Yumenexa sent me his old BN app. And told me something I found quite weird about metadata, and mostly, tags. Since, he told me that actually describing Background content is in fact, a rule. And upon checking it, it actually is.

It's the very 1st rule about tags.

And it says:


I know that with Lazer, a lot of research function, such as mapping style tags etc... is actually a thing.
However, if we consider describing background content, that'd be leading to tagging a lot of unrelated stuff, either from the song, or the source content of the song.

Storyboard may also fall under that statement.

Here's some example of what we should add as tag if we follow that rule exactly as it is:

1. AAAA - Hoshizora no Kanransha
   

   Blue Archive 阿慈谷ヒフミ Hifumi Ajitani 白洲アズサ Shirasu Azusa 下江コハル Shimoe Koharu

   This song have no relation to Blue Archive at all. It's just the background.
2. Maitre Gims - Bella (Cut. Ver.)
   

   Honkai Star Rail HSR 姫子 Himeko

   Again, song have no relation to Honkai Star rail, just a background.

A lot of maps, would use a random background, either original, or from a game, anime or anything else that is in fact totally unrelated to the song. It is sometimes choosed solely because it just follow the vibe of the song, lyrics or anything else. But it doesn't change the fact, that the background is totally unrelated to the mapped song.


We all BN & mappers, for now, never talk about actually add tags related to the background. As it is just common sense to us.


So considering that, I want to re word that rule correctly, to make sure we're not in a case, where tagging unrelated content to the song/map is actually a rule.

For exemple, something like that could work better:


If you have a better idea on how to word it better. Please make sure to write it down.

Against this, there's too many use cases where the BG content can be relevant to the song with external context and for searchability reasons.

Just a few examples off the top of my head:

beatmapsets/2253429#osu/4838408 where the meme went viral with many unrelated characters being featured (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/doodle-dance)

beatmapsets/2293752#osu/4898006 again going viral because of unrelated video which is how many people discover the song to begin with

beatmapsets/2327424#osu/4989720 guess we can't call this "rat dance" anymore because the funny rat dancing is completely unrelated to the music itself

Current rule is fine IMO, `Misleading tags must be avoided` encapsulates situations where there's no relevant external context while also allowing for these types of use cases.

Tags must be related to the beatmap, such as describing the style, song, source content, etc. Misleading tags must be avoided.


background tag can be added if extremely relevant to the song, in that case it falls under the `etc.`

its definitely not something u need to add for every map so including it together with style, song, source content feels so wrong, its actively encouraging people to add it as tag which is against common sense. agree with OP just want suggest different wording to not make it seem like u can't add tags for other stuff

RC should only mention the common usage of tags, the niche ones for BG/Storyboard should be up to BN own judgement.

Bloxi wrote: x541f

`Misleading tags must be avoided` encapsulates situations where there's no relevant external context while also allowing for these types of use cases.

In that case, we would still need a clear rewording to include your cases & exclude mine. A rule isn't here to be flexible.
We may use common sense, but "Describing Background. Misleading tags must be avoided."
What is actually misleading? from this sentence, anyone can still understand, that tagging related stuff from an unrelated background is fine.

The rule is tags must be related to the beatmap. Everything that follows are things that are considered related and are allowed. They are not required to add, it's a frame of what's allowed, not a minimum list of things to add.

Tags are to help people find a map. Often times this is the song. However, plenty of people things visually by their backgrounds. If a mapper wants the beatmap to be searchable by key background features, they should be allowed to do so as long as it isn't creating misleading results.

I don't think we should limit ways things can be searched and bring up relevant results, as long as they are reasonable.

also random rant, what about people adding `female vocal` i never understand this tag, do u add it cuz the singer sounds female? the singer is female? the sing identify as female?

also avoid misleading tag is only telling mapper to not put tag unrelated to your map

but u can still spam a ton of tag that is somewhat related, which brings ur map over the top vs another map which actually wanted to find but got lowered in result due to ur map with tons of tag. there has a balance when u consider search overall, u cant just prioritize 1 map and ruin the search for the rest, but currently RC doesnt tell u how relevant ur tag has to be, its completely up to individual BN judgement which creates huge inconsistency

Noffy wrote: 5c416y

Everything that follows are things that are considered related and are allowed.

