Hi everyone! Given the recent discussions around song compilations I'd like to propose a new rule which would impose some restrictions as to what is allowed when it comes to putting songs together. (thanks to noffy for the help with some of the wording and ideas)

Original wording

New wording based on feedback (Last updated June 5th, 6:23AM UTC)

The rationale behind the rule is to avoid random compilations from being made simply to get around the 5:00 drain requirement for marathon difficulties. The 10min limit exception is made for maps that aren't made specifically made to overturn the drain rule and have higher amounts of effort put into them. A notable example of this is Monstrata's Alternator Marathon map where thematic requirements are lessened due to its length and something like it would be rankable.

Please discuss/leave input

big agree

What if someone were to make r3 Music Box popular songs compilation? you could argue that they are related bc they are all r3 songs.

mega agree with celerih, :3c

GreenHue wrote:

What if someone were to make r3 Music Box popular songs compilation? you could argue that they are related bc they are all r3 songs.

i think that would make thematic sense as they would all be by the same artist (R3 Music Box) and contain generally the same sound and tone to each of them, even with varying melodies.
"Examples of clear relation include similar songs by the same artist,"

GreenHue wrote:

What if someone were to make r3 Music Box popular songs compilation? you could argue that they are related bc they are all r3 songs.

The part about it being the same artist could be easily moved to the 10min requirements, since often artist create wildly different songs that don't necessarily mesh well together, which is something to consider.

As for the "popular songs" theme, that would fall into the 10min requirements under the new rule since it is quite a weak thematic relation, similarly to just putting pop songs together.

If we were to change the artist thing rule would become

omega agree :3c

agree except i'm confused about something

celerih wrote:

songs related by way of character/anything else from similar source material

Does this mean songs from the same source wouldn't be enough (i.e. [game/anime] songs compilation)? i think the "related by way of character" is what's throwing me off here

i think similar source material also applies to anime/games

I don't really agree with this

firstly I think being able to define what is a "clear" reason is and what "weaker relation" is, is very ambiguous and adding this as a rule would be nearly impossible to enforce properly

also I think when you say specifically "Vague relations like "Japanese pop songs" " it becomes a bit forceful to me

I mean to me I can mix some songs together that tell a story as a whole but they are just "japanese pop songs" to everyone else. That idea isn't clear to anyone unless I say it + potentially what the story is about, and sometimes its sweeter when people enjoy it for what it is than having to explain the whole idea to everyone.

Ultima Fox wrote:

agree except i'm confused about something

celerih wrote:

songs related by way of character/anything else from similar source material

Does this mean songs from the same source wouldn't be enough (i.e. [game/anime] songs compilation)? i think the "related by way of character" is what's throwing me off here

General wording of that section is pretty subpar, and while replying to greenhue I added more to it which just made it a mess, so I rewrote it to be

Hopefully this wording is clearer and unifies a few different things into one simpler part of the rule

bor wrote:

I don't really agree with this

firstly I think being able to define what is a "clear" reason is and what "not as clear of a reason" is, is very ambiguous and adding this as a rule would be nearly impossible to enforce properly

New wording hopefully helps this a bit, but honestly I don't agree that it's that ambiguous. Looking at the background/ideas/style and themes behind songs is quite easy to do and isn't incredibly hard to use common sense to see when songs are connected. Like I said new wording gives clearer examples of what is acceptable or not

bor wrote:

also I think when you say specifically "Vague relations like "Japanese pop songs" " it becomes a bit forceful to me

I mean to me I can mix some songs together that tell a story as a whole but they are just "japanese pop songs" to everyone else. That idea isn't clear to anyone unless I say it + potentially what the story is about, and sometimes its sweeter when people enjoy it for what it is than having to explain the whole idea to everyone.

