Nomination Phase

From SotW Wiki

On the Monday of each week, staff will create a thread in each forum which will allow people to nominate their songs of choice (as well as vote on the nominated tracks for the week). All nominations will be directly tied to the Nomination Queue, so pay attention to it. Read the appropriate section further below if you wish to see how it works.

Contents 1 Rules 2 Nomination Queue 3 Closing 4 Uploading nominations

Rules

You may nominate at any time while nominations are said to be open, even if your name is not yet on the Nomination Queue...HOWEVER, before doing this, you must be aware of (and adhere to) the rules and restrictions as follows:

1. One nomination per person at a time. By "at a time", that means "at a time, on the Nomination Queue", NOT "at a time, every week".
2. In accordance with the purpose of this whole event, the nominated song needs to have some level of obscurity. In other words, it should not come from an album/game that is widely known by VGM fans for its music. Use common sense; if the album/game it comes from has the words "Final" and "Fantasy" in its title, there's a good chance many people have heard it already. Questions on eligibility in regards to this restriction will be answered on a per-song basis by Staff, with strong aid from the general consensus here.
3. Only songs from the following are allowed:
   • Official VGM soundtracks (original or arranged)
   • Game rips or Red Book audio (if the particular song doesn't exist on a soundtrack)
   • Unpublished VGM arrangements by professional VGM composers¹
   • Original/concept pieces composed by professional VGM composers
4. To clarify further, the following are NOT allowed:
   • VGM arrangements by amateur/fan arrangers (e.g. music from OCReMix, VGMix, doujins, etc. except when the artist is a VGM composer)
   • Film/anime/TV music
   • Licensed music²
5. Only one song from a particular album/game can be accepted for nomination in a single week. That is to say, if multiple songs from the same album/game receive nominations in a single week, only the nomination that was made first (not based on the Nomination Queue) will be eligible (unless the other person(s) changes their nomination before the nominees have been finalized).
6. The nomination must have been published at least three months prior to the time of nomination. If a game and a soundtrack both contain the same nominated song, we compare against whichever was released the earliest.
7. The nomination must be in accordance with the "Disqualified Albums/Games" section in the Nomination Thread, which keeps track of the following:
   • Whenever a song wins, its respective album/game will be ineligible to receive nominations for a specific number of weeks to follow. This number is based on the sum of all positions attained by the respective album/game to this date. 1st place is worth 12 weeks of ineligibility, 2nd for 8, 3rd for 4.
     • Example 1: A song from a particular album just now placed 2nd, and no songs from this album have placed previously, so the album will be disqualified for the next 8 weeks.
     • Example 2: A song from a particular album just now placed 1st, and another song from the same album placed 3rd several months ago, so the album will be disqualified for the next 16 weeks.
   • When three (3) tracks from the same album/game finish in the top three in their respective weeks, all other tracks from that same source will become ineligible (i.e., the album/game will be retired from SotW competition).
8. The nomination must be in accordance with the following: When a song wins "Song of the Week" (1st place), that song can no longer be nominated ever again. If a song wins a runner-up position (2nd or 3rd place), it can still be nominated; but if it becomes a winner once more in any position, that song can no longer be nominated ever again. You can check previous winners at any time by visiting the Song of the Week website.
   UPDATE: This rule needs re-evaluation. For now, please do not nominate any songs that have previously been featured anywhere on the site.
9. When nominating a track, make the nomination easily visible, and give as much information about the track as is possible.
   • This includes the following:

     Album/Game Title

     Full album/game title. Append "({System} Game Rip)" or "(Red Book Audio)" when applicable. System is omitted when no other platforms have a game with this title (whether it's the same or not).

     Artist(s)

     List all artists that worked on this track.

     Composer(s)

     Only needed if the artist is not the original composer.

     Disc Number

     Add the total disc count if possible (e.g. "1 of 1"). Use "N/A" if this track is not on a disc.

     Track Number

     Add the total track count for this disc if possible (e.g. "3 of 20"). Use "N/A" if there is no track number for this track.

