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Assoc. Acts in example infobox

So, in the example section of this article, the Audioslave infobox lists a number of acts as Associated Acts when they only share one member in common. i.e. Soundgarden only has one member in common with Audioslave. Isn't this a poor example and contradictary of these guidelines? - tSR - Nth Man (talk) 20:16, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

If that's true (I don't know enough about Audioslave to know) then yes, that's a poor and contradictory example and should be changed. Ibanez100 (talk) 22:28, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

IMO it has much more to do with context than a set of rules. For example nearly every article or review I've ever read regarding Audioslave mentions "ex-Rage Against the Machine" and "former singer of Soundgarden". These are the 2 obvious associated acts, as Audioslave is something of a supergroup, so it makes sense to at least list the most recongnizeable acts that the members came from (RATM & Soundgarden), even though the only member in common with Soundgarden was Chris Cornell & there was a span of 4 years between Soundgarden's breakup & Audioslave's forming. The Nightwatchman also makes sense to include even though it only has 1 member in common (Tom Morello), as he started the project concurrent with being in Audioslave, and specifically because he wasn't satisfied playing apolitical music in Audioslave. So there's a direct tie to Audioslave that really is the very reason The Nightwatchman exists in the first place. The one that doesn't make sense to me is Temple of the Dog, which not only had only 1 member in common with Audioslave (Cornell) but had nothing whatsoever to do with Audioslave, having been a short-lived project of limited activity that began and ended a full decade before Audioslave existed. So it really comes down to context rather than strict guidelines, as I can't imagine a discussion of Audioslave that didn't mention the connection to both Soundgarden & RATM right up front. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:17, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I'd sent an edit request for the example before reading this. My bad. It's late. I'll think through what you've said here IllaZilla and provide a response in the near future. You can ignore the edit, or at least remove Temple of the Dog because I think we both agree that it doesn't belong. Unless someone sees a reason why it should remain. - tSR - Nth Man (talk) 05:30, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to making exceptions to rules when the situation warrants it, though I still question whether this makes Audioslave the best example to use. If Audioslave is a complicated or exceptional case where the associated acts guidelines don't entirely apply, maybe a more straightforward example should be used to illustrate those guidelines? Ibanez100 (talk) 23:43, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing. Maybe Audioslave isn't the best example. Who their associated acts are should be decided on the discussion page for their article, not here. It'd be better to have an example that more closely fits within the guideline. - tSR - Nth Man (talk) 20:36, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd say remove the only one member rule. Take Yazoo (band) and Erasure, for example: obviously associated, and the association is discussed in both articles—which could be the basis for the rule. Uniplex (talk) 08:32, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Listing national origin in the infobox

Hi, over on the talk page for the list of melodic death metal bands, there is a debate over whether national origin should be noted. One editor prefers that national origin should only be used in the article text itself, in the context of a direct discussion of national origin, while the rest of the editors, including myself, are of the opinion that if the national origin is sourced, it should be mentioned in the infobox and on lists, even if that band's nationality is not discussed in detail in reliable sources. Input would be appreciated.--¿3family6 _contribs 15:31, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I think you are bringing this discussion to the wrong venue, this is for infoxes for individual musicians oe ensambles. J04n(talk page) 16:22, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I suggested to the editor who started the discussion that their arguments extend to this template as well, and they did not contradict that extension. In fact, when I mentioned this, the editor expressed that nationality should only be listed if the article discusses it in detail.--¿3family6 _contribs 18:16, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

That is absolutely not true. I contradict this. I did not express the nationality should be listed if the article discusses it in detail and I said nothing of the sort. The discussion belongs there and not here.Curb Chain (talk) 05:05, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay my bad, sorry about that.--¿3family6 _contribs 11:40, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposed minor doc update

In the usage document, we have "omit parenthetical dates" (in #label), and "no other notation than names" (in both #current members and #past members). I like this because it really helps keep things neat and tidy. I would like to see a similar bit added to the document at #genre, to help eliminate extended notation such as (early), (80s), etc. Any comments?  -- WikHead (talk) 17:58, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Parenthetical disclaimers shouldn't be used in this field either. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:44, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Members of defunct groups

A defunct group does not have any current members, naturally. However, the "current members" parameter displays only "Members" in the infobox, so it is more appropriate to put all the old members under the heading "Members" rather than "Past members". It is clear from context that the members are not current if the group is defunct. The members of a defunct group are still members of that group, not past members, as if they had been thrown out or something. Binksternet (talk) 21:02, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I disagree, when a group becomes defunct, all people who were members are now former members. Hekerui (talk) 21:21, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

There was a discussion about this last month (now archived) that didn't come to any consensus/resolution as far as I could tell. You might read through it if you want to re-raise the topic. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:57, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

RfC: Should the members of a defunct group continue to be listed under the heading "Past members"?

