Template talk:Infobox Musical artist/Archive 3

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

Help me add a inter. wiki-link

I have made a similiar template for the swedish wikipedia. Could someone please help me add a inter. wiki-link to sv:Mall:Infobox musiker

Done. Xtifr tälk 07:14, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Why doesn't it include the nation in which they currently live?

Someone just added a Soviet flag to the Regina Spektor infobox, making it appear as if she is Soviet, whereas she now has U.S. citizenship. Why doesn't the infobox include the nation where the individual currently lives and/or holds citizenship? Badagnani 21:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

You can use the Origin field for where she started her musical career. –Unint 21:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

can we pleeeeese get a firm consensus on when, why, and how to use those bloody infobox flagicons? i see them used for place of birth, for nationality, for place of death, nationality at time of death, for place of interment..... either set something in stone—or in the case of wikipaedia, moist clay—or banninate the use of flags altogether.--emerson7 | Talk 21:47, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Live members

Perhaps the inclusion of another section for live members (in between the ones for the current and former members) in order to include any additional personnel performing only in a live capacity, but not as full time members? Inflammator 12:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

flagicons

can we pleeeeese get a firm consensus on when, why, and how to use those bloody infobox flagicons? i see them used for place of birth, for nationality, for place of death, nationality at time of death, for place of interment..... either set something in stone—or in the case of wikipaedia, moist clay—or banninate the use of flags altogether.--emerson7 | Talk 01:46, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Looking at all the relevant discussion, as well as the latest version of WP:FLAG, it seems that there is really no compelling support for using flag icons here. I'm putting in explcit clauses against usage for all three relevant fields in the documentation. –Unint 22:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Actually, despite all that, it is a change that would affect many articles. I've self-reverted for the time being. –Unint 23:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

i don't see what the harm is in including the flags. the only thing that comes to mind is that if the city/state/country of an artists takes up just under one line of text, then the flag would bump it over to 2 lines of text. granted, this can be annoying, but it's just a tiny image. as –Unint says, there are already so many articles that incorporate flag-use; might as well just incorporate it into the boxes. another point is that popular music is very country-specific. articles such as British rock go to demonstrate this. having a flag, in my opinion, not only serves a purpose of identifing the origin of the artist, but also, placing the artist into a geographical-sub-genre of music. –mass147 02:45, 09 June 2007 (UTC)

At this point, we're neither endorsing nor opposing flagicons. There are lots of articles with flags and lots without. It's a matter of editorial discretion, as the saying goes. Personally, I'm dubious about the proposition that music is generally as country-specific as you suggest. Sometimes, yes, but often not. (British rock is a particularly bad example, IMO, given the huge number of British rockers that have been sued for plagiarism by older Black American musicians.) Anyway, the country should clearly be listed in the origin field, which serves the purpose of identifying the geographical origin and influences just fine. The flag is totally redundant—it adds no extra information whatsoever. But it's harmless. My policy is not to add or remove it from existing infoboxes, and only to add it to new infoboxes when I think it looks right. Xtifr tälk 10:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I support Unint's original statement banning flags, per WP:FLAG. The fact that this would affect many articles is no reason not to do this, IMO. Either way, I think it would be better to have a guideline on this than not having one. --PEJL 10:21, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

So, what's the policy on flag icons in the origin part (for bands)? I think those icons work well, they make identification faster and improve the "quick overview" quality of an infobox. I have found a user who massively deletes origin flags from band infoboxes referring to WP:MOSFLAG/WP:FLAGCRUFT (both have no information on band origin). Is that the right thing to do? Kameejl (Talk) 09:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

The existing guideline at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (flags)#Not for use in locations of birth and death is pretty clear about discouraging the use of flags in the birth and death fields. I think the arguments presented there are can also be made against using flags in the origin field—flags imply and emphasize citizenship and/or nationality. Strobilus (talk) 10:54, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
A band's "nationality" is defined by its origin. Unlike bands, people (solo artists etc.) can have an other nationality than the nationality of the country where they died/were born. It's wrong to emphasize people's death/birth place as it is not their nationality per se. Bands are different. Emphasizing a band's origin (using a flag) is improving the quick overview quality of a band infobox (As their origin is their nationality). The arguments in WP:MOSFLAG can't be applied to band origin. Kameejl (Talk) 12:54, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd say that emphasizing the nationality of a band implies nationality or citizenship of individual members of the group as well. Strobilus (talk) 14:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Origin is just like the headquarters of the company infobox, it does not imply nationality, it implies origin. People have a nationality, things don't. I've continued the discussion here. Kameejl (Talk) 11:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Legal name

I'm trying to fix up the Keiko Fuji page, and wanted to list her legal name (her current legal name) and birth name (with maiden family name) separately, but see that this is currently unavailable in the template. Why don't we add a legal name item? mitcho/芳貴 06:20, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

That sort of thing standardly goes in the Alias field. Details (such as that one is a legal name or maiden name) are better in the body of the article. Xtifr tälk 22:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Management field

Why dont we add a "management field" to the infobox. e.g. 50 Cent's would be Violator Management --Peterm1991 16:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that level of detail is really necessary or appropriate for the infobox, though I don't feel strongly about the matter one way or the other Xtifr tälk 22:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Background colour help

What background colour would a DJ be.--Peterm1991 13:13, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Non performing personnel would be the best fit.--NeilEvans 20:00, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Microformat

I recently marked up this template with hCard microformat classes, but I'm not very happy with the results, because its; not easily possible to determine whether the template is being used for person or a group. In the former case, the name should be wrapped with HTML class="fn" (as happens now), but in the case of a group, the wrapper should use classes "fn org". Any suggestions as to how this might be achieved? Andy Mabbett 20:29, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Please replace
<big class="fn">{{{Name}}}</big>
with
<big class="{{Template:Infobox musical artist/hCard Class|{{{Background|}}} }}">{{{Name}}}</big>

as kindly suggested on my talk page, by Soumyasch.

Andy Mabbett
Y Done. Note that it may take some time for existing transclusions to be updated. --ais523 08:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. It seems to be working for both solo artists and groups. Andy Mabbett 09:35, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Genres

Should genres be separated by commas or by a line break? I think it would be he helpful to have it added to the template. For example, labels are "The record label or labels to which the act has been signed, as a comma-separated list." No such sugestion exists for genre and I've seen it done both ways. The-bus 20:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

This topic needs to be discussed. Several editors have been going through and attempting to "standardize" infoboxes based on the examples given in the template, but without true consensus to do so.
Personally, I'm strongly in favor of break-delimited lists in the infobox. They're significantly cleaner and prevent unwelcome line breaks (eg, in the middle of a genre name). Scroll down to the included Beatles template and compare the readability of Labels versus Associated Acts.
However, my true preference is to let editors make the call themselves than try to foist a decision on them. -- ChrisB 17:30, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
A line break between genres makes the page look a lot nicer.--E tac 22:59, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree. There is a discussion on this, please see Template_talk:Infobox_Musical_artist#Standardizing_genre_delimiters Kameejl (Talk) 14:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Composers

This infobox has been added to many "classical" composers' pages. I just wanted people here to know that there has been a consensus at Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers that infoboxes are not a net-positive for these articles, and so they should not be considered a standard part of these articles. Just wanted to let you guys know so no one gets bitten while trying to add infoboxes! :) Thanks, Mak (talk) 22:21, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I see no such consensus on that project's talk page; only on-going debate. AIUI, there's a wider biography-project consensus that infoboxes should be used. As I said in that debate, what is need is not the removal of infoboxes, but changing the existing infobox to make it more suitable - or, if that's not possible, and new, "composers" infobox. Andy Mabbett 08:50, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
A consensus was reached on April 12/13 in which all the regular Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers editors participated. --Kleinzach 14:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Those editors do not own the articles concerned. Debate is continuing; ergo no consensus has been reached. Andy Mabbett 16:33, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure why this infobox was deemed appropriate for composers to begin with; the fields needed for popular musicians are clearly at cross purposes with those needed for composers. Also, the background colour documentation clearly only covers "non-classical composers". –Unint 16:45, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
Read the discussion fully and I think you'll find a reasonable consensus. This is not a policy matter. Moreschi Talk 15:58, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Opera

Further to the note above from the Composers Project, there is also a consensus at Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera that these boxes are not being used on opera articles. Thank you for your cooperation. --Kleinzach 11:18, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I again see no consensus there; just a draft statement from you, posted after the above comment, with which one other editor has agreed. Andy Mabbett 16:37, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
If you look again at the various discussions on both the Composers and Opera Projects talk pages you will see that members of the Opera Project have been unanimous in deploring the use of biographical infoboxes. --Kleinzach 00:23, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Yep. Only Linishu has offered halfhearted support for them. --Folantin 10:16, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Accounting for px at the end of Img_size's value

Please change line 6 from

  |<tr style="text-align: center;"><td colspan="3">[[Image:{{{Img}}}|{{#ifeq:{{lc:{{{Landscape|}}}}}|yes|{{min|300|{{{Img_size|}}}}}x200|{{min|220|{{{Img_size|}}}}}}}px|{{{Img_capt|}}}]]

to

|<tr style="text-align: center;"><td colspan="3">[[Image:{{{Img}}}|{{#ifeq:{{lc:{{{Landscape|}}}}}|yes|{{min|300|{{{Img_size|}}}}}x200px|{{#ifexpr:{{strlen|{{{Img_size}}}}}>3|{{{Img_size}}}|{{min|220|{{{Img_size|}}}}}px}}}}|{{{Img_capt|}}}]]

This solves the problem discussed at WP:VPT that setting Img_size = 150px with that "px" at the end causes the image to be linked instead of shown. –Pomte 17:58, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

This looks like it will badly break things if the Landscape option is used, and will allow overriding the standard maximum sizes by the simple expedient of adding "px" to the end of the size, which is highly undesirable! Xtifr tälk 00:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
The landscape option doesn't break because it remains the same as before. I agree though about increasing the size being undesirable, so I've withdrawn the edit request. But we still need to fix all the "px" uses. If someone wants to do it with AWB or something, that'd be great. A way to do it manually is to add a dummy category Category:Musical artist articles needing maintenance when the length of Img_size is greater than 3. The latter method would require an edit to the template. –Pomte 03:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
I changed the template so that it checks if {{{Img_size}}} is a number; if not (such as if it ends with px) it is replaced by 300.--Patrick 07:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
That's not quite right either, as it should only be 300 if the landscape option is set; otherwise it should be 220. But aside from that detail, this sounds like a good approach. Xtifr tälk 08:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
It is changed to 300 before applying min, so it becomes 220 anyway.--Patrick 09:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh, ok, cool. I didn't look closely enough, sorry. Xtifr tälk 10:32, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

French interwiki link

Could someone add an interwiki link to the French template (fr:Modèle:Infobox Artiste musical), please? Thanks. 131.111.100.155 16:33, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The interwiki links go on the documentation page, which isn't protected, so you don't need an admin (or even an account) for this. Done. Xtifr tälk 20:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Awards

How about adding Grammy awards just as actors have Academy Awards in their infobox? MrBlondNYC 07:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I second that proposal Remosito (talk) 16:33, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Voice type parameter

I added a "voice type" parameter to use for singers because it's a little bit unwieldy to use the "instrument" parameter, and it seems far more logical when the box already says someone is a singer to simply speak about their voice type. The parameter links to voice type which looks to be a pretty useful list. --bainer (talk) 02:41, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if that is such a good idea. I can think of a million ways on how that parameter will be misused. It's supposed to be used to classify opera or classical singers, but sooner or later people are going to start using that parameter to classify singers as:
death growl, scat, rapping, screaming, or clean vocals.
I know for a fact that your intention was for the parameter to be used for opera and classical singers since you linked the parameter to voice type, which only talks about opera and classical singers. So something in the template is going to have to be changed to either accomodate those singing styles I mentioned or to exclude them all together. Please discuss. --Leon Sword 05:07, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Suggestion: The Voice type parameter is useful for both Classical musicians and Producers needing a certain note spread for a song track. Recommend repositioning this parameter immediately before the Instrument parameter in the Template code, since Singer-instrumentalists are quite common in popular music. Taking an example from Nightwish (courtesy WikiProject Finland), former lead vocalist Tarja Turunen is a Dramatic soprano (no Instruments) and current member Marco Hietala a Kavalierbariton who simultaneously plays Bass guitar. - B.C.Schmerker 15:00, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Note spread refers to Vocal range, not classical or operatic Voice type. Giving their SATB voice part is fine (i.e. Occupation = Singer (soprano)), but the voice type terminology refers specifically to operatic voices, as noted above.
Since the opera and classical projects are not using these boxes, I'd recommend this field be removed, because it'll just lead to a lot of original research. -- Operalala(talk) 16:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

New Field Proposal

Upon reading the feedback from discussions with WikiProject Guitarists, I propose, as a fallback from an experimental Infobox I have in alpha, the addition of an Audio_sample field in its own sub-box (as is currently done with Notable instrument(s), Current Members (band or group) and Former Members (band or group)). An audio sample datum is provided for in Template:Infobox Guitarist and would be a useful addition to Template:Infobox musical artist. I am developing the alpha Infobox to study whether the data currently in Template:Infobox musical artist will still be readable at a reduced scale consistent with Template:Infobox Guitarist. - B.C.Schmerker 05:50, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I oppose the idea. I opposed adding it to the guitarist infobox, and I opposed adding it to this one, even though I was basically leading the effort to keep the infoboxes in sync at the time, and I still oppose it. We have much better way of presenting audio samples; putting one in the infobox is simply a bad idea. Xtifr tälk 08:23, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Noted. What Templates are currently designed for calling up audio samples at this time? (I am relatively new to this datum class.)- B.C.Schmerker 06:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Corrections

{{editprotected}} add if expr. for pages without images eg. Will Champion —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kandy Talbot (talk • contribs) 07:11, May 24, 2007.

It is already, just you have to make sure there is no spaces or anything after the = sign. In the Will Champion example, I removed the space and the field disappeared. SeveroTC 10:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I've disabled the editprotected request. The issue seems to be resolved. Cheers. --MZMcBride 21:16, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Defunct musical groups

There is a continuous debate about the infobox for The Beatles. The infobox shown here at this writing is the current consensus:

The Beatles
Image:Beatles retouched.jpg
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr (front, left to right) in 1964.
Background information
Origin Liverpool, England
Genre(s) Rock/Pop[1]
Years active 1960 – 1970
Label(s) Parlophone Records
Capitol Records
Apple Records
Vee-Jay Records
Polydor Records
Swan Records
Tollie Records
Associated acts Tony Sheridan, The Quarrymen, The Plastic Ono Band, The Dirty Mac, Wings, Traveling Wilburys, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Ringo Starr All-Starr Band
Website Beatles.com
Members
John Lennon (1960-1970)
Paul McCartney (1960-1970)
George Harrison (1960-1970)
Ringo Starr (1962-1970)
Former members
Stuart Sutcliffe (1960-1961)
Pete Best (1960-1962)

Even though the group disbanded in 1970, it is OK to list the familiar group lineup from 1962-1970 because it's publicly listed as 'members' even though the template reads 'current members'. The years that each member was a Beatle is next to their names, even though Lennon, McCartney and Harrison were members during the group's entire existence to avoid confusion. The 'former members', Sutcliffe and Best, left before the group became world famous. Is this good enough or should the infobox template be modified further to deal with defunct groups? Steelbeard1 23:18, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

This has been discussed before at some length. For defunct bands, it's generally considered acceptable to list the members at the time of dissolution as "members", which is what's been done in the case of The Beatles. It's also considered acceptable to list all members as "former members". The choice is a matter of editorial discretion. Listing only the most famous lineup as "members" is more controversial, but fortunately, that's not what's been done with The Beatles (even if it might appear that way). The idea of adding extra fields has been tabled until we find cases where they're actually needed and justified. Xtifr tälk 08:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
My reading of Template:Infobox musical artist#Fields is that years should not be included for Current_members or Past_members. Is that not a rule that needs to be followed? --PEJL 09:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
The problem wit hthis template is that no one is following the rules as it is. Years were to be left out of the infobox for the sake of legibility (overstuffed infoboxes are not aesthetically pleasing). It looks fine here, because the Beatles only had six members total, but imagine the clutter if there had been twenty-six. A more detailed listing of the various versions of a group, with full year by year annotations, asterisked members, and other notations - can and should be included at the bottom of an article, or, when you're dealing with a revolving door like The Temptations, in a separate article Temptations personnel. --FuriousFreddy 00:12, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
The template text should be altered to reflect this allowance. I've had several editors wander through articles and move all of the members of the band to "past members" under the belief that the wording of the template is law. My suggestion:
Current_members: Current members of the group, listed in order of joining with no other notation than names. Optionally, editors may use this field to list a defunct band's notable lineup should there be consensus to do so (e.g., The Beatles listing John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr).
Past_members can be the same, just removing the second sentence. -- ChrisB 21:15, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I assume I'm one of those several editors considering you reverted my edit to Blink-182 and Nirvana (band). The template text currently says:
If a group is inactive, all members should be listed here, and none in the "current members" field
Sorry if I took that as law, but it sounds pretty official to me. We really do need to change that text if it's not what is accepted anymore. I'm not sure what the right answer is. For something like The Beatles, where there was one notable lineup, that seems easy. But for other bands that had multiple notable lineups (ex. Ramones - Tommy or Marky? The first or the longest?) it will be harder to find a consensus. I can understand doing the last lineup a little better, but that's still not perfect as key members could be left out. -Joltman 12:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
I think we want to stay away from instruction creep. Specifying the order of the names would be instruction creep, IMO. And yes, I think we should clarify the docs, as it clearly does not reflect consensus (see WP:CCC). I agree that last lineup may not be perfect, but I think it's better than first, longest (not always clear), or best-known (often POV) because (among other reasons), it means that you don't necessarily have to edit the infobox the moment the band disbands. And in cases where there is controversy, we still have the option of listing everyone as past-members. In fact, it might be good to say that any controversies should be solved by moving everyone to the past-members section. Xtifr tälk 21:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
How about something like this:
Current_members: Current members of the group, listed in order of joining with no other notation than names. With defunct bands, editors may use this field for other purposes (e.g., to list a particular notable lineup) should there be consensus to do so. Otherwise, all members of a defunct band should be moved to "Past_members".
-- ChrisB 03:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
No. That's like tosing syringes to junkies. Music articles are already all over the place; you need to tell people exactly what they can and cannot do with these infoboxes for conformity. As I've said time and time again, the infobox was set up with "current" and "past members" because (in most cases) there is no arguing who is and isn't in a certain group. There can and certainly will be arguments had over which lineup of a group is the most important, and the last lineup of a good many groups tends to be highly non-notable (I'm specifically thinking of groups that go on and on forever until no one recognizes the lineup anymore). The infobox has to work for any act you throw at it, from a rock band to a string quartet. At this point, I'm ready to suggest we pull an ALl Music Guide and just have one long list of members. --FuriousFreddy 03:47, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Guitarist_infobox

Yesterday I noticed there is a special infobox for guitarists. I'm not sure if here is the place to address this consistency problem, but I'd like to see if there are more people here that have the same thoughts on this issue. In the Steve Vai and Charlie Hunter articles f.e. the Template:Guitarist_infobox is used. This infobox seems redundant to me and I think it makes artist articles look inconsistent because (all?) other instrumentalist articles should feature the genuine artist infobox. There is no use for a special guitarist template, just like there is no use for a special band template which has been deleted.

