Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 22

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Archive 15

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Archive 20

Music video releases and the album project

As was brought up here, a few days ago, WP:ALBUMS seems to have jurisdiction over music videos. I think we should get serious about it. It's either that, or pawn it off on the film project. Are you up for it?

Taking control means two things. One, project guidelines. There isn't enough room on our project page for another full set of guidelines for videos, so do we make a subpage, or make a subproject? Or even a separate project? The second thing we need to take care of is the video infobox. A discussion about that has just begun up the page, but for tidiness, I'd like to discuss it here. -Freekee 03:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Project guideline page

I think a subpage would be best. What do you think? What should be included? -Freekee 03:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I think what format we should use depends on how much text we write, and how much it intersects with our existing guidelines. --PEJL 09:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Video infobox

There are a few things regarding the template that need to be expanded, like making an "extra video cover" template. Additionally, PEJL has a proposal to merge it with the album infobox. -Freekee 03:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

To implement a "misc" option is pretty easy, which would simply allow this to be implented by a copy. Although, personally, I'm more inclined to promote the infobox merge, though. There'll end up less involved in doing that in the long run. I actually think to have the option to include both the DVD cover and CD cover when applicable in the one infobox would be great (such as could be done here or here for instance). Nice and tidy. --linca ^linca 03:35, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll prototype a merge. --PEJL 09:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

See prototype here. --PEJL 13:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The infobox has been updated and now supports the "video" type, and a "Director" field. I'll update the template documentation shortly. A simple way to merge the templates would be to change Template:Infobox music DVD to use the code at User:PEJL/Template:Infobox music DVD (which transcludes Template:Infobox Album with the corresponding parameters). --PEJL 17:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

One thing about that is that it doersn't include all of the more complex inclusions, such as longtype, compiler language and caption. These would be particularly useful for music dvd/videos since compilations are quite common, the longtype is useful to define the type of video album it is (in some cases), and dvd covers may vary based on releases, so the caption would be useful for them. With these, I believe the template would be ready for a bot to make its way through and have its way with them... um, figuratively speaking, that is. --linca linca 12:40, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The reason User:PEJL/Template:Infobox music DVD doesn't include those advanced fields is that Template:Infobox music DVD doesn't support them. To clarify, we could replace Template:Infobox music DVD with the code from User:PEJL/Template:Infobox music DVD and have the existing articles work mostly the same they do now (with the exception of the dropped fields and the changed type, as discussed below). We should then update all uses of {{Infobox music DVD}} to {{Infobox Album}} (possibly using a bot), which would allow the use of the advanced fields. Using the code from User:PEJL/Template:Infobox music DVD is not necessary, it is just a stop-gap to start using the album infobox behind the scenes until all templates have been converted. --PEJL 13:14, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha. Well, in that case, go for it! So when are we going to use "editprotected" and get this nifobox changed to incorporate the new changes to allow the full conversion? And of course, we need to draft up info that needs to be placed on the doc page too. --linca linca 13:34, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This infobox ((Template:Infobox Album) has already been updated, and so has the documentation. See above. --PEJL 14:05, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

As suggested by PEJL, I'm bringing this up here: I think we need to include other variables that produce "Video album" such as "DVD" and the like, but potentially "Blu Ray" and "HDDVD". Currently I'm not aware of any Bluray or HD for music, but it's invariably just around the corner. Right now, I'm just voting that they present exactly like the Video album would,. but potentially, it could be converted to indicate that it's a DVD based video album (or something to that effect). --linca linca 15:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

If they are to produce the same output, I see no reason to support additional type values. I'd rather move in the opposite direction, to drop support for some of the rare type aliases that we currently support (after first updating the articles that use them of course). Why would we include info on which media a video album was released on in the type when we don't do so for audio-only albums? See also #Naming below. --PEJL 16:03, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't care to see type support for formats like Blu Ray, but I would like to see the other most commonly used types supported (displaying the word "video"). Those being DVD and VHS. -Freekee 03:10, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Why? --PEJL 10:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Because people tend to use those very often. If we have those types display "video," people will catch on. Otherwise they tend to come her and make us explain why we're not going to add those types. Those two terms, in particular, transcend my prejudice against allowing format types in the infobox. "DVD" seems to have become a generic term for video products. Kind of like "album" did for audio products, many many years ago. -Freekee 03:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

OK (as long as we do it to avoid adding format-specific types rather than as a stepping-stone to adding such types). I'll add a request to treat "DVD" as "video". --PEJL 10:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I went ahead and made Template:Infobox music DVD use Template:Infobox Album, and marked Template:Infobox music DVD as deprecated. --PEJL 07:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Region

I've just modified the parameter for region encoding. I've adjusted the region page to link directly to the section of the article that uses the number. The only parameter one should use there (based on this change) is numeric from 0 to 8. Anything else will fudge it up. --linca ^linca 14:14, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The reason I didn't do that is that it seems broken by design. You don't have to look further than the example at Template:Infobox music DVD#Example to see why this doesn't work. Also, the "Region" label links to the same page, so I thought it redundant. --PEJL 15:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Why do we need Region? It only applies to DVDs, and only applies if it hasn't been released worldwide. We don't have a field for "country of origin" which would apply to any form of any release (album, EP, VHS, DVD). I don't think it's generally important enough to include, and if it is, it should probably be in the text of the article. -Freekee 23:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[...] As to region inclusion, it's an important thing to include because all DVDs are affected by this, and the majority of music video compilations are DVDs, which are region encoded. I do have a small few music DVDs (about 10) that are region free, but the majority (about 150) of my music DVDs are region 1 or 4, while the rest (about 30) are a mixture. To me, this is something that is important to note when applicable, and would be silly to try and work into prose every time. --linca ^linca 11:02, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

And none of those DVDs have been released in other regions? It would be better not to mention the region issue at all than to say that a DVD only works in a certain region if it in fact exists in different versions for different regions (misinformation). Also, these region codes only apply to DVDs, while the infobox should be able to be used for video album releases in other formats (Betamax/VHS/DVD/Blu-ray/HD DVD/...) and for releases in multiple formats. At least Blu-ray seems to also have region coding, with a completely different set of regions (see Blu-ray Disc#Region codes). VHS cassettes don't have region coding but have a comparable issue with NTSC/PAL/SECAM/MESECAM. Should we be including that info in the infobox as well? If we are to include the DVD region, we need to make it possible to specify more than one region, so I think we should drop the automatic linking of the value. (As I mentioned before, the label already links to the same article.) --PEJL 14:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

My point was that it was seldom applicable, and in cases where it is, it's important enough to discuss. For example, if a video was only released in the UK, it might be worth saying so (and this example is regardless of regions). But if I'm wrong, and it's fairly common for videos not to be released in many parts of the world, then it's still not worth including in the infobox. -Freekee 02:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've dropped "Region". --PEJL 09:38, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Naming

Another issue is the question of what to call these releases. "DVD" seems inappropriate for the same reasons as CD. "Music video" is ambiguous. I chose "Video album". That term is mentioned twice in the article on music videos and is consistent with some of our other album types. What do you think? --PEJL 16:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I like "Video album". It's explicit without being jargon. [...] --linca ^linca 11:02, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

"Video album" sounds good to me, but does anyone else have any other suggestions? Video album seems to fit well when the release includes both video and audio discs. There are concert films, and collections of short music videos. Are there any other kinds? Will we differentiate these live videos from the compilations with colors? -Freekee 02:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

My thinking was that video albums are rare enough to not need further type differentiation. Using different type colors but the same type name seems confusing and contrary to our existing type scheme. Using different type names requires coming up with appropriate type names. --PEJL 09:38, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Fine with me -Freekee 14:42, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Rating

I think we should consider dropping "Rating" as well, as Template:Infobox Film has no such field. See also the talk archives at for example Template talk:Infobox Film#Ratings. --PEJL 09:38, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Ratings don't really apply to music videos, do they? -Freekee 14:42, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

So, no objections to dropping "Rating"? --PEJL 16:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I think we'd be going against precedent -Freekee 05:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, can you clarify? Would including it be against precedent or would dropping it be against precedent? --PEJL 05:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Please drop it. -Freekee 13:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. --PEJL 15:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Thx -Freekee 02:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Video album

