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[Proposal] Remove ‘doujin circle’s name as artist’ guideline in general RC

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Topic Starter
MCPXiaoBai
References of previous discussion:
community/forums/topics/763785

This proposal is to remove the guideline in General RC of Metadata:

Tracks created by artists belonging to doujin circles should list the circle's name as the main artist. The exception to this is when the artist(s) of a given track is well-known enough by their own name. In this case, the specific artist name(s) may be used instead.

I understand this rule (from the previous discussion linked above) is saying that, the priority of choosing target to credit for the music is:
Famous composer/vocalists>Circle>not famous composer/vocalists

This rule is firstly,

Misleading to players, ‘artist’ should be clearly directing people to the creator of the music. For musics done by individual composer but not a collab of the circle should write the composer’s name instead, no matter how famous they’re.

secondly,

Missing credit to the original composer, they’re worth getting the same credit even if they are not well-known.

thirdly,

How can we decide whether the composer is well-known/more well-known than the circle name?

lastly,

we should ‘modify metadata from primary sources except to comply with formatting and standardisation rules below.’ Since it’s a guideline not rule after all, the primary sources is still on top priority. However that’s not the case for many ranked maps

For example:
(beatmapsets/1078388#mania/2256446 writes ‘dat file records’ as artist instead of ‘u_ Key’ even when the official website https://datfilethcme.tumblr.com is actually crediting ‘u_Key’)
(beatmapsets/785871#mania/1649858 writes ‘Alstroemeria Records’ as artist instead of ‘ayame’ even when the official website http://alst.net/arcd0064/ crediting ‘ayame’)

and they’re misleading people.

Therefore using the circle name as the artist name is not encouraged at all imo.
Even it’s not forced as a guideline, RC shouldn’t be encouraging people doing this.
I personally felt sad for people not knowing the original composer since the artist name only tells them the circle name, especially for those who’re not famous but producing great musics for us.

Open for discussion for any suggestion and sorry for my bad English. It’s my first time requesting a proposal for RC change so if I made any format mistakes please tell me, I will correct it once I realised.
SaltyLucario
i'm not into doujin but honestly i never understood this rule as well, it just makes no sense to me to not use actual artist of the song and the group he belongs to instead - place for that should be in tags
Drum-Hitnormal
Popularity
I think popularity was taken into consideration because they want the song to be more accessible to players. People are more likely to check out a song if they know the artist vs they don't know the artist.

However, popularity is hard to measure and RC does not say how to measure it. So don't use it is better to avoid confusion.

There is vocalist:
so I think its best to either always use `circle name` or always use `Composer feat. Vocalist`

There is no vocalist:
use `circle name` or `Composer`

Now the point of discussion is which one is better? circle name or composer?

this is a hard decision to make. I am not sure which is better.
But regardless which one, the not used one should be present in tags.

I think RC based on popularity is completely wrong.

The purpose of RC is when different people read it, they should arrive at same conclusion. But one may measure popularity based on $$ sold, which you can't find sometimes. others may measure popularity based on # of album released. or even how many plays on spotify. and you simply can't measure it properly for each case. Another problem is if new composer just made 1 song is not popular but maybe in 1 month will have 1 billion fans, you dont know that. and your map is already ranked.
Topic Starter
MCPXiaoBai
replying to DH,

Agreed to DH's point. Popularity shouldn't be a consideration of RC because it can be differently valued by different people. This guideline is for Standardization but I don't think letting a subjective element deciding such crucial metadata can help improve standardizing.

I would say removing this guideline completely is the best solution. Following the primary resources is already enough.

If the primary sources (e.g. official websites) did credit the composer for the song, we should follow:
ARROW RAIN for example, in the official website of the circle, you can see composer names beside the song names in the song list.

ayame – ARROW RAIN / Masayoshi Minoshima / 亡き王女の為のセプテット / 東方紅魔郷

nomico, Nhato and Camellia were also credited for their songs in the album.
So we should use 'ayame' for artist name if we follow primary sources completely.
Nao Tomori
according to this logic, a Beatles song should not credit the Beatles but rather only John Lennon. I don't think that makes a lot of sense. If the artists wanted to solely credit the composer, the artists would release the song under the composers' names rather than under the collective circle name. Circle name makes the most sense as that is how the song is released by the participating artists most of the time.
Topic Starter
MCPXiaoBai

Nao Tomori wrote:

according to this logic, a Beatles song should not credit the Beatles but rather only John Lennon. I don't think that makes a lot of sense. If the artists wanted to solely credit the composer, the artists would release the song under the composers' names rather than under the collective circle name. Circle name makes the most sense as that is how the song is released by the participating artists most of the time.
The logic is different between Beatles and doujin circles. Doujin circles usually invites individual composers (ARROW RAIN for example) or publicly collect songs and choose their favorites to put in the album (more like a contest). Either way doujin circles are not involved in making the song, and the song was solely composed by individual composers. While I believe all Beatle members involved in creating the music. (I don't really have a deep understanding of Beatles tho)

They should be seen as the guest composer of the album. Using ARCD0064 (album of ARROW RAIN) as an example. Only Masayoshi Minoshima can be considered as a member of Alstroemeria Records. And Masayoshi Minoshima would actually release his/her single under the name of Alstroemeria Records (For example: The famous Bad Apple feat.nomico). Having Alstroemeria Records as main artist will actually means that the song was composed by Masayoshi Minoshima.

Actual member of the doujin circle can be checked from their official websites.

That's only one example of wrongly using doujin circle name as artist name.
Drum-Hitnormal
I agree simply following official meta is best.

1. its simple, and there's no room for argument/subjectivity
2. I don't think its our job to decide who deserves the most credit.

having standardization rule is fine, but changing the meaning of the official meta is not.
Dialect

Drum-Hitnormal wrote:

Popularity
I think popularity was taken into consideration because they want the song to be more accessible to players. People are more likely to check out a song if they know the artist vs they don't know the artist.

However, popularity is hard to measure and RC does not say how to measure it. So don't use it is better to avoid confusion.
but to argue, wouldn't it be in the tags? this song for example is officially named "Boku no Sensou" but most people know the song as "My War" or if you're dumb enough to not know music, "aot final season opening"
Topic Starter
MCPXiaoBai

Li Syaoran wrote:

Drum-Hitnormal wrote:

Popularity
I think popularity was taken into consideration because they want the song to be more accessible to players. People are more likely to check out a song if they know the artist vs they don't know the artist.

However, popularity is hard to measure and RC does not say how to measure it. So don't use it is better to avoid confusion.
but to argue, wouldn't it be in the tags? this song for example is officially named "Boku no Sensou" but most people know the song as "My War" or if you're dumb enough to not know music, "aot final season opening"
Hmm... I will try to answer your comment here but I'm not sure whether I understood it correctly.

DH's stance is: Popularity shouldn't be a consideration. And I believe that matched with your point, even when 'My War' is more commonly used by people, 'Boku no Sensou' is still used as the song name because it's official. The official metadata should always be on top priority and I believe both me and DH agreed with that. 'My War' can be in the tags but should not be the title.

Back to doujin circle (cuz Boku no Sensou isn't really a doujin music), if the official source stated that the song was composed/arranged by individual artist, we should use the name of the individual artist as the artist for the beatmap metadata. If the official source didn't mention individual artist name, we should assume the music is a collab work of the doujin circle and we may use circle name as artist name.

Tags are comparably less important as they're only used for people searching, but the beatmap metadata should be 100% following the official source. Circle names may be contained in tags, but in most cases not as the main artist.
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