Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 14

message: :Category:Compilation albums has been getting very bloated, so I've created some new subcategories as a start to cleaning it up: :Category:Compilation album series branded by bars and cafés‎, :Category:Radio station compilation album series, and :Category:Record label compilation albums. So, this is just a note to populate as necessary.
In addition, far too many greatest hits albums have been placed here instead of :Category:Greatest hits albums.
I'm also considering other archetypes to categorize by, and what to call the categories. "Top of the charts" compilations? Regional music compilations? Compilations by country of release? (There are a disproportionate number of albums from New Zealand...) Genre compilations? Compilations of particular recording sessions? –Unint 20:02, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm trying to think of category names to distinguish albums released under the brands of music-related bodies (magazines, TV stations, festivals, retailers) from those released under brand names of unrelated bodies (non-music magazines / retailers, bars and cafés, etc). Any suggestions? –Unint 20:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compilation album categorization 

message: Lately, I've been seeing this more: putting album cover images in the chronology (the previous/next album) of the infobox. I've been removing them, because as I understand it, that is going a bit far on the fair use of those images. I just wanted to come here and verify that I am doing the right thing. -Joltman 12:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That should be the way to go; those little images add bugger-all anyway. Cheers, Ian Rose 12:24, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

text: *Not only are they unneeded they would most likely violate fair use. How would providing fair use images for next/previous albums satisfy fair use criteria? RedWolf 21:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I remove them too. Recently I started to do this with AWB. This regex works fine: (Last|This|Next) album(\s*)=(\s*)\[\[Image.*?\]\](\s?)? ? replace with $1 album$2=$3 Feel free to use it as it's much faster than removing them manually but note that sometimes there are valid images in the chronology (for example in Led Zeppelin IV) so proceed with caution :-) Jogers (talk) 08:49, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you think we should specify on the project page that images should not be put in the chronology? -Joltman 11:06, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean album cover images? I actually suggested it a while ago. Jogers (talk) 11:17, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that this should be mentioned. --PEJL 11:53, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done. I have now mentioned this. --PEJL 09:28, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pictures in chronology 

message: I'd like to propose the following changes be made to the current language about track listing credits. I'd like to change:
:If all songs were written by the same person/team, this can be stated at the top as in "(all songs written by Gordon Gano)"
to:
:If all songs were written by the same person/team, this can be stated at the top as "All songs written by Gordon Gano." If the majority of the songs were written by the same person, this can be stated as "All songs written by Gordon Gano, except where noted."
I believe this better reflects current practice (and looks better). Any objections? --PEJL 16:32, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: sounds good to me. Violask81976 18:32, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No objection here, thats exactly what I've been doing. -MrFizyx 18:58, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Done. (I have no preference about the comma, so I left it in. I also don't see why a colon would be useful.) --PEJL 20:24, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And I was WP:BOLD and made some other changes to that section. I felt the sentence about not using parentheses or brackets was redundant, so I removed it. I also moved the text about rappers and verses down, as I didn't feel it was appropriate as the lead for the section. --PEJL 20:55, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

text: It would be consistent if you put the "All songs..." text at the top of the track listing rather than then bottom and didn't use small print. The track listing on that page also fails to follow the guidelines for track listings in other aspects, such as using a proper ordered list and delimiting track lengths with en dashes. --PEJL 08:51, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed language change for track listing credits 

message: I am curious as to how do changes to the project page happen? Is it just up to administrators or editors? Do we vote on it? Stage a coup? :)
I have some issues with some things on there that I would like to change (like track listing format) and I am wondering how to go about it. I know we say it is just a guideline but I find that too many newer members give it sacred status, though honestly I can see a need for certain sections being the same in format from page to page.
If there is a set policy for how changes are made perhaps it should be stated on the project page to avoid this question in the future. Thanks Solonyc (talk} 19:25, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the basic idea for all guideline and policy pages. Don't be afraid to edit. --kingboyk 19:30, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're planning to make major changes that would affect many articles (such as changing the recommended track listing format, as you mentioned), I think it should definately be discussed here first. --Fritz S. (Talk) 19:34, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, that would count as "significant". --kingboyk 11:28, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to change the project page 

