Why are Artists listed wrong in freedb.org?

[MrVideo]

OK, the title of the thread doesn't explain it all. Here is the situation. Pick up any music book that lists artists and notice that they are listed, last name first.

If it is a group, it is listed as is. If the group has "The" in front of the name, it is moved, i.e., "The Who" are listed under "Who, The."

But not in freedb.org, or any other online database like CDDB (before it became pay).

By having Harry Chapin not entered as "Chapin, Harry," it goes against all the rules for indexing. By not moving "The" out of the way, you also end up with a mess.

Anyone know why the database is wrong?

[GSV3MiaC]

Re: Why are Artists listed wrong in freedb.org?

Coz all the data was entered by users, who had never read any of the books on indexing.

fwiw, WMP10, for instance, is quite capable of ignoring the extraneous 'The' in front of things when it indexes/sorts them. It would be no big deal to write a script to reverse two names and insert a comma .. problem arises when you get
'rolling stones' .. you really want to see 'stones, rolling', coz I don't!?

[MrVideo]

Re: Why are Artists listed wrong in freedb.org?

Coz all the data was entered by users, who had never read any of the books on indexing.

That is true, but there are rules/guidelines for entering data into the database and I've never seen that rule. Entries get rejected because of incorrect data, or at least they used to. I don't know the freedb rules for data submission.

fwiw, WMP10, for instance, is quite capable of ignoring the extraneous 'The' in front of things when it indexes/sorts them. It would be no big deal to write a script to reverse two names and insert a comma .. problem arises when you get 'rolling stones' .. you really want to see 'stones, rolling', coz I don't!?

The bible for chart data for records, etc., are the Joel Whitburn books and they get it right, i.e., The Rolling Stones are listed as Rolling Stones, The. If someone at freedb would use that as the bible for artist entry, it would be great.

While I could easily write a script under Linux/Unix to do just that, the actual info is in the tags of the MP3 files. I'd have to write a "C" program to dig inside the tags and correct the data.

BTW, I'll never be running WMP10 as I refuse to place XP on any of my boxes. It would break 100% of the programs that I need to use under 98SE and W2K. No updates are not available for the video editing programs that I use.

[LtData]

Re: Why are Artists listed wrong in freedb.org?

I'm sure the people at freedb would like your feedback about how things are labeled. They may even ask if you'd help doing it.

However, as it was said earlier, freedb is user-run. There isn't a group of people entering the data in the correct manner, its anyone entering the data. Getting everyon to label their CDs correctly won't happen. The only way to have every CD in FreeDB named properly is to move away from user submissions to having a set group of people entering data, or getting record companies to send the entries to a group that makes sure they are named properly.