It just occurred to me when setting up the template for the discography (that I mentioned further down the page) that we don't have an article for Video albums, even though we're using it as the definition in this template. I'm pretty sure it's an important thing for us to create. I wouldn't know where to start (I like to work on improving articles or starting smaller ones, not starting things of that magnitude: it's rather daunting). --linca linca 10:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I made Template:Infobox Album/link link to music video, because that article covers concert films as well. --PEJL 10:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Sort of. I read through the article, and it doesn't really capture them, and treats video albums as a kind of second rate thing, compared to music videos (just by the prose). I think it's important to split out what (little) information is already there and create a new article that comprehensively covers the topic, rather than skimming it as this article does. --linca linca 12:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Converting from film infobox

Quite a few video albums use {{Infobox Film}}. I think we should tag these with {{newinfobox|type=album}}. --PEJL 11:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed -Freekee 03:39, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation

The video albums currently use varying disambiguation ("DVD", "video", artist, "VHS" and possibly others). I think we should just use "album", since we're now referring to these as video albums, and since that is what we do for all other (non-EP) albums (see WP:ALBUM#Naming). --PEJL 17:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer "video," since that's not only more common, but many videos share titles with albums. -Freekee 02:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, but that means adding another exception to WP:ALBUM#Naming. --PEJL 05:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Thinking more about this, I'm not sure I'm satisfied with using "video". We already have a way to deal with multiple albums with the same name by the same artist in WP:ALBUM#Naming. "video" isn't really that common either. Of the 607 pages that transclude Template:Infobox music DVD, 15 disambiguate using "video", 7 using "VHS", 7 using "album", 1 using "film", 17 using just the artist name and 73 using "DVD". (The fact that relatively few use "album" and relatively many use "DVD" should be in the light of the fact that the template previously referred to these as DVDs and not as video albums.) "video" also doesn't seem like a good choice for music video collections, as it is singular. Using "video" would make the guideline more complex, by adding yet another exception, which unlike the exception for "EP" doesn't seem necessary. So I'd favor "album". --PEJL 19:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

As for the Naming section, we're going to have to add rules about videos anyway, even if it's only to say to use the same rules for videos, so I don't have a problem with adding another rule about videos.

I'm not sure what you mean about "video" being a singular term. First of all, I thought it was a collective term. As in, "some video." The singular usage is a recent invention, and only become acceptable by common usage. But I don't know what that has to do with it. A three-disc set is still a video album. -Freekee 03:37, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I mean that it could be argued that it should be "(videos)" for music video collections, because of the ambiguity of the term "video" in this context. --PEJL 05:47, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

But they're not albums - who even calls them 'video albums' in real life? If you look at amg they're listed as 'DVDs and videos', but when you click on any of the titles their type is given as just 'video', which seems sensible. It's not really our place to invent nomenclature, so I say we follow that. Fl owerparty^☀ 04:43, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

That sounds more like an objection to using the term "video album" in the first place. See above for a discussion about the naming. The proposal to using "album" to disambiguate is predicated on using "video album". --PEJL 05:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Alright then, I object to using 'video album'. Either way, using 'album' as the disambiguator seems absurd. Even the figures you quoted above suggest 'video' is a more popular choice. Fl owerparty^☀ 05:54, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't seem absurd to disambiguate using "album" if we refer to these as video albums. If we don't refer to these as video albums or any other type of albums then I agree that "video" is probably the best choice. (When viewing the figures you should note that these are figures for Template:Infobox music DVD, which had no mention of albums anywhere, and that "DVD" is by far the most common disambiguator. If we had been using Template:Infobox Album all along, and that infobox had referred to these as "albums", I would assume that a large portion of the 73 disambiguations currently using "DVD" would have used "album" instead.) --PEJL 13:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Nobody calls video music releases "albums." Nobody goes to Netflix to rent albums, nobody says, "hey, let's watch an album." Nobody pops an album into the DVD or VHS player. But notice "video" fits in those sentences nicely. So I don't think "album" would have been a common disambiguator in any case. And I don't favor it at all. I think the only reason to DAB by the term album, or call them that in the infobox, is that someday there will be no audio-only releases. -Freekee 03:37, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll expand WP:ALBUM#Naming to say to use "(video)" for video albums in a few days, if there are no objections by then. --PEJL 05:47, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. --PEJL 21:46, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Thanks. -Freekee 04:00, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

RA

I did some cleanup on Wikipedia:Requested articles/music/Albums. It should be more user-friendly now for anyone itching to make articles. Chubbles 15:15, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Samples & Influences

I've recently been working on a few albums that contain heavy use of ~~copyright piracy~~ samples; also some where samples from the album have been notably used elsewhere. There appears to be no standard for documenting this. The format I've adopted thus far can be seen here and I'm wondering whether this is an acceptable approach. The reason I ask is that I'd rather get it right now, when it can be changed with little effort, before it gets out of hand. --Rodhullandemu (talk - contribs) 23:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Track names should be in double quotes, not italicized, boldfaced or in single quotes, per WP:ALBUM#Formatting and WP:MOSBOLD#Boldface. Headings should use sentence case, per WP:MOSHEAD#Capitalization. --PEJL 00:04, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

That formatting looks best. 69.143.236.33 07:45, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

What does "that" refer to? --PEJL 08:14, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

NEW DISCUSSION!!!

Imparative discussion here.--Monnitewars ^(talk) 04:48, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

For the benefit of others I'll note that that discussion hardly seems imperative for that album article, let alone for this project. --PEJL 09:52, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Naming: concerning disambiguation

The example as given is:

Down to Earth (Rainbow album) and Down to Earth (Ozzy Osbourne album).

My question is, why not?

Down to Earth (Rainbow) and Down to Earth (Ozzy Osbourne).

My reasoning is that the word album should only be used when there is one album that needs disambiguating from some other entity. Once there is more than one album & the disambiguation is done by band/singer the word album is surely redundant. If someone is looking for an article about an album, Down to Earth, & gets a choice between, Down to Earth (Rainbow) and Down to Earth (Ozzy Osbourne) I don't think they would need further explanation. Anyway there would be an album subsection on the Down to Earth disambiguation page & the explanatory sentence would say "1984 album by blah-blah".

Dyaimz 21:53, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

The practice of using "album" is consistent with other naming conventions for related topics (such as "band" and "song") and general disambiguation conventions (see WP:DAB#Specific topic). --PEJL 22:33, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I know this is how it's been done in most cases, but the link you supplied doesn't back it up. One line in particular:

"If there is a choice between disambiguating with a generic class or with a context, choose whichever is simpler..."

seems to favour my suggestion. & of course I would apply this idea to bands & songs too (though I would be surprised if you find many bands with this problem). I just wanted to see if there was a better reason than that's how we've always done it. Dyaimz 01:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me (using your example) that what you're looking at is disambiguating the disambiguation. There are also two films named "Down to Earth". They're disambigged with Down to Earth (1947 film) and Down to Earth (2001 film). While these could be disambiguated by years only, the usage as it is provides immediate context. Still using "Down to Earth", we'd have Down to Earth (Stevie Wonder) and Down to Earth (Monie Love). As it is now, Down to Earth (Stevie Wonder album) and Down to Earth (Monie Love song) makes it apparent from a simple scan down the disambiguation page what each entry is about. I think that's helpful. When you put "Down to Earth Stevie Wonder" in the search engine, the album is the first thing returned anyway, so I'm not sure that I see any long-term benefit from changing standard usage to eliminate "album". --Moonriddengirl 02:28, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess you're right about the wording at WP:DAB. (I skimmed it and misinterpreted it, and have since clarified the wording here.) Still, always using a class is common practice for albums/songs/bands/films/... If you wish to change naming conventions in general, a better forum might be WT:NC. As for bands, I have four bands in my list which use "(nationality band)" disambiguators. --PEJL 09:19, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Before you added "either" you could argue for having the context as well as the class, but now you would have to choose.

Is the purpose of disambiguation to "provide immediate context"? The guidelines appear to say no. Otherwise every album article would have (album) at the end. I take your point about the films but the year is a blunt instrument to be disambiguating with. I mean if albums are disambigged by artiste then why not director or leading actor for films, but this obviously is a topic for WT:NC. I did wonder about starting this discussion there so I left a link to this paragraph in case anyone was interested.