message: I'd like to remove the text starting at the second comma from:
:For latest albums, the right box (the "Next album=" field) should be left blank, or with a " . . . ".
I don't feel this represents current practice. (Current practice seems to be blank, "TBA", "N/A" or "Untitled".) I don't think it is necessary to distinguish latest albums from final albums, and doing so may be impossible. How do you know a band won't reunite and release another album for example? Any objections? (The entire section should perhaps be rewritten if this change is made, but this question is about the policy change.) --PEJL 11:53, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I also think that we do not need to distinguish between latest and final albums. In case the change to the guideline is made it would be nice to find another example of advanced infobox usage (with extra chronology and extra cover). Jogers (talk) 12:14, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, there are plenty of pages using both "extra chronology" and "extra album cover". How about We're Only in It for the Money? Jogers (talk) 12:26, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree: it's far easier to standarize a blank field than a field with any text at all. –Unint 17:30, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done. --PEJL 17:01, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed language change for chronologies 

message: As long as we're making all these revisions to chronology usage, what about that "studio albums only" line? Is it necessary to restrict the album chronology to studio albums? (This doesn not seem to be common practice.) –Unint 17:30, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've generally seen, and I do this too, that albums and EPs, box sets, splits, live albums ,etc get listed-everything except singles really.. Violask81976 22:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I sure wish people would follow the studio only rule. I can handle live albums in there, but best-ofs get annoying. I prefer to chronologize by significance, and check the discography for the details. -Freekee 03:41, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What's wrong with having box sets and live albums and EPs? You should show the complete chronology, not just what you feel is worthy enough to talk about. Violask81976 22:38, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just for chronologies. I'm a big fan of completeness for discographies, but chronologies serve a different purpose. Chronos allow you to click through a band's career. A greatest hits record or a compilation box has little bearing on the artistic output of an artist. It's really the only place in WP, besides the text of the artist's article, that you can distill that. I would agree that some best-of or live records were defining moments, but for the most part compilations are of little consequence. That's only my opinion, but don't think I'm alone. The only reason I'd go along with reverting the studio-only rule is because it's hopeless to enforce. -Freekee 02:51, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Only studio albums in chronologies

message: Are there any reliable resources for gauging an albums commercial success, like Box Office Mojo does for films?Skomorokh 15:58, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nielsen SoundScan - have to pay for it though. M3tal H3ad 04:12, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verifying commercial success 

message: I've just made a list of articles in subcategories of :Category:Albums by artist with the intention to tag them with the  template as per Fisherjs's suggestion. I noticed that many of these pages are discography articles. Is this right? And if it is, is it OK to place  tags on their talk pages? Jogers (talk) 08:51, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You have to be very careful when tagging those categories, if you're not you'll end up with all sorts of out of scope material tagged. I think you know that already but there's no harm in pointing it out again :) As for discogs, pass. You could explicitly add them to project scope by editing the attached page, or just filter the word "discography" out of your AWB list. --kingboyk 13:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I will just filter them out then. Jogers (talk) 21:40, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually after I took a closer look at the articles in this list I decided no to tag them. :Category:Albums by artist is a mess! There is everything here: discographies, lists and lots of singles. Jogers (talk) 07:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can I say I told u so? :P Been there, done that :) --kingboyk 13:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tagging subcategories of albums by artist  

message: As you may have noticed,  is changing  to . Can anyone shed any light on what the end goal is? My concern is that images tagged with "non free" templates, which will be about 99.999% of album covers, will soon be targetted for mass deletion. --kingboyk 13:16, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been wondering about this too.  There seems to be a new trend to label all "fair use" images with templates that begin with "non-free".  Another tightening of the rules that would impact this project appears in this example: Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline#Non-template.  I realize that those who write these guidelines have good intentions, but I fail to see how creating unique text each time the same type of image is used for the same purpose is helpful. -MrFizyx 14:45, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I wonder how they'd describe an album cover, on the page for that particular album, as something other than fair use. Wouldn't most of the album-cover images uploaded be used only on the album's page?  — AnnaKucsma   (Talk to me!) 14:53, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you look at Wikipedia:Bot_owners%27_noticeboard#Point_that_bothers_me and scroll down to the bottom of that section, you'll see that a response to my question about this was that "It allows third party users to remove non free images simply by killing anything with a template starting with "Non-free" on it." Quite how this could be helpful in the case of album articles wasn't explained. --kingboyk 14:55, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Sounds innocuous, but machine readable so they can be earmarked for deletion? Let's hope not. Since I'm not intending to start a forest fire unless somebody is waiting with a gallon of petrol, I propose we just monitor developments and assume for now that it's all harmless enough :) Thanks for the link. --kingboyk 15:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This has pretty much no effect for us. Images here on Wikipedia are as likely to be deleted as before, it just makes it easier for people who re-use the articles to remove all fair use images (not just album cover, but also screenshots, book covers, film posters, etc.) at once (since all fair use tags will now have the prefix non-free). --Fritz S. (Talk) 15:55, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see. That makes a lot of sense. I once tried to write an interface for a Wikipedia fork and the number of templates to deal with was horrendous. --kingboyk 16:03, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Any idea how many of those templates are duplicating efforts already in existence? --Cheers, Folajimi (leave a note) 14:31, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are album covers next for the chop? 

