Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 5

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Personnel and track numbers

I've always found it usefull to know not only who played on a record, but also the track number. Is there a consensus on how to add this info? I've seen a track by track listing, but I was thinking something like John Smith, drums (1, 5, 10) where the numbers are the tracks as they appear in the album info. Thanks, mike 15:17, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

From what WP:ALBUMS suggests (for guest rappers), it seems like it should appear in the Track Listing and look something like this:

1. "Complete Song Title"

• Drums: Name of musician

2: "Complete Song Title"

3: "Complete Song Title"

• Drums: Name of musician

And so on. -- Blodhevn (Talk), 16:40, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking that would take too much space (if the same drummer played onhalf the songs, and another on the other half). This is especially true on singer songwriter records, where there are a lot of studio musicians. mike 21:04, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I've considered a newer naming convention for album specifics, I think you should have a list of the tracks, but then you should create a sub-section for the all the information. I don't know if I like the whole Personnel separation because they usually can be broken down into more concise settings.

At the moment, I use the following convention, which I've applied to Boyz II Men's Cooleyhighharmony (1991), but I'll probably have to tailor it some more.

• Album Panel
• Track List
  1. " Song Title "
  2. " (...) "
  3. " Song Title "
• Album Information
  • Technical Information

This will be pretty open section for various releases, so if you have a UK, US, Japanese release, etc. you can stick the CD or LP information here.

• Country Release (LP, CD) Example: US Release (CD)</i?
• Recording Information: AAD, ADD, DDD (if available)
• Catalogue Number
• Copyright, Publishing, Manufacturing, Distribution Information (found directly on case or disc)

I'm still trying to determine how I'm going to write out track information exactly, like if I want to have "Written by A" or "Written by: A". Then there's the issue if I should put copyright information under each track or just have a separate Copyright Information for all information.

But here's the tentative information for that section.

• Track Information

1. " Song Title "
   • Written by:
   • Produced by:
   • Arranged by:
   • Miscellaneous Contributors:
   • Miscellaneous Track Notes (e.g., sampling information)
   • © Copyright Information
2. " Song Title "
   • (...)

• Production Information
  • Executive Producer
  • Miscellaneous Liner Notes (this usually entails album art people, recording location, and other staff)

I know that seems like a lot, but I'm still trying to tailor what I'm going to use for the album information section. I think we should give the most comprehensive track information, especially for those of us who love to tag our digital music collection. I spent a good while plugging that information in so programs like foobar2000 could read the info.

InnerCityBlues 04:15, 01 February 2006 (UTC)

Singles

Hi, please excuse me if I ask a question that's already been answered. What does one place in the "discussion" session of an article on a single? Some pages I've come across have the album template there, which is an idea I support, but many do not. And I don't want to go around adding the album template if it shouldn't be there...thanks! --The-dissonance-reports 20:01, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

length of album?

A lot of times I have trouble finding the length of the song. I usually find each track length and then I add them up. Are there sites that have the album length so I don't have to use my poor math skills? :) I've found emusic has them, but their music collection is not very big. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gflores (talk • contribs) 05:57, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I got two more questions... where do you guys find the producer of the album? i have trouble finding it. also, should demos have infoboxes? --Gflores 06:31, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the album length, if you have spreadsheet software (eg Excel), I'm pretty sure you could just enter all the track times into a column (write =TIME(HH:MM:SS) eg =TIME(0:3:28) - syntax may vary) then make a fomula at the bottom, something like =sum(a1:a12), and format all cells to show as time. Note that the only spreadsheet software I have is a copy of MS Works which is approx 11 years old, but the same or similar thing should work in other speadsheet software. This method is a bit time consuming, but accurate. --Qirex 07:06, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

All Music sometimes lists the length. They also usually have the producers. Other than that, it's usually in the booklet. --Fritz S. 10:23, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

All Music is frequently wrong with regards to track listings, track times, album times and labels, especially with older or more obscure releases Slicing 11:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[1] is very useful. --Flowerparty■ 14:01, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Lew19 Pop the CD into iTunes, if you own it.

Winamp will also give you the time on CDs or MP3 album playlists.--み使い Mitsukai 18:57, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposed change to Chronology section

Parts proposed to be removed are striked out, and the sentence proposed to be added is in green:

---

The chronology section should link to the previous album on the left and the next album on the right. (Only studio albums, usually excluding lives, compilations, singles and EPs.)

• For first albums the left box (the "Last album=" field) should be left blank, or with a " n/a " or with a " [ ".
• For latest albums, the right box (the "Next album=" field) should be left blank, or with a " . . . ".
• For final albums, the right box (the "Next album=" field) should be left blank, or with a " ] ".

As per Wikipedia's date style guidelines, do not link to years within the chronology section.

---

Rationale:

• It is not intuitively obvious that "[" and "]" indicate the final or first album. In fact, it might look as if the editor accidentally messed up their wikicode (as in forgetting the second bracket in a wikilink). Additionally, this convention doesn't have widespread usage, with a blank being preferred.
• "N/A" stands for either "not applicable" or "not available", neither of which I think is appropriate to indicate to "the band didn't have an album before this one". I think using a blank is a better convention.
• From the MoS, "simple years, decades and centuries should only be linked if there's a strong reason for doing so." There is no strong reason to link to years within the chronology section.

--Jiy (talk) 00:16, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

All of this is what I've been doing anyway, for the same reasons, so I support this proposal. Oh, but one thing, why do you suggest the use of "..." for latest albums? --Qirex 01:54, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Agree with Qirex. It's a good change. --Jkelly 02:13, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree for the most part. However, I'm not sure that we should be excluding EPs and Live albums. What do others think? --Gflores 02:16, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

To clarify, the ". . ." and "Only studio albums..." parts are on the page as it stands now. I only propose the specific changes which I have now marked in strikeout and green. I chose not to remove ". . ." because it didn't seem to harm anything, but personally I prefer a blank. --Jiy (talk) 02:39, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Cheers for the clarification. I would also prefer a blank to "..." and if no-one objects, I suggest we remove it since we're making changes. --Qirex 04:16, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

To respond to Gflores' question, I think we should definately include EPs, and lives (although I feel less strongly about lives), probably not compilations. However, probably, the more simple the rule, the better. --Qirex 04:16, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed with simplifying the chronology by including EPs, lives, etc, like Gflores suggested. I'd also like to see one or two examples of chronology templates that use blanks rather than any type of specific notation for first/last. I'm not particularly familiar with mere blanks being used that way, though frankly I'm more familiar with things like political officeholder timelines. --Liontamer 18:27, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I've changed the wording of the sentence; the "do not" wording seems too strong for a set of guidelines. Remember the Wikiproject is a suggested guide, and the MOS itself states that "Writers are not required to follow all or any of these rules." I've changed the wording a bit and substituted the term, "recommends" instead. --Madchester 04:26, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

With regard to Live, Comp and EPs - I would suggest that live albums and compilations should definitely be included in the chronology. What's the point of omitting them? People don't automatically discount these as non-albums, even when they contain little or no new material. There is often something of interest with such releases to make writing an article worthwhile. Their shape, size, length, sleeve art and reviews make them just like any other album. They're almost always included within the discography sections of album articles, amongst the normal album releases, not segregated. I totally don't get why they should be omitted.