It survived a AfD in September 2006, maybe it's time for another one? Any thoughts on this? Cheers Emmaneul (Talk) 11:49, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, at the time of the last AfD, this infobox was fairly new and still controversial. I believe that it has much broader acceptance now (especially after various tweaks to the colors and whatnot). Nevertheless, I don't think an automatic conversion is possible (since a bot cannot distinguish non-vocal guitarists from singer-guitarists), so I think the best approach would be an RfC to mark the guitarist infobox as deprecated, and then we can start cleaning up the articles that use it, just as we are doing with {{Infobox Band}}. I believe the proper place for this discussion is at Template talk:Guitarist infobox. However, the discussion does seem to be heating up on several fronts, so I'll probably go ahead and file an RfC in the next few days, and advertise it at various places where interested parties may reside. Xtifr tälk 00:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Concur with the deprecation process to date. I currently have, until the end of June, an experimental Infobox for review, combining elements of both the existing Template:Infobox musical artist and Template:Guitarist infobox, as a readability study, in order to find the best practical scale and width for Infoboxes related to Music (as there is currently no consensus thereon to my knowledge). Post any suggestions on scale and colors to User talk:B.C.Schmerker/Template:Experimental_Infobox1, which I've opened for the purpose; I'll pass any recommendations on to WikiProjects Musicians and Guitarists. - B.C.Schmerker 14:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

It has been a week since I posted my concerns. I see no objections to file an RfC (or has it already been done?). Emmaneul (Talk) 22:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I was persuaded that an RfC would be overkill, but I notified several potentially-affected Wikiprojects on 1 June. The current plan is to make a final decision after 7 June. Xtifr tälk 13:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
OK, I'll wait till then Emmaneul (Talk) 13:56, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The guitarist infobox is now officially deprecated. The decision was unanimous. Xtifr tälk 11:21, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Are there plans to request a bot to convert the existing instances of the guitarist infobox? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pigsonthewing (talk • contribs) 10:50, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
As I said above, "I don't think an automatic conversion is possible (since a bot cannot distinguish non-vocal guitarists from singer-guitarists)". It might be possible to adapt an editing-assistance tool like AWB to help with the conversion, but a human would still need to be involved. Unfortunately. Xtifr tälk 22:13, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Labels

Should distributing label be included in labels line? I mean, Eminem is signed to Shady and Aftermath, and their distributing label is Interscope, so should Interscope be included in the list of labels? Thanks! Daniil Maslyuk 04:45, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Given the nature of international distribution, especially in earlier years, I would tend to say no. I'm not sure, but I suspect that including distributing labels would easily triple the number of labels listed for, e.g. The Beatles or Buddy Holly, once you factor in European and Asian labels and such. But I'm also not an expert on how labels work, so I may be completely off-base or missing some obvious counterargument, so I'll just say: use your best judgment. Xtifr tälk 11:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Background colors

As I've been setting up info boxes there have been several musicians who are vocalists, yet they are primarily instrumentalists (NOT non-vocalist). No color for this. Maybe its not a big deal. - Steve3849 talk 00:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Use "solo_singer". --FuriousFreddy 03:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

'Background information' heading

This template's "Background information" heading is redundant, shall we remove it? Andy Mabbett 08:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Having a color strip there is aesthetically pleasing. Maybe that heading could could be changed to something new... "Artist profile" etc, or left blank with the bar of color intact. - Steve3849 talk 13:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
How about we hide the "Background information" heading iff there is no image? --PEJL 09:27, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Please do so. --PEJL 16:33, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 18:52, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

URL

How should URL's be formated? Some articles have [http://www.xxxyyy.com Xxxyyy.com], others [http://www.xxxyyy.com www.xxxyyy.com], and others [http://www.xxxyyy.com Official website]

Is there a right format? --Emmaneul (Talk) 18:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I tend to think that [http://www.xxxyyy.com www.xxxyyy.com] is what is meant to be used, as that is what the example at Template:Infobox musical artist#Sample template uses. I also think it is most appropriate choice, because Xxxyyy.com misrepresents the URL (as www.example.com and example.com are different URLs) and "Official website" is redundant and means less useful information is shown (consider a printed copy of an article for example). --PEJL 18:36, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that some URLs fit into the box better than others. I like to stay flexible. Xtifr tälk 07:48, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Backgrounds seem awfully limited

There are seven background options. Three deal with bands or ensembles, one is for temporary collaborations, one for non-performers. That leaves all individual performers as either "soloists" or "non-vocal instrumentalists". It seems obvious to me that no matter what genre one is working with, this does not cover it. There are instrumentalists who sing, there are singers who are not soloists. LordAmeth 11:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

What exactly are you suggesting, more background colors or wider criteria the existing colors? --PEJL 13:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Like Steve3849 talk said on 15 June 2007, I think the addition of "vocal_instrumentalist" would be nice (f.e. for an artist who sings and plays guitar) because some singers are noted for their instrumental skills, not for their singing style (Stevie Ray Vaughan comes to mind). "singers who are not soloists" are just singers, if you ask me. Emmaneul (Talk) 16:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Said where? --PEJL 17:44, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't really care about the colors, but I do think there need to be more categories. Right now we have "solo_singer" and "non-vocal_instrumentalist" - we should add "non-solo singer" (or just "singer") and "vocal instrumentalist". LordAmeth 17:55, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
If you don't want more colors, we don't need more categories, redefining the existing categories will do. There is no point to having more than one category render as the same color. --PEJL 18:55, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Response to PEJL: My statement "Background color" is 4 posts up. Instrumentalist+Vocalist would be good, as many instrumentalists are not NON-vocalists... as a new category it would need its own color to carry on the coding system that is set up. - Steve3849 talk 19:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I think Steve3849 gets what I'm talking about. When I said I don't care about the colors, I did not mean to say that I don't think we need more colors. What I meant was it makes no difference to me how many colors we have, or which categories are assigned which colors - my comment was motivated by a desire for better categorization, not by aesthetic concerns over the appearance of the variety of colors. Of course, any additional categories would need new colors, but that's not the crux of my argument. LordAmeth 19:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
(Sorry, grepped for "15 June 2007" and didn't find it.) This sounds quite backwards to me. Basically the only purpose background categories serve is to generate the color in the infobox. The only reason we have different colors is to help users visually determine what type of artist it is, by recognizing patterns in colors between different artists. Users don't see the names or descriptions of the background categories, they just see the colors. We should instead be approaching the problem from whether there is a need for a new color, and if so create a new value for that color. --PEJL 20:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
14 June 2007... Damn too late... Emmaneul (Talk) 20:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Okay, PEJL, so what do you suggest we do for singers who are not soloists, or instrumentalists who are not non-vocalists? What color should they be? If the colors are there to help distinguish between different types of artists, then does it not make sense to have enough different colors to accurately reflect the different types of artists? This isn't even a matter of lumping things together and failing to distinguish within a category (within a color) - it's a matter of a whole swath of artists not having an appropriate color to represent them. Imagine if they were colorcoded by nationality - blue for American artists, red for British artists, and yellow for Chinese artists, and then someone came along and said "but there's no color for French artists. What am I supposed to do?" Would you give the same answer, that you don't see the need for a new color because the readers don't know the meanings of the colors anyway? LordAmeth 22:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Firstly, I never said I didn't see a need for a new color. I just said that we need to decide whether a new color benefits users. But since you asked, my answer would be: "A color for every country of the world is unmanageable. Let's lump countries together by continent and have the same color for all countries in each continent." This case is far less extreme, but the same principle applies. There are two options here, create one (or more) new colors, or redefine the definitions of the existing colors to fit the uses mentioned (to the extent that they aren't already covered). For new colors to be useful, they need to be obvious to users who haven't seen their definition. To me, the line between "solo_singer" (as currently defined) and "vocal_instrumentalist" (as proposed) seems blurry, even when I've seen the definition. --PEJL 23:16, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
As I said before, I'd also like to see an extra color for vocal_instrumentalist. These kind of artists are now part of solo_singer which is OK most of the time but when I consider artists like Jimi Hendrix (categorized as solo_singer) primarely known as guitarist, Louis Armstrong (non_vocal_instrumentalist) known by many for his singing style, Phil Collins, James Hetfield, etc I think an extra color (red or beige?) might be appropriate.

Emmaneul (Talk) 11:08, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I think you guys are reading way too much into what is really only an arbitrary text string never seen by readers. It could be "glerkzel" and "frobnitz" as easily as "solo_singer" and "non_vocal_instrumentalist". The intent here is really to separate singers from non-singers, and "solo" is more of a historical accident than a defining characteristic. That said, I'm not entirely opposed—in fact, I've argued for adding singer-instrumentalist before—and if we do decide to do this, I previously suggested using peachpuff for singer-instrumentalist, which is a nice shade in-between the colors used for singers and non-singers IMO. Xtifr tälk 22:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I support Xtifr's suggestion; "peachpuff:" singer(vocalist)-instrumentalist. - Steve3849 talk 06:23, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Example can be viewed at my workbench, User:Xtifr/IMAtest. Xtifr tälk 07:25, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for posting examples. On my LCD screen the new color is harldy discernable from non-vocalist. The new color needs more yellow and/or non-voalist more red. It might be helpful to see them in the format that is on the template page as well - Template:Infobox musical artist#Background color - Steve3849 talk 17:25, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Why not "PapayaWhip"? See color example User:Emmaneul/IMA Emmaneul (Talk) 18:09, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I can see how this category can seem like a good fit with the existing categories, but I'm not convinced it's a net gain for users. This category makes the distinction between categories both in terms of color and meaning less clear. Like I said above, I think the colors need to be very clear and very distinct to be useful to actual users who haven't seen what they represent. (Adding this option also makes the category choice less objective, which could lead to edit wars, similar to the current edit wars over genres.) --PEJL 18:03, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Could you name artists where the difference between non_vocal_instrumentalist and solo_singer is not clear? Emmaneul (Talk) 18:09, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
No I can't, that's the point. The existing categories are quite clearly defined, both in terms of color and meaning. --PEJL 18:17, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Mmmm, sorry.. I meant the difference between vocal_instrumentalist and solo_singer. Emmaneul (Talk) 18:35, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I interpret vocal_instrumentalist as including all back-up vocalists who are primarily instrumentalists and all lead vocalists who usually play an instrument. Maybe what we need to do is loosen up the existing definitions instead of adding a color, such as something synonomous with "primarily vocalist" "primarily instrumentalist." ...also to list distinct examples of popular vocal_instrumantalist briefly, here are a few: Sting, Jimi Hendrix, John Mayer, Eric Clapton, ... - Steve3849 talk 19:21, 9 July 2007 (UTC PS There is an unsigned post above that lists a couple more. - Steve3849 talk 19:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
(ec) Like I tried to explain, I don't think the important question is whether the editors involved in this discussion can understand the difference between the categories after having seen their definitions, but whether an average user can correctly conclude what the colors mean just by seeing the colors on a number of artist articles. Consider showing a number of artist articles with different background colors to someone not familiar with these types of articles, and then ask them to explain what colors they saw and what they think the different colors mean. I think they'd be less likely to correctly answer those questions with the addition of the proposed new color. --PEJL 19:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
By current definition "solo_vocalist" then should be the catch all for musicicians who do any singing at all. "non-vocalist" being specifically that. - Steve3849 talk 19:41, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

On reflection, I find myself agreeing with PEJL. The only thing the reader sees is the color, so the question we need to ask is not: "will adding a new 'category'" help anyone, but, "will adding a new color help anyone? And I think the answer is no. Furthermore, adding singer-instrumentalist would only increase ambiguity. At the moment we have questions about people who sing so rarely that it's hardly a defining characteristic. Adding "singer-instrumentalist" would not resolve that question, but would add a new one about people who play an instrument so rarely that it's hardly a defining characteristic. Mick Jagger, for example, picks up a guitar once in a while, but even so, referring to him as an instrumentalist is a bit of a stretch. And there are others who's claim to being an instrumentalist is even more tenuous. In my youth, it was common for bands to hand a tambourine to a female vocalist, so that she'd have something to do during instrumental passages. (In fact, calling someone a "tambourine player" became a slangy way of implying that she was sleeping with someone in the band.) Is someone who sings and occasionally bangs a tambourine semi-rhythmically really a singer-instrumentalist? I think that's a bit of a stretch. Anyway, bottom line, I don't think a new color is really going to communicate much of anything useful. At least not a color for singer-instrumentalists. I'd rather discuss where we draw the line between our existing colors than add a new color with new vague boundaries. Xtifr tälk 21:06, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

In the articles to which I've added boxes there have been several musicians who are primarily instrumentalists, yet do occassionally sing. Is anyone willing to discuss altering the current definitions so that "instrumentalist" is not so strictly "non_vocal." The current guidelines are weighted towards vocals. - Steve3849 talk 23:13, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
I would certainly endorse using non_vocal_instrumentalist for someone who rarely or never sings. Xtifr tälk 19:48, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Standardizing genre delimiters

I'd like to standardize the delimiters used for genres in the infobox. Most articles use either <br> or commas as delimiters. I propose we standardize on commas, because that is what we already use for labels, and for consistency with genres in the album infobox (which recently standardized on commas, see discussion). A related issue is that most genres should not be capitalized per WP:MUSTARD#Capitalization. Specifically, I propose we change:

The genre or genres of music performed by the act. Aim for generality (e.g. Hip hop rather than East Coast hip hop).

to:

The one or more genres of music performed by the act, delimited by commas. Aim for generality (e.g. Hip hop rather than East Coast hip hop). Note that most genres aren't proper nouns, and shouldn't be capitalized, but the first genre in the list should be.

Any objections? --PEJL 18:34, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

For genres I'd recommend line breaks, or no standardizing at all. Look at User:Emmaneul/IMA for an example of Meshuggah's and System of a Down's infoboxes delimited by commas, they're a plain mess. Emmaneul (Talk) 19:32, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
In what way are they "a plain mess"? They might look slightly better if the individual genres are wrapped in {{nowrap}}, to avoid line breaks in certain places, but other than that I don't see any problem with commas. --PEJL 19:54, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Using {{nowrap}} for each individual genre solves the problem, but creates another one, so I don't see a real benefit here. ChrisB said it in the Genre topic "Personally, I'm strongly in favor of break-delimited lists in the infobox. They're significantly cleaner and prevent unwelcome line breaks (eg, in the middle of a genre name)." ... "However, my true preference is to let editors make the call themselves than try to foist a decision on them." Emmaneul (Talk) 20:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, I must have missed that topic, sorry about that. I definitely think this should be standardized, regardless of which format is chosen. Standardizing means we only have to have this discussion once (or twice, as turns out), instead of at potentially every artist article (or more likely endless edit warring over the same). As for using {{nowrap}}, you say that creates another problem. What might that be? (Note that {{nowrap}} wouldn't have to be used everywhere, but could optionally be used in some cases, and only then as needed. For an infobox that works nicely with commas and without {{nowrap}}, see John Frusciante.) --PEJL 20:39, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
The problem with comma-delimited - and the reason I'm against it - is that when it works, as in Frusciante's article, it's solely by coincidence. Scroll up to the Beatles template above and compare Labels to Associated Acts. The former is very easy to read, while the latter is bordering on unreadable. Wrapping the genres in {{nowrap}} might solve the problem, but I'm not convinced. Look at how nowrap would affect Associated Acts in the Beatles template above - the end result, with a few exceptions, would match break-delimited. (Admittedly, many of the Associated Acts there are lengthier than the average genre name, but I think it demonstrates the pitfalls.) Beyond that - I think it falls to readability - and I feel like break-delimited wins that hands-down. -- ChrisB 21:30, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, the labels should be comma-delimited and should drop the "Records" part, per the current guideline. That's what the current version at The Beatles does (with commas). As for which is more readable, I think that is quite subjective. I can only assume quite a few editors consider comma-delimited values to be quite readable, as that is a widely used format (on The Beatles for example). Furthermore, using an explicit delimiter character (like a comma) makes the delimiter more clear, which is especially important if the genres are long and aren't capitalized. How about this compromise:
The one or more genres of music performed by the act, delimited by commas. Aim for generality (e.g. Hip hop rather than East Coast hip hop). Note that most genres aren't proper nouns, and shouldn't be capitalized, but the first genre in the list should be. For stylistic reasons it may be appropriate to use {{nowrap}} around individual genres or <br> after commas.
--PEJL 22:04, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
That's practicaly what editors do: "Use commas or line breaks". The only difference is the consistent use of commas... I'm not completely opposed to the use of commas but I can't see the benefits either. And I'd prefer <br /> instead of <br> to comply with W3C.
I'd like to propose 2 standards:
  • A) A comma delimited list where the first character is capitalized. Sources are put directly after the commas
  • B) A <br /> delimited list where the first character of each row is capitalized.
Emmaneul (Talk) 15:14, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Standardizing on two conflicting variants is almost as bad as not standardizing at all, and worse than standardizing on only one of those variants. (The <br> vs <br /> issue is a different can of worms, one that would be avoided entirely by not using either.) --PEJL 15:31, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Then no standard it is Emmaneul (Talk) 16:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't follow your reasoning. --PEJL 17:18, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
OK, maybe I didn't understand what you said. Let me get things straight... You proposed a combination of what I call standard A & standard B (standard A combined with <br />/{{nowrap}} for stylistic reasons). I think we should allow <br />'s for stylistic reasons but I don't see the advantage of using commas when you need {{nowrap}} or <br />'s to make a list look comprehensible. I don't see the benefit of using both standards in 1 list.
The options we have are implementing standard A, implementing standard B, or allowing both standard A and standard B. It's clear I won't be happy with standard A alone, and it's clear having 2 standards is 'almost' worthless. The only option we have left is implementing standard B. If you would agree on that, then it could be implemented, but I thought you wouldn't accept <br />-only lists (I might be wrong). Emmaneul (Talk) 21:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
To sum up the arguments presented so far, reasons why using commas would be preferable:
  • Using a visible delimiter character (like a comma) makes the delimiter more clear
  • Doesn't encourage incorrect capitalization
  • Doesn't require using HTML
  • Avoids the <br> vs <br /> can of worms
  • Uses less vertical height
  • Consistent with guideline for labels in this infobox
  • Consistent with guideline for genres in album infobox
Reasons why using line breaks would be preferable:
  • Some people find the presentation clearer with line breaks
At first I assumed the arguments in favor of using commas would be enough for us standardize on that, but since they appear not to be, what exactly is the problem with my compromise proposal (which would still have most of the benefits listed above)? --PEJL 22:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