About the japanese pop songs I agree that it was subpar wording wise and changed it to genre. About the telling story part, if you mixed songs together and the story isn't immediately apparent or the link between the song isn't apparent to the point where you'd need to explain it, then that would fall under the weaker relation rule at the 10min mark

I agree with bor. This would have to function as a guideline at best due to the amount of "well it's related because blah blah blah" that would occur. From there bns can just exercise discretion and not nominate random songs stuck together into one mp3 (which isn't even a common thing to do)

worrying about marathon drain is a non-issue with the upcoming changes to spread requirements you can read about here: t/726474 + p/6645825

aside from that i agree with bor/nao, we already have too many subjective rules causing problems, let's not add more
and i agree that slamming random songs together is stupid/not the best experience but that's rly a nonissue, for the same reason players can just delete songs they don't like, they can delete compilation mp3s they dont like as well

tho if you wanna start getting into helping with compilation rc, try reaching out to ephemeral as it seems there's some overhauling planned already based on this: https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/786643/d ... ll#/289974

bor wrote:

I mean to me I can mix some songs together that tell a story as a whole but they are just "japanese pop songs" to everyone else.

but if it can't clearly convey a continuous story or coherent idea on its own, then does it really contribute anything by being a compilation that it wouldn't by just being 3 different maps?

bor wrote:

That idea isn't clear to anyone unless I say it + potentially what the story is about, and sometimes its sweeter when people enjoy it for what it is than having to explain the whole idea to everyone.

But this being in the ranking criteria doesn't mean that you have to explain it to everyone. It just means you have to be capable of defending it when the question is raised by a concerned modder, BN, or QA member.

Nao Tomori wrote:

I agree with bor. This would have to function as a guideline at best due to the amount of "well it's related because blah blah blah" that would occur. From there bns can just exercise discretion and not nominate random songs stuck together into one mp3 (which isn't even a common thing to do)

Like I explained in replying to bor, but if you need an essay to explain the relation between the songs you picked, then that would fall under the 10min category where it would be acceptable even with a weaker relation between the song. Moving to guidelines would let anyone write a full essay of nonsense to justify linking their songs together. It really isn't difficult seeing what goes together and not, this isn't such a gray area since the rule gives clear examples of what constitutes as clear relation.

@undeadcapulet while yes part of this is due to maps trying to reach the marathon drain requirement, it would also apply to the type of compilations where ppl make a 30s map of harumachi clover and haitai because haha short pp maps xd, so the ruling isn't totally nullified by the new drain rules.

Agree but take into account that this was previously proposed by pkhg and it didn't got much reception

https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/topics/711779

shoutouts to sotarks

mine wasnt properly worded so i pretended i forgot about it to get rid of it xd

not sure if an agreement can be made about this topic, like uc said u can justify ur marathon like anything else in mapping and get away with it so limitations like this are pointless imo

pkhg wrote:

not sure if an agreement can be made about this topic, like uc said u can justify ur marathon like anything else in mapping and get away with it so limitations like this are pointless imo

Which is why I tried to add clear examples in the ruling
If you believe it's possible to justify non related things being crammed together based on the current wording of the rule, please offer a better wording or give examples of how you'd be able to argue you're way out of them. With that I could at least improve on the wording

@UC + bor, no wording can really take into account every single "what-if" scenario. If the RC was objective we'd have bots nominating maps, not people. There is a degree of subjectivity. You need to be able to argue that your "relationship" is not, or should not be considered a "vague relationship". This applies to many other guidelines in the RC anyways.

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As for the original proposal though, "More vague relations like simply the same artist,"
> What? Songs from the same artist should not be a "vague relation". They are a direct relation. Songs shouldn't just have to sound the same to be part of the same compilation. You can have songs from wildly different genre's mixed into the same song (ALIEN), you can have the same singer (same voice) singing to widely different music genres. This part of the proposal absolutely needs to change.

celerih wrote:

pkhg wrote:

not sure if an agreement can be made about this topic, like uc said u can justify ur marathon like anything else in mapping and get away with it so limitations like this are pointless imo

Which is why I tried to add clear examples in the ruling

Examples of clear relation include songs with similar styles by the same artist/from the same source material/based around the same character or songs which are direct sequels from one another. More vague relations like simply the same artist, genre or mapping style used to create the maps does not apply as clear enough relation

