[noname219]

[2] Guidelines

Most of the time, referrencing to canonical sources (official website, artist facebook, soundcloud, newgrounds) is encouraged. Music databases (Wikipedia, Discogs, Rate Your Music, VGMdb, etc.) are useful for additional information but we should be careful because they usually have their own set of rules for uniformity or convenience. For example, Discogs do not follow any capitalization rules to speed up approvals.

Ultimately, those guidelines are not set in stone and can change.

[2.1] Conflicting sources

Having conflicting sources is common and can be frustating. Usually, we should be using the source closest to the artist's intention. If there's no way to figure this out, we can use capitalization rules.

[2.2] About song names

At best, song titles should reflect what is showed on the first release appearance (digital or physical). If physical, a scan of the track list is usually the best possible source.

If we cannot display certain symbols in the engines (@, ç, É, ô, japanese characters, etc.), we have to substitute them with an equivalent.

Some songs (classical songs for example) are known under many aliases. For example, the full name of Molto Vivace is "Trancendental Étude No. 2" but is more commonly known as the first. We can use either of these two. This is subject to discussion, but we need to stay consistent. Personnally, I would prefer using the full version but this might lead to confusion.

Japanese songs can be romanized or translated. There's no strict requirements here because some songs do not translate well in english. If we're using a romanized title, we should only keep particles in lowercase (the rest should be capitalized).

Terms like [Light], [Standard] or [Heavy]* are a remnant of the widget system. We can decide to scrap them altogether and move to the "v" system (v2, v3, etc.) or keep it the way it is. Ideally, we should have only one system to differentiate between multiple files. [Editorial text] is commonly used everywhere.

[2.3] About artist names

The artist name should be what is displayed along with the song in question. If there's no clear information about the artist name, we can use the usual artist name. Also, many artists have aliases to distinguish between different styles of music and would prefer to use one of those akas.

If an artist has multiple songs in-game with variations on the same name (i.e. DJ Cristo and djcristo), they should be be written the same way for all the songs. Those are not considered aliases but variations.

Remixer, performer and feats. can be listed if we know about them. For classical songs, the slash system (Composer / Performer) should be used. Composers and arrangers for non-classical songs fall into a grey zone but as a general rule, they shouldn't be credited if they do not show up in sources.

[2.4] About links

The best link should be the home page of the artist : where we can get contact information or where his music is the most accessible or last uploaded. Most of the times, official websites should be used. SoundCloud, Facebook, Bandcamp, Newgrounds, Myspace profiles are other common acceptable links.

At the very least, we can linking to a reference website (Wikipedia, Discogs, Allmusic) if none others are satisfying (common for classical composers).

In a perfect world, we should be able to link to multiple pages.

[2.5] About musical genres

The precision of musical genres is highly subjective and for that reason, cannot be sourced in one way or another. We can either use genres that have an agreed definition or characteristics (rock, hip hop, trance, etc.) or use made-up styles or combination (cyberdelic flashcore, artcore breaks). This is not a problem as long as they make sense with the song and are representative of common usage in real life.

Genres should be written the same way everywhere (for example, "Hip-Hop" and "Hip Hop" or "Drum and Bass", "Drum'n Bass" and "DnB").

There are limitations concerning some songs. For example, the song BEER must use the genre "Collage Techno" as specified by the permission.

On a side note, as much as I would like to help with listing more exact musical genres, this will not be my priority. However, I plan to come up with a list of suggestions at some point in the future and I keep on tracking suggestions made by other users elsewhere.