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Associated acts confusion

Every time I've used this template or edited an article that had it, the one parameter that I always run into trouble with is "associated acts". Recently, I've been going through artists' articles and adding or removing associated acts so that they meet the requirements laid out in the parameter's description. However, across all of these articles, there seems to be a disagreement about what qualifies an artist or group to be worthy of being included as an associated act for another act.

On the article for Nicki Minaj, it seems as though there's an unspoken agreement among editors that only acts who have had at least three collaborations with Minaj should be included in her infobox. Every time it's been suggested that this is the case (such as here and here) it's never been contested. I didn't really understand why until I edited Trippie Redd's infobox and realized just how cluttered it became after I added each and every one of his two-time collaborators. Meanwhile, certain acts, such as Drake and Björk, have producers listed as associated acts when they've produced one or more of their albums in its entirety. Jazmine Sullivan is listed as an associated act for Frank Ocean because she contributed additional vocals to four songs from Endless and to "Solo", but on none of those songs is she credited as a featured artist.

I've also noticed that, while the description cautions against adding the solo careers of the members of a group as associated acts for that group and adding groups with one member in common, it says nothing about adding the individual members of a group to each other's associated acts. I've run into this a number of times, including on Caroline Polachek and Riki Lindhome's pages. Speaking of Caroline Polachek, her infobox currently has A.G. Cook and Danny L Harle, but both of them only qualify if you include remixes as collaborations. The template also states that the musicians or bands listed as associated acts for any other act must be notable and significant to an act's career, but does this mean that they have to meet GNG requirements? On Glaive's page, I added four acts with whom he has collaborated multiple times, one of whom (Ericdoa) he made a collaborative EP with, but none of them have pages of their own, and I'm doubtful that some of them would pass GNG. Also, many of the (seemingly fruitless) discussions about associated acts on Ariana Grande's talk page (such as here, here, here, and here) revolve around whether or not two acts having multiple collaborations is enough for them to be considered significant for each other's careers, which made me wonder if editors should be allowed to contest the inclusion or exclusion of an associated act, even if it meets one or more of the criteria. When I added City Girls to Megan Thee Stallion's infobox last year, it was reverted on the basis that, on one of the two songs they appeared on together, they were both featured artists.

This has left me with an endless number of questions, so I wanted to open this up to editors:

1. Should the number of collaborations necessary for an act to be considered associated be bumped up to three or more?
2. Should producers be included as associated acts when they were an executive producer or produced the majority/entirety of an album for another artist?
3. If not, should they be included if they were the executive producer or produced the majority/entirety of multiple albums for another artist?
4. Does an artist have to be explicitly credited as a featured or lead artist on another artist's song or project for it to be considered a collaboration?
5. Can individual members of a group be included as associated acts in each other's infoboxes?
6. Should remixes be considered collaborations?
7. Do acts have to meet WP:GNG to be included as associated acts?
8. Should editors be allowed to dispute the inclusion or exclusion of an associated act if that inclusion or exclusion is based on the parameter's criteria?
9. Can acts be considered associated if they've appeared on multiple songs together, but only as featured artists?

Even if some of these may seem like obvious "yes" or "no" answers, I mainly want to reach a consensus on these things so that they can be included in the template's documentation and hopefully make things easier for editors like myself and others who have had trouble determining which artists can or cannot be included as associated acts. Thanks! benǝʇᴉɯ 04:24, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

• 1 Yes 2 No 3 Yes, generally 4 Lead 5 No, that would destroy most infoboxes 6 No 7 No 8 Case-by-case basis 9 No ili (talk) 10:43, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
  • @ILIL: Sorry, I probably should have phrased the fourth question better. I was asking if an act should be included if they don't show up as a featured or a lead artist on the multiple collaborations, not whether it should be based on being a featured artist or a lead artist. Most infoboxes seem to be in agreement that being featured on multiple songs warrants inclusion as an associated act, but I think that could also be discussed. benǝʇᴉɯ 18:27, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
    • @Benmite: I'm saying that the artist should have explicit front billing to be considered a notable collaboration. "X with Y" or "X and Y" should be considered associates; "X feat. Y" is just a guest appearance – in most cases, I think Y's contributions are limited to singing some phrases or playing a guitar solo, i.e. a glorified session musician. If there are many occurrences of the same "X feat. Y", then yes, that could be an exception. ili (talk) 09:18, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• Thank you, Benmite, for bringing up this problem for discussion. Regarding your listed suggestions, there is one more possibility: remove associated acts from the infobox so that the connections may be described in all their complexity in the article prose. But if the parameter is to stay, I vote as follows: 1 Yes 2 No 3 No 4 No 5 No 6 No 7 Yes 8 Yes 9 Yes. Regarding producers, I think they should be treated differently. They should not be listed in performing artist infoboxes unless they are also a featured performer or described in the media as closely connected to the artist (Quincy Jones + Michael Jackson, for instance.) At the producer biography the performing artists and other multiple collaborating producers may be listed. But for musical artists, the list should focus on other musical artists. Regarding remixers, I would treat them the same way as producers, where you hardly ever see remixers on the performing artist biography, but at the remixer biography you can have a list of artists they have worked closely with on multiple occasions, for instance John Benitez would certainly list Madonna as an associated act, but Madonna would arguably not list Benitez. Binksternet (talk) 15:09, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
• I know I've brought this up more than once before, so forgive me if I'm being tiresome, but another question that needs to be added here is: are musicians associated acts if they have played with an artist for an extended period of time, but have not been hitmakers themselves individually? I ask because I think there is a far better claim for adding Davey Johnstone, Dee Murray, Nigel Olsson and Ray Cooper to the "associated acts" of Elton John, as they have been his regular backing band, both in the studio and on tour, for almost half a century. Instead we have Queen and Stevie Wonder as Elton's associated acts... sorry, but what is the long-term connection with Elton for these artists? Likewise, should Trevor Bolder and Mick Woodmansey be added to David Bowie's associated acts, as member of his Spiders from Mars in his early years? All of these musicians are best known for their association with John and Bowie than any individual fame, or their work for other artists. Richard3120 (talk) 22:09, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
  • This is an especially good point for removing the parameter altogether. ili (talk) 09:21, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• I agree with the above comments about removing the parameter altogether. If the associated acts are really that important to understanding the subject artist, they should be explained and referenced in the appropriate article section. Otherwise, they are of little value just listed in the infobox. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:45, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• I think a lot depends on the era and historical context for the artist. The idea, expressed above, that a musical association should be based solely on major joint billings is way too restrictive – it might be applicable nowadays, when it seems no one's capable of making a recording or contributing to another artist's track without a "featuring ..." credit, but not for decades gone by. Another issue relating to context is when the subject is also a session musician, eg the great Nicky Hopkins. The AA field there is way too cluttered currently, but if the Hopkins article was expanded and given its due, you wouldn't be able to move for sources highlighting the significance of his association with the Rolling Stones (eg, articles in the UK music press from the early '70s, no end of Stones biographies, and Hopkins obituaries). Also – and this is a problem with the AA field generally, as we define it – prose might recognise a one-off collaboration as hugely significant, and the lead might even state that the artist is best known for that collaboration, yet our criteria for Associated acts means the collaborator shouldn't appear in the infobox. As with all non-prose elements (eg album ratings, charts tables), the infobox should work with the main text, not independent of it ... Which is to say, maybe it wouldn't be a great loss to remove the parameter entirely. This must be one of the few templates I've got on my watchlist, which I imagine is because Associated acts has continued to be such a problem and we're always talking about it. JG66 (talk) 02:33, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Remove associated acts?

Should the associated acts parameter be removed from this infobox? Binksternet (talk) 18:28, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

• Yes, because it confuses new editors who very often think "similar artist" or "one-time collaborator", and its actual rules are are not widely followed in practice. Editors frequently have good-faith disagreements about the degree of association required for a listing. If we remove the parameter, all of the complexity can by described in prose in the article body. The closest associations will be obvious due to prominent mention in the article. Binksternet (talk) 18:28, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes per the points brought up by Binksternet about the "one-time collaborator" thing, especially when it comes to many electronic music artists. Jalen Folf (talk) 18:34, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes Associated acts really need more info that only prose can provide to be useful, so the reader can actually see what the connection is. Despite the template guidance, too many times the only association is that one member also played in another band or on a one-time recording, which are not important enough to be listed in the infobox. —Ojorojo (talk) 19:19, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• No Edit: Replace with "member of" ----Why is the solution always to just simply remove parameters if they're just slighly annoying? That was also done to a bunch of other parameters as well in the past iirc... Can we just change it into a "bands" parameter and list every band the person has been part of? would clear up all confusion. i dont get the point of an infobox if we're removing all info from it. In the case of "Infobox musical artist", the only thing left would pretty much be genre, instrument, and label. Might as well delete the box completely and have everything in prose - FMSky (talk) 19:24, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
  • I agree that a "bandmember of" parameter would be good, listing bands in which the musician was a full member or touring member, allowing for unnamed bands backing a star performer, for instance Davey Johnstone would list Elton John since there is no name for John's band. Binksternet (talk) 20:34, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
    • Seconded-- er, thirded. Something that actually gives more context to the careers of individuals (rather than the vague and somewhat tenuous "associated") would be far better. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 05:35, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes and replace with "member_of" parameter and other related parameters per HaeB's suggestion. Agree with all the rationales above (well it was above before an edit conflict). Next we can discuss doing the same with the genre parameter. - FlightTime (open channel) 19:26, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - is the real problem the phraseology used to describe the parameter? - I agree the parameter is currently widely misused/misunderstood, but would rephrasing it more accurately, as "long term collaborations" or something similar, retain the usefulness, but discourage misuse? - Arjayay (talk) 19:50, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
  • If there's a way to stop people listing bands that have one member in common, I'm all ears. Such bands could be seen as "long term" through the one member. Binksternet (talk) 20:39, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes per Binksternet. I have long found the parameter problematically inconsistent, and especially concur with them on the issue of varying complexity on these acts' association - the infobox is for relatively simple summarizations, and unfortunately this parameter frequently fails to consistently do this. EDIT 12 November: I like the membership parameter better and would not oppose its introduction to our musician infoboxes. dannymusiceditor ^oops 20:49, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• (Summoned by RfC bot) Yes per Binksternet and Ojorojo, I have seen the problems they describe frequently on my own watchlist too. A new "bandmember of" parameter might be a good idea if well-defined from the outset. Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:20, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes. I remember the arguments over what constitutes an associated act since I first registered back in 2007. After fourteen years, this field has remained a source of contention that will never really be solved. Drive-by edits by new or anonymous users on who they think should be listed only adds to the headache. There hasn't been much luck in managing this field because it is simply not something that can be verified in reliable sources most of the time; it requires editors to come to that conclusion themselves. As long as users have different standards for the magic number of collaborations it takes to get listed, then it won't be truly helpful to readers or contributors alike. I support HaeB's suggestion above to add a "member_of" parameter or something similar. ✗plicit 03:52, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
• No objection to removal It can be subjective and it does get frequently abused, to the point that it's just not worth enforcing. It's especially problematic and headache-causing for acts whose members are VERY busy in the music world and can have TONS of side projects or collaborators. In such cases it can be very hard to draw the line: When members who are not considered "leaders" in the band have these side projects/collaborations, are they worth mentioning here? Anything worth mentioning for the act of the article in question is worth explaining with proper context in the body of the article, not to mention the discography (particularly the discography page if it exists separately). It was well intentioned, but went off the rails. I'd not be sorry to see it go. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 05:34, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
• Replace with a field for groups associated to individuals. Is "Van Halen" associated with "Chickenfoot"? Meh, not a big deal. But "Eddie Van Halen" is certainly associated with "Van Halen". Here I think is where this parameter is super useful. This brings some bidirectionality to the infoboxes. Members of a band are linked in band infoboxes, and bands containing a member are listed in the member infoboxes. DLManiac (talk) 06:49, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes and replace with "member_of" parameter and other related parameters per HaeB's suggestion. I can see that my confusion about this parameter, which I expressed in the above section, is not exclusive to me based on some of these responses. Many people likely "associate" Taylor Swift with Kanye West, or know that Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love had an "association" of sorts, so it stands to reason that they would be considered "associated acts". The truth is, "associated acts" is a term used almost solely on Wikipedia, and the fact that it holds no weight anywhere else means that users have to venture to the template to even get an inkling of what it might mean. Even then, it's obviously still confusing enough to cause some of the aforementioned talk page discussions, which quickly get heated and spiral into nothingness.

