Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/archive 3

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Contents

Wikipedia OmniMusica

If anyone is interested, I may will applying Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/Wikipedia OmniMusica. This is a proposal to tag articles as being suitable for inclusion in a print version of music-related topics on Wikipedia. Tuf-Kat 09:14, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! Antandrus 15:45, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I could use some help

The list of full length songs has now exploded - it now contains well over 400 songs, all of which need to be put into (at least) one article, and most of which could go into multiple articles. Help putting them into articles (using the listen template) would be appreciated. →Raul654 10:12, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Musical mark up (sharp/flat)

The policy says:

  • The sharp (♯) and flat (♭) signs are ♯ and ♭, respectively. If they do not display correctly, then of course "#" and "b"

However in my browser (IE6) the ♭ shows with a lot of additional white space, making a notation like B♭7 not display well (the sharp only has a problem after it: F♯7). Alternatives Bb7 and F#7 look better, but as a pair I think Bb and F# look still better (both slanted). Could we perhaps change the preference to use an Italic b for a flat sign if the real flat ♭ doesn't display well? Or can someone find a solution to suppress the extra spacing?−Woodstone 07:43, 2005 Apr 14 (UTC)

It's a font issue, we just need to have formatting tags specify a better font to display the characters. ~ Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 22:05, 2005 August 15 (UTC)

User "Babel" templates?

Hello,

User:Yummifruitbat (also under his IP, User:82.32.121.68) has created several templates and associated categories that mimic the Babel templates, but for musical skills, e.g. Template:User sax-4. He proposed it at Babel, but received no response. According to a message he left on my talk page

my aim was to produce a system similar to the language one which would enable Wikipedians to highlight their interests and proficiencies in a concise way on their user pages. I don't believe this is entirely unnecessary from an encyclopaedic point of view - it would facilitate communication between users about articles in which they have a particular interest; or perhaps might be able to contribute valuable knowledge. For example, a user tagging articles as stubs, finding one about a composer of music for the violin, might be able to bring up the User_violin category, and find someone with an interest in the instrument who would be happy to expand the article. As a secondary function, these templates would also make it easy for people to find like-minded users, and then see what they'd contributed to

I am not sure how useful this would be and, especially considering that prior notification was given, I am hoping that some people on this WikiProject can give him their thoughts on how useful this would be. Thanks, BanyanTree 02:04, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music)

I was cleaning out the Wikipedia namespace, and I noticed the proposed Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music). I just wanted to make people here aware of it, so it can be commented on an approved as an official guideline, or rejected. (I have no personal opinions on it right now.) -- Beland 23:44, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Links to AllMusic

May I recommend the use of the templates {{AMG Artist}} and {{AMG Song}} (and related) for constructing these links? --Phil | Talk 15:56, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Weak Oppose. Convenient though they might be, they depend on the structure of the AMG website remaining static. If we have thousands of pages linking to their site, and they change their URL syntax (or SQL structure), we're hosed. Anyway, the technical sophistication required to use these templates seems too much for official policy.—Wahoofive (talk) 17:01, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I understand your point, but what you might have missed is that there are loads of links to the website AMG already. My suggestion to use a template would mean that it would be far easier to keep track of those links, and if the required syntax changes, to change it in a controlled manner. If they decide to alter the URL, it's far easier to do it in one template (or even a set of three or four) than to go around searching for every single URL to adjust manually.
I'm not certain what you mean by "technical sophistication required": the links I have found so far include the "sql=…" information already: it's merely a matter of shoving the appropriate bits into the template parameters. --Phil | Talk 07:52, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)
I was more worried about them changing the sql= setup, rather than the URL structure. But you're right, if those are hard-coded already, putting them in a template can't hurt.—Wahoofive (talk) 18:38, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Strong Agree. this would be useful. it's like stylesheets, easier to change a template than thousands of seperate links if they do ever change their url scheme. afaik you can just add this to Wikipedia:Template messages/Links. or you could discuss it on their talk page, or at Wikipedia:Requested templates first. --Quiddity 20:58, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Discography/Album List Style

There's really no mention for a standard way of listing albums by an artist. I've seen a few different styles and this is how I prefer it to look (links omitted):

  • 1990 - Album Title (Record Label) extra note

Since albums are generally listed chronologically the date should always come first. The year should only be displayed though, adding the day and month looks cluttered because of a more rapidly changing pattern. The year could be included in parenthesis, it's a really minor difference. The dash should be included to make it easier to discern between the year and title. Including the record label isn't of major importance, but without it the listing is somewhat bare. The record label, if included, should be surrounded by parenthesis because it and the title will most likely be one or more words and harder to distinguish. It is possible to surround the record label with brackets but requires more complicated code. Both the year and record label shouldn't be surrounded by parenthesis because it creates a kind of odd symmetry. Any extra notes like "limited edition", "promotional", or "vinyl only" should be in small text at the end. I would like to get a concensus going on the style of listed albums so please comment. Tastywheat 10:37, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Lists of works MoS

