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Old May 29, 2010, 04:08 AM
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Another Soundscape Another Soundscape is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Sweden
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Secret Squirrel View Post
I do share some of the reservations about adding anime. The last thing I want is to damage what we've built here. I think we're just going to have to work hard to find the best solution.

The addition of anime really grows out of a desire for the discographies to play a more prominent role, and for that they need to be more complete. While the categories Game and Anime don't overlap that much musically, the artists do overlap, especially the performers and less prominent composers and arrangers. Anyone who has done a lot of linking has seen this. Also, like game music, anime music is not widely respected in the mainstream. More importantly, the need for quality accurate album and artist information is much greater for anime music than the need that VGMdb helped to fill for game music. The current state is that decrepit.

I'm in full agreement that we need to preserve our brands, and I hope the separate portals will accomplish that. This gives us the opportunity to actually tighten up VGMdb/game. The default filter should be +game, with nothing in the other categories, so that browsing and searching only shows game-related results. The -anime filter removes all anime, including albums classified as both game and anime, so it's not the right one to use. The discographies should remain unfiltered, so a user can stumble on Works albums by following an artist link, but won't see them prominently displayed on the VGmdb/game front page or by search/browse. Eventually, animation that is related to games can be discovered by following product and franchise links. I think this follows the original motivation for adding all these other categories in the first place.

The VGMdb/animation portal mirrors this behavior, except it's +anime.

Thinking a little further, I wonder if the filter system is a little too full-featured. If we have the 3 portals (VGM, anime, everything) and maybe this category switcher, then perhaps all we need is a "Turn off Doujins" switch. I think we need to hear more about how you all are using the filter.
You are like the voice of reason. Though I must say I disagree with just having "Turn off Doujins", customizable filters are key for fast database usage for researchers and fans alike. People who aren't die-hard collectors might very well want to turn off promo/enclosure and I, for example, have turned off both anime, radio/drama and all bootlegs.

In my opinion, the more we expand on the filtering, the easier it will be for people to use the database. We just need to make it very clear what the filter does, I've already seen example when the_miker couldn't find a DG-10 album because it was classified as anime (had a remix of NausicaƤ of the Valley of the Wind). Overall though, I'm very pro-filters because it makes the database easier to man-handle
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