I'm in favor of the "member_of" parameter for individuals, and I think the other bulletpoints (aside from the one about multiple collaborations, as that seems to be the variable that trips everyone up) could also have their own parameters, such as "spinoff_groups" and "spinoff_of". My only concern about these is that editors might complain that saying John Lennon is a member of The Beatles is an obvious misnomer considering he's dead, and people also might bicker about the true definition of a spinoff group (Tom Tom Club is only identified by its article as a "side project" from Talking Heads, while the Foo Fighters is essentially only a spinoff of Nirvana because Grohl happened to be in both) but I think that can be fleshed out in the documentation and discussed further. benǝʇᴉɯ 06:29, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

The template already has the parameters current_members and past_members for use in articles about groups. So in analogy to that, a straightforward modification of FMSky's/Binksternet's idea would be to create two separate parameters current_member_of and past_member_of for use in articles about indviduals, which should help address such concerns. Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:05, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

• Comment The only valid defense I can think to make for this parameter, particularly the "multiple collaborations" aspect of it, is that there are certainly artists whose collaborations with other artists have been longstanding and frequent enough to be career-defining. Lady Gaga released two studio albums and co-headlined an international tour with Tony Bennett, and recorded the soundtrack album for the film that she starred in alongside Bradley Cooper. However, I think that in both of those cases, Gaga's musical relationships with either of them can simply be elaborated upon in the lead and body. In the same way that there's no parameter for albums or songs, there doesn't have to be one for frequent collaborators, either. benǝʇᴉɯ 06:37, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
• No It provides an excuse to link to articles for other members of a band in an article about one member. If this parameter were changed to just "member of", then you could only put the bands themselves (which is pointless, because the bands will surely be mentioned and linked in the text of the article). Mlb96 (talk) 07:22, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

  In what case would linking to other band members in the infobox be helpul? ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 17:01, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

  It would save a click for our users who want to go from one member of the band to another without having to go back to the article for the band first. Mlb96 (talk) 19:53, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

• Replace with |current_member_of= and |past_member_of=. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 17:02, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, but replace it with a "member_of" parameter for individual artists. It is certainly relevant for the infobox to mention bands/groups which an artist is a part of (or has been a part of in the past), but beyond that, there doesn't seem to be an objective standard for determining whether or not the artist has done enough collaborations with another artist/band for that other artist/band to be listed as an associated act. The documentation for this parameter says that it can include "Acts with which this act has collaborated on multiple occasions," but if we were to take the word "multiple" as literally as possible here, every artist's list of associated acts would have to include every single artist whom they've collaborated with more than once. Yet in actual practice, this is clearly not what we do, so instead, there are constant arguments about whether a particular artist should be listed as an associated act of another particular artist. The best way to end those arguments once and for all is to get rid of this ambiguous parameter that leads to the arguments in the first place, and replace it with one that is more objective. --Zander251 (talk) 21:09, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
• No, definitely not. In many cases the associated acts parameter is very useful. I think it's especially helpful for listing spinoff bands. I know that a lot of time is spent on removing associations that are too indirect, or on discussions about what should be included and what should be left out, but that's not a good enough reason to do away with this parameter. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:32, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I've recently had some trouble with this field. For instance consider the guidelines concerning the associated producers and songwriters. In some cases it's rather difficult not to include them, while in others they are completely irrelevant to the artist or group's career.

• For example take Coldplay. Brian Eno produced two of the band's albums, writing songs, playing instruments and providing them with inspiration. Since then they have started including ambient pieces within their records and Eno's presence was a cathalist for the evolution of the band's sound. Moreover they still credit him with influencing the band in recent interviews. So he is particularly relevant to the band's history and his inclusion in the infobox is justified on the basis of his being "significant to this artist's career". On the contrary, other occasional songwriters and producers, despite having collaborated with the band for extended periods or entire albums don't seem to have had a remarkable influence and their inclusion seems unnecessary.

• The same with The Beatles. The deep involvement of George Martin in the band's musical production and the fact that he is featured as a musician on every single album released by the band doesn't seem to be enough for his inclusion in the infobox, while Billy Preston, who only played instruments on some songs from two albums, is included.

• Another example is Taylor Swift. Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff have been deeply involved in the creative process behind the artist's recent albums, with relevant music publications and other medias crediting them with influencing Swift's musical evolution. Still they can't be included in the infobox, while other artists who sang with Swift on some songs are included because of their featured vocals.

Honestly this field doesn't seem to list "acts that were really influential to the artist or band's career", but rather guest vocalists that sang more than three times with them.

FilBenLeafBoy (Let's Talk!) 12:04, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

• Yes Replace with member_of and collaborators. First for use on single artists page to list their bands when there are multiple. Second for any act's page to list people they have worked with whether they are an act in their own right or not (George Martin isn't also a performer, Jack Antonoff is EDIT-bad choice as I guess Martin has released albums himself, but point stands). This removes likelihood of people just listing acts that have toured or played concerts together. Lewishhh (talk) 11:22, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

  Wouldn't a collaborators parameter have the same problems as associated acts currently has, namely that the inclusion critery are vague? ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 12:16, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

  Perhaps common collaborators then. I really don't think it's a as big an issue as people are making of it if the criteria is vague. A small list of people who seem relevant based on repeatedly working with the subject isn't much of a problem. I also don't think who should be included and who shouldn't can be summarised neatly, just the idea that it's someone they have worked with on multiple occasions seems enough to me. Lewishhh (talk) 12:41, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

  The problem is that's exactly what the current criteria state at the moment, and yet nobody follows it. So the idea of this RfC is to prevent this happening. Richard3120 (talk) 12:52, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

  I think that replacing the "associated acts" field with "collaborators" might be an improvement, actually. The problem of the current guidelines is that they are too strict and they contradict themselves. They say that an associated act is an act who collaborated with the artist/band and had a significant influence on them, but then they exclude from start producers and songwriters without any distinction. On the other hand the guidelines allow for the inclusion of guest musicians who collaborated with the artist/band "multiple times", which might not have played a huge role in shaping their career. Therefore, if a new field would bring different and clearer guidelines it might be helpful to the infobox. FilBenLeafBoy (Let's Talk!) 13:39, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

• Yes Get rid of it. It's a cruft magnet and too hard to police. Yes, documentation has clear criteria; no one ever follows it. Instead we get unusable lists of things like listing every other artist they've ever been seen in public with. --Jayron32 19:04, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  I'd also be okay with replacing it with a more useful "member of" parameter. --Jayron32 19:07, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

• Yes and replace with "spinoff(s)" and "current"/"past_member_of" parameters. ili (talk) 17:51, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, and support renaming it "Member of" for group members. Cornerstonepicker (talk) 19:48, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, with replacement with one or two of the more specific parameters proposed above. Solidest (talk) 13:48, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
• Replace with member_of. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 13:51, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
• Yes remove it. For all the reasons that Binksternet stated and the fact the admins have blocked me for edit warring when removing incorrect additions by editors who face no punishment for such things. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:54, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Defaulting genre parameter

See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2022 April 15#Template:Infobox album/genre/Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams. The code {{#ifexist:Template:Infobox musical artist/genre/{{FULLPAGENAME}}|{{Infobox musical artist/genre/{{FULLPAGENAME}}}}| should be removed from the template. The current version of the field was set by one user and has never been discussed or confirmed by consensus. One user placed this code into 3 infoboxes 3+ years ago, and it was removed from the code over time. The only one left is "Infobox musical artist". This way of filling genres is not currently used by any article, and it is likely that it has been ever used like this. Or do we need a consensus here again on what has been added without consensus? :) Solidest (talk) 10:57, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

I voted to delete in that discussion, and would do the same again here. It was added without consensus, and isn't used in any article, so I don't see why it's needed. Richard3120 (talk) 14:02, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Done. Gonnym (talk) 14:10, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Reduction of AKAs

I've tried above to make a request to move multiple AKAs to deprecated section in the code, with the creation of a category for further corrections, but as it turns out this requires consensus first. So let's discuss it.

Such a move has already been made for all the other major music infoboxes: album, song, composition, etc. Everywhere the parameter variants starting with a capital letter have been moved to deprecated and have been gradually corrected and then removed from the code. So here too, changes must be made to bring all redundant variations into a standardized form and bring them into order, to keep things tidy and ease the work with different tools + some more reasons. Most of the redundant AKAs, as it seems to me, should not be questioned except for the few alternate ones. The usefulness of which we can also discuss here, these are highlighted in orange in the third column. But for all the reasons listed above, I think we should just keep the green ones only.

Parameters + AKAs

main label	nominee for depreciation (capitalization)	deprecated as well? (alt spelling)
background	Background
name	Name
image	Img
image_size	Img_size
image_upright	Img_upright
landscape	Landscape
alt	Img_alt
caption	Img_capt
birth_name	Birth_name
alias	Alias
origin	Origin
genre	Genre
occupation	Occupation
occupations	Occupations
instruments	Instrument	instrument
years_active	Years_active	yearsactive
label	Label
associated_acts	Associated_acts
website	URL	url
current_members	Current_members
past_members	Past_members
	Former_members	former_members

Solidest (talk) 22:03, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Can't imagine this being controversial, especially given that there is precedent. Thumbs up from me anyway. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 21:34, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Support. There is no need for alias parameters. They make the code harder to navigate and maintain. lowercase and underscore is the style that the guideline says to use WP:INFOBOXNAME. Also, there is no need for singular versions (occupation and occupations). Speifically in this code there is no visual change when used, but even if there were, Template:Detect singular is how it should be handled. Gonnym (talk) 07:23, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

I'd also suggest that |background= be changed to |type= as the value required is a type of artist (per Template:Infobox musical artist/hCard class's doc), while "background" makes it sound as if the value is a background color. Gonnym (talk) 07:28, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Also suporting removal of singular duplicates if it would be possible to rework the template with mentioned module. Switched colors accordingly. Regarding "background": we have ongoing discussion on this field above. Imo, it would be best to rework this parameter into |is group= and make it logical — "yes" for groups and remove background field from solo persons, and then rework hCard class accordingly. Solidest (talk) 08:00, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 18 May 2022

Merge the sandbox (diff) as the background parameter no longer exists. Qwerfjkltalk 21:28, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done Primefac (talk) 08:36, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Problem when leaving "current_member_of" and "past_member_of" parameters empty

see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=YG_(rapper)&oldid=1089248635

when you have the paramters in the infobox and leave them empty, they shouldnt appear in the article --FMSky (talk) 20:00, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

@FMSky As mentioned below by Primefac, the issue lies with {{Infobox person}} calling as data for past_member_of which was why "Formerly of" was displayed as seemingly empty. Appending the line to | module = {{Infobox person would fix the issue. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 13:34, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 23 May 2022

Please copy the coding from Template:Infobox musical artist/sandbox onto Template:Infobox musical artist to fix the above issues where the label would still be displayed even though the data is null. Here is the diff for reference, the changes is minimal and is aligned with the rest of the existing params. It is also previously handled in similar fashion for the now-removed/replaced associated_acts as seen here. Thanks! — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 13:15, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: The change you want implemented a) doesn't do anything, and b) is unnecessary. Your diff above is because there was an {{infobox person}} call in the |past_member_of= parameter (notice how there's no | between the = of the parameter and the { of the infobox call). Primefac (talk) 13:20, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

@Primefac Ah I see the issue now,  Self-trout. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 13:27, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Current_member_of applies to only individuals?

There are several groups that are part of their agency's collective (such as SM Town and Hello! Project); where should they be listed? Can "current_member_of" be used to apply to groups as well? lullabying (talk) 11:04, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Fyi, related discussion at Wikipedia talk:Korea#Labels in member_of parameter. My answer is the same here as there, it shouldn't be included in neither of the 4 replacements for "associated_acts" as they are not actual groups/bands. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 12:52, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

In my opinion, SM Town, YG Family and JYP Nation are actual groups same as how NKOTBSB is a real group, as they each have released songs and albums under the group's name unlike say, the Anticon collective. Lulusword (talk) 15:34, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

What about in the case of Hello! Project? They released albums as a collective group. Hello! Project Kids was a spin-off of that group which in turn gave us Berryz Kobo and Cute. lullabying (talk) 05:16, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

"Spinoffs"? Really?

Is "spinoff" really the best term we could think of for replacing "associated acts"? The pages from spin-off themselves leave no room for the term to be applied to musical acts, and it surely creates associations of stylistic/thematic connections that may not be the case. Would "side projects" or similar not be more accurate and encyclopedic? U-Mos (talk) 22:31, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Yep, I think those are valid concerns. Another problem is that in a Brit English article, eg The Beatles FA, if the main text used the existing term, it would be spelt "spin-off", so as it stands, we're advocating inconsistent style/spelling and it looks sloppy. (As stated under "In other languages" at the Collins online dictionary, it's hyphenated in British English.) JG66 (talk) 00:35, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

What counts as a spin-off? I ask because Coconuts Musume, Country Musume, and Ice Creamusume were created as counterparts to Morning Musume but neither of those groups contain the original members of Morning Musume. lullabying (talk) 05:20, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I have to agree that the term seems less than perfect. "Related acts" was a clearer and more plain-English label, whatever other drawbacks that field might have had. Popcornfud (talk) 12:49, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

"Spinoff_of" for solo artists?

Can we remove the spinoff paramter for solo musicians? I doesnt even make any sense to have it there. FMSky (talk) 13:25, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

@FMSky See #“Spinoff_of” parameter being for solo artists as well above, which I believe is added by the same user to articles you have encountered. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 13:49, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

@FMSky Yes it was added by the same user which started the discussion above despite not getting consensus for usage on solo musicians, I have reverted quite a handful but there are too many articles for solo musicians that have been updated to "spinoff_of" by the same user. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 14:10, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Need to add field entry option for education

I notice there is no field entry option on this Infobox for a musical artist's education. There should be. Can we have that added? TheGables (talk)

People really do want to make this infobox longer and longer, instead of the other way around... I could see that it might be important for a classical music artist to state the place where they received their formal training, but almost every pop and rock artist either never studied at music school, or attended a stage school... I don't see how this is vital information to include in the infobox. Richard3120 (talk) 20:57, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

As per documentation: This template may also be used as a module (or sub-template) of {{Infobox person}}; see WikiProject Infoboxes/embed for guidance on such usage. Template {{Infobox person}} has a parameters |alma_mater= and |education= for specifying information about person's education. —⁠andrybak (talk) 22:39, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but we've literally just had an RfC above where the suggestion about embedding a module where necessary got shot down, and the parameter added to this infobox instead, and I suspect exactly the same will happen here. Just like in the RfC above, I see this as adding trivial information to the infobox which is gradually going to get longer and longer as editors request more "necessary" parameters to be added. Richard3120 (talk) 23:39, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

@Richard3120, I'm sorry for the confusion, but my reply was intended for User:TheGables. It wasn't intended as a reply to your message. Your refactoring of the indentation is misleading. —⁠andrybak (talk) 13:54, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

I know it was, but I was pointing out why I don't think your suggestion is such a good idea or will work. Apologies for changing your indentation, you're right, I shouldn't have done it. Richard3120 (talk) 14:36, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

“Spinoff_of” parameter being for solo artists as well

Hello everyone. I read on the template that the "spinoff of" parameter was only for bands. For Wikipedia, it would be a great idea to expand the instructions for this parameter to solo artists as well, as many artists have larger artists that they’ve been spun off or branched off from in terms of their success. Artists included in the spinoff parameter will be considered a "mentor" of the artist, while the artists' article will be their "protégé." Expanding this will add encyclopedic value to the parameter and provide an important delegation of information. What are you thoughts on this idea? ChristianCanada (talk) 19:35, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

I doubt that spinoff bands and produced/mentored artists should have the same parameter. Solidest (talk) 20:05, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

This is debatable, as the career of a solo artist is often a spinoff of a bigger artist or producer in many contexts. In addition, it would provide a meaningful compensation for the now defunct “Associated acts.” ChristianCanada (talk) 03:35, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Associating the term spinoff with musical careers is an interesting interpretation, because traditionally it applies to individual creative works/projects. And a career is more of an ongoing occurrence than 1 creative work/unit. "Spinoff" feels ok with bands, but it's more complicated with single musicians. Within musical commercial industry it kinda might fit, but for most non-commercial musicians it probably feels a bit wrong. And I'm not sure how we will distinguish between temporary producing and mentoring in some cases. Perhaps we should first write an article based on reliable sources about what "spinoff band" or just spinoff in music means. Solidest (talk) 05:26, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Btw, here is how Wikidata subclasses are arranged for these terms atm:

career (Q282049) → certain aspects of a person's life (Q20127274) → occurrence (Q1190554)

spin-off (Q1186399) → derivative work (Q836950) \ creative work (Q17537576) → intellectual work (Q15621286) → work (Q386724) Solidest (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Is there a way I could run a survey to get a general consensus from editors? ChristianCanada (talk) 14:18, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

And also, using the parameter in this way would be only for when it applies; in this case mostly commercial/mainstream artists. Smaller artists careers that are not spun off from bigger artists will simply not have the parameter used. ChristianCanada (talk) 14:22, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this. What are some examples of these artists? ili (talk) 03:19, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I'd like some clarification of this with examples, as ILIL says... using words like "mentor" and "protege" means that I can see some editors using this as justification for acts from reality shows like The X Factor adding their mentor judge, which is like adding back the "associated acts" parameter we just got rid of. Richard3120 (talk) 22:36, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Let’s say an artist was discovered by a bigger artist, signed to their label and taken under their wing. Their infobox would display that they are a spinoff of that artist in terms of their career. If an artist has that magnitude of influence over an artists career it is fair to give them some credit since Associated Acts is thankfully gone. If the artist is mentioned in the artists lead or frequently mentioned as a vital proponent to that artists career, they are viable to be mentioned; not if they apply to your X Factor example. Otherwise, editors would be strongly urged to provide a source. Here are a few scenarios:

Examples:

• Jay-Z, a spinoff of Jaz-O
• Kanye West, a spinoff of Jay-Z
• Lil Wayne, a spinoff of Birdman (rapper)
• Drake (musician), a spinoff of Lil Wayne
• PartyNextDoor, a spinoff of Drake (musician)

And the list goes on of artists this will apply for. I am most familiar with hip hop so I used those for these examples. ChristianCanada (talk) 03:52, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

The more I read it, the more I shake my head. Isn't this associated_acts which we just removed in favor of 4 replacement params, making spinoffs becoming a backdoor associated_acts then what is the point of the discussion (this and this) above then? Furthermore, the above 5 examples isn't spinoffs and shouldn't be under spinoffs either, a new parameter like say influenced_by should be added instead if there is consensus. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 04:41, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

This is ludicrous. Any reliable sources describing any of the above examples as spin-offs of the acts you’ve put them next to? Cambial — foliar❧ 16:32, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 4 May 2022

Per the recent survey: remove |associated_acts=; add |current_member_of=, |past_member_of=, |spinoff_of=, and |spinoffs=. ili (talk) 17:07, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

 Partly done: Only one of those parameters actually exists. Primefac (talk) 08:35, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

@Primefac, The other four were intended to replace the first per discussion above. Solidest (talk) 12:53, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

I misread; "add" looked like "and" and I didn't see the ; in there either. Primefac (talk) 13:46, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done Primefac (talk) 13:52, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

@Primefac Is the colon require in the various labels, to me it doesn't seem necessary given that the new params are similar in nature to existing params like say genre, current_members, etc. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 14:33, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm... not entirely sure why those were there... Primefac (talk) 14:35, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Primefac, This doesn't seem to be to be have done the best way. Articles using |associated_acts= are now in Category:Pages using Template:Infobox musical artist with unknown parameters. But since each of these article should be investigated for updating to potentially use the new parameters, It would be better if this usage were tracked separately (e.g Category:Pages using Template:Infobox musical artist with deprecated associate_acts). This way, specific guidance could be provided and other errors would be more noticeable in the old cat which now has 54k articles. MB 16:52, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

While I do realise that infoboxes are kind of "my thing", sometimes I do what a TPER asks without thinking about it much, which in this case was "remove the parameter". That being said, you have a valid point (especially since it's not so much "remove the parameter" as "replace the parameter with something different"). Tracking category created. Primefac (talk) 14:44, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

@Primefac, it is probably worth adding the mainspace option for this category, as there are already too many user pages appearing on the very first page of category. Solidest (talk) 13:02, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

RfC: 10 years later – can we add spouse/partner parameters yet?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus to include. By the numbers, 10 to include, five not to. Of course the arguments made are more important than who made them. The main argument for was that most biography infoboxes have spouse fields, and the same reasoning applies; spouses/partners are often or even usually important for people, and it's not clear why this should be different for musical artists. Several opposing brought up that this infobox is also used for bands, which don't have spouses, but there is no obligation to fill in this field where it is not relevant, including for artists who are single. Others said that a "child" person infobox could be used for this, but that is rather complex syntax, or as some have put it, "awkward/clunky", for such a common field. Several have said that this is almost never relevant to the person and/or their career, and that seems at least an overstatement if not blatantly false - notable people rather often have notable spouses, actually. This RfC actually started with ili giving such a list, including only the ones where the spouse/partner is also a musical artist, but if you also include notable people who are not musicians, we'd have Billy Joel's famous Uptown Girl relationships with Christie Brinkley and Elle McPherson, Grimes's relationship with richest man in the world, Elon Musk, Victoria Beckham and David Beckham, ... really, there is no end to them, this field will be used quite often. --GRuban (talk) 11:41, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

---

Since it seems likely that |associated_acts= will soon be removed from this template (see here), is it finally time to add |spouse= and |partner=? Upon a cursory search of the archives, it seems that we last had an RfC about this matter exactly 10 years ago, by which time the parameters had been requested over 23 times. The requests have not stopped since then, and I've failed to uncover any new extended discussion regarding the matter.

There's many famous examples of musical acts with notable marriages/relationships to other notable individuals. In many of those examples, both individuals are often collaborators of each other. Just to name a few:

• John Lennon and Yoko Ono (Plastic Ono Band)
• Cher and Sonny Bono (Sonny & Cher)
• Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa (E Street Band)
• Bob and Rita Marley (The Wailers)
• Brian and Marilyn Wilson (The Honeys, American Spring)
• Paul and Linda McCartney (Wings)
• Phil and Ronnie Spector (The Ronettes)
• Tatsuro Yamashita and Mariya Takeuchi
• David and Angie Bowie
• David Gilmour and Polly Samson
• Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle
• Paddy McAloon and Wendy Smith (Prefab Sprout)

Bold denotes that the article currently combines {{Infobox musical artist}} with {{Infobox person}} to forcibly apply the parameters in question. Some of the other articles do this as well, but either to add |children=, or because the individual is also notable for non-musical pursuits. ili (talk) 19:36, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Survey

• Yes, but parameter should be left blank in cases where the partner/spouse lacks independent notability or is not directly involved with the act's musical affairs. At the time of the last RfC, counterarguments included "bands don't have spouses/partners" (an incoherent argument, considering that this template is also used for individuals) and "we already have |associated_acts=" (not for long). ili (talk) 19:36, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
• Yes - it's the type of information our readers seek. Atsme 💬 📧 21:13, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
• No: I'm still not keen on this. As noted in the examples above, most of the collaboration is within a band, rather than with each other. If people still insist that it's important to show the spouse information, I'd rather see {{Infobox musical artist}} embedded within {{Infobox person}} (which does allow for |spouse=) than have this parameter added to {{Infobox musical artist}}... I think it would attract all kinds of cruft and lead to exactly the same problems and reasons that people want to get rid of |associated acts= – saying "it should be left blank if the partner is not notable" won't stop hundreds of editors ignoring this. Richard3120 (talk) 00:04, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• No – I agree with Richard on this, although it's good someone has brought up the |associated_acts= issue. —Ojorojo (talk) 14:37, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Strongest possible yes – unless someone can explain why being a musician in some way diminishes the importance of having a spouse or partner. Cannot fathom. For Template:Infobox person spouse/ partner need not be notable to be named. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:44, 17 March 2022 (UTC) p.s. @Ritchie333: who may wish to comment.
• Comment I don't see it as a problem because merging both Infoboxes, as Richard said, has been the solution. The problem with Associated Acts was people adding all the acts possible, and somebody always having to fix it with "they only collaborated once", this would be editors adding all partners possible. Cornerstonepicker (talk) 19:56, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Tentative Yes - I agree that it makes sense to display the partner when they posses independent notability, but I'm also worried this will lead to tabloid rumours about celebrity dating spilling over into infoboxes. PraiseVivec (talk) 10:47, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

• What is the logic for "when they posses independent notability", exactly? As I said above, for normal Template:Infobox person a spouse/ partner need not be notable to be named. Is the spouse or partner of a musician somewhat inherently less notable than for normal people? And there are plenty of goss-mag slebs who are not musicians? We seem to be able to cope with all of them. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:10, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

• No Bands do not have spouses, and individuals where the infobox may merit the inclusion of such a parameter can be added as a module. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:51, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
• No: It makes no sense to include spouses on the basis that they might be relevant to the music the subject makes. If a parameter is not directly related to who the person is as a musical artist, there's no reason to include it. benǝʇᴉɯ 02:36, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
• No: Having a partner parameter in {{Infobox musical artist}} itself invites |associated acts= misuse. If someone wanted to add one's spouse, independently notable or not, just embed it with {{Infobox person}}. See Grimes for an example of a musician with an extremely notable (ex) partner. As a reader I've missed absolutely nothing through the infobox being embedded. tofubird 09:24, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I probably don't have a vote, but I want to point out that Martin's argument is striking enough to repeat it: Why are persons allowed to have a spouse but musicians aren't? --84.132.144.110 (talk) 14:57, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

No one has a vote, but everyone has a !vote, so offer your opinion. To answer your question, read my response above. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:59, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

!Vote? Whatever.....

Not sure what module you are talking about. Is there a way to display spouse already, by including some other template? How? If not, why do you vote no, if you really mean that it should be implemented?

Also, your argument about bands implies that every field is always meant to be applicable in every instance of this and every similar infobox. That's hardly the case. --84.132.144.110 (talk) 03:37, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Ok, I figured out the module thing. Useful, though a bit clumsy. Thanks for the pointer!

It raises a question though: Why is any field doubled from {{Infobox person}}? Do bands have a birthplace, or an occupation? --84.132.144.110 (talk) 03:54, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

• Yes – There is nothing unique about musicians that would require us to apply a different standard from other biographies. Absent any unique quality of musicians as a class, a decision to uniformly exclude spouses from infoboxes should be made across the board for biographies, and I am confident that there would not be a consensus to remove the parameter from {{Infobox person}}. Graham (talk) 04:57, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Notified: Template talk:Infobox person. Graham (talk) 05:10, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

• I personally think that's a false equivalence – {{Infobox musical artist}} or {{Infobox sportsperson}} are about the person's career, not the person's general life, as {{Infobox person}} is. And yes, personally I would be in favour of excluding this parameter from all infoboxes, as it is almost never relevant to the person themselves or their career: to me it's just infobox clutter and invites the addition of unsourced cruft and celebrity gossip. But I accept that I would heavily lose this argument, as you say above. Richard3120 (talk) 18:38, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

• Strong support I believe biography infoboxes should all have the same set of "standard" fields (birth/death dates, places, relatives, etc). There is no reason for such basic information to vary based on occupation. Furthermore, when the missing fields are needed for a particular person, the usual workaround is to convert to {{infobox person}} and then embed this infobox for the few musician-specific fields. So not having the field in this infobox template certainly does not prevent it from being used in an actual infobox on a musician's article - it is not against any policy and I'm not aware of anyone arguing to remove spouse when added that way. So why force the workaround. Precluding it in this template is pretending to exclude it when it really isn't. It may discourage its use by editors who don't know how to embed templates, but that's not how we should operate. MB 17:24, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

• Apart from the fact I disagree that |spouse= or |children= should be considered a "core" standard field, because I don't believe that it's basic information that is relevant to the person's career (usually), there's a bigger issue here – other biography infoboxes may relate to a single person, but {{Infobox musical artist}} can include bands or groups. So even birth and death dates would be irrelevant as a standard field in these cases. Richard3120 (talk) 18:38, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

• An article is not about a person's career, it is about a person. A biography typically doesn't start covering a person at the age they become notable and only talk about their career. From our own article, it is "a detailed description of a person's life." and spouse and children are part of that. As far as not applying to bands or groups, so what, just don't use them for bands or groups, obviously. I am not aware of a single infobox where every field is used in every transclusion, certainly not any biographical infobox. MB 22:12, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

• I agree the article is about a person, I'm just not convinced the spouse/partner/children is such a vital component of this that it needs to go into the infobox. And yes, you wouldn't use birth or death dates for bands, so I'm saying there are no standard fields then. Richard3120 (talk) 01:08, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

• You're both a bit wrong. Let me clarify. An article is about a notable subject. The source of that notability is what should be discussed in the article. If the subject is a person, their notability may have absolutely nothing to do with their partner or spouse. Since the MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE is to "summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article", if the subject's partner or spouse is notable, then that will be discussed in the article and a module can be added to the infobox list it. The problem is that many editors simply add material—usually unsourced—to the infbox, thereby supplanting the key facts that appear in the article. By making that available to this—or any infobox—we make it easier for the editors most likely to ignore INFOBOXPURPOSE. We have all seen spuriously added associated acts, genres (see WP:GWAR for more detail on that problem), years active, and pretty much every parameter that the infobox supports. It would be irresponsible to add yet another such field. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:38, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

  This discussion is not about when it is appropriate to use these parameters, but whether they should exist in the infobox template. I completely agree that many of these parameters are often utilized when they shouldn't be. I am constantly removing the names of non-notable children, parents, etc (from bios in general, not talking about just musicians). But maintenance should not dictate the fields in an infobox. A large proportion of all edits involve the addition of unsourced content, but we still allow articles to be edited - we just deal with it. MB 15:01, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, so we can stop the clunky insertion of a child "person" template inside the musical artist template whenever we encounter a notable spouse. Binksternet (talk) 15:21, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, as others have pointed out, that slot is already in regular biography pages, I don’t see why musicians should have to have the parameter awkwardly inserted by way of part of the "person" template. CAMERAwMUSTACHE (talk) 22:57, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
• Yes. In light of the above discussion, this makes even more sense to do now. -- Vaulter 05:36, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
• Yes. With "formerly of" and "spinoff" giving a greater distinction that "associated acts" lacked, this seems like an equally logical progression. I've constantly removed invalid "spouse" fields from {{infobox musical artist}} in the past, so it's clear that even novice editors expect it to be there. I don't think that the spouse has to be notable on their own, just verifiable. After all, the "label" field often includes record labels that aren't always notable on their own (look at how many are on The Kentucky Headhunters, for instance). Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 23:16, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Following up on this

Now that the RFC has been closed in favor of adding this parameter, anyone feel like doing it? -- Vaulter 04:45, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Jonesey95, please add spouse/partner per RFC. Thanks. MB 14:26, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Added |spouse=, |spouses=, |partner=, and |partners= with some trepidation, since this template's content is always contentious. You can see it working at Clarence Avant and a few dozen articles that already had the parameter in place. Please update the documentation appropriately, per the above discussion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:34, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. -- Vaulter 18:31, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Spouse field

Pinging @GRuban:. Since there was a consensus to include a "spouse" field, when will it be implemented? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 04:23, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

It should be working. See Clarence Avant. Also see discussion above, from yesterday. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:55, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I could not implement it myself, since the template is protected, but User:Jonesey95 was kind enough to do so yesterday. [1] Thank you Jonesey! --GRuban (talk) 13:27, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

It's not documented in the template coding or the doc file, though. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 18:18, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Go for it. The documentation is not protected. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:12, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

---

• Currently spouse + partner fields are placed under the website field. I think they should be moved a bit upper? Solidest (talk) 19:09, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Agree. The website field should be at the bottom for consistency with other iboxes. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^put'r there 19:22, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

 Done. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^put'r there 23:56, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Associated acts confusion

Every time I've used this template or edited an article that had it, the one parameter that I always run into trouble with is "associated acts". Recently, I've been going through artists' articles and adding or removing associated acts so that they meet the requirements laid out in the parameter's description. However, across all of these articles, there seems to be a disagreement about what qualifies an artist or group to be worthy of being included as an associated act for another act.

On the article for Nicki Minaj, it seems as though there's an unspoken agreement among editors that only acts who have had at least three collaborations with Minaj should be included in her infobox. Every time it's been suggested that this is the case (such as here and here) it's never been contested. I didn't really understand why until I edited Trippie Redd's infobox and realized just how cluttered it became after I added each and every one of his two-time collaborators. Meanwhile, certain acts, such as Drake and Björk, have producers listed as associated acts when they've produced one or more of their albums in its entirety. Jazmine Sullivan is listed as an associated act for Frank Ocean because she contributed additional vocals to four songs from Endless and to "Solo", but on none of those songs is she credited as a featured artist.

I've also noticed that, while the description cautions against adding the solo careers of the members of a group as associated acts for that group and adding groups with one member in common, it says nothing about adding the individual members of a group to each other's associated acts. I've run into this a number of times, including on Caroline Polachek and Riki Lindhome's pages. Speaking of Caroline Polachek, her infobox currently has A.G. Cook and Danny L Harle, but both of them only qualify if you include remixes as collaborations. The template also states that the musicians or bands listed as associated acts for any other act must be notable and significant to an act's career, but does this mean that they have to meet GNG requirements? On Glaive's page, I added four acts with whom he has collaborated multiple times, one of whom (Ericdoa) he made a collaborative EP with, but none of them have pages of their own, and I'm doubtful that some of them would pass GNG. Also, many of the (seemingly fruitless) discussions about associated acts on Ariana Grande's talk page (such as here, here, here, and here) revolve around whether or not two acts having multiple collaborations is enough for them to be considered significant for each other's careers, which made me wonder if editors should be allowed to contest the inclusion or exclusion of an associated act, even if it meets one or more of the criteria. When I added City Girls to Megan Thee Stallion's infobox last year, it was reverted on the basis that, on one of the two songs they appeared on together, they were both featured artists.

This has left me with an endless number of questions, so I wanted to open this up to editors:

1. Should the number of collaborations necessary for an act to be considered associated be bumped up to three or more?
2. Should producers be included as associated acts when they were an executive producer or produced the majority/entirety of an album for another artist?
3. If not, should they be included if they were the executive producer or produced the majority/entirety of multiple albums for another artist?
4. Does an artist have to be explicitly credited as a featured or lead artist on another artist's song or project for it to be considered a collaboration?
5. Can individual members of a group be included as associated acts in each other's infoboxes?
6. Should remixes be considered collaborations?
7. Do acts have to meet WP:GNG to be included as associated acts?
8. Should editors be allowed to dispute the inclusion or exclusion of an associated act if that inclusion or exclusion is based on the parameter's criteria?
9. Can acts be considered associated if they've appeared on multiple songs together, but only as featured artists?

Even if some of these may seem like obvious "yes" or "no" answers, I mainly want to reach a consensus on these things so that they can be included in the template's documentation and hopefully make things easier for editors like myself and others who have had trouble determining which artists can or cannot be included as associated acts. Thanks! benǝʇᴉɯ 04:24, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

• 1 Yes 2 No 3 Yes, generally 4 Lead 5 No, that would destroy most infoboxes 6 No 7 No 8 Case-by-case basis 9 No ili (talk) 10:43, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
  • @ILIL: Sorry, I probably should have phrased the fourth question better. I was asking if an act should be included if they don't show up as a featured or a lead artist on the multiple collaborations, not whether it should be based on being a featured artist or a lead artist. Most infoboxes seem to be in agreement that being featured on multiple songs warrants inclusion as an associated act, but I think that could also be discussed. benǝʇᴉɯ 18:27, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
    • @Benmite: I'm saying that the artist should have explicit front billing to be considered a notable collaboration. "X with Y" or "X and Y" should be considered associates; "X feat. Y" is just a guest appearance – in most cases, I think Y's contributions are limited to singing some phrases or playing a guitar solo, i.e. a glorified session musician. If there are many occurrences of the same "X feat. Y", then yes, that could be an exception. ili (talk) 09:18, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• Thank you, Benmite, for bringing up this problem for discussion. Regarding your listed suggestions, there is one more possibility: remove associated acts from the infobox so that the connections may be described in all their complexity in the article prose. But if the parameter is to stay, I vote as follows: 1 Yes 2 No 3 No 4 No 5 No 6 No 7 Yes 8 Yes 9 Yes. Regarding producers, I think they should be treated differently. They should not be listed in performing artist infoboxes unless they are also a featured performer or described in the media as closely connected to the artist (Quincy Jones + Michael Jackson, for instance.) At the producer biography the performing artists and other multiple collaborating producers may be listed. But for musical artists, the list should focus on other musical artists. Regarding remixers, I would treat them the same way as producers, where you hardly ever see remixers on the performing artist biography, but at the remixer biography you can have a list of artists they have worked closely with on multiple occasions, for instance John Benitez would certainly list Madonna as an associated act, but Madonna would arguably not list Benitez. Binksternet (talk) 15:09, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
• I know I've brought this up more than once before, so forgive me if I'm being tiresome, but another question that needs to be added here is: are musicians associated acts if they have played with an artist for an extended period of time, but have not been hitmakers themselves individually? I ask because I think there is a far better claim for adding Davey Johnstone, Dee Murray, Nigel Olsson and Ray Cooper to the "associated acts" of Elton John, as they have been his regular backing band, both in the studio and on tour, for almost half a century. Instead we have Queen and Stevie Wonder as Elton's associated acts... sorry, but what is the long-term connection with Elton for these artists? Likewise, should Trevor Bolder and Mick Woodmansey be added to David Bowie's associated acts, as member of his Spiders from Mars in his early years? All of these musicians are best known for their association with John and Bowie than any individual fame, or their work for other artists. Richard3120 (talk) 22:09, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
  • This is an especially good point for removing the parameter altogether. ili (talk) 09:21, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• I agree with the above comments about removing the parameter altogether. If the associated acts are really that important to understanding the subject artist, they should be explained and referenced in the appropriate article section. Otherwise, they are of little value just listed in the infobox. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:45, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• I think a lot depends on the era and historical context for the artist. The idea, expressed above, that a musical association should be based solely on major joint billings is way too restrictive – it might be applicable nowadays, when it seems no one's capable of making a recording or contributing to another artist's track without a "featuring ..." credit, but not for decades gone by. Another issue relating to context is when the subject is also a session musician, eg the great Nicky Hopkins. The AA field there is way too cluttered currently, but if the Hopkins article was expanded and given its due, you wouldn't be able to move for sources highlighting the significance of his association with the Rolling Stones (eg, articles in the UK music press from the early '70s, no end of Stones biographies, and Hopkins obituaries). Also – and this is a problem with the AA field generally, as we define it – prose might recognise a one-off collaboration as hugely significant, and the lead might even state that the artist is best known for that collaboration, yet our criteria for Associated acts means the collaborator shouldn't appear in the infobox. As with all non-prose elements (eg album ratings, charts tables), the infobox should work with the main text, not independent of it ... Which is to say, maybe it wouldn't be a great loss to remove the parameter entirely. This must be one of the few templates I've got on my watchlist, which I imagine is because Associated acts has continued to be such a problem and we're always talking about it. JG66 (talk) 02:33, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Remove associated acts?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The results of this discussion was associated_acts was replaced with current_member_of, past_member_of, spinoffs, and spinoff_of. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 04:34, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

---

Should the associated acts parameter be removed from this infobox? Binksternet (talk) 18:28, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

• Yes, because it confuses new editors who very often think "similar artist" or "one-time collaborator", and its actual rules are are not widely followed in practice. Editors frequently have good-faith disagreements about the degree of association required for a listing. If we remove the parameter, all of the complexity can by described in prose in the article body. The closest associations will be obvious due to prominent mention in the article. Binksternet (talk) 18:28, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes per the points brought up by Binksternet about the "one-time collaborator" thing, especially when it comes to many electronic music artists. Jalen Folf (talk) 18:34, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes Associated acts really need more info that only prose can provide to be useful, so the reader can actually see what the connection is. Despite the template guidance, too many times the only association is that one member also played in another band or on a one-time recording, which are not important enough to be listed in the infobox. —Ojorojo (talk) 19:19, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• No Edit: Replace with "member of" ----Why is the solution always to just simply remove parameters if they're just slighly annoying? That was also done to a bunch of other parameters as well in the past iirc... Can we just change it into a "bands" parameter and list every band the person has been part of? would clear up all confusion. i dont get the point of an infobox if we're removing all info from it. In the case of "Infobox musical artist", the only thing left would pretty much be genre, instrument, and label. Might as well delete the box completely and have everything in prose - FMSky (talk) 19:24, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
  • I agree that a "bandmember of" parameter would be good, listing bands in which the musician was a full member or touring member, allowing for unnamed bands backing a star performer, for instance Davey Johnstone would list Elton John since there is no name for John's band. Binksternet (talk) 20:34, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
    • Seconded-- er, thirded. Something that actually gives more context to the careers of individuals (rather than the vague and somewhat tenuous "associated") would be far better. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 05:35, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes and replace with "member_of" parameter and other related parameters per HaeB's suggestion. Agree with all the rationales above (well it was above before an edit conflict). Next we can discuss doing the same with the genre parameter. - FlightTime (open channel) 19:26, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - is the real problem the phraseology used to describe the parameter? - I agree the parameter is currently widely misused/misunderstood, but would rephrasing it more accurately, as "long term collaborations" or something similar, retain the usefulness, but discourage misuse? - Arjayay (talk) 19:50, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
  • If there's a way to stop people listing bands that have one member in common, I'm all ears. Such bands could be seen as "long term" through the one member. Binksternet (talk) 20:39, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes per Binksternet. I have long found the parameter problematically inconsistent, and especially concur with them on the issue of varying complexity on these acts' association - the infobox is for relatively simple summarizations, and unfortunately this parameter frequently fails to consistently do this. EDIT 12 November: I like the membership parameter better and would not oppose its introduction to our musician infoboxes. dannymusiceditor ^oops 20:49, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
• (Summoned by RfC bot) Yes per Binksternet and Ojorojo, I have seen the problems they describe frequently on my own watchlist too. A new "bandmember of" parameter might be a good idea if well-defined from the outset. Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:20, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes. I remember the arguments over what constitutes an associated act since I first registered back in 2007. After fourteen years, this field has remained a source of contention that will never really be solved. Drive-by edits by new or anonymous users on who they think should be listed only adds to the headache. There hasn't been much luck in managing this field because it is simply not something that can be verified in reliable sources most of the time; it requires editors to come to that conclusion themselves. As long as users have different standards for the magic number of collaborations it takes to get listed, then it won't be truly helpful to readers or contributors alike. I support HaeB's suggestion above to add a "member_of" parameter or something similar. ✗plicit 03:52, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
• No objection to removal It can be subjective and it does get frequently abused, to the point that it's just not worth enforcing. It's especially problematic and headache-causing for acts whose members are VERY busy in the music world and can have TONS of side projects or collaborators. In such cases it can be very hard to draw the line: When members who are not considered "leaders" in the band have these side projects/collaborations, are they worth mentioning here? Anything worth mentioning for the act of the article in question is worth explaining with proper context in the body of the article, not to mention the discography (particularly the discography page if it exists separately). It was well intentioned, but went off the rails. I'd not be sorry to see it go. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 05:34, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
• Replace with a field for groups associated to individuals. Is "Van Halen" associated with "Chickenfoot"? Meh, not a big deal. But "Eddie Van Halen" is certainly associated with "Van Halen". Here I think is where this parameter is super useful. This brings some bidirectionality to the infoboxes. Members of a band are linked in band infoboxes, and bands containing a member are listed in the member infoboxes. DLManiac (talk) 06:49, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes and replace with "member_of" parameter and other related parameters per HaeB's suggestion. I can see that my confusion about this parameter, which I expressed in the above section, is not exclusive to me based on some of these responses. Many people likely "associate" Taylor Swift with Kanye West, or know that Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love had an "association" of sorts, so it stands to reason that they would be considered "associated acts". The truth is, "associated acts" is a term used almost solely on Wikipedia, and the fact that it holds no weight anywhere else means that users have to venture to the template to even get an inkling of what it might mean. Even then, it's obviously still confusing enough to cause some of the aforementioned talk page discussions, which quickly get heated and spiral into nothingness.

I'm in favor of the "member_of" parameter for individuals, and I think the other bulletpoints (aside from the one about multiple collaborations, as that seems to be the variable that trips everyone up) could also have their own parameters, such as "spinoff_groups" and "spinoff_of". My only concern about these is that editors might complain that saying John Lennon is a member of The Beatles is an obvious misnomer considering he's dead, and people also might bicker about the true definition of a spinoff group (Tom Tom Club is only identified by its article as a "side project" from Talking Heads, while the Foo Fighters is essentially only a spinoff of Nirvana because Grohl happened to be in both) but I think that can be fleshed out in the documentation and discussed further. benǝʇᴉɯ 06:29, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

The template already has the parameters current_members and past_members for use in articles about groups. So in analogy to that, a straightforward modification of FMSky's/Binksternet's idea would be to create two separate parameters current_member_of and past_member_of for use in articles about indviduals, which should help address such concerns. Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:05, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

• Comment The only valid defense I can think to make for this parameter, particularly the "multiple collaborations" aspect of it, is that there are certainly artists whose collaborations with other artists have been longstanding and frequent enough to be career-defining. Lady Gaga released two studio albums and co-headlined an international tour with Tony Bennett, and recorded the soundtrack album for the film that she starred in alongside Bradley Cooper. However, I think that in both of those cases, Gaga's musical relationships with either of them can simply be elaborated upon in the lead and body. In the same way that there's no parameter for albums or songs, there doesn't have to be one for frequent collaborators, either. benǝʇᴉɯ 06:37, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
• No It provides an excuse to link to articles for other members of a band in an article about one member. If this parameter were changed to just "member of", then you could only put the bands themselves (which is pointless, because the bands will surely be mentioned and linked in the text of the article). Mlb96 (talk) 07:22, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

  In what case would linking to other band members in the infobox be helpul? ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 17:01, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

  It would save a click for our users who want to go from one member of the band to another without having to go back to the article for the band first. Mlb96 (talk) 19:53, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

• Replace with |current_member_of= and |past_member_of=. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 17:02, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
• Yes, but replace it with a "member_of" parameter for individual artists. It is certainly relevant for the infobox to mention bands/groups which an artist is a part of (or has been a part of in the past), but beyond that, there doesn't seem to be an objective standard for determining whether or not the artist has done enough collaborations with another artist/band for that other artist/band to be listed as an associated act. The documentation for this parameter says that it can include "Acts with which this act has collaborated on multiple occasions," but if we were to take the word "multiple" as literally as possible here, every artist's list of associated acts would have to include every single artist whom they've collaborated with more than once. Yet in actual practice, this is clearly not what we do, so instead, there are constant arguments about whether a particular artist should be listed as an associated act of another particular artist. The best way to end those arguments once and for all is to get rid of this ambiguous parameter that leads to the arguments in the first place, and replace it with one that is more objective. --Zander251 (talk) 21:09, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
• No, definitely not. In many cases the associated acts parameter is very useful. I think it's especially helpful for listing spinoff bands. I know that a lot of time is spent on removing associations that are too indirect, or on discussions about what should be included and what should be left out, but that's not a good enough reason to do away with this parameter. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:32, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I've recently had some trouble with this field. For instance consider the guidelines concerning the associated producers and songwriters. In some cases it's rather difficult not to include them, while in others they are completely irrelevant to the artist or group's career.

• For example take Coldplay. Brian Eno produced two of the band's albums, writing songs, playing instruments and providing them with inspiration. Since then they have started including ambient pieces within their records and Eno's presence was a cathalist for the evolution of the band's sound. Moreover they still credit him with influencing the band in recent interviews. So he is particularly relevant to the band's history and his inclusion in the infobox is justified on the basis of his being "significant to this artist's career". On the contrary, other occasional songwriters and producers, despite having collaborated with the band for extended periods or entire albums don't seem to have had a remarkable influence and their inclusion seems unnecessary.

• The same with The Beatles. The deep involvement of George Martin in the band's musical production and the fact that he is featured as a musician on every single album released by the band doesn't seem to be enough for his inclusion in the infobox, while Billy Preston, who only played instruments on some songs from two albums, is included.

• Another example is Taylor Swift. Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff have been deeply involved in the creative process behind the artist's recent albums, with relevant music publications and other medias crediting them with influencing Swift's musical evolution. Still they can't be included in the infobox, while other artists who sang with Swift on some songs are included because of their featured vocals.

Honestly this field doesn't seem to list "acts that were really influential to the artist or band's career", but rather guest vocalists that sang more than three times with them.