I still don’t agree, and I think we’ll never agree. Some of these arguments don’t make sense. I think using a visible delimiter is no prerequisite for a comprehensible genre list. Neither <br /> nor comma separated lists encourage incorrect capitalization. I’d rather use HTML tags like <br /> than {{nowrap}}, HTML is no bigger problem than {{nowrap}}. Are there any discussions regarding <br> vs <br />? For all I know there is 1 standard to comply with, the XHTML standard developed by W3C. Even the line break button (↵ the "enter key symbol") inserts a <br /> into article edit fields. Your last 3 pro arguments are good but I prefer freedom over consistency. Emmaneul (Talk) 11:53, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what I mean by a visible delimiter character. "," is visible. " " is not. While I just inserted a space rather than a line break, these look the same if they are at the end of a line, leading to ambiguity. A visible delimiter character avoids that ambiguity. As for encouraging incorrect capitalization, a list like "Pop<br />Rock" could lead people to assume that genres should be capitalized in general. Given how widespread that misunderstanding is despite the clear guideline in WP:MUSTARD#Capitalization, I think this is a reasonable concern. As for the XHTML argument, we aren't writing XHTML, we're writing input for the Mediawiki software, which recognizes both <br> and <br /> (along with other constructs such as </br>). Sure, Mediawiki currently outputs XHTML, but it's not obvious that it will always do so, given that the W3C is moving focus away from XHTML back onto HTML (with the HTML5 efforts). (Note that I'm not arguing for either <br> or <br />, just explaining why it is a can of worms.) So far I've heard no actual arguments against my compromise proposal, just that you'd "rather use HTML tags" (completely subjective, and something the proposal allows for). --PEJL 12:28, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Y Done. As no viable arguments against it were presented, I went ahead and updated the guideline with my compromise proposal. (I did change <br> to <br /> though, and lowercased the link to hip hop.) --PEJL 13:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
The problems are already starting. I see good looking infoboxes being messed up and reverted (f.e. the System of a Down infobox). Reference indicators ([1]) are not being placed after the commas, neither <br /> nor {{nowrap}} are used. Why did you enforce your debated opinion? I could revert it, just because the arguments against where as viable as the pro arguments. Please allow people to take choices based on what looks best in a article. We don't need limits. I see the genre enumeration as a list, a list containing rows, each row containing a genre, each genre starting with a capital. These lists always look good, are simple and are used very often on wikipedia. Why change something that works? Emmaneul (Talk) 20:30, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Like I said, no viable arguments against it were presented. That you prefer the old format is not a viable argument. --PEJL 20:44, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
"Old" format? The best thing is that there is no format. We don't need a format. We don't need someone to enforce a format. And if a format is absolutely needed, then you're not the only one to choose the format. Emmaneul (Talk) 20:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Just take a look at how messed up it looks... [1]. Please stop. Emmaneul (Talk) 20:54, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
With old format I was referring to the format the article you mentioned previously used (and the format you so clearly prefer). As for looking messed up, I honestly don't know what you're talking about. Incorrectly capitalized genres look more "messed up" to me, but that's entirely subjective, so it's quite irrelevant. --PEJL 20:58, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Isn't this "messed up" [2]? Emmaneul (Talk) 21:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
(ec) You are right, that looks messed up. That looks like a browser bug. (My browser doesn't do that, and I can't immediately understand why yours does.) That should definitely be fixed (so that it line breaks naturally before "nu metal"). We should certainly fix that. I see now you've reverted the change I made to the guideline. I think we do need a format. Having a consistent format is the fundamental reason we have guidelines such as WP:MOS, and the reason we have this template in the first place. We should decide based on the arguments made, not on what you think looks best. I'd also welcome input from other editors on this matter. --PEJL 21:13, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
It appears to be a bug in Gecko. (You're using Firefox, right?) Assuming we can't work around that, we might have to avoid {{nowrap}}. As such, my adjusted compromise is:
The one or more genres of music performed by the act, delimited by commas. Aim for generality (e.g. hip hop rather than East Coast hip hop). Note that most genres aren't proper nouns, and shouldn't be capitalized, but the first genre in the list should be. For stylistic reasons it may be appropriate to use <br /> after commas.
--PEJL 21:24, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I think we should have more people involved before any changes are made... Emmaneul (Talk) 21:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I welcome further input. I see that you said "looks even more messed up in Firefox then IE" at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD. Would you care to explain in what lesser sense the aforementioned version looks "messed up" in IE? --PEJL 21:56, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
OK, I found a Windows box to test on, and I can report that the aforementioned version doesn't look as intended on IE either, as the genre refs for "nu metal" are wrapped to the next line. Both the Firefox problem and the IE problem can be fixed by wrapping the entire genre (including the refs) in {{nowrap}}, rather than wrapping just the genre. (To be clear, I'm not endorsing including refs, just making sure it can work if they are included.) As such, I'm once again proposing we recommend either {{nowrap}} or <br />. I'll repeat the proposal here, to make it easier to find, and because it has since been tweaked slightly:
The one or more genres of music performed by the act, delimited by commas. Aim for generality (e.g. hip hop rather than East Coast hip hop). Note that most genres aren't proper nouns, and shouldn't be capitalized, but the first genre in the list should be. For stylistic reasons it may be appropriate to use {{nowrap}} around individual genres or <br /> after commas.
--PEJL 03:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

New opinion: I would prefer to avoid anything that adds vertical height to popular-music related infoboxes, given the tendency for information bloat. The chemboxes are the only infoboxes I can think of that are generally longer than ours, and they seem to have no problems with a lack of whitespace in fields containing long lists.

(As for the display bugs: ideally, I would hope that we wouldn't need footnotes at all in the infobox, since the purpose of the infobox and lead is to summarize more detailed information found later on. But I do see a serious need for these on heavily disputed articles.) –Unint 22:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Unint raises a good point. I've been on the fence about this, and was more or less willing to let others decide, but I think his argument about vertical height is a deciding one for me. Count me as a supporter of commas. (With optional linebreaks to taste.) I also share his dislike for footnotes in the infobox, but that's a separate matter. Xtifr tälk 02:51, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
As I said earlier, I'm not opposed to the idea of a delimiter, less vertical space, etc. but I'm still foreseeing problems. This comma delimited format is taking us away from the KISS principle, because this system requires a set of rules (not known to many passing editors). What to do with refs? Where to place them in relation to the commas? Should all the genres consisting of multiple words be surrounded by templates? When use <br /> and when {{nowrap}}? Can they be used together?
My concerns:
  • The source is going to look less readable because of {{nowrap}} and the refs.
  • Adding genres is less straight forward (e.g. new editors are going to make more mistakes considering capitals & lay-out)
  • After adding/deleting a genre the layout might change and therefore requires more formating (deleting/adding {{nowrap}})
  • A lot of infoboxes will need to be changed, but for many bands, the lists will look the same as they did before except for commas and capitals. Where is the benefit? (mainly metal bands because metal genres consist of 2 or more words).
  • Infoboxes containing 2 short genres are as easy to format using commas as using <br />, complex infoboxes full of refs/long genres are harder to format using commas & <br />/{{nowrap}}.
I still see a lot of hassle, not a lot of benefits considering lay-out and comprehensibility. (Maybe because I mainly edit metal articles) Emmaneul (Talk) 08:36, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing up these concerns. I will respond to them point by point:
  • For infoboxes containing refs, the source mainly looks unreadable because of the refs (see aforementioned version). Using {{nowrap}} is not required, and will likely not need to be used in a majority of cases (cases with shorter genres).
  • New editors already make such mistakes (as previously noted). The difference is that there will now be more of an objectively correct format to which those can be corrected. It's perfectly acceptable if the editor adding/deleting the genres doesn't follow the guideline to the letter. A subsequent editor can always fix the format later. And in a perfect world deleting genres would never be necessary. ;-)
  • Actually it wouldn't require more formatting, but it may benefit from it in some cases.
  • Consistency.
  • For long lists of multi-word genres with refs, such as System of a Down, I'd certainly recommend using <br /> rather than {{nowiki}}. Changing that from the current format is as simple as inserting a comma before every <br />, and lowercasing the genres.
As for when to use {{nowrap}} and when to use <br />, using <br /> seems more appropriate for lists of genres like those on System of a Down where the genres are generally so long that only a single genre fits on each line, while using {{nowrap}} seems more appropriate for lists such as on John Frusciante where lines generally fit more than one genre. Use your best judgement. (It so happens that no {{nowrap}} is needed at all on John Frusciante, which is not at all uncommon. For one thing, it's never needed for single word genres.) As for the refs, assuming those should be kept, I just checked with WP:REF#Footnotes come after punctuation, from which it is clear that refs should be placed after the commas. --PEJL 09:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay I haven't had time to read all of it, but I'd just like to say that I see no reason to forbid/avoid the use of <br />. It's perfectly clean and nice, and I personally find the use of commas in infobox ugly. It's just my opinion. ZOUAVMAN LE ZOUAVE 14:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I am rather neutral on the comma vs. <br /> issue, but since I do have a thing for consistency, commas are probably the way to go for anything between the image and the members list. What I'd like to address, as this has come up in relation with the previously mentioned System of a Down article, is the use of references within the infobox, which I consider to be generally undesirable and unnecessary.

With no less than eight citations, the overall infobox code of previous revisions of the SOAD article looked like something that (no offense) crawled out of the Akira manga. And since these boxes usually just summarize information that already appears in the main article body, this material can be referenced just as easily right there, without creating hard to maintain infobox/citations template hybrids. - Cyrus XIII 16:37, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

My vote: editor's best judgement; if standardization occurs, it should include 2 or 3 standardized options. - Steve3849 talk 22:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what that means in relation to the current proposal. --PEJL 23:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
If 2 or 3 edit options is not a consideration then it means no standard. - Steve3849 talk 00:57, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I still don't understand what you mean by "2 or 3 edit options". The compromise proposal allows for either using line breaks or not, is that something you consider to be two "edit options"? --PEJL 09:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

One comment on the metal band thing: a lot of these articles are already violating the guideline which says "aim for generality". If a band is (loosely) considered to be in four or five subcategories of metal (which is already a subcategory of rock), I would think that the correct thing to do would simply be to use "heavy metal" as the genre.

On the other hand, I also think we're in danger of overspecifying here. These are guidelines, not rules, and there are FAs which don't even follow the guidelines we have already (for example, Pixies). I think this whole notion is in serious danger of violating WP:CREEP. Why, really, does it matter if some articles use linebreaks and some commas? It's hardly going to prevent any of them from reaching FA. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced we don't need to specify whether "commas" or "<br />" is used. People are just going to ignore the "rule" anyway, and they're still going to make good articles. I really think the best option is to leave things the way they are. Xtifr tälk 11:53, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Steve3849 (If 2 or 3 edit... ...it means no standard) and Xtifr (On the other hand... ...things the way they are).
I'd like to discuss the "aim for generality" rule. It's clear this rule is not supported by a lot of editors and probably should be changed Emmaneul (Talk) 19:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, depending on what "2 or 3 edit options" means, it may be that the compromise proposal does allow for it. --PEJL 20:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
If I may answer, I think Steve3849 means what I proposed on 15:14, 18 July 2007. Steve3849, please correct me if I'm wrong. Emmaneul (Talk) 20:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
And the two "2 or 3 edit options" provided by the compromise proposal are not acceptable? Why exactly? (This is more a question for Steve3849.) --PEJL 21:35, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I didn't have a criticism for a specific compromise. However, as this question is directed to me I have gone back through this discussion and read the various arguments and have decided that *no standard* is preferable because of the issues of aesthetics, posts beginning 20:30, 23 July 2007 (UTC) (Talk), issues of complexity vs simplicity for new and passing users, as well as the post by Xtifr 11:53, 25 July 2007 (UTC). - Steve3849 talk 23:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
For me personally I think linebreaks should be used, due to the fact that bands change genres, and it'll look funky saying Thrash metal (1989-1992), Death metal (1993-1997), Gothic metal (1998-2003), etc. It looks easier to explain on one line that ISN'T cluttered, rather than a line that is cluttered and looks messy. Wikipedia is about looking clean, prim and proper, suggesting this will make it look cluttered. -- Shatterzer0 18:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Better late than never:

  1. The original examples for the infobox used comma delimiters, because line breaks can create excessively long infoboxes for artists who record in a lot of different genres. And I am very much opposed to annotating genres by years: remember that infoboxes are supposed to be quick general overviews: there's still supposed to be an article on the page.
  2. Ideally, you'd want "heavy metal" and not five subgenres thereof, because heavy metal is already a subgenre of rock. When writing articles - and especially infoboxes - think of how a person with zero knowledge about the subject at hand is going to be able to digest the information.

--FuriousFreddy 03:33, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I support the use of the comma because it avoids inappropriate capitalization and overly long infoboxes. I also don't think years ought to be added to the genre entry as the guideline says to aim for generality rather than be overly specific. Strobilus 18:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)


I really don't understand this vertical space issue as it isn't an issue on most other widely used infoboxes. Compactness is just a unnecessary, made up requirement, practically no infobox is compact. Just to check I searched for infobox templates and clicked random infoboxes, this is the result:

As we can see, line break delimited entries are everywhere on wikipedia. If compactness is such a big issue on this template (still have no clue why), then it should be done in different more effective ways (hide/show buttons for (past) members, strict rules for associated acts). If we want to be consistent with most other widely used infoboxes we should use line breaks. I still don't really care about commas or line breaks, as long as it fits the article. What I do denounce is people enforcing a lay out, fixing infoboxes that aren't broken, without any guideline to back it up. Why don't we add the 2 possibilities (commas and line breaks) to the guidelines so people can choose, without being reverted for no reason. Rather than adding a new "rule" which might lead to more problems I'd like to propose to add an second example template that features line breaks. I'm convinced this will lead to less edit warring and a better wikipedia. Kameejl (Talk) 15:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Well those other infoboxes wouldn't actually save much vertical space by delimiting by commas, unlike this infobox. Hide/show buttons are inappropriate for accessibility reasons. I've never seen anyone edit war over delimiters other than line breaks and commas, so that wouldn't change. What we really should do is standardize on one delimiter. Listing both as acceptable options takes us farther away from that end goal. --PEJL 20:18, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
"those other infoboxes wouldn't actually save much vertical space by delimiting by commas" is just non-sense and is easily proven wrong. It's often just a matter of about 1 or 2 centimeters. Also it doesn't take away the argument that many other infoboxes are longer than this one even if they would use comma delimited entries. Apparently, for most (non-music) editors vertical spacing is not a problem.
"Hide/show buttons are inappropriate for accessibility reasons" You might want to clarify this. Just like templates at the bottom of article pages one can choose weather the template is fully displayed or hidden by default. The actor infobox also uses this system and it works very well.
"I've never seen anyone edit war over delimiters other than line breaks and commas" Maybe that's because the rules are not clear. The guidelines should be clear, having just 1 delimiter is not the only way. I'm sure, 1 delimiter is what you want, but it's never going to enter the guidelines. Editors are to divided on this subject. We should look for alternatives, otherwise this problem is never going to be solved. Kameejl (Talk) 21:16, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Other infoboxes: The reason those other infoboxes wouldn't save nearly as much space as this one when delimiting by commas instead of line breaks, is mainly that the field names in those infoboxes are longer than in this infobox, which means there is less room for actual content. Assuming {{nowrap}} is used to avoid line wrap inside list items, this means many lines would only fit a single item, unlike this infobox.
Hide show buttons: See accessibility.
Edit warring: Huh? Why would we get more edit wars over line breaksdelimiters other than commas or line breaks (such as slashes or semi-colons) if we were to only allow commas or line breaks? That doesn't make any sense.
The problem isn't solved (at least not my definition of the problem) if we allow multiple delimiters. With that, I'll attempt to leave this topic, as we don't seem to be getting anywhere. --PEJL 10:25, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Other infoboxes: Most other infoboxes are allowed to be long, use line breaks and look neat and professional. Using comma delimiters is practically unheard of and, indeed, will barely decrease an infobox' height (a couple of cm at most). Infobox height does not seem to bother anyone using these infoboxes (including me). I think that's the reason why line breaks are accepted. But if you insist on decreasing vertical space I believe these are more effective ways: Template_talk:Infobox_Musical_artist#Associated_acts and Template_talk:Infobox_Musical_artist#Past_members.
Edit warring: As I said before, I have seen many edit wars where people are enforcing a lay out, 'fixing' infoboxes that are not broken, without any guideline to back it up. These editors often refer to the infobox guidelines to justify the change, which is incorrect because there is no consensus on genre delimiters. Explicitly allowing 2 formats will stop these editors as they won't have any reason to believe 1 format is the right one. This might not be the best solution, but it's still better than no guideline at all (resulting in edit wars based on pov formatting ideas). Kameejl (Talk) 13:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


I have requested further input for this issue at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Delimiting marks in Musical artist infobox.--Alf melmac 11:13, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Great idea. Kameejl (Talk) 13:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Kameejl (Talk)--E tac 23:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for line breaks like Kameejl, but I think only one format should be allowed since 2 formats will lead to warring over preference. Navnløs 23:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Not to mention, let's get this issue resolved. I happen to be of the view that not only do the line breaks look better and are easier for the eyes to follow, but there is no reason to use comma breaks but length of the music infobox, which will only be increased by a line or two. Most pages still use this format (with line breaks), so why change it? Also, everything else in the music infobox uses line breaks and everything should. For only one or two things to use the line breaks make them stick out and harder to read for someone skimming through the article. We want information to be read easily, right? We want people to understand our article and wikipedia in general, right? Well listing the genres out in the music infobox make this easier. The whole point of the music infobox is to be an overview of the article and something to be looked at if the whole article can't be read. So it should be extremely easy to view, the easier the better. Line breaks provide for this. Navnløs 23:36, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Well said. Also using commas create unwanted linebreaks right in the middle of two or more words if the genre name has that many words. It looks terrible. --E tac 07:24, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I get the impression that many editors haven't actually read this thread, based on the claims made. As for the claim that everything else in the infobox uses line breaks, that's misleading. The only other part of this infobox that mandates a certain delimiter is the section for labels, which says to use commas. --PEJL 06:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Well no one seems to follow the rule that labels should have commas between them, because I have yet to see that once. What E tac has said is also true. Using comma breaks can make genres seperated and no one wants to see that.Navnløs 17:09, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Plenty of articles use commas to delimit labels. As noted previously in this thread, there is a solution to the issue of line wrapping in the middle of a multi-word genre. (My impression stands.) --PEJL 17:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, it still doesn't make sense to me to use comma breaks, except for the fact of taking up less room, and as I have said before the point of the music infobox is to be a summary, as everything in it is stated somewhere in the article, and a summary should be easy to read quickly. Line breaks would seem to facilitate this process quicker. Navnløs 21:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd say that using commas makes it easier to read the information in the infobox quickly, as it makes it more likely that the entire infobox will fit in the browser window at once. As noted above using a visible delimiter also avoids ambiguities. --PEJL 21:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd say using a line break is a visible delimiter, more so than commas. Not to mention, the only reason the whole music infobox would'nt fit in a browser window is if that person restored down their window and made it smaller, and if someone is looking up stuff, that's unlikely, not to mention to see the rest all they would have to do is scroll down a little....not really that much work, unless you're extremely lazy, but then, if you were that lazy, why would you be using this site anyways? Anyways, the whole music infobox would still fit unless you made your window very small... Navnløs 22:05, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
No, it's not a visible delimiter, see above. Many musical artist infoboxes contain very long lists of items, and if these are delimited by line breaks, this makes the infobox not fit in a normal web browser window. --PEJL 22:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to the use of a comma as delimiter for labels, associated acts and genres per se but if a comma would be the standard delimiter there would be enough reasons to ignore the guidelines (which makes a guideline pretty useless).

