Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 20

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Double album

There is an undocumented "Type" parameter value "double album" that is supported by {{Infobox Album/link}} and {{Infobox Album/color}}. Does anyone know if there is a reason this is undocumented, such as that it was intended to be phased out? I can see an argument for just labeling double albums as studio albums, as it's somewhat orthogonal to the other types (consider triple albums, double live albums, double compilations, and so on). If we want to support "double album", we should add it to the type and color table (which I moved to {{Infobox Album/doc/type}}), but we may want to add a shorter code for it first (like "double") for consistency with the other codes. Otherwise we can remap "double album" to output "Studio album". --PEJL 06:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think double album is appropriate since it is media specific, such as if an album is a 'double album' on 2 vinyls but then fits on one CD. -Joltman 13:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Any objections to remapping "Double album" to "Studio album"? --PEJL 05:11, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I've requested this change be made. --PEJL 14:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Just noting here that this change was made. --PEJL 14:31, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Label piping

I could have sworn WP:ALBUM#Label said to pipe away suffixes like " Records", but I see now it doesn't. I propose we recommend that, for consistency with Template:Infobox musical artist, to match current practice, and for space reasons. Let's copy the text from the artist infobox but make it slightly more general, by appending the following to the end of WP:ALBUM#Label:

Drop words like "Records" from the end of the label's name (e.g. use [[Universal Records|Universal]] rather than [[Universal Records]].)

That seems quite non-controversial, if it weren't for the fact that our main example infobox does not do this. Any objections? --PEJL 09:07, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps there was less of a space issue for albums because of generally shorter lists (of labels) for an album than for an artist...? Anyway, Template:Infobox musical artist/doc and Template:Infobox Album/doc ought to be consistent, one way or the other. --Paul Erik 22:47, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I believe it's not there, not for the purpose of inconsistency, but because it's a matter of context. If you say in the infobox "label: Columbia Records" then you're overexplaining, when the type is explained under "label". If you say "This album was released by Columbia", you'd be better of with putting the "records" after because some may think you're referring to another Columbia, like a town in Virginia, an Aircraft company, a University. I know I'm talking about the lowest common denominator here, since many people would know it's a record company, it would probably be unencyclopedic to rule it out. --lincalinca 11:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry Linca, I don't understand what your position is. Note that WP:ALBUM#Label and the proposal is only about the label in the infobox, not the article body. (I agree that piping away the label is inappropriate in the article body.) In the infobox the phrase "Label: " is always shown before the label, like "Label: Columbia". Do you disagree with the proposal? --PEJL 12:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with the statement based on it's tautological nature. You don't (well, I don't) say "I'm going to drive my Nissan car". You simply say one or the other word, as one implies the other. It's implied in the context, and so I don't see the need of having the word "record" in there. Am I not being straightforward enough? I can tend to give too many illustrations and confuse the point. Sorry about that. --lincalinca 11:56, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Wait, call me retarded. I just realised your proposal, which I was "disagreeing with" was actually what I agree with. I misread it thinking you were proposting to remove the piping protocol. Sorry. Yeah, pipe em all. --lincalinca 11:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
checkY Done. --PEJL 14:26, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
What's done? Calling Linca retarded? -Freekee 02:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Ehh, no, the addition of the italicized proposal above. --PEJL 04:15, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Nominations for deletion via WP:PROD

And this is being discussed here... why? --lincalinca 11:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Because there does not appear to be (to me) an nominations-for-deletion notification mechanism in place for this WikiProject. If one is in place, could you please inform here? Thanks. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC) (P.S. I did not sign the listing above as it was a notification and not a comment; I will sign hereafter as a matter of custom for this WikiProject - other WikiProject have not yet raised this question.)
Do you have a reference for this notification convention? WP:PROD contains nothing about notifying WikiProjects. --PEJL 01:13, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
There is no convention. This activity is a test action period initiated by me as the outcome of a discussion on Article for Deletion talk. It was determined that a) there should never be an obligation to notify as a part of policy and that b) it was a matter of good form to conduct some form of notification and c) notification of individual editors was problematic and d) notification of relevant WikiProjects was a reasonably neutral course. Many WikiProject use the resources created by Wikiproject Deletion Sorting now; WikiProject Albums appears to be one of those that does not. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't think using the main talk page is appropriate for this. From User:Ceyockey/Notifying WikiProjects of Deletion Proposals I gather that we can use a separate page either at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Albums or Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Deletion. --PEJL 02:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Those are among the more commonly used options, yes. I would be glad to use and encourage the use of either. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Speedy deleted - author blanked page. No other significant contributions Papa November 07:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

When I revamped The Rock Music WikiProject, I made a bunch of titles for a variety of things, from FAC's to AFD's as you can see if you go check it out. Maybe we can do this on a subpage, and interested members can keep it updated. I'd prefer that instead of making notifications on the talk page. There's too many album articles, and this talk page could build up and bury perhaps more important issues that deal with editors questions, and then we have to archive all that...
Ceyockey, I can help you with a subpage if you really insist, and other WikiProject members think it's okay. I'd rather go through the effort of doing that than crufting up the main talk page. -- Reaper X 08:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

  • I wouldn't exactly characterize it as "crufting up", but I understand your point of not diverting the focus of the main talk page away from the most important and broadly impactful points of discussion and decision making. I think it might be best to get a consensus here as to which direction to go ... get a representation in the Deletion Sorting WikiProject or create a Deletion notification page specifically for this WikiProject. I think that discussion of adding a new topic to the Deletion sorting set would take place at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Deletion sorting/List control. There currently exists Deletion sorting representations for Music, Bands and musicians and Beatles (and some music genres), but not 'albums' or 'songs' per se. It might be useful to simply utilize the existing 'Bands and musicians' page and expand the scope to include 'Albums, songs and other products of bands and musicians'. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I've outline options and what I'm planning to do on the WikiProject Deletion sorting talk page if you would like to visit and comment. Regards, --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Robert Christgau review example