That's actually what bother me. From the example I gave, it'd mean that, with the current rule, if they decided to actually add the tags I sent, they would technically, not be wrong. When it's just common sense to not add it

edit: perhaps, if background tags were separated just like "Mapper's tags" and "'s tags" it'd be less a problem

Drum-Hitnormal wrote: 69x30

but u can still spam a ton of tag that is somewhat related, which brings ur map over the top vs another map which actually wanted to find but got lowered in result due to ur map with tons of tag. there has a balance when u consider search overall, u cant just prioritize 1 map and ruin the search for the rest, but currently RC doesnt tell u how relevant ur tag has to be, its completely up to individual BN judgement which creates huge inconsistency

This is more an issue with the beatmap listing searching in general, you can't just fix this and all similar issues by simply adjusting the RC and disallowing specific tags.

Like for example if you search "Hatsune Miku" the search results are entirely 2008-2012 maps which use "Hatsune Miku" in the artist field or similar.

Disallowing that just served as a blanket fix, but this never fixed the core issue and the search query now results in extremely dated songs and doesn't show anything that's relevant nowadays.

Bloxi wrote: x541f

Drum-Hitnormal wrote: 69x30

but u can still spam a ton of tag that is somewhat related, which brings ur map over the top vs another map which actually wanted to find but got lowered in result due to ur map with tons of tag. there has a balance when u consider search overall, u cant just prioritize 1 map and ruin the search for the rest, but currently RC doesnt tell u how relevant ur tag has to be, its completely up to individual BN judgement which creates huge inconsistency

This is more an issue with the beatmap listing searching in general, you can't just fix this and all similar issues by simply adjusting the RC and disallowing specific tags.

Like for example if you search "Hatsune Miku" the search results are entirely 2008-2012 maps which use "Hatsune Miku" in the artist field or similar.

Disallowing that just served as a blanket fix, but this never fixed the core issue and the search query now results in extremely dated songs and doesn't show anything that's relevant nowadays.

thats not my point

im talking more like `bad apple` song for example, u gonna add `black and white` in the tags which describe the MV, its related to the video, but then people searching for a song called `black and white` will get ur bad apple song as result, which is not what they want. there needs to be some guidance how far u can go for this tag is related to the song

Drum-Hitnormal wrote: 69x30

thats not my point

im talking more like `bad apple` song for example, u gonna add `black and white` in the tags which describe the MV, its related to the video, but then people searching for a song called `black and white` will get ur bad apple song as result, which is not what they want. there needs to be some guidance how far u can go for this tag is related to the song

I don't see how this would be a misuse of tags, it's relevant to the MV and shouldn't be dictated by an arbitrary rule.

Instead why doesn't the beatmap listing distinguish between the relevance levels of a tag? "Black and white" as part of a song title or artist name should clearly carry more weight in search than when it's just a tag. That’s the core flaw, not just that someone added the tag, but that the searching system can't prioritize actual song relevance over incidental associations.

Adding further guidance would be redundant when what is allowed is already explicitly defined with the current rule.

Bloxi wrote: x541f

Drum-Hitnormal wrote: 69x30

thats not my point

im talking more like `bad apple` song for example, u gonna add `black and white` in the tags which describe the MV, its related to the video, but then people searching for a song called `black and white` will get ur bad apple song as result, which is not what they want. there needs to be some guidance how far u can go for this tag is related to the song

I don't see how this would be a misuse of tags, it's relevant to the MV and shouldn't be dictated by an arbitrary rule.

Instead why doesn't the beatmap listing distinguish between the relevance levels of a tag? "Black and white" as part of a song title or artist name should clearly carry more weight in search than when it's just a tag. That’s the core flaw, not just that someone added the tag, but that the searching system can't prioritize actual song relevance over incidental associations.

this example isn't so bad, cuz u can filter directly for title="black and white" or artist="black and white" the issue occurs when its in the tag of both song, then system has no way of knowing which map should be prioritized, so BN has to make the proper decision whether a tag is relevant to ur map enough that u can risk mes another map's search for it. Tags have to be closely related to the map, not loosely related. however RC doesn't provide guidance on this.

so to judge this, there are different factors

1. how common is the tag you are adding, adding `apple` vs adding `white` vs `epsilon` has different risk
we can measure this from a rarity perspective how often this word is used in general, or how many maps already have this word in the meta fields, should have some tool to provide this score
2. how relevant is the tag to your map? do u really need have to add this tag, if only 0.001% of people will search this tag then dont add it even if its relevant.
and maybe some other factors, im not expert on search algorithm

if osu search engine uses song lyrics for context that would help a lot for searching, but it doesnt.

