MK Music Registry — Concept Overview & Domain Map

Terms and Abbreviations

1. What Is MK Music Registry?

MK Music Registry is a curated, evidence-based Registry of Macedonian music releases, recordings and the people and organizations connected with them. It is the structured knowledge foundation of the wider Macedonian Center for Contemporary Music Heritage.

Its central task is cultural memory: keeping discoveries useful beyond the researcher, collection or website where they were encountered. Sleeves, catalogues and interviews may reveal different, sometimes conflicting accounts of the same history.

The Registry does not merely store releases. It connects artistic identities, contributors, recorded audio, release editions, credits, sources, classifications and historical decisions into a traceable body of knowledge.

Governing knowledge means explaining what was found, how it was interpreted, what remains uncertain and who approved it. Corrections add to that history rather than silently replacing it.

“Macedonian music” has a broad cultural and historical meaning here. Inclusion is not limited to rock, one language, ethnicity, citizenship or present-day borders. Relevant minority-community, diaspora, Yugoslav-era and cross-border connections belong in their historical context; less obvious connections require an evidenced rationale.

2. Why the Registry Exists

Names vary, credits are abbreviated, dates conflict and apparently identical releases can represent different editions. Knowledge disappears when a collection becomes inaccessible or a website closes.

The Registry preserves:

• Identity: stable references that let researchers recognize the same subject across different sources and later corrections.
• Source fidelity: original wording and script, alongside separately maintained preferred forms, translations, transliterations and search representations.
• Evidence and uncertainty: the basis for an interpretation, competing accounts and honest limits on what is known.
• Continuity: revisions and decisions that explain how today's account developed.

The result is an accumulating knowledge resource, not a promise that every historical question can be settled.

3. The Core Domain - A Human Mental Model

4. Main Conceptual Domain Map

Read the catalog spine first: Release contains Track; Track points to Recording. The other groups explain who is credited, what supports the account, how it is classified and how reviewed knowledge reaches readers.

flowchart TB
  subgraph SCOPE["Approved Registry/MVP scope - not implementation status"]
    subgraph PEOPLE["People"]
      A["Artist"]
      C["Contributor"]
      CR["Credit"]
      A -->|"named through"| CR
      C -->|"named through"| CR
    end
    subgraph CATALOG["Catalog"]
      L["Label"]
      R["Release"]
      T["Track"]
      RC["Recording"]
      L -->|"credited on"| R
      R -->|"contains"| T
      T -->|"points to"| RC
    end
    subgraph KNOWLEDGE["Knowledge & Evidence"]
      SO["Source"]
      E["Evidence Link"]
      I["Identifier"]
      U["Uncertainty / Qualified Value"]
      Q["Research Item"]
      SO -->|"used by"| E
      Q -->|"investigates"| U
    end
    subgraph CLASS["Classification"]
      V["Controlled Vocabulary / Term"]
      REF["Reference Data"]
    end
    subgraph GOV["Governance"]
      W["Working Record / Revision"]
      REV["Review / Correction / Approval"]
      AP["Approved Snapshot: approved knowledge"]
      W -->|"submitted for"| REV
      REV -->|"approval preserves"| AP
    end
    subgraph PUB["Publication"]
      P["Public Projection"]
      WEB["Public Presentation"]
      P -->|"explicitly published as"| WEB
    end
    CR -->|"credited on: example"| R
    R -->|"example of"| W
    E -->|"supports or qualifies; may contradict"| W
    I -->|"identifies subject of"| W
    U -->|"qualifies information in"| W
    V -->|"classifies information in"| W
    REF -->|"provides reference context for"| W
    AP -->|"public-safe selection produces"| P
  end
  FUT["Future potential only: archives and collections; broader research; institutional collaboration; educational and editorial discovery"]
  SCOPE -. "possible foundation for - not a commitment" .-> FUT

The map uses one Release as an example of governed information; governance and evidence also apply to other subjects under their own rules. Credits can apply to Recordings and Tracks as well as Releases. “Working Record / Revision” describes the working and submitted forms, not an extra universal catalog entity. Each reviewable core record retains its own lifecycle; linking a record does not approve or publish it.

Some details are intentionally absent, including Cover Art, lightweight Holdings, individual relationship types and operational processes. Separated future-potential notes indicate possibilities, not current MVP entities or committed roadmap features. The map groups concepts for understanding; it specifies neither every relationship nor every allowed number of links.

5. How Knowledge Moves Through the Registry

Research can begin with an object, a conversation or an unresolved question about an existing record. The path below is conceptual: gathering sources, drafting and documenting uncertainty are often iterative activities, not mandatory consecutive screens.

flowchart TB
  D["Research / discovery"] --> S["Sources and observations"]
  S --> W["Registry draft: evidence and uncertainty"]
  Q["Research Item: unresolved question"] -. "informs work; does not change facts" .-> W
  W --> SU["Submitted revision"]
  SU --> RV["Review"]
  RV -->|"Needs Correction"| W
  RV -->|"approve"| A["Approved Snapshot"]
  A --> P["Public-safe projection and readiness"]
  P -->|"explicit publication"| WEB["Public presentation"]
  WEB -. "new evidence or material correction" .-> W

The loop lets researchers revisit an account when new evidence appears. Unresolved facts remain qualified; approval depends on the applicable evidence and readiness rules.