I guess it just bugs me to have a redundant word in the disambiguation. Take the pure page for example. There are 7 albums listed. If all the words album moved from the page titles to the explanatory sentences nothing would be lost in either disambiguation or user understanding. (BTW on the pure page there are 2 films disambigged by country rather than year.)

As for bands, the same point applies. Why not The Spinners (UK) and The Spinners (US) (although why one article isn't called Detroit Spinners, especially as that's what it says on the album illustrating the article, beats me!) Dyaimz 03:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

"either": The clarification I was going for was that it shouldn't be read as an implied "both". I see now there was already an "or" between the list items, so I've reverted the change.

Pure: I think this is a good example of the advantages of using "album", "band", "film" and so on. I can tell roughly what each entry is about just by looking at the links, even if I don't know all of the artists. Note also that lots of albums have title tracks, which may have articles. --PEJL 10:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Real names vs stage names

I noticed it hasn't been stated in WP:ALBUM. If a person is mentioned in the track listing or the personnel sections, are we supposed to use his/her real name or stage name? Eg. Norman Cook or Fatboy Slim? RaNdOm26 11:34, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

In my experience the real name is most often used. This has the advantage that it works well with our practice of only including the last name on subsequent mentions in the track listing. --PEJL 11:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Plus, it generally will tie in with the artist's article page (unless it's someone like snoop dogg, sting or whoever) because mostly, stage names are not as prolific as the actual name. My feeling would actually be to go with whatever's on the album sleeve. For instance, Keb' Mo' is credited on all of his albums for his songwriting as Kevin Moore (in his case, you need to pipe or dab, since kevin moore links to the guy who used to be in Dream Theater). --linca linca 03:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

In personnel sections, use the name as it appears on the album. A second choice would be to list it however it is most often found here at Wikipedia (in other words, how would you link it to their article?). I also recommend using the name as it's found on the record for track listings. They usually use the person's real name, since it's a question of authorship, which is often used for paying royalties. -Freekee 05:13, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Is there a standardized format for track lists?

Is there a standardized format for track lists? I've seen multiple formats, especially two:

Islands - track titles in quotes, dash, track length
Velvet Darkness They Fear - the same as above, but no quotes

I assume the former is to be used? Or are there any formats I don't know of? --MiSP 19:13, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes there is, see WP:ALBUM#Track listing. Quotes should be used. --PEJL 20:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Discographies

With the increasing amount of discographies being created on Wikipedia, it's been suggested we have a more definitive guideline for how discography pages should be made to look. As this kind of bridges Mustard and Albums, and I'm more a resident here than there, I want to start by bringing it up here. WP:ALBUM#Discography is very vague, to begin with. It even states there are no guidelines for dicsographies, and this leaves the can open for the worms to play, if you ask me.

I think we need to identify how we want discography articles to look (maybe by looking at some FLs or other good discographies) and design a basic framework around that. Recently I've been trying to get Powderfinger discography promoted to FL (which is where this discussion arose from) and for that I designed an infobox that could be used which utilises the colours of the existing album articles to differentiate and link to the appropriate parts of the article. I also constructed the chart/listing tables with a trimline that also acknowledges the colours as appropriate and believe this page exemplifies the framework I would encourage, though I'm putting it out there to both identify what we want discographies to look like as a whole, and then to implement that.

I will note that I'm aware of {{Infobox Discography}}, but that's not really appropriate in most pages as it doesn't allow proper listings and frankly, it makes things more difficult rather than easier to maintain. Plus, it's not actually an infobox, in the general sense, as it's more of an information template, but not a top-right box.

I don't really know where to start, but as I said, I'm pretty sure the Powderfinger discography is on the level we need it to be (in all ways I can see). --linca linca 04:56, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

<not especially helpful comment>Wow. Nice!</not especially helpful comment>. It seems like a standard for discography articles is a good idea, and it seems like WP:P A would be the natural home for it, though I'm sure some others might disagree. As I'm not even remotely technologically savvy, I'll ask how difficult such tables are to utilize. If you want to create a basic standard, you want to be sure that it's something I any editor can do. :) Can the implementation of such tables be easily explained in a "Discography article" guideline? --Moonriddengirl 11:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

If we greenlight it, the tables could be made into a sort of a template, removing the need for complex table manipulation, which means that anybody will be able to throw these together (although, it would be incredibly esoteric and possibly difficult to put together in the first place, but once it works, and it ain't broke... well, you know what I mean). The Infobox at the top of the article is ~~very~~ kind of simple to make into a template infobox for duplication. When you say WP:P or WP:PA, which one do you mean? P is portals (and I'm not sure how that's relevant, but think through a maze it could be) and PA is about having no personal attacks (and that, to me, seems even less relevant). Am I missing something? (P.S. I'm not here to advertise the FLC, but if you like the list, or have reservations garnering your opposition, you can vote for its candidacy). --linca linca 12:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry. I meant "PA" as shorthand for Project Albums. :) In other words, I suspect that this is a good home for it. I've not been involved in evaluating articles for feature or even GA, so I'm not really familiar with the process, but I'll take a look at it. --Moonriddengirl 12:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense now. Yeah, I thought this would be the appropriate place. it somewhat skims Singles and Mustard as well, but this seems to take the lion's share of what goes into discogs. --linca linca 12:57, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

That Powderfinger list looks kinda ridiculous - what's the point of using the different colours exactly? The structure of the list should make them unnecessary, surely? Fl owerparty^☀ 12:36, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

"The structure of the list should make them unnecessary, surely?" What do you mean by this? That if we better constructed the list, it'd be unnecessary? If you note, in this case, the colour is used only as a trim on the listings themselves, and used rather extensively in the infobox (though, not a great deal more than the existing album articles).

As to the point of using the colours, it's the same as why people use blue for water in a map and green for grass: it's a consistent point of association. As we've created colours in WP:ALBUMS, I've used that same point of association to be consistent with the existing criteria, as it'd be both confusing and superfluous to try and think up my own set of colours. --linca linca 12:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, yeah, on second glance I think the list just needs reordering slightly. The main LP's are bunched together, and the singles are bunched together - fine. But everything else is just lumped under 'Other albums', be they Ep's, greatest hits, 'video single', or whatever. I'd suggest splitting off the videos (they're not albums, are they? Presumably they don't qualify for any album charts anywhere?) and separating the EP's from whatever's left. Plus 2 of the items are colour-coded twice, which seems to make a mockery of the whole colouring system - shouldn't the categories be mutually exclusive. Apart from that section it's a pretty solid list. (Should I be making this point at the FLC? Mah, y'get the idea.)

As for the colours as mnemonic aid thing, I understand the principle I'm just not convinced of its usefulness. (I think I had a brief whinge about this back in the 'background = orange' days, but no-one seemed to agree with me so I got bored of the argument and went off to sulk elsewhere.) Let's at least be honest: these colours are nothing like the blue on a map, which after all has some relation to external reality. These were dreamt up purely by a bunch of overattentive editors here (and it's tempting to think they were only thought of so people would have something to bicker about) - where else do you see a colour-code system telling you whether you're looking at a 'best of' album or a collection of TV theme tunes? I doubt the majority of casual readers even realise that a colour-code system exists, let alone make any sense of it or benefit from it in any way. (Though at least with this Powderfinger list the colours' meanings are explained up front - I'll give you that. Everywhere else it seems you're just left to work it out on your own, until you happen to stumble across this project.) Basically I think the invention of the colouring system, for what good it does, really takes the encyclopedia beyond its remit to report the world as it is already perceived. And to canonize this arbitrary colour classification by basing whole articles upon it seems kind of self-indulgent. I'm not saying the colours are useless, I just think they're lazy and introspective on our part, and will lead to horrifically badly organised lists as people abandon structure in favour of these confusing rainbow-patterns, which will actually make the encyclopedia less user friendly - presumably the opposite of their intention. So, er, yeah, we should just organise our information properly and then we wouldn't have to go into the matter. Fl owerparty^☀ 18:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm fine with using the album type colors in some way, for example as done at the Powderfinger discography, but dislike the inappropriate bolding, the extensive center-aligning and the alternating row colors. I think we should base a standard on the standard wikitable layout. --PEJL 18:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

