[x] Re-writing of Rule 6a

Mark and I have been discussing Rule 6a for some length now and have decided to re-write it to denote collaborations as any two independent parties who have released material independently of one another despite their mutual histories.

The primary example of whom this effects is Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention as these releases are now considered collaborations as both parties have released material independently of one another although FZ was a member of MOI before the name change.

Please note that as collaborations FZ & MOI albums should be entered in twice, once under FZ as a single member band and again under MOI with the other members.

We both have chewed over the Matt Westwoodian possibility of A & B forming under that band name, is entered into the system as "A & B", only to have A & B branch off independently of one another and potentially cause problems in re-classifying albums already entered into the system. After much internal wrangling we've decided to take the risk rather than trying to codify exceptions for mutual band histories into the Rules. That's just the way it goes.


Kevin

I dunno, this seems problematic to me. The new wording even acknowledges that FZ & MOI is really a single band, as it's just a name change from the original MOI. Should rules not reflect reality as much as possible? Why not just say that determining collaborations will be subjective, and then let FZ & MOI be a single band while letting a different case be considered a collaboration?

It seems like, much with the Solo Artist situation, you're using names to define reality instead of letting reality outside of the name inform the database. Who cares what bands decide to call themselves in their quest for commercial success and their internal struggles over member egos? If A & B is a band and A and B later branch off independently, the original works as A & B were still done by one band. A rule system that forces you to update your DB to be LESS historically accurate in order to maintain slavish consistency with an artificial set of circumstances seems like a bad deal to me.

Queen + Paul Rodgers would be another example of something I'd consider a single band in reality even though the two entities have standalone musical histories.

What I want to avoid is subjectively trying to determine whether something is a collaboration or not. This is not a good thing and will only lead to arguments about whether or not "bands" like Queen + Paul Rodgers is a collaboration or a single entity. By our new rule standards it is a collaboration with absolutely no need for discussion, debate, or argument. This simplification of standards is extremenly desireable given the volume of material we are dealing with and also appears to be the most natural means of determining a "band's" definition.


Kevin

Then I would almost rather say that all "A & B" groups are bands, then that they're NOT bands. Meh. If we have to sacrifice accuracy to deal with "the volume of material we're dealing with" I'd rather just not get collaborations into the tree very fast instead of doing them (IMO) inaccurately.

We hear you. That's why we now track, behind the scenes, whether or not a release is a collaboration. That way we'll know which entries to fix if we change this policy again. I agree that our approach is not ideal and that there are several benefits of a subjective approach.

Just to be sure: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band still counts as 1 entity, right? As far as I know the E Street Band never released anything without Springsteen. However, Springsteen did release material without the E Street Band...

Well hey, at least it seems like over time you guys have moved more towards what I would like to see happen rule-wise than you've moved away from it. So that's good :D

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band is still 1 entity. For now, at least.