Album entry editing
Entry guidelines
This page explains how existing album entries are edited.
URL: https://vocadb.net/Album/Edit/x (replace x with some album id)
Deleting album entries | Merging album entries
Handling albums with multiple editions is documented on the FAQ-page.
tab: Basic info
Names
For general entry instructions regarding fields “Original language”, “Primary name”, “Non-English”, “Romanized”, “English”, “Aliases”:
Album entry -specific name instructions
Include the full album name, even if the name seems to have multiple parts: #VOCALOID CAFETERIA vol.01 Chinese food for example.
If the album is split to multiple entries (tracklists differences), try to include this information in the title as well “(Regular Edition)” or “(Kagamine Rin version)”, if appropriate. These album entries should then be linked together by using the album description and/or external links.
Cover picture
A cover picture for the album.
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If the album has no cover picture, use the no cover art -tag.
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If the only available cover picture is low quality, use the temporary cover art -tag.
Album description
For other information that does not belong to any other field.
GitHub-flavored Markdown is supported for formatting.
English translation can be added/moved to a separate field below, if the original description exists in a non-English language.
Record type
If unsure of which type to use, try to find out how the artists themselves call the album. For more elaborate descriptions, please refer to Wikipedia, Discogs or Musicbrainz.
More on the page Album types and artist participation.
Original album
Album that consists mostly of previously unpublished songs.
original track = Alternate versions (instrumentals and remixes) are usually not counted.
Single
Contains one or two original tracks.
EP
Meaning extended play. Contains 3-4 original tracks.
Split album
Collaboration between two or more (but usually just two) equal artists, where all artists have roughly the same number of songs.
Compilation
Collection of previously published songs, gathered from one or more earlier albums. For example, “best of” collections.
Video
Disc containing mostly music videos, usually a DVD or Blu-ray.
Other
For albums that don’t fit into anything above.
Release event
The release events of the album.
Release date
The earliest release date of the album.
Catalog number
A catalog number typically in a format “ABCD-1234”
Definition (shortened) from MusicBrainz:
“A quasi-unique number, assigned by the record label. Includes alphanumeric characters, often letters followed by numbers, perhaps separated by a dash, space or other punctuation.”
Barcode
Barcodes are usually plain numbers, for example 01234567. They can be scanned from the product package.
External links
External links relevant to this entry. Illegal/direct download links are forbidden.
The link description and category will be guessed automatically based on the URL if the domain is known: github/VocaDB/web-link-matcher
Link category:
- Official: Official album websites.
- Commercial: Authorized sales such as Amazon and CDJapan.
- Reference: Fansites with useful information such as wikis.
- Other: Links that do not fit into anything above.
More on the External links -page.
Status
Entry status communicates the level of completeness.
- Draft = Entry is missing crucial information. This status indicates that you’re requesting additional information to be added or corrected.
- Finished = The entry has all the necessary information, but it hasn’t been inspected by a trusted user yet.
- Approved = The entry has been inspected and approved by a trusted user. Approved entries can only be edited by trusted users.
- Locked = Locked entries can only be edited by moderators.
Finished album entry requirements
Finished album entries should meet the following criteria:
- The album has at least one name and the original language can’t be “Unspecified”. (ALV2)
- All artists (including vocalists) responsible for the album are specified. Whenever it makes sense, each of those artists should also have an artist entry. (partially ALV3)
- Album has a cover picture (or temporary cover art -tag or no cover art -tag). (ALV4)
- Album needs one of the following: description, external link, media link (ALV5)
- The album’s release date (at least the year) is specified. (ALV6)
- The album has a complete tracklist. (ALV7)
- Album type isn’t “Unspecified”. (ALV8)
Album entry validation errors
- ALV1: DuplicateArtist (automatically fixed when entry is saved)
- ALV2: UnspecifiedNames
- ALV3: NeedArtist
- ALV4: NeedCover
- ALV5: NeedReferences
- ALV6: NeedReleaseYear
- ALV7: NeedTracks
- ALV8: NeedType
Criteria for approving albums
TODO
tab: Artists
In this tab, you can add and delete artists that have participated in the album. These changes do not affect the tracklist (song entries).
Vocaloids, UTAUs and other singing synthesizer voicebanks are added as artists as well: Choosing the correct voicebank credit
You can also add an artist to the album by creating a custom artist, which adds an artist credit to the album entry as a text (no artist entry is created).
If the album has no known artist credits available, use the entry missing artists -tag.
If the vocalist is uncredited, the artist entry Unknown vocalist(s) can be used. The entry Unknown vocal synth(s) or any of its derived artist entries can also be used to further narrow down the vocalist.
Support status
For albums, the support status is intended to indicate that an artist had a minor role on compared to other artists of the same category. Usually this is the case when the album has multiple songs by one artists and 1 or 2 remixes by a handful of other artists. In this case, the remix artists should be marked as support, because the artist who produced the most songs is clearly the main artist.
Support status has a number of effects:
- Artists with the support status never appear in the “artist string” of the album.
- On the album entry page, support artists are shown in parenthesis, and after all the other artists.
- Albums or songs where the artist has support status never appear on the first tab of artist’s entry page, under recent or popular albums.
- These albums also never appear on the artist’s “main albums” tab.
For collaboration albums, none of the artists can be marked as support, because otherwise all of them would be marked a such.
Artist roles
Same rules as with songs: wiki/89/song-entry-editing#Artist-roles.
tab: Discs
If the album contains multiple discs you may define extra properties for those discs here. You may specify disc name and type (Audio or Video). Name is optional: if not specified, the default “Disc #” will be used, where ”#” is the disc number.
tab: Tracks
Songs entries can be connected to the album entry here.
Clicking a track by its name opens the “Track properties” -window, which can be used to add artists to the song entry (track). Only the artists which are added in the “Artists”-tab are visible here.
- If the artist participates in most of the songs, it’s efficient to select all the tracks and update them instead of adding the artist to the tracks one by one.
The “custom track” -feature (no song entry) is intended for tracks made by out-of-scope artists. Secret Sky 2020 (DJ Mix) for example.
When the album entry is saved, the new tracks are created as song entries.
tab: Additional pictures
Note that the main picture is edited on the “Basic Info” tab. Only upload pictures relevant to this album.
tab: Media
Crossfades and other advertisements related to the album.
Update notes
Entry update notes are optional, but should always be used if the edit reason or the information source is not obvious.
In some cases, the entry description or the comment section might be more suitable to use.