Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 34

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WPArkansas Bot can help you!

Hey I just wanted to drop a note here for an fyi. WPArkansas Bot has been approved to help tag any WikiProject, so I would like to know if this WikiProject would like it to help tag yours. It does 2 tasks: First it scans a stub category that is relevant to the project (in this case Category:Album stubs) and makes sure that each article is added to the project and assessed as a stub; then it scans the unassessed articles (in this case Category:Unassessed Album articles) and automatically assesses the article based on the highest rating given to the article by another project (if there isn't a rating, it skips that article). I think it would be a great help for this project, so please leave a message at my talk page if you would like me to run it on your project. Happy Holidays, -Coffee // have a cup // ark // 16:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Implementation of consensus on album reviews

Since we've reached consensus and closed the original discussion, we should begin implementing the changes in a timely manner. Here's what I think would be our best course of action: We should first update WP:Album with the new guidelines we've agreed to. Essentially, the guidelines should say that reviews should be put in the new template, which should be placed in the prose section on critical reception. If there is no prose section, one should be created to hold the template, and the {{Arprose}} template should be placed there to encourage prose.

The fastest and most efficient method of moving the reviews would be to use a bot to move them from the infobox to the new template, but we're going to need someone with some programming knowledge to create the bot first. Such a bot would have to move everything in the reviews field of the infobox to the critical reception section. An example edit would be this. For those articles that only have bare links for the reviews, I think it would be best to change those into references by hand. A large portion of album articles have already been updated with the full references, so changing the rest by hand would not be an overly tedious task and can be done over time.

In the meantime, I'm thinking we could start moving the reviews manually on the highest quality articles, mainly FAs, making sure to cite the new style guidelines at WP:Album. This way, we could be sure that the implementation would go smoothly and not cause a huge backlash from other editors before implementing the change across all album articles. Once all the album articles have been updated, we can get the professional reviews field in {{Infobox album}} deactivated.

I've noticed that two or three of the high quality articles have already been updated with no new opposition popping up. If no one objects in the next day or two, we can begin making the changes to the rest of the FAs and go from there. Timmeh 02:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Read the comments I left in the previous discussion section about issues with infoboxes. There are still issues to be considered, chief among them 1. Is the review infobox appropriate given Help:Infobox? And 2. Infoboxes aren't mandatory in the first place. WesleyDodds (talk) 03:38, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Also, the template needs serious work before it can be implemented. For example, I checked out Californication (album), which has had the template added. Putting aside that it was inserted without any regard to page aesthetics, I see a section filled with "Awards". Uh, those aren't awards. The Grammys and BRITs are awards. Those are rankings on critical lists/fan polls/author personal rankings. To classify them as awards would be incorrect and disingenuous. Also, is there is any clear crtieria for what should be included? Is the issue I brought up at the start of this whole thing about reviews without star rankings or numbers going to be addressed (and was one of the main reasons for removing reviews from the album infobox in the first place)? Is there a limit to the amount of material that should be included? I say either hold off on the whole endeavor for now, or move the infobox reviews to the talk page to let the editors decide what to do with them while informing them about the album infobox consensus as well as the fact that a review template is in the works that they can use, while also making sure to fix any cites that are used more than once in the article. Forcing this through isn't the best solution at the moment. WesleyDodds (talk) 09:56, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
You're right. I don't like the way the "awards" section of the template is formatted or even that it exists. I would support removing it, and we'll only start implementing the template once we get a consensus to implement it a certain way. It seems everyone's busy with other things right now, so we'll just have to wait until we get some more input. Timmeh 16:32, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
You can change the subtitle to read something like "Accolades" (which I think is what section that information came from before anyway) if "Awards" doesn't seem to fit. The section was left over from the VG reviews template, and at the time using the same template seemed like an efficient way of presenting them, as opposed to a separate "Accolades" section. This of course will vary on an article-to-article basis.
I agree that perhaps more work needs to be done on the template before its widespread use, but I still don't think it is a good idea to completely remove the graphical reception information that a template like that or the infobox provides. While the prose is where the meat of the information is, I still think that a template would add at least some usefulness to the section. —Akrabbimtalk 21:05, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
I'd suggest limiting the infobox only to reviews with ratings systems. Leave out any accolades for now and keep it simple and concise so it's a more effective graphic. WesleyDodds (talk) 00:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
That's a good idea. At first I was thinking that it would be nice to have them all together in one place, but I guess it just makes it too long. I'll move the accolades sections back into the table that they were in before and remove the awards fields from the template. —Akrabbimtalk 21:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Wait, now you want to keep reviews in the infobox? (I'm sorry, I misunderstood you yesterday and read "infobox" as "reviews template") What made you change your mind? You seem to be the only one opposing this change at this point now. —Akrabbimtalk 14:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
I think WesleyDodds is using "infobox" to refer to {{Album ratings}}, which is why I don't think his argument that Help:Infobox rules the template inappropriate applies. As that page says, "An infobox is a fixed-format table designed to be added to the top right-hand corner of articles to consistently present a summary of some unifying aspect that the articles share and to improve navigation to other interrelated articles." That's not what we're dealing with here: We're discussing a template for displaying certain raw data within the body of the article itself, similar to {{Tracklist}} or {{VGtitle}}. These are templates for specialized tables, they're not infoboxes. Infoboxes are an at-a-glance article summary placed at the start of the article. Hence Help:Infobox doesn't really apply to what we're discussing. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Templates aren't necessary or mandatory either, the two most notable examples being the citation and tracklisting templates. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:53, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Initially, Wesley was fine with removing them from the infobox, but was against having a template in the reviews section, so he was just removing the {{Album ratings}} template after I moved the reviews from the infpbox. Well, this diff has him completely reverting one of my edits, putting them back in the original infobox, so I'm not exactly sure where he stands now. —Akrabbimtalk 18:57, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Simple: it's best to institute changes once we figure out exactly what we're going to do. It's more productive that way. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:53, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe Wesley is still of the opinion that the reviews should not be shown in a table at all. I'm not quite sure why he put them back into the infobox; it may be because he wants to wait for more input before any changes are made. I think, though, that our original consensus was definitely against not showing the reviews at all, which would therefore require a mandatory presence of the album reviews template and make another discussion unnecessary. I believe we can begin implementation of the template (without the "awards" section) per our previous consensus, as long as the template looks satisfactory to everyone. Timmeh 21:16, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

That's true, but because of the extent and quality of his work in this project, I don't really want to simply disregard his opinion as against consensus. There is more discussion needed to satisfy his arguments, which I think are well-founded dissents. At this point, I would say that the template does improve the quality of most articles. However, when you have an article like In Utero with a very strong reception section, I don't know at what point we should be okay with taking it out under the rationale of it "not adding anything the the prose". Maybe there is a point where it would detract from it, which I think Wesley believes it does, but I don't really see it that way. Granted, I haven't put as much work into those sections as some, but that's just my impression. —Akrabbimtalk 21:41, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
You're right, and I don't think we should disregard his opinion, but consensus is clearly against him. I also think the template would be helpful to every article, no matter how well-written or badly written the prose in the reception section is. It's not like the template is going to hurt the articles in any way. Timmeh 21:51, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
"I also think the template would be helpful to every article, no matter how well-written or badly written the prose in the reception section is". The more I think about it, the more I disagree. I don't think it's helpful at all. The template is inherently flawed in that it favors review scores over the actual prose (which is the main thrust of the publication in the first place). Not to mention many reviews don't use a scoring system at all. As such, it cannot provide a balanced overview of critical reception--you automatically disqualify a large portion of reviews, past and present, from inclusion. And if you try to include reviews without ratings, then you run into the totally subjective "favorable"/"somewhat favorable"/etc. terminology we've been using in the infobox. And that just won't fly under original research guidelines. Another problem I've realized: it assumes that the reader can glean helpful information from a showcase of such ratings. Say you have a reader who likes music but doesn't read music reviews (there are a lot of these sort of people). Say you have a table with three out of five stars, an 8 out of ten rating, and an A- grade. What does that tell the reader about the album's reception? Precious little, really, for removed from the critical context (where the writer explains his or her rationale behind the rating) you have inconsistent scales of numbers, letters, and symbols that leave it up to the reader to determine how the album was received instead of finding a secondary source to say "the album was well-received by critics" (which is what should be done). And then there's the issue that the template is really designed to tell you about the reviews, not the album itself. Now, I was more inclined to accept an optional review infoxbox/template/what-have-you recently, but the more I've thought about it the more problematic it demonstrates itself to be. It seems we all got distracted by not wanting to make review links disappear from the infobox in articles that hadn't gotten round to incorporating them in prose that by floating the review template idea we ended up overlooking the other problems with reviews in infobox/table format.
Now, I probably won't change a lot of minds, but this really is an issue that still needs to be discussed for more and more reasons that come to light. And let's not forget: consensus can change. We shouldn't be afraid to change our minds; I'm not. I used to really like reviews in the infobox, but once I thought about them critically I realized they had to go. Now, if there's going to be a rating infobox, we need to make sure all the issues are ironed out before we start putting it into thousands of articles. If we can address these concerns, then we have something good to work with and hopefuly it can be something we can all get behind. If not, then we need to consider scrapping it. Either way, it's best not to jump headfirst into trying to overhaul an ungodly amount of articles when all the kinks haven't been worked out, for the simple reason that it'll make more work down the line. WesleyDodds (talk) 12:20, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree that some issues should be hammered out before widespread implementation, especially if there's a bot writer getting involved. Very frustrating to complete something and then go back and fix it because people change their minds. But I think the template is like a chart. You can have a presentation without a chart, and it does fine. You can have a well labeled chart, and it works fine. But they each work best when put together. The prose and template should both be encouraged. As for the favorable/unfavorable distinction, which is a subjective assessment of something subjective, I would generally avoid it. On the other hand, I also would keep major awards in the template (which would also need to be decided- maybe only Grammys and the international versions of grammys. Still another discussion) Whether or not a template is really necessary, not having one removes precious sourced information, which is a bad idea, especially for album articles, which frequently have very little sourcing to begin with. But there are definitely still a lot of details that need to be addressed.136.181.195.10 (talk) 19:12, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