As for EPs, well it's a judgement call - they are classed as (or grouped with) 12" singles in some cases, and classed as mini-albums and grouped with albums in others. The problem is, some EPs may have 6 or 8 tracks whereas some have 2 or 3 and are still called EPs... If something's called an EP, regardless of content, it is an EP. Before finding this wikiproject, I thought the standard was to have two seperate chronologies, one for albums and one for EPs, and personally I think this is the way to go - albums (of any type) in one timeline and if people want chronology links on EPs or singles then they use a seperate timeline. Perhaps with "Album Chronology" and "Non-album Chronology" headers or somesuch. Gram 17:33, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I also agree with Gram's chronology suggestions. Plus EP's, compilations and live albums also have chronology boxes. If the box previous releases point to studio albums, then someone clicks on the studio album and no longer has acces to EP's... surfing the chronology box. I hope you get the picture. Post suggestions on my talk page (if you have any). User:Death2 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.131.137.186 (talk • contribs) + forgot to log in just adding my comment that I said this. Please post comments on (talk).

Agree to keep Lives and EPs and (sigh) Comps (forced expiration due to thinking of bands with more comps than actual studio albums especialy after they break up); they are part of the "life" of the artist or band. --Fantailfan 11:53, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Mixtapes

For purposes of this encyclopedia, do mixtapes count as albums? For the uninitiated, mixtapes are unofficial underground releases, usually featuring hip hop music, R&B, reggae, etc, which are hand-made and distributed through the underground scene without the use of a major label (see [2] for a mixtape retail site). Most mixtapes are used to promote material that is either available on actual studio releases or will be at some future date. I nominated Fuck Death Row, a Snoop Dogg mixtape and/or bootleg, on AfD becasue I only get two or three relevant Google hits. --FuriousFreddy 05:56, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

They might have a place on the article about the band/group but I don't think, as a general rule, they deserve a separate article. --RedWolf 06:56, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there is any black and white answer; as far as I know it comes down to notablility. For example, there is an article about The Beatles bootlegs, because the topic is notable, but the only bootlegs that have articles are those which were later officially released, and these pages are shared with the respective official release. Presumably, those that weren't officially released aren't considered notable enough. --Qirex 07:21, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

• • Well, I'm going to nominate a series of Snoop Dogg mixtapes for deletion, and see what happens. --FuriousFreddy 13:39, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Current collaborations

Is this WikiProject ever going to complete its collaboration on The Beatles Revolver? --Hollow Wilerding 14:42, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Good point. It's been the current collaboration for over a year now. --Jiy (talk) 14:27, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Album stub template

The image in this template used to be a black vinyl looking thing, and a little while ago it was changed to a CD with a little musical note, and now it has been reverted back. There has been next-to-no discussion on this. If anyone is interested, please go to Template talk:Album-stub and add your thoughts. --Qirex 02:44, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

A perennial debate is afoot at the Village Pump (Policy and Technical versions) about whether or not to eliminate images from stub templates. From the perspective of this particular template, do you believe that the image associated with it is dispensible; in other words, do you believe that eliminating the image would negatively impact the message of or delivery of that message by the stub template? Thanks for your opionions. --Courtland 13:44, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I must have missed this a while ago. It's probably too late now, but my opinion on the inclusion of images in stubs is that none of them are, strictly speaking, necessary, but generally they look pretty. So, perhaps better to eliminate, if this is required for technical reasons. But, if this is done, I do think that it should be uniform among all stubs. --Qirex 13:18, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Tribute album background color?

I've noticed a few cases where the background color of a tribute album has been changed in various articles, presumably due to someone uniformed of the Albums project not liking the color. Personally, I don't like the admittedly effeminate purple color, which I believe is the reason I've seen people change it. If consensus is there, could we change it from plum to something a bit more decent (List of colors), for example lemon (#FDE910), saffron (#F4C430) or vermillion (#FF4D00)? Those seem to be different enough from the other album-type colors. --Liontamer 18:58, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I've looked again at the colors I suggested/tested, but they seem a bit too bright. Tan (#D2B48C) seems to work very well as a subdued color, doesn't closely look like any of the other color categories, and can be simply inputed as "tan" in the color area of the template (rather than hex code). --Liontamer 19:14, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

EPs	salmon
Original studio albums	orange
Live albums and live EPs	darkturquoise
Greatest hits, box sets and other compilations	darkseagreen
Cover and tribute albums	tan
Soundtracks	gainsboro
Television theme songs	chocolate

Opinions? --Liontamer 16:21, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I don't mind purple. I'm not sure about tan, as I think I'd prefer to use a more "colourful" colour. How about pear or lime or corn? What are other people's thoughts? --Qirex 03:47, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I think corn might be nice, but I don't have any strong feelings about any of them, including the current purple. Perhaps the purple is problematic; it seems to be rendering as lavender for Liontamer... --Jkelly 04:20, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

It my opinion, the feathers are kind of out of the pillow on this issue, and it will be very time-consuming to go back and change so many albums colors just because one color appears "effeminate." This especially seems unnecessarily fastidious considering that there are sooooo many album articles that don't even meet basic requirements - or have an infoboxes at all. There's no evidence that the colors are getting changed because they are effeminate anyway. All that time and effort could go into changing them, and some infobox colors will (likely) get changed again occasionally, since the real problem is that some users haven't noticed that they are color-coded.--Esprit15d 18:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Several inappropriate Coldplay article reverts

This is a copy of the message left on Madchester's Talk page by me, on account of (IMHO) improper reverts of my edits that only preserve outdated Album/Song project style guidelines and superfluous internal linking. While my language was strong, this is not meant as any type of smear or harrassment, but rather to bring to attention to instances where reverts to proper edits are being done to the detriment of the project. The opinions of anyone very familiar with the MoS guidelines on internal linking as well as the subtlely changing style guidelines of WP:Albums would be appreciated. --Liontamer 20:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I just saw you (Madchester) rollback all of the Manual of Style and WP:Album style fixes I did for Coldplay's singles, EPs and albums, thanks to the Song infobox template not being updated both properly and in conjuction with the edits to the Album infobox. It seems obvious to me that you selectively endorse the revisions to the Manual of Style or the WP:Albums style guide (e.g. bolding article titles in artists' chronologies), as your reverts (intentionally misrepresented in your edit summaries as "copyedits") to various article edits go against the current WikiProject Albums style and the MoS guidelines in terms of undoing En dashes, mm:ss album lengths, and proper track listing style, as well as propogating piping years to "XXXX in music", low added-value links to years and dates as well as duplicate Wikilinks in articles and templates for years, dates, bandnames, release titles, etc.. I'm being BOLD and editing the Song infobox template soon to be more like the Album infobox, as it should be. You should be reasonable enough to understand that the WP:Album standard is meant to be consistantly applied to WP:Songs, regardless of whether anyone has actually updated the Songs infobox template in due course. It's improper that you feel it necessary to revert completely legitimate edits (generally without properly stating the reasons for revert no less) because you feel territorial about various Coldplay articles, which is against guidelines when people are making edits that are both in good faith, and legitimate alongside the style guides. While I don't take it personally, don't intend on getting into an edit war and I'm sure you can rebutt for yourself, I will be stating these issues in the Songs & Albums projects Talk pages in order to clarify that your reverts are misguided and impeding these projects. Please adapt to currently-in-use style guidelines for WP:Albums like most other users have in order for these projects to continue moving forward. --Liontamer 19:55, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Once again, please note that WP:ALBUMS, "is only a guide and you should feel free to personalize an article as you see fit." Likewise, the Manual of Style indicates that ""Rules and regulations such as these, in the nature of the case, cannot be endowed with the fixity of rock-ribbed law. They are meant for the average case, and must be applied with a certain degree of elasticity."

The great thing about Wikipedia is that its guidelines give users the range and flexibility to improve articles as they see fit. If you look around at song articles like "Lyla" or "Paranoid Android" or album articles like Don't Believe the Truth, Think Tank, they're great examples of articles that use the existing guidelines as the base template, but expanding on it in ways that editors see to be useful.

