VGMdb
Go Back   VGMdb Forums > VGMdb Site Related > Questions and Comments
Register FAQ Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
  #1  
Old Dec 1, 2008, 09:54 PM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default Artist name variations

Editors and staff now have access to a new field for artist profiles: Variations of artist names. It's for alternate spellings, abbreviations, acronyms, etc. of the display name (not for aliases that do not resemble the display name). Here's how it's used:



It's mostly for organizational and aesthetic purposes, since name variations will not be listed after album titles in the discography as aliases. Here's a comparison of the discography listing: before and after. Notice that the "Nihon Falcom", etc aliases are still kept for display.

Or just check the artist page itself.


Additionally, a bug with the artist edit history code was fixed in the process (it always registered an edit for the artist type field, whether or not it was actually changed)
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old Dec 1, 2008, 10:12 PM
Liontamer's Avatar
Liontamer Liontamer is offline
VGMdb Advisor
VGM Artist
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posts: 428
Default

Nice work!
__________________
Larry "Liontamer" Oji
Community Manager & Submissions Judge, OverClocked ReMix
OC ReMix ~ twitter.com/ocremix ~ facebook.com/ocremix ~ youtube.com/ocremix
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old Dec 2, 2008, 08:02 AM
Cedille Cedille is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Tokyo
Posts: 2,026
Default

Not sure if here is the best place to ask about this, but how would you deal with some artists who have an variation in kanji, like Hamauzu or Sakimoto? It appears 濵渦 (instead of 浜渦or濱渦) and 﨑元 (instead of 崎元) are their officially registered names and the latter seems to start using 﨑元 recently.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old Dec 2, 2008, 10:19 AM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default

You're right, the system currently doesn't account for kanji aliases or variations. That'll have to wait until later since it involves quite some changes to the interface, but for now kanji variations can be placed in the newly added field with no problems. It should be open to regular members soon.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old Dec 2, 2008, 02:08 PM
Datschge's Avatar
Datschge Datschge is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 745
Default

What's the matter with those Kanji variations anyway? Are they valid changes (like nick names perhaps?), all actual valid variations, or are they plain "typos"?
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old Dec 2, 2008, 09:19 PM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default

Some are valid, some are typos. One example of a valid change (off the top of my head) is Hiromi Sato, from 佐藤裕美 to 佐藤ひろ美. There's plenty of cases like this.
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old Dec 2, 2008, 10:37 PM
Cedille Cedille is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Tokyo
Posts: 2,026
Default

The thing is, while the Kanji they registered with the office are regarded as their 'true' forms, they're often forced to use simpler and easier forms in actual lives, actively or passively, for the sake of various things (most notable is readability and writability). That's why their family names have variations, like 斉藤 to 斎藤 or 齊藤 and 渡辺 to 渡邊. Sakuraba is a possible multi-kanji name; he might be 櫻庭, not 桜庭 despite there being nothing to confirm it.

This may not be a big issue, but given VGMdb's completeness and enthusiasm, I just thought I would listen to what the staffs had to said about this.
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old Dec 4, 2008, 07:53 AM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default

I imagine if we add aliases of that nature, it'll be something that actually showed up in print somewhere, such as liner notes, or an official online source such as the artist's website.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old Dec 4, 2008, 04:38 PM
seanne's Avatar
seanne seanne is offline
VGMdb Staff
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Sweden
Posts: 1,490
Default

Just a thought in regards to your Falcom sound team example above. Technically all of the names used here refer to the same thing (people working at the Falcom sound department), so even though 'Nihon Falcom' and 'Falcom Music Staff' aren't name variations, they aren't aliases either. So in cases such as this it might be better to put everything under 'variations'?
__________________
VGMdb group on last.fm
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old Dec 4, 2008, 07:03 PM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default

Well, aliases refer to the same thing as well. Here we take aliases to mean anything that isn't evident to other people that it's referring to the same artist based on the display name, rather than what it represents.
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old Dec 5, 2008, 07:20 AM
seanne's Avatar
seanne seanne is offline
VGMdb Staff
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Sweden
Posts: 1,490
Default

Alright, that's fine then. I figured alias was to be used only when an artist went under several names at the same time.
__________________
VGMdb group on last.fm
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old Dec 7, 2008, 03:34 PM
CHz's Avatar
CHz CHz is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 3,977
Default

I just set "M. FUJISAWA & Pre-Project" as a name variation for M-FUJISAWA & Pre-Project, but it's still showing up as an alias as well.
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old Dec 7, 2008, 03:37 PM
eternal_tsukasa's Avatar
eternal_tsukasa eternal_tsukasa is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: CA
Posts: 106
Default

I think the problem lies within this entry since the alias is linked to the page.

http://vgmdb.net/album/1727

I didn't go ahead and edit it in for you since I'm not familiar with the artists involved.