When I click the link at Robert Christgau (dud) link I can see no review. The documentation should probably use different example. Jogers (talk) 14:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with this site but I checked several random pages using {{Review-Christgau}} and none of the ones with bomb or scissors icon contained reviews. Ones rated with stars contained nothing more than a single sentence. If this is always the case they shouldn't be included in album infoboxes. Jogers (talk) 15:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Christgau's reviews have been discussed a number of times in the past. Besides here (most recently at archives 14–16) also at Talk:Robert Christgau#Links to reviews on album article pages and Talk:Robert Christgau#How legit is this guy? --PEJL 15:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, he may be "the most famous rock critic in the world" but still the "professional reviews" field is, as the name implies, for reviews not just for ratings or icons without a single word about the album in question. Jogers (talk) 16:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I didn't participate in those earlier discussions on Christgau. However, while I think your point has merit, Jogers, my belief is that even a short review and a rating by a professional can legitimately sit in the Professional Reviews section. Cheers, Ian Rose 16:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't mind a short review by a world renowned professional but in several cases there is no review at all. In case of the example given at infobox album documentation there is no single word about the album in question, only the bomb icon. Jogers (talk) 16:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
In general I agree that reviews with little or no text should not be included. The problem with Christgau is that it is only his "dud" ratings (represented by the bomb symbol) that don't include any review text, while his other ratings do. If we were to include only reviews with text, in practice we'd be favoring the more positive reviews, which doesn't seem very NPOV. As for the example, I believe an example with a "dud" rating was chosen intentionally, to imply that a such reviews/ratings are acceptable to include, as the understanding at the time was that they were. --PEJL 17:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
My point is that sole rating doesn't constitute a review. Jogers (talk) 18:04, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Why not? Christgau has reviewed these albums, hasn't he? --PEJL 23:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Has he? How can you know if the only thing he said is "dud"? :-) Seriously though, I was always assuming that by reviews we mean professionally written articles not somebody's mental process. A link containing only an icon next to the album name is not useful at all for anyone except those familiar with Christgau's rating system. Jogers (talk) 09:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I assume he has, as it would be quite unprofessional of him to give a rating of an album without reviewing it, but will admit that it is difficult to prove. Also agree that these ratings are not useful except for those familiar with his rating system. Still not sure that's reason enough to not include them, as we'd be removing the most negative ratings from one of our main review sources, which could skew the perception of many albums. --PEJL 10:06, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Some people may not even know that they are negative. When I saw the bomb icon for the first time I thought it means that the album is good because of connotations that the word "bomb" has in my native language :-) Jogers (talk) 10:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, it's ambiguous, see the bomb (positive) vs bomb (positive or negative). --PEJL 11:33, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
The link to the review, even if it's just to a single icon without text, serves to source the information. Besides, these pages usually contain a link to all the artist's albums that Xgau has reviewed. / edg ☺ ★ 03:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but it doesn't alter the fact that it's not a review and it's useless to readers unfamiliar with Christgau's rating system. Jogers (talk) 10:04, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Besides, the problem is not with the link. I don't think that this information should be included in the "professional reviews" section of the infobox at all. Jogers (talk) 10:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Christgau doesn't publish text reviews for albums he rates as "bomb" — he only publishes the bomb icon. Similarly, the scissors icon is provided with one, or at most two, song titles from the album, no further criticism, and basically means "I like this song/these two songs, but don't have much to say about the rest of the album". There's really no point or value in citing Christgau on here unless he actually reviews an album in text (and even then, we should probably take into account that as influential as he's been, his writing style can be opaque and impenetrable to a novice reader.) Citing him if the review is a bomb or scissors icon doesn't really tell you why he disliked it (or only cared for one or two songs), though, so it's not helpful or useful to our readers. Bearcat 01:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Like I mentioned above, I agree that a rating without text is not useful in general, but have concerns because removing such ratings would effectively remove all negative reviews from one of our major review sources, which might cause NPOV problems. --PEJL 02:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't see a problem with including a bomb rating. It does give the opinion of a professional source (if one understands what the symbol means), and it's not much less useful to our readers than a rating from a text article which is not linked, like from a print magazine with no online version. I wouldn't use the scissors icon without including which songs he likes (but personally wouldn't use it at all). -Freekee 04:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Professional review dates

I'd like to standardize the formatting of the dates in the professional reviews section (see last paragraph at WP:ALBUM#Professional reviews). We want the dates to be as compact as possible, but unambiguous and understandable to as many as possible (see issues with ambiguous date formats at Calendar date#Date format). Note that abbreviations such as "Aug" are acceptable in these space-constrained situations (see first bullet point at WP:DATE#Longer periods). Elsewhere dates are usually written as "August 15, 2007" for articles using US standards or "15 August 2007" for articles using UK standards (auto-formatting intentionally disabled for these examples). Given that, here is my proposal:

Because dates are not auto-formatted and space in the infobox is limited, they should be formatted as either "Aug 15, 2007" or "15 Aug 2007" depending on the date format used in the rest of the article.

--PEJL 03:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we need dates in the professional reviews section. In the reception/critical reception section, it's really to the discretion of the page author, I consider, wherther it's necessary and, ultimately, appropriate to have the specific date that a review or article was written. I mean, if you have someone wro wrote an inflammatory article about the USA that was printed on September 9, 2001, and then the whole country unites as they did 2 days later, then you might have cause for writing this. Otherwise, it's in my opinion, only appropriate to give a time if it's written drastically after the album's release, or a pre-emptive review written before the author actually heard the album (which got a colleague of mine fired, for the matter, and was cause for Uwe Boll to call a baxing match with several people who reviewed his film poorly despite not seeing it, but simply knowing it's Uwe Boll... but then again, you don't need to drink water to know it's wet... where was I?). Anyway, i don't think it's appropriate to encourage the practice, in short, in long or otherwise. --lincalinca 11:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Another reason to include dates is to allow readers to look up reviews in physical magazines. In some cases the dates are available at the link target, but not always. What do others think about discouraging dates? Looking through the archives for old discussions on this topic, I found Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 12#Professional review dates in infobox, which my proposal above is partially in line with. --PEJL 13:00, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
A continuation of this discussion, regarding possibly using an expanding box for reviews, was moved to User talk:PEJL/Template:Proreview#Professional review dates

