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  #1  
Old Feb 22, 2010, 07:39 AM
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Default Submissions - Album Titles

Current Guidelines
Quote:
There is support for multiple titles, separated by carriage returns (Enter key). Only the first line is absolutely required.

line 1: Display Name
  • This is the name that will appear as the title when the album is displayed.
  • Generally, the name for an album comes from the title on the Front or the Spine.
  • If the game has an official english name, you may use it instead of the romanized Japanese name (Art of Fighting instead of Ryouko no Ken). Don't submit a literal translation of a game's name if it differs from the official English game name, or if the game has no English release. It is fine to translate other parts of the album title.
  • Never abbreviate to OST (unless the title really does include it, but this is rare).
  • All monospace characters should be mapped to the Latin charset equivalent, thus ~JASCII should be ~JASCII. Decorative symbols like ☆ are still permitted.
line 2: Original
  • Use this when the official name differs from the display name.
  • For Eastern releases, this will often require Unicode characters.

line 3: Romanized
  • Direct romanization of the original title. Note, don't include this if it's essentially the same as the Display title.
  • In particular, please do not literally transcribe loan words (i.e., no Orijinaru Saundotorakku)

line 4+: Alternatives
  • Any alternate titles can be added here. For albums whose titles and franchise names are typically rendered in English, Japanese titles may be included here to aid in searches.
Unless the front or obi indicates otherwise, a main title and a sub title should be separated by a colon ( : ), and two titles of equal standing should be separated by a slash (/). A slash (/) may also be used at the submitter's discretion to include the artist's name on an artist album, as Title / Artist.
Changelog
Quote:
  • 22-Feb-2010 -- Standardized the mapping of monospace characters to the Latin charset equivalent for display titles.
  • 26-Feb-2010 -- Standardized the separator for subtitles.
  • 26-Feb-2010 -- Kept the inclusion of names in artist albums up to the submitter's discretion, but standardized the format.
  • 26-Feb-2010 -- Rejected the idea of splitting out subtitles into separate fields.
  • 26-Feb-2010 -- Japanese titles for English albums may be included as an alternate.
  • 26-Feb-2010 -- Fan translated titles must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
  • 27-Feb-2010 -- [Limited Edition] is now automatically appended to titles.
Technical Changes to Implement
Quote:
  • Some kind of marker for digital albums (in the spirit of the Reprint marker.)
Proposed Changes for Discussion
Quote:
  • Standardize on Romanized or Western game titles in the Display Title for the album
  • Overhaul to the multi-title system
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  #2  
Old Feb 22, 2010, 08:18 AM
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Quote:
Standardizing the inclusion of names in artist albums (e.g., Hoshizora no Sakamichi / Haruka Shimotsuki)
Not sure about what do you want to standardize about the artist names..
But i am for including the artist name in the following case: CD singles & works albums.
Should it be always "album / artist" or "artist / album" ? (i am personally for "album / artist")
Should we just follow the cover/spine title ?

Quote:
Standardizing the separator for multi-line titles (~, -, EM DASH?)
This is interesting and not always followed (as it's also a personal preference for each user i think)
We could include the standardization of sub-titles when there is no special characters.. -xxx- [xxx] ..
But again i think we should follow the cover/spine when there are such characters.

Quote:
Should subtitles be split out into a separate field?
Personally don't think it's needed, but let's hear more opinions about it.

Quote:
Should fan translations be allowed for certain titles (e.g., Mamoru Has Been Cursed!)
I think it should be on the "alternative titles".. again, let's hear more opinions.

Quote:
Inclusion of Japanese titles on albums whose title is already in English
This is semi-useful, it can fetch a few more Japanese users, i am for it when you are able to privide it.


Quote:
If the game has an official english name, you may use it instead of the romanized Japanese name (Art of Fighting instead of Ryouko no Ken). Don't submit a literal translation of a game's name if it differs from the official English game name, or if the game has no English release. It is fine to translate other parts of the album title.
This is the most important point i think and is still unclear and not respected totally.
I will submit once more my example:

You say we can use Art of Fighting insead of Ryuuko no Ken, but then we have been using Garou Densetsu for years when there is a english name: Fatal Fury.
(art of fighting is a complicate case since the 3rd album use both names..)

