Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musicians

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  1. March 2006 – August 2006

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[edit] Indie term confusion

Is it possible for this project to somehow accomidate label type clarification as with Razorlight? -VirianFlux, 10:33, 17 October 2006 (BST)

[edit] Project – Take #2

The first attempt at a WikiProject centered around musicians ended awkwardly. I hope that this second attempt–starting now–proves to attract larger participation. I have tried to reorganize this project (and I am currently still doing so) to streamline the process and in the long run, improve the majority of musican-based articles. -- Heaven's Wrath   Talk  00:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, hello. Just happened to wander by and noticed all the new stuff. Thanks for taking charge; I watched this thing sink the last time, but I was not up to the task of resuscitation. Still, consider me on board as before.
I think I'm going to take off the "inactive" tag on the list, for a start. –Unint 23:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good. Thanks for taking off the tag, I forgot about that one. I will move you back onto the Active participants list. I look forward to working with you. -- Heaven's Wrath   Talk  02:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
You might want to take a look at WP:COUNCIL; in particular, the guide to WikiProject organization, while not nearly complete yet, might have some ideas you can apply here. Kirill Lokshin 02:22, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
You might also want to take a look at WP:BIOGRAPHY which has started up an arts & entertainment taskforce. Perhaps the two could be merged. --kingboyk 19:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the information. I left a message on this page to offer this project's help and a hope to work together. -- Heaven's Wrath   Talk  04:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Beyond working together, wouldn't it be better to actually merge? Otherwise there's going to be a lot of dual templating and two Projects working in roughly the same areas. --kingboyk 19:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I just added a lot of band pages to the to-do list. Let's try and get some more people involved. Weatherman90 02:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A job for the project

Anyone who was following Template talk:Infobox musical artist will have seen the debacle regarding the meaning of the "current members" field. There's been some conflict regarding what goes there for a band that's no longer active, among other things.

Just today this has come up again at Genesis (band). A revert war has began; this underscores the need for the project to have a guideline of some kind regarding this issue. (Infobox musical artist has changed the field displayed to say "Members" only as a reaction, but a firm word on the subject would go a long way.) –Unint 18:49, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiproject template

I've been messing around with the {{Musician}} template so that it now properly does the show/hide, and I've added the article rating system to it, so articles are now placed in Category:WikiProject Musicians articles by importance & Category:WikiProject Musicians articles by quality. Thoughts? Ajaxfan 17:02, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. I was messing around with a similar one in my sandbox. Never got around to finishing it though. One thing that always bothered me was the name of the template. I feel it should be moved to {{WPMusician}} or similar. The major problem with that though would be fixing all the articles with {{Musician}} on them. – Heaven's Wrath   Talk  22:41, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
What is the difference between {{Musician}} and {{WPBiography}}? When previewing a talk page with {{Musician}} added to a previously existing {{WPBiography}}, there was no visible difference between the two. BNutzer 21:23, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
{{Musician}} now redirects to {{WPBiography}}. We have joined forces with WikiProject Biography. An explanation of how to use {{WPBiography}} is on the template's page, and the fields applicable to this project are available on the main page. – Heaven's Wrath   Talk  21:57, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Lol, wish I'd been a fly on the wall. That must have really got you puzzled :) --kingboyk 22:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't Wikipedia:WikiProject_Musicians#Adding_articles better say: "Add {{Musician|musician-work-group=yes}}" or even "{{WPBiography|musician-work-group=yes}}" (to prevent superfluous redirects)? BNutzer 23:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
I updated that section. Thank you, (you are correct of course) I had forgotten to update the entire page. – Heaven's Wrath   Talk  03:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] |attention=yes

I added |attention=yes on Talk:Toni Price so that it says {{WPBiography|attention=yes|musician-work-group=yes}}. Apparently, that added the page to Category:Biography articles needing attention. I expected it to be automatically added to Category:Musicians work group articles needing attention. Did I miss something, or could it be the template isn't fully working? BNutzer 22:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Probably a bug. Can you report it on the template talk? I'#ll try to fix it but it might not be today as I have a really bad cold. --kingboyk 07:46, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Done. Get well soon! BNutzer 15:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Yikes, I answered you guys on that page but didn't realze a thread was here, so in case you guys didn't see that, I've fixed that bug... --plange 14:50, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal on categorizing "Taper-friendly bands"

Hi, I've created a proposal for categorizing "taper-friendly bands", aka "bands that allow taping" within Wikipedia, and I wanted to invite people interested in this article to offer comments and feedback, since this falls, at least somewhat within the purview of the Musicians project. The proposal is at User:Xtifr/BTAT, and I'd be very interested to hear what people have to say about my suggestions. Let me know whatcha think. Thanks, Xtifr 11:12, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Organisation of this project, scope, and templates

I have some serious concerns about the organisation of this WikiProject as a seperate entity.

First of all, every article you cover which is about an individual is going to be within the scope of WikiProject Biography's Arts & Entertainments workgroup. That means that probably 50% or more of "your" talk pages are going to be tagged with at least 2 WikiProject templates. This isn't good, because editors don't like talk page clutter and it also can lead to something of a turf war. Let's stop and have a think about this for a moment. I have no idea of the exact numbers in this case, but I can tell you that Category:Politicians contains over 40,000 articles. I wouldn't be surprised if we have a similar number of articles on solo musicians.