So, there was some discussion (initially here, then moved to and continued at User talk:PEJL/Template:Proreview) about possibly using templates to show reviews differently than we do now. There are however some technical problems with using templates for this purpose. As that discussion has stalled, I would like to re-propose we adjust the current guideline (which already recommends using dates instead of the word "link"), to standardize the formatting of those dates, per my original proposal above. --PEJL 14:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Expert review: KBCO Studio C

As part of the Notability wikiproject, I am trying to sort out whether the albums linked in KBCO Studio C are notable enough for own articles. I would appreciate an expert opinion. For details, see the article's talk page. If you can spare some time, please add your comments there. Thanks! --B. Wolterding 10:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

My take on it would be that they are notable, but certainly need some wikifying. Though it may make a very long page, it might be a better idea, based on how short each article is, to merge them into one article. --lincalinca 11:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Chronology (yes, again, sorry)

Ok, I know this has been discussed many times in the past, but I haven't seen what looks like a clear resolution on the matter, so I'm going to bring it up one more time. I think excluding live albums from the chronology is ridiculous, and it's not, generally, what we do in practice, and most people agree that all (or at least most) of the cases where we don't do it are perfectly valid and correct, and yet, it still says studio albums only. Heck, I've got one band I've been working on where if I had to leave live albums out, I'd have to leave out their debut. So, I want to bring to this discussion a new issue that I have not seen mentioned in the past (and I just browsed all the talk archives, searching for the word "live"). Nobody else seems to make this distinction!

As a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians, I have browsed I-don't-know-how-many sites looking for information and references about all sorts of random musician-related topics, and the idea that live albums should be separate from studio seems unique to Wikipedia. Compilations are almost always separate. Singles are almost always separate. EPs vary—they may be listed with singles, they may be listed with albums. In the interest of keeping chronologies focused, I would support putting EPs in with singles on Wikipedia. But live albums should not normally be left out of a chronology. There are cases where exceptions may be justified, as with "Instalive" releases, where there can be so many that they will just clutter up the chronology, but I think those should be treated as exceptions, rather than being used to justify a bad general rule that we mostly ignore anyway. Thoughts? Xtifr tälk 12:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you (though personally, I'd want to put EPs with albums). Jazz discographies include a lot of live albums (Cannonball Adderley, in particular, comes to mind), and there could be big gaps in the chronology if we left these out. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 13:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
P.S. This also brings to mind albums such as Impressions (album), Live-Evil, and I Sing the Body Electric (album). They are part-live, part-studio. Are they live albums or not? Do we count the number of live tracks vs. studio tracks? This regards color-coding the infobox, as well as whether they're allowed in the chronology. (Currently all of these are color-coded as studio albums.) -- Gyrofrog (talk) 13:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
In my view, live albums should not be omitted from chronologies. BNutzer 11:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
In my view, live albums should generally be left out of chronologies. There are certainly important exceptions, where such albums are a defining milestone in the artist's career, for example. Some bands just put out live albums every couple of years, and adding all of those would really clutter up the chronology. Notice that the project page specifies Only studio albums, usually excluding live albums, compilations... I offer my opinion as one explanation for those words. -Freekee 03:56, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I am suggesting that the project guideline is biased toward rock, or rather, popular music in general. I see your point when an artist releases two or three studio albums, followed by a live album which contains concert versions of the studio material and, more significantly, does not introduce any new material (e.g. David Bowie's Stage, though it is in his chronology; compare it with Jill Scott's Experience: Jill Scott 826+ which does introduce new material and appears in her chronology). With jazz, on the other hand, live albums may contain material completely different from other studio or live albums. If we decide to leave the project guideline with its current wording, that's fine, as the word "usually" provides for exceptions. But I think we want to make sure that we won't have to defend ourselves if we include (for example) Speak, Brother, Speak! in the Max Roach chronology. Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 13:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
This sounds reasonable. How about the following:
Only albums of mainly new material (primarily studio albums, usually excluding live albums, compilations, singles and most live albums and EPs) should be included in the chronology.
--PEJL 14:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Gyrofrog, one would hope that such albums in such genres would be included in the chronology, under the "usually excluding" clause, but I wouldn't have a problem with PEJL's wording. However, the first word, "only," is a strong one, so I suggest waiting for a little more feedback. -Freekee 04:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
In my view, live albums should generally be left in chronologies. Even if a live album doesn't contain new compositions, it often (usually) includes new arrangements or interpretations of the material. And as I said at the start of the thread, nobody else categorizes live albums separately. The notion perplexes me. How is it "cluttering up the chronology" to include what nearly everyone would consider to be the significant releases of an act's career? Perhaps if Freekee could point to some examples of discographies where he feels the live albums should be excluded, I might have a better idea of what he's talking about, but in general—in general—based on my experience, I think most live albums absolutely belong in the chronology. At most, for those (fairly rare) acts that release lots of unoriginal live albums (and I again, I'd like to see some examples), and for acts that release lots of "instalive" or retrospective "from the vaults" live albums, we might suggest excluding "minor live albums" or words to that effect. But the suggestion that we should "usually" exclude "most" live albums just strikes me as completely wrong. And I think you'll find that—despite what the guideline might say—in practice, most live albums are included in chronologies, suggesting that the guideline does not really reflect a general consensus as it stands (and that Freekee's position is very much a minority one). Xtifr tälk 07:15, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
How about this wording, that softens "excluding ... most live albums" to "excluding ... many live albums":
Only albums of mainly new material (primarily studio albums, usually excluding live albums, compilations, singles, most EPs and many live albums) should be included in the chronology.
Is this wording acceptable to all? --PEJL 14:57, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Heh, appreciate the effort, PEJL, but I don't really agree with the 'new material' concept as the yardstick for including or excluding live - or any other - albums. I stick with my previous comments on this when it was raised a while back: what goes into a chronology should be what is 'generally' considered significant in the artist's canon, i.e. the best consensus we can arrive at from the literature on the artist. To take my frequent example, Bowie, not only are four of his live albums (David Live, Stage, Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture and Santa Monica '72) present in most or all chronologies in major books on him, regardless of how much 'new' material they contained (a song or two each at most) but the compilation ChangeOneBowie even made Rolling Stone's 500 Best list. So I'd really need the wording to allow room for such instances, which it seems to do - if not entirely for the right reasons - re. live albums but not necessarily re. key compilations... Cheers, Ian Rose 15:44, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Off the top of my head, here's an example: King Crimson discography. They've got more live albums than studio albums. While you might be able to make a case for a couple of them being definitive enough to be included in the chronology, I'm not sure where you'd draw the line, and I definitely think the chronology as shown is a good one. Another band that I could say exactly the same thing about is Deep Purple discography. As for David Bowie discography The live albums included are not excessive (though I would suggest that Ziggy is not a live album, but a soundtrack). The other half of his live albums, that were not included, do not really lend themselves to being included, do you agree?
Am I really in the vast minority here? This seems to keep coming up, and I'd think it would have been changed by now if I was the only one opposed. Even in this thread, there doesn't seem to be a landslide in favor of inclusion (Xtifr, Ian, Bnutzer without any evidence, and Gyrofrog with an entirely valid point about non-pop genres). If we were to change the wording to allow some live records, how do we do it and still allow editors to include only the more important live releases? Maybe we need to ask what the purpose of the chronology listing is. -Freekee 15:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Collaboration task