I've just created Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) for discussion about the layout of discographies, filmographies, bibliographies and the like. It is an attempt to standardise these lists, as their styles currently vary greatly (order, content, layout). I thought it might be of interest to the partipants on this WikiProject. violet/riga (t) 16:54, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Missing encyclopedic articles

As a subproject to Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles, Wikipedia:Music encyclopedia topics now exists with a list of articles taken from music encyclopedias (by Gmaxwell). If anyone is looking for something music-related to write, there's a list of ideas. Some of them just need redirects: there's plenty of low-hanging fruit if you're not up for a full article. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 01:38, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Musician/Band infobox

I am searching for a musician/music group infobox. If there is not one already I am willing to work on creating one, but I don't want to duplicate a previous effort. As there does not seem to be a WikiProject for performers this seems the best place to pose this question. Cmadler 16:52, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Members style guide

Is there any consensus on how to list (and link) band members, the way there is albums ("always OK if official unless compilation") vs. songs ("notable hits only")? I have been red-linking musicians, but I see a lot of articles actually don't wikilink their members at all, unless they're independently notable. There's also the question of naming the members in the intro paragraph, when there is a separate Members section. Sometimes you have Band members as the name, this seems redundant to me. I also think that having Former members as a subsection is a useful way to handle that problem, although in the TOC it looks weird unless you also have the Current members (but then a subsect directly under a sect head looks weird). Then there's the question of how to list the members by duty, and how to handle side-projects, which this section sometimes does. My preference, I think, would be for Side projects (or perhaps Other bands, Related bands) under the Members section, with a text discussion instead of a table. This is the format I like for duties:

Any reaction? If there's a consensus it would be good to get this into the Wikiproject page and/or the Music style guide. --Dhartung | Talk 03:59, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