Secondly, you've been placing your banners on pages managed by already well-established projects such as WP:KLF and WP:BEATLES. The KLF WikiProject is already a sister project of WP Electronic Music and WP Biography. We don't need yet another WikiProject to come along and claim scope. To reduce talk page clutter, The KLF and Beatles projects already share templates with WPBio.

The solution is eminently clear, and that is that you become a child project of WPBiography. We recently had WikiProject British Royalty join with us, and I propose that you join on the same basis as them. They retained their name and their pages within their own WikiProject area, they remain operationally independent but officially a child project of the Royalty workgroup, and - crucially - they share our template, {{WPBiography}}. As a child project (let's use that wonderful term "quasi-autonomous") you'd be expanding WPBio's scope to musical ensembles, which is fine and great. (WP British Royalty have articles within their scope which aren't even about people). You would take over all musician articles, just as Brit Royalty have taken over all articles within their scope.

We'd implement this as follows:

  • A musician=yes parameter on our template, which would indicate that an article is within the scope of your child project
  • You can use the existing non-bio= parameter if you tag any articles which aren't biographies
  • You can use living=yes and all the other existing parameters of our template
  • You'd get your own Wikipedia 1.0 worklist and retain your own organisational categories, all within our template
  • Editors would have to look at only a WPMusicians version of the {{WPBiography}} template on each page, rather than 2 templates.
  • I would also update {{KLF}} and {{WPBeatles}} to place musician biographical articles from our projects into your categories and worklists.

Please seriously consider this or we're going to have the worst scope overlap in WikiProject history. --kingboyk 14:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I've been tagging talk pages, and I considered some of the things you mention. I've been tagging articles on bands for the moment, since these don't fall under the scope of the Biography WikiProject as far as I can tell. I've also avoided tagging pages which fall under the KLF & Beatles Wikiprojects (apologies if I did do this in some places). Perhaps we could integrate our templates for individuals, and keep the seperate musicians template for bands. An example of how we could integrate the template (from the computer & video games project):
Famicom style controller This article is part of WikiProject Computer and video games, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to video games on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
A This article has been rated as A-Class on the assessment scale.
Low This article is on a subject of low-importance within gaming for inclusion in Wikipedia 1.0.
High This article is supported by and is of high-importance to Wikiproject The Legend of Zelda series .
Mid This article is supported by and is of mid-importance to WikiProject Nintendo.
CVG To-do:
Anyway, I'll hold of with adding templates for now. jaco♫plane 14:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
You did catch one KLF article, which is how I "caught" you ;) lol. No matter though. (By the way you can tell AWB to skip pages which contains WPBio, KLF or Beatles templates easily enough).
You're correct that WPBio doesn't currently cover musical groups, but that still leaves us with a problem: about half of your articles are covered by WPBio. What are you going to do about them?
Is there any philosophical objection to being a child project of WPBio? In a sense I see it as handing over responsibility to you, rather than taking it away, because you would become the custodians for WikiProject Biography of all matters related to musicians.
What I have in mind is just like that template you used above, but you'd use WPBiography for all of your articles, whether they be on groups or individuals. {{WPBiography}} is a very sophisticated template. Have a look at this for example:

Template removed due to effect on auto-categories and -statistics - DBDR 12:42, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

{{WPBiography|british-royalty=yes|living=yes|needs-infobox=yes|class=FA|priority=High}}
That's the WPBIO template! You'd think it was a different template wouldn't you? No, it's the same one that produces this:
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Portal:Biography
 Biography Portal
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. [FAQ]
See also my plugin for AWB (User:Kingbotk/Plugin) which tags pages with WPBIO. I could add the musicians group as a parameter to the plugin, and also have it search for and remove your old template, so it wouldn't be too difficult to undo what's been done.
Anyway have a think about it. I'll raise the issue with the WikiProject Council too as I think the overlap of scope here is too lareg to ignore. Cheers. --kingboyk 14:42, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, I didn't know that about WPBiography. Anyway, this sounds like a good idea to me. If you could add that functionality to your plugin then I don't mind converting all the templates I've added. Cheers, jaco♫plane 14:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
That would be great. Are there are other project members who need to be consulted first or can this be proceeded with immediately? (Note that I have a bit of a backlog at the moment, and this would require some substantial work -
  • Adding a new param to {{WPBiography}} for your project, and putting all your classification and other categories into our template
  • Changing the {{KLF}} and {{WPBeatles}} templates
  • Adding the new param to the plugin and adding code to replace your old template)
I could probably make a start later today but I doubt it would be finished until tommorow. If you're itching to get tagging again, I could make the plugin work a priority, and fix the templates up later (if you tag with a musicians parameter but that parameter isn't in the template, Mediawiki just ignores it... and when the param gets added later, Mediawiki will redo all the talk pages which use it. Pretty cool). --kingboyk 15:01, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Well it's probably best to let some other members weigh in (User:Heaven's Wrath, specifically). But I don't think there should be major objections. So don't worry about making this a priority for the moment. jaco♫plane 15:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Ok, after receiving a request to comment, here I am. First off, I think it is a good idea. Having 3 or 4 projects all claiming an article can be a little difficult. I think having a similar set-up to the British Royal project would be fine. If WP:Musicians=yes (or similar) it would read:
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Musicians (a child project of the Arts and Entertainment Work Group of WikiProject Biography), an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to musicians on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you should visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Other ideas for icons (left):
commons:Category:Music icons, commons:Category:Sound icons
I am not sure what icon we would use (or if we need to make one), but I think the overall idea is good. I did not think we need to fully merge with the Biography project, but a collaboration ( at least of the infobox) would be good. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 22:30, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

