Template talk:Infobox Musical artist
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[edit] Lyrical themes
Let's add a new field to this infobox named either "lyrical themes", "lyrics subjects" or something like that. It could be used for listing most resurring themes covered by an artist. Netrat_msk (talk) 09:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
- I don't see how any good could come of that. It would just be a depository for original research and a constant source of meaningless disputes and revert wars. This is the kind of topic that needs a body paragraph within the article itself, definitely with references to third-party sources. It's not appropriate to an infobox. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
- That's just a POV field and a magnet waiting for whatever unreferenced opinion comes along. Libs (talk) 19:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
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- This does not have to be POV or OR field! In most of the cases the theme of the lyrics is pretty obvious as long as you understand the language. For artists with abstract or unclear lyrics, just don't fill this field in.
- Please take a look at [1], which is a featured article in Russian Wikipedia. It does have lyrics themes in the infobox (death, murder, genocide etc.) and it caused absolutely no discussion or disagreement.
- Artist infobox at All Music Guide does have lyrics themes, I don't see why we shouldn' have the same field, given AMG is one of the most reliable music encyclopedias and infoboxes are one of its fre POV-free contents. Netrat_msk (talk) 22:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
- Different Wikimedia projects have different rules and practices, and what works on the Russian Wikipedia won't necessarily work well on the English Wikipedia. Go to any highly-trafficed English Wikipedia article on a musical artist, check the talk page, and 3 times out of 5 you're likely to find a debate or revert war about what genre the artist is. Most of these arguments cite no sources even though there are plenty of reliable sources out there that could possibly be used (ie. AMG). They're all basically POV arguments. "Lyrical themes" is even more subjective and would cause way more problems than it's worth. If a field exists in an infobox, most editors try to fill it. That's why we have to mark so many of the fields in this infobox as "this field is only relevant for individuals" or "this field is only relevant for groups". You'd think with fields like "birth date" it would be obvious that it only applies to individuals, but obviously there were enough problems with it that we had to start adding disclaimers. I hate to be a pessimist, but experience has shown that people won't simply leave the field blank, they'll fill it with their own opinions and original research. Also, saying that "the theme of the lyrics is pretty obvious as long as you understand the language" is an open invitation to original research. See WP:NOR...basing article information purely on your own understanding of a primary source is the definition of original research, even if you feel the information is "pretty obvious". Plus, show me where on the All Music Guide there is a field for lyrical themes. I've never seen such a thing. There's a field for "Moods" but that's hardly the same thing and hardly relevant to an encyclopedia article. Infoboxes are supposed to be simple, at-a-glance article summaries, and we should avoid adding fields that are likely to contain POV or topics that require in-depth explanations. Simple stuff like where an artist is from, what label they're on, etc. are in almost all cases uncontroversial and easily verifiable. More subjective stuff like genres, lyrical content, etc. isn't simple and leads to problems more often than not. IMHO we'd avoid a lot of headaches by cutting the "genre" field too, but that's a whole other can of worms. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
- OK, I guess I have to agree. Netrat_msk (talk) 10:36, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
- Different Wikimedia projects have different rules and practices, and what works on the Russian Wikipedia won't necessarily work well on the English Wikipedia. Go to any highly-trafficed English Wikipedia article on a musical artist, check the talk page, and 3 times out of 5 you're likely to find a debate or revert war about what genre the artist is. Most of these arguments cite no sources even though there are plenty of reliable sources out there that could possibly be used (ie. AMG). They're all basically POV arguments. "Lyrical themes" is even more subjective and would cause way more problems than it's worth. If a field exists in an infobox, most editors try to fill it. That's why we have to mark so many of the fields in this infobox as "this field is only relevant for individuals" or "this field is only relevant for groups". You'd think with fields like "birth date" it would be obvious that it only applies to individuals, but obviously there were enough problems with it that we had to start adding disclaimers. I hate to be a pessimist, but experience has shown that people won't simply leave the field blank, they'll fill it with their own opinions and original research. Also, saying that "the theme of the lyrics is pretty obvious as long as you understand the language" is an open invitation to original research. See WP:NOR...basing article information purely on your own understanding of a primary source is the definition of original research, even if you feel the information is "pretty obvious". Plus, show me where on the All Music Guide there is a field for lyrical themes. I've never seen such a thing. There's a field for "Moods" but that's hardly the same thing and hardly relevant to an encyclopedia article. Infoboxes are supposed to be simple, at-a-glance article summaries, and we should avoid adding fields that are likely to contain POV or topics that require in-depth explanations. Simple stuff like where an artist is from, what label they're on, etc. are in almost all cases uncontroversial and easily verifiable. More subjective stuff like genres, lyrical content, etc. isn't simple and leads to problems more often than not. IMHO we'd avoid a lot of headaches by cutting the "genre" field too, but that's a whole other can of worms. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Album Sales