To a certain degree it has to depend on the band. For example, some bands maintain the same membership for decades, some are really a group of independent musicians gathered for a single project, and some have changed personel every year or two for decades. For a group of otherwise independant musicians, red-linking may be appropriate (these members are more likely to be independently notable). If the personel have changed a lot, this could be noted in the intro and then names (and dates) given in a Members section. If the personel have remained relatively constant, a Members section might not be appropriate. On the other matter, my feeling is that individual musicians should only be wikilinked if they are notable as an individual. However, they may be notable as an individual for their role in the group; these should still be wikilinked. Cmadler 13:11, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Many of the group/band articles I've worked on have had shuffling lineups (in particular The Supremes, The Temptations, and [The Impressions (American band)|]]). For those groups, I mentioned all of the ntoable members in the article header (for the Surpemes, I managed to squeeze in all 9; for the Temptations, I was forced to only identify notable members). At the end of the article, I created a list of the members and the years they were in the group, and, on a subpage, made a list of each individual incarnation of the group. If the group only traded out a memebr or two (TLC, Dru Hill), I just listed members and dates. In the case of Sly & the Family Stone, I split the list into "original members" and "later members", becasue for some reaso nI felt it suited that article beter. As far as section titles go, I always try to use "Personnel" (or "Members", if another editor objects to "personnel"). As far as wikilinking individual bandmates, I only do it if I can actually write an article about what they've done outside of the group. Not all editors, of course, agree: just last night someone made an article for Betty McGlown, one of the pre-Motown Supremes/Primettes, who I felt wasn't quite notable enough for her own article because I couldn't find any background information about her. On the other hand, I wrote an article for Elbridge Bryant, the "lost Temptation", becasue I was able to learn his birthdate, date of death, and enough biographical/personal information to fill a good-sized article. --FuriousFreddy 19:51, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is no consensus on how to title sections on band members (e.g. "Members" or "Personnel"). This makes articles on bands and musical groups appear exceedingly inconsistent which, I believe, lowers the overall credibility of Wikipedia. Can we come to some sort of consensus here? I'm of the opinion that "Members" is the most appropriate as the term "personnel" could imply a list of all persons employed by the band, such as stage crews, tour bus drivers, etc. (Please excuse me if I'm mistaken and there is a consensus of which I am unaware, or if this isn't the appropriate place for this discussion.) BurntSky 03:08, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Be bold and add that to the guidelines. I agree-Urthogie 13:18, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Good enough for me. I've added it to the Albums, bands, and songs guidelines list and will start enforcing it. –BurntSky 08:23, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Although this works for an article about a musical group, this guideline does not work for articles about specific recordings (albums and songs, for example). The musicians on the recording may include not just band members but also session musicians/guest artists, etc. It would be misleading to list all these people as "Members" but it's not right to just leave them off! See Barren County (album) for an example; this includes four band members (listed first, no indications of specific songs) and three additional musicians (specific contributions indicated). Cmadler 13:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Well how about a main members section and then a seperate one for other guest personell? What would we call the latter?--Urthogie 13:57, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Another problem is that at times this line (between band members and guest contributors) is blurred. For example, someone may be a regular contributor on a band's recordings but not play with them on tours. It might be better to simply list all musicians credited, indicating specific tracks where appropriate. The section might be called "Musicians" rather than "Members"; this still avoids the problem BurntSky mentioned about calling it "Personnel". Cmadler 14:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think we should do that. Memebers should be differentiated, and so should common guests in their own way.--Urthogie 15:48, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I certainly see the dilemma here, and I see a number of possible solutions. What if we keep the "Members" sections for articles about bands/groups, but turn the section into "Musicians" for articles about albums and songs. Then, under the "Musicians" section, if necessary, we can include two subsections "Members" and "Guests"; if there are no "guests" then the band's members can be listed directly under the "Musicians" title. Guest musicicans can be attributed with a certain track (or more), if appropriate. What am I overlooking yet? BurntSky 19:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
That sounds completely reasonable. Perhaps it might be simpler yet to just have a Musicians section on albums, and put members in bold. If you're content with my suggestions I'd completely support your updating of the guidelines. Thanks for discussing, excellent job!--Urthogie 22:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not so sure I like the idea of putting members in bold. It's not entirely obvious to the reader, unless they're already familiar with the guidelines, and I just doubt that article authors will do it consistently. I'd still like to hear Cmadler's thoughts, since he/she had the first objections, and, of course, thoughts from everyone else before I update the guidelines again. BurntSky 00:57, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I do prefer that articles about recordings call the section "Musicians." Beyond that, the policy has to allow for situations in which it is unclear whether someone is a band member or a guest (which I mentioned above). Examples of such a difficulty: Nickel Creek (although Mark Schatz has played on the last two albums and currently tours with the band, many people do not consider him a member), "solo albums" such as those by Earl Scruggs (which are not actually solos at all, but create an entire band from "guest artists"), albums from multiple musicians/bands (such as O Brother, Where Art Thou? (soundtrack)). These are just a few examples which come quickly to my mind, there are many more. In all of these cases it is difficult, impossible, or meaningless to divide the musicians into "members" and "guests". Cmadler 11:26, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
OK. I'm fine with either bolding it or not addressing it. It's not a good idea to have seperate sections tho.--Urthogie 11:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not just suggest that subdivisions are optional for long lists, if there's a logical way to divide the musicians, and not specify what those subdivisions should be called? In some cases they might be divided by time period, or album, or by tour vs. studio, in addition to the "guests". We have to trust editors to use common sense. Forget the bolding, though, since it's not Wikipedia standard to use bolding for such things, and most readers wouldn't understand what it meant. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the common sense approach. The Style Guide could specify that editors should not use "Personnel" for the reasons given above by BurntSky, and suggest "Musicians" or "Members" as appropriate. Cmadler 17:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with "Musicians", although it suffers from the problem that very few pages use it now. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:40, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I've thought about it more and I oppose musicians. Excludes rappers, singers, no?--Urthogie 19:45, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
No, I don't think it excludes anyone; would you not consider rappers and singers to be musicians? Is a song sung acapella not considered music?
Perhaps we're trying to be too specific here. Cmadler brings up some good points concerning soundtracks and albums composed of various artists. The specificity required to cover all situations may be beyond the scope of this medium. So, either we try to generalize the guidelines a bit so it can encompass all situations, or we explicitly specify rules for every possible situation, or we say the guidelines apply only to bands/groups/albums/songs of a particular nature (consequently excluding soundtracks, etc.) Or, I suppose, we could just ditch the whole thing and leave it up to the authors. I'm running out of ideas. BurntSky 20:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
How about we give a choice between musicians and members then, and let the authors have some discretion, but still be within reasonable bounds? That way, I could use members on rap groups, and people could use musicians on rock bands.--Urthogie 10:38, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I have no problem with leaving things to editorial discretion, although like BurntSky, I would call rappers musicians also. (Otherwise, are we saying that rap isn't music? In which case it wouldn't be covered by this WikiProject and this style guide!) Cmadler 12:34, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Rapping is musical but it seems to me like musician suggests that they play an instrument outside of their own body.--Urthogie 13:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I have never heard it suggested before that singers are not musicians. Are Luciano Pavarotti and Maria Callas not musicians? Also, there are two possibilities. 1) Rap (and other vocalizations) are music, in which case rappers and singers are musicians. 2) Rap (and other vocalizations) are not music, in which case they are not covered by this wikiproject and the style guide doesn't apply. Either way, it seems to me that people covered by this WikiProject are musicians. Cmadler 00:33, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
All I'm saying is that, from personal experience, calling a rapper a musician is considered awkward in the hip-hop community. And our naming guidelines should mainly consider what people call themselves.--Urthogie 07:53, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't really want to get into a heated debate about this, but I still disagree. Regardless of what they call themselves, I still believe they should be considered musicians. If we can agree that hip-hop is a genre of music, then, consequently, we agree that hip-hop is considered music, and it would follow that the persons responsible for creating this music are musicians. They can call themselves whatever they want, but they're still responsible for creating music.
At any rate, we're not making any progress here. Can we at least agree that the section should be titled "Musicians" and then leave everything else up to the author's discretion? At least until someone can come up with a reasonable proposal. BurntSky 23:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Improvement drive