New Artist discography template

Ok, so I got to work on the template I (with the others of WP:FING) created and I've converted it into a completely transclusive template. There are now some slight variations on how it was when I originally put it together, but it's basically achieving the same result. Does anybody believe this ought to be looked at as potentially being places on the project page here? PEJL? Freekee? Jogers? It's located at {{Infobox Artist Discography}} and can be found in action here, here, here and here. --linca linca 02:14, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

(My comment above was about the discography article in general, not just the infobox.) A few thoughts on the infobox: As I noted above, reusing the colors from the album infobox in some way seems fine. However, just using them in the infobox and not in the rest of the discography article doesn't help readers not already familiar with the colors. If they are to be used in the rest of the discography article, they need to be use subtly (more subtly than in the infobox), which I don't think they are in the examples listed above. The infobox itself more or less acts as a replacement to the table of contents that also exists in these articles. In some cases they match more closely, making the inclusion of both a little redundant, and in others they differ more, which is potentially confusing. Given this redundancy, the actual amount of information in the infobox is relatively sparse. Perhaps we should consider changing the infobox into a template which replaces the table of contents, to avoid both the redundancy and the discrepancy. (Having a right-aligned infobox will likely cause interference with tables on articles with shorter introductions anyway.) --PEJL 11:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The argument given (that I don't really agree with, but conceded the point) on the FLC for the Powderfinger discography was that using the colours as a key was confusing causing people to "have to" memorise the key in order to see the purpose of the colour. I kind of understand it, but don't agree (if you follow). I'd be happy to maintain a continuous flow-on incorporating teh colours throughout the article, but was fought and conceded as it was basically wearing me thin trying to defend my original design. I suppose if I work on another discography (and I have one in mind) and worked towards a sort of framework we draft up here, with the support and consensus of this project, we could sanction it as a guideline?

Oh, I had one question too, sicne (if you look at, for instance, the Fall Out Boy discography), the music videos as the numeric selection of "Video releases", however, my original intent was for this to mirror our use, whereby referring to video albums/music DVDs. Could we (and maybe in conjunction with WP:SINGLES as this is kind of up their alley) decide on a colour for music video representation, so that I can split (and therefore differentiate) music videos from video albums. I'd suggest using a colour like this green since we don't have a colour like it (compilations is the closest and it's quite a different green). What do you think? (see the two colours side byside). Anyway, the colour's not the important thing; the decision to implement one is. Thoughts? --linca linca 13:30, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

See #Naming above about differentiating video albums further. The dark green has too little contrast against the link colors, see blue and (assuming you've visited the project page recently) purple. --PEJL 14:15, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Again, it was a late night thought of the colour. The actualy colour doesn't matter (as long as it's compliant etc), but the decision to implement one for Music videos needs to be made. Again, I'm not talking about differentiating between video albums from, say, music video compilations to concert videos, I'm talking about putting a wedge between those and the actual video clips themselves, i.e. individual song videos. So, these are what I'm trying to categorise and colourise. Terminology would be easy, because the moment you have both "music videos" and "video albums" within the same list, it's easier (I believe) for the reader to tell what the difference is. What about this colour? The links work in this colour too. Of course, we could simply refer to the list of colours and try something that's as simple and equally contrasting to the existing colours as possible. --linca linca 02:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, "MistyRose" could work, since it's a "named" colour. Its rgb is #FFE4E1 and it looks like this. Thoughts? --linca linca 02:43, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I thought you were talking about video albums. WP:SONG seems a more appropriate forum for individual music videos. As for the colors, we're no longer limited to named colors. MightyRose looks a little too close to peachpuff. The other pink looks fine, and works well against blue and purple. --PEJL 08:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, yeah, I am, but I'm talking about setting them apart, in the same way we set apart albums from singles. Anyway, I'm bringing it up there now. *moments pass* here's the discussion over at WP:SONG. --linca linca 10:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Peak chart position

Many articles contain a table of peak chart positions, often in the infobox, but these rarely have sources provided. Editors often change these values, also without providing a source. Is there a good reason why these numbers should not just be removed entirely, if they are not sourced? Gimmetrow 16:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Peak chart positions are usually not attributed inline, but are sourced through the AMG link in most infoboxes, since AMG includes tabs for Billboard albums & singles. See this one, for instance. I myself prefer inline citations, but the template for AMG seems to suggest that most of the time the AMG link should not be duplicated. (Sometimes I do it anyway, if I think the claim is extraordinary and especially if I'm quoting text.) Personally, I'd be very happy to go inline with that myself. :) --Moonriddengirl 16:59, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll also add that I think a lot of editors do not understand the links are there in the infobox. Yesterday, an article I was actively working on was tagged unreferenced (in spite of the inuse label) notwithstanding that link. --Moonriddengirl 17:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I have never seen an album article with peak chart positions in the infobox. Perhaps you are thinking of single articles? --PEJL 17:57, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. :) I meant the sourcing was in the infobox, not the positions, in connection to the linked review. --Moonriddengirl 18:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The infobox shouldn't include any inline citations. Everything in the infobox is supposed to be there to provide a consolidated version of what appears throughout the page and as such, the other locations throughout the article should be indicating this information (in this case, in a charts section and if a charts section isn't included in the article, it shouldn't really be in the infobox). This is mostly my preference, but also appears (from my time as an editor) to be a general consensus in wiki. --linca linca 23:32, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Apparently I'm not explaining myself very well today. :) I'm not suggesting that the charts section is in the infobox. I'm saying that the reference to All Music—which is the source for the charting information in the article and often much of the other information as well—is in the infobox, as indicated in Template:Allmusicguide/doc and WP:ALBUM#Professional_reviews. Take London Calling, for example—only one of the items under London_Calling#Critics.27_praise is sourced in a usual way, because the sources for all of the other claims are in the infobox. Ditto, say The Wall. The RIAA claim in the opening paragraph gets a footnote, but the charting information there and further down in the article does not. It has no reference in the footnotes, because its source is AMG, which is in the infobox. Many editors unfamiliar with the Albums project might expect it to be in a "references" section or under "external links" the way it is in most articles. --Moonriddengirl 00:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

So are you referring to people incorrectly using piped external links instead of an inline reference citation? --linca linca 03:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The context here is that I recently noticed changes to chart numbers at "Waiting for Tonight". I figured this didn't go up in the charts recently. There were no links to any sources on the page. Is there a good reason to keep info not verifiable to allmusic, everyhit (UK), mediatraffic.de, or another source explicitly listed in the article? Gimmetrow 04:30, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, every chart listed should be referenced. That article's well constructed to be honest, but it lacks references, and the charts are unreferenced, at a glance. I know it'd look ugly, but I'd {{fact}} tag every one of them until verifiable references can be provided. I don't think we should be relying upon AMG charts, by the way. They're user-edited, not based on soundscan or anything of a "reliable" nature. Otherwise, I could list my album on there, state it had a #1 hit somewhere and use that as a reference. That'd be kinda cool. Sorry, tangent. --linca linca 04:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for providing context, Gimmetrow, as the conversation was growing fairly confusing. :) I think changes of that nature should be immediately challenged if not sourced. The Billboard standing has reference, but the other material doesn't seem to. I would probably drop a {{refimprove}} tag on the section instead of dotting the whole thing with fact tags, though. :) And I agree that All Music information needs to be used carefully, but it's not completely unreliable. The charting information comes directly from Billboard. See Yellow Submarine, for instance. It's also valuable when using the review or overview to note who wrote it in determining how trustworthy it is. The review of that one is by Richie Unterberger, for instance, who is pretty reliable. As a sometimes contributor to AMG, I know that information is vetted...if not perfectly. :) I've been trying to get them to correct the song information on Puscifer for some time, but no matter how much information I supply, nobody's listening. :P Sometimes when I submit a correction, it goes right through. Strange and mysterious are the ways. --Moonriddengirl 13:00, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Is a Times Online review worth including?