I noticed that User:Jogers is looking for a new collaboration task. As I mentioned above, I think it would be good to do some maintenance work higher up the quality scale. We've done a lot to improve our low quality articles, but we should also aim to improve our high quality (B-class and above) articles to FA-class. Here are some suggestions for simple things we can do together to ultimately improve our GA/FA count...

  • Check that non-free images in our high quality articles have fair use rationales, correct source information and correct license tags
  • Check that non-free images are a reasonable resolution (< 300px). Large images should either be tagged with {{non-free reduce}} or replaced and tagged with {{non-free reduced}}.
  • Add cleanup tags to B-class articles
  • Reformat footnotes using citation templates

Does this seem like a reasonable approach? Papa November 15:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind the task but it would help if Jogers (or someone else) could create a list which could be whittled down (to be updated and maintained like the others or not). I don't look forward to clicking all the articles in Category:B-Class Album articles to check which articles have fair use rationales.--Fisherjs 16:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
I think I would be able to create such a list. Jogers (talk) 12:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

How is it going with this task? Anybody working on it? -Freekee 02:33, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Soundtrack article naming

Is there a set way to name articles about soundtracks? Is there a standard for all of them, such as 'Title (soundtrack)', 'Title soundtrack' or 'Title (album), or should it be what the album says, like 'Title: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack' or 'Music from the Motion Picture Title'? -Joltman 12:21, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

It's simply [[Title]], [[Title (album)]] or [[Title (artist album)]], if you need to disambiguate that far. Preferably, just go with [[Title (album)]]. --lincalinca 12:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
I know that's how it works for albums in general, but I figured soundtracks would have their own set of guidelines. -Joltman 12:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
In an effort to avoid instruction creep, we try to keep things as consistent as possible. It wouldn't really serve much purpose making things different in the same medium. --lincalinca 12:47, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
At some point in the disambiguation, "soundtrack" would be the preferred disambiguator. According to current rules, since the album likely has the same name as the film, you would call it title (album). If another album has the same title, you normally disambiguate by artist. But soundtracks generally don't have artists, so you'd substitute "soundtrack." Personally, I don't see anything wrong with just starting with "soundtrack" in place of "album," and would support such a change.-Freekee 04:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, lack of artist is a problem indeed. Thinking about this from the point of view of what would have to be changed at WP:ALBUM#Naming (which I think we want to keep as simple as possible), replacing "artist album" with "soundtrack album" for artist-less soundtracks would probably be the simplest solution. See how this would affect the guideline below (insertions usually rendered as underlined and removals as stricken-through):
...In cases where disambiguation is needed, the term (EP) should be used for EPs and (album) for other albums, e.g. Insomniac (album) and Gas Food Lodging (EP). For multiple albums with the same title, use the artist name (or the word "soundtrack" for multiple-artist soundtracks) to distinguish the different albums, e.g. Down to Earth (Rainbow album) and Down to Earth (Ozzy Osbourne album). For artists who release multiple albums with the same nameWhen there are multiple albums with the same name by the same artist (or for the same film, in the case of soundtracks), disambiguate by year, e.g. Weezer (1994 album) and Weezer (2001 album) (unless the albums were released the same year, in which case they can be disambiguated by some commonly accepted convention).
Replacing "album" with "soundtrack" (like we do for "EP") doesn't really solve the no-artist problem at the next step, so those guidelines would need to be tweaked as well:
...In cases where disambiguation is needed, the term (EP) should be used for EPs, (soundtrack) for soundtracks and (album) for other albums, e.g. Insomniac (album) and Gas Food Lodging (EP). For multiple albums with the same title (except for multiple-artist soundtracks), use the artist name to distinguish the different albums, e.g. Down to Earth (Rainbow album) and Down to Earth (Ozzy Osbourne album). For artists who release multiple albums with the same nameWhen there are multiple albums with the same name by the same artist (or for the same film, in the case of soundtracks), disambiguate by year, e.g. Weezer (1994 album) and Weezer (2001 album) (unless the albums were released the same year, in which case they can be disambiguated by some commonly accepted convention).
Another reason to avoid replacing "album" with "soundtrack" is for consistency, as we currently disambiguate all albums (assuming we don't count EPs as albums) using "album". The former solution seems to be more in line with how we handle other albums, which seems appropriate (unless we have a good reason to treat soundtracks differently). --PEJL 10:31, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The other possibility, as I mentioned in my initial post, would be if we used the proper title of the album. Pretty much every soundtrack I've seen says 'Movie: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack' or 'Music from the Motion Picture Movie' or something along those lines. Although I think I do like just using the (album) disambiguator better, but I just wanted to put that out there as another option. While we're on the subject, I notice above it's proposed to use (soundtrack album) for further disambiguation. What about a various artist non-soundtrack compilation? Would it then be (compilation album)? Actually, a various artist soundtrack more-or-less is a compilation album, so should we come up with something that works for soundtracks or compilations, or should we treat them separately? What about replacing 'Artist' with 'various artists', meaning it would be (various artist album)? -Joltman 12:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Your alternative to use the proper title as you call it gets us into another topic, which affects more than just soundtracks, which is how much is considered to be the proper title. There are lots of album titles like "Short title: Longer subtitle", where the longer title is often in smaller type, often on a separate line, and often more descriptive than original. The "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" part is such a longer subtitle. In my experience, articles tend to be named after the short title alone in a majority of cases (I'd estimate about 80% of articles I've seen). It now occurs to me that WP:UCN should apply to these cases, which would mean the shorter title should be used in most cases. --PEJL 14:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I like PEJL's proposal. It keeps the added text to a minimum, but it clear, and covers the issue. -Freekee 04:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
To be clear, you are referring to the wording with (or the word "soundtrack" for multiple-artist soundtracks)? --PEJL 04:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
The second version. (It sounded like you wrote it as a correction for the first.) But I would change the wording to "or for the same film title," since there may be articles on different films with the same title. Not a big deal, but it's a one-word addition. -Freekee 18:29, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I was actually arguing in favor of the first version, for the reasons stated in the paragraphs before and after it. Sorry if that was unclear. --PEJL 04:41, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Concerning soundtrack albums, I consider the "(soundtrack album)" suffix to the film or TV title the best expedient; I found that the actual TV-series and/or film soundtracks and the corresponding soundtrack albums occasionally differ in Song content. At present, I have a soundtrack album article, Akireta-Deka (soundtrack album), in alpha; the actual article post is contingent upon an article Akireta-Deka about the Tōei Television crime drama series to which the soundtrack album corresponds (see also Wikipedia:Requested articles/Culture and fine arts). Template:Infobox Album is plenty flexible enough for soundtracks, e.g. the Infobox Album from Fatal Beauty (soundtrack album) (the official title of Atlantic SD 81809 being Fatal Beauty – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack): 