To be honest, i always stick with romanized names (this is a personal choice)
It's maybe time to choose something definitive about it.
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  #3  
Old Feb 22, 2010, 11:49 AM
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Quote:
* Standardizing the inclusion of names in artist albums (e.g., Hoshizora no Sakamichi / Haruka Shimotsuki)
I've always been for the 'album name / artist name' way of handling these kinds of albums since I think it helps them to stand out a little bit in searches. It's almost like having a separate color for them.

Quote:
* Standardizing the separator for multi-line titles (~, -, EM DASH?)
In cases where there is no clear separator(s) between two (or more) parts of a title, or where they are on two lines on the covers, I tend to prefer either a : or a / depending on what the title is like.

A main title and a sub title = :
Two titles of equal standing = /

Here's an example of what I mean:
Nobunaga's Ambition: National Edition / Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Quote:
* Should subtitles be split out into a separate field?
I think this sounds like it could be confusing if the subtitle is just put in a field further down, and it doesn't seem too necessary to begin with. I think it's useful in cases such as this though.

Quote:
* Should fan translations be allowed for certain titles (e.g., Mamoru Has Been Cursed!)
As a fourth line, but only for search purposes, like if the fan translation is very well known and the original is not.

Quote:
* Inclusion of Japanese titles on albums whose title is already in English
Personally I don't like it, unless it's somehow made clear that it isn't an original title. It might also be hard to know how to properly spell certain names and such using katakana. But this really depends on if Japanese users would find it helpful or not.
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Last edited by seanne; Feb 22, 2010 at 11:11 PM.
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  #4  
Old Feb 22, 2010, 01:22 PM
Ira Ira is offline
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Quote:
Standardizing the inclusion of names in artist albums (e.g., Hoshizora no Sakamichi / Haruka Shimotsuki)
I like this (though I think it should be in the form of '[artist] / [album]'.)

Quote:
  • Standardizing the separator for multi-line titles (~, -, EM DASH?)
  • Should subtitles be split out into a separate field?
  • Should fan translations be allowed for certain titles (e.g., Mamoru Has Been Cursed!)
Agreeing with seanne on all accounts.

Quote:
Inclusion of Japanese titles on albums whose title is already in English
Seems unnecessary, the Japanese (from what I've seen) have little problem with English titles. But what about cases like ALiCE'S EMOTiON albums where he provides a katakana title, should that still be added as an extra title? I personally feel it's unnecessary because like I said the Japanese use the English title (or the English title in conjunction with the katakana title.)

Quote:
Standardize on Romanized or Western game titles in the Display Title for the album
I think if there's an official translation it should be used in most cases.

Other thoughts...
A large pet peeve of mine regarding titles is stuff like "X Y Z album '[name here]'". I think the display title should be well, the 'name' of the album and that the name prefixed with whatever the album is supposed to be of (usually stuff like 'X arrange album' or 'X compilation', or 'super hyper something') should be an alternate. Few seem to agree with this, however.

I also prefer using artist's sites as a source for the correct title OVER how it's printed on the jacket, as the typography used on the jacket isn't always correct (such as this for instance.) This statement however contradicts my earlier one not wanting to use the katakana title of ALiCE'S EMOTiON albums because he often prints the title in the form of 'Lycoris -リコリス-' online. I just can't win can I?
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  #5  
Old Feb 22, 2010, 03:38 PM
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I'd like to add something to the list of topics:

-- Standardizing the mapping of monospace characters to the Latin charset equivalent

I usually prefer characters such as ~ and ・ to be mapped to ~ and · respectively for translations and romanizations. Naturally, JASCII characters should always be converted to ASCII as well.

The exception is symbols like ☆, although some people tend to convert those into asterisks.


