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Alternative covers

An inexperienced editor has added alternative covers to multiple Radiohead articles - eg Hail to the Thief, Kid A, In Rainbows. Is this allowed under fair use, is it necessary, etc? I've no idea and never seen it before. Might be OK? Popcornduff (talk) 11:39, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't think the community has ever come to a clear agreement on this. Indeed, I daresay that there are still some editors who believe that album articles should not have any covers, let alone alternate ones. Me, I think that if an album was released under a substantially different cover in different geographic locales, then the alternate cover is acceptable because it provides an aid to visual identification for readers who live in those other locales. But, this might not be a well-accepted argument. Also, if the alternate cover is the subject of sourced commentary in the article, then there probably is a good fair-use argument for using the alternate cover as an illustration within the article section that provides that sourced commentary.

Having said all that, I took a look at the recently-added image at Hail to the Thief. I don't see any way that this "special edition" cover meets the fair-use criteria. NewYorkActuary (talk) 13:08, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, there was a long discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs#Should the infoboxes for singles and songs contain miscellaneous information? about what should or shouldn't go in the infobox, and there really wasn't any conclusion at all about anything, including extra album covers. I would side with NewYorkActuary though – I think an extra album cover should only be used where there is a radical difference between regions, so that one album cover would not be recognised in another region (e.g. Only by the Night) or where a later reissue after a record has become famous is now by far the most recognised cover (e.g. Trans-Europe Express). Special editions like this which are effectively the same cover with a different border wouldn't count in my book. The album article style guide does specifically state "per WP:NFCC#3 use of non-free content is to be minimal, and not to be used if one item can convey equivalent significant information" and "covers that are essentially similar, despite differences in colouring, poses, text, etc, should not be included". Richard3120 (talk) 15:05, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, guys. Yeah, seems like this is unjustified, so I've removed them with a link to this discussion in the edit summary. Kinda breaks my heart, because I'm having to revert a lot of good-faith users by that particular editor at the moment. Popcornduff (talk) 16:16, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Alternative covers should only be supplied if they are a) sufficiently different from the primary or original cover and b) sufficiently widely distributed that a reader who has that cover who comes to the album article would assume that the other cover was an error. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:33, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

A side point: in the case of an alternative cover being more known than the original cover, why use the original cover at all? Is there a need to use the first cover in every case? Popcornduff (talk) 16:37, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I'll defer to Richard and Walter as to whether there is a "need" to use the original artwork. I'll just note that such a rule avoids a heck of a lot of arguments as to which cover is better known. I'm old enough to remember when British rock albums routinely had different artwork when released in the United States. Conceivably, one could argue that if the album sold more copies in the States than in Britain, then the American version was "better known". And that, in turn, would lead to one hellacious argument. The simple rule of "use the original" makes a lot of sense to me. NewYorkActuary (talk) 16:50, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

NewYorkActuary, you mean something like A Hard Day's Night? I've always thought that the sheer size of the US market compared with other major record markets skews arguments like "using Google search brings up ten times the number of results using the US version than other versions, therefore that should be used as the most common one". Richard3120 (talk) 17:23, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your example was exactly what I was thinking of: where one album cover was used in one country (or market) and another was used in the other. In that case an alt cover makes the most sense. Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:25, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Richard, what I had in mind was something like Disraeli Gears, for which the American and British releases had the same content and had covers that were almost, but not quite, the same. The covers are so similar that no plausible fair-use argument could be made for using both of them, thus leaving us with the question of which one to use. I'm quite happy with a rule that says "Cream was a British band, therefore the British cover is the "original" one and therefore, that's the one to use". But my point is -- without that rule, someone might well argue that the American cover is better known, purely by dint of (as you put it) the "sheer size of the US market". And just to be clear -- I'm not advocating such an argument. I'm expressing gratitude for having a simple rule that forestalls anyone else from making the argument.

But also common back in those days was the situation (that I assume was) envisioned by Walter -- that of covers that are so different that a good fair-use argument can be made for using both (I'm thinking here of Are You Experienced). But even here, one can have a debate as to which is the "better known" and, hence, which goes first in the infobox. And again, I'm quite happy to have a simple rule that forestalls that debate. NewYorkActuary (talk) 18:06, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Seafret

Hello. I recently came across this artist's music, and was surprised to find no Wikipedia article for the band. Since the band is now quite notable, I went ahead and created a stub article. If I missed something (structure/formatting), can someone help rectify it if necessary, please? This is my first music related article (I normally write about dams and power stations). Cheers, Rehman 14:04, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

I fixed the linking and infoboxflag issue, but the band does not appear to meet WP:MUSICBIO or WP:GNG which could explain why there was no article for the group. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:44, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for that. The artist seems to be quite popular on YouTube, with nearly 300,000 hits on Google, and has a charted album (am I looking at it correctly?). I don't fully understand this charting stuff, but I believe this makes the band notable? I noticed that the article was deleted over a year ago (for notability), and then again in May (on copyright grounds). Hence I thought that may be the reason why any potential writer might be reluctant to restart this article. Just trying to get the ball rolling :-) Cheers, Rehman 13:13, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

This comment just made my day. Rehman 14:14, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Musician pages are out of control

(I posted this on a wrong admin page. they suggest i add to Brian Kelly talk. I disagree as it won't be seen there.)

There is an artist here -- Brian Kelly (composer) -- who might be worthy of an article. Maybe not, but it seems like it based on several of those awards and nominations. That page itself has warnings about "a close subject creating the page." I'm not advocating deleting that page. All the pages related to it, however, are a disgrace to wikipedia, plain and simple:

• Pools of Light Solo Piano Songbook - there is no other songbook listed anywhere on wikipedia. What is notable about this book? Absolutely nothing. Delete it. It looks like Tomorrow's Daydream Solo Piano Songbook was also created once and turned into a redirect rather than deleting. Who is looking for that title? No one and therefore it should be deleted, not redirected.
• Butterfly Rapture is a page that was attempted to be deleted but no one came to visit the page so it stayed. Is that how WP wworks? If no one sees a "page for deletion" discussion, the page should exist? This is horrible.
• Look at the links to the page and you can tell someone went out and promoted this artist as if all of these pages are important.
• The template on his page includes four insignificant album pages. Those page should be deleted. The template should be deleted. One of the albums on the page is a redirect to Brian Kelly anyway. Just links back to itself.

Someone really needs to clean all of this up. I don't know how wikipedia lets things like this get out of control and I thought those template pages were only created by experts for important topics.

Please take a long hard look at all these pages. The artist has many nominations and he might be notable, but clearly the albums on their own are not notable and the songbook pages are pure vanity and unworthy of wikipedia entries. I know enough about wikipedia to add certain tags to pages for deletion, but I felt this topic is all-encompassing of at least six or seven pages so I just report the issue here.

Sn00per (talk) 19:48, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Sn00per, anyone can edit Wikipedia, and it isn't just "experts" who create the templates, anyone can do it. There is an articles for deletion process but there are LOTS of articles on Wikipedia that could arguably be deleted, and it's difficult to patrol everything – it normally relies on someone like yourself coming across these articles and bringing them to wider attention, so thank you. Richard3120 (talk) 19:59, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

You say thank you... does that mean someone will go through and nominate these pages for deletion? Or should I do that. I really would rather someone else take the lead and get rid of every page and redirect related to Brian Kelly. His page seems fine, but all the pages about his albums and songbooks are stupid. Sn00per (talk) 17:41, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Neo-psychedelia

Looking for some editors to weigh in at Talk:Neo-psychedelia#Protected edit request--Ilovetopaint (talk) 22:07, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Redirects from parenthetically disambiguated titles

I keep on making the same point about these in AfD discussions but people don't seem to get it, so I'm raising it here to get other views. Assuming topics don't justify standalone articles, my view is that album titles are generally appropriate redirects to the artists concerned, single title are generally appropriate redirects to the artist or album they were taken from. Unfortunately we get a lot of articles created when they really shouldn't be about non-notable singles or album tracks. First of all, if an album track isn't significant enough to warrant a redirect in the first place, I don't believe we should keep a redirect as an AfD outcome just because some fan created an article on it. Even worse is when people create an article of the form Song title (Artist song) or Album title (Band name album), disambiguated because there are other topics with the same title as the song. When we decide at AfD that these articles should not be kept, is it really useful to redirect these titles to the album or artist concerned? Surely anyone searching for these songs would type in the song title, taking them to a disambiguation page with a link to the artist/album. We essentially end up routinely keeping redirects with unlikely and convoluted titles simply because someone created an ill-advised article with those titles. Would it not be better to delete these articles and use the disambiguation pages to pick up any searches? I know redirects are cheap, but ordinarily we wouldn't create these redirects, so why turn rejected articles into redirects with these titles? It would be useful to get consensus on this so that we don't keep getting lots of useless redirects as AfD outcomes. --Michig (talk) 09:00, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

A couple of recent examples: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/What If (Simple Plan song), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Faithless (Black Veil Brides song). --Michig (talk) 09:40, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Adding "other_names" parameter to music genre infoboxes

Please offer comments at Template talk:Infobox music genre.--Ilovetopaint (talk) 22:20, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2016 September 25#She's Got a Way

I invite you to discuss two separate releases of the same song by the same artist. --George Ho (talk) 03:57, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Category:Masked musicians

Came across this randomly and thought it was worth an evaluation, perhaps a CFD. It seems to just include any musicians who at any time during their career wore a mask while performing, regardless of whether it was an occasional schtick or part of their defining appearance. I'm not finding any topic article or other way to give this meaningful inclusion criteria, leaving it arbitrary. Thoughts? postdlf (talk) 20:50, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, there seem to be a number of musicians who wear masks as part of the stage persona (or schtick if you prefer). Certainly people who only wore a mask a couple times could be removed from the category, which is a different thing than deleting the category altogether.

Whether "wearing a mask" is a defining characteristic of a musician (it certainly doesn't seem to have anything to do with actually making music)... it's debatable. My inclination would be to keep the category though. Musicianship nowadays (since Elvis, or maybe Jolson) is, like it or not, about more than just the audible notes one produces; stage persona is a real thing that matters. Herostratus (talk) 21:06, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

AfD needs input

An AfD arising out of a rejected speedy needs, well, any input at all. It's lonely. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boyz After Money Always. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:47, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Separate articles for covers

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Separate articles for covers. — JJMC89 (T·C) 06:23, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Underpopulated music categories

FYI The project's underpopulated categories are linked from: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Music#Underpopulated_music_categories. Please help populate these underpopulated music categories . Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 16:33, 19 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me

What is this project's philosophy on enforcement of WP:NALBUM?

I deal with notability-tagged articles a lot, and I've found that a surprising portion of them are articles about albums, which don't even make assertions, supported or otherwise, to meeting WP:NALBUM criteria. I typically merge these to the artists' pages. I'm interested to know what portion of this project's energies are given to articles of questionable notability (either to get rid of what doesn't belong, or to reinforce cited support for what does).

Without deprecating any individual's efforts, the status quo isn't ideal. I hope a few music-minded people can think of ways to address the backlog. —swpb^T 20:45, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

I think it's appropriate. However, if the album has multiple reviews from the genre's recognized sources it's not a problem to keep. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:27, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

RfC on DeAndre Brackensick standalone article

An RfC has been opened at American Idol (season 11)#RfC on DeAndre Brackensick standalone article --Jpcase (talk) 20:42, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Audio samples for television themes

I'll ask this question in the main WikiProject space for Music, but it is in relation to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music samples (that talk page seems quiet). In respect to audio from theme songs or sounds for television programs, are there any specific guidelines to what can be used and how in a television article? Is it generally frowned upon to include television themes in articles unless the theme is particularily popular or well known (such as the Doctor Who theme)? Also, in regards to the 30 secs/10% rule, TV themes these days can be incredibly brief, so 10% may end up being just a few seconds long. I take it there are no exceptions to this rule even for short themes. Thanks, -- Whats new?^(talk) 02:05, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

How to identify a recording

Greetings all, and Happy New Year! I hope this isn't too stupid a question: is there some sort of ID number or code which uniquely identifies a recording or album?
I was hoping there might be something analogous to the way an ISBN works for books - not only does it identify a book, but that means it can also be used to look up databases for all the associated information. Within Wikipedia, the {{cite book}} template allows me to provide the ISBN and it can fill in most of the rest. That might be too much to hope for, but any good identifier would help. I have not been able to find something similar for recordings; is there such a thing? --Gronk Oz (talk) 04:12, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

There's the International Standard Recording Code and the International Standard Musical Work Code, but I don't know how far back in time those code numbers were assigned. Also, some albums have been registered at the Library of Congress, so LCCN might be useful. NewYorkActuary (talk) 04:46, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Missing topics list

My list of missing topics about music is updated - Skysmith (talk) 15:32, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Discogs links

There are a dozen or so Discogs links that obviously need cleanup. I started with [1] [2] then thought there is likely to be some discussion on it that I should check first. I can't find any detailed discussion with a clear consensus. Seems like it's an iffy reference at best, but a suitable external link when it provides substantially more information that in the article. Similar to Wikipedia:External_links/Perennial_websites#IMDb perhaps, or are there better sites to use? --Ronz (talk) 02:15, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

The agreement is, if I'm not mistaken, that it's OK to use in the external links section, but as user-generated data, not as a reliable source for album details. We seem to agree that if an image is present, that is also worthwhile. Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:24, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Requesting assistance for Illmaculate discography and external links

• Illmaculate (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Talk:Illmaculate#External links

There's a dispute over what links belong in the article body (especially the Albums section) and the External links section. I'm asking for help here first because I'd like to learn what websites are generally useful for verifying a discography, how much verification is generally needed, and how complete we should try to be with a discography in situations like this where allmusic.com and discogs.com have incomplete listings. --Ronz (talk) 16:51, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Removal of bro-country links

Bro-country is a derogatory term for an unofficially defined subgenre, so even with a source, I don't feel it's reputable to call a song bro-country, especially when many sources misapply the moniker (for instance, Redneck Crazy (song) is about stalking an ex, and has a rock sound, meaning it by no means fits any definition of bro-country). It'd be akin to labeling every song by Nickelback as "butt rock". I feel every instance of the "bro-country" label should be removed from song and artist articles, except in a case like Cruise (song), where that song actually bestowed the name of the genre. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:49, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

If reliable sources label it as such, we shouldn't argue or remove. If it's unsourced, remove, and if it's part of a WP:WAR, definitely delete.

If Nickelback play the genre you suggest, they should consider playing a different genre. Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:16, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but the reliable sources are clearly mislabeling in at least such a case as "Redneck Crazy". Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:24, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't see the genre at that song so I'm not sure what you're stating, but if the source is reliable and it claims something, it's not up to us to say that the source is wrong. Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

@Walter Görlitz: The song has been identified as fitting the genre before. My point is that the genre is an informally defined, derogatory term for an ambiguous subgenre, and there is no way that it meets any of the criteria -- it doesn't have any electronic or hip-hop influences at all and it isn't about partying, so it can't possibly be in that genre. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 06:05, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I see. But is the comment about RSes accurate or not? Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:36, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Most of the time, they seem to be espousing the opinion of just one writer. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 19:31, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Support removal – occasionally derogatory genres like "mall punk", "crabcore" and "chugga chugga hardcore" pop up, but these have no place in an encyclopedia. They're not used to classify the band's music, but rather they're used to take a stab at the artist's image. Wikipedia should not be a platform for stabbing an artist's image. Fezmar9 (talk) 19:40, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Listing of record labels in {{Infobox musical artist}}

In reviewing other highly rated articles of musicians, the infobox appears to always contains a complete list of labels for which the musician has recorded. Furthermore, according to Template:Infobox_musical_artist#label the "label" field should include "The record label or labels to which the act has been signed.... Start with the oldest first." My understanding of this from looking at many highly rated pages is that the list should include all labels that the artist has been signed with at one time or another (indeed why would it say "start with the oldest first" if this were not true?), and not simply the label or labels that the artist is currently signed with. Is that correct? --TheClarinetGuy _talk 21:04, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

That's what the documentation states. Walter Görlitz (talk)

Walter, I guess it comes down to an interpretation of "signed". My interpretation was that a one-off recording on an independent label, Crystal Records, does not constitute being "signed" to that label. Am I misinterpreting this? Voceditenore (talk) 07:25, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

To release a recording you have to sign a contract and so you're signed to that label. That would apply even for a one-off release. Questions occur only when a recording enters the public domain and no contract is red to release the music, otherwise I would interpret it as being signed to a label. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:14, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Walter. I'm happy to go with that. Voceditenore (talk) 16:44, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Just to muddy the waters a bit, I note that real life sometimes got a bit more complicated than that. Lesser-known artists might record for an independent producer, who would in turn sell or license the recordings to record labels. The artist would end up being released on one or more such labels without ever having been "signed" to them. NewYorkActuary (talk) 17:17, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Removal of an infobox field

There is talk about removing the "notable instruments" field from {{infobox musical artist}}. I would appreciate more consensus in the discussion here. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 03:04, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Lists of people

WP:LISTBIO states that inclusion of people in lists in articles is determined by WP:Source list, which does not require that the people listed have Wikipedia articles correct? It simply requires appropriate verifiability and notability correct? Indeed, WP:Source list says to "be bold" in adding qualified people to such lists, so excluding a person from the list solely because they do not have a Wikipedia article would be inappropriate, correct? --TheClarinetGuy _talk 00:00, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Would this question have anything to do with the dispute you are having at Talk:National Repertory Orchestra? NewYorkActuary (talk) 00:26, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

It's a question. I am looking for an answer. --TheClarinetGuy _talk 04:08, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

To answer your original question, each list determines its own rules. Some of the lists I edit (both music and non-music) only allow notable subjects while others require a reliable WP:SECONDARY source. Take it to the list page. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:13, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

That was not an answer to any of the questions I asked. Furthermore, individual editors do not make WP policies. My three questions are about WP policies regarding lists in articles not stand-alone lists. Second, my questions are not about what people do (people violate policies all the time, but that doesn't justify the violations) but rather about what the policies require or don't require. So let me try again:

1. WP:Source list does not require that people listed in a list inside an article have their own WP article correct? (Yes or No)
2. WP:Source list requires only verifiability and notability correct? (Yes or No)
3. Excluding a person from the list solely because they do not have a WP article would be inappropriate, correct? (Yes or No)

--TheClarinetGuy _talk 20:13, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

You are correct in stating that source list does not require people listed have their own article. You are also correct that you may be able to have a reliable source that supports the inclusion of an entry in a list. You are incorrect in stating that excluding a person from a list because they do not have an article on Wikipedia is inappropriate because you are also incorrect that I did not answer your question, because I did. WP:CONSENSUS rules on lists. So if there is a consensus not to include your lame entry, then don't shop around until you can find an individual or group who may support you in your edit war. Instead, change the consensus. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:27, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

What "lame entry" are you referring to? Why the uncivil, derogatory tone? And again, you did not answer my question, because you responded regarding stand-alone lists, about which I did not inquire and for which different policies apply, and furthermore you have still not answered #3, which I will ask again here: Excluding a person from a list inside an article solely because they do not have a WP article would be inappropriate, correct? (Yes or No). And, fyi, WP:CONSENSUS does not trump other policies, it is simply a description of the way in which decisions about policy compliant editing are supposed to occur. Obviously, different lists of people can have different criteria reached by consensus of editors, but to exclude notable individuals who meet those criteria solely because they do not currently have a WP page is not valid correct? (Yes or No) --TheClarinetGuy _talk 08:08, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

I am suspecting that you want to push an entry to some list somewhere. Before I finish editing this response, I'll find out where.

The uncivil, derogatory tone is a direct response to you telling me that my answer, which again did answer your question, did not. Just because you don't like a WP:Local consensus doesn't mean that you can ignore it. Source list even discusses local consensus:

Besides being useful for such feedback, a talk page discussion is also a good review process for reaching consensus before adding an item that is difficult or contentious, especially those items for which the definition of the topic itself is disputed. Note that, as with other policies and processes mentioned in this section, this process can be used for any type of difficult or contentious encyclopedic content on Wikipedia.

So if the local consensus on that list is that it must only list notable subjects (read: has an article on Wikipedia) and you don't present the reasons why to a group you're going shopping to, you'll have to live with that decision.

In other words, if there's a section labelled "notable alumni", and you're trying to add David Anderson with references, but Anderson does not have an article, and you're reverted by @Voceditenore:, then discuss there not here. Understand?

I'll also @Agathoclea: while I'm at it. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:39, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Walter, I'm not sure why User:Cohler ("TheClarinetGuy") is still belabouring this point with you. I had already told him on Talk:National Repertory Orchestra that while I disagreed with his approach, I was not going to comment further or revert his additions of people w/out articles (despite the fact that some of the non-article names he's now added have "references" which do not particularly attest to their notability and at least one fails to verify the claim to inclusion as a past member of the orchestra). Life is simply too short and this issue is too small to put up with the inevitable badgering and walls of text that would ensue. Voceditenore (talk) 17:19, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

More false statements, and for the record, you have not raised any objections—other than lack of a WP page—to any of the references I have added, all of which attest clearly either to the notability of each person in question, or to the person's prior membership in NRO. --TheClarinetGuy _talk 21:47, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't see them as false statements. He reverted you. That's an objection. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:13, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm a "she", Walter :). But yes, you are right about the revert and the objection also expressed on the talk page. I've now tagged another of the non-article names Cohler has added with {{failed verification}}. If a reference is not forthcoming attesting to their membership in the orchestra, the name will be removed. Voceditenore (talk) 08:03, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Finally, you point out an actual specific fact. That was my oversight. In response, I have added another citation from the IDRS stating the connection with the subject. The citation I had entered previously, and I have left there, was and is to verify Robert Williams' notability and his long standing position as principal bassoon of the Detroit Symphony as it verifies the timeframe when he was appointed to the position. --TheClarinetGuy _talk 14:14, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

@Walter Görlitz: First, I have presented the subject for discussion at the page. One editor there agreed with me, the other (Voceditenore) said in paraphrase "fine do it your way, I could care less", but never responded to the question. Also, your citation from WP:Source list as you quote says, "items for which the definition of the topic itself is disputed". The definition is not disputed. The definition is notable alumni. And WP:Notability is defined by policy. Or are you saying that individual editors are allowed to redefine central policies by fiat on WP? I'm sure you are aware that WP:Notability explicitly does not require a WP article. I don't understand why you and now Voceditenore are belaboring this obvious point. --TheClarinetGuy _talk 21:55, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Well you now have a clarion reason for not including your poorly sourced subjects on that or any other page. See WP:WTAF. And do learn how to break back-links on talk pages (hint: check my links to policy pages and compare them to yours). Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:12, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

@Walter Görlitz: I would appreciate it if you stopped your repeated uncivil behavior toward me. If anything I have inserted is "poorly sourced" then please be specific. Or please cease and desist from your general unsubstantiated derogatory remarks. The one citation mentioned by Voceditenore here for the first time, was not "poorly sourced" (indeed it had a source already establishing notability) it was one small oversight which has already been remedied. --TheClarinetGuy _talk 14:14, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry you think I'm being uncivil. Personally I think I'm stating the facts in a way that you don't like. That's part of the reason you came here though: someone pushed back and you wanted to wikilwayer to keep the entries you added in the article. I'll make you an offer: if you stop shopping your request, and drop this ridiculous process, I'll be more civil toward you (primarily because I won't have to deal with you on this topic any longer).

If you'd like me to take your sources to WP:RSN, I'd be glad to. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:55, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Who's wikilawyering? Above you admitted you were being uncivil and derogatory, and now you claim you're not? You can be sure I will never ask you a question again. And fyi, I was simply following the procedure suggested by Voceditenore when we had a previous disagreement about a policy. It was resolved quickly and simply, by an administrator who answered the question I asked, which you did not and have not here. --TheClarinetGuy _talk 20:41, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Cohler is Wikipedia:Wikilawyering

I admitted nothing. I suggested that if you were offended...and then made you an offer that you refused. I think I'm done here. If you respond again, I promise I will revert your non-notable entries on the page in question. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:25, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/DevilDriver/1

A WP:GAR has been started on DevilDriver. This notice is to let any interested member of this WikiProject know so editors can weigh in on the GAR and improve the article. Shearonink (talk) 00:50, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Template:George Gershwin

I found an overlooked request by Jax 0677 on cleaning up Template:George Gershwin. Would anyone here fix the "overlap" of compositions by George Gershwin. George Ho (talk) 08:39, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Would welcome collaboration

Greetings, folks. I've been working on this draft about the role of music in the movement against apartheid, and odds are I will move it to mainspace soon. It's a complex subject, and the sources have a lot of detail. I am therefore finding it tricky to organize the information logically, and would greatly appreciate any assistance/advice from folks with more experience. Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 15:27, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Structure for top 10 lists

I have been doing lots of work on adding to and improving the individual top 10 list articles (see Lists of UK top 10 singles and have come up with a template structure. It is in my sandbox here. Obviously you will need to add references, images etc. but the look of the page really works in my opinion and having a consistent structure is what is needed. I am hoping to nominate some for featured list once complete. 03md 22:10, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Relisted RfC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs

The ongoing merger discussion Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs#RfC: Should Infobox single and Infobox song be merged? is relisted. I invite you to comment on the proposal. --George Ho (talk) 06:56, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Evi Martyn

I am really struggling to source Evi Martyn. There are a lot of mirrors, a few tiny adverts for solo concerts in the 1970s-80s, a lot of blog entries about her allegedly wayward views regarding Jews/Israel etc, a couple of YouTube clips ... but nothing much that qualifies as WP:RS. There is an obvious conflict of interest/fanclub issue in the history and although she has published several books they seem to have been through vanity presses. Can anyone help before I commit to sending the article to AfD? - Sitush (talk) 10:16, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Merger proceedings at Template talk:Infobox song

I began the discussion about beginning the merger of "Infobox song" and "Infobox singer" at Template talk:Infobox song#Beginning merger proceedings with "infobox single". --George Ho (talk) 18:17, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Kurt Riley

Kurt Riley (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Newly created article by a WP:SPA. Draft did not pass through WP:AFC and it's not clear how the subject meets WP:BIO or WP:MUSICBIO since most of the sourcing is primary or just to local media. Could someone more experienced with musician bios could take a look at it and see if there's enough to keep the article or if it should be taken to AfD? -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:44, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

There's a bit of local coverage. I tried to bring it into line, but I'll let others review. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:30, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Boy band vandal

I've just come across a vandal who has made thousands of edits adding articles to Category:Boy bands and its subcategories ... such (ahem) exemplars of this type of musical group as Bill Haley & His Comets, the Beach Boys, and the Three Tenors. This edit proves that they know exactly what they're doing. They've also recently been obsessing over categories such as Category:Teen idols. I've blocked all the IP's of this person I could find (the IPV6 addresses start with "2001:56A:F5", and they all geolocate to Grande Prairie, Alberta. It's probably worth keeping an eye on them in case they come back, and also checking for articles that have been affected by this editor. Graham87 13:40, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I've just discovered that this vandal already had a long-term abuse page created by Binksternet back in 2015. I'm very slowly going through the categories they've attacked and their edits. Graham87 13:44, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Excellent rangeblock on the IPV6s. It's certainly a task to clean up after this person. Thanks for your dedication! Binksternet (talk) 13:51, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Deletion / replacement of Template:Extra collapsed text

I have proposed to replace {{Extra collapsed text}} with {{hidden}} at TfD. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 12:05, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Another merger discussion at WT:SONGS

The merger proposal on {{infobox song}} and {{infobox album}} is discussed at "Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs#RfC: Should Infobox song and Infobox album be merged?", where I invite you to comment. --George Ho (talk) 17:55, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

File:Robert miles photo.jpg

The image File:Robert miles photo.jpg is nominated for discussion, where I invite you to comment. --George Ho (talk) 06:10, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

what should the correct format of trACC LISTING BE?

the tracc listing of the wu tangs album ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu-Tang_Forever#Track_listing ) isnt aesthetically pleasing as say kanyes dark twistd fantasy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Beautiful_Dark_Twisted_Fantasy#Track_listing ). what should the correct format be? Mua.esquire (talk) 17:53, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

@Mua.esquire: Use {{Track listing}} (with an extra column for the samples). Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 07:59, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Humanz writing credits

On the track list for the Gorillaz album Humanz, an editor and I have been in disagreement over writing credits. I own a vinyl copy of the album, and every vocalist is credited as a writer, with no one else being credited. The other editor insists this isn't the case, but ignored my message on his talk page. Please see this post for more information, and to weigh in with your opinion. If people want images of the vinyl credits, I'd be happy to provide them. Sock (tock talk) 22:00, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

AllMusic articles being undated—maintenance nightmare?

AllMusic articles are undated, and there's nothing to prevent the content from changing—even introducing contradictions to what was originally sourced. This seems like a pretty big problem to me—how best to deal with it, especially given how widely cited AllMusic is: 81325 transclusions of the {{AllMusic}} template alone, and it's widely cited using {{cite web}} and other methods as well.

What can we do about this? It seems like a potential maintenance nightmare. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:51, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

@Curly Turkey: I'm not sure what any specific problem might be, but all external links on Wikipedia are archived automatically by archive.org, so there shouldn't be verifiability issues if information is removed from pages at some point. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 16:26, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Jc86035: What gives you the idea that these things are automatically archived? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:03, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

@Curly Turkey: According to this post on the Internet Archive blog, for the last few years they have been harvesting and archiving every outbound link on several Wikipedias. Cyberpower678 might be able to shed more light on this matter, if I've missed anything (the blog post doesn't make it clear whether they archived every link or links from new page revisions). Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 03:33, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Obviously, then, the archiving of all outbound links is not automatic, and it hardly solves the problem if the links are archived years after being accessed, after which point the content may have changed. Also, I see no capability in the {{AllMusic}} template to archive links at all. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:39, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

IA has their own personal bot that patrolls recent changes and looks for newly added links in each revision. It will then save them.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 11:04, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

@Cyberpower678: {{AllMusic}} has existed since 2004. Did IA also archive all links which were in use from before they began archiving links from recent changes? Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 11:08, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I cannot say. I don't have those details. IABot is capable of resolving template generated URLs and handling the references accordingly.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 18:55, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

So clearly we continue to have a problem that needs to be resolved—we need archives to the consulted versions of AllMusic articles, not just whatever IA happens to have archived. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:04, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

It assumes that the current version at AllMusic does not contain the same content. Can that be demonstrated? Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:09, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Grace note

Would someone please fix the issue mentioned in a comment added to Grace note in September 2016. The comment is "(According to the links on acciaccatura and appoggiatura... these should be reversed respectively.)" Johnuniq (talk) 05:04, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: The text preceding the brackets is currently correct. An acciaccatura has a slash, whereas an appoggiatura does not. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 08:38, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Songwriting credits

Are there specific guidelines to list songwriting credits in an article? In particular, for singers who usually don't write their own songs. I looked around, but found anything. --ChoHyeri (talk) 15:10, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Why would songwriting credits need to be listed in band articles? Unless the songwriter is associated with the subject of the article, I don't see it as relevant. Please elaborate. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:22, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

I was referring to articles like Lee Jun-ho (singer). He has written several songs both for his band and for himself, and they are all listed in Lee Jun-ho (singer)#Compositions in a table. I think they are relevant and I was wondering if there was a better way to list them, as the current table looks a bit awkward. --ChoHyeri (talk) 08:02, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. I think most of us will agree that a list of compositions doesn't belong in the article's discography section so, at the very minimum, that table should be moved to a new "Compositions" section. Beyond that, it's a matter for editorial judgment. If you believe that a listing of the approximately 50 songs is encyclopedic, you can create the article List of songs written by Lee Jun-ho. Me, I would opt for the opposite approach -- a "Compositions" section that contained not a complete listing, but just a few sentences of prose. The first sentence would tell the reader that Lee writes songs for his band and might include a brief listing of the most notable of them. The second would do something similar, but with his solo album work. And finally, one or two additional sentences that outline, in roughly chronological fashion, the use of his songs by other artists. This approach certainly doesn't create a listing of all 50 songs, but will better serve the reader by placing the information in context. NewYorkActuary (talk) 16:20, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks like fluff. Either spin it into its own article, if it has enough references, or delete it. Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:13, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Okay, thank you! --ChoHyeri (talk) 08:45, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

GA reassessment on HIStory/Ghosts

Hello again. I started Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/HIStory/Ghosts/1, a GA reassessment on HIStory/Ghosts. Feel free to improve the article and/or comment at the community GAR. Thanks. --George Ho (talk) 08:12, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Request for comment regarding description of album

I've made a request for comment on the The Life of Pablo article relating to the lead sentence of articles about albums released by an otherwise solo artist after a one-off collaborative album. The question is: "Should the lead sentence describe the album as Kanye's 'seventh solo album and eighth studio album'?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Life_of_Pablo#Request_for_comment Cjhard (talk) 02:36, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Dispute on Bubbling Under peaks

@Piriczki: is saying that the footnote on J. Geils Band discography should say "104 on the Bubbling Under" because the actual chart said so, even though WP:USCHARTS says not to use 1xx for Bubbling Under peaks. Even though the chart he linked here says "104" for the Bubbling Under peak, this is patently wrong because there is no such position. "104" means "4 on Bubbling Under". Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 21:48, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

• I did some work more than a year ago on the discography in question, so I thought I'd chime in. My edits at the time complied with WP:USCHARTS, but I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some things I find problematic with the guideline.

First, it's worth noting that the Bubbling Under chart has used two different numbering systems (more or less) since 1961. From 1961 to 1985, Bubbling Under chart positions started with number 101. Going forward, I'll refer to this system as "Version 1". There was no Bubbling Under chart from 1985 to 1992. When it returned in 1992, and in the years since, the Bubbling Under chart positions began with number 1. I'll call this system "Version 2".

Now for the issues, as I see them:

WP:USCHARTS states that using "number 1xx on the Bubbling Under" would violate WP:SYNTH by creating information not directly supported by the source. This logic holds up very well for Version 2 songs. For example, Billboard writes that Paula Abdul's 1996 single "Ain't Never Gonna Give You Up" peaked at number 12 on the Bubbling Under. Lindsay Lohan's 2005 single "Over" peaked at number 1 on the Bubbling Under, according to Billboard.

In contrast to Version 2 songs, it turns out that violating WP:SYNTH is precisely what we do when we use the 1-25 numbering for Version 1 songs. For example, The Beatles' "From Me to You" (1963), according to the original Billboard magazine, peaked at number 116 on the Bubbling Under. Billboard has consistently used 116, not 16, to reference the song's peak position, even in recent years (2004, 2013, 2014, 2014, 2014), almost 25 years after the arrival of the Version 2 system. I can find no instances of Billboard (or any other reliable sources, for what it's worth) ever using a peak of 16, so why should we? Doing so would be, to quote WP:USCHARTS, "creating information not directly supported by the source"(s).

"From Me to You" is a handy example because of the frequent references over the years, and it seems Billboard's adherence to the Version 1 numbering system applies to other Version 1 songs. For example, a 2006 article says that Lesley Gore's 1968 single "He Gives Me Love (La La La)" peaked at number 119. Madonna's 1983 single "Everybody" peaked at number 107, according to a 2012 Billboard write-up. In a 2015 story, Billboard notes that the 1968 release of "What a Wonderful World" peaked at number 116. Billboard is consistent with Version 1 songs, and no reliable sources appear to dispute these peak positions.

The notion that using Version 1 numbering violates WP:SYNTH further conflicts with WP:USCHARTS in that the latter guideline states: "Any of the books by Joel Whitburn may also be used to verify chart positions." Spoiler alert: Whitburn uses Version 1 numbering. WP:USCHARTS is a tremendously valuable guideline, but it is not without inconsistencies.

I don't know that I have an ideal solution, or one that will be agreeable for everyone. For my part, I do think sticking to what the Billboard sources say is closer to optimal than lumping all songs in either the Version 1 or Version 2 basket. With this in mind, I propose something like the following for the notes section of The J. Geils Band's discography:

"Did You No Wrong" peaked at number 104 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which until 1985 listed singles ranked below the top 100 positions."

And for Lindsay Lohan's discography:

"Over" peaked at number 1 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which since 1992 has ranked the top 25 singles below the Hot 100."

Finally, if I wasn't already familiar with WP:USCHARTS, I would frankly be confused if I saw a number 4 peak for "Did You No Wrong", clicked on the source, and saw a 104 peak. If I were a reader and/or inexperienced editor, my initial reaction would certainly not be, "Oh, Wikipedia simply subtracts 100 to come up with these Bubbling Under peaks". Rather, I would assume a typo and think I was helping out by changing the 4 to 104. Ultimately, I support following what Billboard uses.

I went on for a lot longer than I intended so I'll leave it there for now. Thanks for your time.  gongshow  talk  09:59, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

• @Gongshow: Thank you for stepping in and elucidating. I would also suggest offering a wording change at WP:USCHARTS to indicate that even Billboard formerly used the 1xx system for Bubbling Unders. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 22:55, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

@TenPoundHammer: I agree, the guideline wording should be tweaked so there is less potential for confusion in the future.  gongshow  talk  03:30, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Talk:2017#Prodigy

Discussion about retaining the entry of Prodigy's death is occurring at Talk:2017#Prodigy, where I invite you to discuss. --George Ho (talk) 11:55, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

RfC tag is inserted at Talk:2017#.5BReady.5D Prodigy. --George Ho (talk) 05:09, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Kento Masuda

Could someone who knows more about the European music scene look at Kento Masuda? This is a page that seems to have become bloated with self-congratulatory puffery, and has likely been edited by a series of users related to the individual. Most problematic is a series of claims that he has been knighted and made a baron by various European orders--so much so that the last edits tried to claim he is now a nobleman of Europe. I just don't know these European orders or the music awards he claims have received well enough to judge the reliability of these claims. Note that some of the same users have created the article Hiroko Tsuji (musician) who is also related to Masuda. Michitaro (talk) 00:39, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

FLRC

I have nominated Eminem discography for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 08:06, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Parent company of AllMusic nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/All Media Network

The parent company of AllMusic was nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/All Media Network. Cunard (talk) 23:18, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

RfC- Band member timelines

Please voice you opinions at Wikipedia talk:Timeline standards#RfC Musical band member timelines. Thank you, - FlightTime (open channel) 16:22, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Hands (Mike Perry song)#Artist credits

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Hands (Mike Perry song)#Artist credits. nyuszika7h (talk) 09:48, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Possible removal of Dutch certification parameter

Please see the discussion at Template talk:Certification Table Entry#Dutch certification entry – removal or not? about what to do about the template parameter for Dutch certifications. The official NVPI website which used to show all the Dutch certifications has been inactive now for almost two years, and the 400 or so song and album articles that use this template now just link to a series of pop-up ads when you click on the citation, which probably isn't good for Wikipedia or anybody's computer or mobile device. Richard3120 (talk) 13:16, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Breakup song category?

I created Breakup song. Would it be appropriate to create and populate a category for songs identified as breakup songs in reliable sources? bd2412 T 03:05, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Do DAWs qualify as a musical instrument?

So me and this other editor on Martin Garrix's page are having a discussion on if a digital audio workstation, better known as a DAW, classifies as a musical instrument on the same level as a piano or guitar. I think this is silly, since a DAW is simply a tool used in the creation of music, and is nothing without the use of an instrument (emulated like VST or real like a Yamaha keyboard) as the interface. Thoughts? ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 23:38, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

I think [some?] DAWs certainly do qualify as musical instruments, especially when they include any kind of signal generation. Whether a DAW can be classified on the same level as a piano is something like asking whether a piano can be classified on the same level as the human voice... The mechanics of the piano do all the "hard" work, after all. BTW, can musique concrète be classified as music? --Theodore Kloba (talk) 13:05, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Gimme Shelter & Tumbling Dice

Hi there! I have done a lot of work with Gimme Shelter in adding sources and formatting/pruning problematic lists and I am planning to nominate Gimme Shelter for GA soon (after I do some more work with it and add more sources) and was wondering what your thoughts on it are, do you think it is close? I am asking as I have never nominated an article in the music category before.

I am also looking at nominating Tumbling Dice in the future (using Talk:Tumbling Dice/GA1 as a reference to some things that need fixing) as well as Goats Head Soup, so if you have any thoughts on those they are also welcome. In the case of Goats Head Soup, I know that I have not contributed significantly to the article, but do feel that I know enough about it to answer any questions that may arise during a GA review - I would ask its major contributors, however, most contributors (excluding drive-bys and IPs) have been inactive for months - if not years - so there is no one to really ask over there and no evidence anyone checks its talk page (only messages since 2008 appear to be automated about fixing external links). Thanks in advance for your time. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 07:16, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

I have nominated Tumbling Dice. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 21:42, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Help request: categorization

I have added an article about The Ophelias, a late 80s neo-psychedelic band from San Francisco. I am not familiar with the category structure for bands, and I was wondering if anyone would mind adding the article to the correct categories. Thanks.---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 16:33, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

I added a few just now. Chubbles (talk) 18:56, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Possibly false claims for Emmy, Grammy, VMA awards

Please see WP:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Nicole Ehrlich awards for a question regarding who Grammy and other "Best Music Video" awards go to. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:52, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

GAR

Shenandoah (band), an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 20:29, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Musicians who died young

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music#WP:Articles for deletion/List of composers who died before age 50. Please comment there, not here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:01, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

No criteria for labels

I ran across Vision of God Records earlier and wonder if we need a notability criteria for labels. There are sources that mention the label, but none that discuss it at length. I suspect that could be the case for most smaller labels. Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:19, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Since labels are essentially publishing companies, I don't think a separate guideline is really necessary; the guideline for organizations and companies should cover it. Also, I would interpret the "No inherited notability" criterion in this case as: "Publishing a notable recording or the work of a notable artist does not necessarily make a label notable."—Theodore Kloba (☎) 18:12, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

@Walter Görlitz:: I know you commented on a previous discussion about record label notability a couple of years ago. I would think that @78.26: will probably want to comment here, as they appear to be the most active editor when the subject of record labels comes up. Richard3120 (talk) 19:28, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I've long wanted criteria, because my interest in record labels is almost exclusively for those existing pre-internet, and it would be helpful in determining which labels are likely to be notable for those editors who may not have access to publications that I am more familiar with. I would like to discuss the ways that record labels may be different than other publishers. I know many music collectors/researchers who collect and organize by record label in ways that I don't think exist for book publishers, printers, or beer can makers, etc. I would also think that @Chubbles: @Michig: and @Ivanvector: would like to participate as having been involved in prior discussions regarding record label notability. This is brought up every few years, but nothing has been accomplished. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 20:04, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

In my view, a label is worth an article if it has had sufficient commercial success with and/or lasting history of original releases by multiple clearly notable artists and/or has been a key label in a musical movement or genre, with sources available to verify this, obviously, although I don't think we necessarily need multiple significant coverage to be able to have a worthwhile article as long as we have sufficient sources for verification. These criteria are very difficult to pin down, however, due to the differing aims of record labels and different eras and geographical differences. --Michig (talk) 20:20, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

@Richard3120: Thanks for linking to the prior discussion; I should have guessed this wasn't the first time it came up. Some further thoughts: WP:GNG calls for "significant coverage". Even if a record label is covered in a significant number of sources, if that coverage consists only of things like "Band X recently signed a n-record deal with City Y-based Z Records", I don't think it should be considered "significant". Maybe articles about not-really-notable labels with some notable acts could be reduced to stand-alone lists or category pages? —Theodore Kloba (☎) 20:46, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

There seem to be two opposing camps on this issue - those who maintain that WP:CORP is sufficient (or the only viable guideline) for adjudging record label notability, and those who maintain that WP:MUSIC's longstanding (and, thus, old-Wikipedia) criterion for "one of the more important indie labels" in bullet 5 is a good starting guideline for determining a label's notability. This tends to cleave based on whether you think record labels should be viewed by Wikipedia primarily as businesses or as producers of musical culture. I have long argued the latter (especially, for instance, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fake Four Inc.); record labels, like bands, may be businesses, but it is a poor fit to adjudge them by that set of criteria. An encyclopedic account of musical cultures requires robust coverage of record labels that meet the spirit of WP:MUSIC bullet 5. Labels whose signings routinely invite the sorts of news blurbs that Theodore Kloba mentions above, I think, would meet that bar, as would labels that get nontrivial mention in reviews of their signings' albums and singles. So, too, would labels whose outputs are included in published discographical resources. (Michig's thoughts above, I think, track closely on this view.) Many label articles as of now are already more or less lists of artists or albums, so listifying them is kind of "six-of-one, half-a-dozen of the other". But that list is pretty critically important to explaining the label's significance (and for user-friendliness) - an argument happening at Cuneiform Records at the moment. Chubbles (talk) 21:53, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

