Album entry editing

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Entry guidelines

This page explains how to edit existing album entries.

The edit page also includes buttons for deleting and merging album entries.

The edit page is split into 6 different tabs:

  1. Basic info
  2. Artists
  3. Discs
  4. Tracks
  5. Additional pictures
  6. Media

Tab 1: Basic info

The basic info tab includes fields for names, main cover picture, description, album/record type, release events, release date, catalog number, barcode, external links and the entry status.

Names

General instructions for entry names (= titles) and aliases are documented here.

Name rules that are specific to album entries:

Rule 53: Full album name

Include the full album name, even if it seems to have multiple parts.

#VOCALOID CAFETERIA vol.01 Chinese food for example.

Rule 54: Multiple album versions

If the album has multiple versions/editions (different tracklist, additional discs, different cover art or a catalog number), create new entries where appropriate and mention these in album descriptions OR in the external links.

Also append the album version the the album name if appropriate: “(Regular Edition)” or “(Kagamine Rin version)“

Also include the multiple editions tag.

Cover picture

A cover picture for the album.

Rule 55: Cover art required

Include the cover art for the album.

If the album has no cover picture, use the no cover art tag instead.

Rule 56: Temporary cover art

If the only available cover picture is lower quality, use the temporary cover art tag.

Album description

The album description is for additional and useful information that doesn’t fit into other fields.

GitHub-flavored Markdown is supported for formatting.

Rule 23: Valid description

The description should be objective and neutral.

If the original description is in a non-English language, an English translation can be added/moved to a separate field below.

Record type

Album / Record type (Original album, Single, Compilation) is the main categorization of the album entry.

If unsure which type to use, try to find out how the artists themselves categorize the album. For more elaborate descriptions, refer to Wikipedia, Discogs, or Musicbrainz. More details are available on the Album types and artist participation page.

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Album that consists mostly of previously unpublished songs.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

Release event(s) of the album, if available. For common holidays like Christmas, use the corresponding tag instead.

Rule 98: No redundant events

Duplicating the album event(s) on its song entries is redundant, unless the song has a separate PV release.

Release date

The earliest release / publish date of the album.

Rule 58: Publish year required

Finished albums should specify the publish year.

(Applies to all finished album entries)

Catalog number

A catalog number typically follows the format “ABCD-1234.” According to MusicBrainz:

“A quasi-unique number assigned by the record label, including alphanumeric characters, often letters followed by numbers, possibly separated by a dash, space, or other punctuation.”

Barcode

Barcodes are usually plain numbers, e.g., 01234567, and can be scanned from the product package.

Status

Entry status communicates the level of completeness:

  • Draft: Entry is missing crucial information. This status indicates that additional information is needed or corrections are requested.
  • Finished: The entry has all the necessary information but 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 and tagged by trusted users and above.
  • Locked: Locked entries can only be edited by moderators and above

Tab 2: Artists

In this tab, you can add and delete artists who have participated in the album. These changes do not affect the tracklist (song entries).

Artists can also be added as custom artists, which adds an artist credit to the song entry as text without creating an artist entry.

Rule 66: Artist credit required

All album and song entries require at least one artist credit (custom or a proper entry).

(Applies to all song & album & artist entries)

Rule 67: Producer entry credits required

Artist credits in the “producer” category must be made with artist entries.

(Applies to all finished song & album entries)

Rule 64: Limited artist information

If only the name of the artist is known, use the tag limited artist information on the artist entry.

(Applies to all finished artist entries)

Support status

Rule 62: Valid support status

Support status is for crediting artists who play a minor role compared to the main artists in the same role. It should only be used when there’s a clear separation of main and support artists. If there is only one artist in a certain role, the support status should never be used.

Valid examples:

  • Backing vocals, e.g., a background chorus when the main vocals are sung by another vocalist.
  • Background illustrators (to distinguish them from the main illustrator).

Support status can’t currently be specified to a specific artist role. For example, if a song composer is also responsible for the background image, the support status should not be used.

Effects of support status:

  1. Support status removes the artist(s) from the artist string and affects the search through the “Only main songs” filter.

  2. Artists with support status never appear in the “artist string” of the song/album.

  3. Support artists are shown in parentheses and after all other artists.

For collaboration albums, none of the artists can be marked as support.

Artist roles

Same rules as with songs. Refer to the Artist roles section.

Tab 3: 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 4: Tracks

Rule 50: Tracklist status

Album entry should have an empty tracklist, complete tracklist or “tracklist incomplete” tag.

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.

Rule 57: Custom tracks

The “custom track” feature (no song entry) should only be used for out-of-scope 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 5: Additional pictures

Additional (official) pictures for the album.

Note that the main picture (cover) is edited on the “Basic Info” tab. Only upload pictures relevant to this album.

Tab 6: Media

Crossfades and other advertisements related to the album.

Update notes

Update notes are optional but should always be used if the edit reason or information source is not obvious.

If necessary, use the entry description for visibility or the comment section to ask questions.

Rule 1: Source non-obvious

Include sources for non-obvious additions or changes. Edits by verified artists are considered authoritative information and do not need to be further sourced.

➡️ Next: Song lists

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