[mb-style] CSG compromise?

[Mike Morrison]

On Sat, 1 Mar 2008, Brian Schweitzer wrote:
> the question is, what are we going to do until then?

For now, I think each track essentially needs two title fields: one for 
the TrackCoverText, and one for the CSG title. So I'm basically splitting 
the userbase into two groups and proposing a way to let each group use the 
title it prefers, until NGS allows for more personalized customization. If 
we can't agree on two titles, we could go for three (a liner title, a CSGS 
title, and a middle-ground title), but I'm hoping it won't come to that.

Here's why I think each track needs two titles for now: If anyone is going 
to want to use the TrackCoverText in the future, I think we have to 
preserve it somewhere now. Same thing with CSG titles as work identifiers: 
if anyone is going to want to link a track to a WorksDatabase entry in the 
future, I think we should leave something attached to the track now to 
facilitate that.

If we decide to give each track two titles, I see two options: we could 
change the database structure to allow tracks to have two TrackTitle 
fields, or we could use our existing database structure.

Here's one way I can think of to use the existing structure temporarily 
until we have NGS. It's not ideal, because it misuses one of our existing 
fields, but here goes. Please, anyone, suggest better ways of implementing 
double track titles if you can think of them:

Very few of the releases I've come across make any use of the 
TrackAnnotation field. Would it be feasible to appropriate this field for 
the "second title field" and write a tagger plugin to use TrackAnnotations 
as track titles? Then if someone wants to add a real track annotation, 
they could use ReleaseAnnotations for now, with a note saying which track 
they apply to.

Alternatively, we could put all of the secondary titles in the 
ReleaseAnnotation field, and put in some standardized formatting 
characters to allow a tagger to parse them into track titles.

> If we're aiming for "as on the liner", which liner, which translation, 
> and what still gets fixed - caps, typos, mislisted works, etc?

These are not necessarily easy questions. I think they should be decided 
by the folks who want their track titles "as on the liner". I think 
whatever they come up with should go in one of the two title fields for 
now, and eventually in the TrackCoverText field.

> If we're aiming for CSG, how complete, which languages

Again, not necessarily easy questions, but I hope the folks who do prefer 
standardization can reach some agreement. Otherwise we will need three 
titles instead of two! The standardized work title would go in one of the 
two title fields for now, and eventually in the WorksDatabase.

> and are we essentially admitting that classical track titles per liners 
> are descriptions and not "titles" per say?

To me, yes.
For the TrackCoverText, no.
For the interim CSG titles, yes, I think.
For the eventual WorksDatabase, yes.

> Where can we all compromise such that the (I think majority) who wants 
> at least some structure in the titles isn't left waiting 1-2 years for 
> NGS to replace CSG, plus all the quite likely years of editing work to 
> actually implement it across our classical listings?

My hope is that a choice of two titles for each track will be enough to 
satisfy everyone in the interim.

Cheers,

Mike