You make an excellent point about the difference between businesses and producers of musical culture. Hopefully labels that clearly fall into the latter category would end up with some kind of coverage, even if it's in minor publications. As long the coverage says something about the label and not just the artist, it can help demonstrate notability, as in this fictional example: "Spritz Warlock has signed with Record Already Records, who are shaping up to be the 21st-century champions of the bagpipe shoegaze scene coming out of Camden, NJ."—Theodore Kloba (☎) 13:58, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Can we please, please have more bagpipe shoegaze in this world? I'm starting Spritz Warlock right now, taking all applications from bagpipers. Chubbles (talk) 21:35, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Ooh, ooh, I can play oboe reed sans oboe à la P. D. Q. Bach. Am I in? 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 21:52, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that a record label should also be judged on its success, not just on whether folks have written about it in the press. For example, using the normal notability criteria, a label could have 10 successive number one albums (or singles), selling a million copies each, by different artists and still not be notable because nobody's written about it, because maybe it's just a pop label, whereas on the other hand a genre specific label might only sell 10,000 copies of each of its albums but because they're all punk (or metal or whatever) the label does get written about. So, I would be in favor of new criteria along the lines of, it must have had X number of charted releases, or Y number of notable bands, etc. Robman94 (talk) 02:09, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

It seems to me that if there's no press coverage you won't have much material to include in the article beyond a list of releases and information available from the label itself. (Unless you get into OR).—Theodore Kloba (☎) 13:58, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Of course we need some coverage to be able to have a sourced article, but you can often glean more useful encyclopedic information from several examples of less significant (or perhaps more concise) coverage than you can from a few examples of 'significant coverage'. as for judging success, that would depend on the aims of the label; For one set up for purely commercial reasons, success would be sales and profit, for one set up to provide a platform for Estonian free jazz musicians, success could be a level of critical acclaim for its releases and high consideration of the label itself. --Michig (talk) 17:00, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Agree with Michig, you may glean from one source that the label was founded by Joe Blow, even though that might still be a "passing reference" so not necessarily enough to constitute "notability" and another passing ref source may tell you that the label was founded in Chicago, etc. In other words, many "passing ref" sources, where the main point of the source is not the label, could be used to construct an article. Robman94 (talk) 19:45, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

So, here we are, a couple weeks since the last discussion, with no further movement. Regarding record labels, this has happened at least twice before. So, what's the next step? Should I throw some notability criteria for record labels against the wall and see what sticks? It is complicated per Michig's point about how the role of record labels has significantly changed over time. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 20:52, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

• Here's a draft list:

1. Meets the GNG. (Examples: Columbia, Merge, Warp)
2. Is an independent label with a history of more than a few years, and with a roster of performers, many of whom are independently notable. (Examples: Fearless, 429, Western Vinyl)
3. Is (verifiably) key to the establishment, continuance, or resurgence of interest in a musical genre or regional musical scene. (Examples: Black Patti, Radar, Document)
4. Releases work which is routinely covered in trade publications and/or music criticism, and/or receives non-trivial mention itself in such coverage. (Examples: Relapse, InsideOut Music, Topshelf)
5. Is catalogued in major discographical resources (e.g., standard published jazz or classical discographies). (Examples: Muse, Mainstream, Musical Heritage Society)

Thoughts? Chubbles (talk) 03:34, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Other than the dab to Black Patti, it's a good start and makes it clear what is considered notable. It also sets up a lot of wiggle room for AfD discussions and other wikilawyering. Is that a good thing? Not sure that "Examples" should be capitalized here and we should avoid MOS:SLASH problems. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:34, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

We might not want to include the examples, since they might end up encouraging rather narrow readings (where other labels that meet the criteria are excluded because they don't really look like these specific examples). I just put those in for internal reference here. Wikilawyering is a potential issue, but this would at least allow music folks to point to something more concrete whenever WP:CORP is brought up at label AFDs. Chubbles (talk) 18:26, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Redirects for collaborative songs

I asked this already on WP:DISCORD and now I'd like to ask here: when we redirect songs collaborated by two artists with Wikipedia articles (i.e. a future redirect for Borneo by Wolfgang Gartner & Aero Chord based on this ref from Billboard), where would the best target be? My first guess would be to redirect to either the more notable artist or the first artist attached, but I'm not sure at this point. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 04:23, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure why a redirect would be necessary or desired in a case like that. A link on the dab page for Borneo, or if warranted, a full article, seem to be better solutions. Chubbles (talk) 04:36, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Cumbia merge proposals

There are two long-standing (>12 months) merge proposal hat-notes at Cumbia. Could someone with more experience in this area look at this? The articles may have changed since the discussion was open. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:31, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

I'd forgotten I'd even voted on this... Absolutely the articles should be merged, I don't see any argument opposing the mergers, and seeing as the Cumbia music by country article consists almost entirely of unreferenced OR (two of the three citations are dead) I can't see any reason for splitting essentially a single article into three. I probably won't be able to get around to working on this for a week or two, though. Richard3120 (talk) 13:45, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

One-hit Wonder Criteria

Hello. There is an ongoing debate on the criteria for the one-hit wonders in America listings over here at Talk:List of 2010s one-hit wonders in the United States#Inclusion criteria. It'd be nice if we could get some more opinions on the matter. Thanks. Nintendoswitchfan (talk) 05:33, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Esham

Esham, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:50, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Redirect proposal on Artists with the most number-ones on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100

The article should be redirected to another same article , List of Billboard Hot 100 chart achievements and milestones, more detailed and less confusing article. Post your comment on Talk:Artists with the most number-ones on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100#Redirect. Excelse (talk) 08:21, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Member sections in K-pop articles

Hi! Could you please look at this discussion:

• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Korea/Popular culture#Members sections.

The proposal is to remove all the member information beyond their nicknames from all the K-pop articles.

I believe it could affect many articles outside the K-pop scope as there are similar sections in articles like "Fifth Harmony" ("Fifth Harmony#Members"), "Little Mix" (Little Mix#Members), etc. And I'm not even talking about numerous articles about historical groups like The Andrews Sisters (The Andrews Sisters#Marriages, family, and deaths).

And the problem is that the user who started the discussion has already removed everything but the nicknames from the "Members" sections in all the K-pop articles on Wiki and it doesn't look like he is willing to put them back. He removed prose, he removed their birth dates, their last names / real names, their functions in the band, he also removed member timelines, everything. Even if it was sourced. He did all that in spite of the fact that the discussion he started did not result in any consensus. A few examples of his actions: [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9].

(By the way, tbh, all this can be seen as an attempt to drive K-pop fan boys and fan girls out of Wikipedia by making the wiki useless for them. But I don't know... The user seems to be interested in K-pop himself and I'm WP:AGFing.) --Moscow Connection (talk) 04:07, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Best practice for musical artist navboxes

Would anyone like to comment at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 November 13#Template:Katy Perry songs, Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 November 13#Template:Taylor Swift songs and Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 November 14#Template:Selena Gomez songs? --woodensuperman 15:19, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

The Shadowboxers

Was wondering if someone from WPMU would mind taking a look at The Shadowboxers and assessing it? The band seems notable per WP:BAND, a lot of the content was worded and laid out like a PR release. There might have even been some COI/Paid editing involved as well. I did a little cleanup, but the aritcle probably needs to be re-organized to remove all of the mini subsections. Also, some of the sources look a bit WP:UGCish, but they might be reliable for this particular genre of music. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:10, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Mihalis Safras - plagiarism accusations

Hi all, I'm not familiar with electronic music articles or the proper references used in those articles. There has been an editing war at Mihalis Safras regarding claims the subject plagiarized music. One editor linked to a primary source, this interview with someone claiming the subject stole his music. There might be better secondary sources about this issue, like this and this. MagneticMag says that the subject did concede to some wrongdoing, but inclusion of the content seems to depend on whether or not those sources are acceptable. I'm hoping that people familiar with the scene or at least with those references, can provide some guidance at the article to determine if the content should be included, and how it should be included neutrally. (Note: I posted a similar request at WikiProject Electronic Music, but it's semi-active, so I wanted to get other eyes on this Safras article) Thanks all! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 05:03, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Redirect discussion

The creator of Cultural impact of Michael Jackson is frequently[10] restoring the article Cultural impact of Michael Jackson which is a WP:CFORK of They Don't Care About Us, and Michael Jackson#Legacy and influence. While the AFD ended up as "no consensus"[11] after most votes supporting deletion, there is nothing changeable that the article was created only as an answer to Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, along with Michael Jackson impersonator as an answer to Elvis impersonator. Michael Jackson impersonator now redirects but so should Cultural impact of Michael Jackson which is nothing except the 9 years old hysteria over death. Also notify @Flyer22 Reborn, Moxy, ShelbyMarion, Chrishonduras, and Artw: the AFD participants. Excelse (talk) 05:57, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Lookingat Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cultural impact of Michael Jackson, I understand why it was closed as "No consensus," but the article should have been deleted or merged (if there is anything to merge that is not redundant). Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:14, 28 December 2017‎ (UTC)

OPPOSE Michael Jackson's cultural impact is enormous and is the subject of numerous books, journal papers, articles, and scholars etc thus subarticles make sense. This is a prima facie encyclopedic topic with references from reliable sources. Like User:A Train said on afd .this is Beyond the encyclopedic merits, there are technical guideline reasons for encouraging this fork: the prose weight Michael Jackson article (currently having a FA status) is approximately 52 KB+ which, as it happens, is 2 KB heavier than the size Wikipedia's guidelines suggest is WP:TOOBIG and should be forked . And this is not answer to Cultural impact of Elvis. If you call this page is a answer to elvis what will you call to this page Cultural impact of Madonna ?. Akhiljaxxn (talk) 16:30, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

But the main FA article on Michael Jackson is not a fancruft, it has also defined the controversies, criticism that were part of Jackson's career. As for Cultural impact of Madonna, this article was created 2 years ago, it is surely inspired by Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, but it has a number of reliable sources and probably because MJ and Madonna achieved their global fame during the same time period as solo artist. Maybe Madonna is the most influential female artist and she has created a revolution for female artists. We can't really say the same for MJ, because there were many highly popular male artists before him and also the negative media coverage surrounding his career. MJ's influence is best described as influence on individuals, and you have List of artists influenced by Michael Jackson for detailing that. Excelse (talk) 05:29, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Elvis Presley was a huge phenomenon in America & parts of Europe, but Michael Jackson was more Globally successful and influential than him outside of North America.Even In no english speaking Asian countries too. Also, Jackson sold more original STUDIO albums - with fewer releases. The only reason Elvis is over Jackson in pure album sales is due to the heavy amount of GREATEST HITS COMPILATION releases, that has been released over a 40 year period, AFTER his death. MJ also revolutionized the music video art form (which is a MASSIVE part of pop culture today). He was the first black artist to be played in HEAVY rotation on MTV (giving them their HIGHEST RATED VIDEO PREMIERS EVER). Paving the way for all the black and non-black pop male/female stars that have come after him.Akhiljaxxn (talk) 10:33, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

History disagrees with you because since 1950s, every country had the same revolution that America had, led by Elvis. MJ has less recordings, but beats both Madonna and Elvis when it comes to overall releases. If we go by your logic then no one is more influential than Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, etc. today, because you are measuring the influence or cultural impact by calculating the amount of crowd that cheers for them. Excelse (talk) 15:26, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

What a load of lol. Elvis didn't start that for you may be yes i know you have been blocked by editing elvis related pages. Music has been selling in the millions long before Elvis came along. I mean, Bing Crosby's song "White Christmas" sold a staggering 50 million singles globally - which was released before Elvis was even famous. Not to mention the millions of records Frank Sinatra and a plethora of other musicians before Elvis's time. And Michael Jackson literally dominated EVERY MARKET music was sold. From Asia too North American too Europe too Africa. Being the first true global African American pop star of his magnitude with R&B-Funk-Pop music. Jackson changed the game with videos, how albums were marketed and sold, how black artists were distributed throughout the world. Jackson set all time records and broke them as a BLACK entertainer - which was much harder to do in his time. His success was NEVER seen before. Thriller era alone was THE highest peak for ANY artist in history. Bringing Sony well over 2 billion dollars in revenue, killing the charts like never before (globally and state-wise), breaking every record and setting news ones (that STILL haven't been broken yet), paving the way for so many pop stars (especially BLACK ones) for GLOBAL international success outside of America. Jackson even broke attendance records throughout EVERY country he toured - selling out their BIGGEST stadiums/parks every time he toured. He would even sell out stadiums in some of the most poorest parks of Europe/Asia. Michael's impact is totally unmatched in-terms of a GLOBAL appeal. He dominated EVERY market known to the music industry, set all time records (that still stands today & haven't been beaten yet), set trends, was a trailblazer, was an inspiration to almost EVERY act that followed (especially in popular music), was a fashion icon in pop, revolutionized the music art form, dominated the touring business (mind you before the touring industry got huge during the 2000's - Jackson was already grossing 100+ million dollars per tour back when tickets were still relatively cheap), breaking and settling ALL time attendance records ALL OVER THE WORLD. Please, Michael Jackson influence & impact is untouchable globally. Only one that can be compared is MADONNA. That's it.Akhiljaxxn (talk) 16:57, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Talking about blocks, you were blocked for socking very recently and had to beg many editors across wikimedia projects to help you out with getting unblocked.[[12][13] Keep demonstrating your WP:CIR, no one cares about your meaningless peanut gallery here, see WP:FORUM. Excelse (talk) 04:16, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

The topic does not interest me at all. However, stick to the content, not the contributor. You're implying that the editor's comments are immaterial because of previous blocks. That's nonsense. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:25, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

I was replying to his comment "i know you have been blocked", I should've instead cited WP:POT. Excelse (talk) 05:29, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment You can't rereference Cultural impact of Madonna or Elvis, Akhiljaxxxn, 'cause the main articles are different. The write form and many factors. Don't justify or reference an article with other please.

This Jackson's article looks with many deficients. I would like to say delete 'cause looks doesn't add any new content that Michael Jackson or others articles added. Or keep if looks that really added an efficient content. Good luck Chrishonduras (Diskussion) 20:29, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

I also oppose deleting the Cultural impact of MJ article. His influence was enormous and wide-ranging, way outside popular music, and it simply can't be covered sufficiently in a biographical article. The problem is that Cultural impact has not been expanded – that is, the basic overview provided at Michael Jackson hasn't been fleshed out with detailed commentary, which surely exists.

