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UtaiteDB - General guidelines

General rules

  • Avoid submitting entries that already exist in the database. Duplicates have to be deleted or merged by the staff.

  • When editing entries that are finalized or approved (not drafts), make sure you have a good reason, and preferably state that reason in the edit notes unless it's obvious. If you're unsure of whether your edit is appropriate and necessary, ask in the comments, twitter, forum, or by email.

  • This is a database for utaite artists and other related artists. Instrumental songs and other vocalists are allowed when they appear on albums together with utaites, but albums without utaite-related artists are generally not relevant to our focus. Totally unrelated content will be deleted.

  • Download links to illegal file-sharing sites that provide no useful information (like Mediafire/4Shared/Torrents) are NOT allowed. Links to informative blogs/forums/wikis are allowed, but should be categorized as "Unofficial". The staff members reserve the right to remove any links deemed inappropriate.
    • Unlike VocaDB, UtaiteDB does not allow linking to unauthorized uploads of content that is not publicly or officially available on the Web (such as YouTube/Tumblr uploads of album-only songs or magazine scans). In addition, some explicitly do not allow reprints of their work, so please refrain from linking to unofficial re-uploads for these artists.

  • Direct download links to media files (such as .mp3) are generally not allowed, even if they're official and legal. If the song/video is officially distributed, link to the artist's official download page (for example on piapro) instead.

  • Creating multiple user accounts is not allowed. Any kind of abuse, manipulation of ratings or spamming will not be tolerated.

Language

The official language of the site is English. Please prefer using English for all non-translatable information. For example when adding external links, the descriptions of those links should be in English. Discussions and tags should also be mainly in English. Other languages are allowed with a good reason, for example if a specific piece of information cannot be properly translated into English.

We're looking into the possibility of allowing other languages in the future, at least for descriptions and discussions.

Names and translations

All names should primarily be written in the original language, which usually means Japanese, but it can also be for example English or Korean. The system supports 4 language options:

  • "Non-English" covers original names in all languages that aren't English or romanized, for example Japanese.
  • "Romanized" is for foreign original names written in the Latin (western) alphabet. Usually this means Romaji.
  • "English" is for official names in English and known translations of foreign names.
  • "Unspecified" is for names where the language doesn't matter or it's unknown. Unspecified names will never be used as display names of an entry if another name is provided.

If the original language is English, the name should be written to the English language field, otherwise it's written to the "Non-English" language field. If those names have commonly used romanizations or English translations, those can be entered as well to make it easier for the international audience to find and understand those names. Other names, for example translations to other languages, should be marked as "Unspecified" according to current rules. Sometimes an entry may have multiple names in one language, for example producer's real name and artist name. In this case the additional names can be marked as "Unspecified" so that they won't be used as display names regardless of user's display option.

Sometimes the Romanization or English name of the artist is always used, even though the artists also has a name in Japanese. In this case the Japanese name should be marked as Unspecified so that it won't be used as a display name.

UtaiteDB uses the same Romanization rules as VocaDB. For more guidelines regarding Romanization, check the wiki article.

If the entry has multiple names in one language and it's not clear which one of those should be the primary one, you should refer to official information, such as product packaging. If the name in the album's cover doesn't conflict with the other rules on the site, that name should be preferred as the primary one.

However, keep in mind that sometimes the official information contains the same name in multiple languages, combined into one. In this case you should enter the name separately for each language. For example, if the song is uploaded to Nico Nico Douga with the name 秘密警察 - Himitsu Keisatsu, you should enter both names separately: 秘密警察 as Non-English and Himitsu Keisatsu as Romanized.

Note: there is an exception to this rule for designating different editions for albums (see: Multiple editions and special albums).

Registered users can set their display language, so that they will always see the names in that language, if available. Unregistered users and users who haven't set their display language will see the original names, which may be either English or something else. For example, if the non-English name of an artist is ナナホシ, the romanized name is nanahoshi and the default language option is "Original", then by default users will see ナナホシ unless they have chosen to prefer romanized names instead.

Generally there is no need to add composite names, and those names should broken into separate fields.

For example, cosMo@Bousou-P(暴走P) is incorrect; every field should contain only one name.

Artists

Please read the extended guidelines for adding and editing artists.

Albums

Please read the extended guidelines for adding and editing albums.

Songs

Please read the extended guidelines for adding and editing songs.

Entry statuses

Entries that are marked as drafts have missing or incomplete information. The draft status is indicated on the entry's page. All entries should meet certain requirements before they can be marked as finished/completed. For now these requirements are only suggestions, but in the future they may be enforced more strictly. Of course when editing an entry that meets these requirements, you can still mark it as draft if you feel that the entry needs further attention.

After the entry has been finished it can be approved by a trusted user or staff member. Most properties of approved entries cannot be edited by users with normal permissions. Tags can still be edited by anyone and comments can be added. Trusted users are also able to change the status back from Approved to Finished or even Draft.

A note for trusted users regarding entry approval: You're encouraged to mark the entry as Approved when you've checked that all the necessary information is provided and it's correct. However, songs shouldn't be marked as approved until they have lyrics. When approving albums, make sure that ALL the artists have been added.