Quote:
Originally Posted by IRA View Post
I also prefer using artist's sites as a source for the correct title OVER how it's printed on the jacket, as the typography used on the jacket isn't always correct (such as this for instance.) This statement however contradicts my earlier one not wanting to use the katakana title of ALiCE'S EMOTiON albums because he often prints the title in the form of 'Lycoris -リコリス-' online. I just can't win can I?
There's a distinction to be made between the stylized title (i.e. print or logo version) and the transcribed title. For example, if you strictly follow what's printed, this would be ChäoS;HEAd instead of CHAOS;HEAD (the publisher consistently uses the latter).

What I feel is, for parts of the album title that don't refer to a trademark, use what's printed (i.e. Original Sound Track versus Original Soundtrack). Otherwise, follow the publisher's transcription style. Better yet, follow what's written on the obi (if applicable), since there's too little space there to do fancy typography or logos.
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  #6  
Old Feb 22, 2010, 03:56 PM
Ira Ira is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gigablah View Post
There's a distinction to be made between the stylized title (i.e. print or logo version) and the transcribed title. For example, if you strictly follow what's printed, this would be ChäoS;HEAd instead of CHAOS;HEAD (the publisher consistently uses the latter).

What I feel is, for parts of the album title that don't refer to a trademark, use what's printed (i.e. Original Sound Track versus Original Soundtrack). Otherwise, follow the publisher's transcription style.
I agree. Though, the example I gave wouldn't be considered a trademark, but I still stand by the title the label gives it on their site (and as listed on sites selling it.)

Also I agree about characters, though I do think symbols that don't really have a proper equivalent should be kept (such as ☆.) I do think the original title should be kept unchanged, but you're only talking about this in terms of romanizations and translations, correct?
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  #7  
Old Feb 23, 2010, 12:25 AM
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My issue with the [... / Artist Name] thing is that the slash is often not printed on the front cover or spine. I feel we add it mostly because we follow how online stores or such list their J-pop singles and albums. Even if the artist name is printed somewhere with the slash, one can still argue it's not a part of the album title. In addition, this slash makes it harder to handle double A-side singles unless we use two slashes like [A-side track name / A-side track name / Artist Name]. We can still omit one of the two A-side track names, but considering that double A-side means both tracks are even, I'm not sure it's appropriate. For these reasons, I'd go so far as to suggest the exclusion of the artist name, but I know this is a big change, and as stated it's certainly useful in some regards (suckers for specific vocalists would certainly prefer the inclusion, I guess).

Quote:
Originally Posted by IRA View Post
Seems unnecessary, the Japanese (from what I've seen) have little problem with English titles. But what about cases like ALiCE'S EMOTiON albums where he provides a katakana title, should that still be added as an extra title? I personally feel it's unnecessary because like I said the Japanese use the English title (or the English title in conjunction with the katakana title.)
Even though it always returns far less results, I for one search albums by Japanese quite often because even one word isn't discarded. Also, there are many titles I often can't spell correctly in English and is puzzled by zero results and then have to try again in Katakana (BEYONETTA, SOUL CALIBER, BLAZEBLUE or Assasin Creed...). By no means I claim this is the average language skill of people in Eastern, and even so, we just have to check the correct spellings, to begin with. It's at least extremely useful to let every album have Japanese titles, though. I don't think the original line is the best place because it's often unclear which is the original, while we (me included) often add the Japanese title to the second line. Perhaps the alternate line, but I think it can ideally be placed the best in a dedicated line because it also can serve as the original line when the Japanese title is printed on the front cover, but I understand it's too daunting to add Japanese to every release, and we probably don't need to give visitors from one particular regions such special treatments.
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  #8  
Old Feb 22, 2010, 03:30 PM
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Quote:
* Standardizing the inclusion of names in artist albums (e.g., Hoshizora no Sakamichi / Haruka Shimotsuki)
I personally feel that artist names should not be included in the album titles, unless it's needed to distinguish between albums (e.g. Genso Suikoden Music Collection). The "album / artist" or "track title / artist" displays are commonly used in mainstream music which places greater emphasis on artist names than album or track titles. However, we already have fields for the artist. There's a blurry line here, because what's to say this album shouldn't have the album title "Seiken Densetsu / Legend of Mana / Composed, Arranged & Produced by Yoko Shimomura"? It still essentially means the same thing as just having an artist name there, such as on "iFUTURELIST".