An user has added a Times Online review to the infobox of the latest Radiohead album. As the source of the review is not listed on our "professional reviews" list, I wonder whether we should leave it or get rid of it. The review in itself is nothing extraordinary, and sounds more like a blog post rather than a professional analysis of the album IMO. I've tried removing it once but it's been re-added by the same user. I'd like your opinion on this matter before I go any further. --Emc² • contact me 13:44, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

i'd consider it a pretty kosher professional review, what with Times Online basically just being the web arm of the Times, which is most definitely a reputable source. When superceded by a print review (which for a Radiohead album there will certainly be) it could probably be dropped for reasons of space/superfluity, tho. cheers, tomasz. 13:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:ALBUM#Review sites is not intended to be an exclusive list. The criteria for review sites are at the first paragraph at WP:ALBUM#Professional reviews. --PEJL 17:54, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Album covers in band articles, yet again

I thought some of you might be interested in this discussion; how many, if any, album covers can or should be included in band articles within the constraints of our fair use policy? --John 05:16, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Maintenance backlog

Just wanted to note that we've got quite a backlog on a number of different gnoming jobs. I've been working on assessing articles and have probably done a couple of hundred (give or take a few dozen), but as of October 11th, we had 33,666 articles to be assessed. (Wow!) If you find yourself on Wikipedia with nothing to do, this might be a good use of time. :) --Moonriddengirl 12:27, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Yay! I've been busily assessing albums for about a week now, and we've gone from 33,666 articles to assess to...<drumroll, please>...33,737! Yay! Help? :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe just get someone with bot access to do it, since you'll be there forever. They can set a parameter that if it has the subheader "track listing" and a # in the next 30 characters, the article is within a certain size, it gets labelled as a stub, if it has personnel, it's a start class, and so on and so forth. Jogers? You seem o-fay with that sort of stuff. --linca linca 02:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Make Type=single generate peachpuff

If someone changes for example an EP into a single, they may think they can do this by simply changing the type in an album infobox to single, rather than changing it into {{Infobox Single}}. This works a little too well, since it gets the correct yellow background color. I propose we make Type=single generate a peachpuff color and add the article to Category:Non-standard album infoboxes and Category:Needs single infobox conversion, so that these articles can be converted. Any objections? --PEJL 10:58, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

sounds good to me. tomasz. 15:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I've done so in the sandbox, which will hopefully be applied soon. --PEJL 17:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. --PEJL 10:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we should have changed it to display "you're using teh wrong infobox" as the type. -Freekee 02:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe even make it an obnoxious colour?--linca linca 03:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

In general I agree, but in this case lots of such articles currently exist, and breaking those will mostly hurt readers, not editors. --PEJL 10:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Can we get a bot to post on the editor's page that they need to fix the parameter? Can a bot be made that quick and intuitive? --linca linca 02:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

For a minute, I thought that was a great idea. But even if it could be done (which I doubt), it's probably not a good idea. I wonder if users who monitor the category mentioned above, could place a notice on usertalk pages? -Freekee 03:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

can i get an admin?

for a prod. thanks, tomasz. 15:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

and again. thanks, guys. tomasz. 22:43, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
me again. i hope my doing this isn't really annoying anyone. thanks. tomasz. 22:26, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Not really, but what's he rush? Fl owerparty^☀ 22:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

uncat albums

Here's another batch of Category:uncategorised albums. If anyone gets an urge to start on an analogous uncat-songs or such like, just give me the word. Alai 03:47, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

These are pretty much cleared for now, thanks to all the other people who've been clearing it too. If you maybe want to run another bot search or something...? Cheers, tomasz. 19:39, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I can only do this so often, as I'm working from the highly-intermittent db dumps. (Though it might be possible if I adapt this to use the toolserver, now that has up-to-date data again, which should be fairly straightforward.) I'll trawl some sub-cats for now. A further issue is whether to do anything similar with undercategorised articles. (Most obviously, those with only a year-of-release category.) If people want to work on those too, I could 'bot them into the same cleanup cat, or else to a separate one. Alai 19:42, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I would probably be into the undercategorized articles. A related task is that you could populate Category:Albums without a by-year category which has been empty for many moons. --Fisherjs 20:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

So what do we do with this? Category:1993 albums or Catgory:1993 videos?

Also, could we rename this category to Category:Album articles without a by-year category? "Album articles..." seems like a better name for these maintenance categories, with precedence at Category:Album articles without cover art and Category:Album articles needing attention. --PEJL 00:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Why not cat as both, for articles that are otherwise categorised as both "albums" and "videos"? I could skip tagging articles that have any sort of by-year category, if people would prefer. Well, I could do so next time, at least. I've no objection to such a rename, though I suggest that it also waits until after the current batch are taken care of. Alai 00:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

The uncat-albums are essentially done, again, though the without-by-years seem to be lingering a little. Should I hold off further on the with-only-by-years, or press on regardless? Alai (talk) 02:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Standardizing audio samples

I'd like to standardize the audio samples that exist in many album (and song) articles. There are three main options of including such samples currently in use:

There are infobox sections ({{Audiosample}} and {{Extra musicsample}} and possibly others).
There are non-infobox sample sections ({{multi-listen start}} and possibly others, see Category:Audio templates).
There are samples in track listings, using varying formatting (example).

The first question is whether we want all of these options to be used, or if we want to recommend only one or two of them. Once that is decided, I'd like to standardize options 1 and 3 (if these remain) by merging templates and standardizing formatting. So, opinions? --PEJL 15:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with standardising the formatting, though I do see the merit of having the second format, as it allows a box, much like having a framed image, to be used to implement samples throughout the article, instead of just in the tracklisting or in the infobox. Sometimes it's appropriate to directly address the subject in its context. I think all three are essential for their different purposes, though of course never all three on the one page (two at the most, contextually speaking). --linca linca 03:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree that option two has the advantage that the samples can be placed anywhere in the article, but do we need both option one and three? Option three could be useful if there are more samples than fit comfortably in the infobox, but I would assume that including that many samples would violate our fair use guidelines anyway. --PEJL 10:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

My feelings about the three options are:

Infobox sections are great for singles/songs, but a poor choice for albums. The infobox would be too long if two or more samples were included. If standardised, it may also encourage the addition of samples for every track on the album, which would be hard to justify as fair use.
I prefer ({{multi-listen start}} inside a {{sample box start}} for album articles. The author should place the sample box next to a section of commentary about a song, which strengthens the fair use claim.
I completely oppose the use of samples in track listings. It's ugly, and the use of non-free media in lists is forbidden. It encourages the addition of a sample for every track, regardless of whether commentary is given.

In summary, I think the best option for WP:ALBUM is number 2. I think the {{multi-listen start}} and {{sample box start}} templates could be merged, and a set of guidelines drawn up to encourage good fair use rationales. I've made a draft here, based on my own preferences - feel free to completely change it. Hopefully, we can get a good consensus on this and add it to the project page! Papa November 19:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. I've made some adjustments to the draft. --PEJL 22:43, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

For use in song articles, it's valid to places samples either in the article text or in the infobox. If the sample is used to explain some specific sound in the song, such as the opening chord to A Hard Day's Night (song)#Opening chord, then placing the link to the sample in the flow of the narrative makes sense. On the other hand, if the sample supports multiple multiple aspects of the song that are addressed in the article, then placing the sample in the infobox makes more sense. So, for song articles, I support using {{Extra musicsample}} in the infobox and/or using other templates within the body. I am not opposed to standardizing the templates that are intended to be used in either location, but two templates may or may not be enough, and some templates are used in articles that are not about music. For those and other reasons, there should be well-published discussions before any changes are made. John Cardinal 15:04, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Where is the "draft" mentioned by PEJL in "I've made some adjustments to the draft."??? John Cardinal 15:07, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Technically song articles are out of scope for this project. Please take that topic to WT:SONG. The draft is linked above, but here it is again. --PEJL 16:10, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

You directed me here based on a discussion on a song article's talk page, and that's why I commented about songs. Thanks for the link to the draft. I didn't see the original in the comment by Papa November, possibly because he linked the word "here" rather than the word "draft" itself. John Cardinal 18:26, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

(after reading draft) I think the fair use discussion should be reduced; fair use is covered elsewhere and editors shouldn't have to look multiple places to find it. More importantly, editors shouldn't have to mentally merge fair use guidelines from multiple articles in order to determine whether their intended use is valid.

The example markup appears to violate one of the points made in the article: it's a list of samples. Clearly, it could comply, given article text to the left that justifies the multiple samples, but it may be a better idea to have a single-sample example.