EDIT: Edited in for you actually. Just removed the alias that was entered and updated the album. All artist variations should now appear correctly.

Last edited by eternal_tsukasa; Dec 7, 2008 at 03:42 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #14  
Old Dec 7, 2008, 07:18 PM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default

That's not the problem, though. What name variations does is to remove the alias only in the discography listing. Otherwise the alias functions as normal in album pages and the artist linking interface.

My guess is that '&' symbol. I'll take a closer look.

Edit: well, adding that alias back fixed it. I think I'll run a script on the alias fields to fix all other instances of this in the db.
Reply With Quote
  #15  
Old Dec 8, 2008, 12:56 AM
eternal_tsukasa's Avatar
eternal_tsukasa eternal_tsukasa is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: CA
Posts: 106
Default

I'll be more cautious with the variations now that I have a better idea of it's purpose. Artists in the Beatmania scene have a few variations, but will take some time since there's tons of aliases for the artist that contribute. There shouldn't be whole lot of work to be done in that area now that most of the artist in here have their full names displayed and aliases listed below, so everything's correct.

If an artist has part of their first name in the alias, would that count as a variation or just alias. I'm thinking alias is fine as it is, but I just wanna be sure so I don't make any mistakes if I come across an artist and decide to edit.
Reply With Quote
  #16  
Old Dec 8, 2008, 01:34 AM
Gigablah's Avatar
Gigablah Gigablah is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 2,403
Default

There's no hard and fast rule, if you feel that the partial name isn't sufficient to identify the artist (e.g. their first name is a common one) then you can keep it as an alias rather than a variation.
Reply With Quote
  #17  
Old Dec 18, 2008, 03:57 PM
Kaleb.G's Avatar
Kaleb.G Kaleb.G is offline
VGMdb Advisor
VGM Artist
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: USA
Posts: 1,038
Default

I think this is a good addition! I'm sure there will be some places where the alias/variation line is blurry, but hopefully we can just use our good judgement, like most of the other things on the site.
__________________
hi~
Reply With Quote
  #18  
Old Jan 15, 2009, 01:59 PM
Revoc's Avatar
Revoc Revoc is offline
VGMdb Advisor
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 801
Default

A doubt: names that occasionally mixed kanji and hiragana also count as a variation?

Two examples:

Motoaki Furukawa –古川元亮 (もとあきもとあき) :古川もとあき
Masahiro Andoh – 安藤正容 (あんどうまさひろ): 安藤まさひろ
Reply With Quote
  #19  
Old Jan 15, 2009, 03:53 PM
CHz's Avatar
CHz CHz is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 3,977
Default

For artists who usually use some mixture of kanji/kana in their name instead of the full kanji, I've been putting whatever they prefer to go by in the name field and the kanji with an explanation in the biography field. See Motoki Matsuoka for an example.
Reply With Quote
  #20  
Old Jan 15, 2009, 05:23 PM
Secret Squirrel's Avatar
Secret Squirrel Secret Squirrel is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Cleveland, OH
Posts: 8,242
Default

I think it'd be beneficial to add it to the variations field just so it shows up in the artist search. (I've accidentally added a couple of duplicate artists because I didn't find them when searching the kanji.)
Reply With Quote
  #21  
Old Jan 15, 2009, 06:20 PM
Revoc's Avatar
Revoc Revoc is offline
VGMdb Advisor
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 801
Default

OK, I think that add in variations field is the best choice.
Reply With Quote
  #22  
Old Jan 15, 2009, 07:57 PM
CHz's Avatar
CHz CHz is offline
VGMdb Administrator
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 3,977
Default

Yeah, if the variations field is included in the artist search, then putting the full kanji name in there is a pretty good idea if they usually go by some kana-substituted name instead. I'll do that.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Dungeon Hearts - Battle Theme Variations SimonJXZ Album Discussions 1 Jun 23, 2016 01:05 AM
OCRI-0007: Vampire Variations: Volume II RomanticScent Album Discussions 3 Nov 5, 2015 05:32 PM
KNGIA-0002: Vampire Variations: A Musical Tribute to Castlevania Kaleb.G Album Discussions 0 Feb 1, 2014 03:40 PM
LOUDR-1274: Video Game Variations 2 Nijipoop Album Discussions 15 Nov 19, 2013 11:51 PM
Super Metroid ~Reserve Tank: VARIAtions~ Zarggg Album Discussions 1 Nov 11, 2010 08:29 PM