Quote:
* Standardizing the separator for multi-line titles (~, -, EM DASH?)
Anything is fine by me as long as it's standardized. It would be best to use a character not often found in standard titles, yet is still easily type-able on a standard keyboard. Seanne's example is pretty good.

Quote:
* Should subtitles be split out into a separate field?
I don't know, but in seanne's example, we may need "title prefix" and "title suffix" fields, since "Riverhill Soft Sounds Collection Scene III" actually precedes the main album title.

Quote:
* Should fan translations be allowed for certain titles (e.g., Mamoru Has Been Cursed!)
4th+ line is fine for this.

Quote:
* Inclusion of Japanese titles on albums whose title is already in English
4th+ line is fine for this.

Quote:
* Standardize on Romanized or Western game titles in the Display Title for the album
The main problem with all of this is the argument of "what is most relevant"? There are essentially four titles off the bat: original (Japanese), Romanized, literal English translation, and Western game title. This could mean that "display title" should not be a field, but rather a pointer to one entry in a list of clearly defined fields.

We could do something like this:
line 1: literal English translation (if original is not English)
line 2: Romanized title (if original does not use Latin characters)
line 3: Original title (using the characters of the original language)
line 4: English translation using Western game title
line 5+: alternatives

Then have a display title combo box for picking one of those titles which is the most commonly used.

At the very least, there would be less arguments about which data should go in the display title, and the focus would just go on which title should be displayed.
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Last edited by Kaleb.G; Feb 22, 2010 at 03:33 PM.
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  #9  
Old Feb 22, 2010, 03:58 PM
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Yeah, the original title definitely should be kept untouched.
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  #10  
Old Feb 23, 2010, 07:16 AM
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Hm, I wonder if I should have done these one at a time. Well, I'll respond to a couple now, and work my way through them.

Quote:
Standardize the mapping of monospace characters to the Latin charset equivalent for display titles.
We've been following this guideline for a while, so I accepted it. I just need to add it to the instructions.

Quote:
Standardizing the inclusion of names in artist albums (e.g., Hoshizora no Sakamichi / Haruka Shimotsuki)
This is only intended for artist albums, particularly albums that are marketed as single or full album releases from a vocalist.

I see Cedille's point about the use of slash in A-side/B-side releases, but I am not sure I can think of anything better than a slash. Also, I'm in the camp that prefers the artist name at the end.

A rationale for including the artist name comes from classical music. If you have a CD containing Beethoven's First Symphony, the title is just "First Symphony." However, that is not a very useful title for pulling this album from a page of other albums titled "First Symphony." So, "First Symphony / Ludwig van Beethoven" is more descriptive and useful. Granted, classical music might not be the best source for an example; there are other bits of info like conductor and orchestra that could also enhance the title, and in fact you'd probably present the search results in a different manner than we do if you were cataloging that genre.
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  #11  
Old Feb 23, 2010, 11:43 AM
Cedille Cedille is offline
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Personally, if some albums have too generic titles and need more distinctions, I'd take [.../Ludwig van Beethoven] as the discretionary suffix (like the one we use for iTunes releases, reprints and Limited Editions) rather than something we have to add to every other album that may already have a more identifiable title on its own, and in the worst case, can be better without the artist name. Still, I surely see why people appreciate its presence for multiples reasons anyway. Indeed, I would less mind it, on the condition we can draw up an explicit standards on why some albums need it while others not, and how to add it.

In many cases, we often copy the Japanese text from other websites and paste it in the title field (mainly because the scan to transcribe the title isn't available until later), but there are various ways for the Internet to add the artist name ([Album / Artist], [Artist / Album], [Album ~ Artist], [Album - Artist] and so on), and I'd rather standardize it, especially given that we're not based on what's printed on the scans here. My preferred solution is having a suffix box with which we can place the artist name somewhat better (color, placement, text size, etc.) and therefore we don't need to bother with the slash problem I mentioned above, because spacing is enough and better.

With regard to character song albums where the fictional character is credited as the artist instead of the actual vocalist, I doubt the Hentai/Yaoi character name really matters to the majority of us (note: that's another story, when the name is a part of the title, which is sometimes hard to determine), so I'd suggest we basically omit, or at least submit it like [Name (CV. Artist)].