An approved Track must point to a Recording. Where audio identity remains uncertain, the model uses a minimally established, explicitly uncertain Recording with evidence and research context; uncertainty is not solved by silently attaching a confident but unsupported identity. A genuinely trackless Release is a separate documented exception, not permission for an approved Track to omit its Recording.

Review accepts a particular revision and preserves it in an Approved Snapshot. Later edits do not alter it. Publication selects eligible content, retains public qualifications and checks rights, privacy and language readiness.

Approval does not automatically publish. Publication can be scheduled, and delivery can fail. A failed update does not silently replace the previously successful public version. Likewise, changing a term label does not rewrite an existing snapshot or public projection; a new projection is needed to present the updated label.

Correction does not erase history. Material factual corrections return to review before republication. Minor editorial corrections follow the authorized, traceable correction path. Withdrawal removes public availability without treating the internal historical record as disposable. Duplicate resolution preserves identities, provenance and continuity; it must not collapse genuinely different editions or performances.

6. Important Distinctions Newcomers Must Understand

Two further distinctions prevent common classification errors: Release type is not medium (an album can be issued on cassette or CD), and Release status is not Registry workflow state (an issuer's withdrawn release is different from withdrawing its public Registry page). An “Official” release classification does not give MK Music Registry official state-registry status.

7. What MK Music Registry Is Not

• Not merely a music website or CMS. Public pages are one use of the governed knowledge; research, evidence and history remain in the Registry.
• Not merely a spreadsheet or catalogue. Its purpose includes reusable identities, relationships, qualified claims and traceable editorial decisions.
• Not a Discogs clone. Existing services can be useful sources and references, but MK Music Registry follows its own evidence-aware cultural scope and governance.
• Not an uncontrolled crowd-edited database. The MVP uses authorized internal research, review and explicit publication; open public contribution workflows are outside that scope.
• Not a system that promises absolute certainty. Disagreement and missing knowledge remain visible where relevant.
• Not currently an official governmental or state registry. Its intended credibility comes from method, evidence and accountability, not an unestablished legal mandate.

These distinctions describe the project's responsibilities without diminishing other platforms. The aim is durable, evidence-aware cultural information infrastructure. Comprehensive works/compositions, royalty accounting and full museum collections management are not MVP capabilities.

8. Different Ways to Look at the Same Registry

For researchers and editors: a structured way to retain discoveries, alternative names, source wording, evidence and uncertainty. Questions and editorial reasoning remain available for later work.

For publicists and editorial users: governed information for release pages, artist profiles and articles. Storytelling must preserve relevant uncertainty rather than presenting it as certainty.

For project leadership: an accumulating cultural knowledge asset and a repeatable capability to collect, identify, review, preserve and reuse information, beyond one website or individual.

For cultural institutions and external stakeholders: a potential knowledge partner for collection cross-links and research collaboration, supported by stable identities, provenance and historical continuity. Specific integrations still need design and agreement.

For the software/product team: a shared mental model for deliberate domain boundaries. Keeping Release, Recording, Track, artistic identity, Contributor identity, evidence and publication distinct prevents software from collapsing different historical meanings into convenient but misleading records.

9. Future Potential

The approved MVP includes research, evidence, lightweight holdings and governed public delivery. Approved scope is not proof of operational capability: implementation status requires current repository and delivery evidence.

Later, the same stable identities and provenance could connect archival holdings, institutional collections, photographs, programmes, posters, oral histories and other heritage materials. Broader music-history research, exhibitions, educational experiences, collection cross-linking and richer public discovery could build on those connections.

These are possibilities, not feature commitments. Full collections management and comprehensive musical Work, instrument, place and tradition authorities need further design and governance. Partnerships need agreements about stewardship, access, rights and responsibilities.

The strategic principle is simple: preserve enough context and continuity now that future uses do not require reconstructing the original research from scratch.

10. Where to Go Next

1. This Concept Overview: orientation and a shared vocabulary for discussion.
2. Document 01 - Registry Philosophy & Domain Model: mission, inclusion, cultural principles and full conceptual grounding.
3. Document 02 - Metadata Model: what is recorded, why it matters and when information is required.
4. Documents 03-04: back-office workflows and functional behavior, including review, correction and publication.
5. Document 14: classification boundaries, approved initial reference data and vocabulary governance.
6. Documents 05-10 and later owning specifications: architecture, entities, persistence, integration, security, user experience and detailed operational/governance responsibilities.

The authoritative numbered specifications remain the source of truth. Approval of this orientation guide does not amend them.