{{Infobox Album <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums -->
| Name        = Fatal Beauty (soundtrack album)
| Type        = soundtrack
| Artist      = various artisis
| Cover       = ATL81809Front.gif
| Released    = November 1987
| Length      = 35:30
| Label       = [[Atlantic Records|Atlantic]]
| Producer    = David Chackler, Sylvia Rhone
}}

What exceptions, if any, would be recommended? - B.C.Schmerker 07:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The Name parameter should be the name of the album, without the disambiguation suffix. --PEJL 12:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Are there articles about soundtracks that aren't about albums? -Freekee 18:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Again, I'd like to point out that I don't entirely agree with singling out soundtracks as '(soundtrack album)' when the same issue applies to non-soundtrack various artists albums. I think the better thing would be to use '(various artists album)' or something to that affect, which would apply to all various artists albums, whether they are soundtracks or not. -Joltman 11:40, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


BitTorrent

I've noticed a mini-revert war on The Weakerthans' new album Reunion Tour, regarding the inclusion or exclusion of the fact that the album has been leaked to BitTorrent as of mid-August 2007. This hasn't yet gotten to the point of being a serious revert war, but it's been added and removed a couple of times now, so we should probably clarify nonetheless: should Wikipedia articles on albums include the information that an album has been leaked to P2P networks in advance? Or should we regard that as inappropriate and unencyclopedic trivia? Bearcat 00:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

We recently added a guideline about leaks to WP:ALBUM#Dating. --PEJL 02:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
It's partly unencyclopedic, but not entirely. It's more that it's potentially libelious and generally is unable to be adequately referenced. There are times where a leak is appropriate to mention, such as when the band draws specific attention to the leak (such as here or here) because of the media attention the leak itself attracts. Generally speaking, though, in 99.9% of cases, it's unencyclopedic cruft. lincalinca 08:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
PS: That article, being a stub, is unlikely to support such a claim anyway. It's definitely cruft in that case, because there's hardly even mention of the musical style, release, reception, personnel or recording infomation. A leak is far less important than any of these things. lincalinca 08:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
For what it's worth, that guideline doesn't surprise me at all. It seemed to me that the only conceivable reason to add that information to the article would be as a "hey, it's on BT, come and get it!" flag to other users — which seems to me like something an encyclopedia shouldn't be doing anyway. Bearcat 05:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
ISTM that what we are talking about is how an album is distributed - would we say whether an album was only available in certain stores? Would we say a certain DJ will be playing the album in full on his radio show next weekend? If not, I doubt if we should mention any P2P at all. --Rodhullandemu 09:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

If reliable secondary sources—such as news or magazine articles—report that it has been leaked, then you can consider mentioning it in Wikipedia. If you yourself are reporting the fact that it was leaked—live, from your favorite BitTorrent tracker—then it's original research and does not belong in Wikipedia. Punctured Bicycle 12:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Album covers

Album covers are not allowed in discographies. Please read WP:ALBUMS#Discography for further information. I have therefore reverted your edit on The Cramps so the covers have been removed. Please do not reinstate the covers. -- JD554 08:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I won't bother with it anymore. I Wish I would have known before I did all of that work a couple of months ago. I must say that I read the link you provided, but, ironically, it appears to be in direct contradiction to the very reason stated in Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria #8 and Wikipedia:Non-free content#Images, which states "Significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding. Non-free media files are not used if they can be replaced by text that serves a similar function." Furthermore, All 10 of the non-free criteria specified at Wikipedia:Non-free_content_criteria are met with album covers; otherwise there would be zero album covers on all of Wikipedia.

Images of the album covers ARE significant, as it allows the user to quickly identify the actual recording, and if they are not, then I suggest that we start a clean-up campaign to remove them all. If text-only is good enough for a discography, then it should be good enough for an album page. Besides, I can't imagine a single record label taking exception with the use of low-res album art being published ANYWHERE, when it only serves to promote their wares. Be that as it is, I will refrain from posting any artwork for which I do not own outright from this point forward. SlimChance 03:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


Can some others please weigh-in on this? Take a look at the historical pages at The Cramps for the specific issue. SlimChance 03:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