FilBenLeafBoy (Let's Talk!) 12:04, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

• Yes Replace with member_of and collaborators. First for use on single artists page to list their bands when there are multiple. Second for any act's page to list people they have worked with whether they are an act in their own right or not (George Martin isn't also a performer, Jack Antonoff is EDIT-bad choice as I guess Martin has released albums himself, but point stands). This removes likelihood of people just listing acts that have toured or played concerts together. Lewishhh (talk) 11:22, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

  Wouldn't a collaborators parameter have the same problems as associated acts currently has, namely that the inclusion critery are vague? ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 12:16, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

  Perhaps common collaborators then. I really don't think it's a as big an issue as people are making of it if the criteria is vague. A small list of people who seem relevant based on repeatedly working with the subject isn't much of a problem. I also don't think who should be included and who shouldn't can be summarised neatly, just the idea that it's someone they have worked with on multiple occasions seems enough to me. Lewishhh (talk) 12:41, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

  The problem is that's exactly what the current criteria state at the moment, and yet nobody follows it. So the idea of this RfC is to prevent this happening. Richard3120 (talk) 12:52, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

  I think that replacing the "associated acts" field with "collaborators" might be an improvement, actually. The problem of the current guidelines is that they are too strict and they contradict themselves. They say that an associated act is an act who collaborated with the artist/band and had a significant influence on them, but then they exclude from start producers and songwriters without any distinction. On the other hand the guidelines allow for the inclusion of guest musicians who collaborated with the artist/band "multiple times", which might not have played a huge role in shaping their career. Therefore, if a new field would bring different and clearer guidelines it might be helpful to the infobox. FilBenLeafBoy (Let's Talk!) 13:39, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

• Yes Get rid of it. It's a cruft magnet and too hard to police. Yes, documentation has clear criteria; no one ever follows it. Instead we get unusable lists of things like listing every other artist they've ever been seen in public with. --Jayron32 19:04, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  I'd also be okay with replacing it with a more useful "member of" parameter. --Jayron32 19:07, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

• Yes and replace with "spinoff(s)" and "current"/"past_member_of" parameters. ili (talk) 17:51, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, and support renaming it "Member of" for group members. Cornerstonepicker (talk) 19:48, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, with replacement with one or two of the more specific parameters proposed above. Solidest (talk) 13:48, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
• Replace with member_of. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 13:51, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
• Yes remove it. For all the reasons that Binksternet stated and the fact the admins have blocked me for edit warring when removing incorrect additions by editors who face no punishment for such things. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:54, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
• This discussion has stalled since March 2022, so what is the conclusion? — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 05:17, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

@Paper9oll: I see an overwhelming consensus to remove |associated_acts=, strong support for |past_member_of=, |current_member_of=, and |spinoffs=, and weak support for |spinoff_of=. As far as I understand, the strongest counterargument for retaining |associated_acts= is "We can't remove it without a proper substitute." We've already conceived good substitutes. ili (talk) 16:58, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Documentation for new parameters

The new parameter does not have documentation/description, kindly add description for clarification on how to use it? —Princess Faye ^{(my talk)} 23:33, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

I do like the new parameters but would appreciate some documentation as well. While with "Associated acts" it was understood that it should link to existing articles, the new parameters leave it up to more options. Should all past bands of a musician be listed in "past member of"? Or only ones with existing Wikipedia articles? Should they be listed alphabetically or chronologically?--Bricks&Wood talk 15:34, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

@Princess Faye @Bricks&Wood I have went ahead to apply WP:BOLD, the description is mostly reuse of what use to be part of the long description of associated_acts, feel free to improve it if your wish to. In terms of listing order, for articles that I have updated (all of it are K-pop related), I've retained the chronological order. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 15:52, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

I think it's also important enough to mention whether the spinoffs are groups of a single member or whether the spinoff must necessarily consist of two or more members of the original project. I'm leaning towards the latter option. And we definitely should start Spinoff band article asap. Solidest (talk) 16:17, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

 Question: Now that the parameter is not displaying it's content, what do we do with the markup ? Just leave it, remove it? (I haven't read the whole discussion, so this might be a pile-on query). Thank you. - FlightTime (open channel) 00:36, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

I going to remove the ones I come across as invalid parameter for this infobox with a link to this discussion. - FlightTime (open channel) 04:14, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

There's an error in the new template: the "spin-off" properties were added to the individual artist template instead of the musical group template.--Bricks&Wood talk 02:43, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

@Bricks&Wood What you mean? The spinoffs param is working as intended as per this example which I updated to use the new params. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 04:38, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

A follow up question

I'm curious how infoboxes for artists like Bruce Springsteen should be handled going forward. While he's not a member of the E Street Band I feel they should be recognized in the infobox somehow. -- Vaulter 05:35, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Another question

With the deprecation of the parameter, will it also be removed from similar infoboxes? Template:Infobox YouTube personality is one example that springs to mind. – DarkGlow • 18:06, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Going forward from here: updating the infoboxes

So, what's the plan going forward from here, for updating the infoboxes? Form an Associated Acts Replacement Task Force? Of course there's not a mechanical way to change the associated acts to either current member of / past member of or spinoffs / spinoff of. Each article will have to be analyzed individually. Right now Category:Pages using infobox musical artist with associated acts has 57,587 articles in it. I was thinking that I could just update one article a day myself, before going to bed, but it would take me almost 158 years to get through them all. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 15:53, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm sure a bot could do the job, but I also think that would require a big discussion also. - FlightTime (open channel) 19:26, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't see how a bot can do it. Let's take Neal Schon as a random example. The entries in associated acts had to be sorted into three groups -- bands he's currently in (current member of), bands he used to be in (past member of), and other musical artists with whom he had some more tenuous association (to remove entirely). And it's a similar situation for bands, with entries that need to be sorted into spinoffs, spinoff of, and neither. So, with 57,587 articles to go, it's a daunting prospect. But on the plus side, the new parameters will convey more precise and useful information to our readers. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 21:15, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't think there's been any planning or thought put towards filling out the replacement parameters. Rather, we banded together to remove useful information from all infoboxes on musicians' pages because some people were frustrated by what constituted an "associated act," so the most productive path forward was to just have readers scan through the article body text instead. Ideally, the infoboxes should just contain the artist's first initial and last name. Everything else can be found simply by skimming through the article. If there's any confusion about what information should be included anywhere in the article, the article should just be deleted. Sudopudge (talk) 11:08, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

• Sorry, a different question - I just noticed that the associated acts were absent from the infobox at Dianna Agron. It had previously included two members of a band that performs back-up for Agron, so which she would not technically be part of and which doesn't have a name. So, from this discussion, if I have this right, they don't get mentioned anymore. But, under the new parameters, the "Glee cast" as a musical act would now be included in the infobox in this case, as a former-member-of situation? Sorry, this situation seems unique so I wanted to clarify before adding that. And, as a note, the musical artist infobox in this case is also an embedded module, I don't know if the numbers of these have been accounted for. Kingsif (talk) 22:42, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Bot removeal of "associated acts" field

I'm still finding a crapton of uses of the "background" and "associated acts" fields. Is there a way we can have a bot remove all of them? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 23:21, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Moving capitalized parameters to deprecated

Since previous similar request needed consensus, I started a discussion on this, which lasted several months here: Template talk:Infobox musical artist/Archive 16#Reduction of AKAs. Although the discussion wasn't that active (even after I posted a link to this discussion in WikiProject Music), there were only votes of support. Thus a consensus was reached. Therefore it is now needed to move the red parameters from the table to a separate tracking category of deprecated parameters to start gradually getting rid of them, similar to what has already been done with the other music infoboxes. Solidest (talk) 14:24, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Preparation

These sections reflect an ongoing talk and changes therefrom. So, posts may be edited afterwards to keep the flow helpful.

-DePiep (talk) 08:10, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

• @Solidest: I have paused the EditRequest. Better prepare the edit in the sandbox.

See: {{Infobox musical artist/sandbox}} (diff)

Original proposal (Apr 2022): Template talk:Infobox musical artist/Archive 16 § Reduction of AKAs

Category:Pages using Template:Infobox musical artist with unknown parameters (1)

NEW Category:Pages using Infobox musical artist with deprecated parameters (0) (temporal) for this deprecations

• Parameters removed, UCfirst N:

• Alias
• Associated_acts
• Background
• Birth_name
• Current_members
• Former_members
• Genre
• Img
• Img_alt
• Img_capt
• Img_size
• Img_upright
• Instrument
• Label
• Landscape
• Name
• Occupation
• Occupations
• Origin
• Past_members
• URL
• Years_active

• Parameters removed, sing/plural/double , spvariant

• former_members
• instrument
• occupation
• partners
• spouses
• url
• yearsactive

-DePiep (talk) 19:21, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

• Just wanted to say, that we should probably implement Module:Check for deprecated parameters first, instead of removing them. Because they are still used a lot in articles. (See how it's been done in musical composition infobox). Or are you planning to fix everything with bots help at once instead? Solidest (talk) 19:17, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, will do. I'm preparing the end version (& check throughtly). Then only implement the Check part, and

Category:Pages using Template:Infobox musical artist with unknown parameters (1) should be emptied then. not exactly like this, use Deprecated module. -DePiep (talk) 19:26, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

• @Solidest: could you please check the changes (parameters removed)? Also, wrt plural/singular to remove. See for example the diff. -DePiep (talk) 19:54, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, everything seems to be fine (not sure how the code worked without | in some places before). Solidest (talk) 20:10, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

  Yes that was a tricky one |-) Thx. (I propose to not add other changes). -DePiep (talk) 20:20, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

• Deprecated parameters: Category:IB Musical artist with deprecated parameters (0)

• @Solidest: will let it rust for a day, then tomorrow take a fresh look & go.

You can check as much as you want, & testcases. -DePiep (talk) 21:27, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Please match the existing category names instead of using abbreviated names. "Temporary" names have a habit of sticking around, and we want people to understand what they mean. I suggest "Category:Pages using Template:Infobox musical artist with deprecated parameters" or the more standard "Category:Pages using Infobox musical artist with deprecated parameters" (the person who added the unknown parameter check didn't use what later became standard settings and wording). – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:20, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Guess you're right. Sigh. The maintenance cat listing on a page is prohibitively impractical: to find one one must actually read the names, instead of glancing as humans are perfectly capable of. These long names are needlessly descriptive, as if the title should contain all documentation. While, the only people using the list are editors, and maintenance-aimed editors at that. ie, they know what they are looking for. -DePiep (talk) 07:59, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

• @Solidest: a question about the changeover-fix-edits process. Dropping the ~30 bad parameters (see #List of changes below) requires replacing them with correct synonyms.

I propose to do so in one go. That is: the new code will not have any bad parameters whitelisted (so: these articles turn up in Category:Pages using Template:Infobox musical artist with unknown parameters (1)).This means, articles can have the infobox showing incomplete, as bad parameters like |Genre= will not show. Researched: Checking TPU parameter usage, I counted some 850 articles use a capitalised parameter. Up to us to empty that category asap after the change. I find this acceptable & overseeable. WP:AWB can replace automated).