Two related topics, Percussion instrument and Rhythm and blues have been nominated to be improved on WP:IDRIVE. Come and support the nomination there or comment on it.--Fenice 07:30, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Proposal for Possible jazz project

The standard of a lot of jazz articles on Wikipedia is shoddy. There are certain musicians (such as Lucky Thompson) who have next-to-nothing wrote about them. However, I have been impressed by the standard of certain articles, which convinces me that there are others besides myself working hard to improve the information we have on this vital art form. Thus, I propose a wikiproject for jazz, with 10 active people at the minimum required. Since other genres such as classical have a project page for co-ordinating efforts, I think jazz could do with one, due the large amount of work to be done. Respond either here or on my talk page. (This includes all forms of jazz, dixieland, swing, fusion, bop etc.)--Knucmo2 19:28, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

MusicBrainz Templates

I've made {{musicbrainz album}} and {{musicbrainz artist}} for simple linking to the MusicBrainz database.

Please tell me what you think. ~ Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 10:18, 2005 August 14 (UTC)

I've also added the wikilink to the meta:interwiki map to link to the MusicBrainz wiki, but I don't know when the sysadmin will get around to adding it to the actual map.

"MusicBrainz http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/$1"

Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 22:02, 2005 August 15 (UTC)

There are also now {{musicbrainz track}} and {{musicbrainz wiki}}.

~ Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 22:52, 2005 August 16 (UTC)

Template syntax change: name is now the other parameter in the album, artist and track templates. I'm updating the pages that use them. ~ Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 00:11, 2005 August 17 (UTC)

That updating is done. I finished it yesterday. ~ Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 10:12, 2005 August 18 (UTC)

The interwiki map has been updated, so now MusicBrainz:CyberSkull will work just fine. ~ Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 04:14, 2005 August 21 (UTC)

Greatest hits

According to the first rule of this page, "Unless there's extenuating circumstances, greatest hits and compilation albums don't need an article." This hasn't really been followed since I put it there a very long time ago, and it irks me because I don't really see how your average greatest hits album could ever be much more than a track listing and a few other details -- I'd rather combine all the greatest hits albums by artist into a single article. Thoughts? Tuf-Kat 04:38, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

That seems ... drastic. I see a process of creating a template and marking each one (robotically?) for N weeks before any deletions. I do agree with you they're generally unnecessary, but there's quite a few editors who never ever come by the Wikipedia: pages. --Dhartung | Talk 07:00, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
It is drastic, but if there's consensus to start doing it that way, it will slowly spread. I wouldn't mind doing some of the grunt work, but I'd like to have some agreement beforehand. And there's no need to delete anything, as greatest hits titles should redirect appropriately -- leaving a few notes on talk pages isn't so hard. Tuf-Kat 17:56, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
The only reason I've ever created articles for greatest hits or compilation sets is (a) to complete the navigation for an act's albums, as was done for Boyz II Men), (b) if the compilation is very important or well known (like a comprehensive box set for a group), or (c) if the group released a single from the greatest hits album (see The Temptations' Greatest Hits & Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, and Big Boi and Dre Present...OutKast). That being said, I'm sure I've created articles for several of them that could be deleted. I won't miss Jackson 5: The Ultimate Collection or similar articles if they're deleted, but the issue does bring up a question: Should greatest hits albums be included in the album navagation (the little "last album, this album, next album" thing), or should this be reserved only for studio LPs? Also, as far as greatest hits albums containing a lack of information, there are several things that can be picked up on a number of them (for example, all of Michael Jackson's Epic greatest hits albums, for example, have some sort of notoriety surrounding them, and Sly & the Family Stone's Greatest Hits is considered one of their most notable albums). But your proposal to combine all the artists' greatest hits articles into one article...hmm, that's not a bad idea; I guess the article would be using several different infoboxes. TUF-KAT, can you take one of the artists I've mentioned and format one in that way as sort of a example? --FuriousFreddy 18:24, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Some other, unrelated quesstions I have:

  1. (I should probably post this one at Wikipedia: WikiProject Albums, but I'll ask here too): what do we do with infobox colors for Christmas albums? They're never considered official studio rleeases, so I've been filing them as "covers and tribute albums" with the plum infobox color coding. Is this correct?
  2. How much information is too much information, when it comes to album/single sales and chart positions? Several articles (50 Cent comes immediately to mind) are cluttered with cumbersome chart positions and sales records, and then there's the case of all of the Mariah Carey articles, which are special cases in themselves. On the artists' actual article, how much detail should we go into when reporting sales records and chart positions? One user has started adding tables to each article, and I followed suit, buit do we really need all of that information?
  3. Can we make it policy for people not to bold #1 when writing out discographies?
  4. Where can I find international chart position information to include in articles that I write (UK charts, Austrailian charts, etc?)
you could try this link [1] which is Australian based. I'd love to find something comprehensive but this at least is very accurate and up to date with Australian number ones (plus US, UK and other info). As for UK chart info, I don't know of any site that's really comprehensive for the UK. I refer to my The Complete Book of British Charts Singles and Albums. It's a stop-gap solution but if ever you want to know any UK info, just leave a message for me and I'll check it. Rossrs 13:12, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
  1. Does anyone want t help me fix up and split apart List of number-one R&B hits (United States)?
  2. What is the cutoff for writing song articles? I've arbitrarily set my limit at where if my article is only going to be a report of what the song itself is about, who made it, and how well it did, I won't write the article (there's no point)? But we've got articles (long articles turning up about singles that weren't even actually released (again, see Mariah Carey). What do we make of this?
  3. Finally, do we really need seperate, long articles for cover versions of songs popularized by other artists? --FuriousFreddy 18:24, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
We don't need separate articles for covers, except in a few extreme cases (maybe). On fancrufty articles about crappy pop singles (or not singles), I don't mind having them too much, as long as the info is factual, verifiable and not too mind-bogglingly trivial. On discography formatting, we ought to have a basic template on this page (or a subpage), and then you could revert people who bold #1 and point theme here for guidance. On chart info, we ought to keep as much of it as possible, though it could be moved to 50 Cent chart positions or something. No idea on Christmas albums (we could always just change plum to "Other (covers, tributes, Christmas, etc.)"). I'll come up with a greatest hits page as soon as I get the chance. Tuf-Kat 20:54, August 30, 2005 (UTC)
I think that any official, widely available (not only in some shop chain in the full moon) greatest hits collection by a notable band is notable, unless proven otherwise. Greatest hits albums often belong to artists' biggest selling albums. One reason for unnotability could be that a band has released dozens of overlapping collections, but not all bands are such. -Hapsiainen 16:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Having sales that eclipse their studio albums might be one of the "extenuating circumstances" mentioned at the beginning of the rule, Hap. The Eagles' Greatest Hits, for example, is currently the best-selling album of all time in the USA. But most greatest-hits albums are pretty non-notable, IMO. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:03, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Proper capitalization of titles

See album rule #10, titling.

Isn't the last word of a title generally capitalized, too? Reference. mxdxcxnx T C 23:46, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Unknown music genre

Please see my question at Portal talk:Music#Unknown music genre. mikka (t) 20:27, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Classical works infobox

I've created a new infobox to detail information on classical works in a similiar manner to the infobox for music albums. An example can be seen at Piano Concerto No. 3 (Rachmaninoff). I would welcome any comments at Template talk:Classical work infobox. Cheers! TreveXtalk 00:17, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

ONE article per composition.

This needs to be established as set policy, because the seperations of articles covered by different people is ridiculous. It makes the encyclopedia cumbersome to read if a user has to click multiple articles to read about one song. Many of the splits border on the arbitrary, and without consistency, the Wikipedia is going to continue to look lobsioded and non-credible in the eyes of much of the public.

Articles on songs should not even be that big of a deal, or large to the point where a split is neccessitated. Or shall we simply sit and wait for someone to make articles for every major version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" before this issue is handled? --FuriousFreddy 05:00, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