message: I propose to change the current stub text in WP:ALBUM#External links to the following:
:Album articles may contain an external links section of links to relevant external resources about the album. Links to resources about the artist rather than the album do not need to be included here, as these should be linked from the artist's article instead. Appropriate links may include links to chords or lyrics for the tracks on the album. Note however that lyrics may be protected by copyright, and external resources that reprint lyrics may be violating that copyright, in which case they should not be linked.
Any objections? --PEJL 20:58, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Third sentence: "Appropriate links may include..." to fix the antecedent. Otherwise, please do. –Unint 21:02, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes, please do. Be bold. Violask81976 21:03, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree MOSTLY, except that you should liberate the links. For instance, sometimes it may be appropriate to link to an artist's own album article (such as the thirsty merc releases page which indicates the band's discography, including track listings and links to individual song synopses) and oter links of the kind. I don't know how to phrase it, but I think the way you've worded it sounds a bit restrictive and may scare people off from putting these kind of links in (ironically, I've not used this link in TM's albums). Another thing is just the word "should" should be included in the link "should no be linked". Otherwise, I'm happy with it. --lincalinca 05:36, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done. I adjusted the text according to your suggestions. Thanks for the feedback. --PEJL 18:27, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed language change for external links 

message: You guys don't seem to mention this at all in your main description page, but it seems implicit that this concept should be for official releases and not "bootlegs." I ask this because under the Coldplay albums listed someone put up a "fan made" compilation that takes tracks from official releases and puts them on CD, and if sold this would obviously be illegal.
My view is that these kinds of things should not be here, but nothing speficially says that it shouldn't so I thought I would ask. Any thoughts? MDuchek 01:52, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right in that it's illegal. It's not illegal to make up your own running list, but it's far from encyclopedia and doesn't belong here. It's not all the way illegal, but it's a very dark shade of grey. --lincalinca 14:03, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Note though that some bootlegs are less illegal than others, and some aren't illegal at all. See Bootleg recording#Legal alternatives to illicit bootlegging. If we were to mention bootlegs on the project page, I think we should refer to "illegal bootlegs" or similar. --PEJL 17:16, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah well those aren't really "bootlegs" in the same sense, they just call them that.  In any case, the key question is whether it's an *official release* OR something put together by fans or some other persons/company, whether profit or for not. It might be worth it to have something for non-official releases too, but not there. MDuchek 03:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think notability decides this one. The Lillywhite Sessions, for example, received lots of attention, including press coverage. Castles looks to be only mentioned on message boards and such. –Unint 03:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text: In that case I'd say you should make sure they are clearly marked as unofficial/bootlegs and have their own category. MDuchek 16:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

text: A bootleg could have an article if it was notable enough, but that's rare. It probably shouldn't be included in the artist's categories or discography, but it should have a "see also" mention. -03:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bootlegs? 

message: Ok, whould this be notable enough to warrent a back cover? The Pink Spiders album Hot Pink is labeled out like it is a vinyl record, even though it is a cd. IT mentions needle times on the back and breaks the tracks into sides. It is notabel to show the back cover to show this? Violask81976 01:53, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a matter of discretion. I wouldn't say it was, and wouldn't post it, but by the same token, I wouldn't list it for deletion nor would I remove it if it were there, because I don't think it's unencyclopedic. Sorry if I'm no help, but if you did it, I wouldn't be against it. --lincalinca 11:55, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Back covers again 