If you believe it's possible to justify non related things being crammed together based on the current wording of the rule, please offer a better wording or give examples of how you'd be able to argue you're way out of them. With that I could at least improve on the wording

1. The mapper can make any amount of justification they want. They need to convince the mapping community/nominators. It should be the mapper's prerogative.
2. The mapping community, specifically, the BN's nominating the map, ultimate decide whether the mapper's justifications are fair. If you want, you could sit here for hours listening to every single "what if this, what if that" creativity never dies. Or, you can decide to veto a map and/or get the mapper to demonstrate that their justifications are reasonable by finding 3 BN's to support their endeavors.

Let's assume that I've had a bad day and I want to map some of my favourite depressing/sad-stories songs and compile them into one. Sounds quite cheesy yet it is a very clear and acceptable goal, we can all agree on that.

However, according to this proposal such compilations as compiling different songs from various artists from possibly multiple unrelated movies and albums that yet share similar theme wouldn't be okay as celerith described with his "Japanese pop songs compilation" as I assume everyone would just call my example as "Depressing/Sad Love Songs Compilation".

In that case all I can say is "how about no, thank you very much" because if that wording keeps untouched everyone is going to bitch about the meaning and say "come on my compilation has a very clear correlation between all the songs together and it is not made just for the sake of mapping everything in a 5-minute run, this compilation is 13-minute long!" because nowadays everything is "up to be discussed", "to be checked and talked by the others, the higher stuff and the whole community" as well as the glorious word known as "subjective". The QATs and BNs would still use this rule to say "oh look at the rules, sorry pal!" if they simply didn't like the music and not the maps which is rather awkward and saddening.

Krfawy wrote:

Let's assume that I've had a bad day and I want to map some of my favourite depressing/sad-stories songs and compile them into one. Sounds quite cheesy yet it is a very clear and acceptable goal, we can all agree on that.

However, according to this proposal such compilations as compiling different songs from various artists from possibly multiple unrelated movies and albums that yet share similar theme wouldn't be okay as celerith described with his "Japanese pop songs compilation" as I assume everyone would just call my example as "Depressing/Sad Love Songs Compilation".

In that case all I can say is "how about no, thank you very much" because if that wording keeps untouched everyone is going to bitch about the meaning and say "come on my compilation has a very clear correlation between all the songs together and it is not made just for the sake of mapping everything in a 5-minute run, this compilation is 13-minute long!" because nowadays everything is "up to be discussed", "to be checked and talked by the others, the higher stuff and the whole community" as well as the glorious word known as "subjective". The QATs and BNs would still use this rule to say "oh look at the rules, sorry pal!" if they simply didn't like the music and not the maps which is rather awkward and saddening.

Look at it from the other side though. If we allow everything to go through, then there is no point in having the rule anyways. You can always find some way to justify certain things. "Oh these three songs? Well, i was listening to the radio, and these three songs just popped up one after another and I decided to map all three, i call it "Songs I Heard On the Radio on June 5th, 2018 Compilation". Where do you draw the line? The answer is, you can't. This is all subjective stuff. No amount of wording will ever resolve every single "what-if" you can think of. It's the mapper's job to convince BN's/the modding community that their compilation is justified. It's the mapping community's job to tell the mapper that their compilation is unjustified. If you come into an impasse, it just means you need more support (finding a 3rd, or 4th BN that can support you, to demonstrate there is a greater number of Nominator's for it than against it).

I dunno how this proposal works on the vs. songs, they are basically song complilations because you merge multiples originals songs into one

realy0_ wrote:

I dunno how this proposal works on the vs. songs, they are basically song complilations because you merge multiples originals songs into one

Yes, vs type maps would be included in this and would require some kind of logical relation between them to be fine, so stuff like this and this wouldn't be allowed under this rule.

@Monstrata, thanks for the replies to Krfawy, I pretty much agree with it completely, now as for this

Monstrata wrote:

As for the original proposal though, "More vague relations like simply the same artist,"
> What? Songs from the same artist should not be a "vague relation". They are a direct relation. Songs shouldn't just have to sound the same to be part of the same compilation. You can have songs from wildly different genre's mixed into the same song (ALIEN), you can have the same singer (same voice) singing to widely different music genres. This part of the proposal absolutely needs to change.