I think restricting the format to float-right boxes for samples is overly restrictive for no good reason. Sometimes, a floating box on the right will float away from the associated text because of other float-right content. Why not let editors decide whether float-left or float-right works in a given article? John Cardinal 18:36, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Oops I made a mistake above; you directed me here from a discussion about {{Extra track listing}}, not a song article. I was thinking about that template as used in song articles and that's where I've used {{Extra musicsample}}. John Cardinal 18:51, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

The fair use discussion in the draft seems very much adapted to album articles. IMO reducing it and referring instead to the general fair use guidelines would make this less clear, and not be of benefit to the editors reading it.

The samples used in the draft appear to be in the public domain, so the requirements don't apply to them. The draft says that samples may not be used to illustrate lists, not that lists of samples are may not be used (given the requirements in the draft).

As for the alignment, a compromise might be to allow both left-aligned and right-aligned boxes, but say that right-aligned are preferred. That's more or less what WP:MOS#Images recommends for images, and it seems sensible to apply that to audio samples as well. --PEJL 15:18, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Question about quotation marks for articles about songs/singles

I didn't get a response at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (titles), so I'll try here. At the beginning of an article, should the quotation marks around a song title be in bold ("Song Title"), or just the song title itself, with the quotation marks not in bold ("Song Title"). I've been putting the quotation marks in bold, but I've seen it done the other way as well. Eco84 | Talk 19:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The quotation marks should not be in boldface, per WP:MOS#Quotation marks. I've expanded WP:SONG#Formatting to explain this. --PEJL 20:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

EPs in the infobox

EPs fall under the jurisdiction of this project because they are collections of songs just like albums are. But since they're collections of songs, shouldn't they use the same colors that albums use, in the infobox? EPs can be live or studio recordings or even compilations, just like full-length albums. I think showing whether the recording is studio or live is far more informative than showing the length. Do we really need to keep up this separation? -Freekee 03:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the colors are secondary to the type displayed in the infobox. What would we display in the infobox for studio/live/compilation EPs? "EP", "Live EP" and "Compilation EP"? --PEJL 12:09, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I would maintain the distinction because if you go into a CD store, most places have seingles and albums separated, but have interdispersed EPs throughout the store because they don't know how to differentiate them. Different countries chart EPs in the singles chart, others in the albums chart, I may be wrong, but I understand that there's at least one country that actually has an EP chart, separate from Singles (SPs) and Albums (LPs). For these reasons, I believe it should maintain distinct from LPs. Though I do believe many should indicate if an EP is a live one, a compilation one or a purpose-recorded EP (as I believe most would be, until later in successful careers... whoops, a bit of OR there). --linca linca 13:11, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I intended it to still be called "EP," but use the album colors. I didn't quite think it through, I guess, since this would require a new field in the template for album vs. EP, so we could maintain the proper color and title. Since I don't have a bot to change all the existing infoboxes, I won't push for this change. I wonder how long it would take to change 60,000 articles... -Freekee 00:59, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I still think the type displayed is more important than the color. The colors are only useful once readers have learned what the colors mean, by recognizing a pattern. The pattern is made less clear if "EP" can have different colors, as opposed to just one color. So if we wish to distinguish live EPs from studio EPs, we should do so using the type displayed as well as the color. If we were to do this, we wouldn't need a new field, we could just use new values for the existing "Type" field (such as "live ep"). --PEJL 09:24, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand whatall you're saying. "The type displayed" meaning the word album or EP, and the color is almost incidental? To me, the color pattern is clear - lightsteelblue for studio records, and that brown color for live records. At this time, I have to read the article to determine if an EP is live, studio or comp (and if it doesn't say, I have to assume a studio recording). I would prefer different colors, or even words in the type line ("Live EP by artist"). And adding new supported types would do this. Keeping the pinkish color for EPs would still be an improvement over what we have now, and IMO, changing the colors to match the album colors would be better still. -Freekee 04:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm saying that if we are to distinguish studio/live/compilation EPs using different colors, we should also distinguish them using the type phrase (currently "EP by artist"), just like we do with "Studio album by artist", "Live album by artist" and "Compilation album by artist". Colors are only useful to readers who know what they mean, while the type phrase is useful to all readers. This would also be consistent with how we treat albums, and help readers learn what the colors mean. We could introduce "studio ep", "live ep" and "compilation ep" as valid types, and keep supporting "ep" for compatibility with existing articles. --PEJL 09:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. -Freekee 15:03, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Waves hi!

Doesn't seem like there are a whole lot of people hanging around here lately. What's up, people? Anybody lurking? -Freekee 04:13, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

As always! I'm just pottering around wondering what I can add to my current little projects, but I'm always interested in the goings on around here. --linca linca 08:00, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

holla! i'm gnoming about, trying to clear AlexNewArtBot's album lists, uncategorised albums, and whatnot. tomasz. 09:40, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I am! I'm still working on assessing album articles. I'm also creating a couple here and there and today have spent quite a bit of time contributing to music related AfDs. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:38, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Keep up the good work! I must admit that despite my posts here, I haven't been very active. -Freekee 04:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Image purge

There are currently about 1,300 'fair use' album cover images under dispute at this point. Assistance in adding the appropriate fair use rationale would be greatly appreciated! The list of the album cover images can be found here User:Jogers/List6. Thanks! SkierRMH 19:31, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll have a look at it. I'll work from the bottom up, if you want, to make sure we don't tread on one another's toes? --linca linca 01:38, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

— on a related topic, anyone know what the Template:album cover article rationale template is? i saw it somewhere and have added it to a couple of images, but i noticed it wasn't in the Fair Use rationales category or mentioned in the Jogers instructions, etc. is it ok to use? tomasz. 02:47, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me. I didn't know there was a template for that. I've been pasting that same text in, often with minor alterations. -Freekee 04:32, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

It ought to be fine. It's mentioned on the project page at WP:ALBUMS#Cover. :) I use it all the time. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:10, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Yea, I just whipped that up based off of the usual FU rationales I saw around a long time ago. I've only had it rejected once, and since then I updated it to try and go with the guidelines at WP:NONFREE. -- Reaper X 04:17, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

There's also Template:Album cover fur, which is a bit more customisable if you want it. Papa November 10:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Song section preferred format

I'm trying to make Songs sections for albums where there's too much info to intersperse with track lists, but not enough for decent stub articles. I couldn't find a recommended format, but maybe I didn't look hard enough. Here's what I ended up doing:

One of These Nights#Songs – song title in Level 2 headings
Mob Rules (album)#Songs – as definition list

Which of the above are preferable? Is there a guideline for this that I've missed? / edg ☺ ★ 15:06, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

First of all the track names should be in quotes in both formats. A minor issue is that the quotation marks shouldn't be bold (per WP:MOS#Quotation marks and now WP:SONG#Formatting), but we may want to make an exception in this case, since there isn't any easy way to unbold them. "Tracks" or "Track information" might be a better name for the section (for consistency with "Track listing", and because tracks aren't always vocal). --PEJL 17:31, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Kind of a weird situation

Still-untitled record was created earlier today. I originally tagged it as a speedy, but there may be notable musicians involved, so I removed the speedy. The odd thing is it's referred to as a forthcoming album for a band whose article was deleted, Cavalera Conspiracy, but whose members all have wikipedia pages. I'm kind of at a loss for how to proceed. Obviously, if the article is to stay, there need to be sources, a different title, wikifying, the whole nine yards. Any help greatly appreciated. Tromboneguy0186 01:55, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

The Cavalera Conspiracy article was deleted on grounds of copyright infringement (Speedy, no less), if that helps. I would guess that there ought to be such an article, and then an album by that band would deserve to exist. An article about a future album, however, is a different question. And even if it does stay, it needs a little work, like a {{future album}} tag, and a proper name. -Freekee 03:45, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Possible Infobox Glitch

I've began noticing this something strange about the soundtrack infoboxes. There's large amount of spacing the column name and their corresponding info. Example: Yu-Gi-OH! Duel Monsters: DUEL VOCAL BEST!!. Is it just me or has someone messed with the infobox formating? Sarujo 18:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any problem. Can you make a screenshot and let us know what web browser you are using? --PEJL 19:10, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Make a screenshot? Like this? Well, I'm using Internet Explorer. Sarujo 04:17, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I have found the problem. Apparently our template breaks when an album name (or likely any infobox field) includes a double exclamation point. See Template:Infobox Album/testcases#Known problems. I've added a workaround to the album article in question, and will try to find a fix for the template. --PEJL 18:44, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

To fix this problem in the template we probably need to convert it to use HTML rather than wikicode. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 132#Template escaping issue. I'm going to prototype such a conversion, to see if this can be done while keeping the template maintainable. --PEJL 20:06, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I've done so in the sandbox. It looks quite maintainable to me. Any objections to applying this? --PEJL 15:10, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but what?

