Discussed this a bit in irc, and peppy's stance seemed to be that this would break everything. My suggestions to avoid breaking everything are as follows:

Songinfo.txt

Have something like "Songinfo.txt" be created for each map. This could be edited (by mods/BAT/admins) through the web, without altering the ranked status or filenames of existing maps.

Songinfo.txt would include the following:

1. Song Title
2. Modifiers ("English Version" etc)
3. Source (the title of the anime, game, or show that it came from, if any)
4. Artist (The performer or composer, never a company or show)
5. Genre
6. other tags
7. Display Text

This info would be visible on the beatmap's page.

Display text

This would show up at the start of each song during gameplay, like in Rock Band or Guitar Hero. If "Display text" in songinfo.txt is blank or absent, it will simply display something like:

SONG TITLE
as performed by
ARTIST

However, if something is typed into the Display Text field, it will override that, allowing for unique formulations like:

JUMPIN' JACK FLASH
as made famous by
THE ROLLING STONES
performed by
Billy Fogarty

or

SUPER MARIO BROS MEDLEY
composed by
KOJI KONDO

or

CRUEL ANGEL'S THESIS
as featured in
NEON GENESIS EVANGELION
performed by
Yoko Takahashi

et cetera, as needed (ignore the inconsistent capitalization here, I was just doing that for emphasis).

I'd be willing to type out all this data for the existing ranked maps alone, although others have expressed interest in helping out. It can be done as long as support is implemented for it to be added via web without breaking the existing osu format. If a map doesn't have a songinfo.ini, the Display Text can be generated from the artist and title date included in the .osu file, so priority would be placed on fixing the data on poorly-titled songs first.

Going forward, mappers would be able to make their own songinfo.txt (osu would probably generate it from the song setup panel, and it would be partly redundant). Mods would be encouraged to make sure that the text is presented professionally, and a proper title and artist would be required for ranking.

May just be wishful thinking but I think it would help make maps look a lot more consistent and professional.

LuigiHann wrote:

I'd be willing to type out all this data for the existing ranked maps alone, although others have expressed interest in helping out. It can be done as long as support is implemented for it to be added via web without breaking the existing osu format. If a map doesn't have a songinfo.ini, the Display Text can be generated from the artist and title date included in the .osu file, so priority would be placed on fixing the data on poorly-titled songs first.

I'll help out a bit if i can!

I'll help.

I think this will be a good step forwards with regards to the qualiy of metadata we have for maps... But I am still not sure about how/where this will be stored

Luigi's idea of having a separate file seems okay, and we can push updates for old songs via osu! Itself. The only thing I worry about then is that we will need to decide in which cases the .osu metadata is used over our new file.. if any.

nb i typed this from bed on my iPhone ;d

How about metadata fields in the new osz format?

Download: Rise Against - Prayer of the Refugee (bLaTzK) [Emdyion's Hyper].osu

Echo49 wrote:

How about metadata fields in the new osz format?

No way to add that to already-ranked maps without wreaking havoc on the system, is there? My suggestion is based on the idea that the .osu files of ranked maps are more or less untouchable, especially the Song Name and Artist Name fields.

Echo is talking about a hax new format you haven't heard about yet. And it will allow modificatiosn without havoc. But its kinda a while away.