Last edited by Cedille; Feb 23, 2010 at 01:32 PM.
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  #12  
Old Feb 23, 2010, 02:54 PM
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Quote:
Standardizing the inclusion of names in artist albums (e.g., Hoshizora no Sakamichi / Haruka Shimotsuki)
Include for singles but within reason (see Cedille's points) but at least add an alt title with the original. Also I suggest to add an alt title with the game they are related so they appear in searchs and are easier to find (ex.- "Name / Artist (Game X Opening)").

Quote:
Standardizing the separator for multi-line titles (~, -, EM DASH?)
No preferences but consider using special characters/separators and handle presentation programatically, in case the policy changes.

Quote:
Should subtitles be split out into a separate field?
Can be confusing, not really that needed.

Quote:
Should fan translations be allowed for certain titles (e.g., Mamoru Has Been Cursed!)
4th+ line but within reason, list relevant ones only (ie.- I think 'Mamoru Has Been Cursed' is rarely if ever used to call the game so avoid, but Treasure of the Rudra would be ok).

Quote:
Inclusion of Japanese titles on albums whose title is already in English
4th+ line. If kanji-only titles can be romanized for western users surely kana/kanji can be added to help asian users.

Quote:
Standardize on Romanized or Western game titles in the Display Title for the album
Discuss case by case, user selection can be used to alter it (though it doesn't work too well right now). I'd go with romanized for long series, especially if they have US albums released (ex. Akumajo and Castlevania).

Quote:
Standardize the mapping of monospace characters to the Latin charset equivalent for display titles
Agreed, asian characters should be changed to western equivalents (not only in look but in meaning). Universal (unicode) characters should be kept (ex.- notes, hearts). I'd add and discuss a "conversion list" since not everybody may know them or agree (ex 『 > ' , 「 > ").
Also sometimes in JP titles/tracklists I find this strange variation of ~: 〜. Seems non-standard so I'd change all instances to ~.

Other suggestions:
- Follow caps more strictly at least for trademarks or clear, consistent use of mixed case like Gigablah said (if this annoys people simple css or js magic can fix it). This means "FINAL FANTASY Original Soundtrack" and such for Square albums in glorious CAPS. Specially if the title is only written in Latin letters (FF again).

- Consider separating the display/romanized/alternate (US, fan-tranlations) names and the printed title(s) in different boxes, so there is a clearer distintion (it doesn't need to be too apparent to the user, just when editting). Currently you can't tell them apart. For albums without scans or digital releases long gone, it's info lost forever.
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  #13  
Old Feb 23, 2010, 03:58 PM
Ira Ira is offline
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Thinking about it more, names in the title seems unnecessary. I was thinking about it in the sense of how discogs does it (like this or this) which wouldn't be adding the artist to the title, but simply querying the relevant artists (arrangers if it's an arrange album, etc.) assigned to the album (or displaying various if there's more than x.) Unless this is what is being discussed and I just got confused somewhere. In any case, this would be useful for some doujin albums (ones by one or two artists) and solo works albums, but it's not useful for OSTs.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Dag View Post
Also sometimes in JP titles/tracklists I find this strange variation of ~: 〜. Seems non-standard so I'd change all instances to ~.
For romanized and english tracklists. Original (JP) tracklists should retain these characters, much like original titles.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dag View Post
Follow caps more strictly at least for trademarks or clear, consistent use of mixed case like Gigablah said (if this annoys people simple css or js magic can fix it). This means "FINAL FANTASY Original Soundtrack" and such for Square albums in glorious CAPS. Specially if the title is only written in Latin letters (FF again).
This usually seems to be done, but yes (there are some times conflicts with typography, however, which has been mentioned.)
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  #14  
Old Feb 23, 2010, 04:14 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by IRA View Post
For romanized and english tracklists. Original (JP) tracklists should retain these characters, much like original titles.
The first one I listed is a monospace (asian) ~ which JP titles/tracklists do use. The second one looks squished (half width?) to me, I don't think it is ever printed but it's found here sometimes. I have trouble copy/pasting it to certain programs so I assume it's non standard.
Maybe a bigger font it's needed to see the differences, try with this: ~ (monospace/asian), 〜 (weird), ~ (latin).
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Old Feb 23, 2010, 04:18 PM
Ira Ira is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dag View Post
The first one I listed is a monospace (asian) ~ which JP titles/tracklists do use. The second one looks squished (half width?) to me, I don't think it is ever printed but it's found here sometimes. I have trouble copy/pasting it to certain programs so I assume it's non standard.
Maybe a bigger font it's needed to see the differences, try with this: ~ (monospace/asian), 〜 (weird), ~ (latin).
I know the difference, and it's still used in some cases. If it is printed on the album (or the track list on the publisher/label/artist's website) it should be used.