You let somebody like Piero Scaruffi in, but not George Starostin? What's the deal? 76.200.180.229 03:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

We let anybody in. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anybody can edit. But we do kick out people who mess up the articles. -Freekee 04:36, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Formatting question

Hi. My question is about the personnel section on Chinese Democracy. What should be used? This or how it is now. Funeral 22:18, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

You mean whether to use real section headings or to fake them using bold text? If sub-sections are to be used, then real section headings should be used, per WP:MOS#Section headings and WP:MOSBOLD#Boldface. --PEJL 22:33, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for expanded personnel section

I'd like to expand this:

A personnel section should be included under a primary heading "Personnel" and should generally be formatted as an unordered list of names and instruments, delimited by en dashes (see track listing section). Instruments should be written in lowercase, and linked on the first occurrence only. Remember to pipe the links if needed, for example "percussion" to percussion instrument and "keyboard" to keyboard instrument.

to this:

A personnel section should be included under a primary heading "Personnel" and should generally be formatted as an unordered list of names and forms of participation, with en dashes between the two (see track listing section). The names should always be linked if an article exists. The forms of participation (for example instruments) should be written in lowercase, delimited by commas, and linked on the first occurrence only. Remember to pipe the links if needed, for example "percussion" to percussion instrument and "keyboard" to keyboard instrument.

Note the change to recommend always linking the names, which means doing so even if it has been linked earlier in the article. My reasoning is that readers looking for a link to personnel articles in an album article will primarily look in the personnel section. See also Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (links)#Overlinking and primary links. Any objections? --PEJL 22:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I think repeating links for names in this section is a good idea. Could we use a list of common dab links for instruments? Vocals → Singer, Drums → Drum kit, Strings → Arrangement (maybe), others I'm not recalling now. / edg ☺ ★ 23:31, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Use how? --PEJL 23:48, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I guess I'm thinking there could be a chart listing recommended articles for common roles given in pop and jazz album credits, so we can have some consistency in linking (and won't have to remember it all). Might be better as a sub-page. Example:

instrument	common link	alternate link
vocals	[[Singer\|Vocals]]
bass	[[Bass guitar\|bass]]	[[Double bass\|bass]]
drums	[[Drum kit\|drums]]
percussion	[[Percussion instrument\|percussion]]
keyboard	[[Keyboard instrument\|keyboard]]
strings	[[Arrangement\|strings]]	[[Orchestration\|strings]]

I'm sure more stuff gets dab'ed, but those come to mind. / edg ☺ ★ 00:45, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

If so, a sub-page seems appropriate. Is this more warranted for instruments than for for example genres? (I'd show these in lowercase instead, like [[bass guitar|bass]], to make it clearer that these are not proper nouns and shouldn't be capitalized.) --PEJL 12:57, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how much the need is with genres, as I don't like to get involved with those. If this were a subpage, there's be no reason not to have sections for both, but musician roles in particular seem to be named differently in liner notes (probably our main source for this info) than the corresponding Wikipedia articles. Lowercase is probably fine. / edg ☺ ★ 20:57, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Done (the original proposal only). --PEJL 21:35, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Lists

What happened to this article? An overly cascading list of stuffs-from different version of album's tracklisting to singles chronology. It's not a standard way of writing an article about an album I think. --BandB ^{(talk•contribs)} 08:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

CfR notification

I've nominated some maintenance categories for renaming (skipping Category:Albums without a by-year category for now per #uncat albums):

Category:Needs album infobox	→ Category:Album articles needing infoboxes
Category:Needs album infobox conversion	→ Category:Album articles needing infobox conversion
Category:Non-standard album infoboxes	→ Category:Album articles with non-standard infoboxes

You are encouraged to join the discussion on the Categories for Discussion page. --PEJL 13:29, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Instructions for Editing a Template?

It would be nice if this page explained how to edit a template (or pointed to a page where you can learn how to edit templates). In the template I'm concerned with, the name of the band is not listed in its entirety. How can go in and change the template so the name appeard correctly? And suppose I want the template to be used for live as well as studio albums? How do I fix that? Griot 21:50, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Which template? The main template for this project is {{Infobox Album}}, which has instructions on how to edit it. --PEJL 22:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I want to change the info inside the template on this page. Instead of "Studio album," I want it to say "Album." Instead of "Mink DeVille," I want it to say "Willy DeVille/Mink DeVille." Instead of "Mink DeVille chronology" I want it to say "Willy DeVille\Mink DeVille chronology." Somewhere, somehow on wikipedia, someone created this template to say what it says. How do I go to the Mink DeVille template and change it? Griot 22:26, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Never mind! Figured it out. My bad. Apologies to all. Griot 22:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Main page

Hi there, I'm sorry if this has been discussed before, but I've just been reading through the article page, and while there's a lot of useful information, it's very long and lot of different topics are lumped together. Wouldn't it be better to at least split the MoS stuff onto a separate subpage? -- DatRoot 22:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Personally I find the fact that everything (except for advanced infobox fields and existing subpages) is on one page convenient, but I can imagine some might feel the opposite. I don't think "the MoS stuff" is a very well defined subset. If we were to split the page (and I'm not saying we should), perhaps not transcluding the infobox documentation might be a better option. --PEJL 16:19, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I kind of like it being all in one page as well. When I need to find out how another wikiproject handles something, I sometimes find myself wading through a whole series of subpages. :) If we do divide it, I think we need to do so with a very clear structure so that it doesn't become too confusing to newbies. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:23, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey guys, I don't want to appear be telling you how to organise your WikiProject, I just wanted to bring up my thoughts as a newbie, and it just seemed odd to me to have everything slapped together on the front page. Of course I'd be prepared to help with changes if you wanted them, but if you prefer things the way they are, then that's fine.

I'm certainly not suggesting creating a dozen subpages either. So what I was thinking, specifically, is to put the sections: Style, Infobox, Article body, Categories, and Discography, into a separate "Article style guide" sub page, and yes, I think I'd be tempted to remove the {{Infobox Album/doc}} transclusion, and just provide a summary with a copy of the code and a link to the full documentation.

I think I'd also put the Review sites section into its own page as well, leaving all your other sections: the todo list, participation list etc. on the main page (like most other WikiProjects I think). Of course all the sub pages would be clearly linked etc. from the main page, I know how difficult it is to find information on WP as much as the next person. -- DatRoot 22:06, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I like everything on the one page, as well. We recently reduced the infobox transclusion by about half, to keep it more reasonable. Looking at it again just now, I think it is pretty reasonably lengthed. I like that the infobox section is differently colored, so it's easy to skip of you're skimming down the page. -Freekee 02:28, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

CFD

Didn't we just have a discussion about Category:Album articles without cover art? It's up for "discussion." -Freekee 02:35, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we did, back in August. I've noted this at the CfD, because the commenters seemed to think that this category could be applied to talk pages, which it can't for technical reasons. --PEJL 15:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Technically if we were fans of having a bot update every article it's shown on, then it could be put onto the talk page, but it's too much hassle trying to write the code for the bot to follow, especially since it's completely unnecessary. --linca linca 12:35, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's basically the conclusion I came to at the previous CfD. There is a suggestion at the current CfD to use a bot-maintained list, which sounds workable. --PEJL (talk) 20:23, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be consensus for deletion in my opinion. Bot-maintained list doesn't seem workable at all because it would require loading tens of thousands articles on a regular basis. Jogers (talk) 10:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Coding help with artist discog template

Hey Guys! I'm trying to fix {{Infobox Artist Discography}} in the graphical sense, but can't seem to figure out how. What I'm trying to do is make sure the rows all appear as the same heigh, but every so often, the lines get blown out in size (see some of the articles that links there to see what I'm talking about). Anybody know how this can be fixed, retaining the knockout function (i.e. the way that it doesn't show unnecessary lines). --linca linca 12:44, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Albums by artist categories