This has been discussed numerous times in the past. See for example Talk:The Beatles discography#Problem with album covers. To try to summarize briefly, fair use images such as album covers should only be used to a very limited extent, where album covers in album infoboxes are generally acceptable, but album covers in discographies are generally not. --PEJL 04:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with PEJL that album cover art should be used in limited circumstances. As a rule of thumb, I think it's fine to use it in an article that dedicates at least a few sentences of prose to the album. Obviously, it's OK in the article about the album. It may be OK in an article about the artist or musical genre, if placed next to a section about the album. Just using it to make a list look pretty however, isn't acceptable. I started a discussion here about whether it is acceptable to use album art in a Song infobox for an unreleased single (e.g. Where Is My Mind?) I'd suggest it isn't, but please could I have others' opinions? Thanks Papa November 07:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I tend to agree that covers in discographies are more decoration than anything - a discography can easily survive IMO as a simple list or table. In album infoboxes I consider it a no-brainer. I also think they're legit in non-single song articles, as anyone who's seen my work on Bowie album track articles will know. On that subject, I note that my friend Papa November has deleted the instances of the "Heroes" album cover from its song articles and I think it's worth discussing in this forum. I'm not 100% certain if he deleted them because there wasn't a fair use rationale for its appearance in each song article or simply because he considers it unfair use no matter what - I suspect the latter! I'm not fussed from an effort point of view as all the infoboxes for the songs were copies from the first one I did, just changing the track info. However I would argue that as an intrinsic part of the album - where I think we all agree a cover is justifiable - the rationale for including the cover in a song article is similar, and I believe those song articles would be improved by reinstatement of the image. By all means the FUR on the cover image should list each song article and note that fair use is claimed for all of them, as well as for the album article. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject... Cheers, Ian Rose 08:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
You caught me red-handed, Mr Rose! I've been trying to improve the fair use status of the B-class article images such as Image:DavidBowieHeroesCover.jpg, so I've added a fair use rationale for its use in the "Heroes" article. I didn't feel I could justify its use in the songs articles such as Joe the Lion, so I removed it from those articles rather than adding a fair use rationale. The image should now have a pretty rock solid fair use claim attached to it. My feelings about song articles aren't set in stone, and if there was more of a consensus in favour of it, I'm sure we can put together fair use rationales where appropriate. My issue with use of album art in song articles is that song articles are not necessarily extensions of the album article. As an example, a song may appear on several different albums (e.g. songs recorded jointly by two artists, songs used in soundtracks, greatest hits compilations etc). In this case, would it be fair use to include every album cover in the song article? If not, which cover would be used? Songs are therefore distinguishable from the album(s) containing them and I don't think that the words "from the album..." are enough of a justification for use of the album cover art. Papa November 09:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I quite agree that song articles are not necessarily extensions of the album article, and that's a perfectly fair point about songs that appear in many albums, as even non-single (and sometimes quite obscure) tracks will pop up in compilations, soundtracks, etc. However the fact that there may be cases which are 'difficult' in that way shouldn't penalise the cases where the song was written for a studio album and the song articles are pretty clearly an extension of the album article (illustrated by the infobox with its 'From the album...' legend and the song's position in the album track list, etc). Even then there are people who will argue that we shouldn't bother with song articles at all but should just merge them into their 'parent album' articles. As you can imagine, I don't particularly subscribe to that view because I think a comprehensive album article can be long enough without an extensive discussion on each song, particularly when you consider all the cover and live version info you can go into re. individual tracks. To take "Heroes" and "Joe the Lion" for example again, the album cover - and the song infobox as a whole - serves to identify where that track originally came from at a glance, i.e. the album "Heroes". The fact it's appeared on a few compilations doesn't mean we're opening the floodgates for every man and his dog to put other album covers in the article as well. I can't remember ever seeing that in any song article I've had much to do with. If I did see it happening, I'd probably delete them myself. Cheers, Ian Rose 09:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I'd say it's appropriate to use album art in song articles, absolutely. The only thing is that song article should have a good amount of content, and be notable enough. It isn't worth violating #3a of the Non-free content criteria if the album art is used on a bunch of stubs. Besides that, good song articles should absolutely use the album art, because if it we're not for the recording sessions of that album, that song might not exist; it marks it's point of creation. A good illustration for the article. -- Reaper X 17:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Language field

Content

As I've mentioned before, there is an undocumented field "Language" in the infobox. AFAICT, it has only been discussed once, just after it was added. I think we should either document this field or remove support for it. I propose we delete it for the following reasons:

  1. It is unclear what it refers to. It could mean any of the following (all of which can be different) or a combination:
    • The language of the songs on the album (assuming they are vocal)
    • The language of the title of the album
    • Possibly the primary language of the artist
  2. Few articles use this field (279 out of 60420, which is 0.5%, see Category:Album articles with infobox field language)
  3. It is the longest label in the infobox (and still would be even if we dropped the "(s)" for consistency with other fields), which means it makes the entire label column wider than normal
  4. It is undocumented, and documenting it will require some work, deciding the meaning (see point 1) and other things. For example: Some articles use "Language=English". Should all English-language albums use that? (Probably not.) If not, then should any? (Possibly.) If so, which? And so on...

--PEJL 04:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I see it as appropriate. Not all English speaking albums on the English Wikipedia should be indicated, but a notoriously foreign language or notoriously bilingual artist (like Andrea Boccelli, Celine Dion, Ricky Martin, Shakira or Tatu) it might be appropriate to indicate, as all of these artists have multiple releases of some albums that are in English and other languages at the same articles. I propoe we simply define this term and advise that it only be used where an album is:
  • In a foreign language
  • Has multi-lingual releases
  • Is in English by an artist known for their non-English body of work.
I don't know that my terminologies here are correct, but that's how I see it working. I vote against depreciating in favour of clarifying. lincalinca 08:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Note that indicating what language an album is in can be done in the article body, it doesn't have to be done in the infobox. If done in the article body, it can be done using proper sentences, and can be done in a way that avoids the ambiguities of something like "Language: French", for example "The lyrics are entirely in French..." or "The title is a French phrase meaning...". If we are to keep the infobox field, we need a clear guideline for what it should mean and when it should be used. --PEJL 09:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I thought this parameter was a no-brainer. Well, being one of those users who actually uses this parameter I guess I should provide some input. First of all, infoboxes provide quick info at a glance, so removing the parameter just because you could place the same info within the article itself is not a good reason to remove it. Second, this parameter is wonderfully useful when researching albums by a band from a country whose first language is not English and by a band from a country whose first language is English. Third, all instances of this parameter that I have seen (and didn't edit myself) have used it for what it was intended, to state what language the vocals/lyrics are in. --Leon Sword 01:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Since you seem to feel confident in the purpose of this field, would you mind proposing a definition of it? --PEJL 02:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, I just noticed that the template documentation currently does not include a definition for this field, so yes, here is my proposed definition for it:

The Language field is to be used to identify what language or languages are used in the lyrics of the album assuming the music contains vocals. Do not forget to disambiguate and pipe link when necessary. For example, if an album's lyrics are in Swedish, disambiguate it and pipe link it to [[Swedish language|Swedish]].