". . . which would therefore require a mandatory presence of the album reviews template". No, it wouldn't. The logical step would be to cite the reviews in the prose (which most decent articles do anyway) or--better yet--find a source that has covered the album in-depth (such as a book or article) that can summarize the critical reception, so you wouldn't have to cite ten reviews (this is not as hard as it seems; there are entire series of books devoted to researching albums in-depth). In fact, citing reviews isn't necessary for album articles; documentation of critical reception is. These are two different things; the former is merely an aspect of the latter.WesleyDodds (talk) 12:32, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems that most editors who've participated in the discussion feel that the reviews should be removed from the infobox. At the same time, it also seems that most editors feel that the links to the reviews should be moved to a different part of the article, so as not to remove important, reliable, third party references from thousands of articles -- references that in many cases are the only ones in the article. So I think that the discussion should now focus on where in the article to move the links to the reviews to. If to a template, what should the template look like exactly? If not to a template, then where should they go? In short, I am reiterating what I stated in the earlier talk page section above -- I feel very strongly that the links to the reviews should stay somewhere in the articles so as to preserve the references. — Mudwater (Talk) 02:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
A new template has already been created to house the reviews with their citations. See {{Album ratings}}. I think it looks alright, but the issue we currently have is whether or not such a template should be required in each article. Timmeh 03:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The issue now seems to be how to preserve referenced reviews that are currently in the infobox but may not be in a critical reception section. Like WesleyDodds, I'm not in favour of removing the reviews from the infobox and putting them into another template in a critical reception section - it simply moves the unnecessary summation and doesn't add the prose to the article that should be there. However, I can also see that it wouldn't be good to lose cited information. A possible solution may be to have a bot (I don't know if this is technically possible) look at the urls of the reviews in an infobox and see if the citations have been used in a critical reception section. If any have then we don't need to worry about those particular ones, but if any haven't then we could put them in a temporary template like {{Album ratings}} which has a note that they should be added as prose as soon as possible, perhaps with a maintenance category so this WikiProject can monitor which articles need work. One possible problem I can see with this, I'm sure there may be more, is how to deal with reviews from reviews which aren't available online. Thinking out loud: perhaps another maintenance category so these could be given a priority? --JD554 (talk) 08:53, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I haven't mentioned it because I'm not sure if a bot could do it, but when reviews are removed to the album infobox, they could be placed on the article talk page to allow editors to figure out what to do with them. I like JD554's suggestion better, but it's still another idea to consider, mainly because it gives editors a freer hand to work the citations into the article in the way they think is best. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:42, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I would be strongly opposed to moving the reviews to the talk pages. It's another variation on the idea of taking them out of the articles and hoping that editors manually re-add them. As I've said several times already, that would be a huge disservice to both readers and editors. The reviews are not just star ratings or "favorable" tags, they're references, and we're talking about a huge number of articles. — Mudwater (Talk) 12:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
"The reviews are not just star ratings or 'favorable' tags". In infobox format they are. To be truly worthwhile, they need to be quoted. Also, keep in mind many album pages haven't switched over to the inline cite format for infobox reviews, even though that's the guideline now. Someone would still need to manually turn those bare links into inline citations. That's a circumstance where moving them to the talk page would be favorable, for it would allow editors to properly review such sources before turning them into inline cites in an appropriate format (keep in mind citation styles vary from article to article; they must however be internal consistent), either in the prose or in infobox format. WesleyDodds (talk) 12:36, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Hmm, now due to your comment I'm thinking about the flaws of bots in this endeavor. They can't format references, for one. It might be best to do everything manually, although JD554's ideas are still appealing. WesleyDodds (talk) 12:41, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

(Bot-work discussion moved to subheading below) —Akrabbimtalk 03:07, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Are we only adding the Reception section when there is reviews present in the article that need to be moved? If we are doing it to all album articles, even creating sections on pages with no reviews, then we may like to consider that upcoming albums should generally not have a reception section. kiac. (talk-contrib) 03:47, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Any article that has reviews in the album infobox but no reception section will have one created. If an upcoming album has reviews written about it, I see no reason why you can't start constructing a reception section, even if it will understanably be a work in progress. WesleyDodds (talk) 06:19, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

So- what exactly is the consensus on what this reception section is going to be? It seems whatever is decided upon can be done. But I haven't seen a decision made on what that is. I noticed Wesley removed the template from the In Utero article on the grounds that it was "not adding anything to the prose." I must say I disagree with this. Besides the fact that there were six ratings that weren't mentioned in the prose (granted two of those were the dreaded "favorable"), the ratings provide a great at-a-glance picture of the general reception. And I don't think you'd want to integrate six more reviews into the prose. The template makes note of them neatly and concisely. I simply have difficulty seeing how the ratings template detracts in any way from the article. Some people will find more use in the written context of the prose, others will find more use in the ratings. Why must it be one or the other? So I guess I'm still arguing in favor of using the template as much as possible. Other issues: list favorable/unfavorable? Awards? If there's a template, is it mandatory? 136.181.195.10 (talk) 15:36, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Kiac, I see no reason to create an empty reception section with just an Arprose tag if there are no reviews in the infobox yet. I think people agreed that an the infobox was not the place for the reviews. Creating a new section would be in order to have a place to move the reviews, so the article doesn't lose any information just because we don't like where it is right now. I think we also all agree that the meat of the information needs to be in the prose, which is why we will be tagging them for expansion. 136.181, as for the current consensus of what this reception section is supposed to be, see WP:ALBUM#Reception. Wesley's argument about the removal of the template is that the template places undue emphasis on a summary or number that the publication gave, to the extent of actually detracting from the elaboration on what the reviewers actually wrote. I'm not exactly sure where I stand on this situation anymore - I respect Wesley's arguments, as he has put a lot of work into the music projects. However, I would like to bring up the point that publications give out scores along with their reviews for a reason. They are not completely useless information. —Akrabbimtalk 15:51, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Ah- didn't see that change on the project page. I do understand the argument that undue emphasis can be placed on the rating. But at the same time, extracting quotes from reviews places undue emphasis on that particular aspect of the album being discussed, while ignoring many other aspects of the review that factor into the final rating, if one is given. This is especially true in, say, a 3.5 star review, which is generally positive, "but...". And though a list of ratings may distract a lazy user from a lot of great prose, in the end what to read is a decision that should be left up to the reader. 136.181.195.10 (talk) 16:01, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
You make a good point. We absolutely summarise the review in the prose, which I think is just as detrimental to the review as using a rating they have provided. You take one or two lines out of a review, gather up a general overview of their points and manipulate them in any which way you like. This is not scrutinised because, well, how many people are going to read all of the 20 reviews you did to research in the first place? On the other hand, plenty of people will overlook ratings, it's a more reliable figure that is void of user influence. As for Favourable... hmm, I can't come up with any better way. It's flawed though, it is flawed. kiac. (talk-contrib) 16:22, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Exactly. Of course, that's no different from any other sourced piece of information on Wikipedia. The article isn't about going in depth with each source, and likewise the album's reception is bigger than any single review. The prose should be about the trends in opinion across all critical reviews, with good quotes used to illustrate those sentiments. But the beauty is with reviews, there is a ready-made summary already provided by the reviewer in the form of the rating. It's a unique, valuable piece of information that can be easily added to give a completely objective overview that isn't available for other sources. I should get an account... 136.181.195.10 (talk) 18:16, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Well, if we stick to a literal interpretation of the "Professional ratings" heading at {{Album ratings}} (come to think of it, it would be better named {{Album ratings}}), we could simply not include the publications that don't give out a "rating", so we don't have to reduce a review to "favorable" or whatnot. We could also include Metacritic, which is sort of what we were doing with boiling them down to "favorable", but they do it professionally. —Akrabbimtalk 18:23, 11 December 2009 (UTC)\

So, do we want to require the template for any article that already has reviews in the infobox, or do we want to make the template optional on all articles? I think our original consensus was against complete removal of the display of the professional ratings, which would imply that we want to make the template mandatory for any article that already has reviews in the infobox. I continue to support such a position and would agree with making this template optional only for articles that do not have any reviews in the infobox. Timmeh 21:44, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

My opinion is, if we implement a bot then we should have it move the ratings from the infobox to the new template, so that the ratings are removed from the infobox (where we agree they do not belong) but do not disappear from the article completely (as some, including myself, feel they have some value alongside a reception section). We should not require the use of the ratings template in articles, but neither should we discourage it. We can offer it as a useful tool from the project page, and editors of particular articles can decide whether or not to use it on a case-by-case basis. Like most situations, a one-size-fits-all solution is unlikely to gain consensus. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:28, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree completely. One more thing: I don't think we should allow editors to go around doing mass removals of the reviews template (or any removals) without good reason. If the review ratings are already in the article, they should stay there (and be moved to the new template) unless we acquire consensus to remove them completely. Timmeh 22:56, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
Right. After we get this part done, then we can start figuring out whether the template detracts from well-written prose sections or not, like with In Utero. —Akrabbimtalk 02:38, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
IP 136 etc. here on my old account that I'm bringing back to life. I would say to include it in every article with infobox ratings at first, and allow for removal if an article's editors so choose. But personally, I think the ratings are a crucial part of the review and the template adds significant value. But if I want to weigh in, I'll have to start contributing to some articles. Marti786 (talk) 18:15, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Are we in agreement that all the reviews should be moved out of the infobox, but not removed from the article, at least not yet? If so, we can begin moving the reviews to the new template manually on the FAs without igniting edit wars. Timmeh 18:22, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

"Without igniting edit wars" now that's the trick. FAs are the toughest to change IMO if you don't regularly contribute to that article. Perhaps we should start with messages on the FA talk pages? I think the more we ease into this the greater the liklihood that we don't cause too much chaos. I made the change on some pages that I regularly edit and met no resistance at all, but they are pages that I regularly edit. J04n(talk page) 16:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
I think that as long as we cite the consensus here, we won't have too much of a problem with backlash. We certainly made every effort to get an adequate number of participants from the related project areas, so nobody can argue that consensus didn't represent the editing community. Timmeh 21:34, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong (I was away for a week and am having trouble piecing everything together), but didn't WesleyDodds already removed the template from In Utero (album) and he was involved in this discussion. J04n(talk page) 21:41, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
He did, twice. However, he did not object to consensus but merely argued that the template adds nothing to the prose. Consensus overrides his opinion. Sure, consensus can change, but right now it doesn't look like we're getting anywhere arguing over this. Current consensus supports moving all cited reviews from the infobox to the new template. Timmeh 22:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm in agreement for moving the info, but not in agreement for forcing folks to keep the template. If regular editors of a certain page don't want it they should be able to remove it. This discussion started as the removal of reviews from the infobox (by WesleyDodds!). I hope this doesn't look like I'm changing my mind on what I agreed on because I thought (and still think) that the new template is a good compromise for those who want that information, but to make it mandatory? not so much. J04n(talk page) 22:32, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
By the way, my rationale for the inessential nature of reviews in template form in some articles is based on the fact that we need to cover critical consensus, but we don't need to specifically cite reviews to do so. It's handy to cite reviews if overarching sources are lacking, but if there's a reliable author who can sum up critical consensus, you should rely on that. Remember: most major releases these days are reviewed by dozens of reliable publications; you can't quote all of them and it would be insane to try. Ideally, some sources will emerge that give an in-depth overview of critical reception. A good example of this is Be Here Now (album), which primarily relies on a book that spends pages combing through contemporary reviews, then notes how critical consensus changed over time. As such, it wasn't necessary to single out specific reviews in the prose. WesleyDodds (talk) 07:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Jo4n. I also think that consensus should be reached on the individual article's talk page. Deleting the template and giving brief rationale in the edit summary doesn't seem like the way to go about it. 136.181.195.10 (talk) 17:27, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I have no problem with that. We can recommend using the template, but if editors reach consensus on a certain article's talk page to remove it, it can be removed from that article. Timmeh 21:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Great, I would even go so far as to just add it with an explanation and a link to here in the edit summary. Then it's up to the page's main editors to leave it or remove it. J04n(talk page) 01:41, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Re: FA articles: Most of these are maintained by editors. Simply leave a message on the talk page indicating what's going on and allow them to work it out. I'm all for bold editing, but we need to be considerate of others instead of forcing something on them. WesleyDodds (talk) 07:50, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Id like some input at the bots Request for approval. Tim1357 (talk) 06:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Bot-work

I have a basic idea of what the bot needs to do, but how versatile are they in identifying different bits of information? Would they be able to find the | Reviews = field at all? If you have something like

*''[[Rolling Stone]]'' {{Rating|4.5|5}}<ref name="rs"/>,

would the bot be able to identify something like

*[pub] [score]

from that, to put into

{{Album ratings|rev1=[pub]|rev1Score=[score]}}?