<-- We'll probably just use your choice of icon and wording rather than hugely reformat everything, because our template is getting to the stage where it's hard to understand! Also, your articles are all biographies so it won't confuse anybody. I like that image you've chosen by the way.

I think we'll have to create new categories for Wikipedia assessments as your current ones (Category:Unassessed WikiProject Musicians articles etc) aren't named per convention. (It should be "musician articles by quality" rather than "WikiProject musician"; I guess for uniformity we'd make it "Biography (musicians)".

Anyway, plan of action:

  • Hopefully Plange will get you set up with the Bio template and any other infrastructure you need
  • I'll program support into my plugin and fix up the {{KLF}} and {{WPBeatles}} templates so that they put their articles into the musician workgroup categories instead of arts & entertainment
  • We'll redirect {{musician}} to {{WPBiography}} and I'll have my bot clean up
  • You guys can get on with tagging musician talk pages (using my plugin if that makes it easier for you), assessing articles, and all the other normal WikiProject stuff —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kingboyk (talk • contribs) 18:17, September 20, 2006.
Sounds good. Feel free to rename the categories (just leave us a note on the new names), they were named before I joined the project. Keep us updated. I will change the Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians/Infobox page after the Bio template is updated. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 02:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Awesome-- I'm going to code this first in my sandbox first and will come back, but meanwhile, you can use the parameter musician-work-group=yes in the WPBiography template and when the code is finally in place, boom, your articles will be in there... --plange 03:53, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
We've done the template and I've done the plugin code. Rest to follow later. --kingboyk 10:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MUSART templates

Another thing I noticed is these MUSART templates {{MUSART}} {{MUSART1}} {{MUSART2}}. I don't really see the point - they seem to be more complicated than typing in the project name/link by hand! Can anyone convince me why they shouldn't be nominated for deletion? :)

Whether they're useful or not they should be subst'd not transcluded. I've done a load myself, but here's an AWB job for you while we're discussing the main project template - go through this list with AWB and subst all MUSART instances :) --kingboyk 15:04, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Hm, yeah these templates seem totally useless to me. I'll start substing them later today, after which they an be deleted as far as I' m concered. jaco♫plane 15:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Okie dokie mate, let me know when they're no longer needed and I'll use my magic button (assuming you're not an admin, I haven't checked! if you are, well, you know what to do ;)) --kingboyk 15:11, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, you are an admin. My apologies. --kingboyk 17:31, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Heh, anyway, I substed all the templates :) jaco♫plane 18:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Musician "importance"

(Now we use WPBio, it's actually priority=)

I'm migrating the musician templates over to WPBio, and I've found some absolutely ridiculous importance ratings. Examples:

  • Celine Dion - I can't stand the woman, but low importance?! At least High.
  • Bee Gees - One of the top selling bands and songwriting teams in the world, ever. Top importance, no question. Was rated Low!

So we're all singing off the same sheet: Low should be bands that didn't make it, but have just about enough notability to get a Wikipedia article. We can also put reality TV show contestants who didn't win in this category. The legendary bands and artists get Top. Everyone else should be Mid or High.

If there's any controversy over ratings for "Top" priority we could always introduce an approval process for Top, but let's not add that extra level of bureaucracy unless it's needed :) --kingboyk 13:12, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Kylie Minogue is apparently low too. Sigh. --kingboyk 14:07, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tagging

Well... mostly done now. Plange and I fixed up the template, and Plange is working on the categories. I've reprogrammed my plugin, and fixed the pages which were using {{musician}}. I've also done all Beatles and KLF articles and fixed up those templates. (Geez... I can feel myself getting grey).

Now that's all done if you want to carry on tagging talk pages please do! You can grab a copy of the plugin at User:Kingbotk/Plugin or carry on with vanilla AWB if you prefer.