If anything, it's the List of artists influenced by MJ piece that's redundant. In my opinion, Artists influenced should be incorporated into Cultural impact of MJ, and the latter should carry a banner urging editors to expand the article. But Akhiljaxxn, why don't you dedicate yourself to coins the subject justice? There are some good sources at Cultural impact, more (I imagine) at Michael Jackson. JG66 (talk) 07:05, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Your lousy attempt to WP:HOUND me by opposing my policy-based rational (supported by 2 concerned editors), after basing your comment on your baseless imagination and editing this section after seeing my edits here was totally uncalled for. You couldn't even grasp that we are talking about redirecting, not deleting and neither you could grasp that we are not disputing the cultural impact of MJ. List of artists influenced by Michael Jackson is an accurate article, followed by List of artists influenced by Selena, List of artists influenced by Janet Jackson and others. Indeed you can only "imagine", but in real there are not enough sources available for writing about "cultural impact" that would allow separate article like Johnpacklambert had said too. All of us have already tried hard but nothing shows up except hysteria over his death which was 8-9 years ago! You would want to think that articles like Cultural impact of David Bowie, Cultural impact of Chuck Berry, Cultural impact of Prince could be created as well, by covering hysteria over death but we are not going to do it. If you really have problems with Michael Jackson (an FA) article, then raise your concerns on Talk:Michael Jackson and get consensus for moving the content from there. This article violates WP:POVFORK, WP:COPYRIGHTS, some of the copyright violation was removed yesterday[14] and there are three redundant off-topic quotes that should be removed, also per WP:QUOTEFARM, and after that there would be nothing left except the selective POV forking from the main FA article. Excelse (talk) 15:26, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

WP:HOUND? Don't flatter yourself. And get a grip, you wikilawyering idiot – contribute here for real instead of bludgeoning people with the same old pointy argument. JG66 (talk) 15:44, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

No I was just refuting your redundant comment. Next time make sure you have enough competence before making WP:ILIKEIT garbage argument. Excelse (talk) 04:16, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I think the page should be put through a new AfD. I can see arguments all over the place, and I think having it held in a regular way there would be most helpful. Lots of people have their cultural impact studied, this does not mean we have to have seperate articles on cultural impact for all of them. Another issue, is that while he certainly moved beyond it, Jackson being part of the Jackson 5 and not always the biggest part of his own act makes his cultural impact different. At least from some of us, the songs by Jackson we listen to the most come from his Jackson 5 days. This is not a question of is his cultural impact notable, but is there a reason to split the article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:15, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
• Comment: I might be tempted to side with the existence of this article if the claims of MJ's cultural impact have been widely discussed and demonstrated, but Akhiljaxxn, you might want to tone down some of the hyperbole, because at the moment it just sounds like a promotional press release from Sony Records, and many of your claims can't be backed up by evidence. For example, "he literally dominated every market music was sold"... well, no, he literally didn't - even at his peak he certainly never outsold Johnny Halliday in France, and popular though he was in South America, he didn't sell as many records as the Latin music stars. And how did Jackson "revolutionize" the music video? OK, so he made a 30-minute film for "Thriller" that broke viewing figures all over the world for its premiere. But that's not a game-changer unless it was the first long-form music video with a storyline (it wasn't) or that all subsequent videos were made the same way (they weren't). That Jackson had such a global impact at the time that the first showing of his video was a noteworthy EVENT is notable enough, and worthy of being included in a discussion about his cultural impact. But as far as revolutionizing the artform goes, I think it was pretty minimal, and it's going to be difficult to prove such a claim. Richard3120 (talk) 18:44, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

There is considerable impact of every album that has been no.1 to no. 10. Akhiljaxxn had forked some content from the wikipedia page of They Don't Care About Us to this article, but it was a bad move because such material (influence of albums) is already covered on the main album articles. Looking by Akhiljaxxn's remarks here, it is more clear that he cannot really write neutrally about Jackson. Excelse (talk) 04:21, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Richard3120 I never said Jackson outsold everyone in their home country.he is literally always in the top 5 best selling international selling acts in music markets around the globe. Deflection at it's finest and complete lazy tactic to ignore the facts. And MJ DID in fact revolutionized the video art form for pop acts indefinitely. Thriller paved the way for other African-American artists to achieve mainstream recognition. thriller music video was the first long-form music video with a complex storyline dance routine special effects and famous cameo appearances .Thats why In 2009, the video was inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, the first music video to ever receive this honor, for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant.He's literally the most successful and cited as influence video artist in popular music.Thats why MTV giving video vanguard award on his name.Akhiljaxxn (talk) 08:12, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

But you said he "dominated" music markets around the world... now you're saying "within the top five", that's not domination. And no, he literally isn't in the top five in every music market around the world, so it's not deflection, I'm just pointing out your "facts" aren't true.

I agreed with almost everything you say about Jackson and music videos - yes, he was instrumental in getting black acts played on MTV. Yes, "Thriller" was recognized for being culturally or historically significant. But none of that is the same as saying he revolutionized the artform - that's WP:OR. That's why I said if you tone down the hyperbole I think you actually have a good case and enough examples to demonstrate his cultural significance. Richard3120 (talk) 12:51, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Using citations for track listings on albums

Jax 0677 (talk · contribs) had placed a [citation needed] on This Christmas: Winter Is Coming. However, I have not usually seen a citation for a track listing unless the album is yet to be released, or in cases where a dispute exists. For instance, Room to Breathe (Reba McEntire album) has a separate citation for one song because the Allmusic listing has an erroneous credit.

Long story short: do track listings generally need citations? Does Real Good Time need the citations it has in its track listing? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:19, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps there are different points of view on this, but I feel that the album cover or label itself can serve as a reliable source of information, provided that the album is specified with the same sort of detail that we expect when documenting other media such as books or magazines. And so, if the name of the album, the record label, the catalog number and the year of release are all set forth, I don't see why that wouldn't be sufficient for sourcing purposes. And if the album has a Library of Congress or OCLC number (some of them do!), then so much the better.

To answer your question directly, that does seem to be a ridiculous number of citations for Real Good Time. Then again, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to get the catalog number for the album, if only to make your case for fewer citations even stronger. NewYorkActuary (talk) 02:50, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

The number of citations and their placement on that article is totally absurd. There is no need to provide exhaustive third-party citations for basic catalog data that appears, e.g., on the back covers of albums or the title pages of books, unless it is demonstrably incorrect or has been contested in the literature. Chubbles (talk) 07:02, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm late to the party here, but to chime in, in case this comes up again down the line, sources generally aren't required for track listings of albums/EPs/singles that are already released. If there's a particular doubt in mind (alternate track listings, hidden track names, etc) then sure, but otherwise, but without a specific concern, no, it should not need a citation needed tag. Sergecross73 msg me 13:36, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Uncleared/Illegal Samples

Should there be a change in regards to citing uncleared and unmarked samples that exists in songs? For example, the album Madvillain is a highly referenced album in terms of the use of samples in hip hop, but has no listing of these samples since they were not credited, despite specific samples being proven by a multitude of websites (WhoSampled is a very moderated listing of music samples, cleared and uncleared) and figureheads. Will it ever be allowed to list uncleared, but proven, samples? Making a major part of songs, it seems necessary to have a record of which samples were used in the making. TomasTomasTomas (talk) 16:38, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

If there is no WP:RS that supports what the samples are, then we can not make any statements about the sample. That would go against WP:NOR. I suppose it could be argued that the samples are "clear" but WP:V states "Readers must be able to check that any of the information within Wikipedia articles is not just made up. This means all material must be attributable to reliable, published sources." That doesn't mean a source must be provided, but if we don't supply sources, any challenge is justifiable. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:59, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Would a listing on site such as whosampled.com be considered a source? As the RS article states, "Content from a collaboratively created website may be acceptable if the content was authored by, and is credited to, credentialed members of the site's editorial staff." which fits the description of WhoSampled. TomasTomasTomas (talk) 15:42, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Essentially, anyone can sign-up and start editing. That means it's an open website. There is no oversight or editorial board. That means it's not a reliable source. It's already been addressed at WP:RSN: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 120#whosampled.com and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 206#WhoSampled. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:21, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Shame, doesn't seem like there's any other database for this. Guess that piece of crucial info would be left out unless it's on another site :/ TomasTomasTomas (talk) 16:55, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

If it were both crucial and important, it would be officially recorded somewhere. If it's just a curiosity or trivia, fans will find a way to uncover it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Walter Görlitz (talk • contribs)

Fans did uncover the samples, on those sites. The issue is "fans" aren't the Wiki's definition of a source, like discussed above.TomasTomasTomas (talk) 14:41, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, Walter is correct, fansites and wikis fail WP:USERG and cannot be used on Wikipedia. They're too easily altered - one could make an account there, add erroneous info there, and then use it as a source over here. You'd need something like those listed at WP:MUSIC/SOURCES, or a statement directly from their artist themselves, or it can't be added here. Sergecross73 msg me 15:19, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

WP:MUSIC/SOURCES cleanup

Hello all. Due to some recent requests, and my own increased interest in music editing in recent years, I've decided to try to cleanup and improve our source list - WP:MUSIC/SOURCES - a bit. There's nothing wrong with it, and I'm not planning on doing any major deconstruction or anything, just some improvement stuff. I've worked a lot at the video game WikiProject's equivalent list and there's things I think we could do better here.

1. I want to try to link to past WikiProject discussions on sources, so it can be verified that it was discussed and there was agreement. (Right now, we do this well on the unreliable source list, but not the reliable source list.)
2. I'd like to start discussions on any that had no prior discussion, or if they seem a bit iffy.
3. I'd like to add, remove, or expand upon what we've got based on points #1 and 2.

I'll occasionally start new discussions as I find things I'd like input on. If you object to my changes, feel free to start up a section below too, and we can hash it out.

Thanks! Sergecross73 msg me 18:03, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Images

Hi all. I do some categorization on Commons and came across a large number of images that you may be able to use in articles. Take a look at categoryie c:Category:Costa del Folk and c:Category:Cambridge Folk Festival Gbawden (talk) 07:41, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

RFC about band photos in genre articles

The following discussion 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.

---

In Wikipedia articles related to general music genre, is it appropriate to put a photo of a specific band in the genre's infobox?

Hypothetical example, would it be acceptable to go to the Pop punk article and insert a photo of Blink 182 in the infobox at the top of the article. (This example assumes that they are widely regarded by sources to be pop punk, which they are. The question is not about genre-warring, but about infobox image use.) Sergecross73 msg me 17:40, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Survey

• No - This causes an WP:UNDUE issue. Placing any one band so upfront in the infobox gives undue weight towards that particular band when the articles scope is an entire genre of music. Additionally, such a precedent would almost certainly lead to any number of disputes over which bands to use for the infobox. ("Metalica is more representative of metal! No, Slayer is! 50 Cent is the best rapper! No, Kanye West is". These sorts of issues would be commonplace.) Sergecross73 msg me 17:44, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
• No - For above, and also a image would be hardly representative of a genre musically sepaking. For a image to be fit to be placed into the infobox, it must be fully representative of the genre's social and cultural peculiarities, and these characteristics must be obvious and easy to spot at first sight, to be as concise as possible to fully adress WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE. Such image would be hard to find and choose, a kinda problematic situation. ABC paulista (talk) 20:14, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
• No - per WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE an infobox should "summarize key facts that appear in the article"... a photo of Blink 182 doesn't summarize a description of their music, and I can't tell what the genre sounds like just from seeing a picture of a band on stage with guitars and drums. If pictures of a genre's key exponents must be included, they should be within the article body. Richard3120 (talk) 20:43, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
• No An infobox is a summary of the article and should be 250% neutral. The Banner talk 20:46, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
• No Not even Scott Joplin for ragtime. Chubbles (talk) 21:37, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
• No - By its very nature, it is difficult if not impossible to represent a musical genre with a visual image. Images can be used to illustrate aspects of a musical genre, such as psychedelic light shows or punk clothing, but those should be in the body of the article next to the appropriate prose, not in the infobox.--Martin IIIa (talk) 23:13, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
• No – WP:UNDUE. And besides, there's already an inherent subjectivity when it comes to music genre articles – say, when some sources identify an act or album as psychedelic rock, but others give psychedelic pop, acid rock, etc, so highlighting one particular act in any genre can be problematic. Progressive rock is another article where an image appears, btw. JG66 (talk) 01:04, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
• Yes – I think that it would be beneficial if most music genre article infoboxes included images to give a quick introductory illustration of each genre's aesthetic. There is a "musical" and a "cultural" side to every genre and these two are closely linked; cultural context shapes sound and vice-versa. A genre's aesthetic manifests sonically, but it also manifests visually in art, clothes, objects, places etc. Therefore, an infobox image can give an immediate idea of the genre's orientation. For example, for a reader who has never been to a heavy metal event, its dark and bobmastic style should be immediately illustrated.

As concerns the major arguments against, User:ABC paulista has argued strongly that to serve its purpose, the image selected would have to present the most common visual characteristics of the genre in a very clear and striking way; it would have to be held to a very high standard. Such an image may be impossible to find or agree on, and in that case it is better to exclude it. I have come to be generally persuaded to this but I believe that the adequacy of an image as a general illustrator can be discussed on a case-to-case basis. We could use a standardised voting system wherein a user would nominate an image on the article's talk page, notify the relevant wikiprojects, and add the image IF support for it outweighs opposition.

Furthermore, multiple users have contended that selecting any single artist/event for the spotlight of the infobox is giving WP:undue weight to it over others. My counter-argument would be that the benefits of an adequate image as a quick illustration outweighs its potential detriment of over-emphasis. The image caption can be used to highlight the "illustratory" aspect of the image; rather than saying "X count among the most succesful heavy metal bands" it can go along the lines of "X showcasing typical heavy metal fashion at a 1980 concert". (Such use of caption can also help with resolving the first issue of clear illustration: images should be nominated and agreed on WITH captions.) The band and/or event selected should definitely count among the most prominent in the genre and this may be a point of endless debate. However, I think a simple standard to go by would be to choose a band that is mentioned in the lead. Such a mention already gives much prominence to several bands, and any reader who looks at the infobox is also likely to browse through the lead, so it will overall be clear to them that the image does not represent "the most significant metal band" etc. but merely one band which academic consensus places among the most significant and which is used for illustration. In the example of metal, I think Judas Priest would be a good fit.