Could it take

*''[[Rolling Stone]]'' {{Rating|4.5|5}} [http://www.url.com/rs.html link],

identify it as

*''[[[pub]]]'' [score] [[url] link],

and drop it into

{{Album ratings|rev1=''[[[pub]]]''|rev1Score=[score]<ref name="[pub]">[[url] [pub]].</ref>}}?

Then it would need to find if there was a section with the words "reception" or "reviews" in it. If there wasn't one, it would need to create one before the track listing section, and add {{Arprose}} after {{Album ratings}}. I don't know how feasible that all is with a bot.

In other news, I have expanded the {{Album ratings}} documentation with info from the {{Infobox album}} professional reviews section, which I removed. I also added a section about reception to the project page (WP:ALBUMS#Reception). I tried to make it all pretty pro-prose, and mentioned the template as optional. —Akrabbimtalk 14:32, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems that we need to get a bot-pro on board to see what is feasible, I know this may affect my opinion in the discussion. kiac. (talk-contrib) 14:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I dropped a note over at WP:BON. —Akrabbimtalk 20:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I saw the post at WP:BON. To answer the questions above:

  1. Yes, a bot can check if a URL or reference is used elsewhere in the article. Note though that the bot probably can't determine that http://www.example.org/reviews?alb=1234 is the same review as http://www.example.org/reviews?alb=001234 for any random site; if told about specific sites, it could.
  2. A bot can certainly extract the value of a particular field from a particular template.
  3. A bot can try to find a section by name for various types of processing, but someone has to list out all the possible names.
  4. A bot can insert a section before/after a different section, but do consider the case where the different section doesn't exist either. If all else fails, the bot could always just log that page for human attention.
  5. Yes, a bot can place text on an article's talk page.
  6. A bot could identify *''[[Rolling Stone]]'' {{Rating|4.5|5}} [http://www.url.com/rs.html link], if it were told to expect something in that format. But it wouldn't then identify *''[[Rolling Stone]]'' 4.5 [http://www.url.com/rs.html link] unless it were told to expect that format too, and so on for every other possible variation. If all else fails, the bot could always just log pages with unparsable data for human attention.
    • It should be possible for someone to check a database dump to find all the different values in use, if necessary. That might be a huge file of results, though.
  7. I already mentioned this twice, but it is quite possible for the bot to report on its activity for human attention, including flagging cases where things are likely to have been gotten wrong or where the bot couldn't figure out what to do in the first place.

The biggest issue is to specify exactly what you are wanting the bot to do; the bot op will probably ask additional questions for clarification. HTH. Anomie⚔ 22:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure, ill help you guys. Im no "pro", but what you guys are asking for is not all that difficult. All you really need is someone who is patient with regular expression. What I need is a dtailed syntax of what you want the bot to do, when given the wikitext. What i've gathered is this:
  1. get all content of |Rating parameter. (please tell me if there are any synonyms for this parameter)
  2. seperate by review (how to tell?)
  3. if review url already in rest of article, skip this review.
  4. else, move this review (reformatted review) to the critical reception.

I need to know:

  1. can i expect the reviews be separated by any constant way? (how do i tell when the first review ends and the next one begins ?)
  2. what are the synonyms for "Reception and review", or is it just sections that contain the word "review"?
  3. what do i do if there is no "reception" section? where does the new one go?

The more precisely you answer the questions means the better I, or another builder can build the bot. Tim1357 (talk) 02:34, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I can help you a bit with the synonyms. Give me a day to think of them all. WesleyDodds (talk) 08:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
The data is in the |Reviews parameter, for which there are no synonyms. Then there are two ways of displaying the citation: one has <ref name="x">citation</ref> in which case no processing needs to be done and it is just copied into the template as is. The other way is if there is just a plain external link like [http://www.url.com link], which does need to be processed into ref tags in the new template. It should check the other refs in the article for the same source, and then use a previous ref if possible. If it isn't used, then something like <ref name="Title">[http://www.url.com Title]</ref> needs to be generated, with "Title" being similar to the name of the publisher (already retrieved from the existing review). So to answer your questions,
  1. The reviews are currently separated by an endline and an asterisk.
  2. Names for the reception section: "Release and reception", "Reviews", "Reception and aftermath", "Promotion and reception", "Critical reception", "Reception", "Release", and there may be more. Is it possible for a bot to search headings for the word "reception", and if it can't find one, try "reviews", and if not, "release"? That may be better than just listing every single possibility.
  3. If there is no reception section (as is the case with most articles at this point), then create one just before the "Track listing" (almost no variation) section. If there is no track listing section, then put it right before the first section, after the lead. Remember to include {{Arprose}} when creating a new section. —Akrabbimtalk 17:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
OK, i got some stuff to do in the rw, but ill try to get to this over christmas break. If anyone else wants to take a stab at this, go right ahead. There is always more then one way to do things. Tim1357 (talk) 18:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 Done Writing the code. Ill file the BRFA tomorrow. Tim1357 (talk) 21:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Professional reviews moved from infobox

Yet another example of WP:Wikilawyering, fixing things that aren't broke, and a selected few forming their own consensus and dictating what everyone else should or shouldn't do. The new box in the reception section looks utterly ridiculous, to say the very least. But I won't even bother. Wikipedia has become far too bureaucratic to be productive. Power is concentrated in the hands of these select few who over-analyze policies, kiss ass to gain a following, and sit on their pedestal imposing changes on the millions of people who devote their time here. To say I'm disgusted would be an understatement. Orane (talk) 06:57, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The discussion has been going on for 3 weeks, and notices were posted at both the Music project talk page and the Infobox template talk page. Calling this "a selected few forming their own consensus and dictating what everyone else should or shouldn't do" is comletely off the mark: every effort was made to invite all members of the relevant projects (Music and Albums) to participate, and plenty of time has been given for discussion. If you're going to get so fuming mad about actions taken by the project, then you might consider watchlisting the project talk page (or the Music project talk page...or the template talk page) and actually participating in the discussions rather than just dropping by to bitch about them after the fact. --IllaZilla (talk) 09:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
You're more than welcome to mount an actual argument, rather than just making pointless attacks. kiac. (talk-contrib) 14:35, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
I did most of my posting as an IP with very few edits, and my opinion seemed to be taken very much into account. Power is concentrated in the hands of people who contribute to discussion. 136.181.195.10 (talk) 14:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
The number of editors who work on album articles is way larger than the number of editors who are watching WikiProject Albums or the Album Infobox template. So, I think we should not be too surprised if a fair number of editors show up and say they were not aware of the discussions or do not agree with what is being implemented. In fact, by implementing these ideas on a gradual basis, we will in effect be encouraging other editors to join in the discussion. I think we should remain open minded to their views on the subject. — Mudwater (Talk) 01:30, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
On another note, I'd like to propose that the {{Arprose}} template not be added to bot-created Reception sections. It's one thing to come upon an article and add a tag saying that it needs references or cleanup. It's a different thing to add a new section to an article and at the same time tag the section as having a problem. To have a bot create a new section in the majority of album articles, and to include the {{Arprose}} template, will cause needless proliferation of these distracting and somewhat superfluous tags. (One option would be to add the {{Album ratings}} template to the lead section, after the infobox, if the article doesn't already have a Reception section, but that's just one possible approach.) — Mudwater (Talk) 01:32, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I think I agree with you on the bot thing; if the article doesn't have a reception section already, then it's pointless for the bot to create one just for the purpose of sticking a maintenance tag in it. As for the feedback, obviously there is bound to be some amount of backlash but Orane/Journalist's attitude is another matter (I recall his rather...let's say "confrontational" attitude during the "genre" fiasco). When we've posted notices of the discussion on every relevant project & parent project talk page, we've made all the good-faith effort we can to put the word out. Obviously there's no way for us to notify everyone who works on album articles, so we have to assume that if they really cared about all that much about the structure of the articles or the format of the infobox that they'd be checking at least one of the relevant project pages. Orane is/was an admin and a mediator, for pete's sake, and he worked on lots of artist and album articles. Given how riled up he got over the genre thing, I would have expected him to be watchlisting at least the Music or Albums project talk pages. Not checking any of these pages, not participating in any of the discussions, and then crying foul when a consensus is reached that you don't happen to agree with is simply not mature behavior for an admin in my opinion. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:41, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
That's the thing- it's fine to stop by and weigh in. The phone has been held a number of times when other opinions are presented, as it should. But ranting about the process and getting upset and retiring without even attempting to make a reasonable argument will result in nothing but eye rolling. As it should. Consensus can change, but not without reasonable points. 136.181.195.10 (talk) 14:34, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
This was exactly my point. I really do wish the editors on here would try to be more inclusive and not be so dismissive of others. The reasons given not to ask members of the Project what they thought about the issue were weak at best and included all sorts of assumptions, such as the idea that users won't read the discussion properly and give a "drive by" vote", aren't interested/support the idea of removing reviews form the infobox if they hadn't already contributed by 2nd December even though the debate was only started on the 23rd November etc. IP claims that his opinion was taken into account but that seems to me to have been because he agreed with the most vocal editors. I, for one, have been put off contributing by this 'debate'. Cavie78 (talk) 15:17, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by "The reasons given not to ask members of the Project what they thought". Aren't we having this discussion on the project talk page? It's a public forum that we expect project members to pay attention to and participate in. It's the most open, public way to discuss the direction of the project. The only other alternative is to have a bot place a boilerplate notice on the talk page of every project member whenever there's a discussion here. That of course would be needlessly excessive (especially considering that all we're really discussing here is a change to the infobox). Category:WikiProject Albums members has 362 users in it, and that's only counting those who've placed {{User WikiProject Albums}} on their user pages; I'm sure there are actually a lot more. We also placed a notice of the discussion at the music project, our parent, which has at least 180 members. Even assuming some membership overlap, we notified at least 500 Wikipedians in the most open and most common way: by discussing it on the project talk page and notifying the related projects. I don't see how we can possibly be accused of "not asking members of the project what they thought", and we certainly can't be accused of acting like some cabal as Orane has accused us of doing.
Also, though the initial discussion was closed on December 2, that certainly doesn't preclude further discussion on the subject, and there've been 3 new threads started on the same topic since that time. That's 3 weeks of open discussion. Also keep in mind that the change we agreed on, removing the "Professional reviews" parameter from the infobox, hasn't even been implemented yet. There was, and still is, plenty of opportunity for other points of view to be expressed and for consensus to change.
Finally, it amazes me how people will get so riled up about a change to the infobox, especially editors who don't seem to give a hoot about anything else the project does. What is it about infoboxes that causes some editors to obsess over them so? I think it's the pretty colors :) --IllaZilla (talk) 16:09, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

While I feel the discussion has proceeded in a very productive fashion and received input from many editors with diverse viewpoints that have so far hashed out some well-considered plans, I do wish more effort was made to include outside voices who might not necessariy lurk around this talk page all the time. For example, I mentioned someone should contact all relevant WikiProjects about the discussion. Well, the low-traffic WikiProject Music was notifed, but no one else. How about the genre wikiProjects? I work with WikiProject Alternative music, a project responsible for over half all album Featured Articles, and no notice was left there. And like Cavie said, what about all the WP Albums members?

