Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 2

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Archive 2
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What does everybody think about having a table for this series, perhaps something like (crappily cribbed from the taxobox/planetobox) the below. There seems to be a stray /table somewhere in there, but I dunno where. I had included a track listing, but decided that was too difficult and not very useful. I can't seem to make the top and bottom section ignore the fact that there is a third column in the middle one.Tuf-Kat 06:49, Feb 2, 2004 (UTC)

Centered images & slightly cleaned up your HTML. I'll be back to do more, but don't have time right now. -- Jmabel 02:56, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC) Making better use of colspan, and nailed some more element closure issues; not finished though, there's still apparently some stray markup, although I'm beginning to suspect a wiki bug. -- Jmabel 07:48, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! Looks great! I'm now inclined to think that the "major contributors" bit should go, as it makes the whole thing too big, and I'd rather keep the reviews. Tuf-Kat

Culprit found: missing </small> tags in the Reviews sections. I agree that the box should be shorter. Do you want me to try converting the tables to wiki-table-markup? —Paul A 09:11, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Yes, please do!. Tuf-Kat
Done. —Paul A 04:06, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Why not put album LENGTH (min./sec.) in the table? --Juuitchan

Hmmm, our comments are appearing in the Abbey Road table. Help! I'm trapped in a table, and I can't get out! Seriously, album lengths might be good. Tuf-Kat 08:23, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)

Hi,

can someone clarify the Fair use issue for me? I just uploaded a page about Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters album, and within a few minutes someone (anonymous) had come along and removed both the Album cover art and the Tracklisting and the List of artists on the album. I'd have thought that all of these would be covered under fair use, and I'm tempted to just revert to the previous version of the page, but I don't really want to get into a war with the other guy. If tracklistings and lists of personnel are really off limits, then the whole album project is stuffed, really.

Any thoughts?

PS A couple of images I uploaded for other albums just disappeared - for example Bitches Brew. The page for the image is still there - which proves the image was succesfully uploaded (and I could see it on the page for a day or so) but now that image is nowhere to be found. Has it been deleted (no record of this) or is this just a glitch?

PPS ( ! ) I like the idea of a table for the cover, but I don't think we need to put quite so much inro in it. Maybe just artist, year, label, genre, but leave the reviews and contributors to the body of the text?

Cheers Ben User:Bwmodular 03-Feb-2004 16:07 GMT

The track listing and personnel list is not even fair use, as neither can be copyrighted provided there is no expressive content in the organization. A list of songs in the order they appear and a list of performers in alphabetical order (or any other basic order) is not copyrightable, and can be reproduced on the wiki without issue. The album cover issue has been discussed numerous times, and the general consensus has been that it is fair use and is not a problem for the wikipedia. I have reverted Head Hunters. Tuf-Kat 17:21, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)
On the reviews, I think that the contributors can go, but I like the reviews. The other info is something that a thousand other sites put in some easy to find place (and for good cause, we should follow suit) but there is usually a dearth of genuinely useful information beyond those facts and a track listing. This is a way we can make Wikipedia stand out, by providing links to and summaries of professional reviews. The Abbey Road table is, indeed, a bit long, but the vast majority of albums will have fewer reviews than that and will be more like the same size as the Spears album. Tuf-Kat 17:37, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)
The disappearing album cover is probably a glitch and will be recovered. See the note at the top of the village pump. Tuf-Kat
I can't seem to touch the table without breaking things. All I did was try and delete the "major contributors" section, and now both tables, our comments and the wikilinks at the bottom are all part of one giganto-table. Isn't there a firm way to just end a table? (/table would seem logical, but there's a gaggle of those already). Tuf-Kat 17:47, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)
The problem was bad nesting in the first table (the Britney Spears CD). I've redone them both using exclusively COLSPAN instead of nested tables, and handled the float-to-right problem with a clearly marked outer table and DIV. Boy do we need proper wiki markup for these boxes, or what? Zack 21:19, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Hmm, this now gives a lot more "grid lines" in the tables. I presumed that the reason for the nested tables was to get borders in some places and not others was precisely to avoid that, which is why I didn't change it when I made my edits earlier. (They don't look bad to me, I was just trying to help fulfil what I presumed to be Tuf-Kat's intent. This one-table approach should be less sensitive to minor coding glitches,though.) -- Jmabel 04:55, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Actually, I like it better this way too. I'd have done it that way if I knew how. Tuf-Kat 07:13, Feb 4, 2004 (UTC)
Primo! BTW, feel free to call on me in the future if you need HTML help for wikipedia. -- Jmabel 01:46, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

