Some changes have been made to VGMdb's submission system to allow non-trusted editors to perform a greater variety of edits and to make moderation easier for staff.

First of all, you'll notice that the four text credit fields on albums (Composer, Arranger, Performer, Lyricist) are missing. These fields are being deprecated and removed. The fields were used for non-trusted editors to be able to 'add' artists on albums without access to the linking system. But at the same time, it doesn't work very well because it means that non-trusted editors are only able to make changes to 4 of the roles we have.

The four fields are being replaced by a new "Drafts" system that will allow non-trusted editors to request changes to all roles. Drafts are essentially a set of artist links that are detached from any album or product. More on the drafts system below.

Furthermore, rather than being limited to the 25 or so roles that were hardcoded into VGMdb a new dynamic roles system will allow us to link all the credits that appear on albums rather than just some of them. More on this system below.

Using the Drafts System to Submit a New Album

At the bottom of the album submit page, you'll see a new box for attaching drafts to an album. The draft can be attached alongside the album submission, or submitted separately afterwards as an edit. Also note that providing the artist credits as a draft is something that is required. Users are limited to only 3 "draft-less" submissions in the queue, rising to the normal 20 with drafts attached.

Making a Draft

A new draft can be created at: https://vgmdb.net/db/draft.php



On the page for creating a draft, you can specify the name of the draft and add some comments. Both of these are freeform fields which will not be copied over to the album entry. For example, you can use the comments field to temporarily store the sources you are using as you work on the draft.



Once a draft is created you will see the following page for assigning artists to the draft. These links will not appear on artist pages until they are accepted by a member of staff.



To add artists use the mass add box.

- Each new credit should be on a separate line.
- The supported separators between the role and the artist are ": ", "：", " by ", " by: ", " at " and " at: ".
- Multiple roles and artists can be separated by ", " or "、".
- Additionally, "・" can also be used as a separator by selecting the "Use middle dot (・) as role separator" option.
- If there are duplicate artists (exact same artist name and role name) the duplicates will automatically be removed.

Example:



Both English and Japanese credits are supported. For artist names it does not matter which language the credit is entered in. However, for the role names the language of the credit does matter and the original credit term (regardless of language) should be preferred. See the last section of this guide for an explanation.

The mass add box is also capable of parsing additional information in parentheses. For example in the example above "Keiji Kondo [近藤圭司] (SIGN SOUND LLC)"
- Keiji Kondo will interpreted as the romanized name,
- the text in square brackets, 近藤圭司, will be interpreted as the original language name,
- the text in round brackets, (SIGN SOUND LLC), will be interpreted as the suffix.

The original language name is used to store the kanji name for artists who do not have entries in the database. So, in this case - it is actually not needed as Keiji Kondo already has entry in the database.

Note: When adding names in kanji do not add a space between the family name and the given name as this complicates searching. Even if there is a space in the original source the space should be removed.

If you do not wish to use this functionality (for example when dealing with artists that have parentheses in their name), then it can be turned off by selecting the "Don't set original name field. Format: name [original]" and "Don't set suffix field. Format: name (suffix)" options.

Upon submitting from the mass add box the draft will be populated with artists as below. At this point you should give the artists a once over to see if everything is as expected (i.e. whether the automatically selected artists and roles are the correct ones), and once that is done click the Update Linked Artists button to turn the data from text into artist ID links.



Errors will be displayed if either
1) a role is not found, or
2) if multiple roles are found for a single credit



For the multiple matches error, you should carefully check the relevant artist links to see if the correct role was selected. On what to do about missing roles see the last section of this post.

If multiple matches are found for an artist name, the name will be displayed in red. The number of works that the artist has for that particular role will be displayed in round brackets, and the original language name (if applicable) will be displayed in square brackets. Once you have selected the correct artist, you will need to manually select the apply checkbox before clicking update (the checkbox is not automatically ticked when multiple artists are detected to prevent incorrect links).



If you have accidentally selected the wrong artist and notice it later, you can set the ID to 0, tick the relevant checkbox and click update in order to unlink them.