Remember according to the MoS, "Clear, informative, and unbiased writing is always more important than presentation and formatting. Writers are not required to follow all or any of these rules: the joy of wiki editing is that perfection is not required." --Madchester 21:12, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest that another great thing about Wikipedia is editing in collaboration. WikiProjects exist in part as guidelines for what consensus is without every editor having to weigh in on every individual article. WP:ALBUM represents what consensus is about some elements of articles about albums. The same applies to the WP:MOS. If a number of editors hold that some WP guideline is restricting the improvement of an article, that is a reasonable time to invoke "It's only a guideline". If, as it appears here, two editors are disagreeing over style, the person who is editing against the MoS and the relevant WikiProject is not boldly applying WP:IAR so much as they are individually editing against consensus. If you disagree with a guideline, argue for changing it and gain consensus, as people do all the time. Don't simply ignore it, as this predictably leads to disputes. --Jkelly 21:31, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if WP:IAR should be referenced in this situation. The articles I pointed out ("Lyla", "Paranoid Android", etc.) have never been edited on my part. That format style is being used by numerous editors other than myself. The editors of those articles used the existing project guidelines as the cake batter, but they then added their own "fillings, ingredients, and personal touches" to suit that individual article. And they baked some good cakes, I may add. I still curious to know why I've been singled out when I'm just following stylistic formats used in consensus by many editors. :-) --Madchester 16:57, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

No one else is discussing or implying the editing of an article's context, merely formatting/presentation to suit current WP:Album/MoS style. These are not "fillings, ingredients, and personal touches" I have been editing. I haven't been changing any text or information on these albums. I don't see why anyone would revert (hypothetical) changes like not internal linking Chris Martin three different times in one article, or the year 2005 five different times. That's like if you reverted edits I made for Infobox conversions, with you stating that I shouldn't touch them because those were made under old guidelines and the articles themselves are well-written.

I can't specifically speak for Jkelly, but I believe he's correct when he assesses that you're simply editing/reverting to individual preference rather than any consensus-based reasoning, which is basically trolling the articles you created IMHO. I think most people looking into my recent Coldplay contributions and seeing the nature of my edits would support them as not overstepping any bounds. I just think you're too cavalier in dismissing the adoption of current style guidelines, which you are not using. Editing for project style/Wiki guidelines shouldn't be taboo to you. --Liontamer 18:57, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Liontamer. The Album WikiProject specifically states not to link years in the chronology section in accordance with Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Linking the years is simply superfluous. As you said, these are only 'guides'. However, regardless of the fact that other editors choose to follow a different course, the instructions on the project page should be followed unless there is a strong reason not to. --Gflores ^Talk 00:50, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Liontamer, Gflores, et al. My experience, though, has been that Madchester is prepared to argue his case until he's losing the argument, when he stops taking part and carries on reverting, often with no edit summaries or other explanation (see, for example, User talk:Madchester#Shiver (Coldplay single and [3]).

His argument here seems to be that, when editors get together to discuss an issue and reach consensus, so long as enough individual editors act against that consensus they've de facto created their own consensus, which overrules the first. That's not only poor reasoning, it's against what Wikipedia means by "consensus". He would, of course, be among the first to squeal if he found the same reasoning applied against his personal preferences. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:08, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Surely the most fitting thing to do would be to revert all Coldplay entries to simply read "A load of bland shite"? and then get on with editing more important articles...? :) --Feline1 12:45, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

The problem with "consensus" is that it tends to reflect the attitudes of the editors working on the project that particular day or week. For example, when ths star images for reviews were introduced around May? or June?, editors working back then agreed on its inclusion. I was among one of them. Now a few months later, a different group of editors is discussing that it's unsuitable and should be removed ASAP. Yet, if they invited the original proponents of the plan back into the talk, I'm sure most of them would be against that decision.

Unless you can survey the opinions of all regular contributors to the project, "consensus" won't necessarily reflect common opinion, just the editors who happened to be browsing the Talk page that particular day. --Madchester 04:41, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Following the conventions of the Manual of Style, which is a much broader and more regulated/discussed area of Wikipedia, is more than adequate consensus. I disagree with your citation of the removal of star images as if it's a "short-term" consensus, as no consensus on removing them was ever reached or even implied by others in the debate. The point being addressed the most readily after the initial voices for removal is actually how to make the star ratings even more visible. --Liontamer 14:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Ditto here. The style is quite clear in this regard, and no good reason is given for why it is being ignored. Fagstein 19:04, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Images of stars in albumboxes

I think that we shouldn't use them. You have screw up your eyes to see whether the star is half yellow or completely white. (I have 1600x1200 screen.) The situation would improve, if there would be more contrast between white and another colour, but that isn't my only worry. The blind users and Lynx users can't see the stars, instead the get some mysterious text like Image:4hv out of 5.png. People practically never bother to write the alternative text to star images. And you understand more quickly how many stars an album got, when you see it as a number than when you start to count stars and half stars from an image. So let's remove the star images from the example albumboxes. --Hapsiainen 14:44, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The stars are also problematic since not all reviews have a 5-point rating system. --Teklund 18:57, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Am I the only one that likes the stars? Personally, I've had little trouble distinguishing b/w a 4 and 4hv rating. I think main reason it's used is because All Music Guide employs a five star rating system (with a similar image). I think ultimately it will have to be removed though just for consistency. --Gflores ^Talk 19:23, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I have been adding the alternate text to all the images as I edit the articles containing them (I concentrate on the artists I listen to though). I do agree that it can be hard to distinguish the ½ star. Perhaps a blue star would make it more legible? --RedWolf 22:59, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Is the inclusion of ratings on albums really something encyclopedic? It is something quite subjective that might best be left to other sites to deal with perhaps. I would not want to see emerging discussions centering around whether an album should have one star or five battled out between fans of rival bands, nor would I want to see battles over whether one authority or another's star rating of an album should be considered authoritative and encyclopedic. Those matters just do not seem to be something that would contribute anything but frustration to readers and editors alike. --Courtland 00:27, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

It's for precisely the above reason that WP:ALBUM has clear guidelines that only professional reviews are to be used. As for the image issue, is there a way to encode the alt-text into the image itself? --Jkelly 00:45, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough, thank you. For reference by casual passersby (I'll self-class myself as one), the section on this appears at Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums#Professional reviews. --Courtland 01:11, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

We should really change that color to something stronger. --FuriousFreddy 01:57, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree, perhaps we should contact the creator of the current star images? --Gflores ^Talk 06:40, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I enjoy the stars! I always thought they were a great addition to the infobox when they were implemented in the spring or summer. Please don't remove them. --Madchester 04:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Now Slicing added the alt text to the recommended albumbox. The text "X out of 5 stars" is understandable. I forgot than I can hover the cursor over the stars, if I am uncertain of their number. I think I can tolerate the situation. But we still need star images with more contrast.

I forgot one point when I wrote about the stars: the screen space. The stars image takes more space than the (X/5) text. Is it too much inside an albumbox? You have the magazine name and possibly the date and the page in the same entry, so the star image more likely divides the entry in two lines. --Hapsiainen 18:02, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I've created Template:Stars to automate the addition of the alt-text. Sample usage:

• {{Stars|1}} gives

• {{Stars|2.5}} gives

etc. Enjoy. - Lee (talk) 11:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Unified naming for cover art files

I just thought that having a standard convention for naming cover art files for albums would be a REALLY good idea, since it would allow people to find the cover art files without first finding the specific album name. Maybe we could use a bot or something to correct the current files also? Thanks, Alex 10:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Track lists for 'various artists' albums

This has probably been answered before, but I couldn't find it. Is there a standard for which comes first in album track lists, song title or artist? I've seen some people completely rotating tracklists from Song - Artist to Artist - Song. Obviously the Artists are much more likely to be linked than the songs - does this matter? Gram 11:23, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

"'Song' - Artist (Songwriter1/Songwriter2)" is standard. --FuriousFreddy 18:10, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Convention for disambiguation albums

I've seen two styles for disambiguating similar named albums, could someone tell me which is the preferred style or come up with a straw poll to see which one is used.

Artist disambiguates title

• Greatest Hits (Ace of Base album)
• Greatest Hits (Aerosmith album)
• Greatest Hits (Alien Ant Farm album)

Year disambiguates title

• Wildflowers (1967 album) an album by Judy Collins in 1967.
• Wildflowers (1994 album) an album by Tom Petty in 1994.

I personally prefer Artist disambiguation because the year can be ambiguous and a person may not know the year of release.

Thanks for clarifying. My apologies if this has already been dealt with elsewhere, I scanned though the voluminous talk pages and was not able to find anything. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 15:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

There is a (sort of vague) style policy at Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Album_titles_and_band_names: "Unless multiple albums of the same name exist (such as Down to Earth), they do not need to be disambiguated any further. For example, Down to Earth (Ozzy Osbourne album) is fine, but Insomniac (Green Day album) is unnecessary." I think the practice of using years to disambiguate probably originated with users who are less familiar with the naming conventions with albums but already had familiarity with the naming conventions of films, as these use years to disambiguate article titles. --Qirex 09:12, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for replying Qirex. There is another naming policy on the project page:

"For multiple albums with the same title, either use the artist name or the year of release to distinguish the different albums, i.e. Down to Earth (Rainbow album) & Down to Earth (Ozzy Osbourne album), or Everything Must Go (1996 album) & Everything Must Go (2003 album)."

In the articles I've seen, there seems to be more artist disambiguation rather than year disambiguation. I strongly believe that we should use one type of disambiguation, not both, unless with odd exceptions where the same artist release two separate albums with the same name (Weezer). I would greatly appreciate any other insight from other project members. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 16:08, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree on using artist disambiguation for the aforementioned reasons. Gflores ^Talk 20:05, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Funny that i am now reading this talk page with exactly the same question on my mind. Support disambiguation by artist. Siebren 10:25, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

It's been about 4 days since I posted my original comment and it looks like that there will not be any other comments from other persons involved with the project. I will change the language so that the only convention is the artist disambiguation. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 15:01, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Missing cover pictures

I suggest that a separate template is created for adding "no cover available"-image (currently Image:Nocover.gif) to album info boxes. Mainly for two reason:

1. The articles could then be automaticly placed to a "cover missing"-category
2. It makes changing the image easy (one place instead of many)

--Easyas12c 16:09, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

You can go to the image's page and scroll down and there's a list of all the pages which are displaying that image. Of course, there are many pages which simply do not display anything, but it would be just as easy to add in nocover.gif as it is to add a category tag. I'm not quite sure I've answered your question though as I do not understand what you mean by creating "a seperate template [..] for adding "nocover available"-image ..." --Qirex 09:00, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

What we could do is replace the call to the cover parameter with

{{Switch|{{{Cover|}}}
        |case:=Nocover.gif
        |default={{{Cover}}}}}

That would cause Nocover.gif to be used if the cover parameter is left blank or undefined. - Lee (talk) 11:37, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh is this what Easyas12c meant? It's a very good idea, and I heartily support changing the album infobox to include this, and also Template:Album infobox 2. --Qirex 12:10, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure if that's what he meant, either, but if we encourage people to just leave the parameter blank instead of directly specifying Nocover.gif, then it would make changing the image easier, should the need arise. - Lee (talk) 12:31, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't we just use

{{{Cover|Nocover.gif}}}

to achieve the same result? —Slicing (talk) 01:07, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

That would only work if the parameter is left undefined (i.e. removed completely). The code I posted works also for the case where the parameter is simply left blank. Given the current climate, though, it's probably not a good idea. - Lee (talk) 01:48, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:Album

As you might have noticed, this template was recently protected, because it appeared in a list of high-risk templates at WP:HRT. As of 5 November, the template is used on 6559 pages. Although being used exclusively on talk pages makes it less expensive than some other templates, I would encourage you to reduce the frequency of edits to the page by linking to the to-do list rather than including it in the template. --bainer (talk) 02:33, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Prepared to change "current collaboration" standing

I'm afraid to say that The Beatles and their number-one album for Revolver has spent enough time yielding the "current collaboration" standing. More than one year is plenty, and seeing how it has been even longer than that, a change is required. A fresh album article with little work completed is in desperate need of enhancing. Okay, perhaps not desperate. Does this proposal sound fair? I do believe so. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 01:41, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Issue with inactivity of the featured album project

I have noticed that Revolver (The Beatles, 1966 release) has been the featured album project for quite some time now. This would please me if the article had been enhancing — however, this does not appear to be the case. Judging by the number of edits that have been made in the history, it seems as though a collaboration on the article had never really commenced. The current five-hundredth edit was edited on the date of August 22 2002; had a collaboration been occurring, I am almost certain that the five-hundredth edit would not have taken place three and a half years ago. My proposal is simple: change the standards of the featured album project. The inactivity taking place in the article—also evident by the past fifty edits that were made (the fiftieth being made on September 20 2005)—has left a dead branch for other album articles that could have been significantly improved within that time period. It disappoints me so. The album project must be changed or even removed from Wikipedia if its inactivity is as great as it currently stands.

See also: I have placed this message on the Featured Albums Project page as well.

—Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 02:01, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

The Gwen Stefani album Love. Angel. Music. Baby.—a mainstream album for once—has become the new current collaboration. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 20:14, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Personnel: Cover artists

I found that there are two seperate articles - Cover art and Album cover. Which one should be used as standard for the sleeve artist (if listed) in the Personnel section? In the Means of Production article, I linked the musician's credits as follows:

[[Aim (musician)|Aim]] - [[Arrangement|Arranger]], [[Record producer|Producer]], [[Cover art|Sleeve Art]], [[Scratching]]

But on other articles I have seen links to Album cover instead. In addition, the article Album cover art is a redirect to Album cover, not Cover art... Gram 12:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Another type of album stub?

I think there should be a pop-album-stub for albums that don't necessarily in with rock, r&b, etc. (MistaTee 21:47, 13 January 2006 (UTC))

Technically, the procedure is to first propose new stubs at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals. I've made stubs in the past without following procedure and had no problems though, eg {{Punk-song-stub}}. --Qirex 03:43, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

A good idea, I think, though pop is less well-defined than many other genres. Technically, pop-album-stub was proposed at WP:WSS/P not long ago, with no objections, so you're free to create it. Please make WP:WSS aware of the new stub if you do, we're trying to help you with sorting.

Note that I've proposed at WP:WSS/P splitting rock album stubs by decade. Conscious 08:25, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Christmas album background color

Can there be a Christmas album background color, such as red or green, since Christmas albums usually are only played at Christmas anyway? Tunes 19:54, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Stars to text

It is rather ironic since I'm the one who made most of the stars in the album articles, but shouldn't we be using text instead of the images? Most of us thought it was a great idea when we first implemented it, but now that we think about it, although it may serve some visual purposes:

• For some people, it's hard to distinguish between 1 and .5 stars (eye, monitor, etc.)
• Without the captions, it's virtually unreadable for visually impaired.
• Image bandwidth. It's much faster and uses less bandwidth without the unnecessary stars.
• Generally, it's easier without them.