A lot of Wikiprojects use different colors in the table to mean different things (for example, plants, animals and fungi all use different colors, but the same table). I'm not sure this really has any useful application to this project, but is worth considering. Dividing by genre might be nice, but would probably lead to arguments (fill in band name here is not punk enuff for the punk color!), and I'm not sure it's worth it. I've also thought about having different colors for notable bands (for example all Rolling Stone albums could be blue, with orange as the default) but this is probably even less useful. Maybe by decade of release... Tuf-Kat 03:49, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)

In the list of sources for professional reviews, can somebody find a homepage to link to for this site? http://www.acclaimedmusic.com doesn't work, and neither does http://hem.bredband.net. I can't seem to find any kind of main page or search function, and I need to go to bed.Tuf-Kat 08:54, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)

It's http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/, it turns out. —Paul A 09:06, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Thanks! Tuf-Kat

After doing a couple more albumboxes (needs a better name...), I'm not sure including e.g. Rolling Stone List of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time is a good idea, even if it is an encyclopedic source. There's an awful lot of them, most are reproduced on non-official pages and could very well be mistaken or even totally fictional and... I hate them. Tuf-Kat 19:51, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)

Contents

Previous/Next album links?

What would you think of adding a [[< Previous]] album and [[Next >]] album link at the bottom of the 'taxobox', for those artists who have writeups for more than one album? Appropriately piped, of course, and removed if not applicable. Might be a nice way to browse through an artists work.

Could be done as text links at the top or bottom of the article text as well. Yust a thought.... -- Catherine 22:02, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting idea. I'll add it to Abbey Road and see how it looks. Tuf-Kat
Done, and I like the effect. I'm not sure there's any reason to limit it to cases when articles already exist for the other albums -- a prominent link might inspire someone to write it. In any case, the Abbey Road example treats the first column (Yellow Submarine) as a header and makes it bold automatically. How can I override that? Tuf-Kat 22:23, Feb 6, 2004 (UTC)

I think I fixed it. What do you think? (The problem was using a "!" instead of a "|" to start the Yellow Submarine cell -- "!" tells it that it's a Table Heading, which it automagically bolds.)

I also made the album name text smaller, centered, and with a forced break (br) before the year. Does that work?

I've added infoboxes to Duran Duran (album) and Rio (album) already, BTW. -- Catherine 06:01, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and changed the sample here to include the "Chronology" as well as a section for the producer". Tuf-Kat 17:11, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)

Two issues:

Barring disagreement here, I am going to change the project to specifically disallow "100 Greatest Albums of All Time"-type lists, even if they are by a reputable source.

It seems to me that some "100 Greatest Albums" lists are encyclopedic topics in their own right. For example, the topic of what has come and gone from Rolling Stone 100-best lists over time could be a very good way of looking at changing tastes in music. Or is this not what you are talking about? -- Jmabel 01:04, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Well, I'm not so sure that such a thing would be encyclopedic (it sounds like original research, but I suppose there's nothing wrong with collecting such lists on a single page -- except maybe a copyvio?), but that's not really what I'm talking about. I mean using such a list on the "reviews" section of the albumbox as at Back in Black. Many of the major music magazines have done dozens. Check out music.net, it's got sometimes dozens of chart placings for well-known albums -- I think that would clutter up the albumbox with notes regarding the subject's placement on obscure magazines' "100 Greatest Metal Albums of the 70s" list from years ago. Tuf-Kat 09:13, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

There has been little or no discussion anywhere on the wiki regarding the suitability of Greatest Hits or other compilations having their own albums. I am of the opinion that most should not, though Bob Marley's Legends, some box sets, that Pink Floyd greatest hits and probably some more could easily have an article. Discuss. Tuf-Kat 23:43, Feb 13, 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't exclude an album simply because it wasn't the original issue of the material involved. For example, Nuggets, a multi-band complilation, is arguably one of the most influential albums of all times, certainly more influential than the individual songs collected therein. Similarly, some of Roky Erikson's "original issue" albums are rather weak, and have not matched the sales or impact of the collection "You're Gonna Miss Me". -- Jmabel 01:04, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Certainly, I support some compilations of various kinds having an article -- that's why I gave them a color for the albumbox. These albums are the exception, however, and many of the most famous bands have released dozens of greatest hits albums. Most could realistically never have any more information than a track listing, release date and label and I suppose, in some cases, chart information. There are some articles on bands that link to every greatest hits or compilation release ever to include the band's music. It seems highly unnecessary. Perhaps a single article with all the track listings and release dates and obscure info on compilations would be best. Tuf-Kat 09:13, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

Release date and album length format

I have started using the format and have the following questions/issues:
- for the release date, what if the album is released on separate dates in different countries/regions, probably most notably the United States and United Kingdom? A number of Pink Floyd albums are like this, typically released in the UK first then the US. Should it only list the first date (which tends to be for the UK)?
- for the length, what about double albums? Should there be two lines with each line ending with the disc/record # in parenthesis? See The Wall for an example. RedWolf 08:42, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