It should be noted that while the number of works is a good indicator when selecting which artist to link to, you should not be solely dependent upon it.

Sometimes you may also see an artist link appearing in blue. This happens when both of the entries detected are the same person.



For example, Yuji Naito uses two artist names in Japanese, 内藤侑史 and ユージナイトー - both with the same reading. So if you enter Yuji Naito, the system will detect both of these entries and display it in blue to indicate that both entries represent the same person. You should select whichever alias he is credited for that particular album. If not known - link to the main entry, which in this case is 内藤侑史.

To the left of the artists there is a "Role Order" field. This determines which order the credits appear on the album page.



If you use the mass add box, the order in which the credits were written will be preserved with each new role incremented by 10 compared to the previous. Incrementing by 10 allows new roles to be added in-between at a later time without having to renumber everything.

If adding artists one by one from the "Link a New Artist" function, then you will need to set the role order manually.

There is a fallback order which is used when the role order is not set (i.e. when all the roles are set to 0). In the fallback order, the main ~25 roles (as in the dropdown) appear first, followed by "groups" of roles i.e. the Composer group, then the Arranger group. Within the groups the ordering is alphabetical.

It should be noted that this ordering is intended only as a fallback, and should NOT generally be used. For example in the fallback order "Assistant Composer" will appear before "Lead Composer" as these are both roles in the Composer group and Assistant comes first alphabetically - which is undesirable.

Attaching the Draft to an Album

When submitting a new album you can attach the draft you've created by selecting it from the dropdown. You can also attach it to an already existing album by performing an edit.



As usual the sources of the credits (and any other information in the edit/submission) must be indicated in the comments box.

Once submitted, the draft information will be displayed on the newly submitted album as below, with a banner indicating that is pending. Once the draft is accepted this banner will disappear.

Using Drafts to Make Changes to an Existing Album

Drafts are also used to make changes to an existing album. To do this select "Copy to Draft" from the Edit dropdown.



This will lead to a draft creation page where the "Copy Data" album ID is automatically filled in.



The newly created draft will contain all the artist links that are currently on the album, and you can make any desired changes.



Once you've made the desired changes, you can attach the draft to the album by selecting it from the dropdown when editing. You should state the changes, and the source for the changes using the comment box.



Once submitted, the draft will be visible with a header - until it is accepted into the database.



This method can also be used to copy credits between different albums. For example if you are submitting the CD+Blu-ray Limited Edition of an already existing CD-only entry, you can create a draft from the already existing CD-only entry and then attach it to the newly submitted CD+Blu-ray entry.

New Roles System

As mentioned previously, there is now a new dynamic roles system. This is a database of roles which can be added to and edited by staff. For albums any album staff is covered including roles such as Manager, A&R Producer, Illustrator, Designer etc. For products only music and sound effects related roles are covered.

The list of roles can be accessed at: https://vgmdb.net/db/role.php

Each unique role will have a separate entry in the DB. A role can have any number of aliases attached.

For example Guitar, Acoustic Guitar and Electric Guitar will each be their own separate role. "A. Gt", "A. Guitar" etc. will be added as an alias of Acoustic Guitar. Japanese aliases are also catalogued.

Credits should be linked as given. If the credit is given as "Guitar" then it should be linked to the Guitar role, rather than trying to ascertain which specific type of Guitar has been performed.

Each role has a role page (accessible via the list of roles above). They contain a list of albums on which the role has appeared a list of aliases, and a short description and an image (where they've been added).



The list of aliases also includes Japanese aliases. The Japanese aliases should only be selected for linking when given as such officially (i.e. in the booklet). For example if the role name is given as "Guitar" it should not be un-translated to "ギター" when linking.

In cases where the credits are officially available in both languages, linking with the original Japanese role name is preferred over linking using the official translation.

If particular roles or aliases are missing, you should ask for them to added here, rather than linking them to a different role: https://vgmdb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=23536

For example, do not link "Strings Programmer" as "Programmer" because the "Strings Programmer" role hasn't been added yet. Ask for it to be added in the thread instead.