On another note: if Journalist has some valid arguments for keeping the reviews field, I for one have no problem listening. Still, addressing the subject with nothing more than refering to the reviews field discussion as "fixing things that aren't broke" is a non-starter for trying to form a new consensus. Details, please! We need more to work with than "I liked it the way it was". WesleyDodds (talk) 08:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

In reply to as to why we didn't spam disinterested project members, I myself said on December 2 just before the original discussion was closed: "My problem with placing hundreds of messages to the less active is that they will do the exact same thing I was going to do when i first saw this discussion; call it a load of crap, blurt out that it shouldn't be done and depart." Just like Mr Journalist has done. "After reading a few posts, which not everyone would do, especially with the size of this now, I was convinced otherwise and saw this as a way of moving forward." Furthermore, "Sure, if people come and provide some quality insight it will help... I'm just not seeing any solid arguments on the keep side of things." It is now December 17, 15 days later and I think I'd still have grounds to repeat this. Maybe we should go notify more users in an attempt to at least contest what was said by myself here. kiac. (talk-contrib) 08:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
You can't anticipate people's reactions and comments, which is why it's always good form to open up discussion as much as possible within reason (I wouldn't call dropping project members a short note "spam"; notifying random people who never work on music articles would be more fitting under the "spam" column). Just sayin' for future reference. WesleyDodds (talk) 08:41, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Yeah understood, but I was sorta right. :p I think it was just the fact that no one went and did it, we need someone who can use a bot and whatnot. Also, I think it is a safe assumption to think that people interested in discussing issues such as this, which the project they are a member of controls, would watchlist this page. kiac. (talk-contrib) 08:49, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't have it watchlisted . . . WesleyDodds (talk) 12:19, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
That's irrelevant. You are still obviously "watching" it, whether you are using your Mediawiki watchlist or not. —Akrabbimtalk 16:19, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
It's quite relevant. Kiac said, "Also, I think it is a safe assumption to think that people interested in discussing issues such as this, which the project they are a member of controls, would watchlist this page". I'm interested in the topic, but I don't have the talk page on a watchlist. Remember, the reason I know about this discussion is because I initiated it. If someone else started it, I wouldn't know unless someone pointed it out to me, because I don't visit this talk page often unless there's something on my mind. Likewise, there might be others who would be interested in the discussion who don't have this talk page on their watchlists. That's my point. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I've been watching this discussion and I might as well chime in now and give my opinon since people are asking for more input. I agree with the consensus to remove from infobox, but not from article. I quite was annoyed by the change to inline citations for reviews since I liked using Wikipedia review box as a link farm(which Wikipedia should not be, so I accept the decision). This change has made it annoyingly inconvenient to use review box for finding reviews quickly(since you have to go to bottom of page to use them). A star rating is a very poor replacement for a full review of the pros and cons of a work and readers will not be clicking through to read the reviews, thus they will not get a true understanding of critical reception. I feel the reviews should be kept somewhere though as they are such useful sources for the future development of the articles. I haven't worked out yet where I would prefer them to be kept though, it would be very messy creating reception sections with just a review box.-AlexTG (talk) 06:01, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I too have been gently watching and am happy that the move of ratings out of infobox is sound. WP is not Allmusic: the primary purpose of the article is not to present a review and so the in-your-face "how good someone thinks this item is" effect is inappropriate here. I'm content whether or not ratings are shown lower down in the article but agree that they do not approach the value of narrative (any more than they do on the reviewers' own sites, where, as someone mentioned earlier, the ratings may not accurately reflect the review and may even be misleading). As to where to keep the ratings as a future resource if they're removed, wasn't there a template or something introduced to enable a section on the talk page for resources? Can't find it now, but anyway I see some talk pages have a Sources subpage for this purpose. See, for example, Talk:Kosovo/Sources PL290 (talk) 09:53, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I have notified all active Music Wikiprojects listed on this page (except bands and artist pages). They include: Discographies, Songs, Australian music, Canadian music, Notability (music) (it is relevant), Alt music, Christian metal, Black Metal, Christian music, Electronic music, Emo, Hip hop, Metal, Punk music, Reggae, Rock music, Musicians and Guitarists. If that doesn't bring an influx of opinion then I don't know what will. kiac. (talk-contrib) 09:36, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing it up, I found out at WikiProject Christian music. I wouldn't have know otherwise. It doesn't matter to me either way and I'll be happy with whatever consensus decides. Bringing up this discussion in the Music WikiProjects (for something critical like this) is important in cases like this instead of forcing a standard on contributors who weren't aware of what was going on. Royalbroil 13:08, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
You got my attention. I support the mass replacement of reviews in the infobox with an {{Album ratings}} template in a Critical reception section. It will help to declutter the infobox and move the reviews to more relevant section. I think having a Critical reception section, even if it has just the reviews box, will encourage people to write a real prose section. Plus, it make it easily to regulate the 10 review limit. - kollision (talk) 14:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree overall with the change but what about smaller articles like this and this, as the album ratings template gets placed under the infobox. On the first one, Ive used {{Clear}} tags to make it tidy, I haven't done the second one because there would be a big white gap. Mattg82 (talk) 16:13, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Articles that small probably shouldn't have infoboxes or ratings templates in the first place. After all, they're meant to summarize/aid prose. Expand the pages first, then use the templates for summary purposes. Otherwise it's an indiscriminate collection of information. WesleyDodds (talk) 12:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
Yeah- that actually looks pretty bad, and makes the article look messier than it is with the ratings in the infobox. Still, if the sourced ratings are there, I don't care for the idea of removing the ratings. Would it look better if it were placed on the left under the heading in articles lacking prose? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.181.195.10 (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
That first example looks great and I think it's exactly what we should do. —Gendralman (talk) 00:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Ideally you should read the reviews, then write about and cite them in the prose. The template is an aid to prose; it isn't a substitute. WesleyDodds (talk) 13:32, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
True. So the template will leave X number of links to actual sources with which to write prose.136.181.195.10 (talk) 13:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

For the record: I'm not at all against the ratings being used in the infobox. If the infobox is meant to be a brief introduction to the subject, then it does serve a purpose for the reader to glance over the general consensus of the industries view of the material. I'm not against relocating it to the reception section either, since it still serves the same purpose. I am against removing it entirely. Allmusic, clearly, is not the only source on music that uses star ratings. Its a standard among a number of publications. Whether or not we personally feel it is an adequate use of a critic's/publication's time, it is still in use; as such, since we only reflect reliable sources, it makes since to reflect the rating systems they use within their field, regardless of how we might perceive them. The Bookkeeper (of the Occult) 11:25, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The text in a critical reception section should make a reviews template redundant. Don't you think it looks rather silly, and also very noisy, in an FA standard article? If they are to be moved from an infobox, far better to move them to an EL or Further reading section pending expansion of the article and development of a proper Reception section. 86.40.58.26 (talk) 01:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Or alternatively just leave them in the infobox for now, but deprecate the practice and put emphasis on a critical reception section instead. 86.40.58.26 (talk) 01:05, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
To answer your question: No. I do not believe it looks "silly" or "noisy" - I never have, and I've never understood the complaint. I believe in enhances the critical reception section, because the reader has an instant gauge of what the industry considers the material to be, supported by prose. The Bookkeeper (of the Occult) 01:38, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
The only way I see the rating in star format working is in a template. Embedding it into prose... maybe with parenthesis??? - Steve3849 10:03, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
The problem is putting ratings in an infobox is inherently limited and ineffective summary. Not every reviewer uses a rating system. Also it's not necessarily easy to convey critical consensus by listing a gaggle of rated reviews. Not to mention several other arts WikiProjects do fine without putting reviews in infobox or template form (ex. Film, Televison, Comics, Books, etc.). WesleyDodds (talk) 11:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
To be honest, I'm surprised the other projects don't (regardless of where the ratings would be placed in the article). I think there should always be an indication that there is a formal rating system, but each project handles themselves differently. The Bookkeeper (of the Occult) 00:39, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I admit that I've not read the entire discussion; sorry. Questions: (1) has anyone done these specific changes anywhere so I can take a look at the before and after result? (2) I did see that FAs should be a priority. I'm curious how Bot changes would work out for well evolved articles such as Thriller_(album) that has many reviews listed in the info box and well developed prose. Will all the current review links be listed above the current prose into a review template by the Bot? I notice this particular article (Thriller) has many reviews referenced in the prose, but a few that are not. Some work is ahead for the Top-importance articles. - Steve3849 10:03, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I Am... Sasha Fierce is the first example I've seen with the new format. The Bookkeeper (of the Occult) 10:26, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
The way I understand it, the bot will automatically remove reviews from the infobox and move them to the critical reception section in the new review template. Citations will be preserved. You can always move everything yourself, or simply forgo the review template. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:03, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Peter, Paul, and Mary Albums

As a person who listens to the group I went ahead and made an article (In These Times (Peter, Paul, and Mary Album)) for one of their albums, its a stub yes but has 3 references. Ive noticed however that most of the stubs for the albums (Peter, Paul and Mary#Albums) have 1 or no references at all, can this be worked on at all? The album covers may be copyright issue as well but Id like to see them with fair rat. Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:39, 1 September 2009 (AT)

This damn sentence...

"In more complicated situations, a table or the {{Tracklist}} template may be a better choice."

