SotW Handbook

From SotW Wiki

Contents 1 Wiki Maintenance 1.1 When Voting Starts 1.2 During the Week 2 Closing Voting (Sunday Evening) 3 Track Procurement 4 Track Research 4.1 Album Title 4.2 Artist & Composer 4.3 Catalog Number 4.4 Year 5 Track Preparation

Wiki Maintenance

When Voting Starts

1. Update the week numbers and forum link on the Main Page.
2. If it's not a battle week, update the Nomination Queue:
   1. Increment the week number.
   2. Move the top eight nominators to the bottom of the queue, remove any nominators whose slots were passed up, and update the nominator counts for each section. Put "none" in the New Nominators section if it's not there already.
   3. Update the disqualified albums: subtract 1 from each of the times of all the albums and add the previous week's winners (12 weeks for gold, 8 for silver, and 4 for bronze).
3. If it's not a battle week, add the eight tracks that are up for voting to the Nomination Archive and increment the week counter at the top.
4. Add a new voting section to the Voting Archive:
   1. Copy the section template from the Voting Archive Templates.
   2. Fill in the week number in the header and the tracks.
   3. Add the filled in template to the voting archive above the previous week's section, directly below the list of archive pages.
   4. After you're done, the voting archive should look something like this, where the current week is at the top of the list with a list of the tracks and an empty table.

During the Week

1. Add people's nominations to the queue.
2. Add votes to the voting table:
   1. Copy a voting row from either the Voting Archive Templates or the table.
   2. Fill in the voter's name, the link to the voter's post, and the voter's point allocation.
   3. Add the voting row to the voting table and update the current tally. Make sure to keep the votes in alphabetical order by voter.

Closing Voting (Sunday Evening)

1. The theoretical closing time is midnight PST (3:00 AM EST), but it usually ends up being later because I'm easily distracted. Later is better than earlier, so if you're not awake, it can wait until the morning. Voting can be extended a day at your discretion based on low voter turnout (twelve or less, or thereabouts) or not enough nominators.
2. Add everyone's votes to the Voting Archive and tally the final scores.
   1. In the case of a tie, bonus points are counted as follows: 1 point for every voter who gave at least one point to the track, and an additional .5 points for every voter who gave three points to the track.
3. Post the results in the current voting thread. Just rip the template from a previous voting week or battle week.
4. If it's a normal voting week:
   1. Create a new directory for the week's tracks in sotw.info/music/weekly/ and move the placing tracks from the voting directory over.
   2. Update the site with the results.
   3. Color the three placing tracks in the Nomination Archive red.
5. If it's a battle week:
   1. Add the battle badge to the winner. Kaleb will have to do this, so get in contact with him.
6. Make sure everyone's nominations are in the Nomination Queue, and let Rimo know he can start stuff on his end.

Track Procurement

This doesn't really need much explanation: if someone's nomination isn't in the nominations folder, then track it down.

Track Research

Research the nominations of the top eight nominators. The info you'll need is:

1. Album title
2. Track title
3. Artist (and possibly composer)
4. Disc # (only necessary for CDs or game rips that are organized into discs)
5. Track # (only necessary for CDs or game rips where the tracks are numbered)
6. Catalog number (if one exists)
7. Year

After you get all of this, add it to the nominator's listing on the Research Base. Just replace any information that's already there if the information for a previous nomination is there. Fill in any fields that don't apply with "N/A." If a nominator doesn't already have an entry, you'll have to add a new one by copying an entry and changing the name.

Here are the SotW conventions for the fields:

Album Title

Music from an album: use the album's title.

Game rip: "Game Title (Game Rip)." We usually only include the system name if it's necessary because the game has different music on different systems, like "Earthworm Jim (SNES Game Rip)" vs. "Earthworm Jim (Genesis Game Rip)," etc. If in doubt, it's okay to be safe and include the system.

Red Book audio: "Game Title (Red Book Audio)."

Music from a website: use the site's URL, so "www.jackwall.net" for example.

Those four should cover pretty much everything, but if someone nominates something unusual, then just pick whatever feels best. For example, Drakken wanted his nomination from the NES game "Silver Surfer" to be recorded from the NSF and not from the console, so to make it clear, I called that "Silver Surfer (NSF Rip)."

Artist & Composer

For tracks that just have a composer (or composers), use the composer's name as the artist. If multiple people are credited for music and you don't have specific credits, then use all of their names. If you can't find the composer, then use the name of the company that developed the game.

If the track was composed by someone and arranged by someone else, use the original composer as the composer and the arranger as the artist. If it was composed and arranged by the same person, then you can just put him as the artist, no need to put him as the composer too.

If you have specific performer credits for the track, like a vocalist or an orchestra, you can add them to the artist field too.

Catalog Number

For nominations from albums with catalog numbers, use the full catalog number for the album, and not just the catalog number from the disc the track is on. So, use "SRIN-1003~4" instead of just "SRIN-1003."

Year

For albums and games, use the release year. If the game was released in multiple countries in different years, use the earliest year. For tracks from websites, try to use whatever year the track was first posted. This may be impossible to find, however, so in that case just leave the year blank.

Track Preparation

1. Make sure you have all eight tracks to be voted on.
2. Undo any gaining done to the tracks.
3. Tag and rename the tracks. TagScanner is recommended, but you can use any application you want as long as it can write ID3v2, ID3v1, and APEv2 tags
   1. Erase any tags already on the file and add Track, Disc, Title, Artist, Album, Year, Genre (Game), Comment (the catalog number) and Composer.
   2. ID3v1 tags have a length limit, so you'll have to manually change any fields that get cut off. Feel free to abbreviate ("Original Soundtrack" to "OST" or "Nobuo Uematsu" to "N. Uematsu"), remove subtitles ("Lily of the Valley (Isolated Village in the Valley BGM)" to "Lily of the Valley"), or remove performers to get them to fit. If you absolutely can't get it to fit, then it's okay to leave it cut off.
   3. ID3v1 doesn't have a composer tag, so if the composer and artist are different, try to add the composer's name to the ID3v1 artist field. If you absolutely can't fit it in because of the length limit, then leave it off.
   4. Rename the files. SotW's format is "Album Title - Track Title.mp3"; you can use TagScanner's Music Renamer to do this with the format "%album% - %title%". You may have to remove invalid characters like : or ".
4. Gain the tracks to 92 dB (radio gain, no clipping).
5. Clear out sotw.info/music/voting/ and upload the tracks.