The other option takes 2 steps: have them blacklisted in old code, while still showing. Then cleanup the blacklist category, then replace code with full new code. That is 2 steps: change code once more. Given that its under 900 articles, and quite AWB-automatable, I don't think this is needed.

What do you prefer?

One side issue here: I propose to use that same category also for Deprecated parameters (not a new, separate cat). The Deprecated module stays present, so warnings are still there. (Previerw warning: "Genre is depr, use genre"). -DePiep (talk) 10:23, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

@DePiep, yeah, do what you feel most convenient for you.

I originally assumed that it would take months to fix deprecated/unknown parameters, so the deprecation module was needed for that goal. But I didn't expect that you could solve a list of 900 unknown parameters in a couple of days :) With removal of UC parameters there will be even less problems - everything can be done in auto mode in half an hour. Solidest (talk) 17:15, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

I didn't say half an hour ;-). Will go ahead. Thought: if we leave both checks in, a bad parameter will be reported twice in preview... (so be it). BTW, it's WP:AWB and using WP:REGEX. -DePiep (talk) 17:19, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

By the way, before changing the template, you can find all the articles that now use uppercase parameters with search engine via queries like: (I hope it's not too resource consuming)

• hastemplate:"Infobox musical artist" insource:/[|] *(Alias|Associated_acts|Background|Birth_name|Current_members|Former_members|Genre|Img|Img_alt|Img_capt|Img_size|Img_upright) *= */
• hastemplate:"Infobox musical artist" insource:/[|] *(Instrument|Label|Landscape|Name|Occupation|Occupations|Origin|partners|Past_members|URL|Years_active) *= */
• hastemplate:"Infobox musical artist" insource:/[|] *(former_members|spouses|url|yearsactive) *= */

and then just move the results to AWB for a multiple parameter replacement. This will result to ~ 2k articles.

The ones that I haven't included - are the most problematic ones are per the number of uses:

• url = 92k results (used in other templates, so results are not accurate)
• occupation = 64k results (shared with infobox person. so maybe it's worth leaving it as aka?)
• instrument = 53k results.

For these three - it will probably be needed to contact with the bot holders. Solidest (talk) 17:50, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Could do, but we'll have the Check-module(s) do the job to categorise the articles. -DePiep (talk) 07:09, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

• Y Develpment completed, will request the edit. -DePiep (talk) 08:40, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Future considerations

• ? |associated_acts= does not produce text in the infobox (category only). -DePiep (talk) 15:08, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

To consider: add parameters |albums, awards, relatives [when bluelink], current location, management, production, pronouns, notable recordings/performances/known for, political/religious/.. association wrt music, (musical) education= -DePiep (talk) 27, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

|associated_acts= was disabled not so long ago and is still actively discussed above. It is still being used as a tracking category so that people can manually separate the values into the new parametres. So we should skip it for now. Everything else needs a separate prolonged discussion and consensus. Solidest (talk) 15:36, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

• I have emptied the category Category:Pages using Template:Infobox musical artist with unknown parameters (1), from ~950 articles.

Category is pulated by current (pre-edit) parameter whitelist:

parameter whitelist pre-edit (Jun 25, 2022)

| current_member_of | embed | honorific_prefix | Name | name | honorific_suffix | Img | image | Landscape | landscape | Img_size | image_size | image_upright | Img_upright | Img_alt | alt | Img_capt | caption | native_name | native_name_lang | Birth_name | birth_name | Alias | alias | birth_date | birth_place | Origin | origin | death_date | death_place | Genre | genre | Occupations | occupations | Occupation | occupation | Instrument | instrument | instruments | Years_active | years_active | yearsactive | Label | label | website | URL | url | Current_members | current_members | Past_members | past_members | past_member_of | Former_members | former_members | spinoff_of | spinoffs | module | module2 | module3 | Background | background | Associated_acts | associated_acts | spouse | spouses | partner | partners

My impression is: many useful parameters are not available. Consider, |relatives= (say, 1st degree or bluelinked), |education= (music school), |residence= (current location, as opposed to origin), and |awards, notable recordings/performancces, management, influen-ces/-ced, pronoun, languages (singing), political/religious/.. engagement with music, current/past_members in recording or touring=: all these, especially when containing bluelinks, are worthy of the infobox. MAybe also some parameters from {{Infobox person}} are candidate. -DePiep (talk) 08:39, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Additions -DePiep (talk) 05:27, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

List of changes (Jun 2022)

• Developing, checking. This table is currently evolving. Working towards stable change. -DePiep (talk) 08:12, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Compare versions Live (May 5) vs /sandbox (June 30)
#	doc	OLD param	NEW param	change	has UC	issue	note
1		Alias	Alias => alias	2 - into lc	1	has UC
2	name	alias	alias	1 -	0
3	img	alt	alt	1 -	0
4		Associated_acts	Associated_acts => associated_acts	2 - into lc	1	has UC
5	ib	associated_acts	associated_acts	1 -	0
6		Background	Background => background	2 - into lc	1	has UC
7	ib	background	background	1 -	0
8	person	birth_date	birth_date	1 -	0
9		Birth_name	Birth_name => birth_name	2 - into lc	1	has UC
10	person	birth_name	birth_name	1 -	0
11	person	birth_place	birth_place	1 -	0
12	img	caption	caption	1 -	0
13	group	current_member_of	current_member_of	1 -	0
14		Current_members	Current_members => current_members	2 - into lc	1	has UC
15	group	current_members	current_members	1 -	0
16	person	death_date	death_date	1 -	0
17	person	death_place	death_place	1 -	0
18	ib	embed	embed	1 -	0		pipe added
19		Former_members	Former_members => past_members	2 - use existing SYN	1	has UC
20		former_members	former_members => past_members	2 - use existing SYN	0
21		Genre	Genre => genre	2 - into lc	1	has UC
22	music	genre	genre	1 -	0
23	name	honorific_prefix	honorific_prefix	1 -	0
24	name	honorific_suffix	honorific_suffix	1 -	0
25	img	image	image	1 -	0
26	img	image_size	image_size	1 -	0		pipe added
27	img	image_upright	image_upright	1 -	0
28		Img	Img => image	2 - use existing SYN	1	has UC bad sp
29		Img_alt	Img_alt => alt	2 - use existing SYN	1	has UC bad sp
30		Img_capt	Img_capt => caption	2 - use existing SYN	1	has UC bad sp
31		Img_size	Img_size => image_size	2 - use existing SYN	1	has UC bad sp
32		Img_upright	Img_upright => image_upright	2 - use existing SYN	1	has UC bad sp
33		Instrument	Instrument => intruments	2 - use existing PLU	1	has UC
34		instrument	instrument => instruments	2 - use existing PLU	0	SING/PLU redundant
35	music	instruments	instruments	1 -	0
36		Label	Label => label	2 - into lc	1	has UC
37	music	label	label	1 -	0
38		Landscape	Landscape => landscape	2 - into lc	1	has UC
39	img	landscape	landscape	1 -	0
40	mod	module	module	1 -	0
41	mod	module2	module2	1 -	0
42	mod	module3	module3	1 -	0
43		Name	Name => name	2 - into lc	1	has UC
44	name	name	name	1 -	0
45	name	native_name	native_name	1 -	0		pipe added
46	name	native_name_lang	native_name_lang	1 -	0		pipe added
47		Occupation	Occupation => occupations	2 - use existing PLU	1	has UC SING/PLU redundant
48		occupation	occupation => occupations	2 - use existing PLU	0	SING/PLU redundant
49		Occupations	Occupations => occupations	2 - into lc	1	has UC SING/PLU redundant
50	music	occupations	occupations	1 -	0	SING/PLU redundant
51		Origin	Origin => origin	2 - into lc	1	has UC
52	hist	origin	origin	1 -	0
53	partner	partner	partner	1 -	0	SING/PLU redundant
54		partners	partners => partner	2 - use existing SING	0	SING/PLU redundant
55	group	past_member_of	past_member_of	1 -	0
56		Past_members	Past_members => past_members	2 - into lc	1	has UC
57	group	past_members	past_members	1 -	0
58	group	spinoff_of	spinoff_of	1 -	0
59	group	spinoffs	spinoffs	1 -	0
60	partner	spouse	spouse	1 -	0	SING/PLU redundant
61		spouses	spouses => spouse	2 - use existing SYN	0	SING/PLU redundant
62		URL	URL => website	2 - use existing SYN	1	has UC multiple SYN
63		url	url => website	2 - use existing SYN	0	multiple SYN
64	web	website	website	1 -	0
65		Years_active	Years_active => years_active	2 - into lc	1	has UC
66	hist	years_active	years_active	1 -	0
67		yearsactive	yearsactive => years_active	2 - use existing SYN	0	sp

• OLD: 67 parameters actually used in code (=parameters in whitelist, Module:Check for unknown parameters)
• NEW: 38 parameters actually used in /sandbox code (=parameters in whitelists; Module:Check for deprecated parameters added)
• All abandoned parameters are tracked as 'deprecated'. No new parameters are added.
• Unknown and Deprecated parameters are tracked in existing Category:Pages using Template:Infobox musical artist with unknown parameters (1) (~empty at this moment). Expected: 850 or less articles affected (= to be categorised after the edit).
• Note: Deprecated parameters (like |Genre=) are tracked as 'Deprecated' not 'Unknown', so as to help the editor in Preview (show "replace with ..." message)
• |associated_acts= & Category:Pages using infobox musical artist with associated acts (42,403) not touched (but for uppercase |Associated_acts=)
• TemplateData: current /doc list accords with current NEW sandbox (37x)
• Other changes: add "|" pipe when missing in {{{embed}}}; set and apply |autoheaders=y; minor ws for overview; subheader website, modules;

30 June 2022

-DePiep (talk) 08:36, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Label name

"The record label or labels to which the act has been signed. Omit parenthetical dates; save that information for the main article as this degree of detail is better discussed in prose. Pipe out "Records", "Entertainment", "Music" or similar words from the end of any label's name. For example, use Universal rather than Universal Records. Separate multiple entries by using commas, {{Flatlist}}, or {{Hlist}}. Start with the oldest first."

If label is called "Universal Records" you can't shorten it yourself because it's WP:OR. You can use "Universal" if label is actually called "Universal" (official or common name). If the label is called "Alex Music" then it's not "Alex"... Eurohunter (talk) 10:22, 1 July 2022 (UTC)