     Track Title

     List the name of the track you're nominating.

     Catalog Number

     Give the number through ALL discs, as this makes it easier to search for. Use "N/A" if there is no catalog number for this album.

     Year

     List the earliest known year the song/album/game was published.

     Additional Information

     Optional.

     Source(s)

     Tell where you got this information from.

   • Or, at the very least, use the following format when nominating a song: Album/Game Title <Artist(s)> - [DiscNumber.TrackNumber] Track Title
   • If you are unable to obtain certain items of information, that is perfectly fine, just let us know about it. However, if you simply disregard this rule, your nomination may be ignored.

Additional information:

• Reference this chart if you need further understanding on rules such as #6 and #7.
• When changing a nomination, please do so in a brand new post.
• Any person who wishes for their nomination to be delayed, can do so by specifying how many weeks they wish to do so for.

¹ Whether or not someone is a "professional VGM composer" will be decided on a case-by-case basis at the discretion of SotW participants, taking into account both the VGM and original works of the composer.
² When evaluating licensed music, we will default back to its original source. The original source would have to comply with all rules (notably rules 2~4) in order to be eligible. NOTE: Any VGM song that is an exclusive arrangement of a non-VGM song is not considered "licensed music", and thus passes validation for rule 4.

Nomination Queue

The Nomination Queue is a list of items in the following format:

Nominator Username: Nominee Title

The list is referred to as a "queue" because it gives precedence to items listed at the top, which is essentially "the front of the line".

Whenever a person nominates a song for the first time, their name and song will be added to the "New Nominators" section of the Nomination Queue. This also occurs in the case of a nomination made by a person who has previously been on the queue but has since been removed. Since the "New Nominators" section is located at the top of the queue, this means that new nominators will have their songs up for voting quickly (almost always during the same numbered week).

When there are at least eight nominations available on the queue, the top eight eligible nominations (highlighted in green) will be accepted into the next phase. After this happens, the names of the people who had their nominations accepted will be dropped to the bottom of the queue (in the "Previous Nominators" section). However, each person will now have a blank space where the nominee title usually is, since they will need to nominate a new song if they wish to continue. If any of these people were previously listed in the "New Nominators" section, a specific algorithm, created with the purpose of separating and "mixing" nominators, will be applied. In this case, the new nominators will be evenly spaced within the previous nominators, so as to separate them.

When the next week starts, the process repeats, and a new batch of people will have their nominations accepted. People are able to make nominations at any time during the Nomination Phase; even when eight or more people are already on the queue. Their nominations will stay on the list and be carried over to the next week. If at any point during this phase a nomination is found to be ineligible, their nominated song will become a blank space. If it's their first time nominating, their name will be removed from the list entirely as if they never nominated, and they will then have to nominate a different song.

Names with blank spaces for songs at the top of the queue at the end of the week will be removed from the queue. The nominators can then return in any of the following weeks, and will be treated exactly the same as new nominators.

If any of this sounds confusing to you, don't worry; we will manage the Nomination Queue display so that everyone will know how things stand.

Closing

The Nomination Phase for the current week will be placed under restriction on Saturday. At this time, the top eight eligible songs on the Nomination Queue will be selected as the eight nominees to proceed to the Voting Phase. Nominations can continue to be added and changed at this point with a few differences: The eight nominees cannot be removed or changed in any way, and any new eligible nominations that are listed above/between the eight nominees will need to wait until next week before they can proceed to the Voting Phase. On Sunday, the Nomination Phase for the current week will end completely.

Uploading nominations

For those people who are generous enough to upload their songs to us, they may do so with the following FTP information:

• Host: ftp.sotw.info
• Username: nominations@sotw.info (that is the actual username; not an e-mail address)
• Password: gff
• Port: 21

Simple FTP rules:

1. Only upload a file if (a) you nominated it in one of the Nominations threads, OR (b) we have given consensus for you to upload it.
2. Do not modify or delete any of the files that you did not upload.
3. Upload to the root folder of this account. You don't need to make a folder with your name; we can figure it out from the thread.

Thank you! :)