These things taking up a huge chunk of real estate in the middle of the band profile, instead of within the discography, is really bizarre to me:


https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Un/3540403316

For bands like this that don't have any other bio text, we're treating them like a super important piece of information. Why can't a compilation appearance be its own release type? Or just list these tracks as singles?

I don't see anything wrong about it.

Please read the rules especially on acceptable vs. unacceptable releases. If various artists compilations are somehow allowed to have their own entries, they would taking up a large space of discography for some bands. And we can't add them as singles simply because they are not released as a individual single.

So we're not okay with them taking up space in the discography, but we are okay with them taking up the entire band bio?

We have floated ideas before about whether to accept compilations, and how they would be displayed. There are ways that it could be done gracefully, like for instance splitting compilation/split appearances as a separate tab that isn't default shown as part of the band's discography - much like how Discogs handles it. So on a personal level I agree with you that having a better way of actually including them and displaying them if included would be best, but it's a matter of determining whether even including compilations is a good idea or not. Having it take up the bio of bands is not the best option, either.

How about adding a tab in the band's discography in which you can see their compilation appearances, but instead of creating entries for compilations we just put them as plain text, so we may just put the name of the compilation, the label, and year of release, and maybe a pop-up which could show the tracks the artist contributed to the compilation.

There could also be another field exclusively for compilation appearances in the band's edit page, which could then be shown as a pop-up after pressing some button, that would get rid of the compilation appearances in the bio and only show up for those interested in seeing them.

I like your suggestion but I'd suggest something in between: make those VVAA compilations work like an artist, with ID and stuff so that they can be searched in order to prevent having the same compilation with different titles and info in different band entries. I also think that there's no need to keep the information of the songs made by bands that are not in the Archives.