Can we please swap the "in more complicated situations" with "if editors so choose"? I personally like to use the template in all cases as I think it's neater and more readable ("We are an encyclopedia shocker!"). And tbh am a bit tired of people always pointing out this damn sentence. RB88 (T) 16:33, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I like the {{Tracklist}} template. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:32, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, but I think the template has a lot of problems in its present state (it isn't flexible, and it encourages/enforces the use of tiny hard-to-read font, for two things - and for a third, a table of any kind is just a lot of unnecesary borders around the text, to me), and I prefer to see a simple non-table track list unless there is a good reason to organize it into a table. (Which, sometimes, there is.) I take the opposite side: I'm tired of being told we should be using the tracklist because it's used everywhere, and don't think that's a good reason, especially when the people who say that, sometimes agree with me about the template's deficiencies. I do agree the sentence is vague and waffle-ly about what it's trying to say. But when you say "if editors so choose"... which editors get to choose, when different editors have different preferences? I do think the sentence should give more guidance about which to use in various circumstances, but you and I (for example) would probably not come to an agreement on conditions, or which type of listing should be used by default. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 19:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Something else to keep in mind is accessibility, and the varying monitor resolution of our readers. On a standard or smaller screen monitor, the distance between titles and lengths is just fine. On a wide screen monitor the track lengths are pretty much all the way on the other side of the screen, with a completely unnecessary large gap. My laptop, where I conduct most of my editing, the resolution is 1440x900. Pages look totally different when I log into my desktop computer which is 1024x768. Fezmar9 (talk) 20:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Re: WP:ALBUM#Track listing I support a numbered list for up to three parameters. These usually would be Song title, Writer(s), Length. I consider 4 parameters or more to be a "more complicated situation" with my first preference being the {{Tracklist}} template followed by the Table. Also maybe revise the Tracklist template and Table examples to show Producer(s) instead of "Guest musician(s)"? I don't recall offhand ever actually seeing a column titled "Guest musician(s)" in usage.—Iknow23 (talk) 00:57, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm glad I didn't come across as being completely against the template and other tables, because I'm not. In fact I've used a customized non-standard tracklist table in an article I created. I mentioned "flexibility", and by that I meant that some of the shortcoming we've been discussing, such as the table width and font size, cannot be altered with a parameter. I recall someone once said the fixed table width was done to prevent it from overlapping the infobox in stub articles where there is not much content aside from those two templates, but this problem only occurs on some browsers. That being the case, a choice between full screen width vs. fixed width table should probably be a user preference (somehow) rather than something set in each individual article. I have no idea how that could be done, but it's an example of something that could be fixed in the future. As for the font size, I really wish the use of small fonts could be overridden, and that is a flexibility issue too. I still look at the template as experimental; something that needs more work before it can become universal; no offence to its developers. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 04:50, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Even with the bugs worked out, it shouldn't be universal. A large number of editors hate dealing with template code, and you don't need to use such things if you can format tracklistings fine without them. It's the same reason why cite templates are optional. Going back to wha Rafablu said (albeit using his words in the context of emphasizing why a tracklist template would not be used), it should be all about "if editors so choose". It's a tool; some editors find it useful and some editors feel they don't need it (once again, echoing the reason why cite templates aren't mandatory). In that regard, I support Rafablu, as it allows editors of different minds about utilizing tracklist templates flexibility (by the way, if a tracklist is already formatted, with or without the template, there's no reason to change it into the other style; it's already formatting in using one or the other method, so that's pretty pointless). WesleyDodds (talk) 07:45, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
As much as I see the need for the tempalte, to me it seems pointless in a lot of cases. If there's simply 12 tracks, with 12 track lengths - there is absolutely no reason to whip up a table or template. It does not seriously look any better, it's just an extra whole load of junk on screen which is not required. kiac. (talk-contrib) 09:47, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Amen.—indopug (talk) 11:02, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
To User:Iknow23: see Talking with Strangers for example usage with guest musicians. I'm sure that I've seen others elsewhere. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:52, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
One advantage of {{Tracklist}} is with narrow displays, such as on mobile devices. Occasionally I use a Palm TX to read Wikipedia pages. With a display width of 320 pixels {{Tracklist}} keeps all information in their appropriate columns and is quite readable. Without the template, even simple track listings can wrap, putting the track times at the left edge. The mobile format for Wikipedia pages is displayed using "en.m.wikipedia.org/..." (note the ".m."), which is automatically used on appropriate devices. There does seem to be a bug in {{Tracklist}}, it adds the HTML code style="margin-right:21em". This produces a mandatory right margin of 21×font-size, which is 273 pixels using the mobile format of a page (example here). This causes an unnecessary reduction of the table width with a large blank space on the right. Somehow this large margin is ignored on the TX. I don't know if it's ignored on the iPod/iPhone (comments anyone?). Perhaps a solution to limit the table width on wide displays would be to add a widthmax= parameter, which would specify the maximum width of the table in (in em units), but would allow the table width to be reduced on narrow displays. This change may eliminate the need for style="margin-right:21em" (which might have been added to avoid the infobox... was it ever really necessary?). CuriousEric (talk) 19:12, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

To Redrose64. Talking with Strangers is really showing a full personnel listing per track, kind of like what you see in the CD booklet and on Discogs. Like you said, I will believe that there are others like that as well. However, I am used to seeing a Producers column instead and just a separate section titled Personnel with the full alpha name listings for the entire album. Just a different method I guess.—Iknow23 (talk) 07:04, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

It was me who added the {{Tracklist}} to Talking with Strangers - but the info (title, composer, personnel) was already there in what I considered to be a non-standard and less logically laid-out form; see the version that I amended from. If people prefer the old version, well, let's discuss, but at Talk:Talking with Strangers. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Your version is much better. It is certainly a "more complicated situation" so a numbered list (the old version) is inappropriate.—Iknow23 (talk) 21:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Round 2

Right, I don't think we're going to get consensus on tracklist or no tracklist. Some people like them cos it's neater, some don't cos it's unnecessary. That's why I wanted to use "If editors so choose". I think though that we have to do something about the accessibility on different screens. Setting a maximum width is one idea. I personally don't have a tracklist fetish but like the fact that all the lengths are in one justified column. If I am to forego the template, then I would not want just a load of quotemarks, dashes and numbers on each line. Is there a way we can make the length column like it is in the template but without using the template? RB88 (T) 21:37, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so. I don't see it as a problem, it's like looking at a record label, where timings are rarely aligned in columns. In fact, timings are not terribly significant information. What do you need them for, aside from as an aid to ripping songs to a CDR and wanting to add them up to get the total time? There is often a "total time" in the infobox. Also, everyone please remember that specific suggestions/requests for changes to the template belong on the template's talk page. We can't agree to changes to make over there, over here. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 21:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
  • "it's like looking at a record label, where timings are rarely aligned in columns." We're not a record label though. We're an encyclopedia that needs to take care of readability and accessibility on top of the actual content of the page.
  • "timings are not terribly significant information". I disagree. Timings are crucial to the understanding of sequencing, flow, and also of composition details, especially when there is a section explaining that it includes so-and-so guitar riff after so-and-so drum loop. RB88 (T) 21:59, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Finally, my suggestion about a length column was independent of the template. I'm wondering if we could just put the song on column 1 and the length on column 2 the way we usually use columns. That would appease everybody and also improve accessibility on all media hardware. RB88 (T) 21:59, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
The question I was getting at, is whether it needs to be more readable for the purpose of making it easier to add up the timings, and if so, why is the total time in the infobox not sufficient? If you aren't thinking of adding up the times, but just seeing the timings as a little piece of text, there is no reason to align it when composer credits and other things the template is capable of putting in columns, are not aligned. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 22:06, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

<-- My niggle is with things like this:

  1. "Ether" – 3:52
  2. "Natural's Not in It" – 3:09
  3. "Not Great Men" – 3:08
  4. "Damaged Goods" – 3:29
  5. "Return the Gift" – 3:08
  6. "Guns Before Butter" – 3:49
  7. "I Found That Essence Rare" – 3:09
  8. "Glass" – 2:32
  9. "Contract" – 2:42
  10. "At Home He's a Tourist" – 3:33
  11. "5.45" – 3:48
  12. "Anthrax" – 4:23

Now to my eyes, that's just a load of unaligned numbers, quotemarks, words, dashes and more numbers. RB88 (T) 22:21, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

If that's how you see it, then you're a chart/template enthusiast. To me, it looks fine. Earlier today, I posted a long reply at WikiProject:Musicians regarding external links to official band sites, where I discussed the rule against "indiscriminate collections of random information" at Wikipedia. Not all information is considered notable by editors, but then, not everyone agrees on what is notable. For example, while mentions of albums often state the record label name, it is rare that we see the catalogue number stated, even though that is important to collectors. I have also seen edit wars on whether or not albums should be broken down into "side 1" and "side 2", or combined like a CD (probably there are younger editors who have no familiarity with pre-CD formats, and don't appreciate that most albums were originally programmed as two song sets). While I acknowledge timings are accepted as important enough to include at WP, because I see them appearing everywhere, I wonder what the reason is, that would require them being aligned in a column for readability. I do acknowledge that it's helpful to see which are the longer songs (and short throw-away tracks), but if that is significant, it should be covered in the prose. (Sorry, that's becoming a cliche response around here, isn't it?) --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 22:28, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
If you covered all timings in prose, it'd look terrible and would ruin the flow of the writing. As I said, I'm not fussed about the template, but like to use it to stop the overload of dashes and numbers. Maybe we should tell people to use a simple table rather than a template if they so wish. That'd appease the Luddites and make the big screen and small screen users happy. RB88 (T) 01:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I support letting editors decide on a per-article basis. We use tables for chart positions, after all, and no one has any problem with that. Track lists have even more information (three columns vs. two), so the use of tables makes even more sense. I don't think we have a consensus to avoid tables, so the wording should be changed to reflect that: "If editors so choose". —Gendralman (talk) 15:35, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Not sure where to jump in here, but to keep it current, I hate the {{tracklist}} template and much prefer the boxed tracklisting. I think it's just too compressed and not very clear, giving one of my pet articles (ahem!) as an example: as the article stands and a {{tracklist}} edit. Any comments and anybody think we should change the template?--Tuzapicabit (talk) 03:38, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Doesn't as the article stands violate MOS:BOLD by bolding the song titles?—Iknow23 (talk) 10:49, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Looking back in the article's history, the bold titles were there before the tracklist was formatted as a table. Back then, each song appeared as an entry of several lines (as it does now), so titles were bolded to make them stand out. This should no longer be necessary. The formatting also goes against "the rules" in other ways: writer (and producer) credits should give names in full (with wikilink) the first time they appear, and as surname only (without wikilink) where repeated. Track 6's list of writers should be expanded to show full names, as they aren't shown previously. In this tracklist there are two people named Hill, so A. Hill and R. Hill should be used where just a surname would normally appear. Repeating the words "writer(s)" and "producer" over and over may seem complicated; this might be a case where splitting the chart into columns for each, is advisable. On other articles I've objected to the first track on side two being called "track 6"; I realize it makes sense when considering the CD edition, but if you're going to show the tracklist formatted to the original edition's primary medium (vinyl LP) (and I think it should be), it should use the terminology and standards of that medium, instead of being a composite of two mediums. (Having said that, I'm undecided as to whether the "bonus tracks" should start at 1 again, or jump from 5 to 11.) I'm not advising that any of these changes must be made. I have deviated from standard format on some articles I've done, because it's appropriate for the combination of bits of information used. But where there is no reason to deviate, we should follow the rules, otherwise we'll have every article formatted differently. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 14:12, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
I support the above in having columns for the "writer(s)" and "producer". Also suggest adding the section title, "Release history" to separate that material from the "Chart performance".—Iknow23 (talk) 23:05, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments on this, but my exact point was that the writer and producer column was messy and cramped - if you look at the earlier example I gave of this being done. I don't mind writer and producer being repeated because it makes it clear who the listed names are rather than having to run back up to the top to check. I think we're all going to see it differently I guess.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 02:49, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Would they be less cramped if sides 1 and 2 were not presented side by side? I've never seen that done before. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 04:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Trans-Europe Express