All in all, consider that most genre articles already highlight some bands in the lead and others in images throughout the text. To choose an infobox image is no different from this; it's not a whole different level of "cherry-picking". I hold that the benefits of quick aesthetic introduction make it well worth the effort of carefully selecting an image which users can agree to be adequately illustrative and representative. Achieving such consensus may indeed prove difficult or impossible in some cases; but that does not mean we should completely rule it out as an option in ALL cases.--MASHAUNIX 08:31, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

• No - it just would welcome long-term edit warring without any real benefit. And MASHAUNIX: while you bring up some good points, it's still 100% subjective, and things that are will always be an issue on Wikipedia. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 09:47, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
• No - Per all the other "no" rationals. - FlightTime (open channel) 18:03, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
• No, this would be wp:Undue. There are always many important bands labelled with a genre. For the infobox of punk, which one should we choose to include: the Pistols, the Ramones, the Clash? Some would even stand for the seminal proto-punk the Stooges. Woovee (talk) 03:20, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
• No, to use a photo of a specific band for a music genre could cause unnecessary debate and edit warring WP:Undue. Netherzone (talk) 16:14, 28 January 2018 (UTC)
• Comment I am assuming that the sentiments expressed here are the same regardless of whether we're talking about a band, strictly, or a solo musical artist. Given that the consensus here is very strong, I removed photos from the infoboxes of ragtime (Scott Joplin), jazz (Louis Armstrong), and soul music (Solomon Burke). I also noticed that funk (James Brown) and reggae (Bob Marley) have artists in the infobox. We are prepared to defend the consistent application of the reasoning here for any genre, even ones in which a single artist actually retains the lion's share of the critical or popular imagination about that genre? (I believe so, but I wanted to be sure the consensus had thought through the implications of the decision being made here thoroughly; Mashaunix has challenged on this point.) Chubbles (talk) 17:41, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

• You are correct. Looking through all the details of the stances, there's no reason to think it should be any different whether it be a band, group, or singular person. The consensus is clear that one certain act should not represent the entirety of a genre in something as upfront in the article as the infobox. Sergecross73 msg me 18:14, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

• Malformed RFC & question A "no" would interpreted as "always inappropriate", which is a vast overreach for both a statement (a categorical statement about article content) and a project. Certainly there way be some genre or genre/movement where on artist is recognized as iconic or even founder, even if this is not normally the case. North8000 (talk) 01:22, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

• To be clear, the discussion is strictly about infobox images. A image can still be placed prominently in the first paragraph of a history section if they're some sort of verified founder or pioneer of a genre. That's what I'd recommend for the types of scenarios you're talking about. Sergecross73 msg me 01:37, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
• I think that, even in cases where one artist is iconic or is a singular founder, the fact that we now refer to the genre as a genre - that is, a broad, high-level categorization of musical styles - inherently makes the article content about a multitude of musical contributions. That, I think, makes the use of a single performer's image undue in the infobox (though it is entirely reasonable for that artist's image to be placed prominently and early in the article body). In the example of Contemporary folk music, I don't see why Pete Seeger is prioritized over Woody Guthrie, Odetta, Bob Dylan, The Fairport Convention, or Mumford & Sons. Chubbles (talk) 02:27, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

I am more concerned about a good process than the end result. And so my notes here are about doing damage to that process. If a discussion at the article ended up as that result I would be fine with it. Particularly if it ended up with replacing it with another nice picture. In that discussion I would make several arguments that this case goes far beyond selection of an artist. A few of them would be often cited as the "granddaddy" of the movement, and prominence in it in a wide range of respects outside of being a performer. For example having mentored and help give a start to Dylan, one of the giants that you mentioned. My notes here were about doing damage to that process by the RFC being malformed and overreaching. North8000 (talk) 21:52, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

An additional overreach item is tromping over the individual musical genre projects......there's not even a notice of this discussion there. North8000 (talk) 21:59, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't follow your "overeach" concerns at all. This has been running for 3 weeks with 10+ experienced participants and not a single concern about it. It's a simple yes or no question related to music articles, present neutrally on the Music WikiProject, written on behalf of 2 editors who asked me to do so because they were too busy or inexperienced to do it themselves. I didn't even know there was a WikiProject for music genre. If there is, of course they can be notified. I can't imagine it would change the outcome much, as most of the music WikiProjects aren't terribly active right now, and many of the editors I see editing music articles regularly on Wikipedia who are likely to participate in this sort of thing are part of the 10+ who have already commented. Please note that the WP:SONGS and× WP:ALBUMS were also notified, so this isn't some little localized discussion either. I notified all the music WikiProjects that came to mind, and tagged with with the music related RFC tag. Sergecross73 msg me 22:41, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

All I've found is Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/Music genres task force, but you seem to be talking about going around to each WikiProject for each genre and notifying them. Which again, is fine to be done if you feel it necessary, it's just that, in asking the question, I did not anticipate an answer differing between genre of music. I didn't (still don't) see someone thinking it would be okay for one genre but not another. It's more of a discussion of Wikipedia policy in relation to music genre on a whole. Sergecross73 msg me 23:01, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Procedurally, I don't think the RfC here is subverting the process, though I agree that process is important. This is probably the best centralized location for the discussion; perhaps we can leave it open a bit longer if wider notice should be posted. Chubbles (talk) 07:51, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

When I said "subverting the process" , by process, I didn't mean RFC processes, I meant the normal editorial decision making process at articles. But there are several issues with this RFC process and what it could trigger. First, it is so vaguely written so that it could be interpreted categorically. Second, I do think that the venue is too narrow and arguably obscure especially for something that could be interpreted so broadly and categorically. I've been heavily involved on several genre articles and genre projects for may years and I've never even heard of this wikiproject music nor even knew it existed until someone made a major edit at an article giving only this RFC as a reason. Given all of this, an RFC such as this should have had much more calibrated wording with an advisory type result. Sincerely North8000 (talk) 15:06, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I really don't know what to tell you anymore. It's nonsense to collectively lump together 3 music WikiProjects - WP:MUSIC/ALBUMS/SONGS - as "obscure". I really don't think your case is typical - to 1) work heavily in music articles 2) not be involved in any of the WP:MUSIC/ALBUMS/SONGS and yet 3) have interest in participating in this RFC. I really hate to go there, but since you're not exactly giving me the benefit of the doubt either I feel like I have to say it - this feels like it more like an attempt to discredit an RFC in which you have little chance in swaying a strong consensus, than any actual problems in the RFC itself. The RFC is still ongoing, and yet all you do is complain rather than try to notify these other WikiProjects you feel should be notified. And again, its not realistic to expect the output to have been different had they be notified anyways. I mean, look at some of these music genre WikiProjects. WP:ROCKMUSIC for example. Over the course of all of 2017, it's talk page around 15 edits all year, excluding bot edits and archiving edits, and averages 5-10 views a day. They're not very active, and this seems to be par for the course. It's not realistic to think that there'd be 1) a ton of new input or 2) enough one-sided input to overcome the roughly 12-1 consensus so far. Sergecross73 msg me 15:31, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I think I've made my points. Your recap misses most of them and adds things that weren't in my points or agenda. If I had any goal, it would be to recognize (via either rewording of the RFC or just pointing out the reality of the situation) that the results of any RFC here are a recommendation from a particular venue of many possible venues and projects where such a recommendation could come from.North8000 (talk) 15:54, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Not sure how you can simultaneously say you've made your point while accusing me of missing the point, all the while sharing a sentiment shared by no one else in the discussion. It's rather clear you haven't. Sergecross73 msg me 16:03, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Me having stated points and you omitting them in your post can certainly co-exist, and so the conflict inferred in your first sentence does not exist. My last two posts were correcting mis-statements about me/my posts. Arguments about my arguments are fine, but a mis-statement of mine is not useful. Would rather not have to do that again but otherwise happy to discuss any aspect further or to just leave it as everyone having stated their points. My thoughts on the RFC is that it's good advice for 95% of situations, and has the stated problems regarding a claim or propensity to be taken further than that. North8000 (talk) 16:52, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

• Comment I think the most relevant style guideline here may be WP:LEADIMAGE, which I don't believe has been mentioned yet. Among other things, it recommends that the infobox "carry a representative image‍—‌such as of a person or place, a book or album cover‍—‌to give readers visual confirmation that they've arrived at the right page." It also suggests, "Lead images should be natural and appropriate representations of the topic; they should not only illustrate the topic specifically, but also be the type of image used for similar purposes in high-quality reference works, and therefore what our readers will expect to see. Lead images are not required, and not having a lead image may be the best solution if there is no easy representation of the topic." While Seeger is representative of folk music, so is everyone else I mentioned, just as Blink-182 are representative of pop punk - but putting these artists as the infobox image implies a primacy of place that is almost always contestable and is usually contested. (I chose ragtime for a reason; most people can't even name another ragtime composer, but I still think it's undue to put Joplin in the infobox.) So I guess the question becomes, do we wait for specific fights about representation in infoboxes and leave uncontested infoboxes alone, or do we suggest a general rule for dealing with genre images, such as leaving the genre field blank? Chubbles (talk) 05:14, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Many good points for a discussion at the article. After covering the various particulars, we'd probably all agree on an outcome. North8000 (talk) 15:59, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

But I guess the rub here is that, when these kinds of disputes occurred, agreements on outcomes were almost never forthcoming; they were more or less inherently intractable, and based in non-neutral value assumptions (though sometimes backed, spuriously, with empirical data like Google search hits and pageviews). I will of course not start such a discussion at contemporary folk music, but I would argue, for this genre and for essentially any genre, that "there is no easy representation of the topic", suggesting that a generalized rule of no image in genre infoboxes is a reasonable recommendation. Chubbles (talk) 20:31, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

All good points. And I could certainly see where it could be a problem at a lot of articles. Fandom vs. article quality. I'd be happy to have such a discussion with you at the article based n what's best for the article. We might decide that that article is more about a 30 year historical sequence than a genre article and that Seeger is acknowledged by even the giants to be their granddaddy in it. Or we might decide that having his picture there overly slights the other giants. And I'd be happy to go with whatever answer we came up with, even if it opposite to my current idea. North8000 (talk) 21:47, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

You might be more persuasive if you start introducing those sorts of arguments now. Hypotheticals are fun, but not a single example has been given as an appropriate time where a single artist could be used to represent an entire music genre and not violate things like WP:LEADIMAGE or WP:UNDUE, and I don't see how they could honestly, per Chubbles explanation above. We've got a lot of policy/guideline citing going on, and then we've got you with all these thoughts on what someone might reason someday. That doesn't hold up. Sergecross73 msg me 23:56, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Sergecross73 Please stop with your sniping at me and negative mis-characterizations and mis-spins of my discussions. Your posts are completely leaving out and thus mis-stating my clearly stated points. North8000 (talk) 02:39, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

I asked you to give a specific example that would support your stance because you haven't given any. I fail to see how that's a mischaracterization. Sergecross73 msg me 03:17, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

• This question strikes me as much the same as Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images/Archive 6. --Izno (talk) 00:35, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Certainly, that discussion would indicate that a gallery of images in the infobox of genre articles (e.g., a montage of musicians in a genre) would be no solution, either. Chubbles (talk) 00:49, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

• Yes Considering WP:LEADIMAGE as mentioned earlier by another editor. In any case, what was the rationale for this Rfc? It would be helpful to understand the context. Were there complaints or disagreements about the images used? I don't recall any.--DanJazzy (talk) 03:03, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

• The only people to cite LEADIMAGE used it for a "No" stance. How does LEADIMAGE support your "Yes" stance exactly? And yes, the RFC was spurred because an editor tried adding a band image to a lot of different genre articles at once, much like the Blink 182/pop punk example given in the RFC question. Sergecross73 msg me 03:17, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
• Thanks. Sorry I'm not too familiar with Blink 182/pop punk, maybe that's why I missed that. In my understanding, such disagreements don't appear to be so prevalent as to warrant change in policy. The Jazz article, for instance, had no issues with Louis Armstrong as the lead image.

As for WP:LEADIMAGE, the policy speaks for itself. "It is common for (the) infobox to carry a representative image‍—‌such as of a person or place, a book or album cover‍—‌to give readers visual confirmation that they've arrived at the right page." — Preceding unsigned comment added by DanJazzy (talk • contribs) 04:43, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

The policy doesn't speak for itself at all, especially when people just used it to argue the opposite stance. How does one single music act properly and appropriately represent an entire genre of music? "It hasn't been an issue" isn't valid here, when it was spurred after the attempts of an article to do it over like 10+ articles?, all of which were challenged. Sergecross73 msg me 16:19, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

A single music act can represent a Genre Honorific nicknames in popular music e.g. Elvis Presley (Rock), Louis Armstrong (Jazz), Scott Joplin (Ragtime), Michael Jackson (Pop), James Brown (Funk), Aretha Franklin (Soul), Mahalia Jackson (Gospel), Celia Cruz (Salsa), Bob Marley (Reggae), B.B. King (Blues), DJ Kool Herc (Hip-Hop) etc These artists literally define their genres and in many cases are the progenitors of these musical forms. --DanJazzy (talk) 17:08, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, those are all fine examples, but not definitive examples. Why not Tupac or Kanye West for Hip Hop? Why not Led Zeppelin or Queen for rock? Why not N Sync for pop? The arguments and edit warring would be endless, and there'd be no right answer. There's already enough genre-warring on Wikipedia. Your stance only compounds these issues. I don't think you've very thoroughly thought this out... Sergecross73 msg me 18:22, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

But that's my point, isn't it? In the articles of the above mentioned genres, there wasn't any controversy on the lead image. Therefore, there was no need to stir the hornets nest with this RfC. If there's an issue with one article, it can be sorted out individually. Anyway, my contribution still stands, thanks for the input.--DanJazzy (talk) 20:43, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

"In the articles of the above mentioned genres, there wasn't any controversy on the lead image."? There is no lead image at Jazz, Soul music, Gospel music, Rock music, Pop music – which explains the lack of controversy. Nor at almost all of the rock subgenre articles (as mentioned, Progressive rock seems to be an anomaly). Marley and Brown appear at reggae and funk respectively, yes, and a Joplin image is beside the lead but not inside the infobox. It's worth pointing out that Funk and Reggae are also inconsistent with the majority of genre articles in the level of artist namedropping that appears in the lead paragraphs; at the other articles linked above, as with Country music, there are few to no artists named at all in the lead(s).

I think some of your choices for "defining" artists are off, personally, or at least contentious. What about the Rolling Stones for rock? Smokey Robinson, James Brown or Marvin Gaye for soul? As for blues, *&^#, move over B.B. – what about Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, etc? Obvious point being that the choice of artist is highly subjective. And as I've found in some of the rock subgenre articles, the same subjectivity is reflected in sources writing about the styles. JG66 (talk) 03:45, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Please note that the images on jazz, soul music, gospel music, and ragtime have all been changed since the opening of this RfC. The UNDUE issues you point out, i believe, are nevertheless valid. Chubbles (talk) 04:27, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Ah yes, sorry. After weighing in on this RfC on 9 Jan, I'd not really paid much attention until now – so I hadn't read your comments about images in those articles. JG66 (talk) 05:01, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

• Mostly no – Artists considered to have singlehandedly led the genre should merit infobox space - such as California Sound --Ilovetopaint (talk) 07:55, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Not a bad metric, though I think that's the first example we have of singlehandedly and overwhelmingly defining the style. It's definitely not true of ragtime (Joplin was not the only major composer of his day; he's just remembered that way in retrospect), contemporary folk, or reggae - perhaps the three most lopsided examples we've had so far. Chubbles (talk) 08:38, 4 February 2018 (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.

RFC about album years in navigation templates

The following discussion 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.

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Should the year of release of an album be placed in navigation templates (WP:NAV) for bands and musicians.

If you believe "Yes", then that means you'd prefer it to look like this example.