Edit: It's also valid unicode (see 301C.)

Last edited by Ira; Feb 23, 2010 at 04:29 PM.
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  #16  
Old Feb 24, 2010, 04:02 AM
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The inconsistencies with ~ (full-width tilde) and 〜 (wave dash) is due to differences in Unicode mapping. Another explanation is given on Wikipedia:

Quote:
The wave dash (波ダッシュ, nami dasshu)—Unicode U+301C—is used for various purposes in Japanese. Note, however, that in practice the full-width tilde (全角チルダ, zenkaku chiruda)—Unicode U+FF5E—is often used instead of the wave dash, because the Shift JIS code for the wave dash, 0x8160, which is supposed to be mapped to U+301C, is not mapped to U+301C but mapped to U+FF5E in Code page 932—Microsoft's Code page for Japanese, a widely-used extension of Shift JIS. In other platforms such as Mac OS and Mac OS X, 0x8160 is correctly mapped to U+301C, but it is generally difficult, if not impossible, for computer users in Japan to type U+301C, especially in legacy, non-Unicode applications. Also, the wave dash glyph in JIS/Shift JIS is almost identical to the Unicode reference glyph for U+FF5E, while the reference glyph for U+301C is roughly its “mirrored” version. Nevertheless, the Japanese wave dash is still formally mapped to U+301C as of JIS X 0213. Those two code points have the identical or very similar glyph in several fonts, reducing the confusion and incompatibility.
For compatibility reasons our freedb component outputs the full-width tilde (~) instead of wave dash (since applications like EAC can't handle those characters).

Long story short, it's all Microsoft's fault
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  #17  
Old Feb 24, 2010, 06:55 AM
Ira Ira is offline
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I stand corrected.
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  #18  
Old Feb 24, 2010, 09:42 AM
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So, which of the two should we actually use? (Now that we know they both essentially mean the same thing to the Japanese.)

And I support using ~ in its place for all English/Romanized tracklists.
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Old Feb 24, 2010, 11:36 AM
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Quote:
The inconsistencies with ~ (full-width tilde) and 〜 (wave dash) is due to differences in Unicode mapping.
Interesting... I'll keep an eye then.

Quote:
So, which of the two should we actually use?
Well, like IRA says whatever is printed/used, but personally I've only seen full-width tildes (or they look like that to me) in scans. Maybe they look the same when printed, any scans with wave-tildes? Older albums (before unicode was widely used) only could use full-width tildes, no?
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Old Feb 24, 2010, 12:00 PM
Ira Ira is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dag View Post
Older albums (before unicode was widely used) only could use full-width tildes, no?
No, wave dash is part of shift_jis, so it might appear on older stuff. But, I honestly have never seen it used except for in some odd cases, I can't even think of any albums that use it.
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  #21  
Old Feb 24, 2010, 03:58 PM
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Quote:
* Standardizing the inclusion of names in artist albums (e.g., Hoshizora no Sakamichi / Haruka Shimotsuki)
I don't think we've quite converged here, though it seems like more are leaning towards dropping the artist name as part of the title. That's still not my personal preference. It seems like the correct stance may be to not propose any standard for this, and just let them be added at the submitters' discretion, which is how it is now.