Commas (many entries)
Firstly: Using a comma as delimiter makes an irregular amount of labels/genres/genres appear on 1 row. When sections contain a lot of entries the lay out feels totally inconsistent (f.e. associated acts in the Audioslave infobox: 2 rows contain 2 bands, 1 row contains 4 bands). I sincerely feel this inconsistency makes infoboxes look muddled and chaotic, loosing a lot of it's informative and "quick overview" nature (f.e. The Beatles infobox: compare the labels and associated acts sections).

Secondly: Long entries containing multiple words sometimes get broken into two parts (See genres in version of the Judas Priest article and The Beatles' associated acts). The solution is to use {{nowrap}}. This solution is taking us away from the KISS principle. Many users don't know this template, whereas <br /> is used by many people, inside and outside wikipedia, and is already used in the infobox' member sections. The use of {{nowrap}} is making wikifying more complex than it needs to be. You have to be less a wikinerd to properly mark up an infobox using <br />s. There are 2 other problems when using {{nowrap}}. The first problem is a browser page rendering problem when an infobox contains refs (which are needed in case of edit wars); the second problem is that the way the entries are displayed depends on the width of the infobox. Picture width o.t.l. can affect the lay out and the way genres are wrapped, which again is taking us away from keeping it simple. (Don't understand me wrong, I don't think it's extremely complex to use {{nowrap}}, but it surely is less straight forward.)

Commas (few entries)
For articles with short or few entries it seems acceptable to use commas (f.e. Collective Soul). All the genres fit on 1 row.

Capitalization
Capitalization is not delimiter related. Editors make mistakes irrespective of the delimiter used. Editors tend to capitalize the first character of a genre. Using line breaks will prevent these error from being disruptive as each genre is on its own line, each line with only the first character capitalized (like any other list of entries).

Vertical spacing
As I said before, vertical spacing does not seem to be an issue for most infoboxes anywhere on wikipedia (f.e the company, television, movie, actor). Most infoboxes are longer than the musical artist infobox, feature line breaks and look neat and professional. I don't understand why we should use commas to decrease vertical spacing. Using commas as delimiters will only save us about 2 line or less (about 5 genres comma separated). This is not an efficient way to decrease vertical space. I have proposed more efficient ways to decrease vertical space (although I don't mind tall infoboxes) which will decrease the height by about 3 or even more lines in most cases, see Template_talk:Infobox_Musical_artist#Associated_acts and Template_talk:Infobox_Musical_artist#Past_members (I got very few replies so maybe decreasing infobox height is no 'hot topic' after all). I don't think decreasing vertical spacing is enough to justify the comma separated format.

Comma as standard delimiter? I prefer a line break. Kameejl (Talk) 22:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Commas: Arguments about what "feels" better are hard to respond to, other than to note that such feelings are often subjective. Capitalization: Many editors write Hard rock or Hard Rock rather than hard rock. Allowing the former doesn't avoid this problem, it just moves it elsewhere (for example into the article body). Vertical spacing: The main advantage of making the infobox more compact is that it makes it easier to find the information in the infobox, which is why we have the infobox in the first place (to summarize the information concisely). --PEJL 22:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I could have written "It is X" instead of "I feel it is X" to make it look less subjective, but what I said certainly isn't less subjective than "The main advantage of making the infobox more compact is that it makes it easier to find the information". Furthermore, line breaks won't move any problem anywhere. Not every editor knows WP:MUSTARD. All the editors who think it's Hard Rock will make disruptive edits in the body and infobox. Editors who think its Hard rock will make disruptive edits in the body but correct edits in the infobox. Pretty straight forward reasoning.
I gave you pro-comma editors enough arguments -some subjective, some objective- to see the comma is not the way to go. I've countered all pro-comma arguments. I see no hindrance to add line breaks to the guidelines anymore. Kameejl (Talk) 23:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I could not possibly agree with Kameejl more. I hadn't even heard of the nowrap thing till this issue was brought up. Lets keep it simple. And there are other ways of decreasing vertical height that would solve the problema that people for the comma breaks so like to point out. Also, I'm sorry Pejl but I am not getting you at all...what you're usggesting does not solve the problem. Navnløs 22:51, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I've been reading through this argument across several different discussion pages. I am going with the growing majority and saying that commas should be the standard delimiter. It should be used as standard for all infobox fields. It would not look good in the current member fields but if users decide to move towards the collapsible field (an idea I agree with) then it wouldn't matter anymore for that one. The comma looks better than the break. Peter Fleet 22:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
The argument you just made had no point except that the comma break "looks better," which I disagree with, but also you should know that the comma break people are in the minority. More people are for the line break as far as I'm concerned. Anyways, we have already said that what "looks better" is pointless, but what is more useful. I believe the line break wins hands down in both ways. Navnløs 22:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree 100% with this comment by Twsx. Funeral 23:03, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

People keep saying that it's gonna make the infobox bigger, though, like its going to become some kind of monster somehow. We're talking about one or two line longer, people!!! Can we not expend that much space!? We do for the members and in other ares of the music infobox! I do agree with one thing...that people feel strongly about this one way or the other and it needs to be resolved soon, one way or another. Navnløs 23:07, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Kameejl: A more compact infobox makes the distance between the field labels shorter. This makes it easier to visually scan for these field labels, making them easier to find. The problem moves because using capitalized genres in the infobox makes it less obvious to editors that genres shouldn't be capitalized in general. The less genres are capitalized on Wikipedia, the more likely editors are to understand that this is how they should generally be written.
Navnløs: It's not surprising that you don't understand what I'm saying if you haven't read the previous discussion. --PEJL 11:47, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I understand what you're saying, it just doesn't make sense. If you want field labels to be easier to scan then why would you cram them all together? There is a reason why when people make a grocery list or w/e list of what they want, they don't cram everything together with commas, do they? No, they list them one-by-one so they're easier to see. However, if you are worried about editors capitalizing genres in the articles, this is a more legitimate concern. The rememdy to that would be time and education. There are policies in place to tell people to NOT capitalize genres in articles, some people still may, but other editors can come along and change these small errors. Over time, these newer editors will learnb the correct way. Navnløs 17:58, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Field labels are the labels in bold to the left in the field values, like "Label" and "Genre". I was saying those should be easy to scan, to make it easy to find for example the genre section if the reader is looking for genres. I think we should try to aim slightly higher than to make the encyclopedia look like a grocery list. As for capitalization, in a perfect world all editors would eventually learn. In practice that will never happen. We're left with the mean time, where they are more likely to learn if subjected to correct capitalization more often. --PEJL 19:03, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't happen to see a lot of people who capitalize genres in the article, but still, like I said, other editors will change those quickly as the majority knows not to capitalize genres and have rules to back it up. Of course we want to aim higher than a grocery list, but that doesn't change the fact of what is effective and what is not. It is the job iof an encylopedia to be informative and effective. A list to buy things may be simple but it works. We want to keep things simple and understandable, too. Commas just create messiness. If we are really going to have such a problem with this, may I suggest that if genres use line breaks in the music infbox, perhaps we should decapitalize all of them. Navnløs 19:10, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Well, like I said before, this problem of editors capitalizing incorrectly will never be fixed. It's a matter of bad or worse. What is effective and what is messy can't really be factually proven, it's mostly opinion. We're likely not going to convince each other of what looks better, so we should focus on objective criteria. In trying to do so, capitalization is one argument I've raised. Consistency with existing guidelines (labels section in this infobox and genre section in the album infobox) is another. --PEJL 21:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

As you said yourself, there are always new editors out there that will make mistakes such as capitalizing genres in an article. It is up to the other editors (and there's a lot of them) to correct them n00bs. However, you also said nothing of my suggestion that perhaps if line breaks are used, all of the genres in the music infobox should not be capitalized. Navnløs 23:08, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I commented on your suggestion indirectly by pointing to the argument of consistency with existing guidelines. --PEJL 23:21, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I note also that you make various edits like this, which imply that there is a standard delimiter for such content, and that that standard delimiter is a line break. Please don't misrepresent the lack of consensus on this matter. Thank you. --PEJL 23:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Comments from MoS talk page

The current situation regarding which delimiting marks to use in the Genres sections of Template:Infobox Musical artist has led to edit warring and breaking of the three-revert rule by various editors. I would like a wider opinion of this to see if some improvement to the situation can be made. A discussion about this took place on the WikiProject Albums talkpage in June, which concluded that commas were preferable. A question about which to use was raised in April, starting the Genres section on the talkpage of Infobox Musical artist, which started to lean towards both line breaks and commas being acceptable, or line breaks being better. The current discussion on the talkpage of Infobox Musical artists started in July and has been continuing since. As yet no resolution has been made and meanwhile, editors are reverting each other over the preferences. As this is a style issue, I would like some input from this neck of the woods to see if the situation can be resolved. Thanks.--Alf melmac 11:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Let's get this issue resolved. I happen to be of the view that not only do the line breaks look better and are easier for the eyes to follow, but there is no reason to use comma breaks but length of the music infobox, which will only be increased by a line or two. Most pages still use this format (with line breaks), so why change it? Navnløs 23:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree, commas can also cause unwanted linebreaks when there are multiple genres listed and some of the genre names have more than two words and it breaks off right in the middle.--E tac 07:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Line breaks are in no way "easier on the eye". Also the argument that it looks "better" is flawd - things don't need to be "pretty", they need to be informative, and the infobox is less informative if it stretches over more than a page which is likely to be the case if there are more than ~2 genres listed and the user is using a small resolution or a not-maximized window. Also, as we all know, those genre names are not proper nouns, so there is again no reason to have them put on a new line each. I try to be as detached as possible, yet i can't find one good reason for line breaks. I however do agree that this issue should be cleared and a rule be set, so there is a standard everybody adheres to, no matter what his or her opinion is. ~ | twsx | talkcont | 11:33, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Rather than repeat arguments previously made, I will just point to Template talk:Infobox Musical artist#Standardizing genre delimiters. --PEJL 12:07, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
This issue definitely needs resolution. I prefer the use of commas, mostly because the use of line breaks leads to inappropriate capitalization of genres; this is sometimes carried over to the body of the article (especially, I find, with "Jazz"). The use of commas also helps to keep the infobox from becoming overly long when multiple genres are applicable. As WP:Album has decided to go with commas for the genre field of the album infobox, the use of commas in the genre field of the musical artist infobox seems appropriate to avoid confusion and keep these closely related infoboxes in agreement with one another. Strobilus 20:44, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Well it adds maybe 2 or 3 centimeters to the infobox at most, so length really is not an issue. Saying this is confusing and leads to inncorect capitalization of genres in the body so we should not use it is silly. It is like saying that when a genre starts a sentence and is capitalized it could confuse editors into inappropriately capitalizing it in other places so we should not ever start a sentence with a genre.--E tac 21:18, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
How much it adds depends on how many items are listed. Plenty of infoboxes include so many items that their content don't fit in a normal browser window if line breaks are used, but would if commas were used. The analogy is flawed, because grammar dictates that the first word in a sentence should be capitalized (and because genres rarely start sentences). --PEJL 21:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

As a couple people have already noted...this debate is not taking place here. The real debate has been on for the longest time here: Template_talk:Infobox_Musical_artist#Standardizing_genre_delimiters. Please take your opinions to that page. Thanks. Navnløs 21:49, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

The discussion for concensus was moved here by a Wikipedia Administrator as this is the proper binding forum for any debated style issue. If a consensus is reached here it will be the binding decision over whatever debate has been brought up at the template discussion page. And I support the majority opinion that the comma is the better choice for spacing. And I add that it should be used in all fields. Peter Fleet 23:18, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
This is a guideline. Such authority as it has consists of the editors who support it; and their suthority is the same there as here. In short, don't pretend, as too many do, that this page is the Secret Master of Wikipedia; if you have an actual opinion on the issue, accept the invitation above: go and discuss it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Do keep in mind further that this will have fallout far beyond this particular template. Whatever's decided here would likely be an MOS recommendation for the handling of all such entries in infoboxes of any kind, since we aim for consistency, and if music genres get formatted this way so will other things. NB: I don't have a strong preference either way, and can see both sides of the argument. My problem with linebreaking is that it can make some infoboxes get long for no real reason (e.g. when the multiple entries are simple and clear), while the problem with commas isi that it can get hard to read (when the entries are not so simple and clear). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
It will be an example only. What works for music may well work for other things; but if not, they don't have to.
SMcCandlish's actual position, however, is quite sensible, and should be considered: avoid linebreaks when you have simple entries; avoid commas with complex entries. This can be implemented by a style= switch, which would evaluate to <br> on one setting and to a comma on the other. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Further comments

Look, forget all the other issues for one minute here about why one is better than the other. There is one thing that disproves comma breaks should be used. I don't have a problem if the genres fit on the same line, however, if there are more than a few genres comma breaks cut genres in the middle (for example heavy being on one line and metal on the next) and everyone agrees that this is a bad thing. It can only be solved with the nowrap thingy, but we must keep to KISS and keep it simple. Therefore, comma breaks can not be used and the only solution is line breaks. Navnløs (talk) 19:10, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

The example that editors are given on the template main page uses commas to demonstrate what a properly formatted infobox is supposed to look like. The lean for other infoboxes from other projects is commas. And the consensus from previous discussions here on this template is also for commas. And my opinion matches consensus view in that commas are the better choice for spacing. 156.34.142.110 (talk) 20:04, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
YOu may think there is a lean, but your opinion is moot since obviously not everyone agrees and we are having this conversation. It is only your opinion (like Pejl) that more prefer comma breaks. I happen to think more people prefer line breaks and that not enough speak out. Navnløs (talk) 23:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Comma supporters certainly speak volumes in the edits that they do. PEJL, Skeeker, Funeral, Scarian, Twsx...etc, etc, etc... Wiki admins Cholmes75, Nufy8...etc, etc, etc... correct infoboxes on articles that are on their watchilists. Editors on the WP:MOS talkpage comments copied here support the use of commas in all boxes for multiple valid reasons. And, as already mentioned previously, the example shown in the template guideline matches the consensus rules that were agreed upon by the album project. Community consistency = community consensus. 156.34.223.191 (talk) 23:33, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
But see you are wrong again. There must be at least as many supporters of line breaks if not more. Almost every single band page I visit (and I visit a ton) always have line breaks and when someone changes it someone quickly reverts them. As far as I'm concerned the line break people are in the majority and when we talk we use sense whereas the comma break people only think their in the majority because everytime someone else suggests line breaks a ton of them say "no, no" but give no reasons whereas the line break people have given many reasons. Line breakers are the majority. Their are just a few die hard comma breakers who won't let go and won't listen to reason. Navnløs (talk) 23:39, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, because "listening to reason" involves edit warring, doesn't it? - Anyway, you are making unsubstantiated claims - you can't physically prove that more people prefer the line break. That would require a 'straw poll' and Wikipedia isn't about "more people like it so it should be", that is why we have WP:CONSENSUS. "As far as I'm concerned the line break people are in the majority..." - Yeah, once again, I ask you to prove it. It doesn't matter how many people like it. The music infobox template has commas for the genre section, if linebreaks were standard then it would have linebreaks instead of commas. You, Navnlos, have taken an issue to heart and you are pushing it far beyond its worth. Sometimes it's just time to give up and focus on something else. Everyone is getting tired of reverting your edits and cleaning up after you. I recommend that you just quieten down and wait until consensus is reached. You've made your point, now it is time to let others have a say. Everyone has heard the same story from you and, to be honest, it's getting boring. It is such a trivial issue, why take it so seriously? It perplexes the mind! ScarianTalk 13:04, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

These durn infoboxes - I generally see them causing time being wasted in not editing the articles themselves, which is a shame. I generally think unless there's a good use for navigation around what a reader might be 'surfing through' the varieties of links they provide, they're more trouble than they're worth. That said, I would like to suggest a solution: The guidance could state that only the main genre be in the field and that styles/sub-generes, with the cites that should not ideally be in an infobox, be in the text of the article, where it can be put into context. So, for example, many of the heavy metal bands would have 'Rock and Roll' as the genre, any citable/verifiable styles/sub-genres (as all music and such sites list them as) should be written up in the text. The problem of commas or breaks is thus made entirely redundant.--Alf melmac 22:33, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
I would agree with you Alf that that would be a fantastic idea. But it might create problems with: "If only one genre should be used, then what genre should it be?" - It could get bogged down in even more debate... ScarianTalk 22:54, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
In response to Scarian and his comment after mine: If you would read I made unsubstantiated claims on purpose to prove a point to the edit before me who was doing the same. I do not need to explain myself to you or why I take the issue so seriously but I can tell you that I and others are getting tired of reverting edits my comma break people. Navnløs (talk) 19:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Armistice

This has been going on for too long. It's clear there are 2 sides and it's clear no one will accept the other side's opinions/arguments. Maybe later, we will be able to reach consensus. For now I suggest everybody stops changing the genre format in any infobox; in other words, a "truce". It will be better for all of us. So I ask you: please, from now on, don't change the genre lay out of any infobox (unless something is clearly violating a guideline or policy). If something genre lay out related is wrong and desperately needs to be changed I think it's best to first discuss it on the article's talk page and wait for editors to give valuable input. Agreed? Kameejl (Talk) 09:42, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I might be inclined to agree with that. But I would like to hear more from Alf's idea first. And plus, how are you going to get editors such as Navnlos to conform to that idea? I personally believe that that would be a harder task than finding a consensus for this issue! ScarianTalk 11:29, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
I think Navnlos will refrain from editing if all pro-comma editors stop changing every article they come across. I would assume good faith. I hope everyone is willing to cooperate. We can agree on this until Alf's idea has taken a more definitive form. Kameejl (Talk) 12:21, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Good idea. Agreed. Funeral 14:19, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
I'll agree to that. I will however keep those articles that i especially have an eye on in shape. Not more than a hand ful, approximately 5. Also, i hope to see progress in the discussion. I have already given my input and offered valid reasons for comma seperated lists, and am still expecting the same from the "other side". ~ | twsx | talkcont | 15:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
I hereby retract my acceptance of this agreement, as I do not see the discussion moving forward, and other editors such as User:Kameejl and User:Navnløs do not adhere to it either anyway. As before, I shall accept any setteling if one emerges from community consensus or administrative decision. ~ | twsx | talkcont | 18:51, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Please don't blame anyone of breaking the agreement, as you never stopped changing Amon Amarth and Dissection, despite many warnings. I have contacted you about this behavior and got no answers. I now see you have deleted all the comments from your talk page. Please talk instead of engaging in revert wars Kameejl (Talk) 19:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't do the blame game, I point things out, which is in this case that you and Navnlos did not uphold what you agreed to any more than I did. And, I change something, notice 3 days later it's been reverted 20 minutes thereafter, and change it back. Hardly an edit war. I stopped watching and instantly taking action long time before you proposed the armistice. ~ | twsx | talkcont | 19:31, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Like I said, you never stopped changing Amon Amarth and Dissection, before and after the armistice, even after several warnings, comments on talk pages, after being reverted several times, mostly by Navnlos, and by other users, you kept on going, ignoring everyone. That's just asking for trouble, edit wars, warnings, etc. Now you have "retracted" your "acceptance of this agreement". You have yet to prove your willingness to accept the agreement. This is going to escalate. This POV pushing has to stop. Kameejl (Talk) 19:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
WHAT DON'T YOU GET!? WE upheld the armistice TWSX. We agreed to keep pages the way they were and not change the genre delimiters and YOU were the only one who broke it. We changed your edits because you were doing them after the armistice. Blizzard Beast $ODIN$ 19:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree to the terms of this armistice, for now, until further consensus can be reached. Kameejl is right to think I will stop as long as comma breakers will stop as well, for now. I don't understand why Kameejl's addition to the template can't be used, though. I mean, it's right there in the template so why can't it be used? Some comma breakers are arguing that there are two formats so it can be argued either way now. Well, per the Mariah Carey infobox, I think comma breaks should be used for any infobox where the genres fit on one line. However, per the Audioslave article, I think all infoboxes where genres exceed one line should use line breaks. Also, I will not refrain from reverting any edit to a page that has been changed to comma breaks after this armistice. For example, TWSX agreed to the armistice, yet the day after changed Amon Amarth to comma breaks. I reverted his edit per this armistice that he agreed to. So, for now, there will be no editing to pages from line breaks to comma breaks or vice versa. Navnløs (talk) 19:10, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

"I think comma breaks should be used for any infobox where the genres fit on one line" - The problem is different people have different size screens. What might be on one line to you, could be on two lines for someone else. I prefer Alf's idea to that, to be honest. Funeral 22:08, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, personally, the way I mentioned seems to fix all problems. However, Funeral brings up a good issue. Some people do have different sized screens. I'm not sure what to do about that, admittedly, but Alf's idea has a big flaw which Scarian already stated. People won't be able to agree on the genre to list. I think the purpose of the infobox is to state all the genres for that section, though, anyways. Now Funeral stated a problem about how what might be on one line to one person may be on two to another. That just makes me think more that line breaks are the only way to go. Then we never have to worry about that. I don't even get why this whole thing is an issue. I don't understand comma breakers or the comma break idea. For years and years Wikipedia has had line breaks and now some people want to change it to comma breaks, WHY?! I don't see the problem w/ line breaks, but even if the comma breakers do, why should comma breaks be instituted when line breaks have been used for years with no problem. I don't have to prove or explain that line breaks are better, since they are the older of the two. Rather comma breakers need to explain and prove the better use of comma breaks since it is the newer of the two. You comma breakers need to prove why comma breaks are more efficient than line breaks, and I just don't see that happening with solidarity. Navnløs (talk) 23:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
There are (currently) 18 genres of music listing subgenres by category, what is there to argue over? If F is a subset of A, the genre is A, as per the categorisation, I doubt many musical groups would be problematic to look up which category their styles/sub-genres belong. The listing of subgenres and styles should be in the text of the article itself in context, I said that already, solved the problem of having those durn citations in the infobox to boot. Some of the modern musical groups that spring to my mind have evolved through various styles, but have remained in the same genre, it naturally falls that the writing of those styles/sub-genres go into the text as part of the lead (where significant) and the history sections, where they can be put into context by the reader. I'm still not enamoured by these bloody infoboxes by the way, and wish I could get away with just deleting the bloody thing and be done with it, but I know it'd be to no avail.--Alf melmac 23:53, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Eh, I don't know. I think the whole point of having an infobox is to be specific. I'll meditate on what you've said. Navnløs (talk) 00:09, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Alf's idea makes sense to me now. Use the categories! How silly, I should've realised. Btw Navnlos, do not refer to people as "you comma breakers", it's just not nice. Anyway, now that Alf has explained his idea further, I am an advocate of it. What do others think? ScarianTalk 09:10, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

"the point of an infobox is to be specific"???? The guideline for the genre field is the "aim for generality" which would be the opposite of 'be specific'. The field says genres not sub-genres. So Alf's suggestion of just deleting all the subs and putting "Rock" in the box is actually a very "accurate" suggestion. Heavy metal isn't a music genre... it's just a sub-genre/style of Rock. Removing the subs is as "specific" as you can get. Hundreds of Wikipedia editors use All Music Guide as a reference to support their POV over music genres... which... in reality... is not accurate at all. AMG distinguishes between "genre" and "style" if you look at the AMG listing for Metallica... the ONLY genre it labels them with is "Rock". AMG then adds 4 other "styles" to the mix in a separate column.(Thrash, Heavy, Speed..etc) So using AMG as a citation for any/all genre disputes here on Wikipedia holds no water since AMG only lists "Rock" as the genre for every single heavy metal band on their website. If the same practice were done here... it would end all the infobox genre wars (and move the battles into the actual content... but that's a different topic :D ) Yesterday I challenged Alf to be bold and delete the template altogether... he didn't bite on the challenge :)... 's a shame :D. 156.34.142.110 (talk) 15:30, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
In response to Scarian: me using the phrase "you comma breakers" is the least of everybody's worries and also its not offensive because I refer to myself and fellow line breakers as, well..."us line breakers." In response to that guy with a billion IPs: That's not what I meant when I said "specific." Aim for generality as in "hip hop" instead of "east coast hip hop" is what the template states about genres. There's no need to get that specific of course (just as the template says) but that doesnt mean it has to be utterly unspecific i.e. "rock." I think the infobox has a better use when we are a little more specific than that. Personally, I don't really fancy the idea of being so general as Alf suggests, though his idea definitely had some good attributes (like ending the war). I still think line breaks will work better than everything else stated. Why NOT use line breaks? They've been used for years, and it was fine and dandy. I keep asking this question but no one answers me! Also, Kameejl got that Audioslave box added for a reason...if we are still arguing about it then why is it there?!?! Me and some of the other line breakers feel that now that its been added that means it applies to those bands that have more genres that exceed one line. Of course the comma breakers are arguing that "you cant do that! Its contradictory to have both of those templates because we could both cite it and be right!" Ok, then, if it truly IS contradictory to have both of those templates up, then WHY DONT WE GET RID OF ONE!? I mean how come an administrator or someone hasn't come along and removed one of the templates if they're contradictory? Unless, those people with the "power" to do so agree with Kameejl's assessment, in which case we shouldn't be having this argument and line breaks should be instituted for genres that exceed one line. Navnløs (talk) 22:39, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I totally agreed with "and line breaks should be instituted for genres that exceed one line." Kameejl (Talk) 07:04, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I've noticed the user using a dozen of IP adresses (156.34.x.x) is still changing line breaks for comma's. Don't you want to end this stupid war? Why are you pushing your pov right in the middle of these discussions? I sincerely think you should stop. Kameejl (Talk) 07:01, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Alf's idea has the small danger of resulting in a category overkill, however, i agree with his idea to the fullest. Genres can be described in more detail within the article, and only the next higher meta genre of the musical style, in which all of the suggested sub-genres will fit it, should be used within the infobox. We would need more opinions on this before we can vote on this or even implement it though, so please, comment away. Or a new section just for this single idea maybe. ~ | twsx | talkcont | 08:55, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Alf's "aim for generality" ideas are not yet concrete enough and therefore I foresee problems implementing it as it is now. Firstly, using categories as source violates WP:V. Basically it's using wikipedia as source for musical genres and wikipedia is not a reliable source. Who is going to decide what genre is a main genre? Secondly, this idea might work for many genres but unlike Alf stated, genres are not like maths. I can name a few sub-sub-genres that are difficult to track back to their roots. Can we say metal is a sub-genre of rock? Many people see metal as a descendant of rock, not as a sub-genre. Funk is a sub-genre of soul, soul is a sub-genre of R&B and R&B is a sub-genre of blues. Is George Clinton a blues artist? No. And what about jazz-fusion, pop music and electronica? Thirdly, this idea of a guideline can't be applied pragmatically. I think no heavy metal fan will leave rock in the infobox of e.g. Cannibal Corpse. "Rock" is not even mentioned in the article so why should it be mentioned in the infobox?

I'm totally in favor of having prose in every artist article to back up the genres in the infobox. I also agree we should be general when it comes to genres in infoboxes, we shouldn't state every minor genre an artist plays in the infobox, but we certainly shouldn't be too general. It's pointless to have a genre in the infobox if 90% of the infoboxes display "rock". Kameejl (Talk) 11:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Admittedly I am making an assumption that A) editors have correctly categorised in accordance with verifability requirements, and B) that the categorisation themselves have been longstanding enough for unverified categories to be dealt with, if not then no such categorisation should be made at all. I will now delete the genre field as I see this as the most usefull solution to the issue, it forces all the data to go into text, where it can be verified with citations and be put into context, the current sitution gives no benefit whatsoever for anyone with no previous knowledge of Western music genres, nor does it give any navigational benefit.--Alf melmac 12:53, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Now THAT's being bold!!!! Excellent idea!... give that man a barnstar!!! :D . Now if you could just magically sweep away all the crufty flagicons the infoboxes... ah well... 1 piece at a time. Thanks for the sweep! 156.34.142.110 (talk) 13:36, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
My edits have been reverted by another administrator, requesting the BRD proceedure. I made a statement here before I made the changes, as yet no-one else has commented on this talk page in respect of WP:BRD, except Libs (156.34.) who heatily agrees with the edit. I am not going to revert CloudNine again, once is quite enough, in light of the profitless discussion on this and other pages, I stand by my decision as the correct solution.--Alf melmac 14:44, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think deleting the genre field altogether is really necessary; it is a useful entry to have in the infobox. If consensus cannot be reached concerning delimiters, then I'd support the one-genre-only proposal. Strobilus (talk) 17:27, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree 100% with what 'Kameejl last said. Its pointless to be that general for genres in an infobox. You cannot solve this problem with one genre either. Like Kameejl said, what about fusion genres? Listing all those metal bands as "rock" would also be dumb. I mean should we list all rock bands as "blues" just because rock came out of blues? Obviously not. I'm still at a loss on how to solve this whole thing. I still believe line breaks are the way. Once again no one had the nads to answer my questions.
"I still think line breaks will work better than everything else stated. Why NOT use line breaks? They've been used for years, and it was fine and dandy. I keep asking this question but no one answers me! Also, Kameejl got that Audioslave box added for a reason...if we are still arguing about it then why is it there?!?! Me and some of the other line breakers feel that now that its been added that means it applies to those bands that have more genres that exceed one line. Of course the comma breakers are arguing that "you cant do that! Its contradictory to have both of those templates because we could both cite it and be right!" Ok, then, if it truly IS contradictory to have both of those templates up, then WHY DONT WE GET RID OF ONE!? I mean how come an administrator or someone hasn't come along and removed one of the templates if they're contradictory? Unless, those people with the "power" to do so agree with Kameejl's assessment, in which case we shouldn't be having this argument and line breaks should be instituted for genres that exceed one line. " Blizzard Beast $ODIN$ 23:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
OK so this admin has now removed it.--Alf melmac 07:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
And I was reverted by Kameejl, who added it initially. If this box had been added by a non-partisan editor to this discussion, I would have left it. On it's inlcusion 156. changed to commas, Kameejl reverted, so did 156. and was again reverted by Kameejl. Now enough is enough, editors managed to get by without the extra example before. I am coming to the conclusion that no matter what is suggested the editors who prefer breakers are unwilling to accept anything that doesn't allow them to have the opportunity to use the breaks. If this continues in the face of the solutions I am laying on the table there will not be end to the warring without one side losing, please can editors put aside what they want and think about what is best for the peaceful editing of the encylopedia.--Alf melmac 09:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I've just discovered this conversation. As the creator of Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative music and a regular editors of all sorts of music articles, I'd to say a few things.

Yes, the debate over commas vs. line breaks has gone on far too long. That we can all agree with. I'm not too familiar with the intricacies of computer script, so I really can't comment in favor of one usage over the other in terms of what presents better formatting for a reader. From my perspective, the only concern that I deal with is what looks more aesthetically pleasing. Oftentimes it's the genres with line breaks. Of course, that occasionally can lead to a long infobox that creates a big white space or other formatting problems. In cases like that commas are obviously preferrable. But I don't see why a pressing need for one over the other. After all, every article is different and should be treated accordingly.

As for the generality guideline, I feel specificty is far more useful. As someone who studies music genres, the problem with generality is that the realtionship of some music genres to others is quite murky. As someone pointed out above, funk is a form of R&B music, which can also be considered both a form of blues or a descendent of blues. A reader can probably comprehend listing "R&B", but "Blues" does oversimplify it. Specificity helps in identifying bands as part of movements. what we all need to understand is that many genres, especially in modern popular music, are as much movements as much as they are musical form with definable sonic traits. Grunge music has a particular sound, but it was also a definite movement. Britpop had a broader soinc definition and was in large part defined by what it represented (a reaction against the influx of American grunge as well as a celebration of British music and culture). New Wave music was a movement that consisted of a group of loosely-knit subgenres largely united by the fact that they drew inspiration from punk rock. Genre classification is complicated; there are subsets of subsets (Thrash metal is a form of Heavy metal, which is a form of rock music) and styles that overlap (industrial music was inspired by punk rock but is essentially electronic music). In all the pages I have visited, being too specific in the infoboxes has never been a problem; in fact, it helps put the music of the band into an easier-to-understand, readily linkable context for readers. The only problem that arises is when genres are misapplied, oftentimes with a lack of understanding by editors as to how the artist does or does not relate to the genre listed. I suggest other editors err towards a more general genre if there's debate over a group's classification. You make disagree for some reason that System of a Down are a nu metal band, but you can't disagree that they aren't a metal band (yes, I am aware of the double negatives).

I'm against putting references in the infobox whatsoever. It's unsightly and unnecessary. The infobox is a summary of the article, so there should be no need to put an inline citation in the box. If something is consistently disputed and/or removed, someone can just put an invisible text note in the infobox field that could direct the editor to the talk page, or list additional reference material unobtrusively.

Removing the "genre" field doesn't solve anything. In my opinion that's just avoiding the debate. The infobox, any infobox, serves two purposes: it summarizes the basic information of the article in a handy template at the top of the page, and it provides links to relevant topics. As we are talking about the subject of music, directing people to articles that give them a context for the band's sound is essential.

Ultimately, if the size of the infobox creates a consistent problem in the page formatting due to a problem with the genre field or any other, there's always one failsafe solution: remove the infobox. It's not mandatory to have it in the article, and given all else, it's really not essential. For example in another area of Wikipedia, when William Butler Yeats was under FAR, one of the issues was the formatting. This was solved by simply removing the infobox and just posting Yeats' picture at the topic. The same information present in the box is still present in the article, and removing it did not detract from the quality of the article; as the page passed FAR, it arguably improved it. Our goal here is to enhance the reading experience for other, and the infobox is supposed to be a tool that allows us to accomplish that. If for some reason the infobox hinders that, we can do without it.

I won't be checking uup back here much, so if you want to address my points please notify me on my talk page. Thanks. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

A further comment to Kameejl's comment:

Funk is a sub-genre of soul, soul is a sub-genre of R&B and R&B is a sub-genre of blues. Is George Clinton a blues artist? No. And what about jazz-fusion, pop music and electronica? Thirdly, this idea of a guideline can't be applied pragmatically. I think no heavy metal fan will leave rock in the infobox of e.g. Cannibal Corpse. "Rock" is not even mentioned in the article so why should it be mentioned in the infobox?

George Clinton (funk musician) would easily be refenced as R&B, this is an encylopedic treatment allowing those cultures who have no awareness of the complexity, that you quite rightly state, the issue has, to know the top level genre the artist works in (as allmusic guide contains pages on almost all commercially recorded artists and their records, the cites could be this, this and this) the text should make it plain that within that, funk is the usual tag applied and why. Cannibal Corpse does not mention Rock? I think it should mention Blues-rock and Rock music as they are integral to the understanding of the style. If editors are initially resistant to "leave rock in the infobox" then we have some education to do, heavy metal and all its styles are encyclopedically classified as Rock, again, we must be careful to take into consideration that not all readers will be familiar with the subject, or even have heard of it, that will be why many of them are reading about it (editors are different here, we tend to edit stuff we like or know enough about, a few of us have made a habit of spending some time just reading articles, but I think we [as I'm one of those] a not in the majority). We can show those editors well written, referenced lists like List of heavy metal bands and articles such as Heavy metal music, which begins: "Heavy metal (often referred to simply as metal) is a genre of rock music<ref>Du Noyer (2003), p. 74; Weinstein (2000), p. 24</ref> that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s.<ref>Weinstein (2000), p. 14</ref>", we would not have to be solely rely on category use to determine which top genre are used and fall foul of self-referencing, but we would have to ensure we repeated the message enough times for it to be inwardly digested and acted upon by involved parties.--Alf melmac 12:16, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

As a further idea the limiting of the info to only one, would the same problems occur if the guidance was to express top genre and style (if relevant), with the style to be in brackets, so Cannibal Corpse's genre field would be "Rock music (death metal)", the current listing there of "brutal death metal" links to a paragraph in the death metal article anyway so is unecessary and should be removed, it isn't in the text is it, why, because it hasn't been forced there by a decent guideline like the one I'm suggesting. Or maybe the other way round so it would be Death metal (rock music)--Alf melmac 12:34, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea of using the actual genre in the infobox but I think it would be better to just have rock in there and put the style in the lead-in.
So the genre field in the Cannibal Corpse infobox would be rock, and the leadin would be "Cannibal Corpse are a death metal band etc.". Funeral 12:47, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
On this particular idea I'm fine to have editors comment "Alf, that's a crap idea" :) very diplomatic of you, though :) --Alf melmac 12:57, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I often address that issue by listing the overarching genre first, and then listing subgenres. For example the infobox at Nirvana (band) lists alternative rock first and then grunge music, since grunge is a subgenre of alt-rock. There's no need for brackets, and it will probably confuse editors. Keep it simple. I also don't feel it's necessary to list the overrarching genre (Rock, Jazz, Hip Hop, etc.) in the infobox unless a). An artist does not cleanly fit into particular subgenre(s), or b). They encompass a number of of overarching genres. Alternative rock, punk rock, heavy metal, prog, etc. are all forms of rock music, and bebop, free jazz, etc. are all forms of jazz, so there's no need to add "rock" or "Jazz" since they are essentially redundant. WesleyDodds 03:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Numbers

To gain some idea of the current numbers involved I checked each of the articles (A-F) in Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees as a Performer (essentially I chose this as a selection of musical groups/musicians having some extra prominence above the base line and would have likely had a wider selection of editors than other categories).

  • Of the 51 articles in A-F (ok so I got bored of counting after F):
    • 28 use commas,
    • 12 have one or no listed genre or infobox and therefore require no delimeter,
    • nine use breaks and
    • two uses slashes.

