Inkipedia:Policy/Audio
Music samples and sound effects can be a valuable addition to articles about in-game bands, musical styles, and details. They can illustrate the particular instruments, moods, themes, or musical elements in a song in a way that a text description cannot. Audio should be implemented to supplement text, not the other way around. Inkipedia is not a music streaming or download service, and usage of such audio and music samples needs to comply with copyright law via the following guidelines.
It is the belief that when these guidelines are adhered, the samples used on Inkipedia cannot be substituted for the music and sound effects as heard officially, whether from the game itself or from officially released formats such as Splatune or Nintendo Music. Files not adhering to this policy will be swiftly removed.
These guidelines apply to all audio files on site, including personal user files.
Guidelines
To ensure consistent quality and compatibility across all devices, audio uploads on Inkipedia should follow these guidelines:
- Origin
- In-game audio must be converted directly from the game files. Avoid sources like YouTube, commercial soundtrack releases (such as Splatune or the Nintendo Music app), or the lossy files already present on the site. For audio not directly present in the game files, use the highest quality source available (a disallowed source can be used when it is the only official source).
- Audio extracted from user-made recordings of gameplay should be avoided in cases where alternative sources are present. Audio files intended as music samples should not contain sound effects; this is difficult to achieve with gameplay recordings.
- Maximum length
- Audio files for any purpose should not exceed more than 30 seconds of length for fair use purposes. While there is no hard-set rule on this point, it is a generally accepted value for several online sources (such as Wikipedia, MarioWiki, Spotify, or Instagram previews) as a limit to claim fair use.
- Conversion
- Unless the audio is already shorter than 30 seconds, the last two seconds should feature a fade-out to silence. As a rule, the vast majority of music tracks should use the first 30 seconds for the sake of consistency & ease of use. Any potential exceptions should be discussed before upload, preferably via talk page.
- Most audio should be normalized to a peak volume of -1 dB. If a certain track is significantly louder than the rest, reduce the peak volume to match it with the others.
- Format
- The audio must be in MP3 format with a bitrate of 160 kbps. Use of the LAME MP3 encoder is recommended.
- The files must contain no metadata.
- Naming
- The files should be named as: game abbreviation (or origin) + title, e.g. "S3 Big Betrayal.mp3" and "RotM Seep & Destroy.mp3". If there is no official title for the track, use of a conjectural name is allowed. If a track is split into multiple phases (pairs of channels), the phase number should be added to the name, e.g. "OC Octarmaments Phase 1.mp3" or "RotM Sandcastles Phase 3.mp3".
- Purpose
- The audio file in question specifically is used to describe something that text cannot—attempts must be made to write and describe an example where text could be used over audio. The amount of audio used is kept to a minimum.
Example of an MP3 file that meets the guidelines:
