Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Radio Stations

Discussion archived: /Archive - /Archive2
Infobox Discussion: Template_talk:Infobox Radio station, Template_talk:Infobox Radio station/temp

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Thanks a lot! Gflores ^Talk 17:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Past Stations

I'm thinking we should have some sort of criteria for whether a past station should have its own article, or should be mentioned in the history of the article on the current station. I have no doubt that legendary stations such as KMET and KNAC in Los Angeles should have their own articles. KNX-FM is on the borderline, I could see it having its own article, but I also see it part of the history of KCBS-FM. But does every Spanish station that has ever been on 93.5 FM (KMJR and KZAB) or 1540 AM (KSKQ, KXED, KXMG) need their own article? DHowell 22:35, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am in favor of keeping the old stations around in most cases. They did exist and merited an entry so why remove them? Does it really harm anything by doing so? It also makes it easier to follow the history by keeping it all in different articles. The question would be in what cases do you not keep the old station article? As to the spanish staions you listed above, would it hurt if those old articles were kept since this is not a paper encylopedia? Vegaswikian 23:04, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Note that the current naming convention states, "Where a station has changed call signs, please put the station's entire history in its current call sign, as the old call signs may subsequently be reassigned to new stations." This practice is normally followed in Wikipedia, e.g. for info about WXRK New York, you need to look at the WFNY-FM article, as WXRK is now a station in Cleveland. There should be redirects and disambiguation links to direct people to the right place, of course. Exceptions to this naming convention are usually few and far between, KMET and KNAC being among the most notable of them. (The fact that no one has moved the KMET article and replaced it with an article about the 1 kW AM station in Banning seems to set a good precedent for having at least some exceptions to this convention). The stub articles I mentioned, which were all created by one person (Ronald20), seem to me to be less useful than a redirect to a full article tracing the history of the radio station that currently exists (or at least a more notable incarnation of a previous radio station) would be. I disagree that having separate articles makes it easier to follow the history—if I'm interested in the history of 1540 AM, I need to find at least four different articles (including KMPC which currently mentions nothing about what was on its current frequency before)—none of which are linked in any obvious way—and there is no mention of KPOL, KZLA (AM), or KCTD, and no obvious place to put information I might have about them (other than their giving them their own articles, which would be exacerbating the problem). For the history of 93.5 FM, I need to see KDAY as well as the two Spanish station articles, again with no links between them, and nowhere to be found is any mention of the station that occupied that frequency the longest, KFOX. The existence of these articles also makes it unclear what to do when a new radio station gets the call letters of one of these former stations, e.g. KMJR in Portland, Texas, or KXMG in Portland, Oregon. DHowell 01:36, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In looking for information, people will search out call letters first. In researching a story about Los Angeles Radio, I'll want to get info about KHJ, or WHK in Cleveland. In reseraching a particular station's history, I will look at the frequency. I stongly suggest master articles under frequencies and cities, with timeline links to articles by call letters. i.e. 92.5 FM - Cincinnati as a master article, then links to articles about WWEZ, WFFX, etc. As I have the time, I will create a couple of these for stations I have worked for, as an example. Because of call letter changes, etc. you will not be able to avoid seperate articles about each stations' history. For example, look at 440.com, which links stations, cities and people. People will look for call letters first. Also, I would allow links to articles with station names as titles (Q102, etc.) with the same links list as under Jack MarkElliott 08:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Low-power licensed stations

I think we've established that low-power unlicensed (Part 15) microstations aren't generally encyclopedic, but what about low-power licensed stations? I've noticed that Michigan Technological University's WMTU has been speedily deleted twice for being non-notable, but it does indeed have an FCC license: Template:FMQ. What do you think, should this be undeleted? In particular, this station has a construction permit to increase its power from 100 watts to 4.4 kW. DHowell 00:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's not even a low-power station, as 47 CFR defines it; that's a full class-A. (If it were a real low-power station, i.e., an LPFM, it would be WMTU-LP.) I'm not sure that's enough to make it notable, though—there are 12,000 licensed stations, and not all of them are encyclopedia material. I definitely don't think it's appropriate to speedy them without asking a subject-matter expert (e.g., the participants of this WikiProject). 121a0012 01:54, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The last speedy was for a club. I don't consider that a speedy deletion criteria for a licensed station. Also, the call sign seems to be WMTU-FM if I'm reading the FCC query results correctly. Will likely undelete and put something in the talk about this not being a club. Vegaswikian 03:58, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion on LPFM's is that if they primarily broadcast satellite-fed programming (e.g. religious radio networks), there isn't much to put on the article. Those with local based programming (or local and satellite mixed) could have an article.--grejlen - talk 05:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that we need to use the call letters becuase that will be the most likely search term searched.