Could someone take a look at the intro for the article about Trans-Europe Express? The article is nearly passed it's GA-nom but there have been disagreements about the current lead of the article. If this could be checked out on the Talk page of the article, I would be very grateful! Cheers! Andrzejbanas (talk) 15:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Alternate covers (again)

The All-American Rejects singles charts

Could someone look at the singles charts for Move Along and When the World Comes Down? I'm pretty sure the Billboard charts and the "International" charts should be merged and the component Billboard charts removed, but I'm not sure which ones. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 22:59, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I've deleted airplay charts and merged tables on both articles. The other charts could possibly be removed also, so that the Hot 100 is the only Billboard chart. Mattg82 (talk) 01:49, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
I've merged refs into Chart name cells. WORK STILL NEEDED: "Albums and singles which appear on different charts during different years are formatted with the charts for the most recent year furthest down the table" per WP:CHARTS—Iknow23 (talk) 02:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
I also agree with Mattg82 that there are probably additional component charts to remove.
Bonus comment: See WP:ALBUM#Track listing "A track listing should generally be formatted as a numbered list....In more complicated situations, a table or the Tracklist template may be a better choice." Track number, Title and Length can hardly be justified as 'complicated' so the numbered list should be used. You may also want to join the discussion above Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums#This damn sentence... + the subheading "Round 2".—Iknow23 (talk) 03:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Reception = Reviews + Ratings

Based on the large amount of discussion and the looming bot implementation of moving professional reviews from the infobox into {{Album ratings}}, I thought of something that might clarify the disagreement between visual- and table-based depictions of an albums reception, and the prose sections covering the same sources. I think there should be a distinction made between the reviews that an album receives and its ratings. I think so far, the discussion has dealt with them as if they were one in the same, but here is why I think we could treat them separately.

The main reason why people liked having them in the infobox, and why they are hesitant to remove the visual display of the starred ratings and all that is because that information presents a quick and useful overview of the overall reception of the album. Of course, prose is very important, since there is much more to the reception of an album than the number given out by publications. The prose is meant to elaborate on the reasons a work is well-received or not, based on the more complex reviews given by the music media. Some even believe that the visual display actually detracts from this information, which is deemed more important.

However, while I agree that more emphasis should be placed in the prose as consensus has indicated, I think that the visual display is still useful, no matter how well written the prose section is. The reason I think this is that I see an inherent difference between the reviews written, and the ratings given. Many publications stick a numerical value in addition to the reviews because it communicates different information (more of a single datum) than the review, which would be hard to boil down concisely. This is why we have trouble figuring out whether an unrated review should be termed "unfavorable" or "mixed" or whatever. There are also cases where a publication gives a score, but doesn't have as detailed of a review (like Christgau's evaluations).

My proposal is that an article should report on the reviews that an album received in the prose, as well as displaying a sample of the ratings that the album was given in {{Album ratings}}. The template should not include reviews that did not give a score, so there would be no entries that we have to put "favorable" or anything. I know that we have decided otherwise in the past, but maybe aggregates like Metacritic could be included if that makes sense with this system. What are people's thoughts on this? —Akrabbimtalk 21:09, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

All well and good keeping a box of ratings and prose together, but not allowing unrated reviews?? That would discount publications like TIME, Newsweek, The New York Times etc which I would place much higher than the Pitchforks of the world and which we should emphasise in order to increase the quality of our articles. Also it would adversely affect old albums which are based on reviews that did not follow a rating system at the time. Even Rolling Stone and Melody Maker did not give ratings at one time. That would mean that only Allmusic would be in the box most of the time. I for one don't want to see that and will continue writing "favourable" and "mixed" even in the box. RB88 (T) 21:29, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Well those publications would not be discounted, because they are covered in the prose, for the content of their reviews. —Akrabbimtalk 21:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
But as you said yourself, the ratings are the first things people see. Let's say so-and-so old album had a negative reception, but Allmusic gave it 5 stars. That would skew people's perceptions and casual readers when they only see that in the box without paying attention to the text. That's why an "unfavourable" from The New York Times and Newsweek must be included as well. RB88 (T) 21:42, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Akrabbim's idea that a chart is a good visual representation of critical reception, but I also agree with Rafablu88 that excluding ratingless reviews defeats the purpose. The box should be a combination of reviews and ratings; I see no reason why it should be for ratings only. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 21:55, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
I see nothing wrong with including reviews in the box that don't provide ratings. Ratings are just a representation of how favorable or unfavorable the review was toward the album. I think we can safely judge whether reviews without ratings are favorable or unfavorable and include such words in the ratings box in place of actual ratings. To do otherwise could introduce bias, as Rafablu explained above. Timmeh 00:23, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
The problem, Akrabbim, is that ratings and reviews aren't two separate things. Ratings are components of reviews. However, I do strongly agree with you that reviews without rating systems don't belong in the template, because then we run into the whole "favorable"/"Unfavorable"/"Somewhat favorable"/"Kinda sorta unfavorable" POV/OR summary description issue that's been discussed before. If there's no rating system used and you can't use those subjective summary terms, what's the point of putting them into the template? WesleyDodds (talk) 00:33, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Akrabbim's original post and disagree with Timmeh. The template is for ratings, and the prose is for reviews. That's why the template is called "Album ratings", not "Album reviews". Not all reviewers assign ratings, and not all ratings are accompanied by reviews. Obviously the most common thing is for a review to be accompanied by a rating, but there are plenty of exceptions. It's not appropriate for us as editors to try to distill a reviewer's opinion into "favorable" or "unfavorable" simply for the sake of bullet-pointing it in a template; we have the prose right there to give the reviewers' opinions. The template is merely a convenient place to compile any ratings that critical sources have given the album. Ratings are numbers (or representations of numbers, like stars), and thus lend themselves to a list presentation. Reviews are not numbers and don't lend themselves to this kind of presentation; their natural home is in prose, and it's dumb to try to reduce them to a single word merely for the sake of cramming them in a box alongside a bunch of star ratings. Leave them in the prose and let the sources speak for themselves. I read a lot of opinions here about how the ratings "provide a good visual representation of critical reception", but really they only give part of the picture. The only way for a reader to truly understand the critical reception an album received is to both look at the ratings and read the prose. We do expect our readers to actually read the articles, right? Therefore there's no reason to try to jam a review into a "ratings" template when the review doesn't actually have an accompanying rating at all. Doing so is unnecessary and can even be construed as misrepresenting the source
In short, I guess what I'm saying is that the prose and the template complement each other by providing different parts of a whole picture. If a source has both a review and a rating, then that source naturally belongs in both the prose and the template. But if a source has a review but no rating, then it belongs just in the prose and not the template as well, and there's nothing wrong with that. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:41, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Hmm, well then, we're back to the problem that the template was created as a way of dealing with the proposed removal of reviews from the infobox. Now you're saying it's not for all reviews. What do we do with ratingless reviews, then? Keeping in mind that we're looking for an automated process, and it has already been established it would be too big a task to create prose sections for all articles that currently have infobox review links. I'm sure the template was created for this purpose, but now we seem to be taking a detour from the solution. Is there really no way to insert a review without any rating, not even un/favourable? And isn't your concern about implied ratings, just a "problem" that has always existed, and can it be deferred for now? --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 00:49, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I simply don't see the problem. "What do we do with ratingless reviews, then?" Put them in the prose. I understand how this poses a problem when it comes to a bot doing the work for us, and as far as that goes I don't have a problem with it putting them in the ratings template temporarily; they can be weeded out manually over time—we're going to have a lot of cases where articles that don't even have reception sections get their ratings moved from the infobox to the template, and reception sections are going to have to be written. When these get written, the reviews that lack ratings can be moved from the template into the prose. I'm OK with letting a bot move them into the template if only for the sake of getting all the moving done, I'm just saying they shouldn't stay there permanently.
"Is there really no way to insert a review with without any rating, not even un/favourable?" Why do we need to? What's the compulsion to reduce a review to a bullet point? What purpose does it serve? The way I look at it is like this: All reviews should be described in the prose; that's how we build a good reception section. A lot of reviews also include ratings, and for those ratings we have this additional template to display them convenientely on the side. The template doesn't replace the prose, it merely complements it, just as a rating complements a review, it doesn't replace the review itself. Hence there's no reason to take a review that doesn't have a rating and try to stick it in the template too, just for the sake of having it there. --IllaZilla (talk) 01:01, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

<--- I strongly oppose any implementation of a box with only nice shiny star ratings. Do you realise that most old albums will end up with Allmusic and Christgau only, thus not giving a true interpretation of that record's critical reception to casual readers and others not bothered by the prose? After all, that's why we have 10 reviews. If you're so bothered about POV in a single minute word, then do not put in a box for only a select few reviews that happen to use nice graphics. Finally, the slippery slope will end with people swapping The New York Times with Tiny Mix Tapes because it has shiny stars. And when that day comes, I'm leaving Wikipedia. In the meantime, I will proceed like most other decent commonsensual human beings and continue to use "favourable", "mixed" and such. RB88 (T) 01:29, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