So what do you think, is this definition good enough? --Leon Sword 01:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

It's a good start. We still need to decide when the field should be used. See point 4 above, and the comments by User:Lincalinca. How about something like:
The Language field should identify what language or languages are used in the lyrics of the album (assuming the music contains vocals), unless they are entirely in English by a mainly English language artist. Do not forget to disambiguate and pipe link when necessary. For example, if an album's lyrics are in English and French, you would use [[English language|English]], [[French language|French]].
This also hints at how to delimit multiple languages, where comma-delimitation seems appropriate for consistency with WP:ALBUM#Genre. --PEJL 02:18, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I thought the usage limitation might come up, and I do not think we should limit the usage of the field for the following reason. I listen and research a lot of bands from different countries and I always find it interesting/useful to know that a lot of these bands from Japan, Sweden, Finland actually write/sing their lyrics in English instead of the native language of their countries. I know that a lot of people probably assume an artist/band sings in English if nothing is stated in the article, but I don't think it hurts anyone or anything if we include a seven letter word that verifies the language. Also, commas should be used with multiple languages or with any other multiple something, however, I think we should be allowed to use line breaks if we so desire in addition to the commas. --Leon Sword 00:45, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I do think we should decide some objective criteria for when this field should be used, if we are to recommend its use. What that criteria should be is of course up for debate. If we were to recommend its use for all artists from non-English language native countries (as I assume you mean) in addition to the cases listed in my proposal, it would mean it would be used in a lot more cases. Sure, "English" is a seven-letter word, but "Language" is an eight-letter word, and more importantly together they occupy at least one additional line in the infobox, which is the main space concern. The infobox should focus on the most important facts about an album, and each possible line in the infobox should include sufficiently relevant information to warrant its existence. As you say, many readers assume the language is English in these cases. For those readers the additional line saying "Language: English" isn't that useful. Also note that the infobox is mainly meant to summarize what is stated elsewhere in the article, not to provide a place to store additional facts about an album, so if we feel it is relevant to mention the language in such cases it should primarily be mentioned in the article body. As for using line breaks instead of commas, I don't really see the point in allowing editors to choose to use either, especially given that we only use commas elsewhere. Is there a specific reason you think this should be supported? --PEJL 08:18, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Defining "non-English language native countries" is a bit tricky. Canada has both English and French as official languages--do we need to list the language for Canadian albums? And if not, then what about India, which has Hindi and English as official languages? (And also more languages overall than any other nation, even including China, I believe.) How would we distinguish the case of India from the case of Canada if we wanted to distinguish them? Also, I question the usefulness of listing, say, Spanish for a Mexican album, Portuguese for a Brazilian album or (especially) Swedish for a Swedish album. In most cases, language will be redundant to nationality. I agree with PEJL's argument that if it's not worth mentioning in the body of the artice, it's not worth mentioning in the infobox. But I don't think we've quite put our finger on when it's likely to be worth mentioning in the body of the article. Perhaps, simply, "The Language field is used to identify the language(s) of the lyrics on the album. This field should only be used if the languages are noteworthy enough to be mentioned in the body of the article." Xtifr tälk 09:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Xtifr, how can you even say that stating the language of the lyrics/vocals will be redundant to the nationality? That is serious stereotyping there. I know plenty of bands from Sweden who release most of their songs in English, I also know plenty of bands from Mexico that release several albums in English as well, I even know bands from Japan that release most of their songs in English as well, so saying language will be redundant to nationality is just wrong. Oh and PEJL, on the actual article only "English" would show up because it would be a piped link. On the bit about line breaks, commas are not used elsewhere, they seem to only be a guideline on this Wikiproject, and I'm not assuming bad faith here, but you PEJL seem to be behind that. While am at it, I would like to know why is there an Album articles with infobox field language category? What is exactly the purpose of this category? I don't see a category for "Album articles with infobox field genre" or "Album articles with infobox field label". I know there's a Album articles without covert art category that while not useful to users/visitors, is useful to editors. But I don't see the usefulness of the Album articles with infobox field language category to either users or editors. --Leon Sword 02:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

In addition, if the group is a Brazilian group, but there's no indication of this in the infobox, English-speakers may assume it's in English anyway. So unless PEJL is proposing that we add an "Artist nationality" field, I think language is a good idea in these cases. -- TimNelson 00:39, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Don't have much time to comment now, just some quick notes:
  • Leon Sword wrote: "Oh and PEJL, on the actual article only "English" would show up because it would be a piped link." Are you referring to where I said that "Language" is an eight-letter word, in response to your comment that "English" is only a seven-letter word? If so, note that the infobox says "Language: English" (technically without the colon.
  • With commas being used elsewhere I was referring to elsewhere in this infobox. Sorry if that wasn't clear. And yes, I was the one who proposed that be standardized.
  • As for why there is a category, see #Cfd:Albums without cover art. The idea was to assess how it was used before deciding whether it should be deleted.
--PEJL 04:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, I was talking about the wikilink itself not the field label that is automatically created. I really don't see the point in turning a simple guideline on the field into a overly detailed rulebook of when to use the field and when not to. It should just be optional just like every other field in the infobox. PEJL will the category be deleted after this discussion comes to a close? --Leon Sword 01:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I do see the point in clearly defining how this field should be used. It's currently used in 0.5% of all album articles. Depending on what we decide about when it should be used, it could be that it should be used in 10% of all album articles or 100% of them. That's quite a large change. Having a clear guideline will ensure consistency. As for all other fields being optional, I don't consider very many fields to be optional. Note that WP:ALBUM#Details says: Try to fill in as many of the details as you can. If some details are unknown, leave the section blank or fill it with "???" to make it obvious to other editors that the info is needed. And yes, I intend to nominate the category for deletion after this discussion is over. --PEJL 17:50, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I too believe we should clearly define how this field should be used, however I don't think we should over define when it should be used, which is what TimNelson is proposing. And yes, every other field is optional because any given editor only fills in what he can or wants to. Then any other editor can come and fill in what's missing. --Leon Sword 00:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I've added text about how to use the field, but have skipped defining when it should be used (for now). We should try to come to an agreement on when it should be used as well. --PEJL 10:54, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Layout

