Alias Only Line-Ups

I've been experimenting with the alias only line-ups on the album pages, although the alias links directly to the main artist page as per the discussion that was taking place in the Rules Meeting.

A few notes:

1) I realize that only the Members section has been altered, the connections part of the album page still prints the true artist name. I'm going step by step here.

2) We can run into potentially misleading situations like:
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/index.php?Page=Search&AlbumId=10068
where all three members are the same guy but no where do we note that. Instead if you click on Kathy Brown you get Michael Schenker's page. Do we care about that potential for confusion?

3) Are people happy with the way that difficult memberships are now being handled, more specifically The Roots:
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/index.php?Page=Search&AlbumId=10658
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/index.php?Page=Search&AlbumId=10659


Kevin

I must have missed this discussion elsewhere - or at least this proposed solution. I really dislike this style of dropping the real name||stage name style for some releases. Can someone remind me why this was proposed and why stage names are all that matters for certain releases but not others? We have a style: real name||stage name - what's wrong with that?

Although i don't like the way The Roots was listed before, i agree with mr. p here. I like having the real names show up, with the aliases.

Plus, i still don't like how The Roots show up. What is wrong with:

Real Name||Alias 1||Alias 2

What i do like about this is the possibility (although this hasn't been implemented) of linking people when we don't know their full names. For example, Lenny is a useful link between these two releases -
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/index.php?Page=Search&AlbumId=8028
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/index.php?Page=Search&AlbumId=8024

Another thought, based on this link -
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/index.php?Page=Search&AlbumId=8024

I think it is confusing that the alias is listed up top ("Al Sobrante") but the real name is listed below ("John Kiffmeyer"). If we do decide to list only aliases on this page, the alias should be listed below as well.

I just thought i would post again, because, really, three posts from me is just not enough.

I'm with misterpomp and scott -- I'd prefer to see the real names and aliases together as before. It's especially confusing as it is now where the aliases show up in the Members section and the real names show up in Connections. We need some way of identifying the name(s) that, say, Ahmir Thompson of The Roots is using without having to click on each alias to see.

Also, I agree with scott's suggestion for how the multiple Roots aliases should be presented. One line per artist, please.

I'm OK with this, though seeing it in action makes me even more convinced that I was correct in my statement before that I'd "still prefer per-album real names". That would be more in line with what the rest of the group wants, and I think it'd be superior here. However, I do think what you have here is actually better than what's currently happening in the DB.

I really liked the fact that the website progressed to a source where you can find real names of artists. In some cases, even in obvious ones like Captain Beefheart, it takes quite some effort to find it out and I'm often surprised to see a name that I haven't noticed, even after checking many sources. I hope you're changing it back.

Okay, the alias only listings certainly did not work so I've changed it back to the original format. This still doesn't solve the problem of real name changes. I'm still not convinced on PK's per-album real name situation because I feel it lacks continuity across the artist's career. I'm going to have to think about this one again.


Kevin

Real people often don't have one "real name" that stays consistent throughout their entire life. That's just how things are.

Real names are unlikely to change frequently during a recording career, however, so it's not like most artists will even look any different. The ones that do, like Martina Hornbacher-Astner, are known as different things on old versus new records, so it makes SENSE to show that something changed.