If an album has several reviews, and only 1 or 2 of those have ratings, then you really don't need the template at all do you? You can simply state what the ratings were in the prose, along with the reviewer's opinion. Obviously the template doesn't need to be used in every article, only those where there are a decent number of ratings to justify having it (as is the case with many albums from the last couple decades). There's no one-size-fits-all solution. So what if Tiny Mix Tapes would appear in the template but the NYT wouldn't? Both can be covered in the prose, can't they? Sorry, but I just don't give a darn about "casual readers and others not bothered by the prose". If readers can't be bothered to read prose, then there's no point in us trying to write an encyclopedia. This is why I get irritated when people want to put everything in an infobox format. We shouldn't be aiming for the lowest common denominator. I see the value in infoboxes, and in the ratings template, but I feel absolutely no need to go for an "all or nothing" approach with it. Ratings belong in the template, non-ratings don't. The template is for ratings assigned by the source, not for anything else. Critics' actual written opinions belong in the prose. 'Nuff said. --IllaZilla (talk) 01:40, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Then we shouldn't have a box at all. Everything should be in prose. There's more POV in leaving only a select few reviews in a box based on a whimsical criterion than simply saying "favourable" or not. RB88 (T) 01:43, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I think you're missing the point of the OP Raf. The suggestion is to separate the reviews from the ratings - both have merit, and hold relevance to the overall reception. Ignoring this fact is taking us nowhere. Ratings are not just shiny stars, they are reliable, notable, sourced ratings. You will always see a review referenced in a news source or something with a single handpicked quote alongside the given rating. Think of film posters - always a star rating. They are a heavily weighted part of a review, it is an inaccruate determination for us to gauge that a rating does not accurately present the review overall. Of course, a review without a rating is the complete opposite, we are assuming, determining - this should be avoided, things like that technically should not be left to the editor (even if in most cases it is quite obvious). As Illazilla said, they can stay in the template until they are manually implemented into the prose. A review being included in the template without a rating is completely superfluous and invaluable. I support Illazilla's suggestions. kiac. (talk-contrib) 02:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Then I won't be using the template at all, rating or no rating, thank you very much. I'm not in a mood to give double prominence to those who have nice graphics and leave The New York Times buried in the prose. I'll leave with this: Gary Nobody will wake up in the next few weeks and add the reviews to Hidden (album). He'll realise that unrated ones won't feature in the box so he'll pick Sputnik, Tiny Mix Tapes, and that woman who blogs about cats but has nice graphics instead of The New York Times or TIME. Now you'd expect him to include such sources in the prose right? But no he won't. He'll keep it the ten shiny star ones in the box. And so the encylopedia and mankind loses quality. Happy New Year. RB88 (T) 02:51, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
And that's why I don't like the idea of a reviews template in the first place. Either way you approach it, it's going to be inherently flawed. WesleyDodds (talk) 07:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
How is it inherently flawed? It's a template for displaying ratings, and it displays ratings. It's not a template for displaying reviews, because reviews are made up of prose and thus better presented as prose. Ratings, however, are basically numerical data and thus lend themselves to a table presentation. Not every reviewer uses ratings, but their reviews can still be included in the prose. I simply don't see how this is a problem at all. Again, I think this gets down to editors not being able to distinguish between reviews and ratings. Most often they go hand-in-hand, but not always. The template doesn't somehow discrimitate against non-rated reviews, it merely provides a convenient place to display the ratings that do exist, info that seems valuable but would be tedious to list in the prose (imagine stating in the prose how many stars each reviewer gave the album...it'd get repetitive; the table provides an alternative means of displaying the same info). The way I'm reading Rafablu88's arguments, they basically boil down to "either we have to find a way to fit every review into the template, or we shouldn't use a template at all, because our readers and most of our editors only care about shiny stars and are too lazy to bother with prose". I'm sorry, but I just can't get behind a position that calls for dumbing down our presentation for the sake of pandering to lazy morons. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:52, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
As I mentioned above, ratings are merely a component of reviews. It's very limiting in regards to critical consensus to highlight only ratings, and it won't reflect many major critical voices who don't use a rating system. Conversely, you can't summarize review prose to fit into the template. Either way, the template has serious inherent problems, and that's why I've been a proponent of removing reviews from the album infobox and for not using a rating template. WesleyDodds (talk) 08:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

If we are to restrict ourselves to "favourable", "unfavourable" and "mixed" for summarising non-star-rated reviews, what is the problem with that? I don't it is difficult or inherently POV to summarise in that way. If anybody could point some counterexamples to me (i.e. reviews that can't be pigeon-holed into these three), I'd gladly change my opinion.

Another thing: we seem to keep suggesting that if a review is not fit to be summarised in the template (for whatever reason), they would be covered in the prose anyway. However, this would only account for the minority of articles that have a reception section fleshed out; how do we take care of the thousands of two-line album-article stubs?—indopug (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

What's the dividing line between "favorable", "mixed", and "unfavorable"? All but the most laudatory reviews will indicate criticisms of an album's shortcommings. Ratings are at least a unit of measure we can work with. Further, as someone who writes music reviews, it's important to note criticism of any sort is more complex than "this rocks/sucks". Often reviewers will interpret a work and explain how it relates to greater musical/cultural view. WesleyDodds (talk) 07:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

At this point we have some distinct opinions on how to proceed here: use the ratings template but only for reviews with a rating, use it for all reviews, don't use it at all. There are rational reasons for all three. Assuming we are all in agreement that the reviews/ratings should be removed from the infobox we are going to have to agree to a compromise. I think Indoplug's suggestion is a great step in the direction of compromise. Another would be to make clear that the use of the template is optional as is the use of "favorable", "mixed", and "unfavorable", let editors of individual pages decide on the talk pages. Any other thoughts? If folks aren't willing to bend this is doomed to failure. J04n(talk page) 11:59, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Leave it to the individual editors. There are good arguments on both sides, so let it be. We've barely started implementing the last big change, and that was hardly a popular decision. —Gendralman (talk) 15:30, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
My initial thoughts weren't meant to bring about a whole new argument, I was just trying to see if we could resolve some problems we had with the template by looking at it another way. My main objection is to the claim that the template detracts from the prose. I think if we do it right, it can complement it in almost all cases, just as a publication's rating complements the accompanying review. I would like to see it encouraged (not mandated) rather than left completely neutral. —Akrabbimtalk 17:30, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Just so everyone knows: I'm fine with the previous consensus of "using a review template as long as it's optional". The only thing I'm really advocating at this point is that prose-only reviews shouldn't be used in the template, because the summary terms that have been previousy favored run afoul of Wiki's original research policies. Even if the Album WikiProject said it was ok, some non-music editor could come along and still reasonably argue that we're making subjective statements, and they would have a point. Many of my other comments in this section are merely elaborating on my already-stated point of view. If there's consensus to use the templates, fine, let's move on. Nonetheless, I want people to acknowledge and understand its faults so we all know what we're getting into. WesleyDodds (talk) 13:42, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Reviews are subjective: they must be, unless all that is given is a quantitative analysis of the number of tracks, their lengths and the recording dates. All subjective assessments have their opponents, and all are based on personal opinions of one or more people - that is what makes them subjective. I like to see a review, but I don't feel bound by it. Helpful reviews tell me "this album is somewhat like that album but with greater exploration of these musical areas" - unhelpful reviews tell me "this album by band A is better than that album by band B" (what if I don't like band B at all - will I like the album in question or not?). Prose like this is not easy to template, so templates should be optional, not mandatory. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
You are correct to point out the template's limitations. And I kind of agree about the prose-only reviews' exclusion from the infobox. I do think ratings on the whole are important to the reviews that use them- because a lot of reviews give say, a seven out of ten, which isn't unfavorable, but spends more time discussing where it lost points and assume the rating at the center of the review. I'm kind of torn on the prose-only reviews. On one hand, it requires OR to determine if it was favorable, mixed, or unfavorable. On the other hand, their exclusion can be detrimental if readers lean on the template too heavily. Still- I think we should assume readers are reading. So I lean SLIGHTLY on the side of ratings only in the infobox, but I'd be 100% okay with either decision. 136.181.195.10 (talk) 17:44, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Why was the entire reviews style section removed? It is still required for the review template. Like guidelines with using stars, etc. I don't believe I can see it on the project page anymore... kiac. (talk-contrib) 11:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

It was just removed from the infobox documentation. The same information is found at WP:WikiProject Albums#Reception and Template:Album ratings. —Akrabbimtalk 02:58, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

So... Can we rehash everyone's opinions condensed down to core arguments to see how close we are? This is assuming we want to remove the ratings from the infobox. I would say I'm strongly in favor of an optional ratings template, in which I would include aggregate scores and individual ratings, but not assessments of prose-only reviews. Essentially, I think this gives you your report and your data. The two complement each other. If a bot does the dirty work, I would default to adding the template. Lastly, I would like all aggregate scores converted to "shiny stars." From my understanding of the discussion, people would be more supportive of their inclusion if this was done. -136.181.195.10 (talk) 20:57, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Right now, we definitely have consensus that the reviews don't belong in the infobox, but in a reception section. From there, we have a spectrum of opinion. I see a few different decisions that need to be made: (1) how much does the template get used, (2) what do we do with reviews with no ratings, (3) do we include aggregates. Some, like me, would say that the template should be used in most cases (just short of being mandatory), since they are useful as an at-a-glance companion to the prose. On the other end, some think the template draws too much attention, and detracts from the prose. As far as converting everything to "shiny stars", I don't think there is consensus or reason to do that. If NME gives 8.1/10, we give 8.1/10, not . For me, it's hard to see the consensus for these issues, just because there has been a lot written (good arguments given on all angles) and I know I am biased towards my own argument. So I don't know if we need a !vote or straw poll or what, but that's how I see it. —Akrabbimtalk 22:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Ideally I would like to see only ratings in the template (as opposed to favorable, etc) and only the ratings used in the actual review, whether that is stars, 7/10, B+, or whatever. If excluding 'favorable' is a deal breaker I can be flexible there. I strongly feel that the template should be optional and used at the discretion of the editors of each individual page, I don't care how strongly it is encouraged that the template be used as long as it isn't mandatory. J04n(talk page) 22:28, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
For me, the most important thing is that all the reviews that are in the infobox be kept in the article somewhere, because they serve as important, reliable references for the article. My first choice is to leave them in the infobox, but if that's not going to happen, then we should have a bot move them all to an {{Album ratings}} template. But that would mean keeping the "favorable" or other verbally summarized reviews, otherwise we lose them as references. I'm also definitely opposed to a bot, or a human for that matter, adding an {{Arprose}} template to a newly created Critical Reception section. So for articles that don't have such a section, maybe the {{Album ratings}} template should be placed after the infobox. — Mudwater (Talk) 01:17, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Akrabbim that the template should be used in most cases and strongly encouraged, but not be absolutely required in every album article. As for the reviews without ratings, I am against removing them. We've been using "favorable" and "unfavorable" in the infoboxes for as long as I've been here, with no major problems or disputes popping up that I'm aware of. Removing them would also be removing valuable references if such reviews are not already in the prose, which was the main reason many of us did not want the infobox ratings removed completely. Timmeh 01:31, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
My contention has been that we have to be careful about trying to do too much in one step. The template idea was created, in part, as a way of allowing a bot to move existing data from the infobox, to somewhere else. The simplest way of doing this is to make a template that is very similar to the reviews section of the current infobox, and transfer the info "as is", as much as possible. A bot cannot accurately add "shiny stars" if they are not already in the infobox. Some people want to do too much at once: drop reviews if they don't have ratings (which I'm sure will result in a backlash from users who see reviews just disappear), put it in a prose section (which a bot can't do), or otherwise massively reformat entries or change criteria for inclusion. I think that we should be trying to move what we have now, in similar format, and all the other concerns should be regarded as changes to the guidelines for the future, which is a separate issue. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 16:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
For the record, I was being sarcastic about the "shiny stars" in jest of the assertion that we only wanted "shiny star" ratings. Which isn't exactly wp:civil, I suppose. Apologies. My logic for removing favorable/unfavorable is that ratings are essentially statistics to complement the prose. But that is a good point. Removing the prose-only reviews up front would make them disappear, and if they're sourced I don't think that's a good thing. However, I would take them out once they're in the prose. And you're actually right. It is too many discussions at once. --136.181.195.10 (talk) 14:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Dashes in article names

