Two very big issues:
1. Artificially extending mp3's should be allowed.
This has already been discussed before but there are many reasons why this just won't work as a rule. You shouldn't expect every BN to be able to know that the song they are checking is actually 4:59 length and not 5:01. It's very easy to get away with extending mp3, and enforcing this rule is just not something feasible. Maps will inevitably slip through and you are going to get "well, x got theirs ranked, why can't I?" People will always be lazy, stop trying to penalize it, it won't work. Additionally, this rule applies to a very small minority of mappers anyways. I can only see this being enforced for quality-based concerns such as the mp3 editing (to achieve 5 minutes) being poor quality. If you can't tell the map has been extended artificially just from listening to the song, then it is fair game.
2. Cross-fade editing is perfectly fine in almost all cases.
No one had issue with crossfading until Ephemeral brought it up. Him and peppy have clearly decided to take a backseat and not interfere too much with mapping. I don't see why this is being pushed forward on the basis that "staff doesn't like it". The staff doesn't like it? Well too bad for them, because it's something that's been done for a long time. One (apparently) poorly cross-faded map should not prevent the multitude of perfectly fine ones from being ranked. I could talk about how the genre-compilation mp3 was perfectly fine anyways (and how the current one is worse). "Low quality crossfade" is subjective to begin with, and unless you can accurately define what the difference is between "low quality crossfading" and "acceptable crossfading" and "high quality crossfading" etc... this should not be a rule because it doesn't even know what it is trying to bar from ranked, or what it is allowing into ranked.
Please stop holding the staff's words as things we need to follow. Ephemeral has made it very clear since the QAT upheaval that he won't be intervening in these matters, and peppy as well, is not heavily invested in RC rework because if he is i'm sure there are other things he would have commented about. They are fine to offer their opinions on whether these things should be acceptable or not, and you can consider them as being from informed sources, but enforcing a set of rules because "two people thought the crossfading on a certain mp3 was low quality" is kinda ridiculous.
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Basically,
1. Take out mp3 editing as a rule. Optionally you can make it a guideline that artificially edited mp3 extensions must sound natural/unnoticeable in order to be acceptable.
2. Remove the crossfade rule, and put it in as a guideline so people have the option to call a map out for its low quality crossfading, but not the ability to completely prevent it from being ranked. It is far too subjective to be an objective rule anyways.
1. Artificially extending mp3's should be allowed.
This has already been discussed before but there are many reasons why this just won't work as a rule. You shouldn't expect every BN to be able to know that the song they are checking is actually 4:59 length and not 5:01. It's very easy to get away with extending mp3, and enforcing this rule is just not something feasible. Maps will inevitably slip through and you are going to get "well, x got theirs ranked, why can't I?" People will always be lazy, stop trying to penalize it, it won't work. Additionally, this rule applies to a very small minority of mappers anyways. I can only see this being enforced for quality-based concerns such as the mp3 editing (to achieve 5 minutes) being poor quality. If you can't tell the map has been extended artificially just from listening to the song, then it is fair game.
2. Cross-fade editing is perfectly fine in almost all cases.
No one had issue with crossfading until Ephemeral brought it up. Him and peppy have clearly decided to take a backseat and not interfere too much with mapping. I don't see why this is being pushed forward on the basis that "staff doesn't like it". The staff doesn't like it? Well too bad for them, because it's something that's been done for a long time. One (apparently) poorly cross-faded map should not prevent the multitude of perfectly fine ones from being ranked. I could talk about how the genre-compilation mp3 was perfectly fine anyways (and how the current one is worse). "Low quality crossfade" is subjective to begin with, and unless you can accurately define what the difference is between "low quality crossfading" and "acceptable crossfading" and "high quality crossfading" etc... this should not be a rule because it doesn't even know what it is trying to bar from ranked, or what it is allowing into ranked.
Please stop holding the staff's words as things we need to follow. Ephemeral has made it very clear since the QAT upheaval that he won't be intervening in these matters, and peppy as well, is not heavily invested in RC rework because if he is i'm sure there are other things he would have commented about. They are fine to offer their opinions on whether these things should be acceptable or not, and you can consider them as being from informed sources, but enforcing a set of rules because "two people thought the crossfading on a certain mp3 was low quality" is kinda ridiculous.
---
Basically,
1. Take out mp3 editing as a rule. Optionally you can make it a guideline that artificially edited mp3 extensions must sound natural/unnoticeable in order to be acceptable.
2. Remove the crossfade rule, and put it in as a guideline so people have the option to call a map out for its low quality crossfading, but not the ability to completely prevent it from being ranked. It is far too subjective to be an objective rule anyways.