Yeah, consider this carefully. I realize it looks good on some articles, but it doesn't really have a good purpose... -- WB 06:41, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the usage of stars does have several problems, the biggest problem is for me is that the alt-text is usually left out leaving visually impaired a problem. I suggest that WP:Albums discourages the usage of stars. Nooby god 16:32, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I think we should run a replacement script. I'm currently replacing all the stars with text on the articles I'm editting, but without a bot, it would be pretty hard. We need some concensus before running it though. -- WB 22:02, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, mainly because not all reviews use the convenient 5 star scale. There isn't a reason why All Music ratings deserve to be represented visually but not, say, Pitchfork ratings (which use a 10 point decimal scale), other than the fact that images for them happen to be more feasible. The resurrected {{stars}} template is capable of using different scales, but there are problems with it: (1) it relies on CSS hacks (2) even if we are able to create a 10 star scale, for example, it would be way too large (3) the syntax is complicated. Overall, the stars images create an unneeded complication and issues of consistency.—jiy (talk) 22:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

We could get away with all of these problems if we used text instead of images. -- WB 00:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, if we used (X/Y) or something simmilar all of the problems can be avoided, and with the bonus of using less bandwith. Nooby god 02:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

So how do we get started on this replacement plan? Is there a bot running free? -- WB 05:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I suggest, we first ask everyone else if they agree with this plan because wikipedia is ruled by a Consensus, and if everyone agrees we can put a Request for a bot. What do you think? Nooby_god | Talk 00:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Where should we ask? This place is so quiet. -- WB 03:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea on where to ask, but we could always run the bot and put in the edit summary 'see WP:ALBUMS/Reason_for_no_stars' or something like that. Nooby_god | Talk 22:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Would it be a good idea to start without a concensus? There are some very very star loving users here in Wikipedia. -- WB 01:15, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I think the stars are nice (only 5 star scale, I don't know of any source that uses stars for a scale of 10). But since most people prefer text, I don't mind. There should be a Template for deletion vote before making changes, I think that's the proper process. Gflores ^Talk 03:25, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

There's already a bot replacing the shortly active template with the text. My concern here is the ones with the raw image link. -- WB 03:32, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've messaged User:NetBot and has accepted the request to convert the stars to text. Gflores ^Talk 21:59, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I've set User:Tawkerbot to convert, I will start as soon as I recieve approval (3 days) Tawker 02:32, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

User:Tawkerbot is presently chugging away at the replacements, it's running a 30s interval so it'll be a few hours. Tawker 09:00, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Instead of talking away in private and then setting up a bot, do you not think it wiser (not to mention more courteous) to make some attempt to let other know what's going on? All I saw was a bot replacing stars with no explanation, the image in question being untagged. I've reverted quite a few already, but then stumbled across this. Don't be surprised if other editors are reverting the change too. I see that some editors have made thses points above; unfortunately they were ignored. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:58, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

It would've been nice if this was brought to the attention of a wider audience before starting. Especially seeing as you've been debating this for a month and have only had input from five users, it's not exactly what I would call a majority consensus. I'm adding a modified Template for Deletion tag thingy to the stars to get the issue more attention. - MightyMoose22 13:42, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Scrap that idea, I don't know how to do it. I would suggest that someone who can do it... erm... does it, and adds a link pointing to here for discussion. - MightyMoose22 13:50, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I have posted regarding this on the Village Pump here - I think we need a consensus before a bot does anything on the topic. Tawker 15:06, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

"Now That's What I Call Music!" - Notability and naming scheme for individual albums

NOTE: There is also further discussion on this topic at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums/List#Unfiltered, though it probably makes sense to keep any further talk here, in one place. Fourohfour 13:15, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Any thoughts on compilation albums such as the "Now!" series?

My personal feelings are that whilst the "Now!" phenomenon is notable, the individual albums really aren't, being just compilations of chart hits at the time, with little to be said beyond that- and I thought Wikipedia was intended as more than a simple repository for lists/info available elsewhere.

The other question is disambiguating entries in the different "Now!" series. For example, the UK "Now 4" came out in 1984, and was a double cassette/LP featuring hits from that year. The US "Now 4" came out in 2000, and was a single CD reflecting US hits from that year; totally different, although the name is the same.

I moved some entries to a new name such as Now That's What I Call Music! 17 (U.S. series), but realise that I should perhaps have got a consensus before doing this.

Any thoughts?

Fourohfour 17:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

If you want to take this on, creating a single article about the series and merging, then redirecting, articles on the individual compilations strikes me as a fine way to go. We really don't need to be hosting the track lists for all of these albums, given that their track list is pretty much the only thing one can say about any of them. Jkelly 17:51, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

There is already an overall "Now That's What I Call Music!" article, as well as a separate List of Now That's What I Call Music! albums (having a separate list saves the main article from getting bloated and unreadable). Personally, I would support turning them all into redirects; however, since this is (a) pseudo-deletion, and (b) these are "requested" albums (see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums/List#Various), I would rather get some consensus on these and other compilation albums so it doesn't turn into a fruitless argument later on. Fourohfour 18:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I should have made clear that my comments on naming were intended for *if* we decide to keep the articles anyway.

Fourohfour 13:15, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

If they're so requested then people can read about them individually in the main article. No content is being lost, its just amalgamation. Support.--Urthogie 13:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

BTW, there is also a list of Now! albums supporting the main article. Fourohfour 13:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

How frustrating! I began researching and adding these articles because they were in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/List topic, there described as "a list of album articles-to-be-written". I presumed this meant that the need for the articles (and, therefore, their place in the encyclopedia —particularly, their notability and naming scheme—had already been debated and determined). After all, that list has links that lead straight to the "edit" page for creating the new articles.

Apparently, that assumption was wrong. I'll butt-out, then, until the project can reach a decision about what it's asking contributors to provide. -- Mikeblas 15:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Although I disagree with you on this topic, your opinion is as valid as anyone elses when it comes down to it, so I'd rather you didn't "butt-out" for that reason. I don't believe that the project has a monopoly on what should/shouldn't be added, although it's obviously a very good focus for such activity.

BTW, I can't find any discussion on it in the archive of discussions around the date that the Now! albums were added by fonzy. I've posted a message on Fonzy's page, but he (she?!) seems to be semi-dormant, so we might not get anything in the forseeable future. It looks to me like they've just been stuck in there by one user, but I may be wrong.

Fourohfour 16:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't see "available elsewhere" as a valid argument. Everything on Wikipedia is to be available elsewhere, since Wikipedia is intended to contain no original research.

I should have kept the link; but I remember reading an article stating that (in essence) the Wikipedia philosophy was not simply to act as a repository for lists/stuff available elsewhere in that form. The "original research" does not preclude writing original *articles* which distill factual content from a number of sources but present it in an original manner. Quite the opposite; I may be wrong, but I would consider that the whole raison d'etre of Wikipedia. Otherwise we would simply end up with lists and isolated facts (since copying more than small parts of articles would be a copyright violation).

I'll admit I'm probably making too much of a deal of this whole "Now!" notability business. It's nowhere near as bad as having readable articles bloated out (and ruined) by inclusion of countless minor factoids and loss of structure over time. But that's a whole other issue... Fourohfour 11:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

There's far more crufty topics, even only considering only music-related contributions: articles on single, non-notable songs by a particular artist, for example. Because the notability and encyclopedic bars for contribution are so vague, I don't think citing any existing topic is a useful argument, either.

I don't see any problem listing the topics by the titles of the CDs. The CDs titles are usually subtly different between US and RoW editions.

"Usually subtlely different"? *All* the mainstream US "Now!" albums (1 to 20, IIRC) have the *exact* same name as (different) UK albums that came out 15 years previously. There are also at least *three* other "Now!" series now, meaning that for the lower numbers there are up to five albums with different content/covers/dates, but the exact same name. Fourohfour 11:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Even when they're not, all other topics on Wikipedia are discussed with a worldwide view under a single topic name.

They're not a "single topic". They're different albums released at different times that just happened to be given the same name. Fourohfour 11:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the discs deserve to be listed because they're individual releases on their own, and popular on their own right; contain well-known songs by notable artists; and most have made progress on Billboard charts, for example, and the sales of the albums count towards sales figures of the songs they contain.