The article about the Cream album Royal Albert Hall London May 2–3–5–6 2005 has been renamed several times. In a recent discussion it was agreed to back off the latest rename and put the "2–3–5–6" back into the title -- see Talk:Royal Albert Hall London May 2005#Album name. So I'm going to rename the article again, or request a rename if necessary. But I'm not sure which type of dash should be used in the article name. Looking at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Dashes, the en dash would seem to be the proper choice, but one of the previous moves renamed the article from using en dashes to figure dashes. Before that the article was renamed from using hyphens. (See Dash for more information about different kinds of dashes.) So, let's get it straight this time. What kind of dash should be used in the article name, and why? I think en dashes should be used, based on the MOS, but I'd appreciate feedback from other editors about this. Thanks. — Mudwater (Talk) 02:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

MOS and dashes In terms of the proper method for creating a conjunction between these numbers, I think it is pretty clear that the figure dash is the appropriate glyph to use. The MOS is silent on the use of this, though. A relevant discussion can be found here: Talk:867-5309/Jenny#Article_name. The consensus that emerged there (in spite of my preferences) was to use the hyphen in the title and the figure dash throughout the text. In case I've been ambiguous, I am in favor of being consistent about using the figure dash whenever it is appropriate (in article names, categories, text, etc.) —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Whichever is settled upon, there must be a redirect to the page from the form using the keyboard hyphen-minus (ASCII 2D hex), ie Royal Albert Hall London May 2-3-5-6 2005, simply so that non-regular users can type it in easily. Regardless of what MOS says, I have yet to see a keyboard which allows the direct typing of figure-dash, en-dash, em-dash, and the separate Unicode characters hyphen and minus. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:26, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I SUPPORT what Redrose64 said.—Iknow23 (talk) 03:27, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree that if the article name uses dashes other than keyboard hyphens, then there should be a redirect from the name with hyphens. Other than that, I don't think this discussion has succeeded in establishing a consensus on this question, and personally I'm still not sure of the best type of dash to use in this case. But, a short time ago, another editor renamed the article, using hyphens in the article name -- so the article is now called Royal Albert Hall London May 2-3-5-6, 2005. If anyone wants to continue this discussion, please do so here. Thanks. — Mudwater (Talk) 23:18, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Studio Albums: Christmas Albums?

What is considered and not considered studio albums? Why are Christmas albums often not considered one when cover albums (e.g. Strange Little Girls) are? Aren't Christmas songs actually cover songs that just happen to revolve around themes of holiday? Besides, some Christmas albums actually contain new original materials. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.69.174.163 (talk) 02:00, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Holiday albums are generally studio albums. It makes no difference whether they consist of original material or cover songs. If you're asking about the infobox, the "type" distinction refers to how the album was recorded or compiled (hence studio, live, compilation, etc). It has more to do with the type of release than the nature of the songs on it. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:22, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
I think the disagreement comes with listing them on discography pages and in discography sections. For example, does Let It Snow, Baby... Let It Reindeer belong in Relient K#discography? I had never included it in my mind along with the rest of their studio albums (their primary releases) myself. —Akrabbimtalk 04:34, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes. Take this for example: {{Jessica Simpson}}
Holiday albums are often included as 'other albums' that are not the main body of an artist's works. But I suppose it is hard to distinguish when an album is a main body work and when it is not. Take soundtrack albums, for example. They are often regarded as side projects as well. But then again, there are records like Prince's "Purple Rain" and Whitney's "The Bodyguard", which are self-explanatorily key records of each respective artists. 155.69.174.163 (talk) 05:33, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
A studio album is a studio album. Yes, a lot of artists do holiday albums that they're not banking on as part of their main body of work, but so what? Do we really need a separate section just because "it's just not as important as their main albums"? It's still an album of studio recordings, even if it has a specific theme or audience and the artist knows it'll have limited appeal. Isn't that the same reason we lump cover albums under "studio"? Plus, I can see this snowballing: if holiday albums are a separate category, then shouldn't soundtrack albums be too? How about instrumental albums? Acoustic? It's not really our place to decide what "counts" as part of an artist's catalog. A holiday album fits in just fine with the other studio albums. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:11, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Precisely my point. I think you misunderstood me. That WikiPedia, more often than not, does not lump them into "studio albums" as they should be (categorized as "other albums" instead) is the reason why this question lingered on my mind in the first place. 155.69.182.48 (talk) 11:50, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I consider that there are three types of artist albums; Studio albums, Live albums, Compilation albums.
The importance is that these are called artist albums, that is albums by the artist. So the Artist must appear on all the songs. Thus it is possible for a Christmas Album to be either a 'Studio album' or 'Live album' with only covers or a mix with some new material. It would also be possible for it to even be a 'Compilation album' of Greatest Christmas Songs by Artist. Say for example that an Artist generally releases all their albums around the holidays, so they include a Christmas themed song on each. If such songs are well received, there may be reason 'to collect them up' and re-release them as Greatest Holiday Hits by Artist.
An Artist's 'Compilation albums' are Greatest Hits or Remixes style of albums, even if a new song or two are added to generate extra interest from fans that already have all the individual albums.
Soundtrack albums often are NOT an Artist's album at all, but are instead a collection of songs from varied artists. This would be 'Other appearances' by the artist similar to being featured on a song where it is not released by them. But in cases where only one artist happens to record all the songs upon a soundtrack album, then it IS their album, either Studio or Live.—Iknow23 (talk) 23:05, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Even with just those three types, it's difficult to draw lines. Consider the Beatles' albums A Hard Day's Night (original USA version), Help! (original USA version) and Yellow Submarine (UK and USA versions). These each consist of half genuine Beatles songs, and half orchestral incidental music to which the Beatles had little input, other than inspiring some of the musical themes. By most accounts these are "soundtrack" albums, because most of their content appeared in the film of the same name. But consider the UK versions of A Hard Day's Night and Help! - here, half of each is songs featured in the film, the other half are not in the films - but all of them are true Beatles songs. Going back to Yellow Submarine, the title track had already appeared on a previous Beatles album (Revolver) - and punters in the USA were doubly cheated because they'd already got All You Need Is Love on Magical Mystery Tour. So, with only four new songs, is Yellow Submarine a studio album or a compilation? Then there is Stripped by The Rolling Stones. That is half live recordings, half studio. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Holiday/Christmas albums being studio (or live) albums, but Sountracks is a whole different category. While they can technically be "studio" albums, RIAA classifies them as Soundtrack albums as opposed to Studio albums. For example Glitter, is listed in the RIAA database as a Soundtrack album, not a studio album, despite being all original recordings by one artist, Mariah Carey, because the album was made to accompany to the movie, so in a way is a form of compilation album made by one artist. RIAA makes a distinction--216.18.244.48 (talk) 23:24, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

hmmm. If I understand you...You are calling Soundtrack albums 'a form of compilation album' because the material was previously released, albeit in a film or play format. They were then 'collected from it' and 're-released'? Interesting.—Iknow23 (talk) 23:35, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Not exactly...I said it's similar to a compilation, there are various forms of compilation albums, not necessarily rereleases of songs. I'm not saying its similar to a compilation because its a "rerelease" of songs from the film, but its an album made specifically to accompany the film, put together only for the film and exists solely as a soundtrack of the film, so essentially, music compiled for that film, whether by one artist or various. And I think its telling when the RIAA has Sountrack albums separated.--216.18.244.48 (talk) 23:51, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Since this distinction is about an RIAA classification, I'm willing to bet it's a remnant from the days when industry and union concerns looked upon the music recording industry and the film industry and two separate things. (There is a similar divide between sound recorded for record release vs. radio broadcast.) It's historically significant, but I'm not sure it's significant today. Many soundtrack albums I've seen have songs "licensed" from the recording artists' regular label (or whoever owns their recording rights), rather than allowing the film company to have the original rights to the songs. Consider the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night for example (since this release history of this soundtrack album is well known); the songs were recorded in "the usual way" at EMI's studio by George Martin, and licensed to United Artists, but the recordings were still owned by EMI. This kind of agreement won't be true for all soundtrack albums, but that's the point: one system of licensing and ownership won't cover all of them, so I would be in favour of saying a typical soundtrack album is a studio album. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 04:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
For example, Glitter is listed as an OST in the RIAA database.--69.128.220.162 (talk) 06:35, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

There is also a separate chart for soundtracks...the billboard soundtrack charts--216.18.244.48 (talk) 23:41, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Can an album be on both the soundtrack and regular charts, in the same way a record can be on both country and mainstream charts? --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 04:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Christmas albums can also technically go under compilation album --216.18.244.48 (talk) 23:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

"Technically" according to who? If you're pointing to our own "compilation albums" article, it mentions "Christmas albums" as a type of various artists themed compilation, which won't cover the type of Christmas album being discussed here. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 04:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
There are always the oddball exceptions. Punk Rawk Christmas is technically a compilation album with a couple of new tracks (11 of its 14 tracks were previously released as fan club-only singles between 1998 and 2008). To me, this makes it a compilation album. But this is probably a very unusual example. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:01, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I think there are two ways people look at what "studio" album is. One is the technical, which is anything recorded in the studio as opposed to "Live". Under this definition you have subgroups, if you will, compilations, remix albums, soundtracks, etc. This is a general term. The other way people look at "studio" album is the main body of work by an artist or group, not including, greatest hits, soundtracks, christmas/holiday albums, remix albums, other compilations or live albums, etc. This is a more liberal use of the term "studio album". For example, Jay-Z has credited with having 11 studio albums, this does not include both of his collaborative albums with R. Kelly (Best of Both Worlds 1 and 2), they are by definition "studio" albums, but are not credited as Jay-Z main body of studio album work. If the term that is going to be used the the technical one then there is no reason to make a category of Compilation or Soundtracks because these are also Studio albums (in the technical sense) and should then be listed under Studio Albums.--69.128.220.162 (talk) 06:35, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

If we are sticking with the technical definition of what a "studio album" is then there should only be two distinct categories when listing albums: Studio or Live. Compilations, Remixes, and anything else will fit under one of these two categories--69.128.220.162 (talk) 06:39, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
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