A lot of people come onto Wikipedia just to check how much albums a certain Artist or Band has sold. I've noticed that a lot of articles don't emphasize Album Sales, they just simply put it in the first paragraph among the rest of the text, making it nearly invisible. To make Wikipedia more successful, I belive that we should make album sales part of the Infobox. I originally posted this on the main "Musicians" page, but I was redirected here.-Xaremathras (talk) 04:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
- One of the obstacles to this, that I've read on various other talk pages, is that there doesn't seem to be any organization that tracks worldwide album sales. So what we'd be looking at probably is a long list of sales numbers from individual countries, each of which would require a separate citation. Personally I think that's a lot of detail to squeeze into the infobox, and probably not something that's easy to verify for many musical acts. I also kind of disagree with your first 2 statements. First, you're assuming that a lot of people come to Wikipedia just to check album sales. What's your basis for that assumption? I don't agree that that's the primary reason most people come to Wikipedia, although it certainly may be one thing they they could be looking for. Second, you think that having the album sales mentioned in the lead paragraph makes it "nearly invisible"? How much more prominent could it be than in the lead section? That's the first thing most people read (at least that's what it's meant to be). The lead section, or some other part of the article body, is the perfect place for this kind of information and accompanying discussion. Honestly, if you're not even willing to read the lead paragraph, how are you expecting to learn anything from an article? These are just my viewpoints, though. Anyone else have thoughts on this? --IllaZilla (talk) 04:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
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- I'm not opposed to this, especially if reliable sales data is available. I've never really looked for it myself so I don't know for sure. I imagine the RIAA and BPI at least make some of this data available online with their databases of gold records, etc. I think you could explain all the available data in the main body with citations and then add it up for a rough number in the infobox. I'm just brainstorming here.
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- On the other hand maybe it would be easier to make a table to list gold (platinum, silver) records sort of like the Template:MedalTable or tables that result from the Template:MedalTableTop family for sports. I kind of like this idea better since it wouldn't require additions to this infobox and could be put next to the relevant section of the prose. What do you think? Zytsef (talk) 05:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
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- I actually kind of like that idea a lot more. I think a table would satisfy the desire to provide an at-a-glance summation of album sales, without further expanding this infobox, and would complement a relevant section of prose or even a discography article. I'm not sure how one verifies album sales, though. I've seen a few revert wars citing competing sources and I don't know which is the most reliable. I assume the RIAA would be the most obvious source for American sales, but it seems to get trickier when you try to compile sales worldwide from many countries. It would be nigh-impossible to gather sales statistics for every region in which an album was sold (especially if you count digital purchases ie. Amazon or iTunes...do those even count? I have no idea). I suppose you could discuss whatever sales data you could find in a prose section, then summarize it in a table alongside. That seems perfectly reasonable. Of course, if you tried to add it up and claim that the artist has sold xxx albums worldwide, that might amount to original research as we really have no way of knowing how many were sold in every country around the world. So I guess what I'm saying is I like the idea of a prose section with references, summarized in an accompanying table, with data from as many countries as one can find sources for, without attempting to make summarizing claims that may not be fully supported by the refs. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
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- Doing a quick check at the RIAA's gold/platium record database for the most popular group I can think of off the top of my head (Rolling Stones) shows that this table would have to be nothing more than a running tally of sales awards from each organization. The Stones have over 40 gold records, 5 gold singles, over 25 platium records, a smattering of multiplatium records of various multipliers, and some gold and platium videos (I wasn't even aware that they gave sales awards for videos). Naturally this includes a few of the same records counted multiple times in different categories. It's obvious that we can't list each award individually. I think how stuff is going to get counted should be hashed out before any potential table is implimented. Zytsef (talk) 06:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
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- Agreed. Actually, listing sales certification awards (ie. Gold/Platinum) is often already a practice in the tables of discography articles. See U2 discography for example. Perhaps this would be something best suited as an addition to the discography section, or discography article if there is one. Discography articles & sections don't seem to have consistent formats yet but I really like the way the U2 one incorporates the sales certifications into its tables.
