Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/MUSTARD/Archive 3

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Archive 5

Official Guideline?

This MUSTARD thing seems to have consensus (at least most of it) and is very helpful. I think it should be moved to Wikipedia:MUSTARD (or a more formal name), because it shouldn't reside on a WikiProject subpage. Also, can we tagged with {{style-guideline}}? Rocket000 21:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, it does repeat/link to MoS a lot, so maybe we should leave this where it is, but merge/update information to those pages so they're consistent and in agreement. Rocket000 21:44, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd recommend merging the stuff at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music) here, and make this the official MoS page for music, and I agree it could probably be tagged as a style guideline. 03:02, 7 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TUF-KAT (talk • contribs)

Album title

When it comes to album titles like Timbaland Presents Shock Value, Eminem Presents the Re-Up, and Dr. Dre Presents the Aftermath, I don't think the "x presents" bit is part of the album title. I think it's more of an introduction as opposed to the actual name. Is there anyone that opposes this? Spellcast 17:21, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It is not the task of an encyclopedia to determine how a possibly ambiguous title should be interpreted. We have sources for that. Whatever is used consistently throughout reliable sources is the title that we should use. And when in doubt: don't change it. But create a redirect and note the other interpretation(s) in the first few sentences. (This is my interpretation of Wikipedia policies and guidelines, it may be wrong.) -- Pepve 22:19, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Quotations around song titles in track lists on album pages?

Yes or no? I looked but couldn't find a policy on it. (Personally I prefer them without quotes there, but will defer to official policy.) Torc2 23:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes. See WP:ALBUM#Track listing. --PEJL 13:08, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Perfect, thanks! The only problem is reading that brought up a bunch of other questions.

• A track that is a medley of multiple songs should be inside one set of quotes, like this: "Song 1/Song 2". - OK, but medley has a specific meaning, usually where multiple songs are combined. What if the songs are distinct and are just indexed unusually, like with Lazer Guided Melodies or Lysol?
• Untitled tracks should be listed as Untitled (without quotes). - Should untitled be capitalized, and would a CD with an untitled hidden track be listed as untitled hidden track, Untitled hidden track or Untitled Hidden Track?

-- -- Torc2 (talk) 22:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

As for the first issue, I would suggest to ignore the rules, using WP:IAR when the rules are unworkable in a certain situation. For the second issue, I think it should be 'Untitled' and 'Untitled hidden track'. Thus capitalizing the first letter because it is the item of a list, and not capitalizing the rest because it is not a title. -- Pepve (talk) 16:03, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Logos in music

There is currently a discussion at Template talk:Infobox Musical artist#Logos on the use of graphic logos of musicians and bands, more specifically in the respective infoboxes, but also within articles in general. Since this discussion concerns a lot of music-related articles, additional input would be welcome. - Cyrus XIII (talk) 22:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Adding chronology to infobox when it's not mandatory

The user AndrzejCC has been adding the chronology of the three members of the rap group 213 in the album article The Hard Way (213 album). I asked him to stop becausae it's really uncessary yet he claims he will not stop because he's not doing anything wrong, which is true, that's not vandalism. But how can we address the problem? Thanks. Tasc0 ^{It's a zero!} 23:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Cage death match. Actually, just ask for a third opinion or a WP:RFC. It's definitely not vandalism even if it's against the rules as he's clearly making good faith edits, but it seems to me like the only chronology presented should be the band itself, even if they only had one album. You might also want to ask here if they think that's an appropriate use. Torc2 (talk) 00:11, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm asking a third opinion here because users who have it watchlisted are familiar with the music standars of Wikipedia. Tasc0 ^{It's a zero!} 00:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Nobody? Tasc0 ^{It's a zero!} 05:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Adding Record charts guideline to MUSTARD

Shouldn't Wikipedia:Record charts be added to MUSTARD since it is after all a MoS guideline related to music? - kollision (talk) 18:37, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

It probably should. I'd also recommend adding a note that reminds editors to provide sources with the chart positions they are adding. – Cyrus XIII ^(talk) 19:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree too. Tuf-Kat (talk) 03:52, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I've added it. - kollision (talk) 10:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Album bolding

Albums are obviously italicised in sentences, but sometimes they're also bolded in discography tables. For example, should Whoa! Nelly, Folklore, and Loose be bolded in Nelly Furtado discography#Albums? Spellcast (talk) 23:57, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I have wondered that too, and am unsure of the answer. Some of the discographies that have achieved featured status—Pavement discography, for example—have the album titles bolded in tables, while others—Gwen Stefani discography, for one—do not. I have a slight preference for keeping it as italics only, in keeping with the spirit of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting) which I think suggests that we keep bolding to a minimum. What do others think? --Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 00:51, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I would generally say no, unless there was some compelling reason to do it that way. With a band like Pavement, or Swervedriver if we were to list everything chronologically, there's a ton of singles and EPs and only a few albums. In that case, I could understand if an editor might want to bold the albums to indicate the major releases, though I probably wouldn't do it that way. Torc2 (talk) 01:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Simply put: more bold is more bad. The more markup is introduced to a page, the more cluttered and incomprehensible it gets. Bold face should only be used when necessary, it is in no way necessary to make each item of a list bold. -- Pepve (talk) 01:27, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I would argue that yes, in this case bold is useful. Take the Nelly Furtado discography mentioned above, for example. The first table, Albums, has alot of info in it: release dates, formats, lots of chart positions, and lots of certifications. But all of that information is based what release it's talking about: in this case the album's title. So, amidst all this other information, a simple use of bold clarifies immediately what all this information relates to. In most cases, you might want to do such a table differently, to isolate the main topic of each row to be as clear as possible, such as:

Year	Title	Notes	Chart positions							Sales and certifications
			UWC	U.S.	CAN	UK	GER	AUS	FRA
2000	Whoa, Nelly!	Debut studio album Released: October 24 2000 Formats: CD, digital download	17	24	2	2	14	4	37	Worldwide sales: 5 million CRIA certification: 4× platinum RIAA certification: 2× platinum BPI certification: 2× platinum

But instead, discographies have tended to combine the Title and Notes columns, and bolding the title to achieve the same effect while limiting the clutter (granted, not neccessarily the clutter of the markup, but come on, it's an extra 3 apostrophes). In essence, the bold just points out the most important fact in an otherwise busy table. Drewcifer (talk) 02:51, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the problem with the shown table is that there is too much information in it. Consider this:

Released	Title	Chart positions				Worldwide sales
		UWC	U.S.	UK	GER
October 24, 2000	Whoa, Nelly!	17	24	2	14	5 million

Remember that we are not here to show statistics. We aim for an encyclopedia, one that tells something about an album (or a discography) without burying the reader in numbers. -- Pepve (talk) 17:08, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Well now we're getting into a whole nother can of worms: how much information is too much in a discography? And based on the discographies promoted to FL so far, I think you'd have alot of disagreements on your hands. But let's stick to the question at hand: to bold or not to bold? Drewcifer (talk) 23:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, certification-cruft is something different. Let's stick to the bolding issue. MOS:BOLD says to italicise for emphasis unless it's table headers, definition lists, and certain volume numbers in refs. Albums in discographies doesn't seem to meet those special cases. Also, to say that bolding albums because it's the most "important" bit in the section sounds an awful lot like bolding the number "1" in charts because it's the most "important" peak. Spellcast (talk) 23:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:IAR, anyone? The reason so many have used bolded album titles in discographies is that it works, giving a more elegant display than any other. If what the MoS suggests is uglier, well, change the MoS. indopug (talk) 06:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Like I said above, it's helpful to the reader, and ultimately centers the table's focus on the important stuff. I believe an exception should be made here, because, as indopug has so eloquently pointed out above, "it works". Drewcifer (talk) 23:04, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

A Question about Capitalization...

I know that prepositions and conjunctions under five letters aren't capitalized in works like books or movies. However, should contractions prepositions and conjunctions not be capitalized?

• For example, should No Life 'Til Leather be changed to No Life 'til Leather? (until is the preposition in this case, and now it's shortened to 'til which is shorter than five letters) Another example is a song on Lou Gramm's album Ready or Not, a song called "Arrow Thru Your Heart". Since the preposition "through" is now shortened to the four-letter "thru", should it be spelled "Arrow thru Your Heart"?

Thanks for your input, Xnux the Echidna 22:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

• • I think both those examples are typically capitalized, but I'm not aware of a specific rule to that effect. Tuf-Kat (talk) 02:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure it wouldn't be capitalized due to the rule saying any preposition or conjunction under five letters isn't capitalized. I've noticed a few articles that do this No Sleep 'til Hammersmith and 18 til I Die. Why wouldn't it be otherwise? (besides the other capitalized examples without reasons) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xnux (talk • contribs) 03:11, 12 June 2008

I guess it depends on how you interpret the rule. If 'til is just a fancy way of saying "until", then it's a five letter word, here presented in an unusual fashion. But anyway, there's no particular logic to English capitalizing rules - it's just a standardized way of doing things. It's not particularly supposed to make sense. Tuf-Kat (talk) 00:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, contractions of prepositions and conjunctions should be uncapitalised. Polow da Don and Frank n Dank was uncapitalised because "da" is short for "the" and "n" is short for "and". If Guns N' Roses were titled "Guns and Roses", it would definitely be uncapitalised. Yet for some reason, many people tend to capitalise these contractions (probably because they think it "looks" better). Spellcast (talk) 04:41, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Poll About the Non-Capitalization of All Four-Letter Prepositions

Question: Should WP:MUSTARD support NOT capitalizing all four-letter prepositions, even if they are usually capitalized by other sources? For example, the words "like", "than", "amid", "atop", "upon", "near", "unto", and "onto" can be prepostions, depsite being almost always capitalized by the media. Here are some points to consider before discussing:

Reasons and counterpoints for NOT capitalizing all four-letter prepositions:

• This is specifically supported by WP:MUSTARD Capitalization rule 2.
  • Exceptions to guidelines are allowed.
• The media is inconsistent with their capitalization of four-letter prepositions. For example, they usually don't capitalize "with" or "into", but almost always capitalize "like" or "than".
  • Wikipedia should try to emulate media capitalization rules as closely as possible.
• Wikipedia capitalization rules should be uniform.
  • As long as we follow the example that the media sets for capitalization, uniformity is not necessary.

Reasons and counterpoints for capitalizing all four-letter prepositions:

• Besides the media, album and single covers almost never capitalize the aformentioned prepositions anyway.
  • Album and single covers are usually a very innaccurate way to determine the capitalization. Many Wikipedia articles go against the album/single cover's capitalization (for example, Bridge over Troubled Water, "She's out of My Life", and Live from the Fall).
• Capitalization of the aformentioned prepositions can be optional in some cases.
  • If capitalization was optional, Wikipedia would be riddled with inconsistencies, and anyone trying to look up an article with one of those prepositions would never know whether to capitalize it or not.
• Most people are unfamiliar with these prepositions not being capitalized, and there would be many people saying that there are capitalization errors.
  • Any such questioning of capitalization errors can easily be responded to by showing those people the capitalization rules and appropriate discussion.

Survey

Add *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''' followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support as per the points for NOT capitalizing them. Wikipedia desperately needs uniform capitalization rules, as well as an amendment to WP:MUSTARD to support the change. Xnux the Echidna 16:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

• WP:MUSTARD should be consistent with WP:CAPS, which currently states: In general, each word in titles of books, films, and other works takes an initial capital, except for articles ("a", "an", "the"), the word "to" as part of an infinitive, prepositions and coordinating conjunctions shorter than five letters (e.g., "on", "from", "and", "with"), unless they begin or end a title or subtitle. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 16:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments here.

• If the consensus is not to capitalized all four-letter and lower prepositions, then here are the words that won't be capitalized (there may be more... I don't know).

A huge list of prepositions

Here are a lot of words that can be used as prepositions:

• ad
• aged
• amid
• as
• at
• atop
• bar
• by
• come
• cum
• down
• for
• from
• in

• into
• like
• near
• next
• of
• off
• on
• onto
• out
• over
• past
• per
• plus
• post

• pro
• sans
• save
• than
• thru
• till
• to
• unto
• up
• upon
• v.
• via
• vs.
• with

Note that several of these prepositions, such as like, than, till, and as are frequently used as subordinating conjunctions as well. Under current WP:MUSTARD guidelines, these words should be capitalized when used as subordinating conjunctions (only coordinating conjunctions, like FANBOYS, aren't capitalized). Should something be brought up about this? Xnux the Echidna 01:54, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Remix capitalisation

Should the "r" in "remix" be uncapitalised (e.g. Outta Control (remix))? I have my own thoughts on this, but I'm interested to see what others think first. Spellcast (talk) 05:13, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

(Boy, what's with all the capitalization questions...?) If it's part of the song's official title, it should probably be capitalized. If it's just being used as a disambiguator, then lowercase. Tuf-Kat (talk) 11:32, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

If it's part of the official title, it should be capitalised (e.g. This Is the Remix (Destiny's Child album)). But if it's only used as an adjective, it should be lowercase (e.g. All or Nothing (remix album)). But sometimes it's not clear if it's an official title or merely an adjective. For example, how would the following songs be capitalised (assuming this is the exact caps written in the album's back cover)? Many articles are inconsistent, so this should be standardised.

• "Def Wish II (East Coast Gang Starr Re-Mix)"
• "In the Trunk (Glove Compartment Radio Mix)"
• "Speedin' (We the Best Remix)"

Spellcast (talk) 13:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd consider all those part of the title, and proper capitalized. I'd probably say that anything that comes from the official track listing is a part of the title, with only uses as a disambiguator (i.e. where wikipedia has added the word to clarify the subject) in lowercase. In the cases you gave, the word is part of a group that is clearly a title (e.g. "We the Group Remix" is not ordinary English terminology with any capitalization, so it must be a title). If the only word in parentheses was "remix", then it'd be more debatable, but I'd still say it's part of the title and should be capitalized. Only if the word is not in the track listing and we add it for clarity should it be uncapitalized. Tuf-Kat (talk) 21:33, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah the above examples should probably be capitalised. But if only "remix" is in parentheses, I think it should be lowercase. Just like "bonus track", "interlude", "skit", "instrumental", "a capella" etc. are lowercase (since they only describe the track instead of being part of the actual song title), so should "remix". Spellcast (talk) 08:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

What? You guys don't disambiguate with "We the Best Remix"? Rocket000 (talk) 07:38, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Related discussion

A discussion that might prove relevant to these guidelines is currently in progress at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Capitalisation. – Cyrus XIII ^(talk) 08:54, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Redundancy: "performing live"

There are hundreds and hundreds of articles that have captions such as "Sherry Rich performing live in Sydney". I could find no articles that had photos of artists who were "performing dead". If I see a photo of a person holding a guitar, I can imagine several scenarios: performing, practicing, recording, and trying out a new instrument. These should cover the vast majority of cases. When I hear the words "performing live" on the radio, it is advertising hype, selling tickets for an upcoming concert. An encyclopedia should do better, and should drop the "live". Chris the speller (talk) 15:11, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

"Live" in this context doesn't mean "alive", it just means performing in a concert as opposed to a recording studio. It is very often superfluous because the fact that it is "live" in this sense is obvious. Tuf-Kat (talk) 20:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Another capitalization question: "Part" and "Volume"

Should words like "part" and "volume" be capitalized in song and album titles? Obviously they're nouns but they are more like addenda to the titles themselves rather than part of the official title, if that makes sense. (For example, Minazo Vol. 1 and Minazo Vol. 2—the capitalization of "Vol." looks awkward and takes attention away from the real title.) Any thoughts? = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 15:25, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Good question. In general, I had thought that addenda like "Vol." were part of the official title of the work and therefore ought to be capitalized. (Also, I had not thought that they appeared awkward.) Other people's thoughts? Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 15:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Paul Erik - I believe they are typically capitalized and are treated as part of the title in all ways. Tuf-Kat (talk) 01:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Genre vs message

This is a revision of a talk post I originally made at Talk:As I Lay Dying (band). For months now, there's been edit-warring across multiple Christian rock bands, regarding both genre assignment in general and the use of the "Christian" label in particular within the genre portion of the infobox page. Articles affected include (but are definitely not limited to) As I Lay Dying (band), Underoath, Anberlin, Switchfoot, and perhapsEmery, Blindside, Norma Jean, Demon Hunter and more.

Ok, here are my thoughts. First, genres in general need better sourcing. I'm now starting to see editors say, "Song A, B, C, and D are this genre, therefore the artist genre list should include this." That's OR of the most blatant sort, but editors are arguing the merits of the claim rather than questioning verifiability.

I think the infobox is a contributor to this problem. The whole infobox format often throws a wrench into references, sourcing and OR removal, since there's not really much space to explain the genre selection. I'm guessing it's easy to assign genres to acts like Metallica, Randy Travis, and N.W.A. (although I don't watch those articles). It's harder with genre-crossing bands. For example, Blindside: yeah, they fall under the general rock category, and they're hard so I guess they could be called hard rock, and they have a Christian message so it's Christian rock, but there's screaming so maybe hardcore, and their older stuff was Korn-influenced so maybe rapcore, but then they increased their musical complexity to post-hardcore, and they try new stuff out so it's experimental rock, and they're definitely trying to introduce a techno feel to the hard music scene, but then again their tuning might be reminiscent of post-grunge, and of course metal metal metal. We need to source these genres, but we also need to explicate and contextualize these genres, and the infobox just doesn't give us space to do the latter.

But, on to the Christian thing: I've got no problem falling in with consensus and leaving message aside when dealing with genre, but maybe then we should consider adding a message/theme portion to the infobox. This would serve not only to highlight religious themes (whether Christian rock, Taqwacore, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir), but also political messages (Rage Against The Machine, Midnight Oil), philosophical messages (anarcho-punk, death metal), or even conceptual themes (Riot grrl, queercore, GWAR, rock operas). Thoughts? Jpers36 Jpers36 (talk) 16:01, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that infoboxes should be sourced, and that the source should be something that says "Band A is a Genre B band", not "Band A's "Song C" is a Genre B-influenced song". I'll also comment that there seems to be a quantity of Wikipedians - I'm not sure if you agree with this or not, Jpers36 - who believe that the word "genre" can not refer to lyrical content. I'm not aware of any reason to think that it is so.[1][2][3][4] Lyricism is just as important a descriptor of music as the use of chords and such, and lyrical content is the primary defining characteristic of many kinds of folk, classical and popular music that are commonly referred to as a genre (e.g. work songs, opéra bouffe and salsa romantica). Our own article on Music genre cites a paper that apparently distinguishes between "genre" and "style", with lyricism being only a characteristic of genres, but otherwise makes no mention of lyricism (sidenote: I'm not convinced the paper cited really supports the contention as given in music genre, but as it is given it supports my position and the paper definitely says that white metal's lyricism makes that a "genre", though it shares the same "style" as general heavy metal, so the paper itself also supports my contention that lyricism can be a characteristic of genre). In short, I don't think "Message/Theme" is necessary - people divide music into categories based on whatever criteria are useful at the time, and despite any pedantic distinctions someone somewhere may wish to make, these categories are pretty much all called "genre". Distinguishing between "a genre" and "a category of music that shares characteristics related primarily or entirely to musical sounds without lexical content" is not a useful activity, and it isn't done by any academics, professionals, industry insiders, performers, educators, artists, journalists or other music media people to any significant degree, AFAIK. Tuf-Kat (talk) 08:09, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that lyrics are important to genre, Tuf-Kat, but the consensus on some of these webpages is otherwise. Is there a reason there is no set of genre guidelines within MUSTARD? Jpers36 (talk) 02:03, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

No particular reason, it's never been proposed, IIRC. And the genre classification of a given band is not really open to consensus - you can either cite a source or not. Anything else is original research. Tuf-Kat (talk) 03:07, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm proposing it, then. I think genre guidelines are definitely needed. See, for example, the edit by Kmaster here. I've reverted and added a verifiable source in the next edit here, but I doubt that will convince Kmaster, whose argument in the edit summary is "Christian hardcore/metalcore is a movement, not a proper music genre". A set of genre guidelines would help clear up this type of conflict (including those without the Christian element), which as far as I can see is affecting music articles across much of Wikipedia. Jpers36 (talk) 18:37, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea, we probably should have a guideline regarding this. Just leave a link here when you come up with a proposal. Tuf-Kat (talk) 21:03, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I've been working on genre guidelines for two weeks, per discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music. Totally did not see this discussion. Will be finished soon. Also plan to spearhead an overhaul of music article guidelines in the enar future. WesleyDodds (talk) 12:35, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization of the word "like"

I know the word "like" is used as many parts of speech, and I am unsure when to capitalize it in titles. For example, some articles capitalize it like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Just Like Heaven". On the other hand, some articles don't such as "Hot like Fire" and "No One Knows How to Love Me Quite like You Do". When should I capitalize "like", eh? -Xnux the Echidna 22:58, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

It should always be capitalized, AFAIK. See it's wiktionary page. It can be many things, but neither a preposition nor a conjunction. So, it should be capitalized. Tuf-Kat (talk) 04:35, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Er... according to the Wiktionary page, "like" can be a preposition (and a conjunction, according to dictionary.com and merriam-webster.com). Whether it's used as a preposition or conjunction (which only depends on the types of clauses the word links), WP:MUSTARD capitalization rules would support not capitalizing "like"... or am I crazy? -Xnux the Echidna 15:48, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I must have been confused. IIRC, this page used to allow for optional capitalization for four or five letter words, which I think is how more other sources do things. It changed at one point to have a strict five-letter cutoff. Song titles, e.g. "Hot Like Fire", are often too incomplete to really be sure how the word is intended to be used - it kind of requires a complete sentence, I think. Tuf-Kat (talk) 17:49, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

In those instances that Xnux has mentioned, it's quite clear that like is being used as a preposition (definition from Wiktionary: "Somewhat similar to, reminiscent of"), so it should not be capitalized. Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 18:42, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

So... should I move "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Just Like Heaven" to "Smells like Teen Spirit" and "Just like Heaven"? -Xnux the Echidna 23:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, I think that word is most commonly capitalized. Checking external sources should be the determining factor. In any case, something should be added to the relevant section regarding this (and the contraction question immediately previously). As I said above, though, English capitalization rules don't need to be, and really aren't, logical in any sense, so we should just be following the lead of other sources with as much consistency as possible. I have no particular preferences myself. Tuf-Kat (talk) 04:53, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, Wikipedia really doesn't follow other sources guidelines too closely. Look at "Sweet Child o' Mine", Bridge over Troubled Water, No Sleep 'til Hammersmith, "More than a Feeling", Long Road out of Eden, etc. Most sources spell these as "Sweet Child O' Mine", Bridge Over Troubled Water, No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith, "More Than a Feeling", and Long Road Out of Eden. However, the WP:MUSTARD capitalization standards call for a strict five letter cut-off, which I agree with. Most media sources capitalize certain four-letter prepositions like "with" and "into" but don't capitalize others such as "like" and "than". If we followed media sources all of the time, Wikipedia's capitalization would be riddled with inconsistencies. I believe that Wikipedia is not just another encyclopedia, and although Wikipedia should follow major media sources closely, it should also be aware of their mistakes and not have those mistakes on its articles. That's my two cents. -Xnux the Echidna 14:21, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Completely agree with the 5 letter cutoff, but only when it's a common mistake and not done deliberately by the subject itself. Sometimes it's hard to know, e.g. it's Guns N' Roses but not "Sweet Child O' Mine". If we were doing it for consistency, how does that work? (BTW, "of" when abbreviated like "o'" is almost always capitalized, even on Wikipedia[5].) Sometimes it's obvious what the "official" way is and we should at least respect those. I mean that's their name. Are we going to correct their spelling and punctuation next? (Some tried in the past, like with N.W.A - no 3rd dot). Rocket000 (talk) 01:54, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so should Wikipedia capitalized frequently-capitalized prepositions in song/album/movie titles such as "than", "like", "over", or should we not capitalize them? Then, should we add something about it on the WP:MUSTARD page (man I hope this gets resolved soon, it be drivin' me crazy) -Xnux the Echidna 03:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, personally, I think we should stick with the 5 letter cutoff but allow for exceptions on a case by case basis. These exceptions would be based documented official uses of the name. By official, I mean what it says on the back of the album or other printed material (some band websites are poorly maintained, so that's not always good to go with). If the band or artist is inconsistent then we default back to the 5 letter rule. Rocket000 (talk) 07:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, now that I think about it, this should only apply to band/artist names. I looked at the back of a few records I had laying around and bands do all kinds of things with track listings (e.g. all caps, random). For song/album titles I guess we should be consistent. Rocket000 (talk) 07:35, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to start a poll about this, because there is a startling lack of consensus and this needs to be dealt with. -Xnux the Echidna 16:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the word 'like' in song titles, when used as a verb, should be capitalized; when used as a preposition, lowercased. Examples: "Just like Heaven," "A Girl like You," "Everybody Likes Him," "Don't Make Me Feel like I Like You," and "Mother Likes Him like a Baby."

Elf_ideas (talk) 07:16, 27 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.161.56.180 (talk)

Genre capitalization

The guideline states "The vast majority of music genres are not proper nouns, and thus should not be capitalized." You might already guess what I'd like to know: what is the vast majority? Or better yet, what genres are part of the minority?

I'm working on a script that capitalizes genres in the musical artist infobox (the script only changes the view, not the content). I have written a routine that capitalizes the first character (each genre will be displayed on a separate row so the first character should be capitalized), but I have noticed some genres have special capitalization I need to consider. Is there a list of genres with special capitalization needs? Like New Wave and abbreviations such as R&B, IDM, NWOBHM?

I've browsed through some of the list of genre X articles but most of these lists are incomplete, and contain many genres that won't be used in infoboxes (many regional styles like Middle Eastern hip hop). I'm more interested in genres like New Wave and abbreviated genres like R&B. Please help!

Thanks! 167.202.222.228 (talk) 10:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any list of genres that are also proper nouns. Abbreviations and place-name derived genres are the only major categories of proper noun-genres, except for New Wave music and derivatives like No Wave and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Tuf-Kat (talk) 03:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I think music genres should still be treated as proper nouns. Yes, many of them originated from a common noun; but since they have been used already to call a particular genre of music, then by this merit, the name should now be treated as a proper noun. Case in point, the 'Punk' in Punk Rock originated from the common noun 'punk,' but now the common noun 'punk' has a totally different meaning from the 'Punk' in 'Punk Rock' (as well as 'rock,' or stone, versus 'Rock,' the genre).

The use of 'the': I think if the 'The' is part of the band's name, then, yes, it should be capitalized--as in The Beatles or The Cure. However, if there is no 'the' in the name of a band, then no 'the' should precede it after all--whether in lowercase, simply because it negates the use of 'the' as part of the band's name. Thus, some bands that I like include Pixies, The Beatles, Dave Matthews Band, Care, The Cure, and Sex Pistols. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.161.56.180 (talk) 13:02, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Formatting of concert tour names

The current text in Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD/Format says that "The names of tours are capitalized (with the possible album name portion in italics)." Previously, it just said "The names of tours are not formatted beyond ordinary capitalization," meaning all regular font, no italics. The change dates from this discussion: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD/Archive 1#Formatting of tours that I unfortunately never saw at the time (and perhaps no else did either, from the lack of comment).

I feel this change is misguided, and also does not reflect common use here, where 90% or more of the concert tour articles use the proper noun regular font form. The original formulation dates back to 2005 work on U2 tour articles, see Talk:Zoo TV Tour#Tour name conventions for example. The same rationale still applies: concert tours are events, like Super Bowl or World Cup or Live Earth, not specific works of art. And there's a big benefit in visual clarity in using regular font, as we can keep tour names distinct from the albums and songs they are often named after. Thus, we can say that the Me Against You Tour was in support of the Me Against You album, which reads a lot cleaner than saying the Me Against You Tour was in support of the Me Against You album. Moreover, tours are sometimes named after songs, such as the Vertigo Tour. Would you say, the "Vertigo" Tour sometimes featured two playings of "Vertigo"? That's a mess. Much better to say, the Vertigo Tour sometimes featured two playings of "Vertigo". The use of different typeface and markings then keeps songs, albums, and tours all distinct. And like I said, almost all of our existing tour articles follow the no-italics, proper-name-only formulation; it seems to work well.

I propose to change this guideline back to where it was. I'll contact the user who made the previous change, to be sure they're aware of this. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:13, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, that was User:PEJL, but he/she has been retired from WP for a year now. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Seeing no opposition, I've gone ahead and made this change. Wasted Time R (talk) 19:00, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Italics

There are too many italics used in this page. It's supposed to be a style guide. Italicizing things for emphasis is therefore confusing. 86.42.83.73 (talk) 01:58, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). -- Pepve (talk) 02:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Should italics or quotations be used for maxi singles? AngelFire3423 (talk) 15:18, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Maxi single titles aren't usually regarded as equivalent to album titles, but are just the name of the first song. But if any single has an alternate title for the record, which is not a song title, it should be in italics. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 11:53, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. AngelFire3423 (talk) 12:32, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

What about for the case when the single is named something like "Title A-side / Title B-side"? AngelFire3423 (talk) 13:30, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Category of MUSTARD page

Another editor changed the MUSTARD page to make it appear under "Style guidelines of WikiProjects" - makes sense! But I noticed it appeared on that page under "W", while most entries appear under the name of the WikiProject, which should be "M" for Music. I looked at another page in the category (military history?), and saw they are using a template called "sytle-guideline", however an attempt to look at that template's documentation redirected me to another template called "MoS-guideline", which may not be the same, as the template I saw had other parameters not covered in the documentation.

Anyway, I tried inserting "sytle-guideline" into MUSTARD, which resulted in the page appearing under a different category for MOS pages. I immediately reverted myself. Right now, MUSTARD is back in "Style guidelines of Wikiprojects" under "W".

