Check for, and ignore, regional variations of Apple Music URLS

[Aerozol]

In the post-release submission screen I have gotten into the habit of clicking all of these (excellent) links:
Open with MagicISRC / Link external IDs of... / Add cover art

Unfortunately "Link external IDs of..." will always show for some artists, even though an apple music URL already exists, just not for the Harmony region.
e.g. the artist already has https://music.apple.com/us/artist/1491545499, so for me Harmony will always show the link because it wants to add https://music.apple.com/gb/artist/1491545499

There is no way to know that it is just the Apple URL that is being duped, until you have uselessly clicked the link (once again).

I know there are rare instances where we do want to add multiple regions, where releases are region locked to different releases. I would suggest leaving the link with an indicator that it is a regional difference, but IMO this situation is so rare, and should be left to editors with expert knowledge about an artists catalogue anyway - in other words, I think it's best just hide the link completely.

[kellnerd]

I get that it's annoying to click these links and only get a "duplicate" Apple Music link suggested.

The problem is, at this stage Harmony doesn't know how the correct artist has been matched. It could have been another external link which is already attached to the artist (e.g. Spotify) or the user had to manually match the artist. In the second case, having the "duplicate" Apple Music link in MB would have helped with automatic matching (and will help in the future).

The ideal solution would be if the release lookup would have been done using the "artist's region" (the area in MB, which is ideally also used for region-dependent links such as Apple Music's).
But I also know that it's much more comfortable for a user not to change Harmony's region at all, unless it is necessary because of releases not being available in that region 😅

So in the end it's a decision between user comfort and user comfort, specifically:

1. Better automatic matching by having multiple Apple Music links or the "correct region" link in MB and nagging the user to add these or use the correct lookup region.
2. No duplicate Apple Music links, don't bother the user with these, but sometimes at the cost of having to match the artist manually.

Harmony is currently doing option 1, because I think it is desirable that Apple Music links on MB use the artist's region (and have multiple links in case of regional differences). And it was also easier to implement, admittedly 😇

Instead of doing option 2, I just had an idea: Harmony is already checking the existings MB links for each artist on the release actions page using the API. The response also includes the artist's region (including the ISO code), so maybe we could do something with that:

• Check whether the artist's region is the same as in the link that we are about to suggest.
• If not, display a hint to the user that it is recommended to use the artist's region XX for lookups, unless there are regional differences.
• Determine region(s) of the existing region-specific links which Harmony supports and recommend them for lookups.

In short: Better explain how matching works and why "duplicate" links can be useful in case such a link is suggested. Specifically mention if the duplicate is the only suggested new link.

[Aerozol]

FWIW I never change the regional lookup per-artist, because:

• It's extra clicks and the only benefit is not having this link show up (or am I missing something?)
• I often don't know the artist's region anyway

Checking the artist's region in MB and suggesting to change to that would be an excellent addition, though!

What I wiould push back on is encouraging further duplicate links for the purposes of better matching with Harmony - I don't think this is in line with guidelines/editor consensus. As far as I know we would only add multiple regional links if a storefront actually differs.

[kellnerd]

I agree, in an ideal world every lookup would be using the artist's region (which is the region of all external links). The only case when there would be a need to use a different region, is when the release of interest is not available in the artist's region. Then adding an artist link for that region should not be controversial, as that page is going to offer different releases (even if it is just different regional variants of the same releases).