Well, let's keep in mind that there are two distinct issues; whether the Now! albums warrant individual articles, and what the naming system should be if they do. I've said it before; but if they warrant individual articles, they shouldn't be lumped together because they coincidentally share a name with a different "Now!" album. Fourohfour 11:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

That said, I don't feel particularly passionate about it; as I mentioned above, I'm just satisfying requests for topics in the project. I'm just a volunteer and a hobbyist, so I don't want to sit around and argue things—I'd rather just get on with contributing what was requested by someone who has, as far as I know, already gone through that process.

I can't get much interest in this issue, and I'm not pushing for mass deletion/redirection unless that changes anyway. I'd previously considered putting one into AfD as a test case, as it's likely to get some attention; but I felt that may have been mistakenly interpreted as a hostile act (rather than attempt to get consensus), so I didn't. The articles are safe at present. Fourohfour 11:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

So I'll leave it to you (and whoever else wishes to take up the charge) at how the contributions are categorized, if they'll stay or not, and so on.

I don't intend making any serious contributions to the articles themselves, just ensuring that they're in the expected place. Fourohfour 11:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Debating this kind of thing isn't fun, so I'll go find something less disputable to play with. If the series stays, I can continue to contribute here; otherwise, I'll just abide by the decision here. -- Mikeblas 20:59, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I think (hope?) we can agree that each "Now" album is an album in it's own right, so it's probably fair enough that they each retain a listing each. However, in terms of "notability" I would argue that it's the phenomenon as a whole that's notable, not the individual compilations. For me the key thing is consistency: if each album is to have a separate entry, the entries should be uniform across the whole collection (with the possible exception of the very first one in the series, and perhaps the first to be released on CD as opposed to other media). Waggers 20:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Usability question for foreign albums

I work with J-pop albums, whose titles are almost always in Japanese. These names have a romaji version, in example, Koibumi / good night (this is a single, but should work as example, and I didn't want to cross-post between WP:SONG and WP:ALBUM, and this page seems to be more active than WP:SONG). The real name for this single is 恋文 / good night. In the previous, current and next album sections of the template, when the real name is in Kanji, should it be written in romaji (Koibumi / good night), in kanji "as is" (恋文 / good night) or in both (恋文 / good night, line break, Koibumi / good night)? I have been using the romaji-only version, because I believe it is the clearer version for both those who are in touch with the subject and the casual reader, but I want to get a confirmation. Thanks. -- ReyBrujo 04:39, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, especially since my browser isn't showing those kanji anyway. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 13:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Remix albums background color

Question: are these considered Studio albums (and thus under the orange color) or other (and thus darksea green), or such? Just curious, as I'm creating a couple of them that are, and I'd like to know what the consensus is.--Mitsukai 20:44, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm just wondering: how do readers even know that the background color is significant? -- Mikeblas 21:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Because someone took the time to argue about it. ^_^ Seriously, I don't know, other than for classification reasons. The color scheme is on the project and infobox pages, but I don't think anyone really knows (or cares, TBH) what the colors are for. I'm just trying to keep things in line with everything else. Personally, I'd propose a color for remix albums, since they seem to be on the increase as a definitive type of album.--Mitsukai 21:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I always label them as compilations; dark sea green. --FuriousFreddy 14:22, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

All Music Guide italicized or not?

I've noticed that the All Music Guide link in professional reviews field is italicized in many articles. Is there any reason to do so? Jogers 22:19, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, no. It's not a magazine of any kind, it's just a website. Websites shouldn't be italicized. Gflores ^Talk 22:54, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

But it is also a book, and was released as such before the website ever existed. Still (according to the Wikipedia article, anyway), AMG is first and foremost a music database, in which case it probably shouldn't be capitalized. Thebogusman 23:36, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it should be noted on the project's page? Seems there's a bit of confusion over this topic. Jogers 09:41, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Whenever I came upon a review I went for not italicized, as it isn't italicized in its article. (And for the reason given by Gflores) --Fritz S. (Talk) 14:04, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Citing liner notes

A standard format for citing liner notes has been added to the citation style guide: Wikipedia:Cite_sources/example_style#Liner_notes. Kaldari 20:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I have some updating to do. Jkelly 20:07, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

iTunes Exclusive Releases

Anything that should be done different for iTunes exclusive releases? I'm editing Telescope Eyes E.P. and wondering if I should use the regular salmon for the infobox or something different. – gRegor 05:54, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

More specific stubs

I noticed on several albums I had edited that the stub was changed from {{rock-album-stub}} to a more specific {{2000s-rock-album-stub}} by the Stub Sorting Project, so I went ahead and added those to the list of stubs on our project page. The more specific the stub is the more helpful it will be, eh? -- gRegor 18:45, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Track listing formatting

What do you think about this way of track listing formatting [4] ? Should it be changed to conform the project's specificaton? Jogers 13:59, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the table is inappropriate (see When tables are inappropriate). --Fritz S. (Talk) 15:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

"Personnel"

I find this a very awkward and unmusical term and have been changing it at various articles to "credits" (didn't realise this was a standard). I actually assumed the person who had come up with personnel didn't speak english properly and had translated it out of a dictionary or something :) Anyone else agree? Is there a better term we could use? Stevage 19:39, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't like the use of the term, I just make three sections, Technical Information, Track Information, and Produciton Information. It gives you a chance to put in all the info from the CD's

-- InnerCityBlues 20:19, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that "Personnel" should be changed to "Credits". What's the consensus on this issue? Does anyone have concerns if we changed the guidelines? -Chairman S. 04:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Are all albums, once verifiable, encyclopedic?

The WWW Music Database says it has 23,000 albums. Allmusic says it has 874,000 albums. Moreso, we're now gathering Category:Demo albums and Category:Unreleased albums. Do all of them deserve individual articles? --Perfecto 05:58, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I hope not (see also Now! discussion above). Wasn't there a guideline that said for bands with countless "Greatest Hits" and compilations, they weren't all notable?

I mean, there must be countless cheap and obscure ABBA compilations which are essentially just "a few hits and a fairly random selection of album tracks" with little of interest to be said about them. The "proper" albums and famous compilations (e.g. "Greatest Hits", "Greatest Hits Vol. 2") are notable; I don't think a German "Reader's Digest" compilation of their work from 1977 is. Fourohfour 15:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

One aspect of the issue (that many editors are unsatisfied with articles that can never grow beyond a track list and the mention of a couple of reviews), is that there is often no obvious place to merge such information. Jkelly 19:18, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

To /dev/null?? I witness "verifiable yet nonnotable" articles sent to /dev/null in AfD all the time. --Perfecto 22:01, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Linking dates in chronology

Hi there. In the few album articles I've created, I've been linking the years in the chronology to [[Year in music]]. I've read WP:MOSDATE, so I understand the reasoning behind removing contextually neglible links to plain years, but in this case, linking to the year in music seems contextually relevant in the Chronology section of the infobox (it allows the reader to easily find out about the musical landscape when an album was released). I'd actually like to recommend that your project adopt it as a guideline, but I'm not much of a "joiner" so I'll leave the decision up to you all. Mike Dillon 08:02, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I would object. There are guidelines to avoid so-called "easter egg links" (links you have to hover to find out where they really lead), and piping "Year in X" links with just a year label is strongly discouraged. See Wikipedia:Piped link.--Fritz S. (Talk) 13:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Pitchfork/Rolling Stone lists

Has there been any prior discussion of creating categories or pages based on the various Rolling Stone/Pitchfork/... lists that are out there? I'm thinking of Rolling Stone's Top 500 Albums, and Pitchfork's Top 100 of the 70s/80s/90s lists. As precedent, I'd point to The 100, where a part of a similar list is included. While this article only includes 15/100 people, the distinction is mentioned on many of the lower-ranked peoples' pages (e.g. Leonhard Euler#Distinctions).

