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View Poll Results: Do we want to standardize CatNum format to "STEM-NUMBER~MULTIDISC" as applicable
Yes 14 100.00%
No 0 0%
Unsure 0 0%
Voters: 14. You may not vote on this poll

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  #1  
Old Mar 23, 2010, 01:00 PM
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Default Submissions - Catalog Numbers - Poll - Format Standardization

Should we standardize on the format STEM-NUMBER~MULTIDISC for catalog number runs where it is apparent that the intent was to use a number similar to this format. This may override the formatting shown on the spine, album cover, and publisher website (e.g., LC####~# from Konami).

Discussion source: http://vgmdb.net/forums/showthread.p...7692#post17692

Note:
------
This is an sort of an experiment. We may use these polls to help resolve some logjams, but I don't think we want to paint ourselves into any corners by requiring any specific action based on the poll result. I don't think we can be a pure democracy, and the opinions of the active contributors and more knowledgeable users should in some ways have more weight. So primarily, this is all to see where everyone stands.

I don't know if we have the "Who Voted" plugin installed, so it would be useful to me if everyone posted in the thread as they vote.
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Old Mar 23, 2010, 01:23 PM
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I voted for standardization, because it's clear that in most modern cases, it encapsulates the core information of the catalog number; the rest is formatting that is not always followed. This obviously doesn't apply to catalog numbers where it is clear that this format isn't the intent. Of course, there would still be some room for judgement on where to apply this.
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  #3  
Old Mar 23, 2010, 02:10 PM
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I voted for standardization because many times publishers are inconsistent with formatting for what is supposed to be a consistent series of numbers. The stem, beginning number, and optional ending number are the relevant data. The spaces, dashes, and repeated numbers are just excess.

However, there are some publishers that release albums with catalog numbers that are very different from most Japanese publishers, so this may not be able to be applied to all cases.
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Old Mar 23, 2010, 02:13 PM
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I voted for standardization.
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  #5  
Old Mar 23, 2010, 02:17 PM
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I support this. Like I've said before my preference is to preserve things as published, but this is one case where we could benefit from consistency.
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  #6  
Old Mar 23, 2010, 07:51 PM
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Another vote for standardization, although I will look into the possibility of recording different permutations along with the source(s) for those permutations.
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Old Mar 23, 2010, 10:29 PM
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Voted for standardization, which pretty much is the way I use, also the discussion about it helped also to put my foot down to vote.
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  #8  
Old Mar 24, 2010, 04:43 PM
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It looks like this one will be practically unanimous, so I think we'll go with this.
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Old Mar 24, 2010, 08:50 PM
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Unlike other elements of an album, such as the title, artwork, etc. I wouldn't say there's any artistic aspect to the catalogue number. I'm not sure if the person in charge of creating the graphics/text to be printed on an album can even decide what type of formatting to use for it (may depend on the publisher).

Anyway, we need to get those permutations up for searching. It would really be nice if I could search for a cat# of a disc in the middle of a multidisc cat# and still find the album. For example, if I search for KICA-1371, it will find KICA-1370~3.
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  #10  
Old Mar 28, 2010, 08:41 AM
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I also vote for standardization. The usefulness outweighs the data integrity.

As Kaleb.G said being able to search specific disc IDs would be beneficial.

As long as the original catalog number is held within another data area that people with the want to have exactness can access, then it is again more useful.
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  #11  
Old Feb 28, 2011, 02:49 AM
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Days ago I did an edit to an album because on it, the catalog number was ESCC 28 but on the submission ESCC-28 appeared. Then I was told by Cedille that you were following this standardization, and that this thread exist.

To be honest I'm a bit new on this community, I come also from other music database community (Discogs) and I fully understand each community has his own rules. For example Discogs lacks of fidelity on the capitalization (they are not able to enter titles on all caps or the opposite, except for some releases... so they can't have fidelity to the original tracklistings). Anyway Discogs is focused on one kind of market and VGMdb is on a totally different one. So why I said this as an example?, simply because the first time I've felt VGMdb lacks off some fidelity to the releases is with this standardization: because with it, on a great database like the one this one is, you've lot of incorrect catalog numbers (at the end of the day, the only way to know if the catalog number was really ESCC-28 or ESCC 28 is the scans, and fortunately we've them).

Excuse my english. I just wanted to leave here my opinion, nothing more. I do not want to change anything since VGMdb should follow the public interest and on this moment the public interest is bigger on the standardization point. It's just that in the same way I feel like wanting to help here doing the submissions/edits as I've done (not much to be honest, new here as I said), I also feel like wanting to give one opinion more in this usefull thread.

Last edited by Aero-R; Feb 28, 2011 at 02:51 AM.
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  #12  
Old Feb 28, 2011, 08:05 PM
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You have to think of the usefulness. Mostly catalog numbers are used to either search here which standardizing a search format makes it much easier on the end user, or to search the internet/sites to purchase the album who normally insert this type of a standard anyways.

The loss of fidelity as you say which I assume means sticking exactly to what is on the album can be offset by putting the original catalog numbering in the notes category. That way all is kept, searching is easier, etc. I guess an extra bar at catalog could be added for original catalog numbers and standardized format.
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  #13  
Old Feb 28, 2011, 08:36 PM
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This more on the subject in this thread:

http://vgmdb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=4200

Basically, the realization was that the catalog number is a firm concept, but the presentation is often inconsistent and stylized. Dashes and leading zeros are added at will, and there are even times when the catalog number style on the official site differs from the one on the obi or back.
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  #14  
Old Feb 18, 2013, 06:32 PM
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[nevermind]

Last edited by Phonograph; Feb 6, 2018 at 09:07 AM.
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  #15  
Old Feb 18, 2013, 07:10 PM
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I can't vote on this until you can provide a handful of solid examples besides LC-*
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  #16  
Old Feb 22, 2013, 08:18 PM
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You can't vote on it at all, it's closed, ahahah.

No, seriously though, this is kind of interesting... considering I see instances sometimes where a record label has a very specific scheme they use and yet we use a different one anyway. It says in the thread linked here that we should use a certain format "where it is apparent that the intent was to use a number similar to this format". But DigiCube ALWAYS uses

SSCX 12345
NOT
SSCX-12345

so I'm not sure we can say they "intended" to hyphenate the catalog number. I think that in the entirety of all their releases, one was written with a hyphen, and that might have only been in one place on the album (sorry, I can't think of which one it is right now). Other than that, they always put a space. Yet, we hyphenate it. Then there's the Tokyopop label, which we strangely decide not to hyphenate even though we could like DigiCube. I would guess that maybe it's because the XXXX-2 is hyphenated, but then that doesn't explain Sumthing Else, which follows the exact same scheme as Tokyopop but it is hyphenated. There's also Falcom... couldn't we say they "intended" to do the same thing? Why not NW-10103260?

It's always struck me as sort of odd that we assume certain things, when we're usually so strict about doing things exactly the way they're written. Now can't we make the argument that, in the case of any typo/misspelling in a tracklist, they intended for it to be spelled correctly? The catalog numbers aren't government issued or something - they are just as creative as any other part written on a soundtrack's packaging/artwork/etc, they are a number made up by people. Especially Team Entertainment's catalog numbers really display this, they do all sorts of things with their numbers, because they can.

Well, food for thought, anyway~

Last edited by Mortavia; Feb 22, 2013 at 08:20 PM.
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