Point of View Material

As the program manager for a group of stations in Northern Michigan, I have noticed that some listeners and disgruntled employees have been using Wikipedia to post slanderous, misleading and other information, then referring to it on message boards and blogs. (Just check the history of Wfcx for an example. I felt it necessary to make that change immediately.) It would somewhat self serving for me to remove and edit such information, as it would look like I was trying to manipulate what was said about my stations. I would be happy to start patrolling another section of stations to edit that material if someone could do so for my stations and area. We could monitor and trade info about these posts and keep them factual. Please send me an email if you are interested. MarkElliott 14:53, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template categorization

As part of ongoing template categorization efforts, Cat:Radio templates and Cat:Radio navigational boxes have been created. 120 templates have been sorted into the latter so far, which just goes to show that people have been quite busy. The hope is that this will assist in template standarization and tracking across Wikipedia; you can help by adding any other templates you know of, as well as voicing your opinion on the current categorization hierarchy. –Unint 03:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Possible Expansion to Cover Radio Programs?

I note that there is right now no wikipedia project to deal with radio programs. Given the recent proliferation of podcasting shows, as well as the comparative dearth of information on a lot of the programs run by the various stations this project deals with, I think that it might make sense if the scope of this project were to be include to include the programs as well. Thoughts? Badbilltucker 13:36, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to AM and FM

For those of you working on radio station pages: Please take care when making links to AM and FM. Note that AM is a disambiguation page, and FM redirects to Frequency modulation, which may not be the ideal link. I've been working to disambiguate AM, and on radio station pages, I've generally been making the link to amplitude modulation to remain consistant with FM. If there's a better place, let me know. In general, should your project attempt to define consistant links for AM and FM? –RHolton ≡– 20:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Potential merger of Jazz FM and Smooth FM articles, which goes against guidance on project page

I have been debating with someone else who suggests the 102.2 Jazz FM article should be merged into the 102.2 Smooth FM article. According to guidance on the project page, it says the following, to quote:

If the renamed station adopts a new format (in effect, a new station using the existing frequency): Note: These guidelines could also be used in the event of a station change due to regulatory intervention (e.g. Devonair losing their frequencies to Gemini FM).; Create a new article for the new station, but include a brief reference to the old station. The first air date field of the article's infobox should refer to the launch date of the new station.; The article for the old station should be updated to indicate that the station in that form is now defunct. A good way to indicate this would be to append ''(defunct)'' to the station's name in its infobox.; Example: 102.2 Jazz FM becomes 102.2 Smooth FM.

The problem is that someone has already merged the 100.4 Jazz FM into the Smooth FM 100.4 article and has pretty much deleted all the information I created for the 100.4 Jazz FM article, so I'm worried someone else will do the same with the 102.2 Jazz FM article as well. What do other project members suggest? Sonic 08:07, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merging station articles, the original article should remain, and attached to the new station. i.e. In Detroit, WWWW (W-4) became Alice, then The Drive and now The Fox. Each of those iterations should be a seperate article, with all links together. They are truly like seperate people, each with it's own lifespan and timeline. The original article should remain, an obituary for that iteration of that frequency. MarkElliott 17:11, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's not a particularly good example, since we don't use slogans for U.S. station articles. WWWW became WWWW-FM, then WLLC, then WDTW, and now WDTW-FM: these are all the same station and described in the same article. Meanwhile, at the same time WWWW-FM became WLLC, WIQB-FM became WWWW; these are different stations, despite having had the same callsign.