From the main page guidelines - Previous discussions have formed the consensus that a category for an artist's albums should be created even if they have only released one album. Can someone provide a link to where this consensus was made? Thanks. Lugnuts (talk) 10:35, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

That guideline has been on the main page for as long as I've been on Wikipedia, so it could be a while finding out. Maybe try to find when it was added to the page. Can I ask what's wrong with this being in place? --linca linca 13:36, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi - there's nothing wrong with it, infact the reverse! I was just wondering where the discussion(s) were for it. Thanks. Lugnuts (talk) 13:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, fair enough. Well, yeah, I'd be inclined to believe you're looking between mid 2004-late 2005, but can't really be much more specific without doing the scouring of the history myself. --linca linca 14:02, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I was trying to get some background on the consensus to create a similar one for films by director at WP:FILM. Thanks again! Lugnuts (talk) 14:33, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Personnel

I was wondering if someone could help me. I want to add a personnel section to Spirit (Leona Lewis album) but what should I do in a situation where credits for a particular song say "all instruments by..."? Your help on this matter is appreciated, thank you. ^anemone|_projectors 12:23, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd probably word it just as so. One thing about that article, I think you need to break the production/tracks section down into subsections. It's a very long section without any refrain. But yeah, just list "All instruments on "Love Shack" performed by L. Shack" or something like that. When it comes down to it, it's up to you. --linca linca 12:39, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

PS: Is it just me, or is that album cover uncannily alike to As I Am by Alicia Keys, which only came out the other day? Interesting. --linca linca 12:40, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. What subsections could you suggest? It was in three sections before, "Produciton", "Style" and "Tracks" but it was a bit all over the place so I merged all three. As for the album covers, I saw a website a while back that compared the album covers of Spirit, As I Am and Delta to Mariah Carey and another Carey album (can't remember which). So it's interesting that you would say that. ^anemone|_projectors 13:08, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I forgot about Delta (which is a feat considering how much time I spend in music shops, and all of them being in Delta's hometown of the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne). I think those titles are fine, other than "tracks" (yuck), but you're right, going through the history, it was a bit of a duplicious shamble. I'd suggest getting to the barebones facts, figuring out what's production, style and probably prefacing that with a "background" section (in which you could go into some songwriting information that details the songs included; generally, I avoid the word "track" unless I'm specifically referring to the sequencing on the CD or vinyl; I think it sounds horrid to refer to a song as a track, we're not talking about horseraces). --linca linca 13:32, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

It was hard enough getting it in the shape its in now! I can't do any more... but I will change "track" to "song". I'm working on the personnel section now. ^anemone|_projectors 14:05, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I haven't added any production personnel. I suppose I should do that too! Reading notes is hard sometimes, though. ^anemone|_projectors 14:27, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Consistency of professional reviews

There's a similar debate going on about University rankings, and the same applies totally towards albums. It seems people only add review links which are either as high as they can find, or as low as they can find. This just makes the whole section a moot and non-objective exercise, and unless there's some establishing of which review sites to include, I think professional reviews should be removed (after all, we don't have them for films or books or TV shows - why music?). Surely I can't be the first person to raise this point? --Joewithajay (talk) 01:33, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

You're right, but the project consensus has been to keep them every time the discussion has been raised. A few things I should mention as to why. Firstly, I'll address your concern of the fact that the others don't include the reviews. You're right. But there are so many film reviewers out there, every man and his dog does it. With TV shows, it's the opposite. Album reviews are somewhere in between, meaning that generally they're of a healthier grade. That's how I see it. Now secondly, you're also right in saying that some list the high reviews, others the low to defame. That's the nature of Wikipedia, not just here. You mention that it's a non-objective exercise. I should point out that music appreciation is also a non-objective exercise. This also applies to all of the arts, but we're discussing albums here. As music appreciation is subjective, it's an objective requirement to indicate an items/article's subjectivity. Therein lies the reason we provide reviews. These reviews broaden the information by giving an element of human perspecive, something that cannot be objectively discerned with things of a creative or artistic nature. Another small reason they're useful is to provide additional referencing resources, though this is secondary to the other reasons. --linca linca 02:31, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

The application of reviews can be subject to WP:NPOV violations, but editors are supposed to strive for balance. If they don't, I think that's more of a problem with the editors than with the system in this particular case. Given that music is a creative exercise, reviews seem wholly appropriate to me. I wonder why they aren't used for films, books, or TV shows. Universities, I would imagine, could do without them. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:19, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not doubting that music is subjective, of course it is. But Wikipedia tries not to be - and while I understand the value of additing reviews, it sometimes makes the article unrealistic. We could still capture the human element by simply deciding which reviewers to include - such as All Music Guide and Rolling Stone or whatever the consensus is. This way it would make more logical sense to the reader, instead of flicking through the albums by a band and finding that each article lists reviews by totally different publications. But unless a consensus can be reached, I think it's just a waste of space in the article to let people battle over what flavour of review to post. This can't just be a problem with individual articles, because there's no fair way of doing it in any article - it's all personal taste. --Joewithajay (talk) 16:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is, of course, a list of potential professional review locations, though it is not restrictive. It's a pretty big list. Do you propose making it restrictive? Adding/removing? How would you determine which reviewers to include and which to exclude? What would you do about the musical genres that are not heavily represented in the typical sources, like jazz? (I do a lot with the old jazz guys, and finding anything on them is a challenge. :)) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:22, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't say I've noticed that people select reviews based on their ratings. In my experience, the problem is more that people tend to link every review they can find as a substitute for actually writing the article. Take this mess, for example: 21 reviews listed and not a 'Critical reception' section in sight. The other common situation is that AMG is linked but nothing else. It's not that these reviews shouldn't be listed, but plonking them in a big block in the box at the top of the article is messy; they should be forming the backbone of the references section. And the way we currently list them favours online sources over printed ones. The best thing, I think, would be to remove the reviews section from the main infobox (and maybe list them in a separate box to be placed alongside a 'reception' section?). This seems consistent with the recent removal of the chart positions section from the single infobox [1] Anyone with me? Fl owerparty^☀ 20:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Since we added the rule about limiting the number of reviews in the infobox to ten, a number of articles have been converted to adhere to this rule. Applying the current guideline should be the primary solution. If we were to remove the reviews from the infobox, moving the reviews as-is into a separate section would probably be the easiest solution (and bot-scriptable). --PEJL (talk) 22:15, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Huh? There's a guideline to only list 10 reviews? But shouldn't we be encouraging editors to use as many sources as necessary? This project has way too many guidelines. To be honest, I'd rather we just ditch the list of reviews as it currently is: that Rolling Stone gave Sgt Pepper 5 stars, or that Christgau gave it an A, tells me bugger all on its own, and otherwise the list just serves as an indiscriminate collection of links (which I'm sure we're not supposed to do). But either way, I don't think the infobox is the best place to put them. Fl owerparty^☀ 23:18, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

The reviews in the infobox is not merely a link farm, since it does include info. If the reviews were used to construct the "critical reception" section, and used merely as references for the text, that would be different. In other words, using reviews as cited sources is different that using them to populate a list. -Freekee (talk) 05:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Just to point out, if we restricted the reviews to the select few places that review, it excludes some albums that may not receive much coverage or those who're niche (i.e. an indie-zydeco-ska group with an oboist as its leader would possibly get a recording, because there's a gap in the marketplace for such a group and their album may be notable enough for Wikipedia, but if Rolling Stone, AMG, New York Times and Robert Christgau don't review it, does that mean that those places that did review it should not be listed because our sacred few didn't make the cut? This is exactly where WP:IAR applies. --linca linca 06:58, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:MUSIC guideline proposal

There is a conversation underway (ha! I amuse myself :)) to resolve the WP:MUSIC policy on songs. Current prevalent view subsequent to a now dormant discussion at village pump is to merge the song guideline with the album guideline with some recommended text changes. The conversation, such as it is, is here. I believe that this section, tagged as "under discussion", has been hanging around without discussion or resolution long enough and hope that you will help me settle it there one way or another. As it stands, nobody knows whether it has authority or not. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:28, 18 November 2007 (UTC)