Apologies for the grounding but you are now cleared for takeoff :) --kingboyk 23:23, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

All done making the cats! Okay, so as part of our project, you now have some nifty pages and tools. Didn't just want to start inserting them willy-nilly, but will come back here and list after Mathbot runs tonight (as right now the links are red until that happens)... Stay tuned! --plange 00:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for all the help and work. This project needs a lot of cleaning up, and with AWB and bot help, it makes it a lot easier. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 02:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay, here's your goodies, to place where you think best. See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Arts_and_entertainment for ideas --
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by plange (talk • contribs) 11:38, September 22, 2006.
Thanks, I will try to incorporate these into the main page this weekend. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 22:21, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Bump! :) --kingboyk 16:04, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I have never seen anyone "bump" a Wikipedia page before. Anyway, I added the information to either the front page or the Assessment page. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 03:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
You have now! :) Anyway, excellent, thanks. I've also just had a sweep through, adding some sidebars, fixing up categories, and marking a few old pages as archives. --kingboyk 11:05, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review

Howdy! We just had someone request a peer review for a musical group, which isn't really our purview, but instead of turning them away, I thought I'd see if you guys could help assess? --plange 15:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

It is "our" purview because this is a child project of WPBio now :) Thanks for the headsup though and please do post future headsup here too, but there's no need for a disclaimer :) I've seen that article on my travels lately - I think it's a current GA nominee? Not sure it should be undergoing GA and PR at the same time but never mind... --kingboyk 16:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox suggestion

Has there ever been discussion of adding a few lines to the info box:

1. Grammys (# won/# nominated)
2. Certifications (# gold albums, # platinum albums, # diamond albums)
3. Certifications (# gold singles, # platinum singles, # diamond singles)
4. Chart Positions Albums (# 1's, # top 10's, # top 100's)
5. Chart Positions Singles (# 1's, # top 10's, # top 100's)

TonyTheTiger 16:48, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I forgot to respond to this earlier, sorry.
  1. Having just the Grammys is very limited as there are many different awards, and Wikipedia covers muscians from all different countries. It is better to place in a section labeled "Awards" in prose.
  2. RIAA certification is an American organization, so it does not cover sales in other countries.
  3. same as above
  4. There are so many charts, there is no way to decide which ones to include. It is better put in a chart in the discography section.
  5. same as above
– Heaven's Wrath Talk 22:04, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
1. Isn't the Grammy still the World's premier music award? Aren't there several international awards?
2. Couldn't people use the applicable certification(s) depending upon the artist?
3. ibid
4. Editor's discretion just like current chart peak position tables.
5. ibid

TonyTheTiger 18:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discography need

I have identified several prominent artists with no wikipedia discographies. I have created the Category:Musician articles in need of discographies page. I have noted it on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums page, but it may also be relevant here. If possible I would like to get this page into common usage. I am not sure what actions to take to do so. Please advise. TonyTheTiger 16:49, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

That is fine, except it does not follow the correct naming syntax. It should be Category:Musicians work group articles needing discographies. It would be best if you could move the pages to the new one. Afterwhich, I will incorporate it into the main page. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 17:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I guess I will have to surrender the right to claim this one. You can see by clicking on my name that I like to claim pages I have started. Is there any way to maintain this claim. It is humbling to have to remove my category page claim. TonyTheTiger 18:24, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Um, assuming that you're keeping in mind WP:OWN, I see no reason why you can't list the category on your user page as something you started. I mean, you did. Anyway, working on Wikipedia should be a humbling experience, IMO. I know I frequently find it so! :) It might have been slightly better if HW had moved the old category rather than simply creating a new one, but oh well. Life's tough some days. Xtifr tälk 19:06, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I have moved over all the artist links and the discussion. Let me know if there will be any change to the insertion procedures going forward.TonyTheTiger 19:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I am sorry I created that, but one of the major things things at Wikipedia is that no one owns any specific article. Thanks for moving them. If you find anymore articles, please add them. And I do not know how to move a category (there is not a move button), otherwise I would have done that. I can only see how to move the category's talk page. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 03:44, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Whoops, I thought that the ability to move categories had recently been added; guess I was misremembering, sorry. Xtifr tälk 19:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I believe only admins can move them. I think I read that somewhere. Or maybe they just create new ones and delete the old ones. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 21:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
The old category should be deleted, so unless someone here is an administrator, I will list it for speedy deletion tomorrow. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 03:55, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I have spent some time thinking about this issue. I do not really think that the issue is addressed by the WP:OWN page. That page addresses ownership as it relates to respecting a primary (dominant) editor. That is a concern when their are conflicting opinions on the direction of a page. That is not the case here. We all seem to agree that there is a need for a category like the newly created one. It is an issue I have spent a week on (see: Acts in Need of Discographication) even though I have only gotten you guys involved over the last 3 days. I think the proper procedure would have been Speedy renaming now that I look things over. Because this is a category space page, even if I continue to add artist to the page they will not show up in the category space page history. I think what should have happened is I should have created a page and Heaven's Wrath should have then amended it to follow project guidelines. This would have given me the according credit for the idea in the history by documenting the first entry in the history with (creating page). Then, Heaven's institutional knowledge of the project procedures would have shown in his corrections in the history. TonyTheTiger 17:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

You do bring up some good points, and again I apologize for creating the category, but I give you all the credit for coming up with idea and starting it. Also, I am getting started on the points you made on my talk page. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 01:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
In response to your thoughs, I created a new template and edited the category.
Thoughts? – Heaven's Wrath Talk 02:43, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Given your superior expertise and capabilities (I.E., your ability to create templates and enact my idea) you have my blessing to take the idea and run with it as you have already done so well. I am pleased to see your progress. In addition to top and high priority what other classifications are there for musician attention needs?TonyTheTiger 16:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I made the top/mid requirements based on your comments on my talk page and the idea that not every musician would need a discography page. It is better to start with a number of articles that are managable, so starting this idea with the higher priority articles seemed appropriate. Expansion to the rest of the articles hopefully will follow. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 03:23, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Members

