Petition to remove quotation marks around titles

[Khunjund]

Well, I should've made this topic about 10 years ago, but I suppose better late than never.

I think the submission template would look much better without quotation marks around the title of the piece. Yes, this is a minor change, but this would also mean that there would be no pressing need to update older sheets, which could be fixed whenever the opportunity presents itself. The way I see it, it would be no worse than with the updated site URL.

[LeviR.star]

I'm not sure I understand. Are you picturing something like this?

You cannot view this attachment.

Forgive me for not following right away, but what exactly would be the purpose of doing this? More importantly, why now?

[Khunjund]

I mean in the sheets themselves. Currently, submitted sheets have to be formatted with quotation marks around the title.

As for why, it's just a question of aesthetics. I think these quotation marks are unnecessary, and I've never seen a professionally edited sheet with quotations are the title, except perhaps pieces with unofficial nicknames, like Chopin's Prelude op. 28 no. 15, which has been dubbed "Raindrop" by Bülow.

And I'm posting it now because I'm temporarily back from hiatus and I just happened to think of it.

[Static]

To be honest, I agree, although I haven't thought about it much. Requiring quotes is just an old formatting standard that we haven't changed. You're right that, like the url, it would be a very minor change. We could also just make the quotes optional for anyone who prefers them or is just used to using them all the time.

There is an argument to be made about the decrease in uniformity across all our sheets, but I think adding/removing quotes or not is not as large of a thing to implement as something like implementing alternate filetypes. We are already kind of lenient on specific composer/arranger/copyright info, which isn't standardized between different arrangers' sheets of the same games (i.e. stuff like SquareSoft vs Square, composer order, composer nicknames, publisher after or before developer, publishers varying depending on region, etc.).

Just my two cents on the topic, ultimately I'd be fine either way.

[LeviR.star]

As for why, it's just a question of aesthetics. I think these quotation marks are unnecessary, and I've never seen a professionally edited sheet with quotations are the title, except perhaps pieces with unofficial nicknames, like Chopin's Prelude op. 28 no. 15, which has been dubbed "Raindrop" by Bülow.

Well, I'm in no position to judge your taste in aesthetics; personally, I like the quotation marks. Some on here might say this specific format sets us apart from other sheet music archives, or maybe even say it's iconic in its own little way. But you have set this up as a petition, so I guess that will come down to the opinion of the general census.

And I'm posting it now because I'm temporarily back from hiatus and I just happened to think of it.

Sorry, I didn't clarify; I meant that nearly fifteen years into the site's lifespan seems too late to justify the effort involved in changing this (that is, if site-wide consistency was to be a priority). Yes, you argued that this would be like us changing the URL, but that was done because once the site's address was updated, this fix became necessary. Sure, people can still easily find the site regardless, but I'm not sure this was a fair comparison to make to an aesthetic change.

Right now, the site's focus is replacing old sheets (some of which have no quotation marks) that no longer fit our standards of quality, and there are still many that need our attention. Will this replacement scheme become an endless cycle? Who knows, but my stance is that this change isn't as necessary as you make it out to be, and that we have more important matters to address.

[Khunjund]

Will this replacement scheme become an endless cycle? Who knows, but my stance is that this change isn't as necessary as you make it out to be, and that we have more important matters to address.

While I do think that replacements are, in fact, an endless cycle, I would like to clarify two things:

• I am not saying that this is necessary. I am saying that it would (in my opinion) make the sheets look better and more professional.
• I am suggesting this in part because I do not think that it would require much work to implement.

[LeviR.star]

While I do think that replacements are, in fact, an endless cycle, I would like to clarify two things:

• I am not saying that this is necessary. I am saying that it would (in my opinion) make the sheets look better and more professional.
• I am suggesting this in part because I do not think that it would require much work to implement.

- you make a good point, I misinterpreted your stance. The quotation marks themselves are unnecessary, but this does not make the process of removing them necessary. Thank you for clarifying

- I mean, no, establishing a rule that says titles are to be formatted "quoteless" wouldn't be a hard transition for arrangers. I think the concern more lies in the fact that, as a site with nearly 4,300 arrangements and counting, if we were to leave previously arranged sheets as they are, titles would appear much more noticeably inconsistent compared to the URLs

If popular opinion suggests NSM prefers to leave the quotation marks out, I'd be fine with altering my future sheets accordingly, but if we are tasked with removing them from past sheets, the transition may become more trouble than it's worth. Thus, if there is an easy solution, I'm all for it.

[Latios212]

I personally like them, but that could just be a result of being used to the way NinSheetMusic sheets look for a while. I also understand that it's not the norm outside of our site, so no disagreement there - I think sheets look fine without.

My main concern here is similar to Levi's - that I don't think there is much to gain compared to losing uniformity if we start uploading sheets without quotation marks. Maintaining some sense of visual consistency between different sheets users download from the site is one of the things I think is very important.

So all that said, I'd prefer we not alter the standard, though I'm open to other people's thoughts of course.

[Static]

My main concern here is similar to Levi's - that I don't think there is much to gain compared to losing uniformity if we start uploading sheets without quotation marks. Maintaining some sense of visual consistency between different sheets users download from the site is one of the things I think is very important.

I don't think the uniformity is as big of an issue, at least in this case. I already mentioned copyright/composer info being not uniform within games sometimes, but other things that vary between sheets include music font, page margins, staff size, specific tempo markings (i.e. "Swing!" vs "Swing 8ths" vs "Swing"). And of course we have many http and https URLs currently.

With that said, I'm not sure if I'm totally for removing the quotes. By this point I almost see their use as a kind of NinSheetMusic trademark specifically because nobody else uses them. I think giving users an option to use or not use them would be good though, just as we give them an option on many other things in their sheets (like what I listed above).

I think the only thing that really absolutely needs to be consistent between all our sheets is the text font and text style/alignment/justification, since differences in that are much more noticeable than adding/removing quotation marks, or anything directly music-related since every arranger has different styles and preferences anyway.

[AmpharosAndy]

Quotation marks are nsm's stamp of quality

keep innit