message: I propose we create a new template  to standardize the formatting of Robert Christgau's ratings in the professional reviews section. Personally I don't know how to create a template, so I haven't tried to do this myself. I propose we create the template with one argument which is a code like one of the following: "hm1", "hm2", "hm3", "dud". These should map to an appropriate output for each rating. The honorable mention ratings currently used, or used in the past, have varied formatting:
*(honorable mention **)
*(hon mention **)
*(hon ment **)
*(hon. mention 2/3)
*(honorable mention 2 stars)
*(**)
*(2 stars)
*
*(2-star honorable mention)
*(** honorable mention)
*(** hon mention)
*(** hon ment)
as well as capitalized versions of the same and versions of the same using .... The dud ratings also use or have used varied formatting:
*(dud)
*(X dud)
*(dud X)
where X is one of at least two different bomb symbols, as well as capitalized versions of the same. We should collectively decide which formatting we want, and have the template output that format. I personally prefer (** hon mention) or (** hon ment) and (dud). Do other people think this would be a good idea? Does anyone who knows how to create templates want to give this a shot? --PEJL 13:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's too much of a protologism having that sort of a rating system on here. For this same reason, I'm advocating removing the XXL (magazine) rating. I'm not for it, sorry man. --lincalinca 14:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, Christgau's rating system is already in use on the hundreds or thousands of album articles that contain reviews from him. In my sample of about 1500 album articles there were recently 347 reviews by Christgau. I'm merely trying to standardize the formatting of them. As for XXL magazine, I think the ratings look a bit obnoxious in the infobox when they use those images (example), but I would be in favor of keeping them with text-only ratings like "(XXL)", "(XL)" and so on. --PEJL 14:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there an official text representation of Christgau's "bomb" icon? –Unint 21:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See . I consider "dud" to be the text representation of the bomb icon. --PEJL 21:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It turns out creating a template wasn't so difficult, so I have created Template:Rating-Christgau. --PEJL 18:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Template looks good, but what about Christgau's other ratings like A+, A, A-, B+, "cut," "neither," and "turkey."  The template is useless if it doesn't include all of his ratings.  –Crashintome4196 04:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Useless, really? I added the ratings I did because those are the Christgau-specific ones (which excludes the letter grades) that were actually in use AFAICT (which excludes "cut", "neither" and "turkey"), and because those are the ones that currently need standardizing. But I agree the "cut", "neither" and "turkey" should be added, in case they are used anywhere I haven't seen or are used in the future. I'm not sure the letter grades should be included, because if we include them some people might use  for B+ ratings by other reviewers, especially if we format letter grades in a way other than the current. To avoid that, I defined Ratings-Christgau to be for Christgau-specific ratings. I also thought we might want to add a  in the future, which could be used by letter grades by Christgau and others, and avoid any overlap. --PEJL 08:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added the other Christgau-specific ratings to the template. Unlike what I proposed above, I've now made the template output symbols instead of text. Mostly because this is how the ratings are presented in print, but also because it becomes more obvious that a template is used (and should be used) if the template outputs something other than plain text, which will help the template being adopted. I made the symbols for the honorable mention ratings one, two or three black stars without any text, because that is how they are shown in print. Unlike the other rating stars these are black making them noticeably different, which I think is desirable because of their different meaning. What do people think? --PEJL 17:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done. I've put this template to use in all the articles I could find with Christgau-specific ratings (slightly over 100 album articles) and mentioned it in the guideline. --PEJL 18:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed new template <nowiki>{{Rating-Christgau}}</nowiki> 

message: A discussion has recently started concerning the above page and I wanted to call it to the attention of this project so it could receive more traffic, specifically from those experienced in dealing with these issues.  Please visit the above talk page to get up to date.  Leave any new messages on which ever page you feel.  I believe that we can get this cleaned up very quickly. Sampm 03:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem – From [[Category talk:Albums without cover art]] 

message: We've talked about it before, but we haven't actually done it. Let's do it. Someone above put forth a list of A-class articles that need to be improved to Feature-class articles. Here's the first one from the list. Let's see how this goes.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Let's see if we can get it to Feature Article status. Peer review, January
Go team, go! -Freekee 05:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm busy doing the same thing with Kid A at the minute... just doing the some final copy editing before submitting for FA, but I'll help with this when I'm finished. - Alex valavanis 17:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Album Project's collaboration of the week 

message: There are quite a few articles about albums in this series, many of which consist almost entirely of track listings.  Since they don't assert notability, they are in danger of speedy deletion.  Any thoughts?  Talk:Now That's What I Call Music!#Notability (John User:Jwy talk) 03:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Now UK series is notable, whether or not the articles assert it. It's just about the most famous compilation series in this country ever. They really need to be cleaned and beefed up rather than deleted or, perhaps better still, merged into a smaller set of articles. --kingboyk 15:41, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Merging into a single mega-article would be a good idea, then the text can present an overview of the series, such as how it began in the vinyl era and so far endured through to the era of iTunes playlists. Ricadus 14:31, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Now That's What I Call Music!

message: :Category:Electronic albums by artist up for deletion. Do we want these genre subdivisions? –Unint 19:34, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  CfD notification