It is therefore clear from this small trawl that three times as many articles currently use commas as opposed to breaks. If anyone else cares to trawl a similar selection and feedback here, they are most welcome.--Alf melmac 11:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


Nice but totally useless
I did a count on List of death metal bands (A-D)
  • 47 infoboxes have only 1 genre
  • 53 infoboxes have line breaks
  • 5 infoboxes have commas
  • 22 articles have no infobox
Kameejl (Talk) 21:27, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I want to come to a solution qucikly, as I would rather be editing band articles, video game articles, philosophy/ religion articles and certain anime articles than rehashing this crap. I keep asking the question and not a single comma breaker dares to answer me!!! What's with that!? Why should comma breaks be instituted when line breaks have been the rule for years and years and have worked out just fine until the comma breakers came along? WELL, GIVE ME AN ASNWER Also, Alf's figures are indeed totally useles, and most infoboxes here on wikipedia (at least metal ones) have line breaks. Let's end this! We all want to get to working on editing wikipedia for fuck's sake!!!! Blizzard Beast $ODIN$ 23:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, i would like to say I agree with WesleyDodds, the point of an infobox is to be at least somewhat specific, there's a lot of sub- and overlapping genres out there! Not to mention the "aim for generality" rule is not what those in support of alfs generalism idea are making it out to be!!! Look at the section under this one and look at what FuriousFreddy has to say about his own rule (he wrote the aim for generality thing), and you will see he still meant for there to be a certain amount of specificness. Blizzard Beast $ODIN$ 23:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
OH CRAP!!! I just realized the "aim for generality" rule does not exist!!! Right in the template it says dont list "east coast hip hop", instead use "hip hop", HOWEVER east coast hip hop is not only listed as a genre for articles but it has its own page here: east coast hip hop, which mean the aim for generality rule is defunct and nonexistent as it is contradicting itself. Blizzard Beast $ODIN$ 23:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

It's ironic that Kameejl would choose a section of articles that himself and Navnlos regularly edit and patrol, you could've changed those yourself? But, anyway, all in all, from both surveys (No matter how bias) we can basically say that it's pretty even in terms of numbers. ScarianTalk 23:21, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I can assure you we did not change those ourselves and they have been like that for a long time as many metal articles have been. I disagree with your analysis, but for the sake of not arguing, let's just say that it is equal in numbers for both sides. Not one single comma breaker has answered my question, STILL. Blizzard Beast $ODIN$ 23:29, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Many arguments promoting commas have been brought up, yet not one single valid argument for line breaks has been given (yet, you have failed to give any arument that is not trivial such as "it looks better"), you are just too lazy or too ignorant to read. ~ | twsx | talkcont | 09:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Navlos/Blizzard Beast, your question "Why should comma breaks be instituted when line breaks have been the rule for years and years and have worked out just fine until the comma breakers came along?" is not being answered because of the way you keep framing the question. What exactly do you mean by "the rule" - are you talking about consensus, a guidline, a policy - I am unable to find any such "rule". Are you talking about this particular infobox or infoboxes in general or layout in general, presumably you do mean on Wikipedia rather than layout styles in print and media per se. It obviously wrong to state that comma breaks were any sort of "rule" before or concurrent with this particular infobox's implementation. When Furious Freddy created the infobox there was only one item in the field, and the words "The genre used most often to describe the group/artist" were used. Shame that's been tinkered with over time really, would have avoided this argument altogether. Your question is also phrased in such a way to promote the idea that line breaks were around before commas, which is patently false. I'm not surprised anyone hasn't answered you - you keep asking one of the "comma breakers" to answer you - those editors have already shown willingness to try for one genre only, some supported the removal of the genre entirely, both solutions would have meant the "commaness" vanishing, maybe they not only see the question as being poorly framed but somewhat slanted/insulting (to answer would be to jump in the comma-only-boat, which as I have already said, they have shown willingness to compromise that already). As for my figures being "totally useles" - I can only guess that because they do not support your point of view, they are in your opinion, useless. I find your figures most useful, though I did ask for a like comparison, having stated the rationale - that over baseline and mixed genre related articles would better represent the editing patterns across the board. I would not be at all surprised that any editor largely working on the articles in that (utterly appaling and useless) list would be under the impression that line breaks were more common. Likewise for editors whose edits are primarily related to the Thrash metal articles. Is your editing pattern diverse enough to get an idea of the wider editing patterns without actually analysing the bigger picture somehow, if not, on analysis, if the answer isn't what you'd like, would be prepared to accept it anyway or will you find a different way to continue to insist on line breaks, please be honest so I know whether bothering to count more widespread list/cats may be of any use.--Alf melmac 10:26, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Your numbers aren't useless because they don't support the line break point of view but because subsets of articles giving a total different set of numbers are available. If a format is used widely within a wikipedia scene (in this case metal) then why should a format be imposed on these articles? I was for freedom of choice when this discussion started but seeing people mass imposing the comma lay out made me support the "line breakers" (as there are valid arguments to use line breaks). Kameejl (Talk) 12:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
The intial point of the post by Emmaneul in July was to standardise them, has this issue not been the root cause of editors being blocked? If a solution is to be found, if there is a wider consensus of usage on the issue, this should be the way to resolve the issue. The usage of subsets would skewer a community wide sense of usage. If there is no consensus to be found and editors continue to exceed the three revert rule, blocks to their editing privileges will continue, a decision is preferable to freedom of choice when it involves that. I don't have a preference over which solution is adopted, but I strongly recommend that one of them is.--Alf melmac 12:59, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
One thing I have noticed is that, in some musical group articles, there is redundant and uncited inclusion in the genre field. I would encourage all editors involved here, from whichever 'side', to be hard-nosed about this - if a genre included in the infobox is not supported by material in the text, then I would encourage its removal, with an edit summary to suggest it should appear as cited text first. If is supported by text but that text is not cited, then please request a cite for it using the {{fact}} template. Redundancy would include the example of Cannibal Corpse having "brutal death metal", which linked to a sub section of death metal, which was already inlcuded, it was also not in the text, so it failed the first fence anyway. This will at least reduce some of the clutter around this issue.--Alf melmac 13:27, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Alright, first for Twsx: You are being uncivil and I have given many arguments about why line breaks are better so you are blatantly lying. Read. Also, I don't need to explain anything because line breaks were implemented years before comma breaks and therefore the comma breakers have to explain themselves. Secondly, you are right Alf that it was not a rule, but it was still something everyone used, maybe just because they didn't know to use anything else, but still, it was used for years before comma breaks were. I doubt that is why no one answered my question, though. I think the comma breakers just have no idea what to say to my argument. There at a loss for words..."but...uhhh...thats not...uhm...wait...errr..you're wrong!" or something to that effect. Oh and Alf, I do agree with what you said about genres should not be listed if they are not supported in the text, unless they are closely related, or it doesn't talk about genres in the text at all. Also, Kameejl was right in his comments so I don't think I need to say anything further to Alf's questions besides the fact that there are many more good arguemnts/ reasons supporting line breaks than there are comma breaks. Change needs to be done within reason. If the new way isn't better than the old way, then why proceed? As far as I see it even if comma breaks aren't worse than line breaks, they are certainly not better. You run into all kinds of problems with comma breaks and we need to keep to KISS, so why kick out the old way when its more simple? Blizzard Beast $ODIN$ 23:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


Is the armistice over!?

I wish the armistice would continue and until someone starts a "fight" it may continue. However, User:Twsx has continually edit warred on two pages (Dissection (band) and Amon Amarth). He has recently said that he retracts his agreement of the armistice. He claimed that me and Kameejl were breking the armistice, which is a lie. We were reverting Twsx's edits (as he continued to change those 2 pages) after he had agreed to the armistice. We never changed any genre delimiters on any pages excpet those two after Twsx changed them. I reported Twsx to WP:ANI for edit warring and had the support of User:Scarian to do so. I have held off on reverting Amon Amarth and Dissection until ANI talks it over, though it doesn't look like they're doing anything (they rarely do) but eventually I will rv those pages and when I do I believe Twsx will go on a full out war and change as many pages as possible. Twsx refuses to work with others, it seems, and he has already created a page about genre delimiters where he says some very biased things about me and points out many of my mistakes and older edits in the past. It seems to me, though, that other useres are starting to realize that I am not the one with the problem. Despite some of my older edits and two blocks for edit warring I want to contribute to wikipedia and I have enjoyed the armistice. All I want is for Twsx to get blocked as well for edit warring and doing the same thing as me. This porbably won't happen, though. I regret some of the older edits I have done but Twsx is intent on pointing them out to as many people as possible and show them how I am the "bad guy". I even saw on his talk page now that he said I was "rude". I have never been rude to him except for once calling him a dick when I first made an account on here quite a while back, for which I apologized and told him I was trying to cite WP:DICK which I would not do again. Blizzard Beast $ODIN$ 20:18, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't take it anymore... User Twsx is playing games and is now massively changing genre delimiters to commas (totally inconsistently so it seems). I really want to talk to him and did my best to do so for months but it didn't work. I cracked. I reverted some of his changes and now I feel it wasn't a good idea, but then again, what was I to do? I've did some research and composed some articles: User:Kameejl/Line breaks versus commas. Kameejl (Talk) 00:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

"aim for generality" rule

Like I said in the Standardizing genre delimiters section of this talk page I'd like to discuss the "aim for generality" rule. Many editors ignore this rule, including me. I don't think it's a problem to have a detailed overview of genres. In fact, I see problems leaving detailed genre descriptions out of the infobox. Leaving them out will move edit wars to the body of an article. And what about articles like The Jackson 5? Should it just state pop? Or Bob Dylan? country? rock? folk? What's the generalization of symphonic black metal? symphonic metal? black metal? metal? rock? What's the generalization of deathgrind? grindcore? death metal? metal? hardcore punk? rock? punk?

It's too arbitrary, genres often can't be generalized.

And it's convenient to have an overview of all genres.

Any opinions? Emmaneul (Talk) 20:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm a firm supporter of the aim-for-generality rule. It helps reduce infobox clutter, which is an issue at FAR. Genre clutter was one of the reasons cited for the failure of the recent Frank Zappa FAR, for example—and Zappa is someone who has really worked in multiple major genres. Specific subgenres (and sub-sub-sub-genres) can be discussed in the body of the article. They don't all need to be shoved into the infobox. Some people seem to like to cram as much information as possible into the infobox: I think this should be discouraged. The infobox should provide a brief overview. As Unint pointed out in the previous discussion, this infobox already tends to be among the very largest on Wikipedia. In cases where the genres can't be generalized, that's ok. I got Zappa down to four, but I don't think it's possible to reduce any more. But when it comes to sub-sub-genres (nu-metal and symphonic black metal are clearly subgenres of metal which is a subgenre of rock), it's obviously possible to reduce. As for moving edit wars to the body of the article: that's a good thing! That's where they belong! Often, these sub-sub-genres are more matters of opinion than clear fact, and in the article, and in the body of the article, that can be made clear. In the infobox, it looks as if it were being presented as fact, not opinion. Xtifr tälk 21:13, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I still think it's too arbitrary. To illustrate it I'll use your examples: nu-metal isn't considered a subgenre of metal by many metalfans (like the people from Encyclopaedia Metallum). And there have been debates on whether metal is a subgenre or just a descendant of rock. (just like disco is a descendant of funk and soul is a descendant of R&B. In fact, disco, funk and soul could all be seen as subgenres of R&B (even rock could be seen as a sub-subgenre of R&B) [3] (having The Jackson 5 article in mind). Insisting on generalization will lead to needless debates. By the way, your argument for not having a standard delimiter (Standardizing genre delimiters "On the other hand... ...things the way they are") could also apply to this ("Overspecifying", "FAs which don't even follow the guidelines", "danger of violating WP:CREEP", "does it matter", "people are just going to ignore the "rule" anyway", and "they're still going to make good articles"). Emmaneul (Talk) 08:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't think our positions are as far apart as you seem to think. It says "aim for generality". It doesn't say, "be as general as possible". It just says aim in that direction. You can be specific--just don't be overspecific. It's a flexible guideline, and I like flexible guidelines. Part of the problem, though, is that if you're overspecific, a lot of people will have no idea what you're talking about. I like a lot of metal, but I have no idea what "nu-metal" is (as you may have guessed). Articles should be targeted at a general audience, not just hard-core fans. So that's a good reason to aim for generality. But to me, the big issue is avoiding category clutter. If a band is indisputably nu-metal, I don't mind if the genre field says that, but if they have been variously categorized in seven different subgenres (or loosely related genres) of metal, then I'd rather just see "metal". Ditto for a disco band vs. a band that's worked in funk and soul and disco and R&B. So I guess the bottom line is, I'd support changing the current wording if it's changed to emphasize avoiding category clutter, rather than only saying "aim for generality". But I still think some degree of aiming for generality is good. In general. :) Xtifr tälk 11:51, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

When I wrote "aim for generality", I meant don't list things like "East coast hip-hop" or "southern rap" (which I see used everywhere anyways. Alas.). If a musician records in more than one actual genre, by all means list all of them. The Jackson 5 was one of the first articles I put the infobox on, and if I recall correctly, it said R&B, soul, pop, and disco. Four general genres, all of which fit. No one pays much attention to this rule anyways, and Wikipedia standards are too lax to enforce it, so I wouldn't trouble myself over it too much unless you, like I, hate poorly written unprofessional-looking articles. --FuriousFreddy 03:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Other fields

Shouldn't we add fields that are in more general templates, such as spouse, children, religion, political party, and maybe an All Music Guide link? Tim Long 21:39, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Spouse, children, religion, and political party are mostly irrelevant to a musician's career (and even more so to a musical group). Several of those have been discussed and rejected before, and the ones that haven't (religion, political party) are even worse, IMO. I would actually advocate removing some or all of those from many other infoboxes (especially some of the crufty actor infoboxes). As for an All Music Guide link, I'm not aware of any infobox that has one. The album infobox has a field for reviews, which frequently features links to AMG reviews, but musicians and musical groups are rarely the subject of reviews per se. Note that some of the fields you mention are relevant and/or important in some fields of endeavor, such as politics or religion or royalty (which is arguably not a field of endeavor, but no mind). Finally, this infobox is already subject to regular complaints about its size. Adding more fields for what amounts to gossip-column trivia would only exacerbate the problem. Xtifr tälk 01:26, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Religion and political party may be irrelevant, but Kirsty MacColl erstwhile spouse and Ozzy Osborne's children are notable and significant. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 09:32, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
That can be mentioned in the article; it doesn't have to clutter the already-huge infobox. Experience shows that if we add something like this to the infobox, it will be used in every possible place it can be used, as opposed to merely in those few places where it's more-than-usually notable. Xtifr tälk 10:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Xtifr tälk. Politics, religion and etc are only relevent for very few artists. Often they are apolitical anyway! A music focussed box doesn't need to be wholistic. - Steve3849 talk 17:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Birth place

I think the natural choice of parameter for an individual would be birth place, not origin. The latter is highly ambiguous when applied to an individual and could easily be understood to mean where the person was brought up, whereas place of birth, I believe, is the unequivocal standard for what a biography should contain. __meco 09:17, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Birth place is also widely used in other templates - standardisation is good. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 09:32, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
"Origin" should not be used for the birth place or the place the person was brought up, it should be used for the place where the career originated. The field "Born" is for the birth place. See Template:Infobox musical artist#Fields. --PEJL 13:23, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

DJ coloring

  • I see that DJs are listed as non-performing personnel. However, DJs (not the top 40 radio ones) do play live and perform, often creating new remixes on the fly, or do stuff like turntablism. Shouldn't they be grouped under non_vocal_instrumentalist rather than non_performing_personnel? I've been doing work on DJ articles such as Steve Lawler and Phil K, so I'd like to know which coloring to use. Thanks! Wickethewok 22:18, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
I generally agree, there are people called "DJ" who fall on either side of the non-performing-personnel line, and they should be categorized appropriately. Common sense should be a good enough guide, but if there's some question in certain cases, I would probably consider factors such as: are they credited as if they were musicians on any albums? Similar arguments would apply to MC, which was traditionally a non-performing role, but since at least the days of Funkadelic, has been more and more applied to performers. Xtifr tälk 20:10, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Alritey, thanks for the advice.  :) Wickethewok 05:36, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I for one am pretty unhappy with the murky status of nightclub DJs with respect to the background color code. I would like to see a separate scheme for this group and I would argue that their status in the dance music industry warrants a separate focus on this group. Perhaps a little gaudy I kinda like the look of the background color chosen for Dominik Eulberg ("aqua"). __meco 15:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
See arguments against adding more colors above. --PEJL 16:15, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
And indeed, I would agree in the case of singer-instrumentalists that a new subdivision is not called for. I do however consider the case of the club/event DJs significantly different, and that this basically new category of performers is so prevalent and distinct that a separate scheme for them should be implemented. __meco 07:25, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

G-Unit Records WikiProject

Invitation
I'd like to invite you to join the WikiProject G-Unit Records. We are currently on demand for new members and we believe that the project could benefit from your contributions. Please make sure that you think about this and remember cooperative works can do amazing things. Regards ¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤


Parameters for dead people

The templates {{Infobox person}} and {{Infobox actor}} now have parameters for resting place and resting place_coordinates (see Marylin Monroe for an example using both). I think we should add them (and the "death place" field) to this template. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 22:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Splitting the existing Died field up into Death_date and Death_place (capitalized for consistency with other fields in this template) seems fine, and wouldn't have to change anything in the generated infobox (as it could still use a "Died" label), but would make the formatting more consistent. We should do the same for Born. The fields for resting place seem less obvious, as they seem less relevant for most musicians. While consistency with other person templates is good, the resting place fields seem to have more in common with the other non-music related fields that {{Infobox Person}} has that this template doesn't (like residence, nationality, networth, religion, spouse, children and so on, many of which have been rejected in the past, see above). As such I think we should start with just the birth and death dates and places. --PEJL 01:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
They're completely irrelevant for all musicians - except for the dead ones. For dead musicians, they're just as relevant as for any other notable dead person. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 20:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
You're referring to the fields for resting place? While the information might in general be just as relevant for persons of similar notability, we shouldn't reflexively include it in this infobox for that reason alone. The musical artist infobox should be steered in the direction of including aspects of individuals relevant to their work as musicians. That shouldn't necessarily mean including everything from other person templates in addition to the musical properties. Skipping some of the non-music properties in favor of some music properties is is what we currently do, and seems a reasonable option. I'm not favoring either option, just explaining why I think this needs to be discussed further before the fields for resting place are added. --PEJL 03:02, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I personally don't feel that this needs to be in any infobox. For 99.999% of the dead people in the world, it's pure trivia. There are some notable exceptions, even among musicians (e.g. Jim Morrison's famous gravesite/shrine), but I don't think we need to clutter up the infoboxes with stuff like this, even in those cases. If it's important, you can mention it in the article. I particularly don't think we need to add it to this infobox, which is already quite large compared to most, and, as PEJL says, tends to skip non-musical properties in favor of musical ones. Xtifr tälk 09:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm opposed to the addition of resting place. I feel it's even less important than religion, nationality, etc. For most artists it's not even mentioned in the article's content. Emmaneul (Talk) 15:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps that's because most of our articles are about living people. For dead people, the parameter is still optional, and need not be used if the article does not mention the resting place (though perhaps more articles should). Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 09:43, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but just like Xtifr said: "For 99.999% of the dead people in the world, it's pure trivia". For the majority of dead people resting_place is just as interesting as time_of_death, cause_of_death, name_of_cemetery, last_words. Those might all be interesting depending on the person, but the information still isn't important enough for an infobox. Infoboxes are meant to give a quick impression of a person, not to contain all possible information. Emmaneul (Talk) 11:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
We don't have articles about "99.999% of the dead people in the world" (nor any other randomly-chosen statistic). There are whole books and websites listing the burial sites of notable people. Additionally though it's far from the only reason to include such information) adding resting place & coordinates to the infobox allows them to be included in the exportable metadata, such as the [hCard] microformat, Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 12:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
It might be valuable info, but why add it to an infobox? This is just the same thing as religion, time_of_death or whatever. Emmaneul (Talk) 12:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
When I said "99.999% of dead people", I was actually referring to people with articles in Wikipedia. For people in general, I suspect the percentage is much higher. As for the books and websites, there are books, magazine and websites that cover the clothes worn by celebrities and the fad diets they follow. Many people are obsessed with trivia—I still don't think it belongs in the infobox. Xtifr tälk —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 12:34:04, August 19, 2007 (UTC).
"When I said "99.999% of dead people", I was actually referring to people with articles in Wikipedia" - in that case, prove it. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 14:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Non-sense, this is not the point of the discussion. Just read "99,999%" as "The majority". Emmaneul (Talk) 16:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
That's still an unsupported assertion; and even then, majority use is not a prerequisite for inclusion in an infobox. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 16:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
He was using that to explain why it should be excluded. And I agree - for most dead artists, their final resting place is not notable. (And, for many artists, it almost seems like an invasion of privacy to post it prominently.) -- ChrisB 19:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Arguing about whether my hyperbole was hyperbole is about as complete a case of missing the point as I can imagine. The burden of proof is not on me here; the burden of proof that this is worth adding rests on the people (in this case, sole person) who thinks this should be added. Majority use is not a prerequisite, but consensus is, and I'm more inclined to add fields about religion, astrological sign and blood type—information that a lot of people are interested in. (Not that I'm advocating adding any of those.) Picking nits with my (admittedly unfortunate) use of hyperbole and ignoring my substantive arguments is unlikely to win me over here. Xtifr tälk 20:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


{{Infobox Guitarist}} up for deletion

As of now, the last transclusion of this depreciated template has been eliminated and replaced with the universal template {{Infobox musical artist}} so I nominated it for deletion. Please provide your comments on:

Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2007_August_19#Template:Infobox_Guitarist.