How about doing things the way an RFC does. Allow me to propose a sample:

The Language field MUST be used when the album:
  • Is in a non-English language, OR
  • Has multi-lingual releases, OR
  • Is in English by an artist known for their non-English body of work.
Additionally, the Language field MAY be used when:
  • The album is in English, but the artist is from a country whose major languages include non-English languages

I guess the points I'm trying to make are:

  • Have some specified as MUST, and others specified as MAY. We could also include some SHOULD items.
  • We need to specify whether the points are AND or OR

I'm not suggesting that the MUST/MAY items I've listed are the ones to use. I recommend using this section to discuss the layout (ie. MUST/MAY, AND/OR, and that sort of thing), and the section above to discuss the content.

See http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt for definition of terms

-- TimNelson 00:39, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I still disagree that we need to label all non-English albums (and you mischaracterized my comments above). In many cases, it will be quite obvious that the language is not English. I also think this is getting into instruction creep. That said, something along these lines, but a little more casual, is probably workable. Xtifr tälk 08:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The RFC 2119 meanings are more or less what I've meant when I've used these words, but I've tried to make them more casual by not uppercasing them or referring to the RFC, because I assume most readers of this guideline aren't familiar with the RFC. --PEJL 17:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Chart Ranking

I have just created my first album article (Rattlesnakes (album)), doing my best to provide information as per guidelines. I took the information on the album's charts directly from the article about the band, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. I do not know where to independently verify these figures, and they are not sourced in the original article. Is there a resource where 1980s songs can be tracked in this way? I'm sure this question has been asked before, but did not find it in a scan for the first few pages of your lengthy archive. Apologies if I'm accidentally hitting on a FAQ. :) --Moonriddengirl 20:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Deletion sorting

I have created a new deletion sorting page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Albums and songs, which emerges from discussions here and here. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:35, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Untitled hidden tracks?

I was working on Minority Rules, and came across an interesting problem. The album has four hidden tracks, with the first one being all silence and the last three being songs that don't appear to have names. Any ideas on what to do? I've searched over the net for names of the songs, but haven't found anything. As it is, I labeled the silent track silence and the other ones Untitled hidden track. I didn't use quotes for any of these, because I think quotes would only be used on a proper title. Anyone have any opinions on how to handle this? -Joltman 15:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense to me, unless and until someone can determine the actual titles. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:38, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Note that WP:ALBUM#Track listing actually has text about how to handle untitled tracks, saying that the word Untitled should be used (without quotes). This was added after a discussion here. I'd use Untitled (silence) – 1:11 and Untitled (hidden track) – 3:12. --PEJL 17:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
In the case of Minority Rules, you'll find the track names on the sleeve of the album with the credits, almost exactly like the sleeve for Double Allergic by Powderfinger, which had 4 hidden tracks. In cases where this is not presented, PEJL's suggestion is what I would agree with, or an alternative would be to simply not note a name on the silence tracks (such as track 13 issues like on Room For Squares). lincalinca 02:08, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Unless we have a good reason not to, I think the Double Allergic and Room for Squares examples should be updated to use the method in WP:ALBUM#Track listing. --PEJL 05:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Help needed for "Help" album title

No, not Help! I'm referring to Help- A Day in the Life, which — I'm hoping everyone here agrees — is a poor choice of article title. Please see my comment at Talk:Help- A Day in the Life#Bad title and reply there. - dcljr (talk) 18:39, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Project page instructions too long?

One thing I like about our Project page, as compared to other projects, is that everything is on one page. The problem is that it's getting a bit long. Half of the page is devoted to the infobox instructions. It's all transcluded, so I'm not sure how tough it is to change that. I certainly don't recommend reducing the amount of instruction at the template documentation page, but can we only transclude half the page, and cut it off at the advanced usage (and put a "see here for more info")? I'm guessing not, but does anyone have any suggestions or thoughts? -Freekee 16:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

We can do that. In fact I just did so. Comments? --PEJL 16:11, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Works for me. It seems like the information is just as easily accessible, but no longer intrusive for the masses who aren't likely to use it. (Like, say, me. :)) It never specifically bothered me, but length of page does impact readability. --Moonriddengirl 16:20, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Looks good to me too. Thanks a lot! Though I think we should include a little bit about the other things that are listed in the advanced usage sections. I'll do that later if no one else does. -Freekee 16:30, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
I just made some adjustment (very minor ones) to reduce the width of the tables as it was wrapping outside of the screen for me (and I'm not on a small screen, so I can just imagine it'd be a paid for anybody on anything from 21" and under). I edited the navbox and the to do list and it seems to have helped it a bit lincalinca 01:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

List2 update note

The list of stub-class articles with more than 2000 characters and containing "personnel" or "credits" section has been updated according to the latest database dump. Jogers (talk) 15:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Assessment

The project page used to have album-specific guidelines for how to classify articles. For example, we used to say that an article needs an infobox, personnel and track listing sections, and a paragraph of text to qualify as Start class. What happened to this text? There is now only a bare mention of assessment in the album template section (and a mention in the To Do list). Did we decide that such guidelines were no longer accurate? Or useful? There still isn't very much album-specific info on the Assessment page. What's up? -Freekee 16:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

It's been moved to /Assessment. --PEJL 16:50, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
No, it doesn't seem to have been moved there. That page has been in existence for a long time. We used to have our basic guidelines on the main project page, and then we linked to that page. I've been wanting more detailed album-specific guidelines for a long time, and now we've gotten rid of the few that we did have. -Freekee 19:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, the edit summary says it was moved. --PEJL 20:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
I put the album specific guidelines in the table here. It contains everything that was in the original list, along with all the discussed changes. Did I miss something out? Papa November 00:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Nope. I just missed it. Sorry to bother you. =8-( Though I would like to see a little more mention of assessment on the project page. -Freekee 05:19, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
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