I would think that a category for something like the Rolling Stone Top 500 would probably be OK, since it wouldn't include the particular ordering, just a list of the albums. The drawback would be that with dozens of lists out there, the categories for some albums would get quite cluttered. An alternative would be some kind of standardized section for "Awards", much like there's a standardized way to include pop chart performance in album articles now. Some albums seem to have done this, e.g. Loveless, but not others, e.g. OK Computer, Daydream Nation, and Remain in Light. --Dantheox 00:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The pages, if they exist, are mostly in the process of being deleted due to copyright issues. However, to improve the articles on the albums, it would be helpful to develop a standard format in which an album's position on these lists can be shown. This could be a part of the album infobox, or perhaps a separate template for sales (gold/platinum), chart positions, and rankings. --Michael Snow 06:26, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Upcoming albums

What about upcoming albums, do they deserve their own article before any official confirmation? Is there any guideline? In this specific case, I am referring to the new Tool (band) release, which is untitled, with no official release date yet and so forth. As the specifics start to emerge one by one, the rumor mill goes wild. The article Aldaraia refers to the upcoming album (which already got an AfD tag Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aldaraia). What do you folks think would be reasonable to do? Any suggestions are appreciated.. --Johnnyw 18:23, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. However, if there is verifiable information about an upcoming album an article might be justified. --Fritz S. (Talk) 18:52, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Split albums

Did a quick search and didn't see anything about this on the main page, but is there any special way to do split albums? Dysfunktion 01:42, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Judge by how much article you have to write, not by packaging. Jkelly 01:51, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Discographies

I can't find any guidelines or templates to help with the formatting of discographies. Are there any? If there are, a headsup note on my talk page would be appreciated, thanks. --kingboyk 15:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Looks like we came up with a tiny guide on discographies.. see: Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums#Discography. I'll also add a note on your talk page, just to make sure. --Johnnyw 21:08, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The link listed on the project page (Wikipedia:Filmographies and Discographies) redirects to Wikipedia:Filmographies which "is currently inactive and is kept primarily for historical interest." I'd too be glad if there were any consensus on this. Or maybe we could come up with a new decent proposal? --Johnnyw 15:52, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, this isn't really written in stone, but on most articles it's simply

• First album (year of release)
• second album (year of release)

etc.

For more detailed discographies (with chart positions, etc.) there's the way the Gorillaz discography is done.

Anyway, in my opinion it doesn't really matter as much how the list is formatted, as long as it avoids being a gallery of album covers (which is unecessary use of fair use images). --Fritz S. (Talk) 16:07, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the answer. I'll add a bit of help about how to include albums in a discography on the project page.. --Johnnyw 18:39, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, why is the use of the sleeves an "unnecessary use of fair use images"?! Who decides what is is necessary and what isn't? It's either legally fair use or it isn't, and in my opinion a small low res image of the recording being listed in a discography is eminently fair use ("to illustrate the recording in question"). Furthermore, what artist is going to complain about the free publicity? In the presumed absence of any legal advice on this matter I'm going to modify the instructions. --kingboyk 14:58, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

There's already been a lengthy discussion about this when there was that second album infobox that used the covers in the chronology. Apart from the fair use issue, using the covers in a discography is unadvisable because users tend to click on the images expecting them to link to the album's article (when in fact they link to the image's description page). I don't think the project should encourage this. --Fritz S. (Talk) 15:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

International track listings?

I haven't really seen this addressed in the project page or in the Talk archives. What is the best way to handle alternate track listings for international versions of an album? I don't want to be "Americentric" and assume that the US/Canada version is the "default" track listing and everything else is just a noted mention. On the other hand, I'm not sure I want to get into in-depth tables of track listings for the myriad international versions of some albums. Is there a standard here? Aguerriero 21:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Colors/Compilations

In regards to infobox album colors, two things:

1. What's the difference between the "sea green" compilation and the "red" compilation?
2. Can we mute the red a little? It seems a bit stark.--み使い Mitsukai 02:43, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

darkseagreen should be used for compilations. —Slicing (talk) 06:29, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Track list template

So I created a template (here) for adding tracks to a track list using the format recommended on the project page. A user has indicated that he doesn't particularly care for it, or see a reason for it. I do realize it's not much easier than just doing the entry yourself (sans template), but this does standardize the format, and I'm hoping to add some additional elements, such as adding an icon to indicate that a clip is available, or lyrics, or what not (as a rough idea, you can see the list I did at Listen...). I originally had a link to it under the track list section on the project page but the user removed it for the given reasons, which is fine. I'm just curious now if anyone actually considers this of any value, or at least potential value. I'd appreciate discussion/comments so I can decide how much effort to put into the template. bmearns.....(talk) 21:34, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to not list it *as a convenience* for anyone who would prefer it, with advice to subst: it. Do start a discussion before adding bells and whistles, though! Jkelly 21:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I like the template. Good work. Gflores ^Talk 22:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

What is the advantage of using it? Everything it does can easily be accomplished using simple syntax. Jogers 22:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Sure, but isn't that the case with just about every template? This just makes sure that anyone using the template is using the same formatting. It's easy to accidently use a different format because of a typo, but it's harder to screw up a template. Plus, if the project ever decides to reccomend a different format for one reason or another, it can simply be implemented in the template, and anyone using it will automatically get the new formatting. It's basic encapsulation. Which brings up my question, what's the reason for recommending subst here, it's not clear to me. Thanks for the discussion. bmearns.....(talk) 23:20, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I would't agree that it's harder to screw up a template. Simple syntax is easier to deal with. Unexperienced users tend to make many mistakes in album infoboxes, for example. Implementing the template in every album article just in case we change the recommendations, if this is what you mean, doesn't make any sense to me. Jogers 23:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, as an example, adding extra spaces when you're filling in the template doesn't change the format, and you don't have to worry about new users remembering which is italicts and which is bold (for example), and other things like that. Of course it's still possible to mess of the template, but the results of such a mistake are usually more visible (e.g., because {{{title}}} will appear on the page). As far as using the templates in case the recommendation changes, I'm not really sure how that doesn't make sense. If people use the templates without the subst, then any changes we make to the template will automatically show up in the pages that use the template. But like I said, it depends on what the arguments are for using the subst, which I'm still not clear on. And at any rate, I've decided I like the template and will continue to work on it a little and use it on the pages I write. If there's no general consensus for it, then I don't see any reason to put it on the project pages. bmearns.....(talk) 14:28, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Isn't the format recommended on the project page using a numbered list (with #)? And I also agree that it is a pretty useless template, and should be subst'ed when used. --Fritz S. (Talk) 14:44, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the recommended format uses a "numbered list", but doesn't actually mention anything about using the numbered list, i.e., #. My reasons for not using it in the templatewere because 1)Using it in the template, all the tracks ended up restarting the list, so they were all #1 and 2)If someone for whatever reasons wanted to put up a partial track list (e.g., they only new some of the tracks) then they would be improperly numbered using the #. Once again, I haven't heard the actual arguments for using subst. If there are good reasons I'd be more than happy to do it my self as well as to recommend it on the template page, but so far, I haven't heard ANY reasons. bmearns.....(talk) 15:40, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The reason it always restarted is probably because there was a linebreak, which can be easily avoided. And I doubt there are many articles with only partial track listings.

There's a whole bunch of reasons to use subst, see Wikipedia:Template substitution. I think the most important reason is that it will speed up the site, as it won't have to load the seperate template. --Fritz S. (Talk) 16:15, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. I now understand the purpose of the subst, and realize that especially for this template, where it is likely to be used many times on a single page, subst is particularly useful for server resources. I have made appropriate notes on the template page encouraging users to subst.