Who is entitled to list their name among the project members? I am a new iPod owner (purchased Aug 2006). As a result, I have been correcting and suggesting corrections in several related pages. I am modestly involved.TonyTheTiger 15:11, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

If you ever edit musician articles, sign on up. All Wikipedians in good standing are welcome. --kingboyk 15:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discography template

At the newly created Template:WPMusicians discography, I stumbled upon the terms top or high-priority musician articles. I would like to ask for ratings on the original seven musicians I listed in the discography need category: Louis Armstrong, Celia Cruz, Gap Band, Dizzy Gillespie, Aaron Neville, Teddy Pendergrass, & Tito PuenteTonyTheTiger 15:17, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some copy-editing help with an FAC?

  • Hiya, I've been working on Sasha (DJ) for quite some time now but haven't managed to get it up to FA status yet. It pretty much just needs a couple goings-over from someone with copy-editing experience. Basically, it just needs someone to go through and pick out any wording redundancies or any other sort of awkward sentences. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Wickethewok 18:33, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Peer review/Sparks (band)

Hi. I've just put this article up for its 2nd review, the last one got a fairly poor response so hopefully this one will get some more eyes on it and since you guys are now supporting the article maybe you'd be so good as to take a look. regards --KaptKos 09:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I will head over there now. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 16:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Responded. Good luck with improvements! Wickethewok 17:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Logos in infoboxes

This discussion started at the infobox talk page, but I'm redirecting this part of it here, because I think it has broader implications. Note that the trick in question (putting a logo instead of a name into the infobox) is apparently done on several articles, most notably Coldplay, but more blatantly, with articles like Arctic Monkeys. The more I think about it, the more I think it's a Bad Idea(TM), for the following reasons:

  1. Will encourage people to upload more fair-use images of limited notability.
  2. Makes the articles less accessible to people using text browsers or screen readers.
  3. Makes the article look confusingly like an official band site, rather than an encyclopedia (some legal danger here).
  4. Makes the article look more like a fan site, rather than an encyclopedia, encouraging the addition of more fancruft (a constant and on-going problem with arts and entertainment articles).
  5. The vast majority of bands (let alone musical artists) don't have a single, recognized logo. This will encourage people to find inappropriate near-logos that don't belong in the article to add to an infobox for the "coolness" factor.
  6. Articles should stand on their own, even if all fair-use images are arbitrarily removed, as they would have to be for most derivative works. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule, i.e. articles about images, but these are articles about bands. Putting the logo in the infobox instead of the name means more work when stripping fair-use images.
  7. Looking outside the world of arts-and-entertainment articles, I note that corporate logos, while often added to articles about corporations, are never (that I can see) included in an infobox. They are usually displayed below it.
  8. Could spread to album articles, which would be really excessive (we might want to alert the Albums project to be on the lookout for this).

I might be able to think of more reasons, but that should do for a start. If a concensus develops that we should allow or even support this, I'll go along, but I really think it's a bad precedent. Xtifr tälk 21:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you. Although I like the look of some of the names. I think that your points are well-based. If a band happens to have such a standard symbol for their name, I am open to including it as an image in the article. But some of the images do not really seem like they are the official logo of a band. Especially since some logos change from album to album. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 00:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

  • User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory 2,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Philosophy and religion Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Sports Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory/United States, (note: This page will be retitled to more accurately reflect its contents)
  • User:Badbilltucker/History and society directory, and
  • User:Badbilltucker/Science directory

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:28, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now put the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 00:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Celia Cruz

Soon after I added Celia Cruz to the Category:Musicians work group articles needing discographies list, someone added a sketch. I posted my complaints about this sketch here Talk:Celia Cruz#Discography need. A sketch based on recency does not suffice in my eyes. Should I relist her? TonyTheTiger 20:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal

I am officially confused on how to add a suggestion to the guidelines section. I would like to post a guideline for a sufficient selected discography (with my Celia Cruz commentary in mind). I believe that wikipedia as the world's encyclopedia and thus an important information source should aspire to have selected discographies that are informative enough that the casual visitor can make better decisions for record choice (buying, borrowing from the library, including in iTunes playlist, etc.). With this in mind I believe a selected discography should attempt to be informative in listing Grammy Winning albums, Platinum Albums, Most important Compilations, and be instructive on most important singles. TonyTheTiger 21:01, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a buyers guide, but notable albums/singles/etc. should probably be listed in a discography, if the artice is to reach FA status, But we're all relying on volunteer labor here. And the Celia Cruz article does have the beginnings of a discography now. At most, I would probably add a request for expansion template to the section (e.g. {{Expandsection}}), rather than re-listing it as "needs discography". Especially since there are probably thousands of articles that completely lack discographies and haven't been tagged at all. I dunno. As for the basic idea of developing some guidelines for discographies—that's probably a good idea. Xtifr tälk 21:52, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Agreed that a selected discography should point the most important albums of that artist (certainly the Grammy winning ones). The article shouldn't tell people what to buy, of course, but they should be able to get a general idea from the article and the discography which albums were the best received/most purchased. A set of guidelines for discographies would be great, as that seems like something which should be standardized. Maybe a discography-entry template or something? Wickethewok 22:01, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
There's some overlap here between WikiProject Musicians and WikiProject Albums, and we should probably try to coordinate with them. Discography standardization and discography templates are something that has been discussed and rejected in the past, I believe. There's just too many possible approaches, and too many different things that are appropriate for some artists but not others. Looking at the Album Project page, though, I note that they also monitor Category:Musicians work group articles needing discographies and mention that it should include articles with "deficient" discographies, so re-listing Celia Cruz is probably ok. Bottom line, I don't want to start any turf-wars, as that seems to be part of the reason the original version of this project collapsed. But I think some basic guidelines (or at least suggestions) for discographies is a good idea. Xtifr tälk 22:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I do not see the reason for a "Selected dicography" section, other than the fact if an artist has a seperate discography page. I think that based on the {{WPMusicians discography}} template, it can be relisted as it does not meet the guidelines (although there are not really any officially adopted ones yet). We can change the wording if it would make it clearer. Also, the discography section should be a level 2 header, not a subheader. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 23:14, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works)

I've overhauled Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) based on a 2nd round of feedback. Possibly it's complete and ready? Feedback (at it's talkpage) or improvements welcome :) --Quiddity 02:25, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Musician articles and {{cleanup-bio}}

When editing Annie Whitehead, I have found that some wikipedians apparently regard many musician articles "low standard". This might be of interest here and in the "parent" biography project ... see Talk:Annie Whitehead#Missing biographical data?. Cheers, BNutzer 16:02, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

The problem is hardly limited to musician articles. There's lots of stubs for actors, atheletes, writers, politicians, etc. I left a comment at the Annie Whitehead talk page. Basically, the article is already marked as a stub, which makes the other tags somewhat redundant. But perfectly valid. *shrug* Xtifr tälk 00:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I was going to say the same thing -- it's a start/stub article which means it's missing stuff, so a tag like that seems redundant to me too. I could see its usage better on articles assessed at B or above... --plange 00:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
My concern was rather whether an article about a musician should (or even needs to) contain much biographical data aside from the actual musicianship (is that an english word? :) since the {{cleanup-bio}} user asks for such info ... BNutzer 01:05, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Question is better suited for the Bio wikiproject, but in my opinion, yes. If it's ever going to have any hope of reaching Featured Article status, it's going to need to be much more detailed and, well, encyclopedic. Of course, that doesn't mean that having stubs is wrong (although m:Deletionists might disagree). It simply means that stubs are articles which still need a lot of work. Xtifr tälk 01:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree, and echo the sentiment that there's nothing wrong with stubs or starts, esp. if that's all the info that can be gleaned using verifiable sources, etc. But if you do want to "climb it up the assessment ladder" then you would need that kind of info. It helps establish context for the person-- are they a coal miner's daughter and fought through class barriers, etc? Are they from a musical family? People don't form fully as a musician in isolation and had to have had influences from their surrounding environment (physical, familial and cultural), so it's good to give that context. --plange 15:25, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FYI: Template talk:WPBiography#musicians override arts and entertainment?

Cheers, BNutzer 12:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project Box

I've seen a few other WikiProjects with Project Boxes for their members userpage and I thought it might be nice to have one for ours. I believe it could increase membership and at the very least provide some exposure for the articles listed on it. An example of what I was thinking can be found here at my sandbox. Thoughts? --Thereen 06:45, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Translations

I have noticed that many artists popular with Spanish speaking music fans (Celia Cruz, Marc Anthony, Tito Puente, etc.) have discography and bio deficiencies. Have you ever made a broad task of translating info from Spanish wikipedia? TonyTheTiger 15:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I have not done much translating, although I probably know enough Spanish to do that. If you read the spanish versions, besides Cruz's article, there really is not that much more information. If translation was requested for an article that had a signifigant amount of information in the spanish article, I would be more than happy to do it. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 16:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I was mainly talking about augmenting the discography. I think much can be added from the Spanish discography. TonyTheTiger 19:28, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry

Should List of recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry have a Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians tag? TonyTheTiger 15:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not think so. That would probably be better suited for WikiProject Music. Although every article does not need to have a tag. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 16:53, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Does WikiProject Music have a tag? TonyTheTiger 19:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userboxes

I just wanted to announce that there are now userboxes for this project. They are on the main page under the userboxes section. Here's a link. Thanks to Thereen for the contribution. – Heaven's Wrath Talk 23:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Genre wars and the distinguishing of genres and styles

As many of you may be aware, many band pages undergo "genre wars". Its the repetitive changing/reverting of the genre of a band mainly in the infobox, but also in the first line of the body of the article. It is mainly, but not limited to, unregistered users, from what I have witnessed. It's ridiculous to say the least. To end these once in for all, this is my proposal.