This is already policy for all of WP. Why not just merge the articles or put a {{merge}} tag on? Or list them at Wikipedia:Duplicate articles?
Or maybe I don't understand. Can you give more examples? Are you saying there are duplicate articles for the Star-Spangled Banner? —Wahoofive (talk) 16:59, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
There's seperate articles on "I'll Be There", "I Will Always Love You", "Lady Marmalade", and generally anything else that Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston ever recorded. There is also something of an issue as far as "how much information is too much information?" The plethora of chart positions, and detailed analyses of chart performance, could be seen as padding. I've already tried VfD once, and so has someone else, the decisions end in deadlock because there's a literal gang of editors who work on them. --FuriousFreddy 03:35, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I admit I don't get it either. The solution is to merge when appropriate, though in rare cases individual compositions certainly deserve separate articles -- taking your anthem example, there's God Save the Queen, My Country, 'Tis of Thee, and Kongesangen. Not to mention To Anacreon in Heaven. Those are all obvious separate articles, not merge/redirects. If you're talking about situations where there's information in both a specific song article and its album/composer's article, those are obvious candidates for merging details to the appropriate level. --Dhartung | Talk 18:08, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
But, although they use the same melody, those three anthems are seperate compositons because they have seperate lyrics. Sort of like "Super Freak" and "U Can't Touch This" (half joke). --FuriousFreddy 03:35, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I believe he's referring to separate stub articles on different cover versions of the same song. For (a fictional) example, having a very nice article on Bob Dylan's eminently notable "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and a separate article on the Red Hot Chili Peppers cover which often consists entirely of "is a cover of a Bob Dylan song" and maybe a date and album name. I don't think he's suggesting that in all cases, all songs have to be merged, but that the standard should be assumed to be a single article per composition. Under unusual circumstances, such as if the article grows very long or unbalanced, then it may be appropriate to split by versions. Tuf-Kat 18:45, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't want a fictional example. If there aren't any real examples, it's a non-problem.—Wahoofive (talk) 20:42, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Real example: "Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To?)" points to a disambiguation page. Apparently, Mariah Carey recorded a version which was almost a single. Real example #2: "I'll Be There", which somehow had an entirely seperate article written for Carey's 1992 cover. --FuriousFreddy 03:35, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh my God. There really are seperate articles on "The Star-Spangled Banner". Enough is enough. --FuriousFreddy 02:11, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I have to disagree with this. Freddy, you seem to be going a bit overboard here. OmegaWikipedia 03:06, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Freddy. I think the article should be about the song not about the single. What happens if we ever decided to create articles for the 700 different versions of The Beatles's "Yesterday". ;-) Rossrs 13:25, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Likewise. The policy should be just like everywhere else on WP: it's all in the same article until it gets too long. —Wahoofive (talk) 15:15, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Esoteric discography formatting

See The White Stripes#Discography for an example. I'd like input; is there any consensus on this sort of thing? --Dhartung | Talk 10:01, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

One thing is certain: you sho'l don't do it like that. The standard format is to use either a list or a table. No pictures, and just the year for the main article. --FuriousFreddy 03:36, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
User:Xinger has, shall we say, decided otherwise. --Dhartung | Talk 18:25, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
That is not his right. We need consistency for the encyclopedia. In addition, using the pictures in a table like that gives an appearance of "fannishness". --FuriousFreddy 21:38, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Better wiki markup to display media files needed

Currently the ways of playing media are, quite frankly, rubbish. See http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3574 (ignore the silly ideas I came up with first, I am convinced this one will work). It is for a box like an image thumbnail but with buttons for information about the media, playing the media, and a caption. If you like it, vote for it! Dunc|☺ 11:53, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Example

Info
Play
help
Info Play help!!!
This is my idea for how a play box should work and what it should look like.
Info Play help!!!
This one is similar but without the text. Which is better?

There is a current problem with playing sounds. I have therefore devised a playbox which is here on the right. If it looks like an image box, that's because basically it is. It's not that pretty at the moment, but that can be easily fixed.

There are three columns each with a link and a button (which we'll have to get these made to look pretty but these placeholders are okay for the moment):

  1. Indicates whether it is a sound file or a video file, e.g. be a copy of http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/icons/fileicon-ogg.png for ogg file. Clicking the link or icon takes you through to the image description page and more data about the file.
  2. Clicking on the second play icon plays/downloads the file.
  3. For help because these files are quite complicated.

The caption goes beneath the box, as with pictures.

There are also a few formatting issues that needs to be sorted out as all of it ought to be blue and there are white lines where the table is. I'm also not sure that the text and the icons are required, maybe just the icons with alt text would suffice.

Still, neat, eh?

Comments

Please comment here. If you like it vote for it and it'll get noticed. Please say whether you prefer the version with or without the text. I think I'm inclining towards the one without the text. Dunc|☺ 11:53, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not convinced by your exact examples, but I agree that an iconic display would be preferable to the current method. The triangle "play" button, to me, doesn't fit because it suggests there's a corresponding "stop" or "pause" button, which there can't be. Maybe a speaker icon would be better. Also, I think I know what the distinction is between "help" and "info", but it isn't intuitively obvious. The three buttons need not be in a line. The text is essential. Anyway, please allow this to be discussed before encouraging a vote.
Many sound files will need extensive captions; don't make the box so small that long captions will become long, vertical, and hard to read. What kinds of pages were you expecting these files to go on? It's not like you're going to view a page about a song and be able to play the song. Linguistics pages have examples of different pronunciations. Pages like Johann Sebastian Bach have long lists of examples; I'm not sure how your graphical representiation would be expected to work with that. —Wahoofive (talk) 20:39, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I like the general idea, though I think it could use a little more refining. All three icons should be the same size. I'm also not sold on the "info" button; the function should be more obvious and the icon should be more representative of that function. When I see a button marked "info" I expect that it will be info about what I am listening to, not the upload history of the file, etc. But this info would really already be part of the article, or a caption on the playbox. In the version with text, "Help" should be capitalized like the other two. Given these changes, I would prefer the playbox with text. It could be further improved by reducing the size of all the icons to be only slightly wider than the labels, and reducing the whitespace around the labels. Cmadler 12:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Classical music