Automatically generating and appending the artist name like Discogs is a little tricky, since we'd want to apply the rules that Cedille mentions (restrict it to vocal and arrange albums with one artist). It's doable though, but I'm not sure we should go that route. Speaking of auto-generation, another thing to bring up is the addition of (Limited Edition) and (iTunes) extensions to the titles, which we can also generate.

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I also prefer using artist's sites as a source for the correct title OVER how it's printed on the jacket, as the typography used on the jacket isn't always correct (such as this for instance.)
I think one example is here. These guys seem to be all over the place about whether they are Tecno Soft, Tecnosoft, Technosoft, or Technsoft. We chose the one from the copyright over the one from their logo (though we should continue to investigate as TecnoSoft might be the correct one) regardless of what was spelled on the cover.

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* Inclusion of Japanese titles on albums whose title is already in English
Cedille makes a good case for this. Generally I'd put them in the alternates.

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* Standardizing the separator for multi-line titles (~, -, EM DASH?)

(Seanne's idea)

In cases where there is no clear separator(s) between two (or more) parts of a title, or where they are on two lines on the covers, I tend to prefer either a : or a / depending on what the title is like.

A main title and a sub title = :
Two titles of equal standing = /
It looks like most agree with this standardization, and I like it to. The only thing I'd add is that it can be superseded by what's on the cover/obi (for example, if they offset a subtitle by enclosing it in tildes or dashes).

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Should subtitles be split out into a separate field?
Looks like there's not real support, and no good rationale for doing this, so unless anyone has some additional info, we can toss it.

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Dag's suggestion -- Follow caps more strictly at least for trademarks or clear, consistent use of mixed case like Gigablah said (if this annoys people simple css or js magic can fix it). This means "FINAL FANTASY Original Soundtrack" and such for Square albums in glorious CAPS. Specially if the title is only written in Latin letters (FF again).
I like this, and in practice it's how I do my submissions.

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Ira's suggstion -- A large pet peeve of mine regarding titles is stuff like "X Y Z album '[name here]'". I think the display title should be well, the 'name' of the album and that the name prefixed with whatever the album is supposed to be of (usually stuff like 'X arrange album' or 'X compilation', or 'super hyper something') should be an alternate.
I guess you knew it would be a hard sell, but I'm not a fan of this. I tend go the other way in prefering titles with more information. In this scheme, this album would just be titled "Rose Crimson."

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Dag's 2nd suggestion -- Consider separating the display/romanized/alternate (US, fan-translations) names and the printed title(s) in different boxes, so there is a clearer distinction (it doesn't need to be too apparent to the user, just when editing). Currently you can't tell them apart. For albums without scans or digital releases long gone, it's info lost forever.
I wanted to bring this forward to see what people thought about it. In some ways it might be cleaner, but it presents the user with more fields, so as an interface I'm not sure I like it. On the back end, these titles are all stored in the same text field in the database, so this also raises the question about whether those should be split out as well (they don't have to be.)
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Old Feb 24, 2010, 04:14 PM
Ira Ira is offline
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Originally Posted by Secret Squirrel View Post
I guess you knew it would be a hard sell, but I'm not a fan of this. I tend go the other way in prefering titles with more information. In this scheme, this album would just be titled "Rose Crimson."
Well, if you have the full title as an alternate it's still visible and searchable. Or maybe some compromise could be made, like the 'name' title could be entered as another title and an additional option could be made to have it displayed, but I could see that ending up with a lot of redundant information (long title romanized, long title original, long title translation, short title romanized, short title original, short title translation, etc.) Unless there was some way to distinguish between the two (like setting a prefix and suffix for album titles that would be shown or not based on options. so for instance that album would have a prefix of "TV Animation "Umineko no Naku Koro ni" Original Soundtrack ~" name of "Rose Crimson" and suffix of "~".) Either way is a little convoluted, so I don't know.
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  #23  
Old Feb 24, 2010, 07:05 PM
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Originally Posted by Secret Squirrel View Post
another thing to bring up is the addition of (Limited Edition) and (iTunes) extensions to the titles, which we can also generate.
I think this would make things look a lot better as well.
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  #24  
Old Feb 25, 2010, 12:18 PM
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Speaking of auto-generation, another thing to bring up is the addition of (Limited Edition) and (iTunes) extensions to the titles, which we can also generate.
Nice, I suggest "Digital" or an icon like reprints instead, iTunes being just a vendor.

