Advanced Relationships, duplicate artists and other goodies released!

Some will say that hell froze over today...

We just updated the main server with Advanced Relationships (AR)!

After nearly two years of brainstorming and several months of 
tinkering, the new feature is finally live:

    http://musicbrainz.org/news/20050410-1.html

This new feature takes MusicBrainz into a new direction towards 
becoming a music encyclopedia -- as opposed to a simple music 
metadatabase. While the server team does not believe in version numbers 
for the server (we prefer to use dates), this could be considered 
MusicBrainz Version 1.75 -- its not quite MusicBrainz 2.0, but we're 
getting really close. Now that we have Advanced Relationships in place 
we will be able to easily add on Concerts and Record Label support in 
future releases -- that would bring us to MusicBrainz 2.0. :-)

A few more notes about this release:

1. IMPORTANT if you have a replicating server (!!): Due to a small 
bork-up in the release process, you must do a full import on your 
database to kickstart the replication process again. Sorry for the 
hassle! :-(

2. If the site hassles you about an unverified mail address, simply log 
out and back in.

3. If you're adding AR links and think up new link types or new 
instruments/vocals, please add them to this wiki page: 
http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/wiki.pl?AdvancedRelationshipType

4. How does AR change the styleguidelines? Should you still do silly 
things like 'feat.'? Yes, please continue to follow the style 
guidelines. I'll work with Tarragon to update them with respect to AR.

Big thanks for helping with this goes to: Dave Evans and Don Redman. 
Thanks to everyone else who helped brainstorm and test the new feature!

--

--ruaok         Somewhere in Texas a village is *still* missing its 
idiot.

Robert Kaye     --     [email protected]     --    http://mayhem-chaos.net