At the moment Classical music is a disambiguation page. It makes sense to me that since "Classical music" almost always refers to European classical music that it should redirect there. Discussion about this going on at Talk:Classical music. --Commander Keane 10:29, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation of music groups

Should all bands, music groups, collaborations, and projects use the suffix "(band)" when disambiguation is needed, or should they use different ones? I've noticed that some use "(musical project)". Is there a standard list from which to choose from? —Brim 00:28, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Good question. I noticed that one time when trying to link to Enigma (musical project), I instead got to Enigma (band) (whom I have never heard of), so that was to disambig between the two, I suppose. Are their instances where (musical project) is used when there is no "band" article? On a related note, I see that we use Prince (artist), but Madonna (entertainer), which I find questionable. Jkelly 00:46, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Unless there is a very good reason not to, I always use "band" and "musician". Note also Arrested Development (hip hop group). Tuf-Kat 02:19, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
"Band" never seems proper to use for most vocal groups (for example, I've never heard Jagged Edge called a "band"), or for music groups which do not play instruments.--FuriousFreddy 00:27, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Charts tables

There are two major (and one minor) disagreements over the formatting of tables used in articles on singles and albums. The issue seems to be nowhere near resolution, so I've created Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Tables for charts as a forum for discussion of the issues in the hope that consensus might be gained. It includes an example of the issues involved (in the form of a set of tables as one group of editors wants them, divided into sets of charts, and with a column for the title, and the same set as another group wants them, unified, with no title column). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:01, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Notify Billboard?

Should someone email Billboard if it's legal to use their chart data in Wikipedia articles?

Template:Infobox band

There is some less-than-ideal disagreement at Template:Infobox band and Template talk:Infobox band. I'd like to encourage people involved in the Music project to take a look. It is impacting the featured article candidacy of the lostprophets as an editor is objecting partly on the grounds that this template needs to be used. It would be good to clear the matter up before the FAC ends. Jkelly 18:45, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Features Articles

I think there should be a short list of music articles, probably ones that have reached FA status, that we can point people to as ideal. I would like to see a couple of Australian musician articles reach FA status and it would provide useful direction. Even just for the people who are reading this - when you're writing an article, is there another one you keep in mind as what you're aiming for? Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Madonna? Also, some here may be interested in the related Wikipedia:WikiProject Sound. pfctdayelise 12:49, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

MoS entry?

I think it would be great if all the guidelines here were written up for a specialist WP:MOS page. Thoughts? pfctdayelise 11:14, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music) —Wahoofive (talk) 16:05, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Ah, I didn't see that. Shouldn't it be listed in the template on the side? Also it's not exactly the same info as this page... maybe I mean MOS (band)? pfctdayelise 01:09, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
The MOS needs work before it's ready to be included with the other MOSs, but it would be better to start with what's there rather than starting from scratch. —Wahoofive (talk) 04:25, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
The MoS (music) is fine, but it only applies to classical music articles. The bigger issue appears to be articles on popular music, which are often of low quality. I propose we expand this one to cover both types of music. --FuriousFreddy 00:45, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Band templates

I'd like to propose that we set a specific, streamlined design for all band templates (such as Template:The Beatles), to reduce their bulk and size. I've redesigned the one for Michael Jackson at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Michael_Jackson&oldid=28145160; I think this would be a good standard for incorporating band templates for all popular music articles, and also to keep people from designing gargantuan templates that takeover pages (something I'm guilty of, and have since repented against). --FuriousFreddy 00:48, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

We need a WikiProject Musical goups. Your revision is certainly tidier, and avoids editor decision-making about which singles to list and which to not. Template:Madonna has a "Greatest Hits" list that seems arbitrary to me. Jkelly 01:06, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
My two-man Wikipedia:WikiProject R&B and Soul Music has some guidelines about article-writing. Perhaps, we can take it and revise/expand it into a WikiProject Musical Acts (not just groups, so that we can get solo artists in on it as well) for all genres of music. --FuriousFreddy 18:27, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Any consensus on categories?