The boys at the All Music Guide have their categorization of artists split up into genres, and styles. For example, let's look at the Queens of the Stone Age. The All Music Guide categorises them as part of the rock genre, but their styles include hard rock, heavy metal, industrial metal and stoner metal. It would only make sense, as rock is a general category, and as the {{RockBox}} and other templates point out, hard rock is a subgenre, heavy metal is a derivative form, industrial metal is a fusion genre of heavy metal, etc. It only makes sense. If we can make references to the All Music Guide or another equally reliable and professional source, and incorporate this into the first line and the infobox, I believe these numerous edit wars can be quelled. To comply with this, it would be required that {{Infobox musical artist}} be modified so it also has a Style(s) field.

To see an example of how this would look, please view my sandbox (my "Rockbox").

I would appreciate feedback on this proposal. I am going to push hard for this proposal to be put into action, and I appreciate any supporters in helping me do so. Thank you. --Reaper X 00:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't this just move the genre change battles into the "style" field instead? I'm certain for every style categorization in AMG another notable source could be found with a different set of categories for any given artist. I don't think this would improve the situation, and I have no idea what will, apart from deleting the genre field completely which would just move the fight into the lead-in text. --*Spark* 01:02, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Spark. Also, I do not like this idea because "style" is not an accepted term at all in the music industry and the addition of it is based solely on All Music Guide. (See this previous dicussion on this topic for more thoughts.) – Heaven's Wrath Talk 01:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I would also like to add that All Music Guide is not an acceptable source for any article related to underground music. Not an accurate site at all. Ours18 01:35, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Agree with the responses above. Also, AMG uses "rock" to encompass far too much music. –Unint 03:54, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
As for the problem itself, I don't think the genre wars will ever end as long as music fans keep arriving at the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. (Not to mention the "band membership" war, among other things.) Perhaps we should take a look at what the higher-traffic band articles have been doing about this problem (other than throwing up arms and declaring the band uncategorizable as the final word, as one article that I can't currently recall has done). –Unint 04:02, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Most importantly, though, is that it's a POV issue, and POV issues should not be dealt with in an infobox! The way you resolve POV issues is by including reliable sources citing the various points of view. Since you can't properly show all points of view in the infobox, the way to deal with it is to include the most broad genre in the infobox (something everyone can agree on), and then, as you said, move the fight to the lead-in where it belongs. Adding a style field to the infobox will only ensure fights over the infobox contents. If anything, I think we should add some more documentation about how to be general to the infobox docs. For example, right now it says, "Hip hop instead of East Coast Hip Hop". I might add "Rock instead of NuMetal". I think the infobox should stick to only extremely broad genres, i.e. jazz, rock, hip-hop, pop, blues, R&B, county, folk, soul, funk, electronica, noise, and...not much else! Xtifr tälk 04:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I have the following comment from Rush:Talk in my copy buffer & I think it fits equally well here:-

Don't really get the obsession with pigeonholing bands. Is it a control thing? By sticking a band in a category are you somehow nullifying their power or nullifying their creativity? More importantly DO WE CARE? Look at some of the other bands around like, say, Primal Scream. What the hell are they? Rolling Clones, 'E'ed up dance rock, Heavy Dub Reggae or the sound of cyberpunk flying away to infinity on a Hawkwind riff? The answer is "all of the above" depending on which album you listen to & Rush are simiilarly genre defying. Call them rock in the about box & divide the career by "genres" - mind you I'd say the real breakpoint between old & new was Hemispheres - Permanent Waves not PW - Moving Pictures. Just my 5c