If You believe "No", then that means you'd prefer to look like this example. Sergecross73 msg me 17:53, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Survey

• No - Adding years like this does not aid the reader's navigation of the subject, which is the entire purpose of navigation templates. It only clutters the look of the template. Additionally, there are no shortage of other places to find out the year of album releases. With many artists, like the example above, the info is already readily available in two other areas, the band's discography section at the parent article, and the band's dedicated discography article. Sergecross73 msg me 17:57, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
• Yes - Band templates are mostly made for successful and long-running bands, that pass for various eras that encompass many genre and cultural changes within their sound. The years placed in the navigation template help the reader to find what era a particular album belongs. ABC paulista (talk) 20:24, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
• No A simple click on the article reveals the year of the album, no need for clutter and fancruft. The Banner talk 20:49, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
• No - When I want to see a simple listing of an artist's output with accompanying year, I go to the discography section of the artist's article. There's no need for the years to appear in the navbox as well. Sure, it'd be mildly more convenient, but that near insignificant reward isn't worth the added clutter to the navbox.--Martin IIIa (talk) 23:18, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
• No. Unnecessary. And it raises the question why years don't then appear for all releases in the navbox: live albums, compilations, EPs, singles (which, for acts that have operated for decades, would make the 'box horrendously large). I just noticed that years are included in Template:The Beatles compilations. In some ways, I can see it makes sense there, to aid comprehension of 50 years of post-career releases for a band that only operated for 8 years as recording artists. So perhaps exceptions could be made in rare instances such as that, I don't know … JG66 (talk) 01:13, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
• No - I might have voted yes until the Template:The Beatles compilations example that was brought up turned me against the idea. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 09:52, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
• No I'm in agreement with all the reasons for not having them. A navbox should be used for navigational purposes. The year of release is informational which can be found by clicking on the article (which I assume is why someone would click on it - to get more information about it) or checking out the artist's discography. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars^{Talk to me} 18:40, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
• Yes - Yes, per @ABC paulista:. Without the years in brackets, the album titles without quotation marks run one right into the other. The singles have quotation marks, which prevent them from doing so. I am surprised that I am only finding out about this RFC now. This is the easiest way to copy albums from the vast majority of main page listings that lead to a separate discography page. If the navbox is horrendously large, then it can be split into an albums navbox and a singles navbox. --Jax 0677 (talk) 17:55, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
• May Neither yes it must be used or no it must never be used. The question as asked is not neutral. No one is forcing navigation templates with albums to include dates, but it's frequently useful to include, yes for informational purposed but also as logical separators. If there are too many entries, then it's probably not worth the potential clutter. But to create a consensus for something that has gained widespread use as can be seen from the Beatles example. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:13, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

In my experience, there isn't so much "widespread use" as much as there is a handful of editors that keep adding and removing it from articles throughout the project. I'm trying to stop the needless arguing and reverting. You're free to your opinion, but your stance doesn't help address this recurring issue at all, which is bizarre because it was my discussions with you months ago that inspired me to start up this RFC in the first place. Sergecross73 msg me 04:49, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

I generally don't add them, but I have seen them in many nav templates. I did update the nav template you used in the RfC so that all albums list year. And it occurred to me that I frequently don't recall which year albums are released and including them in the nav template helps me to remember which album I'm looking for. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:56, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Comment - I agree with Walter Gorlitz, in that "including [years] in the nav template helps me to remember which album I'm looking for". --Jax 0677 (talk) 15:43, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

• Optional It makes sense usually for shorter discographies.--Ilovetopaint (talk) 13:45, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

No, users could add (under very specific circumstances) the year if there were several self titled albums released in a row, which is the case for the template [15] of The House of Love. Woovee (talk) 03:28, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Interesting, I wasn't aware of any artists releasing different albums under the same name across different years like that. Yes, I think it makes sense in rare instances like that, to avoid a lifetime of editors removing one of them, mistakenly thinking they were removing a duplicate entry. Sergecross73 msg me 15:14, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Sergecross73: Peter Gabriel's first four albums are called Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel, and Peter Gabriel. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:10, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

• No, except as mentioned above for disambiguation, and the need for dates in those rare cases will have been decided when the article titles were chosen. The dates don't help with navigation, and compactness may be important for those using small screens. This may be less of a problem when there are only a few entries, but then there should be no difficulty in navigating without dates.—Anne Delong (talk) 12:18, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Allow (optional): it's certainly a normal way to think of album releases, and many readers expect it. It should be an editorial decision, and should not be disallowed. I don't follow the reasoning "Adding years ... does not aid the reader's navigation of the subject"—of course it does. What a bizarre thing to assert. This is especially so when there are multiple rows for studio, live, etc. releases—it helps readers see the how these releases fit into the chronology. "A simple click on the article reveals the year of the album" forces the reader to click back and forth through the articles—so much for "simple"!
What brought all this on, by the way? The RfC gives us no context. What problem is supposed to be solved by this micromanagement? We do not add rules just because WEDONTLIKESOMETHING. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:07, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

As someone who creates a lot of album and song articles, I'm frequently adding articles to band navigation templates. I've observed that people are frequently adding and removing years. I asked, and there didn't seem to be a consensus on whether they should be on there or not. It's not an effort to micromanage, it's an effort to stop the reverting and slow motion edit wars. You're free to your stance (and baffling ire towards an attempt to settle a long running issue), but as I've mentioned to others, these "optional" stances without any conditions do nothing to solve the arguments ensuing. Sergecross73 msg me 16:15, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Sergecross73: so we "solve" it by arbitrarily forcing one way and disallowing the other? No, that's not a solution. Try something patterned on WP:RETAIN. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:58, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Uhhhh I take it you're not big on MOS stuff? Because this is not any different than anything like that. Standardization of content and formatting of articles and lists are established throughout the project, so I have idea why this seems so different to you... Sergecross73 msg me 18:27, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Sergecross73: Uhhhh ... I have no idea how you have reached such a non sequitur of a conclusion—notice how I linked to the Mos (or where do you think MOS:RETAIN points to?) Notice how the MoS does not enforce a uniform ENGVAR, date formats, use of infoboxes, grammatical prescriptions, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.? Overriding editorial decisions such as by forcing or disallowing these dates is the sort of thing the MoS does not do. Just how familiar are you with the MoS? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:42, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

I was responding to your comments about "forcing" or "disallowing" editors from writing or displaying things certain ways - the point being that we have discussions, policies, and guidelines that "force" or "disallow" all the time, so your whining about that is invalid. Wasn't referring to your RETAIN comment, so chill out. That aside, your comments about RETAIN we're actually a little more helpful than the rest of what you've said so far. Most templates don't include years, so RETAIN would largely keep the years out, which is where I fell on my stances. Sergecross73 msg me 00:02, 5 February 2018 (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.

Music videos

I can't find any discussion/guideline pertaining to music videos. Personally, I think listing them is redundant, and if they are noteworthy they are better written up as text with some meaningful detail (I'm thinking about videos like that for "Ashes to Ashes", etc.). I am a bit tired of seeing lists like Senses_Fail#Music_videos (and this is especially rampant in K-pop and similar genres), which strike me as little more than an excuse to drop a bunch of YouTube links in (and some fan trivia, maybe). It is not special anymore to make a video since they almost invariable accompany a single release, and I see no additional encyclopedic value in listing them. Drmies (talk) 15:34, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

It seems to be a pretty widespread practice in the discography articles I tend to edit/maintain/read, so I had assumed it was acceptable to list. For example, A Perfect Circle discography and Nine Inch Nails discography are both Feature Lists and both have had a music video section ever since it received that status officially, it seems. I'm not necessarily defending the practice, but I do think it trying to remove it would be more maintenance effort than its worth. Sergecross73 msg me 15:44, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm not worried about the practicalities of it--I'm not about to run through all articles and start cutting. Thanks for pointing to those FLs--that's useful (and I think I've seen FLs and FAs with and without). But what about the YouTubey aspect of it? Drmies (talk) 15:53, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't personally do it, and I always replace them with a third party source when its done to song articles I write/maintain, because there's commonly third party coverage on things like music videos, but per WP:PRIMARY, it seems valid as a means to verify basic details like existence and director credits. I think as long as its presented as a references with the "<ref> </ref>" markup and not formatted as some sort of "view music video here" external link out of Wikipedia, its fine. Sergecross73 msg me 16:20, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Apollo Club of Minneapolis

Apollo Club of Minneapolis is a male choral organization but I can't determine which music project to assign it to. hoping someone from this project can take care of it. Thanks. Derek Andrews (talk) 21:36, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Images again

Over the past month, we had an extended discussion here about images in infoboxes. Pursuant to that discussion, I removed an image of Ruth Brown from the infobox of rhythm and blues and moved it to a lower section where she was mentioned. DanJazzy, who participated in that discussion, added that image to the top section of the article. Since the image was now on the article twice, and thinking this an honest mistake, i reverted. DanJazzy then moved the image from the place I put it back to the top section. Following this came several days of discussion about the appropriate placement of the image, which has ground to a halt. Requesting interested editors to weigh in at talk:rhythm and blues. Chubbles (talk) 09:24, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi. I'm a party to this dispute. I think the most sensible question to ask is why on earth it matters where an image is placed within an article. For instance, does this puzzling action have any basis in the Wikipedia rules and regulations? In any case, there are plenty of examples where the image has been placed in exactly the same manner with no objections.--DanJazzy (talk) 13:53, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Well, lets back up a bit - rather than concentrating on why you "can't", lets talk about why you should. As in, why should it be in the opening section like this? As far as I can tell, she's not mentioned at all in the section she's currently in. Wouldn't it make more sense to put her in a section where's she's actually discussed? Sergecross73 msg me 14:10, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

While your line of thinking does not sound unreasonable on the face of it, there's simply no basis for it in Wikipedia. Your argument,crudely put, goes along the lines, "I don't like Ruth Brown's photo in that location and that's that". That is not a very compelling argument, i'am afraid.--DanJazzy (talk) 15:54, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

But it isn't just on Wikipedia – pick up any book which includes photos (it doesn't have to be a music biography, it could be on a historical event, or a travel guidebook, anything), or choose an online article on any subject, and if there is a relevant photo it is next to the text talking about it, where it provides context. Richard3120 (talk) 16:50, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

1. Nobody argued anything about not liking her. I don't understand how you would come to that conclusion based on what I said. The argument was that the image should go where the image is actually being discussed. That's not based on degree of liking the subject, it's based off of basic common sense.
2. Try reading up MOS:IMAGES, which outlines how we use images on Wikipedia. Specifically, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Images#Vertical_placement: An image should generally be placed in the most relevant article section; if this is not possible, try not to place an image "too early" i.e. far ahead of the point in the text discussing what the image illustrates, if this could puzzle the reader.
3. Even without all of that, I don't understand why you'd think you a "there's no reason I can't" reason would trump a "there's no reason you should" argument. If you've been challenged, and can't garner a consensus consensus in your favor, then that's your very reason why you can't make the change. You can't do it because you don't have a consensus to do it. Sergecross73 msg me 17:49, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

In that case, why does this bizarre made up "rule" apply only to the R&B article? The pop music and British blues articles, to name a few, have images in the etymology section as well. This is clear bias.--DanJazzy (talk) 09:13, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Except that in the two articles you give as examples, the artists pictured are also discussed in the same section of text, which is exactly what Sergecross73 is highlighting in point (2) above. Richard3120 (talk) 13:36, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

IMO this would be fine either way. One thought not mentioned is that the article could use an image early in the article and there's none in the info box and a specifically illustrative one is unlikely to be found for the disputed section. North8000 (talk) 17:37, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to an image that's relevant to the section, but DanJazzy has not suggested an alternate that would make sense. Chubbles (talk) 20:52, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Update: DanJazzy has done something similar at jazz - after I moved Louis Armstrong's picture out of the infobox and into the section on New Orleans jazz, he moved that picture up to the section "Tradition and Race", which does not mention Armstrong at all. This seems a particularly noxious move - the picture, in a section about race where he is not mentioned, trivializes Armstrong's role in the genre and highlights his race over his musical and compositional contributions. I'll note that he has unilaterally reverted me repeatedly over these matters, and claims no consensus militates in his favor. Chubbles (talk) 21:00, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

With all due respect, that is incorrect.Louis Armstrong article has a prominent chapter titled "race". Again, I request that we focus on the matter at hand, namely;

1. Why is there an obvious bias in the way some articles are edited? If a particular rule applies, then it should apply to all related articles, not only to those we have a particular inclination towards.

2. In this case, there's simply no rule to apply. This appears to be the subjective biases of a few editors who have allocated themselves the authority to decide which images should appear on articles . DanJazzy (talk) 22:16, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

There is one editor asserting authority here, and another starting dialogues and seeking consensus over and over in order to placate the first. Chubbles (talk) 00:36, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I still dont understand why you're pushing for this. Your whole argument is weirdly fixated on "you can't stop me" and "it's not fair" arguments without giving a single reason why you want to do it. It's starting to veer into WP:POINT and WP:DE territory at this point. It's a basic situation. Add images to areas where the images subject is discussed, and stop wasting everyone's time. Sergecross73 msg me 01:14, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I'am afraid your precious time argument is not within the province of Wikipedia rules. Perhaps you might want to familiarise yourself with some actual regulations here WP:Wikihounding, Wikipedia's civility policy , WP:POV railroad, WP:BULLY It is important not to attempt to railroad your argument onto other editors. You may note that it is unacceptable in Wikipidea to write new guidelines that apply specifically to a specific page and branding them as "policy." Similarly, it is imperative to be civil at all times. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DanJazzy (talk • contribs) 01:42, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I can't tell who this is supppsed to be directed towards, as it doesn't make sense to say to anyone who has participated in this discussion, but rest assured, you're not going to convince anyone that you're being treated wrong when everyone is citing policy and asking you to explain yourself. The image MOS has been cited, and it goes against what you're proposing. . You've cited nothing. You currently have not garnered a concensus, and as such, may not make your edit. If you continue to edit without a consensus while people actively challenge your edits, you will be blocked. Either start convincing people, or drop it. Sergecross73 msg me 02:28, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I have not yet heard a single editor, either here or at Talk:Rhythm and blues, defend DanJazzy's position. (North8000 has helpfully suggested that some image may be appropriate to include in the disputed section, but no suitable image has yet been identified.) The discussion here has recapitulated everything I said to that editor, repeatedly, on the talk page for rhythm and blues. Is there any objection to considering this consensus that the images at rhythm and blues and jazz (the usage is entirely analogous) be restored to places where they illustrate the text of the article? If so, am I justified in reverting if my edits are undone, and reporting at WP:EDITWAR if necessary? Chubbles (talk) 04:08, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I support this. Let me know if editors are editing against consensus. Sergecross73 msg me 04:14, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I doubt "stop wasting everyone's time" is a valid argument. It's certainly not civil. In addition, you have now resorted to threatening me. You have no authority, as far as I know, to issue threats because someone does not agree with your point of view. This is unacceptable and inappropriate behaviour. The fact is that there is no policy cited that prevents that particular image from being placed where it was. It's an appropriate illustration of the article and fulfils Wikipedia's guidelines to the letter. As I said before, it is unacceptable to write new guidelines that apply specifically to a specific page and branding them as "policy." It is behaviour like this that is bringing Wikipedia's credibility into disrepute. Further, the blatant bias towards certain articles is quite telling and disturbing. We cannot, and will not, allow Wikipedia to be a hotbed of bias and exclusivity.--DanJazzy (talk) 04:22, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

What in the world are you talking about? No one is making up rules. MOS:IMAGE was clearly cited above, and has existed for years. And every editor has the right to warn you about not following the rules and not editing against consensus. I also have no idea about what "bias" you speak of. No one has indicated any subjective stance for or against any of the subjects being discussed. Sergecross73 msg me 04:30, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

To the contrary, there is obvious bias shown here. A "rule" has been made up by an exclusive group of editors only to serve the interests of a particular article. This "rule" appears to apply to the R&B and Jazz articles only. A sham "consensus" is then rammed down our throats-and backed up by implicit threats. This is clearly inappropriate and is gaming the system. I don't know what the end game of all this is, but it is clearly malevolent. I refuse to stand for it and will take it up with this website's authorities.--DanJazzy (talk) 04:48, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Bias of what though? You can't make accusations and then not even explain what they are, or what motivations would even be behind them. Good luck complaining to the "authorities" about the atrocities of being told to follow "manual of style" and "consensus" though. In the meantime, follow the current rules. Sergecross73 msg me 04:56, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

As explained before, it's quite curious and telling, that this "rule" you and two other editors made up appears to only apply to two articles i.e. R&B and Jazz. No where else. This is the textbook definition of bias. My instincts tell me this is a precursor to a more sinister agenda. At the very least, your bias and intimidating behaviour serves to reinforce an "old boys club" exclusivity, to discourage editors like myself from making a contribution. In any event, the evidence is right here on this page. I'm sure this will be of interest to the Wiki administrators and to the general public.--DanJazzy (talk) 05:05, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