Currently WP:ALBUM#Categories suggests that you should place albums by Fooband into Category: Fooband albums, and likewise Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs#Categories suggests using Category: Fooband singles. But nowhere is there a guideline about whether or not you should then have a parent category Fooband. Is there a guideline about this I have missed? It's implemented haphazardly, so we have Category:Kylie Minogue, Category:Slayer, Category:Avril Lavigne but no Category:Sarah McLachlan, Category:Bananarama or Category:Ben Folds (or Category:Ben Folds Five).

So, I hope to gather consensus so we can implement a guideline on this WikiProject. Given that Category:Fooband albums and Category:Fooband singles exist, Category:Fooband, yay or nay?

--pfctdayelise 02:00, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make more sense to have Category:Fooband recordings rather than separate out singles from albums? Undoubtedly we have a lot of Category:Fooband songs categories. I vote that the name of the category should express what's being categorized, so Category:Fooband should be discouraged. There's no need for a "parent category": most people will easily find all such categories linked from the main Fooband article. 68.164.88.82 04:32, 14 November 2005 (UTC) (sorry, that was me —Wahoofive (talk))
I think I agree with 68. Combine songs and albums to Fooband recordings, and there's no need for a Fooband category in most cases. I'm certain Category:The Beatles is useful, and there are probably a couple more bands that could use it, but most probably have no need for such a category. Tuf-Kat 05:10, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
I like that idea, but that's not what the current guidelines are. pfctdayelise 09:33, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I've always used a category for the group itself to bring the sub-cats for the albums, singles, and songs together in one place easily accessible from the main article. For example, we have Category:The Miracles, which is linked to The Miracles' main page. Inside Category:The Miracles, we have Category:Miracles members, Category:The Miracles songs, and Category:The Miracles albums. This way, I only have to place the main article as the top article in one category instead of three. --FuriousFreddy 02:25, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Music-related AfDs

Is this page Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Music still active? The last new one was Aug 28. If it is, it should probably get a link here I think. pfctdayelise 00:09, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Electronic music WikiProject

There's a new WikiProject started for improving the Electronic music categories. If you're interested in helping, then take a look at WikiProject Electronic music. Hagbard Celine 18:28, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-Class and good B-Class articles, with no POV or copyright problems. I saw your list of 5 music FAs on the project page, this is useful. Can you suggest some A or decent B-class articles we might use? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Walkerma 06:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I believe Triple J is pretty good, not FA though. It has undergone one peer review. I don't believe it has any copyright or POV problems, main problem would be completeness. pfctdayelise 14:09, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
User:TUF-KAT has done a lot of thinking about quality music articles and has identified some that are not FAs. You may want to contact that editor directly as well. Jkelly 23:54, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the information. Other than the lack of "hard" references the Triple J article looks good to me, and at over 32 kB it should be getting complete! I have contact TUF-KAT as suggested, any list like this is a great help. If you know of any other specific quality articles you would like to see included in WP 1.0, please continue to list them here. Thanks, Walkerma 04:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Links to years without reason

I have edited point #5 under "Albums, bands, and songs" to remove the suggestion to link to the year of release (eg, Greatest Hits (1997)), as this conflicts with the Manual of Style, specifically the subpage MOS (links). I also removed these superfluous year links in the page in general. If there is anything that I have overlooked or if there are disagreements or other issues, please voice them. --Qirex 12:00, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Musical Instruments

Seems to me that there's a rather lack of standardization (and to some extent good information) on many musical instruments (especially non-Western ones). Is there some interest in a WikiProject to perhaps standardize and boost the amount of organization and information to be found in the musical instrument articles? -- Pipian 16:45, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Featured Music Project

Check out what I've come up with, and feel free to make changes/suggestions/comments at User:TUF-KAT/Featured Music Project. The goal is to identify our best articles on musicians and work towards making them featurable. Tuf-Kat 09:03, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Odd article

I've stumbled across 1990s/2000s Identity Theory. This looks pretty much like an original-research theory to me - it's certainly orphaned - does it actually exist? If not, it's probably deletable, but thought I may as well run it past someone competent first.

Thanks, Shimgray | talk | 18:04, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Listed on AfD. --FuriousFreddy 23:04, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. Might be worth glancing at the author's other contributions, in case it's part of a set. Shimgray | talk | 23:35, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Ampersands in band names

Unless you know otherwise, the word and in band names is always an ampersand (&): Is that really best? Even the cited examples don't agree. What about duos (e.g. Simon and Garfunkel) and bands named after pairs, like "Fire and Ice", as opposed to "Lead Singer & the Backups"? Andy Mabbett 21:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

In those cases I guess you "know otherwise". —Wahoofive (talk) 22:04, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
This, or something related, came up at Talk:Me First & the Gimme Gimmes. Jkelly 22:21, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
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