In summary, who cares what somebody thinks a band is? Very few bands plough the same furrow through a long artistically significant career - even Status Quo had a "flower power" phase! Megamanic 06:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal because often only the main genre (ie. rock, or hip-hop) can be agreed on. I've noticed in genre edit wars it's the subgenres (or "styles") that cause debate. I woud propose that the genre field should mandatorially list the main genre--rock, pop, blues, jazz, country, etc.--an artist belongs to (including more if they apply, such as with someone like Prince, who can be listed under R&B, dance, and rock music). The subgenre/styles field should be optional and should only be used if the subgenres/styles can be agreed upon with sources (as in the case of Nirvana, who most definitely belong to the rock subgenres grunge and alternative rock). In the case of bands with disputed genres like My chemical Romance, HIM, and System of A Down, they would all say "Rock" in the genre field no matter what. WesleyDodds 15:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Also remember, ultimately, Wikipedia is not for what you think. Unless you can cite a reliable source, saying that a band has a particular genre or style violates the rule about no original research. And citing sources is something I think we should discourage people from doing in an infobox! (Although I have—sadly—seen it done as part of a genre-war.) So the genres and/or styles need to be discussed in the body of the article if it's going to be mentioned at all. And if there's a discussion in the body of the article, you don't need to replicate all the details in the infobox. The infobox is supposed to provide a summary, and should have only the most generic details. So...most generic genre in the infobox, styles in the body of the article! We don't need an infobox field for styles! But what we might need is an essay about how to cope with and resolve genre wars. Xtifr tälk 18:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Problem is in genre debates you often have multiple side just insisting really hard that so-and-so band is so-and-so genre without even providing a magazine article or doing a quick scan of Allmusic or a rock music encyclopedia book. Also, when it scomes down to it I think styles should be mentioned preferably in the infobox rather than the article if they can't both be done, because then you get awkward prose attempts at describing how an artist fits into each and every genre they are classified as when we can probably do without. WesleyDodds 18:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Better to have awkward prose (which can always be copyedited) than blanket statements of fact that aren't really statements of fact. Putting it in the infobox strongly implies that it's a fact, rather than a point of view. Since it is a point of view, it belongs in the body of the article, where it can be presented properly per WP:NPOV. Even if many people are not skillful writers. Note that the NPOV policy says that all points of view should be presented (except no original research), and none, not even the most popular, should be presented as anything but a point of view. I think Wikipedia policy trumps "you get awkward prose". Xtifr tälk 19:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
There's always the references section, which can consist of Allmusic entries, encyclopedia entries, and plain old bigraphies. We only need to inline cite if there's a potentially contested fact. Stuff like "Black Sabbath is a heavy metal band" doesn't merit a cite. Obviously we rely on sources always, but we also have to use good judgement. A good Wiki article is part reference, and part well-written prose, and I don't want to sacrifice one for the other. Thus list-y descriptions of genres that a band belongs to in the prose just so we can inline cite it is a non-starter for me. They can go in the infobox, unless we can elaborate on how a band fits into or contributes to a major style ("Nirvana brought grunge to the mainstream . . .", "Oasis was part of the Britpop movement . . .", "Metallica was part of the 1980s thrash metal scene . . .", etc.) in the article itself. Some articles we can, some we can't; each article is different.
You also seem to regard all genre descriptions as POV. Well, certainly genres are human constructions created by human perception and open to interpretation, but most of the time they are accepted, well-used classifications that are used with at least some consistency and methodology. You can argue that Miles Davis isn't jazz or that Snoop Dogg isn't gangsta rap, but that would itself be going against mass consensus. WesleyDodds 20:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


Point taken on the subgenres/styles. I think trying to stay very general on the genre is the best bet, as WesleyDodds has said. I guess I went too far and complicated on the whole subgenre thing. I was just trying to think of something to do with it, just eliminating it didn't seem appealing at the time. Im just fighting for some consistency. Reverting to a proper general genre that editors have come to a consensus on would be better than constant editing and changing through a few different subgenres/styles. Just eliminate this "bickering" action.
In that case though, we should go over the genre articles, and make sure it definitive what is a general genre, and what are sub/fusion/derivative genres and styles of a general genre. I never had the patience to read a slew of them, call me ignorant, but would someone who has read many please provide a sort of general status report? Thanks. --Reaper X 19:28, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
P.S. Thanks for the feedback guys.

(Replying more to WesleyDodds above here, but skipping over Reaper_X's comments to try to keep this discussion in some sort of sane order.) Ok, each article is different, and some cases are more clear-cut than others. The clear-cut cases aren't really a problem, though. If a musician or band is an archetypal exemplar of a genre or style, then it's really not an issue. But genre, insofar as it's a scholarly concept, really applies to music, not to musicians or bands. A musician may play pure genre music, or may cover a wide range of genres. And I don't want huge lists in the infobox! I think that's something we should strongly try to avoid. Which is why I'm advocating using only the most general (and broad, and widely accepted) genres in the infobox. Ok, maybe forbidding all subgenres of rock or jazz is going too far, and I'll retract that. But at the same time, I think we should try to discourage people from listing dozens of obscure (and debatable) subgenres. I think maybe a rule of thumb like, "if you're going to list more than three subgenres, and they're all subgenres of a single genre, just list that single genre instead." And "if (and only if) genre classification is complex or disputed, then put very broad genre(s) in the infobox, and add a couple of short sentences or a small paragraph discussing the difficulty and what some reliable critics or scholars have said." Genre may not always be a matter of POV, but genre disputes and edit wars invariably are! Xtifr tälk 03:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A recent CfD

They've recently voted to delete Category:Mysterious musicians, a category for musicians who have concealed their identities at some point. Does anyone think this category would have been salvageable under a different name (and if that had been brought up earlier as an option), or was it trivial overcategorization? –Unint 04:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw that discussion go by, but I wasn't really sure what I thought, so I stayed out of the debate. I suspect that a more clearly named category might be better, but I (still) don't have strong feelings one way or the other (though I like several of the musicians that were in the category). I think it is a pretty strong defining characteristic of several musicians (e.g. Buckethead or The Residents). But I'm not sure how many others would agree. It's also still a pretty rare and unusual thing for a musician to do, which might count against it. I dunno. Xtifr tälk 04:49, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tim Eriksen

Would someone please start at least a stub for Tim Eriksen, so the rest of us can build on it? I tried, but the current structure is just too daunting for us outsiders -- it is obvious that most submissions are declined. I don't see the point in getting into arguments about who is "notable" enough to "qualify". Are 23,000 google matches enough? 69.87.204.146 13:52, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

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