I've tried your suggesstion of removing linebreaks to use the numbered list, but have not had any success, I still get all 1's. If you would like you fix, I'd be very appriciative of it, I think you're right, partial track lists are unlikely and using a numbered list would be easier. bmearns, KSC_(talk) 20:29, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I just tried to change the code to works with numbered list, but the problem is the line break between the different instances:

{{Track listing item
| number    =     5
| title     =     The Super Secret Track of Eris
| writers   =     Malaclypse The Younger, James Bojangles
| length    =     5:55
| on-line   =     **
}}
{{Track listing item
| number    =     6
| title     =     Accordian Harmony
| writers   =     unknown
| length    =     0:25
}}

If you write the following instead, it works.

{{Track listing item
| number    =     5
| title     =     The Super Secret Track of Eris
| writers   =     Malaclypse The Younger, James Bojangles
| length    =     5:55
| on-line   =     **
}}{{Track listing item
| number    =     6
| title     =     Accordian Harmony
| writers   =     unknown
| length    =     0:25
}}

--Fritz S. (Talk) 10:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

New Wikiproject: Musical Artists

I'm proposing a new wikiproject for articles regarding musical groups, individual musical artists, etc. If anyone has thoughts or comments on this, or if anyone can point out that I've missed an existing project for this purpose, please discuss it on my talk page. If you support the creation of this project, please add your name to the list here. The temporary pre-project page is here and is in desperate need of contributions from more experienced projecters. bmearns, KSC_(talk) 20:10, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

This project jas been officially started at Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians B.Mearns^*, KSC 19:49, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Just letting this project know

You guys were the only ones with anything on the talk page, so to give you a heads up: I moved Me First, by The Elected to Me First (Album) and set up Me First as a disambig between that page and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. -AKMask 06:20, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, but the naming guidelines suggest the 'a' in album should be lowercase, not uppercase. :) Gflores ^Talk 06:41, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Categorization

Category:Albums by artist nationality seems pretty useful to me. I've just started to clean it up so the nationality subcategories contain the artist's albums categories rather than the invidual album articles. I believe this is the right way to arrange this so please correct me if I'm wrong. Jogers 12:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I hadn't noticed that category. It's looking great! I'll try to help a bit. Gflores ^Talk 21:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I've done letters X, Y, Z in Category:Albums by artist, but I see you're creating new categories that go there, so I'll wait a bit before I continue. :) Gflores ^Talk 22:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! I'm creating new subcategories of Category:Albums by artist to get the Category:Albums by artist nationality cleaned up. Some albums are directly in subcategories of Category:Albums by artist nationality but there are no proper subcategories of Category:Albums by artist for them, in which case I create them and place them in the proper subcategories of Category:Albums by artist nationality. So, what you started to do is complementing perfectly with what I'm doing and I see no reason why you would have to wait :-) Our joint effort can make the Category:Albums by artist nationality very useful. Perhaps, we could expand the recommendations on using categories on the Project's page? Jogers 14:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

What to do about separate music and lyrics credits?

I'm working on a page for an album whose liner notes have separate writing credits for the music and the lyrics. How should this be addressed in the track listing? Say, for instance, track #1 has music by X and Y and lyrics by X and Z. Should the track be listed like this: 1. "Track 1" (X, Y, Z), or should the credits be listed after the track title in a different fashion? JJBunks 21:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I usually just combine them (like you suggested)... --Fritz S. (Talk) 14:06, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

colours

What colours should be used for demo / rehearsal releases? and bootlegs? Spearhead 22:35, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I would say use darkturquoise for now (since they are usually live recordings), until the matter about the admissablity/policy of bootlegs gets resolved.--Esprit15d 18:44, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Album total times

Is there a good resource to find total times of albums? It gets sickening after a while when you have to add the time of each song. Weatherman90 19:40, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Freedb Spearhead 19:56, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! You saved my brain from exploding :) --Weatherman90 03:45, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I think sickening is the wrong word. "Mind-numblingly dull" is the correct one. — Fantailfan 12:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

There's also MusicBrainz. --Jacj 19:54, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

RIAA Certification

Another Question - How can I find if an album received any certification, and if it did, what kind, (Platinum, Gold, 2x Platinum, etc.) Thanks! --Weatherman90 15:09, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

http://www.riaa.com/gp/database/default.asp - this only works for American data, though. Flowerparty■ 16:12, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Weatherman90 01:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

In addition, I have been indicating Gold, Platinum, Double Platinum, Triple Platnium, 4X Platinum, etc. - where should I start the #X? Any consensus? – Fantailfan 12:51, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject Albums Userbox!

I made this nifty little number, If anyone wants to use it. It will also place Category:Wikiproject Albums Member on your page. Enjoy!

This user is a member of WikiProject Albums.

--Weatherman90 00:08, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Very nice. I can't say I'm a member, but I spend quite a bit of time here. But that userbox looks nice.--Esprit15d 13:00, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Anyone up for templating it?--み使い Mitsukai 13:01, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure. I will. {{User Album}}--Esprit15d 18:06, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

It looks like there is already Template:User WP:ALBUM - is this to replace? --Fantailfan 15:01, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Redlinking

The rules say not to redlink to songs. That implies that it is okay to redlink to albums. Should we be doing that? Actively? Am I the only one who finds 60 red links out of 70 links on a list annoying?

Also, Do songs on discography lists require quotes? Freekee 06:40, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

• I answered the above question on his talk page. Weatherman90 00:02, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be some small consensus for not making excessive amounts of redlinks. I've also seen a suggestion, that if too many of the list items are red, then maybe the list does not need to be made.

Freekee 05:16, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I have been redlinking musicians and albums bigtime on my contris. Part of the reason is to provide a interwikiurl if an article is created for the person or album. Opinions? Is there a tool for locating redlinks on your pages? -->Fantailfan 15:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

There is one good reason to create a redlink. That's so that when the page is finally created, the link will go active. Oops, one more: to prompt someone to create that page. The question that needs to be asked is whether the item in question really needs an article. Where I ran into this problem, was on a list of 79 compilation albums in a discography. I can't think of a reason why more than one of the records in question would ever need an article. Studio albums? Definitely. But not compilations, unless they had some particular significance, or at least a very high chart position.

Is there a tool for locating redlinks on your pages? Why, are you color blind? ;-) But seriously, I wouldn't worry about it. If you or anyone finds them, they can be fixed at that time. Besides, there are worse sins.

Freekee 19:35, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

For further info, I found the following at Wikipedia:Wikiproject music: You can link to normal studio albums as much as you want. Caveat: Unless there's extenuating circumstances, greatest hits and compilation albums don't need an article, so don't link to them unless the article already exists.

discussion at Template talk:Album infobox

There is an ongoing discussion at Template talk:Album infobox#Update about the proposed changes to the album infobox template. I thought that someone here might be interested. Jogers (talk) 10:48, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I've updated the Project's page to reflect the changes to the infobox. Jogers (talk) 14:35, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Professional reviews order in the infobox

Perhaps listing them alphabetically could by recommended? Jogers (talk) 15:29, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, if there is a lot of reviews in the infobox it makes sense to arrange them in some order, don't you agree? I've noticed that they are already ordered alphabetically in some articles. Jogers (talk) 08:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree and usually put them in alphabetical order (I actually thought that already was a guideline)... --Fritz S. (Talk) 11:41, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

OK. I've updated the guideline and the infobox example. Jogers (talk) 13:20, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

By the way, anybody knows what's wrong with the link to the Q magazine review in the example infobox? Jogers (talk) 13:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the Q magazine website suggests that it does not host any reviews at the moment. In fact, the entire site seems very stripped-back. I'm taking the links down. –Unint 05:50, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Some links still work however [5]. For those which don't we can still link to the summary and rating on buy.com or metacritics. Jogers (talk) 10:49, 4 April 2006 (UTC)