MEB-132: Added MetaBrainz and MusicBrainz guidelines to discuss

[Aerozol]

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[yvanzo]

It looks brilliant overall. Thank you for having taken the time to go through projects to find their inconsistencies and unwritten conventions. Comments and suggestions:

1. Guidelines file format:

   • PDF is great for the print, not for the web. These guidelines will be mainly read on screen.
   • Comparing and commenting binary files is not easy using respectively Git and GitHub.
   • The current side-by-side display makes the text way too small to read on a laptop screen.
   • The alt text generated by pdftotext isn’t clean and doesn’t include images.

   It would be nice to have Markdown files instead. Markdown is a text format you already started to use and supports the inclusion of images. Full reference on GitHub: “Mastering Markdown”.

2. Typefaces:

   • If there is a rationale behind the choice of Roboto/Sintony, it should probably be mentioned.
   • It seems that DejaVu (superset of Bitstream Vera) is (unfortunately not consistently) used in MusicBrainz website at least because it has a good Unicode coverage and is under a free license.

3. MusicBrainz-only page elements:

   • Thanks for making this explanatory description of the current layout!
   • a. also features the language selector.
   • g. is empty in your screen capture.

4. Minor: I’m not used to “useage”, might not be only me, “usage” seems to be more common.

[MonkeyDo]

I also think these guidelines look terrific !
Thanks for the time and energy that went into this :)

My main point of contention is about the gradient colors. I mentioned it briefly over IRC, but the BookBrainz (and perhaps others') color does not lend itself to a happy gradient with the MeB orange.
Thanks for trying with black instead of the BB brown; I still feel it's not a great result (I instantly think about halloween).

I propose we should have a bit more freedom with the gradient colors, for those gradients that don't work very well, and aim to have a harmonious result over necessarily using the project's color.
For example, I think BB could use (something similar to) the OfficeBrainz gradient and the colors would marry well with the BB brown (no biggie stealing from that 'project', it's only mainly used for the team really, and not a real project)

In passing, a detail: I think the Cover Art Archive gradient is the same as the CritiqueBrainz gradient. Probably not very important considering the use we make of coverartarchive.org website.

Another detail:
The logo size for the icon mini versions are set to 33px minimum. I remember the same discussion on the logos pr. Not sure if this is relevant or if any change is needed, I just thought I'd mention it just in case.

[Aerozol]

Thanks for the feedback! Changes will be in the next version once I sort out my erroneous extra commits...

yvanzo:

• 'language selector' might be added to the footer soon I think, so I haven't changed that for now. Hopefully it's covered by 'important links covered on every page'
• I don't know if there is a rationale for using Roboto/Sintony, it's taken from the newer projects. Maybe Monkey can help - I'm open to using different fonts entirely, it's been extremely hard to pin anyone down to discuss this tbh
• File format: I would like to copy this into readme once it's been finalised. But it should not be regularly edited so I want a static PDF as well. I went with PDF to start because that is comfortable for me and Akshat gave the ok to change it later
• changed to usage, sorry I didn't already do this, thanks for bringing it up again!

monkey:

• keen to have a lot of freedom with gradients, I tweaked a few already - but I had no idea if there was appetite to use them for other projects at all so I didn't go too deep. BB is going to be tricky, but maybe I'm overthinking it. Here's screenshots comparing BB + MB / BB + OB / Halloween: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C8ydhr6AMhIb0eo_xR5EjE5tmIfj3nC6/view?usp=sharing
• CAA gradient fixed
• icon mini version fixed, thanks for bringing this up again
• any thoughts on fonts, see yvanzo's note

[zas]

I totally agree with @yvanzo regarding PDF format, it doesn't allow easy tracking of changes, I think we should stay with Markdown (and convert to PDF from that).

[akshaaatt]

I have picked the guidelines from the pdf files and set them up in an MD file for clear understanding.

I would like to point out that the two separate pdf files have a lot of similar content, which should be taken care of. I am not sure whether MetaBrainz and MusicBrainz guidelines should be separate. We can follow one guideline.

[Aerozol]

Not sure if everyone receives notifications from comments - the text file guidelines are all up to date and have been merged by akshaaatt, but further feedback is welcome.

I had the same question re. multiple guidelines/a guideline for each project akshaaatt, but I found it was necessary because I really struggled to combine everything, as the projects are quite different - you'll notice the MetaBrainz and MusicBrainz guideline PDFs are quite different to each other.