What.cd – New Artist Types, Release Types, and more!

[Guest Ethan]

New Artist Types, Release Types, and more!

Classical Music Changes

• Our classical music organization has needed some work for a while. To this end, we are proud to announce two new artist types: “Conductor” and “Composer.” They will help us organize our classical music even better than before, but can also be used for film scores, jazz, and other genres that would benefit from them. Please read the new guide to uploading classical music to learn more. In particular, please do not use the new “Composer” type for songwriters and the like.
• On a related note, acknowledging the differences between classical music and other types, we have new tagging standards for classical music. We would like to thank the Delta Team and Torrent Masters for their invaluable input on this.

Any torrent editors that are interested in helping us migrate over to these new features are encouraged to join #what.cd-editing on IRC. If you do not know how to join IRC, read the wiki article.

DJ Mix Changes

• New artist type: “DJ / Compiler”
• New release type: “DJ Mix”

You should only use the “DJ Mix” release type when the entire release was mixed by a DJ or DJ-like figure.

The artist type “DJ / Compiler” should be used to give special designation to the artist(s) that mixed a “DJ Mix” or the artist(s) that compiled a mixtape. Note that the “DJ / Compiler” artist type should not be used in place of the artist type “Main” when the primary artist just happens to be a DJ. For example, for albums that were released by a DJ, such as this release, Armin van Buuren should be listed as “Main”, not “DJ / Compiler”.

To see how these new features should be used, please review this example: Glovecats & Kid Kenobi – Dubstep Invasion [2010] [DJ Mix]

For the aforementioned torrent, the artists Kid Kenobi and Glovecats should have the artist type “DJ / Compiler” and the release type should be “DJ Mix”. All other artists should be of type “Main”, except for featured artists on individual tracks and remixers of individual tracks.

If you are unsure whether a release was mixed by a DJ or not, Discogs is often useful in making a determination. The Discogs link for the above example states “Format: 2 × CD, Compilation, Mixed”, which indicates that the release should be of type “DJ Mix” instead of “Compilation”.

Also, note that in the above example, the old artist type system made the torrent’s title display as “Various Artists – Dubstep Invasion (Mixed By Kid Kenobi & Glovecats) [2010] [Compilation]“. Because of how the new artist type system works, users should move the “(Mixed By [artist A] and [artist B])” text to the torrent group’s description to avoid clutter and redundancy in the torrent’s title. The example torrent includes an example of this being done. Note that the torrent group description of the above example uses “Various Artists” instead of “Glovecats & Kid Kenobi” as part of the torrent’s title on purpose (to avoid redundancy).

Any torrent editors that are interested in helping us migrate over to these new features are encouraged to join #what.cd-editing on IRC. If you do not know how to join IRC, read the wiki article.

Note: When existing requests need to be changed to release type “DJ Mix”, you can either use the “[Report Request]” link or make a post in this thread and a moderator will correct it.

Stylesheet Changes

We love providing a customizable interface through stylesheets. However, having seventeen official stylesheets means that every new feature needs to be tested in each one of them, creating a significant burden on the developers. This being the case, we are retiring some of the least-used stylesheets. They will still be available through the “External CSS” setting on your profile (in fact, we are automatically updating that setting for people who use them), but they will no longer be officially supported. The following stylesheets are being retired: Zeal, Hydro, GTFO Spaceship, Shiro, BlueBit, WhatLove, and decibeL. Each of these stylesheets is used by less than 1% of our users, and having to officially maintain so many CSSes has impacted site improvements. We’re sorry to do this, and we encourage our community to update the stylesheets as needed.

Note: If you were using one of the retired stylesheets and your stylesheet no longer loads, please log out and then log back in.

New Feature: The Collage Pager

You’ll now find a new setting on your profile settings page: “Collage album covers to show per page”. This controls a new feature, coded by hateradio and Changles, which lets you control how many covers are displayed on collages and “page” between them. We hope this will improve the functionality of large collages.

Tag Changes

In order to preemptively avoid any “Y2K”-like confusion surrounding our official Gazelle tags, all decade-based Gazelle tags now use four digits instead of two. On upload.php’s drop-down menu for “Tags”, you should notice that the old Gazelle tags of “70s”, “80s”, and “90s” have been changed to “1970s”, “1980s”, and “1990s”, respectively, as well as the addition of four digit decade tags for each decade between 1920 and modern day.

Note that the tag “2000s” must only be used for releases from the decade of 2000-2009, and the tag “1900s” must only be used for the decade of 1900-1909. The “2000s” tag must never be used in the context of the new millennium or the first century of the new millennium. The “1900s” tag must never be used in the context of the entire 20th century — only the decade of 1900-1909.

Due to the decreasing frequency of recorded music when going backwards in time, only the tags “1920s” and more recent will be considered official enough for inclusion in the drop-down menu; although, you can certainly add decade tags for earlier decades (e.g. “1910s”, “1900s”, “1890s”, etc.) if you desire.