My personal feeling (which appears to be something different from the consensus of UK station article editors) would be to follow the same rule: if it's the same license, and just a new name, then it should be in the same article, thus leaving the old name available for when another station adopts the same name. If it's a different license, then there should be separate articles. But ultimately it's up to the UK crew to decide what makes the most sense for their situation. 121a0012 16:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even that approach can be problematic. Could it be that the solution would be a simple rewording? Something like 'Generally, a name change for a station should not result in a new article. Preference should be given to keeping a single article and local editors should determine if starting a new article deals with the change in a clearer manner.' Could something like this work?

There's always been a need for editorial discretion, and having a general rule doesn't change that. 121a0012 20:20, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What should I do regarding the 100.4 Jazz FM article being merged into the Smooth FM 100.4 (we'll less of a merger, more of a deletion of all my work), because the same thing applies in that situation? Sonic 18:38, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merges should not lose information. Personally, if other editors believe that information does not have a place in the new article, then it would seem reasonable to recreate the old article useing the deleted material. I suspect this article would be more then a stub. You might want to wait a day or two to see if anyone here sees a problem with this approach. Vegaswikian 22:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A question about radio templates.

Hi WikiProject Radio, I've been working on the entry for KPSU and wanted to insert KPSU into this template which I find at the bottom of many Portland, Oregon radio entries: {{Portland(OR) FM}} {{Portland(OR) AM}} Is that possible? Do you know where those templates are hiding?Katsam 06:03, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, since you asked I'll give the easiest way. Edit the article and then scroll down the page and at the bottom you will see the template listed. Then select and you will have a page that you can edit from. I also modified your question to not include the text of the template and its categories on this page. Vegaswikian 06:24, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They are at: Template:Portland(OR) FM and Template:Portland(OR) FM. Oh, and I've added them in for you. Cheers! --Ckatz 06:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0

Hello! We at the Work via WikiProjects team previously contacted you to identify the quality articles in your WikiProject, and now we need a few more favors. We would like you to identify the "key articles" from your project that should be included in a small CD release due to their importance, regardless of quality. We will use that information to assess which articles should be nominated for Version 0.5 and later versions. Hopefully it will also help you identify which articles are the most important for the project to work on. As well, please keep updating your Arts WikiProject article table for articles of high quality. If you are interested in developing a worklist such as this one for your WikiProject, or having a bot generate a worklist automatically for you, please contact us. Thanks! Walkerma 04:35, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Notability question

Is Radio Free Gilbertsville, which claims an ERP of 400 milliwatts, a station that merits an article per Wikipedia inclusion guidelines? Bearcat 23:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's clearly not an LPFM as that term is understood; LPFMs have ERPs in the range of 10 W to 100 W. So it's probably an unlicensed Part 15 operation, in which case the presumption should certainly be against it, lest every iPod FM adapter be included. Does it have actual, measurable listenership? Does it get mentioned in the local press? What sort of programming does it have? Does it have a Web site? (It fails the Google test.) As it stands, the article bears all the hallmarks of a vanity article. 121a0012 01:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is a website; it's present as an external link on the article, but appears to be little more than a subpage of the region's arts committee (who also seem to be the operators of the station). It claims to reach "the village and some outlying areas not blocked by the hills", and also claims the unofficial callsign WRFG (which is actually assigned to a real station in Atlanta.) From the site, it looks like arts and community programming on weekends only; there are no claims as to actual measured listenership. Bearcat 21:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Radio AFD

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/KRES. Duly licensed station; legitimate (though stubbish) article. Bearcat 02:38, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:St. John's

I just cleaned up this above Category and added the missing subcategories and put the appropriate "articles" which shouldn't have been there, into their appropriate categories and left the section with only the Categories showing. I still have to go to the individual subcategories and make sure they have all of their appropriate Category links as well. I also added missing information related to St. John's, in the article on St. John's. Most were radio stations that were relocated to NFLD radio categories and the radio category was placed into this major Category. WayneRay 21:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)WayneRay[reply]

It is entirely normal and correct for media outlets in a city to be filed in that city's own dedicated category, if there is one; the alternative would be to create a separate Category:St. John's media category. Filing Category:Radio stations in Newfoundland and Labrador as a subcategory of Category:St. John's is flat out wrong, because that category also includes a lot of stations that aren't in St. John's. You took something which was completely correct and made it all wrong. Bearcat 20:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]