This is a curiosity probe. I have written a Plugin that standardizes library fields. It runs completely from datafiles, so a simple editor (like Notepad) and you can change the conventions. You can create conventions for any library field, and I have currently made files for the Artist, Name, Album, and Lyrics fields. Here are some of the standardizations it performs:
Album - Any variation of "featuring" (f,f.,f/,feat.,w/, with etc) are converted to "featuring". The word "The" is moved to the end after a comma. For example "Beatles, The" (I know this one is controversial). I also replace "&" with "and" for uniformity's sake. This alone allowed me to find the duplicates between "Kool & the gang" and "Kool and the gang"
Name - When certain words describing the track are within Parenthesis (), Brackets [], or Braces {} they are converted to Braces. This ignores Subtiltles, leaving them within Parenthesis. The convention is basically Title (Subtitle) {Descripter}. For example, There It Go! (The Whistle Song) {PO Clean Edit}, where "There It Go!" is the Title, "The Whistle Song" is the Subtitle, and "PO Clean Edit" is the descriptor.
Album - Checks for Year appearing in a Parenthesis, Braces, Brackets, or after a dash, and removes it (can place it in the Year field if you wish).
I ran it across my modest collection (6,000 songs) and it took about 20 seconds. After it was done, all of my music was named properly, so that Calculated Fields could be used.
So I have 2 questions:
1) Is anyone interested in this kind of Plugin? If enough people use it, we could possibly enforce an unofficial standard in library fields, and possibly in filename conventions. At the very least, your system will be easy to interpret.
2) What other "rules" should I incorporate to create a standard? Anyone who wishes to can submit (possibly to me personnally rather than through the board) a list of criteria that should be established.
-Tano