Drum-Hitnormal wrote: 69x30

this example isn't so bad, cuz u can filter directly for title="black and white" or artist="black and white" the issue occurs when its in the tag of both song, then system has no way of knowing which map should be prioritized, so BN has to make the proper decision whether a tag is relevant to ur map enough that u can risk mes another map's search for it. Tags have to be closely related to the map, not loosely related. however RC doesn't provide guidance on this.

so to judge this, there are different factors

1. how common is the tag you are adding, adding `apple` vs adding `white` vs `epsilon` has different risk
we can measure this from a rarity perspective how often this word is used in general, or how many maps already have this word in the meta fields, should have some tool to provide this score
2. how relevant is the tag to your map? do u really need have to add this tag, if only 0.001% of people will search this tag then dont add it even if its relevant.
and maybe some other factors, im not expert on search algorithm

if osu search engine uses song lyrics for context that would help a lot for searching, but it doesnt.

BN's shouldn't be put in a position to begin with where they have to make subjective calls on tag relevance (as long as they are not intentionally misleading) just to compensate for how bad the search system is. Even if the RC were updated to clarify tagging rules more, we'd still be stuck in a situation where small tags additions can completely mess with map discoverability, and this also wouldn't fix the issue already present with the hundreds and thousands of maps already ranked.

This simply shouldn't happen in a functioning system, we're just duct-taping a broken system by adding unnecessary changes here.

I think the "background content" part of that RC is written assuming that people will usually use backgrounds related to the source.

For example, if you're mapping a video game character's theme and the theme title doesn't include the character's name, but you use that character as the background it makes sense to include their name in the tags.

Or, for another example, if you're mapping a random theme from an anime, video game, or show, and the background features specific characters from that media even if the song itself isn't directly about them, it still feels reasonable to tag them since they’re visually represented.

To me, that shows why "describing the background" in tags is a valid and okay to keep.
Not every mapper benefits from it, sure, but a good number of them actually do.

So, I would not change this.

Bloxi wrote: x541f

Instead why doesn't the beatmap listing distinguish between the relevance levels of a tag? "Black and white" as part of a song title or artist name should clearly carry more weight in search than when it's just a tag. That’s the core flaw, not just that someone added the tag, but that the searching system can't prioritize actual song relevance over incidental associations.

Adding further guidance would be redundant when what is allowed is already explicitly defined with the current rule.

The web search already does this by the way. Yes it's rudimentary but it does do this

It prioritizes

Title
Artist
Source
Tags

So if multiple maps have the same term somewhere in the metadata, maps with it in the title show up first, then ones with it in the artist, etc. so maps with only a tag show up below ones with something in the title when you sort by relevance

Probably answered above by Noffy, but just to clarify:

These are not tags forced onto the mapper to add. Just a clarification of what "Related to the map" means. What aspects of the map are tag-worthy. Treat it more like an Allowance we enforce. And even then some tags can be outside of that list and still be relevant to the map as a whole (Guest Difficulties, aliases, etc...). Quite laissez-faire all things considered.

Do not think the change is needed, and I'd argue in some cases backgrounds are able to stand out on their own for players to be able to them. Just like some well-known difficulty names do.

Would personally keep things as is. We can then discuss in modding discussions whether having these tags is relevant to begin with (e.g. Adding the tag "white" because the background has one white pixel, as a hyperbolic example of what wouldn't be "relevant). But that's how we've been treating tags so far, so not much would be changing on that regard.

Noffy wrote: 5c416y

The web search already does this by the way.

but the thing, is for now, tagging a character, because it's their theme, is on the same level as tagging them because they can appear in a background.
It does look more like a web issue rather than RC at this point

edit: perhaps discussing about it in Beatmap management seems more appropriate?

I’m going to have to disagree with this one.

I think backgrounds and other things the song or map is known for should definitely be tagged as people would be able to easily them. Let me provide a good example actually.

beatmapsets/1232750#osu/2562794
On this map here, I think it’s very fitting that the tags have stuff related to the background and what the map is known for. I know a lot of people that the map for its background and the iconic moment of being one of the earliest 10 star FCs.

beatmapsets/1393941#fruits/2877477
When I assigned myself to do metadata for this map for Project Loved, I referenced the previous map and decided to get rid all of the tags related to the background or the achievement that the map holds since they aren’t related to this map. Since all the tags in the previous map are related to the map itself, I didn’t think it was a good idea keeping those tags due to it being a bit misleading.

There’s many other examples I can think of, but having tags for things in the background or just other things the map is known for could be very important to add. People could what the map background had or anything else the map is known for and could easily look it up and find the map with no problems. Because of this, I don’t think it’s a good idea to only allow tags to song content only.

I believe tags for backgrounds is a good thing to include since players may not a songs name but the background. In the grand scheme of things I feel getting a few extra maps doesn’t hurt anybody, if anything I think it just makes stuff more findable.

Don’t think it should be forced though :3c