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- However, I don't think that's what Xaremathras was getting at with his original suggestion. I think he wants actual numbers for worldwide sales, and wants them to be displayed prominently (see these diffs: [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]). That being the case, I find the suggestion problematic. Each of those articles uses a different third-party source to cite its worldwide sales figures, which strengthens my belief that there probably isn't a centralized source to go to for those numbers (not like the centralized RIAA certification search engine, anyway). Where are those sources getting their numbers? The RIAA seems to have some listing for top sellers, but it's certainly not all-inclusive. Red Hot Chili Peppers discography incorporates both the sales figures and certifications, but again the sales numbers are all coming from different sources. Not that I have any reason to question the sources, but it sure would be helpful if there was one central source with a searchable database of worldwide sales figures. Unfortunately such a source doesn't seem to exist. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
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- Everyone's raising great points. After further seeing the complexities of this issue, I'm even more opposed to the idea of including record sales in the infobox. Most of what's in infoboxes is cold, hard fact. No greater understanding is needed to comprehend that guitarist John Doe was born on January 1, 1965 or is signed to ABC Record Company. Conversely, background knowledge IS needed to understand what a soundbyte record sales number or platnium album sales designation means, espeically given the interntaional nature of both Wikipedia's userbase and subject matter. Simply put, as an infobox soundbtye, it's ambiguous and complex, and as such isn't NPOV. It belongs in the article's body and/or detailed disography. :) --Hamuhamu (talk) 16:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
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- While I understand what you're getting at and appreciate the potential usefulness of easy-to-grab, soundbyte-style info to some Wikipedia users, I feel that this isn't very widely applicable or important, and such info isn't all that easily available. I have always found soundbyte statements that "such-and-such has sold X number of albums/singles/whatever" to be somewhat propaganda-ish, used to illustrate or justify an artist's success (or lack thereof). As the reader, I don't really know what that number represents. Is it just for the US? Does it include compilations and/or remix albums? Does it include what the US calls EPs? Does it include legal digital downloads? Is it based on real sales or estimates? Is it based all or partially on radio airplay? Etc. Thus, to a critical reader, it's not a very useful soundbyte statement, without the background information to flesh it out. Additionally, many/most(?) artists that operate primarily (or solely) outside the US aren't going to have this information. In fact, the definition of "album" varies outside the US. Lastly, sales of individual releases are often reported in discography tables, like in Ayumi Hamasaki or Utada Hikaru. I find these tables useful because they allow the reader to decide how they want to weigh the different types of sales the artist has attained, which I feel is more in line with the nature of an encyclopedic source :) - Hamuhamu (talk) 16:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
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- I know that most artists don't have album sales, and a lot of the time they're not "perfectly" reliable. I was thinking something more along the lines of what's been done on the Eminem discography: Native Country (or dominant country) sales, and and Worldwide sales. I did mean in the form of a number, rather than RIAA certifications. Also, even though most artists don't have numbers, that area can be left blank until information is available. -Xaremathras (talk) 23:34, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
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- What's on the Eminem discography is entirely different than what you initially said. I don't see an infobox at all. I LIKE what's on the Eminem discography. :) Back to the infobox, my objections still stand. Another reason I thought of is that it will encourage original research, with editors trying to create unavailable date to fill that blank (such as adding up numbers themselves to try to create totals). When you create a blank, people naturally try to fill it. --Hamuhamu (talk) 18:22, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
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[edit] Mixtape album infobox
can someone create an infobox for mixtape albums?-SCB '92 (talk) 12:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Signature or autograph
Like most other biographical infoboxes, can we add a signature or autograph parameter to this infobox, or is there a specific reason not having it? --staka (T ・C) 02:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