Thank you. --Kudret abi 22:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Last Lineup

Right now there are two sections for members, current, and past. When a band disbands, all members are moved to "past". The problem with this is there are some bands that have so many past members, that there isn't a clear way to note either the last lineup, or the lineup that was together the longest. Could another section be added, just for bands that have disbanded, for "Last Lineup" or something similiar? Example X Japan, which has 13 "past members" not including the 5 members that were in the "last lineup" - making a total of 18. Denaar 10:28, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

In many cases, the "last lineup" is no more notable than several of the others. However, some people have take nto listing the "last lineup" in the "current_members" field ("Current" was removed from the actual display text of the template after much arguing over the fact). The "most famous" lineup(s) of a group should ideally be mentioned in the lead paragraphs of the article prose. When the original version of this infobox was designed, it was specifically tailored to avoid POV battles over which lineup of a group/band was the "most famous", especially in cases where more than one lineup is significantly notable. It's much easier to factually determine who is in a group and who isn't versus whose version of the group was more important. --FuriousFreddy 03:20, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


Background field addition

I have an idea. Whenever this template is transcluded and nothing is in the Background field, the page it is transcluded on would be added to a category automatically. The only way to take it out of that category would be to put something in the Background field. Does anyone agree with this? FMAFan1990 05:44, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

On a side note, the category would be called "Non-standard musical artist infoboxes" FMAFan1990 06:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I've considered that possibility before. The main objection I think is that it's generally preferred to have maintenance categories on the talk page, not the article page, unless it's something major, like uncited, challenged facts. Perhaps an error message would be a better choice, as it's also more likely to be noticed and fixed sooner. Xtifr tälk 09:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a corresponding category for albums at Category:Non-standard album infoboxes. There is some precedent for keeping such maintenance categories in article space (see the CfD for what is now Category:Album articles without cover art). That said, an error message might work. --PEJL 19:07, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
With the maintenance category, I can watch the category and clear out the category when it needs to. FMAFan1990 04:32, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
What about if some kind of template was put on the page which didn't put anything on the page. Then you could see what uses that template via that template's What links here. -Joltman 16:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Clever! --PEJL 16:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Too clever. I've just tested this method, and it doesn't work. All articles using the main template are listed as linking the sub-template, even if the transclusion is conditional. --PEJL 17:02, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed changes

I'm proposing an overhaul to this template that would bring it inline with other templates of the same kind. I've re-written the code used in this template to use wikimarkup instead of HTML. I've also simplified the code in certain areas. The most notable change is the font-size change, which keep this template consistent with other infoboxes like Template:Infobox Officeholder. (Font-size is of a lesser concern to me than the other changes in this code.) In addition, I've removed the (entirely unnecessary?) colspan's. I couldn't find any reason to have them in the template. The proposed changes can be viewed here. Without objection, I'll probably update this template in the next few days. Cheers. --MZMcBride 02:32, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't actually see a lot of reason to prefer wikimarkup; I think it's mostly a matter of taste. And in this case, I'm a little worried about the overhead required by all the new transclusions of {{!}} and the like. Still, it's probably a pretty close to six of one, half a dozen of the other, so I won't actually object. As for the font changes—those I actually like, and think we ought to adopt whether or not we switch to wikimarkup. Xtifr tälk 05:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
On the other hand one could argue that the font size should move in the other direction, to use the standard font size, to make this infobox consistent with the more closely related album/single/song infoboxes. That would also encourage brevity in the infobox, something the documentation is trying to encourage (with limited success). I'll note that the font sizes look very different in some browsers, even to the point that the artist name looks bigger with the current infobox than the proposed infobox in some browsers and smaller in others. If we are to decrease the font-size, can't we decrease the line-height as well? As it is now, we save some horizontal space but no vertical space (other than from line wrapping differerences), which makes the decrease in font size seem less justified. --PEJL 06:58, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and updated the template (with a slightly smaller line-height). Let me know if any issues arise or any changes need to be made. I'll be happy to oblige. Cheers. --MZMcBride 02:50, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Could the line-height be removed? For me, the lines overlap each other, the first line even overlaps with the image. For comparison, Infobox Officeholder uses <small> with no line-height change. --MinorContributor 08:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
The line-height cannot be removed, without line-height the second line would start at the same place as the first line. I don't understand the problem. Can you clarify? --PEJL 15:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
My font is larger than the 10 px your line-height assumes it to be. With a two-line caption, the lines get mashed into each other and even to the image. The problem. From my (somewhat limited) knowledge of CSS, I believe removing the line-height completely would work, but a line-height declaration of 100% would equally fix it. --MinorContributor 12:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

OK, I see what you mean now. See here to reproduce the problem. Removing the line-height instruction would work. (Removing the line-height itself means setting it to 0, which would make your problem worse.) A better solution would be to decrease the line-height using a relative size rather than an absolute size.
Requested change: Please change line-height:10px to line-height:1.1 line-height:1.1em on the sixth line. --PEJL 16:31, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that's valid CSS; non-zero values always require a unit. Perhaps you meant line-height: 1.1em or line-height: 110% --MinorContributor 13:28, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Oops, I indeed meant line-height: 1.1em. Sorry for the mix-up. --PEJL 13:37, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Clarified request above. --PEJL 15:30, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 18:52, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Raised

There should be a "raised" field. I mean, it's not the same as "origin", is it? Funk Junkie 23:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, its another source of confusion. Where is the musician based? vs Where did they originally come from? A lot of people moving around throughout their careers. New Orleans musicians are great example as many musicians raised elsewhere had moved notably to New Orleans for their careers and after Katrina moved out. "Raised" might not be only the term to consider. - Steve3849 talk 03:11, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
If it's not the same as where they were born or their origin as a musician, then it probably doesn't belong in the infobox, though it certainly belongs in the article. Not every piece of trivia about someone's history needs to be stuffed into infoboxes. In the case of an "army brat", a "raised" field might well need dozens of entries, which is definitely not what we want. (In the case of New Orleans musicians who were born elsewhere, on the other hand, the Origin field is probably the right one to use.) Xtifr tälk 08:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
though i wouldn't be in favour of a 'raised' or 'reared' or 'brought up', i would like to see a field for nationality. as far as i can tell template:infobox actor, and template:infobox musical artist are the only two that have this field omitted. --emerson7 | Talk 20:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The "solo_singer" background color changes?

Anybody think this color should be changed? Is it just me, or this colour is awful?--Tasco 0 21:44, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

It's just you.  :) Seriously, there are no colors (including "no colors") that everyone will like. However, this particular color is pretty much the only color that was retained from the first incarnation of the template with no objections. And there have been several instances where someone has come by to say "I like the color for solo_singer, but can't we do something about the color for X?" I've had this page on my watchlist for nearly a year now, and to the best of my recollection, this is the first complaint about the color for solo_singer. You're actually probably not alone, but I tend to suspect that you're in a pretty insignificant minority. (I'm personally pretty neutral about all the colors.) Xtifr tälk 23:19, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, I think that another color would be better. I just think that the color is "out of line".--Tasco 0 23:24, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Label section

E.g. 50 Cent infobox, In the labels section in the infobox, is there any way to show that he's not signed to JMJ and Columbia because it currently looks like he is, but he isnt, cant we add the years he was singed onto the label next to it?.--Shadyaftrmathgunit 21:26, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

You can do something like this:
Columbia (year - year)
Jam Master Jay (year - year)--Tasco 0 21:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
No, that's explicitly discouraged, see Template:Infobox musical artist#Label. --PEJL 04:40, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Why would that be discourage, it should be used becuase currently it looks misleading.--Shadyaftrmathgunit 17:32, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree, We should change the infobox to allow dates to be added. Artists' infoboxes who have been signed to many labels look very misleading. A new user, for example, would not know that in Template:Infobox musical artist#Label it says not to add dates will they? Any normal person would expect to see only the current label or past labels with some kind of notice to say that they are past labels. --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 17:45, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
You can't say "any normal person". What's the definition of a "normal" person?--Tasc0 18:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I believe they are discouraged because the infobox should contain only a limited amount of information. Additional information can be included in the article body. Note also that parenthetical statements are discouraged in Current_members and Past_members as well. --PEJL 17:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Current member and past member make the situation clear. Howver past labels and current labels go under the same section so it is not as clear. --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 18:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
What's the problem using the example I used?--Tasc0 18:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I think what G Unit Boss is trying to say is that for example a person goes onto wikipedia for the first time and looks in the infobox and sees all these records labels next the the Label heading they properly will think that he is singed to all these record labels even though the isn't. I would think that, adding years will clear up the misconception.--Shadyaftrmathgunit 18:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Yup, Thats what I meant. --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 18:42, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I know what he meant, but you can't say a "normal" person. Anyways, PEJL says it's "explicitly discouraged". I think that does not make much sense.--Tasc0 19:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
What we really need to do is try and establish whether or not we will be able to change this template. --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 20:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Just add how to do it in Template:Infobox_musical_artist#Label and that's all. You can't change the template, and if you can, you must have some programming skills.--Tasc0 20:23, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with this change. If we are to allow parenthetical statements, that change should be made in a way that does not make all currently conforming content non-conforming (which is what changing the delimiter as was done does). This could for example be done by using formatting such as the following:

[[Label 1]] (year–year),<br>
[[Label 2]] (year–year)

Note also that years should be delimited by unspaced en dashes per WP:MOS#En dashes. That said, I'm not convinced that years need to be included at all. --PEJL 20:47, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I still don't understand why you think years should not be included. If an artist is no longer signed with a label, why this shouldn't be included? That's a relevant information.--Tasc0 20:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't buy the argument that it's misleading because readers would assume that all labels listed are current labels. Why would a reader assume that an artist is still signed to all labels that are listed? The very fact that multiple labels are listed is a sign that some of them may be former labels or otherwise secondary. If we were to follow the guideline that was momentarily implemented, we would be duplicating the information in the years_active field, especially for artists with only one label. Note that the information can still be included, in the article body. The infobox is meant to contain a limited amount of information, which means not including every piece of information, even if it is relevant. --PEJL 21:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Lol. "Encyclopedia". Users do not have a crystall ball to know when the artist left the record label. It's a small information that is very useful.
I'm sorry, but maybe you think I'm trying to change the template, but I'm not. What I'm saying is to use what me and you put as example.--Tasc0 21:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
We have answered that above. But how about we implement your format above? --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 21:24, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

There is no need whatsoever to put years in the label section because people may think it's misleading (I have yet to hear any complaints that people were misled). Using that logic, you might as well add the years they were active in each of their occupations e.g. "singer (1997-1999)", actor (2000-present)". Spellcast 21:42, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Tasc0: I'm not sure in what way we could change the template that would have an effect on this.
The-G-Unit-Boss: Have answered above where? Which parts? --PEJL 21:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Since artists are invariably signed to one label at a time, the chance for confusion is nil. Anyway, old labels often release compilations or vault material, so adding dates is potentially misleading. The field isn't for labels-signed-with, the field is for labels-associated-with. Xtifr tälk 21:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yo, i think it should be kept the same as it is just an associated-label list, just like the asscoiated-artists list, which doesn't mention what years they were associated with the other artists - Keep It Real - Real Compton G 16:56, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Its not "Associated labels" it is "The record label or labels to which the act has been signed". --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 17:10, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, in that case i think it should be changed.lol - Keep It Real - Real Compton G 17:24, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't history of former labels signed onto be in the main article just like the dates they were signed onto are.--Shadyaftrmathgunit 21:13, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Years_active

I'd like to add the following to Years_active:

Periods should be separated by an en dash without spaces (e.g. 1993-2004 (see WP:SEASON))

Any opinions? Kameejl (Talk) 13:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Me too, thats a good idea. --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 14:10, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Good idea, but we should fix the example to actually use an en dash (!) and rephrase to avoid the nested parentheses. --PEJL 16:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with this. This needs to be included as official.--Tasc0 18:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Why without spaces? Spaced or not, each form is equally acceptable. Interestingly, it seems the AutoWikiBrowser uses spaces.[4] Spellcast 07:00, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Because of WP:DATE#Longer_periods
"Year ranges, like all ranges, are separated by an en dash (do not use a hyphen or slash: 2005–08, not 2005-08 or 2005/08). A closing CE/AD year is normally written with two digits (1881–86) unless it is in a different century from that of the opening year (1881–1986). The full closing year is acceptable, but abbreviating it to a single digit (1881–6) or three digits (1881–886) is not. A closing BCE or BC year is given in full (2590–2550 BCE). While one era signifier at the end of a date range still requires an unspaced en dash (12–5 BC), a spaced en dash is required when a signifier is used after the opening and closing years (5 BC – 29 AD)." Kameejl (Talk) 08:30, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
This is also mentioned in the more general WP:MOS#En dashes (which is what I usually cite when making these changes). BTW, I don't think we need to hide the section in the link with a pipe, better to show it. --PEJL 10:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Even if WP:DATE is less general, I think it is more appropriate in this context (the guideline is about periods, not specifically about dashes). Indeed, the link shouldn't be piped. I'll add the second rephrase. Kameejl (Talk) 11:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Rephrased:

Periods should be separated by an en dash without spaces (e.g. 1993–2004). See WP:DATE. Kameejl (Talk) 08:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


Second (and final) rephrase:

Periods should be separated by an en dash without spaces (e.g. 1993–2004). See WP:DATE#Longer periods. Kameejl (Talk) 11:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah you're right. I could have sworn the MoS said spaces were acceptable alternatives (it may have changed in the past month). Anyway, I don't have a problem either way. Also, I sometimes notice that "to" is used when an artist is still active e.g. "1995 to present". Would "to" also be acceptable? I know it's a minor issue, but I might as well bring it up here. Spellcast 13:38, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I suppose "2004 to present" means the same as "2004–present"? --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 14:01, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
WP:MOS#En dashes states "The word to, rather than an en dash, is used when a number range involves a negative value or might be misconstrued as a subtraction (−3 to 1, not −3–1), or when the nearby wording demands it (“he served from 1939 to 1941”, not “he served from 1939–1941”)."
So I think an en dash is preferable because the wording is not important in an infobox, but that's just my interpretation of the MoS. It might be a good idea to add another example (1965–present) to the guideline. Kameejl (Talk) 14:06, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Adding another example will clear up any misconceptions. --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 14:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, please recommend 1965–present as well. One minor tweak I'd like to make is to change "an en dash without spaces" to "an unspaced en dash", to use the same phrase as WP:MOS and WP:DATE does. --PEJL 14:15, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I changed it Kameejl (Talk) 14:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Whitespace

I propose that we remove the whitespaces from the code so that it looks like this:

{{Infobox musical artist <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Musicians -->
|Name                = 
|Img                 = 
|Img_capt            = 
|Img_size            = 
|Landscape           = 
|Background          = 
|Birth_name          = 
|Alias               = 
|Born                = 
|Died                = 
|Origin              = 
|Instrument          = 
|Voice_type          = 
|Genre               = 
|Occupation          = 
|Years_active        = 
|Label               = 
|Associated_acts     = 
|URL                 = 
|Current_members     = 
|Past_members        = 
|Notable_instruments = 
}}

Rather than this:

{{Infobox musical artist <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Musicians -->
| Name                = 
| Img                 = 
| Img_capt            = 
| Img_size            = 
| Landscape           = 
| Background          = 
| Birth_name          = 
| Alias               = 
| Born                = 
| Died                = 
| Origin              = 
| Instrument          = 
| Voice_type          = 
| Genre               = 
| Occupation          = 
| Years_active        = 
| Label               = 
| Associated_acts     = 
| URL                 = 
| Current_members     = 
| Past_members        = 
| Notable_instruments = 
}}

It is only a minor change but will use less code when in many articles. It uses 22 characters more than it needs to and think about how many articles this is being or will be used in. --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 16:40, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The current format is more legible. A pipe character looks similar to other characters, so the fields names would be harder to read without spaces. The current format is also consistent with other music infoboxes, such as the album/single/song infoboxes. As for saving 22 characters, see WP:PERF. --PEJL 16:46, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion - last example

Suggest splitting of long lines in the last example. (To make it appear better on ordinary screens - and also make editing possible without sideway scroll). See edited documentation ("current version": Oceanh 22:34, 28 September 2007 (UTC)).

I disagree with this change as well, partly for the same reasons as in the topic just above, and partly for consistency with the section "Code". I've moved the infobox to the top instead. --PEJL 23:11, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I started to say 'agree'... but after checking the template now (the documentation page), it turns out that the long lines (in the example) still disturb the the whole page, at least on my 'small' screen. I have to scroll sideways all the time, to read the text. In edit modus it's even more annoying (after preview), because I have to scroll sideways to reach the vertical scrollbar. Will NOT recommend this solution. But leaves it for others to judge. Maybe everybody else use broad screens... Oceanh 01:10, 29 September 2007 (UTC).
Another problem with your solution is that it inserts <p> elements into the markup. Besides being inappropriate HTML for the infobox, this makes the margins between some lines larger. You shouldn't have to scroll sideways to reach the vertical scrollbar. What web browser and screen resolution are you using? --PEJL 08:14, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. I was not aware of the unwanted effect of "<p> elements in the markup". The suggestion was based on appearance on the screen, in a bit old web browser (MS Internet Explorer, version 5.50.4134.0600) which normally works fine though. Scrolling sideways to reach the vertical scrollbar in the edit window is a minor problem, as it only happens in edit modus, after pushing the Show preview button. I agree that the example should show what is recommended when applying the template. If breaking the lines has unwanted bi-effects, my suggested "workaround" is no good, because most important is that the template displays fine in the "main" articles. Oceanh 10:49, 29 September 2007 (UTC).
Internet Explorer generally has poor support for CSS, and that version is something like seven years old. You should consider upgrading your web browser. --PEJL 11:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice. Have checked on another machine, and the page looks fine. Oceanh 18:52, 2 October 2007 (UTC).

