:TITLE:Adding/Editing a Visual Novel :INC:notfinished :INC:index :SUB:General guidelines

Blahblah about what we define as VN...

:SUB:General info
*Title
The title of the visual novel as it is known to the English speaking audience. If there is no English version of the game available, you should either specify the romanized (recommended) or translated (not recommended) version of the original title.
Aliases
Visual novels can be known under several names, use this field to add any aliases and acronyms used around the net. Official titles of releases should not be added here, as these are already listed in the releases.
*Description
Short description of the main story.
Length
Very rough estimate of the time required to finish all endings of the visual novel. To determine the length of a game, it's often better to ignore this time indication and instead compare it with other games you've played. It's all relative, after all.
External links
Links to external resources about this visual novel. To get the URLs, go to the sites (Wikipedia, Visual-novels.net and CISVisual.net), search for a page about the game, and determine the ID or name of that page to fill out in the text boxes. Do not specify the full URL, we only need a small part of it!
Related anime
Some visual novels (e.g. Clannad and Utawarerumono) have anime adaptions, and some visual novels were adapted from an anime series. Use this field to specify these related anime for the visual novel.
Anime should be specified using AniDB IDs. To add an anime, just search for it on AniDB and add the numeric ID of the entry (found in the aid=xxx part of the URL) to the edit field. Multiple IDs should be seperated with a whitespace.
If the visual novel already has a relation with an other visual novel, and both games have an anime adaption, the same anime does not have to be added to both games. For example, Da Capo has two anime adaptions (837, 2832), and Da Capo II as well. (5419, 5652) But the relations for Da Capo II do not have to be added to Da Capo and vice versa - the internal visual novel relations will take care of that.
After submitting a new AniDB ID, VNDB will automatically fetch information about the anime and will present that on the site. This action can take a few minutes to - in the worst case - hours. In that time you will see the ID of the anime, but not the title and links to AnimeNFO and Anime News Network. It is not possible to manually add this information, this will be fetched automatically!
:SUB:Categories

It is possible to select relevant categories for visual novels, where the relevance can be ranked using a number from 0 to 3, where 0 indicates the category does not apply at all, and 3 means that the category is very dominant in the game.
See Categories for descriptions about each category.
Just as with the Length field, this information is very subjective. Just use the category descriptions and common sense to determine which categories to select and what relevance to apply.

:SUB:Image

Every visual novel should have an image, preferably one of the official cover art of one of the releases. In some cases, especially with doujin games, if there is no official cover art available, a general image from the game's homepage or a screenshot of the game itself could be used instead.
Images can be uploaded in JPEG or PNG format, and should not be larger than 500kB. All images larger than 256x400px will automatically be resized to fit on the page. Keep in mind that this resizing is done in a seperate process, so you will not immediately see the image after uploading. This processing often takes just a few seconds, and the image should be available shortly after you've submitted the form.

The NSFW warning should be used in cases where the cover art is not safe for work. To determine what is safe for work and what is not, use the following guidelines:

Even with these guidelines it may not always be easy to determine whether an image is safe or not. When in doubt, it's often best to go for NSFW.

:SUB:Relations

Visual novel relations can be used to indicate what games are related to each other.
When adding a relation, the reverse relation will automatically be added to the other visual novel. E.g. if you add game x as a sequel to game y, then game y will automatically be added as a prequel to game x. You do not have to edit both games.
Only specify direct relations. If one game 1 is listed to have a relation with game 2, and game 2 has a relation with game 3, then game 3 does not have to be added as a relation to game 1. This may sound a bit confusing at first, but you will understand when you look at the relation graphs. When editing relations, always try to think about the relations between all related games - as shown in the graph - instead of only looking at the specific visual novel you're editing.
There is a static list of relations to choose from (as described below). As with many things, the relations between games can in reality be more complex than these options could describe. Simply choose the option you think is closest to describing the actual relation when you're not sure which one to choose.

Sequel
Continuation of the story. <=>Prequel.
Prequel
The story happens before the original story.<=>Sequel.
Same setting
Same universe, world, reality and timeline, but completely different characters. The definition of "setting" is not always easy to define, but usually it means that if places or items not existing in the real world described in one game also exist in the other game, you could use this relation.
Alternative setting
Same characters and (mostly) the same story, but set in a different universe, world, reality or timeline.
Alternative version
Same setting, same characters, but the story is told differently.
Same characters
Different story, but shares some characters.
Side story
The story takes place sometime during the parent storyline. <=>Parent story
Parent story
Opposite of Side story.
Summary
Summarizes full story, may contain additional stuff. <=>Full story.
Full story
Full version of the summarized story. <=>Summary.
Other
There is a relation, but it's not possible to describe it using the other available options. This is a relation that should rarely be used.