vkgy is for visual kei. In some cases, bands that are not explicitly vkei may be added:

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• non-visual bands must play at vkei lives, or appear in vkei omnibuses, or connect to a vkei band, or be part of a vkei label.
• proto-visual bands (seemingly vkei but existed before the term was coined) must connect to a vkei band, or belong to a vkei label, or have played with early vkei bands, or be demonstrabily influential to vkei.
• foreign bands (not based in Japan) must call themselves vkei, and appear somewhat visual, and have had live concerts, and have had paid releases.
• doujin bands must call themselves vkei, and have vkei-esque artwork, and have paid releases.
• parody bands must have official photography, and appear visual, and have paid releases.

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In all cases, please use artist tags and descriptions appropriately. Ask us if you have questions.

• Please navigate to the artist's profile, enter the “tags” section, and add or upvote/downvote tags as you see fit. If enough people tag a band as “non-vkei”, that band will no longer appear on the front page. Their data will not be deleted.
• Please do not leave comments on blog posts or artist profiles about whether or not a band is vkei. It almost never leads to constructive conversation, and almost always results in fighting. Such comments will be deleted.

• Use the “most official” name, including all symbols and decoration, even if it's annoying.
  
  ❌ The Gazette, Cali Gari ✔ the GazettE, cali≠gari, CμЯЁ-βLAST
• When romanizing, keep all symbols, letters, and numbers intact when possible (see Romanization). If an official romanization exists, use that instead.
  
  name サリィ。 romaji SALLY。 / name 愛狂います。 official romaji aicle。
• A friendly name is generated, containing only letters, numbers, and hyphens. It can be changed when editing an artist's page, and may use an easier/more common spelling of the artist's name.
  
  The friendly name may also be used to differentiate artists: see “Friendly” names and Bands with the same name.
  
  name 大日本鬼端児組 悪童会に占拠され ゴシップ romaji Dainippon Onitanjigumi Akudoukai ni Senkyosare GOSSIP friendly gossip

• All bands must have a unique friendly name. This is the name used in URLs, searches, and /slash/ notation.
  
  These names can only contain numbers, lowercase letters, and hyphens.
• Friendly names are automatically generated when adding an artist, but can be manually edited via an 'edit artist' page.
  
  Auto-generated friendly names are based on romaji when possible, and the normal name otherwise. Apostrophes are removed, and all other symbols and spaces are converted to hyphens. Multiple hyphens are condensed to one hyphen.
• In some cases, it makes sense to manually edit a friendly name to make it more clear.
  
  For example, the auto-generated friendly name for CμЯЁ-βLAST is c-last, because μ, Я, and Ё are treated as symbols. So, it was manually changed to cure-blast.
  
  For the band *, whose auto-generated friendly is simply -, it was changed to... anus, since that's how their name is supposed to be pronounced (...).
• Friendly names can also contain additional details like year of formation, area of activity, or most famous member (see Bands with the same name).

• Two bands may have the same name, but each band must have a unique friendly name (see “Friendly” names).
• You can differentiate two bands by attaching identifying information, such as year formed, area of activity, or famous member, to their friendly name.
  
  e.g. Dali vs DALI (ダリ) dali-fukuoka / Angelique vs Angelique angelique-90s / GARDEN vs garden garden-kisaki
• Typically, the most-recognizable band should keep its normal friendly name, while the lesser-known band should use the modified friendly name.
  
  For example, Dali's friendly name is simply dali, while DALI (ダリ)'s is dali-fukuoka (the latter band being much less known than the former).
• When attaching identifying information to friendly names, use whichever information makes the difference most obvious.
  
  For example, xyz-tokyo and xyz-osaka might be more clear than xyz-2010 and xyz-2011.
• When adding a new artist, the friendly name is automatically generated; it can't be changed until after the artist is added (via its 'edit artist' page).
  
  So, if you're trying to add a new artist with the same name as an old one, and the system stops you, you can get around it like this:
  
  Choose the identifying information you'll use for the friendly name add it to both the name and romaji of the new artist after the artist is added, go to its 'edit artist' page and remove the identifying information from the name and romaji, but leave it in the friendly.

• When an artist is added, the system will auto-link any musicians whose band history mentions that artist.
  
  Auto-linking is based on exact spelling, so it may miss some musicians or incorrectly link others. It's always good to double-check the artist page or to use the musician search function.