Past members

Wouldn't it be neat to have a show/hide button for past members? A button like the Infobox actor has. See the award part in the infobox e.g. Jack Black. Kameejl (Talk) 00:19, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

(An example of an actor infobox which uses such a section can be found here.) What exactly are the benefits? One benefit I can think of is that it puts greater focus on current members than past members, which should be appropriate in most cases. Since this section is at the bottom of the infobox we're not really cramped for space, and no other infobox content would move higher up if we did this. One disadvantage is that it means a user has to take an extra step to get to the information. Another problem is accessibility. --PEJL 08:34, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
The past members section could be visible by default. So no extra step would be needed to get the information. Users will have the choice weather they want to hide the information. Many other wiki element use this show/hide functionality (even this new donation ad at the top of the wikipedia page). It does not seem to be a accessibility problem. To be sure, I have posted a question on Wikipedia:Accessibility and a user told me it's only a problem for CSS incompatible browsers. As far as I know CSS incompatible browsers will show the content by default, only the show/hide button won't work. I have tested this on Lynx, a text based web browser. Accessibility is not a problem. I really feel this should be implemented. Kameejl (Talk) 12:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I've made a working prototype: see Template:Infobox_Musical_artist/testcases#Hide.2FShow_past_members_test Kameejl (Talk) 22:30, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Making it visible by default certainly diminishes the accessibility problem, but it also makes it quite redundant. Why would anyone bother to hide this information? I think we should either keep it as it is, or make it hidden by default. As we're talking about an infobox that (hopefully) summarizes content elsewhere in the article, I don't think the accessibility problem is severe enough to rule out the latter. --PEJL 06:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
The test infobox is now hidden by default. Kameejl (Talk) 09:21, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
If we decide to do this, the code needs some work. The nested table gets an additional margin, which means the table headings don't line up. That shouldn't be too difficult to fix. --PEJL 20:51, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Awards

I propose that there be a section (that has a hide or show option) for awards the artist has won. There may already be one, but it's a good proposition. This way, we can put the amount of Grammy Awards the artist won, the year he/she won it, and what category it was in. Karen Carpenter's Biggest Fan 06:19, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Second example

I think it would make sense to add a second example, that illustrates the group_or_band specific fields. Thoughts? - Cyrus XIII 07:48, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. Kameejl (Talk) 11:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to add the Audioslave (featured article) template to the page as an example of a group_or_band. I'll have to wait because the page is protected now. Any thoughts? Kameejl (Talk) 15:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't adhere to our guideline to delimit the labels using commas. --PEJL 15:20, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
now it does Kameejl (Talk) 16:24, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Which made it noticeably inconsistent (commas, line breaks, commas, line breaks), so I delimited the associated acts and genres using commas as well. Too bad we don't have a guideline for this stuff... --PEJL 17:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Mmmm... there we go again, consistency is not an issue, comprehensibility is an issue. First it didn't adhere to our guideline, now you introduced unnecessary made up guidelines. I'm not going to discuss this, I've done it before. I've changed my mind, I don't want a second example. Kameejl (Talk) 17:31, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I didn't introduce any guideline, I just edited the article. --PEJL 17:37, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
The photo caption should not end in a period as it is not a sentence, but a noun phrase (see WP:CAP). Strobilus (talk) 12:51, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I am somewhat surprised to read this thread, having twice removed the second example as a result of an editor's comments in the ongoing break/comma discussion below, and being twice reverted by Kameejl who here states "I've changed my mind, I don't want a second example." - "Gobsmacked" I think the word is.--Alf melmac 13:16, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Req: Cleanup after move

Please replace the following references in the template:

Thanks in advance. --PEJL 15:25, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, we've got many, many references throughout wikipedia advising people to use the old name, not to mention many many thousands of instances of articles using the old name. Which, btw, is one of the reasons why I think the move was somewhat ill-advised. (But I've been busy recently, so I didn't really have time to give the debate the attention it maybe deserved.) I've also cleaned up one double redirect[5] so far; we need to be on the lookout for others. Xtifr tälk 21:39, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I would have preferred more discussion before making this move as well. I didn't notice it had been put up at WP:RM until it had already been moved. Since then, I've been updating quite a few references to this template, so hopefully most of the documentation will soon be updated. --PEJL 22:56, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Wait, why was it moved in the first place? There had been discussion where several users had stated they liked it better as Musical artist, and it was then listed under the Uncontroversial proposals section. 17Drew 01:18, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
There is a large thread about this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musicians#Consensus. Let's continue this there. I'm removing this editprotected request for now, until we decide what to do. --PEJL 01:40, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Please replace the following references in the template:

Thanks in advance. --PEJL 21:42, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Y Done - Nihiltres(t.l) 22:40, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

"Nationality" parameter

Can some thought be given to adding a "nationality" parameter to this infobox, in line with other infoboxes such as {{Infobox Person}} and {{Infobox Writer}}? Cheers, Jacklee 11:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

This has been discussed previously. Search for "nationality" on this talk page to see where. We already have fields "Born" and "Origin", which make a distinct field for nationality redundant in most cases. --PEJL 11:32, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Right, found the previous discussion at "Template talk:Infobox_Musician/Archive 2#Nationality field". Can't say that I'm totally convinced by the reasons given for not including such a parameter, though. While birth places (for individuals) and origins (for groups) are unchangeable historical facts, nationality can change. It is useful to know, for instance, that singer Joe Bloggs was born in, say, Poland, but is now a US national. It would be misleading if the only information that appeared in the infobox was the fact that Bloggs was born in Kraków. Cheers, Jacklee 16:42, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Req: Move

{{editprotected}}

Please move to Template:Infobox Musical artist, per WT:MUSICIAN#Consensus. --PEJL 19:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Y Done - please let me know if there are leftover inconsistencies from the move. Nihiltres(t.l) 19:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Req: Adjust line-height

{{editprotected}}

I've created a sandbox and testcases, and made some changes to the sandbox, to decrease the line-height slightly. Please apply the current sandbox. --PEJL 19:21, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Two whitespace changes were made to the live template after the initial request was made. One of those was redundant and conflicts with the changes in the sandbox. The other change has been merged into the sandbox. Please apply the now current sandbox instead. --PEJL 08:00, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Y Done Nihiltres(t.l) 00:30, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Associated acts

What about strict rules for associated acts? We should only allow spin offs ("Acts from which this act spun off; acts which spun off a group act"). We shouldn't allow (insignificant) projects/bands featuring 1 of the band members. It's ok for the band member's article but is not important for the band as a whole. To give an example: Audioslave is associated with Rage Against the Machine because Audioslave is Rage Against the Machine minus singer: a Rage Against the Machine spin off. The Nightwatchman however is only associated with Tom Morello, and only indirectly with Audioslave. It should not be included. Any opinions? Kameejl (Talk) 12:58, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I haven't experienced too many problems with the current guideline. The wording could maybe be tightened up a bit, but I think what you're suggesting goes too far. Using your example, I'd say The Nightwatchman is significantly associated with Rage and vice versa. Strobilus (talk) 00:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Influences

{{editprotected}} It would be appreciated to add 'Influences' and 'Influenced by' into the template, like the comedian infobox. Kanye West, for example, has admitted to being influenced by RZA, while Lupe Fiasco, in turn, is influenced by Kanye. --Jw21/PenaltyKillah(discuss•edits) 19:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

This template already has an "influences" field. I believe that's generally used to list influences on the subject of the article. I'm a little hesitant about having an "influenced" field which would allow legacy to be packed into the infobox, though. Shouldn't things like this be discussed in prose? I think the way this appears in Richard Pryor looks a bit strange. The "influenced" field exists in {{infobox writer}} but that template doesn't seem to be used much. Gimmetrow 05:01, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
N Not done - no consensus for change. Neil ☎ 10:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Edit request

{{editprotected}} {{/doc}} → {{documentation}}
please 16@r 21:02, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Done. Gimmetrow 18:28, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Infobox width vs picture width

Most band infoboxes feature pictures that have a landscape lay out. By using the Landscape = yes functionality the picture is displayed as wide as possible. It'll make the picture bigger but the infobox will also get wider. I think this effect is sometimes disturbing as a wide infobox is pushing away the body text. This results in a narrow "newspaper style" strip left of a gigantic image of the band (at lower resolutions). I don't think we need that much space for a band picture, certainly because band pictures can be viewed in full upon clicking. Is there a maximum infobox width? Shouldn't we have a maximum width for images? See the Metallica infobox. First example is the current infobox (I think it's too wide). Second example has an empty landscape setting. Third example is set to landscape with a width of 250, I think that's the best looking option. Kameejl (Talk) 10:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

1) landscape=yes
Metallica
Metallica live in London, 2003. Left to right: Robert Trujillo, Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield.
Metallica live in London, 2003. Left to right: Robert Trujillo, Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield.
Background information
Origin Los Angeles, California, USA
Genre(s) Heavy metal
Thrash metal
Speed metal
Hard rock
Years active 1981–present
Label(s) Warner Bros., Elektra, Vertigo, Megaforce
and their affiliated licensees and distributors
Associated acts Spastik Children, Megadeth, Echobrain, Exodus, Flotsam and Jetsam, Voivod, Leather Charm
Website www.metallica.com
Members
James Hetfield
Lars Ulrich
Kirk Hammett
Robert Trujillo
Former members
Jason Newsted
Cliff Burton
Dave Mustaine
Ron McGovney
Lloyd Grant
2) landscape=empty
Metallica
Metallica live in London, 2003. Left to right: Robert Trujillo, Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield.
Metallica live in London, 2003. Left to right: Robert Trujillo, Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield.
Background information
Origin Los Angeles, California, USA
Genre(s) Heavy metal
Thrash metal
Speed metal
Hard rock
Years active 1981–present
Label(s) Warner Bros., Elektra, Vertigo, Megaforce
and their affiliated licensees and distributors
Associated acts Spastik Children, Megadeth, Echobrain, Exodus, Flotsam and Jetsam, Voivod, Leather Charm
Website www.metallica.com
Members
James Hetfield
Lars Ulrich
Kirk Hammett
Robert Trujillo
Former members
Jason Newsted
Cliff Burton
Dave Mustaine
Ron McGovney
Lloyd Grant
3) landscape=yes + size=250
Metallica
Metallica live in London, 2003. Left to right: Robert Trujillo, Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield.
Metallica live in London, 2003. Left to right: Robert Trujillo, Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield.
Background information
Origin Los Angeles, California, USA
Genre(s) Heavy metal
Thrash metal
Speed metal
Hard rock
Years active 1981–present
Label(s) Warner Bros., Elektra, Vertigo, Megaforce
and their affiliated licensees and distributors
Associated acts Spastik Children, Megadeth, Echobrain, Exodus, Flotsam and Jetsam, Voivod, Leather Charm
Website www.metallica.com
Members
James Hetfield
Lars Ulrich
Kirk Hammett
Robert Trujillo
Former members
Jason Newsted
Cliff Burton
Dave Mustaine
Ron McGovney
Lloyd Grant



For wide angle shots Landscape=yes = good
And for "too" wide of an angle limiting the width to 250px also = good.
IOWs I agree with your example 3 recommendation.
Now if we could just get rid of that disturbing white gap between the 'genre' and the 'years active' field titles. :D 156.34.142.110 (talk) 19:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

musician/band confusion

Just added an infobox to CéU. Which is a singer-songwriter but has a fix band. Thus I added both musician only and band only fields. Which certainly is not clean. Which made me start to wonder what is generally done when the name of the band is the name of the lead musician. Should that page be broken up into two pages. One for the band and one for herself and the biographical info of her moved over? She/They just won a grammy nomination. Does that nomination go to her only or to the band? Remosito (talk) 16:44, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Add Influenced field

{{editprotected}} There is currently an influences field which can be seen on the Leona Lewis page. I propose adding an Influenced field like {{Infobox Writer}} has for musicians who influenced many artists that came after them, like Eva Cassidy‎ and Leona Lewis. --Hera1187 (talk) 18:41, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I objected to this above. I'm a little concerned how the "influenced" field tends to fill up with people influenced in different ways and in different degrees. This sort of content needs to be discussed in prose. If we can figure out a way to avoid huge lists like the one at G. K. Chesterton, I'll add the template code. How about - nothing should be added to these fields which are not 1) cited, and 2) discussed in the article? Gimmetrow 19:19, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
No personal view, but noting that Edgar Allan Poe had these in the infobox and in this edit they were removed as a result of the Featured Article Candidacy feedback which stated "just one comment for now regarding the last three sections in the infobox. They seem somewhat unnecessary and long; I counted 21 names in the last section alone. Poe's influence is already adequately explained in the lead, so I wouldn't miss a little bit (or a lot) of trimming in the infobox. :)" although the editor said they would be "be okay leaving no more than three or four names each", they obvious felt different about it by the time the edit was made and removed them all, along with the field.--Alf melmac 20:18, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I have concerns about this as well. Even if we require that citations and in-article discussion are required, I expect we will still be facing the similar type of edit-warring we see in some articles with regard to music genre. I would rather see "influences" and "influenced" discussed only in the prose of the article, where it encourages editors to add context and encourages proper citing of sources. --Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 21:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Removing EPP. No consensus for an influenced field at this time. Gimmetrow 21:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Labels

What about label years in the label section (example 1 example 2)? I think it can be informative and it is not disruptive. Shouldn't it be accepted? Kameejl (Talk) 19:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone object to the use of years in the label section? Kameejl (Talk) —Preceding comment was added at 07:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

interwiki

i want to add interwiki, but this article blocked. so it's anybody can add interwiki?--Abigail alderate (talk) 03:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Since the template is being used in thousand of articles, it is indefinitely protected because of the danger it implies (as the template at the top of this page reads). If you want to add an interwiki, you will have to request an administrator to do it for you. Just add the interwiki you want to add here, and use the {{editprotected}} template so that we notice someone wants to edit this page (in fact, the {{editprotected}} template can be used in the talk page of any protected article when you want to modify it but you cannot). -- ReyBrujo (talk) 02:20, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Requesting additional opinions

I'd like some additional opinions about this template's use as it relates to this discussion, where there I'm arguing that subgenres like groove metal and glam metal shouldn't be used in the template per the template's genre guidelines. Am I alone in this perspective? Doesn't using groove metal and glam metal contradict the guidelines, or am I just crazy? If I'm interpreting the guidelines wrong, a bit of rewording and clarification is probably needed. Any help would be appreciated. Nufy8 (talk) 21:26, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

In the case of Pantera:
I'd like to have groove metal in the Pantera infobox, but we should look at sources. Is groove metal a genre generaly attributed to Pantera? Allmusic states: "there was no greater metal band during the early to mid-'90s than Pantera, who inspired a legion of rabid fans and whose oft-termed "groove metal" style bucked all prevailing trends of the day". Other sources use groove metal as well. Groove metal is a prominent genre for Pantera, they where (one of) the initiators of groove metal, so people expect to see it in the infobox. This probably means Pantera's less notable early genres should be mentioned as well. To avoid having a myriad of genres in the infobox we could have heavy metal in the infobox and link to a detailed genre section (like Meshuggah or Nevermore). This way it is clear to the reader heavy metal 'there is more' and heavy metal is not the only genre. The detailed section can have sources, etc. Experience shows it stops edit wars and needless edits.
In genreral:
For all I care this "aim for generality" guideline could be removed or altered to reflect common practice. Being general or being as general as possible may get rid of some genre problems but brings along other problems:
  • Other categorization problems: What's the most general form of lets say grindcore? Would it be hardcore punk? Death metal? Heavy metal? Metal? Punk? Rock? "Popular music"? Or is grindcore general enough? Where do we draw the line? It's clear that f.e. "death metal influenced progressive symphonic black metal" is too specific. But "heavy metal" is too general in many cases. Is jazz-fusion general enough? Is death metal general enough?
  • Infobox would be less useful: If you look around on websites like www.allmusic.com, www.rockdetector.com, www.metal-archives.com, www.metal-observer.com you'll notice that detailed genre information is displayed in band/album profiles. That's not because it is pretty but because it is useful and interesting information.
We should be realistic and look at sources. If a band is labeled melodic death metal by the majority of the press then it's realistic to have MDM in the infobox. If a band's genre is not clear (because the press has labeled the band inconsistently) then it's best (I already mentioned it in the Pantera specific part above) to be general in the infobox and have a detailed genre section in the article explaining the style and several genres (again, like Meshuggah or Nevermore). If a genre is notable enough to have its own article on wikipedia, its notable enough to be in the infobox. Kameejl (Talk) 07:46, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

This is exactly why general genres should be used in the infoboxes. Because if you just say "metal", no one's going to argue that! --FuriousFreddy (talk) 19:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Then it's best to remove the genre. No, we should use the genre most commonly attributed to the band. If the press is clear about band X being technical death metal (f.e. Cryptopsy, or Necrophagist), technical death metal should be the genre. Kameejl (Talk) 04:22, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Question

  • Q: Is there a legitimate way that the "born" field can be used if the background field is set to group_or_band?
  • A: I would assume so, if the subject in question is a duo composed of identical twins.

Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 00:18, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Bands with loose memberships

What should be done in the case of bands that have somewhat loose memberships, such as The Tractors? The only real "official" member now is Steve Ripley; the rest is just whoever happens to be in the studio when they cut an album. Any suggestions? Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 00:56, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd say to list the one official member in the infobox and list the rest in the article body. Strobilus (talk) 13:47, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering about the a similar thing. In the case of KMFDM, there is a current lineup, however the "past members" title is misleading when referring to several musicians in the band's history. KMFDM has seen many contributors over the years, but very rarely has anyone announced their departure or been explicitly ousted. A more appropriate term would be something like "past-" or "frequent collaborators". Take Raymond Watts, Tim Skold, and William Rieflin for example--these guys are well-known in their own right and thus their prominent roles in KMFDM's history is notable. None have announced their departure from KMFDM; rather, they've become involved with other projects (PIG, Marilyn Manson, and R.E.M., respectively) and therefore have not participated in recent albums/tours. Is the infobox classification of "former members" set in stone? --buck (talk) 19:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki

pl:Szablon:Artysta muzyczny infobox

Zwiadowca21 Write 20:09, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Done! Note that interwikis go in Template:Infobox Musical artist/doc, which is not protected. Cheers! -- ReyBrujo (talk) 20:21, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

solo_singer and non_vocal_instrumentalist background colours name change

Firstly, this is not a proposal for adding another category or colour or altering colours. I think it would be advantageous to change the labels solo_singer and non_vocal_instrumentalist to vocalist and instrumentalist respectfully to better reflect their usage, so they are less likely to be altered in articles to something non-defining (eg singer, rapper, vocal_instrumentalist) by editors who do not realise that it only affects the colour (for example, a lead singer and instrumentalist of a group is not a solo singer and this would be altered or removed). The old names should still work (and no mass conversion required), and the new names would be defined in new cases. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks, mattbr 12:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Anyone have any thoughts? mattbr 09:21, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Makes more sense in terms of ease-of-use (adding solo_singer to an article like Kim Deal isn't obvious, as she's never been a solo artist). CloudNine (talk) 19:25, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Never encountered it as a problem before, personally. Then again, I don't edit many articles with a lot of traffic. I don't see a down side to it, really, besides maybe some confusion if the new names become very common. Zytsef (talk) 17:58, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.