Okay, first of all I'll say I'm willing to change this if it's absolutely necessary for the rest of the proposal to pass, but for now I'll just give my full thoughts as to why I put having the artist as the only relation between songs in the 10 min category.

OKAAY SO, let me just address the ALIEN part first. The difference between that and slamming 2 songs from the same artist together, is that ALIEN is one song, the huge contrast between the parts of ALIEN are the intended effect of the musicians who made the song. Which is why I think it's irrelevant to bring it up when talking about putting two wildly different songs from the same artist together, one is the intended experience, the other is not.

Now why put it in the 10 min category? Because I believe that putting 2 songs of the same artist together, when they have nothing in common, isn't fitting. Like you said artists create wildly different songs, so putting them together under the basis that the person who made them is the same just isn't good enough in my eyes to justify the songs being associated with one another and to make them part of the same experience.

Here's where the 10 min part fixes this, larger compilations, those that feature a much larger part of the work of an artist work, instead of associating two songs together, serve to give a variety and showcase of what a specific artist can do. Good example of this are Demetori - Songs Compilation and sana - Songs Compilation The intended experience here completely changes, and the large amount of songs shown in these helps alleviate the issue of the songs not necessarily fitting with one another.

Hopefully this helps clear up some confusion as to why artist was put where it is in the rule

Then you are effectively drafting a rule to prevent a very specific scenario (people who decide to use two songs from a certain artist to create a "compilation"). And by doing so, are effectively forcing all artist-based compilations to be over 10 minutes. This is the wrong approach to legislation drafting xP.

You could instead define a "compilation" as containing at least 4 different works or something. I think most people can agree that two songs doesn't feel at all like a "song compilation" to begin with.

I think one example of what monstrata said, is this pavor nocturnus map where although it's named ''pavor nocturnus'', the song is a mashup with the intro being the song "Arsalein" from Corpo-Mente (which also has igorrr as a member, but still are different projects) and they work pretty nice together even though they have different styles, making a really good marathon map.
Another example would be this map where it's the same idea of the igorrr map, but now, it's 2 different arrangements from different people but from the same touhou song mixed together...so how could that be adressed in this rule? o:

celerih wrote:

Yes, vs type maps would be included in this and would require some kind of logical relation between them to be fine, so stuff like this and this wouldn't be allowed under this rule.

Just to prove the point of subjectivity, I would argue miiro vs. ai no scenario very much has a correlation, as both are often mapped songs from anime, and TATOE was a huge community meme at that time, and both contain the word tatoe before their choruses.

In general I don't think it should be restricted too heavily, but primarily it would have to be defined what a song compilation is exactly. Imo it is reasonable to restrict just putting two songs in a row after each other unless they are heavily related (intro+actual song or multi part songs, perhaps the ending and opening of the same anime, or multiple successive openings of an anime could also qualify), as that really doesn't add much to it compared to just having two seperate maps.

On the other hand, if the songs are not in the compilation in full, but rather only partially (which is the case for most longer compilations that I know of anyway), there's definitely a difference and potential value over mapping both songs seperately, and perhaps more importantly you could reasonably describe it as a remix rather than just a compilation and just completely change the title if you made it yourself, therefore circumventing any rules in place anyway.

Definitely agree about looser restrictions on very long compilations regardless of how it's done.

Sorry for the late reply, given that UC's spread proposal will impact this proposal a lot, given that things like defining what a song compilation and disallowing extensions overlap with this proposal. In order to avoid a disconnect with the new ruling, for now I'll put this on hold, and push again for it with changes once we know what the new rules will be

make a new thread if/when you want to push that more relevant proposal. it'll be more focused on the topic and people won't need to read 30 unrelated posts

archived

imo including songs with similar patterns every time would make it kinda boring,i get the logic part but having different songs with different artists would add some s p i c e to it won't it?