To the first question, I think the best thing is to only include the date of first release -- if we include the US/UK, why not Australia, Brazil and South Africa? It would become much too long. In most cases, aren't the release dates in US/UK roughly the same, within a few months to a year at most? Is the week-long delay in the US release of The Wall really all that important? Maybe we should include the country of first release on the date instead (as in November 30, 1979 (UK), and place the other releases somewhere in the article.
As to the second item, the first time I looked at that I assumed it was saying there was a difference in the lengths of the UK/UK releases... I suppose I agree that the two side lengths should be given, but I could go either way, really. Tuf-Kat 09:02, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

Template:SampleWikiProject

Well, I don't think any album articles are quite ready yet, but I'm going to try and get something, maybe Aquemini, there soon. Any other thoughts? Tuf-Kat 23:52, Feb 18, 2004 (UTC)

Just a q. What should be done for the Pink Floyd double album Ummagumma? It has 1 disk of live, and 1 disk of studio material. What should be done for the colours? - Fizscy46 01:46, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I suppose have the first and third boxes darkturquoise and the second and fourth boxes orange. Tuf-Kat 06:33, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)

Colors

Why has the color orange been chosen for studio albums? About 90% of the album articles on Wikipedia are about studio albums, so it would be better to use a more standard color (like black).

Acegikmo1 23:03, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

LP vs Album vs ... ?

I noticed in the header of the sample albumbox the listing "LP by Alice in Chains" -- noting that LP is linked to Vinyl record. Is this the standard format we want to use, given that records are rarely released on vinyl anymore? Should it just be "album"? If we're trying to maintain the distinction between LP and EP, we can still say "album by" or "EP by".... ? I'm not versed in the subtleties of music terminology, so please let me know if I'm off base here.... Catherine

Yes, this concerns me as well, but I don't have an answer. Tuf-Kat 18:51, Feb 27, 2004 (UTC)
An EP is syill considered a vinyl record. Same as the 1000 transistor Microchips of the past still being called microchips despite have 1 million+ per inch². Just have it say EP by {Insert name}, and have it link to vinyl record, unless someone has a better idea

. - Fizscy46 02:59, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that in most cases, we're not referring to vinyl records, at least not exclusively -- albums are issued and reissued in multiple formats, and we're not referring to a specific one. LP, as "long-playing record" seems to apply pretty specifically to an analogue disc record, and we should probably prefer album to describe a collection of musical tracks released as a unit. EP, on the other hand, describes something that has more tracks than a single but fewer than an "LP", and is still used in this context even though they're now almost always on CD rather than vinyl -- and who knows what they'll be released on 10 or 20 years from now.

I guess I'm just saying that the title we apply to the collected work should reflect the content, not the format it was released in. Catherine 05:06, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

LP is actually a disambiguation page so will always require the pipe. In any case, I think "LP" should be changed to album as well. I have substituted CD for LP on a couple pages because I know LPs will/have never be released for the album. However, who knows what the future holds in store as to what albums will be released on. Album seems to be a good neutral choice although I'm open to other suggestions at this point. RedWolf 05:12, Feb 28, 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a bit of a can of worms, huh? :-) Having worked in radio, my impression is that original recordings can fall under three general classifications today, regardless of the medium: "single", "EP", and "album". A "single" will feature chiefly one song, but it may (indeed, usually will) have more than one song on it (a 45-rpm vinyl record will have a B side, a CD single may have additional remixes, other unreleased songs, etc.). An "album" is a collection of different songs, usually totaling at least 35 minutes or so. An "EP" is in the fuzzy area in between—not as many songs as an album, but too many or too varied a list of songs to be called a single. Make sense? I think it's kind of subjective. But if, say, Rolling Stone and AMG and Soundscan all call it one thing, I think it's safe for us to call it the same thing. :-)
I do think we ought to figure out a standard way to indicate the media on which a recording is released, though—and especially when. Especially with older recordings, there can be vast amounts of time between the release of the same album on different media (vinyl... CD... cassette... 8-track... wire spool...??)
By the way, a bit of trivia. It was actually the advent of LPs that made the term "album" an anachronism. The original, true albums were big books where the pages were sleeves holding 78-rpm records!
--LarryGilbert 02:44, 2004 Mar 2 (UTC)

I think this is a very interesting project and I've devoted some thought to how it might be done myself. I don't think we should try to duplicate what is already done at other sites, and done well.

What I do think would be useful, and if done well could be really fantastic, is an examination of each album from a slightly broader perspective. In the examination of each album, how about a consideration of its specific influences, specific followers, where it fits in its genre and what leanings it may have toward others, etc? With regard to the Funkadelic albums, I'd much sooner go to allmusic.com for that information than to these wikipedia pages, but allmusic doesn't have the kind of musical matrix information that I think could be really exciting.