The MOS applies to all relevant articles. Not a single person has stated this should only apply to one article or one type of article. There is no bias here. If you notify editors of other articles where it's not being followed, I'm certain editors would support its removal there too. But regardless, as you've already been told, WP:OSE invalidates your whole argument regardless. And your instincts are very wrong and voicing them violates Wikipedia's requirement to assume good faith. Sergecross73 msg me 05:12, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

No, that is incorrect. When I pointed out, as an example, that the articles pop music and British blues contain photographs in the same section as the R&B article, some editors defended those articles. It then logically follows that this insistence on deleting / downgrading images on the R&B and Jazz articles is a violation of Wikipedia rulesWP:BIAS. There is therefore evidence, right here on this page, that there is a basis to my instinct. Lastly, MOS:IMAGE does not support your bias. In fact, it makes provision for my edit Viz. "An image should generally be placed in the most relevant article section; if this is not possible, try not to place an image "too early" i.e. far ahead of the point in the text discussing what the image illustrates, if this could puzzle the reader" This is subject to proper interpretation. Your subjective bias does not cut it. Sorry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DanJazzy (talk • contribs) 05:29, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Okay, let's start with one: Which musician/band in pop music has an image in a section that doesn't have any writing about the artist in that section? Sergecross73 msg me 05:35, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

There is a picture of the Rock band Rolling Stones placed in the etymology section of pop music. I had placed a picture of Ruth Brown in the etymology section of Rhythm & Blues. Guess what a select, exclusive group of editors took issue with? Is this not bias?--DanJazzy (talk) 05:46, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Read the section in pop music. The Rolling Stones are clearly and directly mentioned by name in the section. Someone even already told you that. They're mentioned in the third paragraph. That's the difference, not this ludicrous proposal about bias. Sergecross73 msg me 05:51, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

They are mentioned, yes, but without any context to warrant an image in the etymology section. It is, as you have confirmed, just a mention. If I were to be similarly cynical, I would have added the name "Ruth Brown" to the R&B etymlogy section and voila, Bob's your uncle. In addition the cited link that purportedly mentions the Rolling Stones is dead, meaning the inclusion of the group's image violates your own "rule". Does all this sound credible to you? Isn't this gaming the system?--DanJazzy (talk) 06:18, 10 February 2018 (UTC)--

I already spent several paragraphs explaining to you why pop music and British blues were different cases, but you seem immune to hearing that. I do support removing the Rolling Stones photo from the pop music page, because there is not really a good connection between the band and the etymology, and they are not discussed in detail (just mentioned as a token example). Since you are dedicated to flogging that image, I will remove it as well; it contributes very little to the section and does not really serve to improve reader understanding. I will note that I support the constructive addition of the image of Eubie Blake at a relevant portion of the jazz article. That is well in line with the image usage everyone else has suggested we follow here. Chubbles (talk) 07:21, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, this is all correct. Please use the Eubie Blake image as an example of how to do it right and there's no longer any dispute here. Sergecross73 msg me 15:08, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

I think that my post was misunderstood. But this is getting a bit too heated for my comments to be useful. Except to say to make priority #1 here to have some fun with friendly discussions with fellow editors to figure to decide what makes the best article. North8000 (talk) 15:04, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

That's a sensible suggestion (User talk:North8000). Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DanJazzy (talk • contribs) 17:16, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

• Having now discussed this issue for a good long while, here and at Talk:Rhythm and blues, I think it fair to say a consensus has congealed on which of the two proposals discussed is the better image placement. As such, I have moved the images on R&B and jazz down, and have asked that the consensus be respected until such time as minds are changed here. If the discussion needs to continue, we may do so here or at that talk page. No objection to proposals for new ideas about placement and formatting on these pages (especially along the lines of the Eubie Blake image), though I think I will be happy to get out of the image-juggling business soon. Chubbles (talk) 22:59, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Interesting. Just to note for the record that "a good long while" was three days, with the discussion culminating in uncivil language and threats towards one party. In addition, this article comes across as biased and inaccurate. Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Little Richard were Rock & Roll artists. Why they are included in the article is quite mysterious. This is a travesty. No wonder Wikipedia has lost its credibility in the eyes of the general public. Anyway, you've had your way. Congratulations.--DanJazzy (talk) 00:40, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

This discussion is strictly about image placement - that images should accommodate relevant text. Feel free to hold separate discussions for solving other concerns you may have. Sergecross73 msg me 04:37, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Talk-Show (UK band)

Hello!

A new editor asked at the teahouse for help with an article about his band. It's usually not a winner but he was polite and there are some sources that may not be awful. So, if you feel like helping, by crushing any hope of notability if nothing else, please do. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 23:02, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Citation in section header

Lots of music articles (partial list) such as List of compositions by Paul Hindemith § Piano contain a citation in a section header. This contravenes MOS:HEAD but I'm struggling to find anywhere better to put the ref tag. Any suggestions please, or is this an IAR because the citation backs up the information (e.g. date, opus number) in the header itself? Certes (talk) 15:54, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Just use a boilerplate sentence: "This is a list of the piano compositions.<ref>Reffedthing</ref>" --Izno (talk) 16:08, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I commonly add a line at the top that says something to the capacity of "Credits per (website)<ref></ref>", similar to how album articles commonly do it in their "Personnel" section - see something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_More_Light#Personnel for example. But I can't say I've done this in anything widely reviewed like a GA/FA type situation, so maybe that wouldn't hold up under scrutiny either. Sergecross73 msg me 16:08, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Wikidata

If anyone here has useful things to contribute, I started a discussion on Wikidata about charted in (P2291) and the general data tree structure of items for musical works. In general, the property seems to be too loosely defined to be useful, and it's not clear to me how items for songs, singles, albums and their various releases should be structured, and which items get which data (or the rules don't exist for these things). Jc86035 (talk) 17:52, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Request For Comment about ranking charts on music articles

The following discussion 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.

---

I have been given numerous amounts of feedback regarding the placement of ranking charts within music albums. I have stated that per WP:IDEALSTUB, that sufficient context shall be given in placing ranking charts within an article, even if the chart is almost identical to a chart table that exists in an artist, ensemble, or discography page, and might not be formatted in an ideal manner. Some of these music ranking charts are difficult to manipulate, therefore, leeway should be permitted to persons who wish to copy and paste the information from one article to another, so long as they update the references to an appropriate access date. If the chart is identical, the information is still there, even if the table contains empty columns. Additionally, I have been scolded about putting music ranking charts for singles in an album article, if the artist/ensemble/discography page already has these rankings. I think that users should be permitted to add these to album articles. --Jax 0677 (talk) 17:10, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - what this editor has been doing, which is extremely sloppy and causing a lot of cleanup for something that isn't even necessary. Essentially, he's just ripping excessive amounts of a bands discography and slapping it in the album article for information on album's singles. To take a recent example with the band Breaking Benjamin. In their album Ember, he recently ripped a huge portion of the discography into the album article, and then whittled it down to this, and then called it done. This is bad work on multiple levels:

• It's sloppy work because only 2 of the 6 charts he added had anything to do with this particular album.
• It's redundant, because this content is already listed it's already listed at (1) Breaking Benjamin discography, (2) the album article in its prose, (3) the song's article, and (4) the song article's prose. Why do we need this mentioned again?

In short, he's adding content to an article that was already better implemented at least 3-4 other areas on Wikipedia, and the only real reasons I've seen is "because he can" and that it helps him make the most low-effort, lazy stub articles possible. (Not in the Breaking Benjamin example, but as seen here.) Sergecross73 msg me 17:36, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: I'm not even sure I understand what the first part of the RfC is asking about – could Jax 0677 or someone please point me in the direction of an example (past diff) of what these "ranking charts" would look like? Richard3120 (talk) 00:01, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I don't blame you, I don't think I'd understand if this RFC were my introduction to the situation either. But the scenario I've laid out in my stance above is pretty much what he's talking about - ripping song charts from discography articles and plastering it in album articles as is. My difs above show it in the situation that spurred the RFC, though he's met opposition in doing this in multiple other articles from multiple other editors as well. Sergecross73 msg me 00:55, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Jax creates a stub album article such as Straight from the Barrio, adding a chart section that is a direct copy/paste from the artist's discography page (in this example, Upon a Burning Body#Discography) as explained above, leaving the extra columns for the charts that other albums in their discography have reached but not this particular one and expecting/knowing editors like myself will come along and put it in the style more in line with MOS:CHARTS, as I did here. My suggestion is that he stop the practice altogether as it puts the burden on other editors to fix when a link would suffice. If someone else wants to do it right the first time, let them do so on their own not as a mop-up crew. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars^{Talk to me} 01:05, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

• Opposed People ding Google searches for information on bands will likely find such information confusing rather than find it helpful. Damotclese (talk) 15:59, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
• Comment This seems to go back to the one point I find most problematic in WP:NALBUM: No. 2 "The single or album has appeared on any country's national music chart." We think that just because an album has charted it must have an article and then we create an article with basic information about the album: who released it, when it was released, a track listing and charting numbers. If we try to delete the article, we're told that it meets the criteria so we can't delete it. That's nonsense. Particularly in the example given here, where the info is contained in the discography article, or in some cases, can be easily incorporated into the band or performer article. I'm not opposed to including charting in a larger article (compare Songs of Experience (U2 album)#Charts with U2 discography#Studio albums, where the former is one part of a larger article on the album). If there's nothing else there though, it's a bad idea to create the article. The question isn't worthy of an RfC either. A simple question here would have been enough to elicit this comment. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:36, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Walter Görlitz - To be clear (because the RFC question is vague and confusing), the issue was more about whether or not he should be ripping massive charts out of the discography articles and posting it into the album article about the album's singles charting. (See my comment above for difs on a past scenario of what he does to album articles.) For the the record, I fully support album charts being in album articles, and song charts being in song articles. And I also fully agree that this didn't need to be an RFC. Prior to this, there were already 3 separate editors asking Jax to stop doing things the way he was doing for a variety of reasons. Sergecross73 msg me 20:48, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

I fully concur that the question is not clear and I tried to address the exact point you raised. I too support charts being in album articles, provided that there's enough for an article. I don't support that an article should be nothing more than 1) an infobox, 2) a lede with obvious information 3) a track listing, 4) a charting section 5) references and 6) categories. That looks like what Jax is doing. Are we viewing the same coin from opposite sides? Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:30, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

I think we're pretty much on the same page, in that we generally oppose Jax's actions. I don't think it's necessary to have charts for singles in the album articles, but my objection is more about Jax's terrible implementation of the charts than the charts themselves. Sergecross73 msg me 01:35, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Also on the same page. :) Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars^{Talk to me} 00:47, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of singles chart tables in album articles, because I don't feel it adds any context to the album – if you want to see a particular single's worldwide chart success you can look at that single's article or the act's discography article, and if the single doesn't have its own article it was probably only a minor hit in one country, and that can be noted in the text body for the album. The singles tables can lead to some confusion as well, depending on what charts are included – look at the singles tables in the articles for Brothers in Arms (which includes two songs from the album that were never released as singles at all, but charted on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart due to airplay alone), or Little Earthquakes (which lists the same single THREE times for different reissues and chart placings). Richard3120 (talk) 02:36, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

A single (or an album) is said to have "charted" when if it has appeared in a chart. The chart could the the Top-100 or the Top-1000 (is there one such anywhere?) and the single could have "appeared" once in position #100 or #1000, respectively; the single would then qualify as "notable" per the current text of the relevant Wikipedia rule. But this is clearly absurd. It's also inconsistent with the general direction of Wikipedia's rules on notability. -The Gnome (talk) 08:31, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose on grounds of placing undue weight on matters of little, if any, relation to the specific subject. -The Gnome (talk) 08:33, 15 February 2018 (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.

New list needing expansion: List of covers of Charles Manson songs

I was really surprised we don't have an article on this, as a number of bands have covered his songs. I started just a basic stub, but if anyone else is interested in this, feel free to help expand it. MatthewVanitas (talk) 01:56, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Neutral notice

A move request regarding Deadline.com / Deadline Hollywood, a website often cited by this Project, is taking place at Talk:Deadline Hollywood#Requested move 11 March 2018. It is scheduled to end in seven days.--Tenebrae (talk) 19:30, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Help needed resolving editorial dispute

TL;DR:

• Sean O'Hagan was in a band called Microdisney
• Sean O'Hagan remixed a track called "Micro Disneycal World Tour" from the album Fantasma
• A review notes that "[n]early every song title on Fantasma references an existing musical group, obscure or world famous"

Is it WP:SYNTH to juxtapose the first two facts together? Please answer on Talk:Fantasma (Cornelius album)#Microdisney.--Ilovetopaint (talk) 02:47, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Stale GAR

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Shenandoah (band)/1 has been sitting stale since September. I would like to see more participation here to help close the reassessment and see if the article still meets GA criteria. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 04:15, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

DeprecatedFixerBot running through Category:Track listings with deprecated parameters maintenance cat

DeprecatedFixerBot (just got assigned the bot flag today; BRFA) is now clearing out Track listings with deprecated parameters category. The |writing_credits=,|lyrics_credits=, and |music_credits= parameters are deprecated and handled automatically by Module:Track listing without the need of the aforementioned parameters, so they are just being removed. Just letting you guys know. When task 1 is done, cat should be empty (barring of course others adding the same deprecated params in the future). The bot will clear the category in a series of short (100-500 article) runs, (minorly; no visual change) affecting approximately 31,252 articles. It is due to the number of articles that I am posting this here (and have done so on the Discord Wikimedia Community as well) to make those who see it aware. To clarify: no changes to visual appearance of articles, just removing unused and old parameters from a cleanup maintence category. Task has been BAG approved. --All the best, TheSandDoctor ^Talk 20:15, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Songs

Do you want to help at this potential new free music Wikiproject? --Habitator terrae (talk) 14:59, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Is this a generalization of genre

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Underoath&curid=897496&diff=832761838&oldid=832465487 I disagreed, but want to open it to a larger community before I offer my reasons. Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:54, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I disagree as well. I mean, I know sometimes when we can't agree on more specific genre, we generalize to more vague ones, like "rock band" or "metal band", but I don't think "hardcore punk" is a good move in that sort of direction. It's still pretty specific, and isn't really a compromise genre that works because most genre in contention fall under it. Was that your objection as well? Sergecross73 msg me 01:55, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Captions in Infobox album

Hello. In Template:Infobox album, I believe that the "caption" parameter should only be used if absolutely necessary; eg. to distinguish a specific version of an album cover that is shown in the infobox. However, I see a lot of album articles (particularly in electronic music, and related to the record label Monstercat) that have every cover with the caption "Cover art" (example). I believe this is compeltely pointless, unnecessary, and that these captions that serve no purpose should be removed.

I have also crossposted this at Template talk:Infobox album and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Electronic music. Thanks, Lazz_R 18:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree it's unnecessary, but in fact I've never seen "Cover art" appearing as a caption in an album article (until now). For singles, we do include mention that a "picture sleeve" appears in the infobox, but it's usually to clarify which particular market or country. JG66 (talk) 12:45, 31 March 2018 (UTC)