There are currently no rules or guidelines on where a preview point can be set. The purpose of the preview is to know what kind of song you're downloading from osu!direct / the bss / song selection.
There are some occasions where mappers put their preview at the start of the mp3, which gives literally no help to anyone to understand what kind of song it is.
Random examples: https://osu.ppy.sh/s/100348 https://osu.ppy.sh/s/406217 https://osu.ppy.sh/s/775590
The examples are from an unmapped section at the start and do not represent the rest of the song. You could consider it a form of expression or whatever, but this is really unhelpful for anyone looking for songs to download.
Just to be clear, it is 100% fine to have previews at the start if it actually gives a preview to the rest of the song
eg https://osu.ppy.sh/s/644566 https://osu.ppy.sh/s/673290
There are some occasions where mappers put their preview at the start of the mp3, which gives literally no help to anyone to understand what kind of song it is.
Random examples: https://osu.ppy.sh/s/100348 https://osu.ppy.sh/s/406217 https://osu.ppy.sh/s/775590
The examples are from an unmapped section at the start and do not represent the rest of the song. You could consider it a form of expression or whatever, but this is really unhelpful for anyone looking for songs to download.
Just to be clear, it is 100% fine to have previews at the start if it actually gives a preview to the rest of the song
eg https://osu.ppy.sh/s/644566 https://osu.ppy.sh/s/673290
Guideline Proposed (wording could be improved but general idea as follows)
The preview point should be set at a point that clearly indicates what kind of song the set uses
In addition, this guideline would prevent the user from setting the preview after the song ended, it's incredibly dumb but technically rankable as of now.The preview point should be set at a point that clearly indicates what kind of song the set uses