What do you think? Arbitration Matter of Hephaestus 16:40, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Note that the above message was written by Tubby and is in the archive. Feel free to add information on whatever you like of encyclopedic interest. Tuf-Kat 18:05, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)

MediaWiki Album

I have created Template:Album to place at the top of talk pages for album articles. For those who don't know how to use the MediaWiki namespace, typing {{msg:Album}} will present the text at Template:Album. Feel free to revise the note, as I have no strong attachment to the wording. Tuf-Kat 06:34, Mar 22, 2004 (UTC)

And I have added it to the talk page for every album on List of albums in the first and second sections (Numbers and "A"). Just in case anyone else would like to do the "B"s. Tuf-Kat 06:47, Mar 22, 2004 (UTC)
Maybe this should only be added to talk pages for those albums that actually have the Album infobox? By doing that, we can see the actual list of albums where the infobox has been applied by clicking the "What links here". RedWolf 06:57, Mar 22, 2004 (UTC)
That's a good idea, but could be difficult to enforce. (I've already placed it on several other talk pages, for example, with no infobox...) Tuf-Kat 15:20, Mar 22, 2004 (UTC)
Why just those with the infobox? Maybe someone else will want to add an infobox if it's not there. —LarryGilbert 20:25, 2004 Mar 22 (UTC)

I've added the msg to a few albums that may not even be on your list of albums list - they are just linked to from the band. I have one concern about adding the infobox - it seems to require a fair use image, and it would be illegal for me to add that in the UK. If they are required than a US contributor will have to add them. I presume I should add the info box, and someone else can add the image. Secretlondon 18:54, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I've added the info box to Rammstein's albums - a US contributor will have to add a photo. Secretlondon 20:08, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Done, for all but Mutter. Tuf-Kat 21:15, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks - I've done the three albums by The Housemartins now (writing about albums is light relief from normal wikipedia stuff). Should I make a list of ones that need pictures somewhere? Secretlondon 22:43, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
How about Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Needs cover? Tuf-Kat 23:25, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)

Colours

  • What colour should we use for mix albums? They are more than compilations of exiting material. Secretlondon 10:15, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  • I've taken the same colour for other soundtracks as used for movie soundtracks. I didn't see the need to differentiate between stage production soundtracks and movies. Secretlondon 19:04, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Needy Articles

As there has been a suggestion that we list articles without infoboxes somewhere. Secretlondon 20:31, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

In contrast to Wikipedia:Wikiproject Albums/Needs infobox, I had an idea for how to track pages with albumboxes which would be pretty much self-sustaining. Create a new mediawiki page, say MediaWiki:Albumbox, but leave it essentially blank (with just an invisible html comment explaining it's purpose), then place {{msg:Albumbox}} in the first line of every albumbox like this

This won't affect the table provided the page is blank. Since almost everybody just takes an existing box as a template (and nobody touches the first line), new boxes would be linked automatically to MediaWiki:Albumbox. Anyway, unless anyone objects, or has a better idea, or just thinks it's pointless, I'm going to implement this and start tagging all the albumboxes tomorrow (or maybe tonight if I get bored). - Lee(talk)21:54, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC) This is a good idea - as we could then check against list of albums and see which are missing. Secretlondon23:13, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't know if this is feasible but what about extending that idea with replacing the entire first line of the table with the standard attributes.
e.g.
the mediawiki page for AlbumboxStart would include:

border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="225" align="right"

If the cell spacing needs to be tweaked or the width changed, it's a simple change in one file. Just a thought, as to how well it might work is open for debate. RedWolf 23:33, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)
I don't see why that wouldn't work. At least, it would be very obvious after tagging the first box if it works or not - in which case we can just blank the page and go with the first option. - Lee (talk) 11:55, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
OK, I've done all the albumboxes that link to Record producer. I know there there are a few boxes out there that don't have a producer section, so they still need to be hunted down.
Check here for the list. - Lee (talk) 13:14, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Tried to follow the guidelines for Generation Terroristsby the Manic Street Preachers but don't seem to have table aligned as per the example template. if anyone could fix it let me know what I did wrong it would be much appreciated. Scraggy402:37, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Chronology Links

I noticed ScudLee has been going around fixing some of the existing album pages (thanks, by the way), and has let some people (including me) know that the Chronology section of the table is meant to be a back/forward section for albums rather than a listing of everything that the band has released. This wasn't clear from me from the main WikiProject Albums page and I was wondering if someone could add something in there to clarify this. Thanks! -- Jrdioko 22:42, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I've given it a shot. This is only based on what I do, though. Feel free to add or amend as you see fit. - Lee (talk) 23:20, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Looks good to me. Thanks! -- Jrdioko 23:43, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)