[mb-style] RFV: Clarify order of precidence of guidelines and principles

[Brian Schweitzer]

On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Chad Wilson <chad.wilson at gmx.net> wrote:

> On 8/04/2010 2:15 a.m., Brian Schweitzer wrote:
> > "Track titles" would not, however, and the principle's page is quite
> > clear that it is solely about track titles:
> >
> > "This is the Style Principle used for ambiguous track titles, where
> > there are multiple track titles (sometimes with different spelling,
> > capitalization or punctuation) for the same song.  If no definite
> > proof can be found for the correct spelling/punctuation, the most
> > common version of the track title is to be used."
> >
> > (yes, that is the entire text of COD.)
> >
> This comment is completely irrelevant. We all know the principle is
> poorly/insufficiently broad but using this as a basis for discussion is
> ridiculous.This principle is a prime example of one of the principles
> that is widely used and ingrained into MB editing in a very wide sense,
> REGARDLESS of what the page says. Fixing our guidelines should be about
> making the documentation more accurately reflect the reality the
> community has slowly gravitated around in edit discussions, not trying
> to find excuses to make reality fit outdated guidelines used for a
> different or wider purpose than they were originally written.
>
> Kuno has already said that this page is contradicted/inconsistent
> by/with other pages, so the specific text here is not really that
> important.
>
> Please, please please stop citing existing documentation as some sort of
> argument for how things /should/ be. COD has been used in a much wider
> sense than that page for years now when its utility outside track titles
> (in choosing the best artist attribution for an inconsistently credited
> song, in release titles, in choosing the best release group title)
> became obvious.
>
> As a side note I also highly doubt that NGS will instantly make the
> problem COD helps with go away. Consistency in titling between a work
> and its remix or alternate versions may be one such case; and it will
> also have a role in determing the "correct" or "best" canonical
> title/artist attribution to use for a work - since you can only pick one
> from the possible many minor variations.
>

By the way, you've entirely ignored history in your broad claims to know the
intent or meaning of the guidelines and principles better than the text
itself says.

To set the record straight, back when Style Principle became official, there
were several related RFCs to change aspects of the principles, though only
one modified a principle's page entirely.  That one principle was COD.

We started in
http://lists.musicbrainz.org/pipermail/musicbrainz-style/2008-February/006101.html,
talking about CSG and COD; note that the conversation is all about
track
and work titles.  (Which is where CSGv2 for Works originally comes from.)

Warp himself then proposed
http://lists.musicbrainz.org/pipermail/musicbrainz-style/2008-February/006112.html

Then you find my email, and Warp's response, at
http://lists.musicbrainz.org/pipermail/musicbrainz-style/2008-February/006124.html

That "current situation (which has been in use since atleast 2005" would be
http://lists.musicbrainz.org/pipermail/musicbrainz-style/2005-July/000293.htmlwhich
was also *only* about tracks.

Then read the IRC conversation linked from that email;
http://chatlogs.musicbrainz.org/musicbrainz/2008/2008-02/2008-02-25.html#T20-00-28-570892

Note that we still are talking only about tracks.

That proposal then was dropped after Gecks made modifications, and Jim
*clarified* that COD was to only related to **tracks** in
http://bugs.musicbrainz.org/ticket/3601 .

Note, as well, that not only did warp agree about the wording of COD in
August of 2008, but that that revision to COD came *after* the Style
Principle page RFC passed.

Even if you go all the way back, you get consistently (pun unintended) that
COD is only about *tracks*.

You may yourself be using COD as argument regarding choosing the best artist
attribution, release titles, release group titles, or anything else - but
you are then using it incorrectly and counter to what the text actually
says.  The overriding concept of all MB is some degree of consistency, I
think - however, that vague degree of consistency is not defined by COD, but
rather, is perhaps the overriding 'MB philosophy' which sits unmentioned at
0 on the Style Principles page, even above Artist Intent.

The wording on the Style Principle page was never intended to be a
guideline.  That was even *specifically* stated multiple times in the
discussions regarding that proposal.  The wording in the "Alternative
phrasing" section was kept because some said they found the principles
easier to understand if the principles were given in sentence form and in
reverse.  However, there's a reason that page was marked as Philosophy, not
Guideline; it was specifically intended to *not* be a guideline itself, but
merely to indicate the official order of precidence to the principles (and
thus guidelines).

Last, if you should somehow still want to argue about the above, let me
point you directly to the RFV for the Style Principle page, and I'll cite
the specific text which said the same thing:

http://lists.musicbrainz.org/pipermail/musicbrainz-style/2008-February/005976.html

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1) Removing that "proposed style guideline" phrase from the page
2) Making the page CategoryPhilosophy
3) Making official the ordering of the 4 philosophies described within the
page

Note, however, this RFV is saying nothing about the philosophies
themselves, just their ordering.  The philosophies themselves can use
cleanup, as some have mentioned, but as Bram said, that's a whole
different series of RFCs/RFVs.  This is just talking about the
document describing the ordering of the 4 philosophies, not the
philosophies themselves.  While we may not have a clear definition of
ArtistIntent, I think we would all agree that, should we determine
ArtistIntent to be present, it would overrule any StyleGuidelines,
even if we can't quite yet define just what ArtistIntent actually is.

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Brian
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