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It looks like most agree with this standardization, and I like it to. The only thing I'd add is that it can be superseded by what's on the cover/obi (for example, if they offset a subtitle by enclosing it in tildes or dashes).
I'd add that care should be taken not to add gratuitious separators since it's now always clear. Ex.- this, some write it as "Shadow Hearts: From the New World" but the official spelling is the whole thing without the separator.

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I wanted to bring this forward to see what people thought about it. In some ways it might be cleaner, but it presents the user with more fields, so as an interface I'm not sure I like it. On the back end, these titles are all stored in the same text field in the database, so this also raises the question about whether those should be split out as well (they don't have to be.)
Well, it could stiill be displayed to the users like it is now. Not a big deal but I just think this being an info site it'd be better to somehow differentiate user-generated titles from official/printed ones (regardless of language), for archiving purposes.
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Old Feb 26, 2010, 12:08 PM
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I really don't know what was discussed in the past so it could have been already considered (yet killed), but isn't it bad to have a dedicated line to edit capitalization and whatnot? Another justification for this is given by the necessity of keeping the album names (especially from the same series) consistent, something we already do for the catalog numbers. The current display line might have been designed for this purpose, but I think we tend to avoid having two lines where only the difference is capitalizing variation and delete one of them (and to begin with, I myself would replace one of them with the Japanese). I also prefer we redefine the Original line, because we more often than not add the Japanese title to this line, while it's not clear that the Japanese is the original.

Display: Write whatever but be consistent with other entries.
English: Write the title in English. No discretion if printed on the cover.
Japanese: Write the title in Japanese. No discretion if printed on the cover.
Romaji: Romanize the title. No discretion if printed on the cover.
Alternate: Write something useful for searching (e.g. Western game name).

In case people feel uncomfortable with five lines, we can hide some lines at each album page (English is likely). This may look too complex, but in fact, we've already been submitting the Organizations in a similar way and the artist also has the Kanji and Hiragana fields. The biggest obstacle, however, is much time and energy to optimize the existing 18k albums.
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  #26  
Old Feb 26, 2010, 12:18 PM
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Originally Posted by Cedille View Post
Another justification for this is given by the necessity of keeping the album names (especially from the same series) consistent, something we already do for the catalog numbers.
Consistent with the information given by the publisher or consistent with some sort of guideline?
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  #27  
Old Feb 26, 2010, 12:29 PM
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I totally forgot that the titles of some releases were given in other languages (French, German, Korean and more), so it can be up to six lines.

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Consistent with the information given by the publisher or consistent with some sort of guideline?
Perhaps, both?
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  #28  
Old Feb 24, 2010, 04:13 PM
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Names in general (not just album titles -- track titles, artist names, etc) should all be split into separate rows for different languages and different variations / translations.

I imagine that's what I'll work on next, since this is a prerequisite for the new tracklist system to work. The interface doesn't need to be complicated -- I'll try to retain the feel of working with a multiline textbox.
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  #29  
Old Feb 26, 2010, 01:01 PM
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Perhaps titles could be made a bit more flexible by separating each title into their own div composed of a text field for language (or drop down) and text field for the title, and by allowing titles to be dynamically added and removed so only as many as necessary would be on the edit page. A check or radio button could be used to mark one of the titles as original. This would make things a little more flexible as said and perhaps a bit clearer for some.

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Perhaps, both?
Well, having guidelines around formatting and being consistent with publisher information usually don't go hand in hand. But I'm not really 100% clear on what you have in mind.
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Old Feb 26, 2010, 02:33 PM
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Well, having guidelines around formatting and being consistent with publisher information usually don't go hand in hand. But I'm not really 100% clear on what you have in mind.
Um, I also might be not sure about your question, but I thought we could be both faithful to what publishers provided on the covers in one line and consistent with the way we sorted albums out in another line, and there are indeed some entries where the almost only difference between the display and original lines is capitalization (like this).
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