Would someone else like to try fixing this? --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 16:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The {{style-guideline}} template is reserved for guidelines that have received consensus to be added to WP:MOS. See Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance. I've sorted this page under "Music" for now. - Trevor MacInnis ^contribs 16:39, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

reliable sources using "the Beatles" or "The Beatles" in running text

Please take a look at Talk:The_Beatles/Archive_19#reliable_sources_using_"the_Beatles"_or_"The_Beatles". Thank you, Espoo (talk) 06:18, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

In your own argument you say "the trademark is both BEATLES and THE BEATLES, which proves that the official name is both "The Beatles" or "the Beatles". This is not true, as the trademark is not "the Beatles" (lowercase definitive article) it is either one or the other. For example, I have bought a lot of Beatles' albums, or albums by The Beatles, which uses both trademarks. Following your own line of thought we should change everything to THE BEATLES, or BEATLES.--andreasegde (talk) 12:39, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

(Just discovered these old comments of yours.) You say "...the trademark... is either one or the other" (either "The Beatles" or "the Beatles"). This is your incorrect interpretation of the trademark, which in fact says nothing about whether "the" should be capitalised or not. And your examples prove nothing about the capitalisation; they are your examples and not based on the trademark, which uses all caps. In addition, it had already been explained several times before you wrote your comment above that the trademark of an organisation is not the same as its name, as shown by MoS and Lego, of which the trademark is LEGO. WP does not use LEGO and should not use "The Beatles" because those are not spellings used by most reliable sources. In addition, my line of thought in no way indicates that we should use THE BEATLES or BEATLES, on the contrary. Please reread my comments (that you misunderstood and misinterpreted above) much more carefully. (Requoted below for convenience) --Espoo (talk) 00:02, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

You also wrote: "this just suggests to me that the band considered the word "The" in their name to be optional", which is right, as outlined above.--andreasegde (talk) 12:42, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Those are Metropolitan90's words, but yes, the word "the" in their name is optional so it is correct to write both He's a member of "the Beatles" and He's a member of the "Beatles". It's also correct to write "I bought a lot of Beatles albums" (no apostrophe necessary), or "...albums by the Beatles", which use both names indicated by the trademarks (which say nothing about their capitalisation). --Espoo (talk) 00:02, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

• Reliable sources on trademark issues. Remember that according to Wikipedia policy, WP should normally follow the most common usage in reliable published sources even if this does not conform to the wishes of a company or its lawyers. More specifically, the logo of the band is not the same as its name. See Lego vs. LEGO

• This website shows that the trademark is both BEATLES and THE BEATLES, which proves that the official name is both "The Beatles" or "the Beatles" with the article and "Beatles" without an article. However, in the latter case (Beatles) an article (obviously small) can and must be added in running text due to English grammar though that article is not part of the (second possible form of the) name. This link specifically says nothing about whether it should be "the" or "The"; it specifically lists only THE BEATLES and BEATLES. In addition, these are only logos.

• While “The” should be changed to “the” in many WP articles on bands that always use “the” in their name due to the same reasons mentioned above (most common use in reliable sources), the case for lowercase in “the Beatles” is even more clear because they didn’t even always use the article, as also shown by the trademark link above. As Metropolitan90 wrote in the discussion linked to above: …from the band's album covers, it's not obvious to me that they considered the word "The" an essential part of their name. Note that the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, an album to which a great deal of attention was paid to the production of the cover, shows the band name as "BEATLES" instead of "THE BEATLES". The word "The" was similarly omitted from the front cover of Beatles for Sale and Magical Mystery Tour. Obviously, several of the band's albums do refer to them as The Beatles as opposed to just Beatles (and other album covers do not display the band name at all on the front), but this just suggests to me that the band considered the word "The" in their name to be optional.--Espoo (talk) 00:02, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Nearly all major publications (e.g., New York Times, Rolling Stone, Time) as well as the leading non-band music sites (allmusic.com, nme.com, billboard.com) and Encyclopedia Britannica, use "the" in articles on "The" bands, except in their titles and intros. Biographers, however, are more inconsistent. For example, Richie Unterberger, who wrote Turn! Turn! Turn! and Eight Miles High, follows the lower case convention with the Byrds, as does Michael Gray in The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, but then Gray uses "The" with The Band. As for WP, most articles on "the" bands follow the lower case convention in subsequent references to their subjects, for example, The Band, The Beach Boys, The Velvet Underground, The Kingston Trio, and The Weavers, while a far lesser number use "The", for example, The Beatles, The Call, The English Beat and The Specials. I would like some feedback on this regarding WP's The Byrds and "Mr. Tambourine Man" articles. My POV on this is that "The" looks wrong when it's used more than once because it doesn't follow common usage, especially with all of the bands I've mentioned, except The Band, and one I haven't, namely The The. Those exceptions, in my opinion, follow what Espoo said above, that in these cases, "The" is acceptable because it's an essential part of the groups' names. Thanks. Allreet (talk) 16:54, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Capitalization of songs, albums and other titles

Wikipedia does not follow its own rules here. (The same goes for all of Wikipedia, meaning book titles, movie titles etc.) The rules say that prepositions and coordinating conjunctions that are less than five letters long, should be un-capitalized.

Coordinating conjunctions are: or, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. Of these nor, but and yet are capitalized on Wikipedia. (I'm unsure about so, since I couldn't find any examples.)

Prepositions with less than five letters include: down, into, like, near, off, onto, over, past, upon. I'm pretty certain all of these are capitalized.

I've compiled a list of words that in my experience are generally not capitalized in titles while all other words are. It seems to me that Wikipedia, IMDb, Amazon and books like movie guides etc. all follow this. These words are: a, an, and, as, at, by, for, from, in, of, on, or, the, to, vs., with. I wanted to see if Wikipedia lists other words that shouldn't be capitalized, but instead I found these rules that aren't followed. I wonder how Wikipedians know how to capitalze as they do then? Probably just looking at other articles.

Anyway, either all of Wikipedia is in need of a major cleanup, or the rules should be changed to be in accordance with actual practice. Listing the words that shouldn't be capitalized, which are quite few, seems like the simplest solution. 193.91.181.142 (talk) 12:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC) (Nick)

Do you have any specific examples we can look at? --JD554 (talk) 12:53, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Even with a list, there would still have to rules to cover other words, such as Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Composition titles. Some words are capitalized in some titles and not capitalized in other titles, in ways that simple lists cannot address. "By", for example, using fictional titles: "Get by an Obstacle" vs. "Get By with a Little Help". Phrasal verbs and compound prepositions are the usual trouble spots, although others could be contrived ("Plan A from Outer Space"). Where the rules in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Composition titles aren't followed, articles should be moved to the correct title unless consensus to ignore the style guide has been formed. Adding a list of likely-to-be-uncapitalized words won't solve the problem, although it won't necessarily hurt either (as long as the exceptions are noted). -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:31, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was actually about to write this anyway: In my list of words in, on and by can of course be used in phrasal verbs (put on a hat, bringing in wood, days go by slowly) and should then be capitalized. So yes, a few rules and examples would need to be given, but the list being exhaustive is the point. What's the problem with "Plan A from Outer Space"?

Examples:

The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (up, but and down)

Neither Fish Nor Flesh (nor)

So Near, Yet So Far (yet)

Don't Go Near the Water (near)

Half Past Dead, Half Past Autumn Suite (past)

Once Upon a Time in the West (upon)

Bend It Like Beckham, Say It Like You Mean It (like)

Into seems to be problematic. IMDb adheres to it being capitalized, but Wikipedia is confused. Go Into Your Dance, How I Got into College, Falling into You, Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart

Onto is much more standardized everywhere though. Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks

Over: Here IMDb is consistent in capitalizing but Wikipedia is confused. Bridge over Troubled Water and Bridge over Troubled Water (song) but "Over" is used in both articles. Head Over Heels - it seems the differences between the rules of MUSTARD and the rest of Wikepedia is in evidence here?

Off: Confused again, difference in header and article: Falling Off the Lavender Bridge, Falling off the Bone

But I must say that Wikipedia seems to know about phrasal verbs, while IMDb does not. The Carry On films should always have on capitalized, and IMDb doesn't have this. --193.91.181.142 (talk) 14:20, 3 September 2009 (UTC) (Nick)

Wikipedia is "confused" about a great many things, principally because the style guidelines are just guidelines, and editors edit without being compelled to follow them. Other editors who take it upon themselves get to help un-confuse things (with consensus, etc.). "Upon", "Near", "Past", and "Like" are illustrative examples. I think the four-letter rule for prepositions fails with them (which is one of the options I think you're pointing out -- that the guidelines need to be updated). Other authoritative styles guides refer to vaguer concepts like "emphasis" -- "upon" is emphasized in "Once Upon a Time", so it would be capitalized. I would tend to follow the usage of The Times (London or New York) or other major newspaper for titling there, and perhaps the guidelines might as well. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

(Oh, and the "Plan A from Outer Space" was used to illustrate a capitalized "a"). -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:42, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I've long been against these capitalisation 'rules'. There are numerous examples where images of the album, single, or book covers themselves agree with capitalising every single word. IMO, Wikipedia has picked a single, arbitrary standard (presumable the one which is followed in the USA most frequently), and is enforcing it on every single title throughout history. There is no need for such uniformity. As such, I have moved We Are The World (album) to a new title, and would like to debate this move, and a possible move of Can't Get You Out of My Head to Can't Get You Out Of My Head, as it is referred to in Miss Minogue's website: http://www.kylie.com/music/albums/1711225 Dmn € Դմն 22:29, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I reverted the move of We Are the World (album). The capitalisation rules (no quotes) are often ignored by marketing departments and graphic designers, true. Wikipedia is neither of those. The rules are not arbitrary and not geographic, but are used by reliable sources throughout English-speaking countries. If you think a particular article should ignore the rules, you can make the move request and let the editors at the page come to consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:49, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Regarding WP:MUSTARD#Record charts, INVITATION to discussion

Regarding WP:MUSTARD#Record charts:
"10. Charts should be arranged with the chart from the artist's country of origin first, followed by other countries in alphabetical order."
INVITATION to join discussion at Wikipedia talk:Record charts#Are Charts to be shown strictly in Alpha order per country?.—Iknow23 (talk) 06:43, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

per concensus at Wikipedia talk:Record charts#Are Charts to be shown strictly in Alpha order per country? it has been changed to:
10. Charts should be arranged by country in alphabetical order.
—Iknow23 (talk) 00:16, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Chart trajectories in tables? [Invitation to discussion]

I'd like to express an invitation for all to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Record charts#Chart trajectories in tables?. Please for completeness of discussion post all comments there. —Iknow23 (talk) 01:58, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

The project page has been edited to reflect the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Record charts#Chart trajectories in tables?.—Iknow23 (talk) 05:44, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Succession boxes [Invitation to discussion]

I'd like to express an invitation for all to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Record charts#Succession boxes, are they effectively 'affiliate advertising'?. Please for completeness of discussion post all comments there. Thank You. —Iknow23 (talk) 00:40, 5 December 2009 (UTC)