[lrxevan]

A small note before you read: I am not, nor will I likely be, OSC staff. This is just my opinion, and as such is not likely very valuable by itself. However, I have been active in the simfile community for a very long time in various forms, and won last year's OSC contest (very unexcpectedly, too. Thanks for your votes, guys!). If anything, these are just the ramblings of someone who knows the scene and knows the process very well. The formula I use and rules I state here may not be for everyone, but they have won contests before and I hope will continue to.

1.) Your edit is not part of the song name. If a song is called "My Name is Joe," your cut/edit is not called "My Name is Joe(SSJ4Ted Edit)." It's still called "My Name is Joe."

2.) If you step Traces, from IIDX IIDX, it is not Traces (From IIDX). It is called "Traces." This applies in a very general sense.

3.) If a song was used and cut in a different game, the game's name is not in the title unless it was specifically edited for that game.

For instance, I have a stepfile of "Eat You Up (Phat K Mix)" that uses a cut from DanceManiaX. The song is still not called "Eat You Up (Phat K Mix) (From DanceManiaX)," but "Eat You Up (Phat K Mix)."

4.) If your song is called "My Name is Joe" and you cut it for OSC5, your song is not called "My Name is Joe (For OSC5)." It is still called "My Name is Joe."

5.) Speeding up a song by 20 BPM doesn't make it a speed mix. Stop labeling it as such, please.

In general, if something is not part of the song name, please do not put it in the #Title or #Subtitle tags. It destroys the professionalism of your file immediately and leaves a poor first impression/taste, even moreso than samplestarts, graphics, or flashy unimportant colors on the song title.

Nothing regarding the cut or editor should ever make its way into your tags. All of that should be in the readme. This applies to CDTitles as well. The #cdtitle tag is for a graphic representing the cd, album, record company, et. al that your song came from. If it came from a megamix or is part of a "group" (Dancemania [fan-made is okay, too], or Hello Projects respectively), it is also acceptable to use that cdtitle graphic to represent this megamix or group.

It is not okay to use the cdtitle as a place to advertise your simfile site, alias, or life goals and dreams, as much as we care about those (really, we do). All of that information is and should be left to your readme file.

Thanks. I'm really sick of seeing all of this. Bad graphics, samplestarts, and syncing don't really upset me in terms of quality anymore. Really, graphics are of a minimal concern and if your graphics suck, hey, that's okay. Not everyone is amazing at Photoshop or has little enough of a life to sit and learn it, and that's fine.

What is terrible is people who are incapable of giving credit where credit is due or taking credit for songs that aren't theirs because they believe that an edit constitutes some kind of ownership over said song. Name your songs correctly, spell them correctly, and stop pretending that the song comes from an album called "BOB ORIGINAL SIMFILES" and, really, you've gained respect from a large portion of the simfile community before we even play your file.

Good luck and best wishes.