined [white label] listing
looking for things I can fix might be within reach.

All said and done though, I don't really object to making them all [no
label], in the end that's what they are, and label aliases would go a
long way towards getting things filed in the right place.

-- 
Lauri Watts