Should the template continue to list members of a defunct musical group under the parameter "past_members" so that such members are displayed as "Past members"? Binksternet (talk) 22:44, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

• No. I do not think band members of a defunct band should be described as "past members" in the infobox. In normal speech and writing, such members are commonly described as members of the defunct band, not "past members" and rarely "ex-members" or "former members". The phrase "past members of a defunct band" gets no hits on Google, but the phrase "members of a defunct band" gets a about 300 hits. People just say the members were members, with the understanding that the group is disbanded. I found a single "ex-members of a defunct band" but no "former members of a defunct band" except for Google links to discussions on this talk page.
  The easiest solution would be to put such members in the "current_members" parameter, to display them as "Members". Such a fix would allow for further solutions regarding earlier members of the group who were not in the group when it was disbanded, so that, for example, Pete Best is listed as an earlier member of the Beatles, and not as a "member" at the time of disbanding. Binksternet (talk) 22:44, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

• The template documentation refers to current members, past members, and members at dissolution. Why not just have three fields, or a flag to toggle the meaning/rendering of one of the fields? Then there's no room for confusion. Uniplex (talk) 17:18, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

  Good suggestion. Three fields would be great, or a toggle to tweak the rendering. Binksternet (talk) 18:28, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

  No additional fields, please. The "members at time of dissolution" bit could be removed from the instructions IMO, as that doesn't necessarily equate to "most notable lineup", which seems to be the intent of the exception (and the intention of the instruction is only to make rare exceptions anyway, ie. The Beatles). I believe the recent discussion I linked above the RFC banner demonstrates, at the very least, a consensus against adding more fields. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:42, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

  Could you point out where you see "a consensus against adding more fields" in that conversation? Upon re-skimming it, I don't see anyone other than yourself who seems specifically against the addition of more fields.

  Personally, I was not and am not against adding more fields if adding more fields would disambiguate and remove the WP:UNDUE weight from an indiscriminate list of the "former members" of a defunct band. My opinion remains that dumping everyone who has ever been in the band into a single box is far from ideal, as not every former member of every band is a "key fact" (MOS:INFOBOX) about that band.

  I also still hold that, if a good way to disambiguate the infobox list of former members cannot be found, it would be better to simply remove the member list from defunct bands' infoboxes entirely. After all, if we are to take the perspective that a defunct band technically has no members, why list them there at all? Ibanez100 (talk) 23:49, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

  I may have misrecalled about the arguments against adding more fields; I certainly don't think there's value to doing so. I don't think it would remove the (perceived) UNDUE problem, partly because it would just create further potential for undue weight (By what criteria are certain persons most notable? Why is the lineup at time of dissolution more notable than a previous lineup?) but also because I don't think there's an UNDUE problem to begin with. You seem to have the stance that by listing "minor" members in the same list as "major" ones that we're giving undue weight to the minors, and that the "key fact" that needs to be presented is who were the most important individuals, but I see it differently: By putting everyone in 1 list, we are giving no weight to anyone, and the "key fact" that we are trying to communicate is who was in the group, period. That in itself (membership) is a "key fact" and in my opinion doesn't need further "key"ing by way of separating the list into notable/non-notable subgroupings. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

• Yes. By definition, a defunct act has no current members. Google hits are irrelevant. The current system works fine and has worked fine for years. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:42, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

  Clearly it doesn't work fine. If the guideline were clear, we wouldn't be having this discussion now or hearing things like "all exceptional cases seem to be chosen by wikipedia editors purely because they prefer it that way" from the previous discussion, which was only a few a weeks ago; if we don't sort this now, there'll probably be another RFC in a few weeks time—hardly the best use of everyone's time. Uniplex (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:37, 8 October 2011 (UTC).

  I should clarify: By "the current system" I meant having "members" and "former members" fields. I'm in favor of listing all members of a defunct act as "former members", which is what I do anyway in practice. I'm against the idea of creating a third field (current/former/at time of dissolution). I'm also against, for defunct acts, listing the "most notable" persons as "members" and the rest as "former", on the basis of it creating an implication that some are former while others are not, when in reality all are former as the act is defunct (again, in practice I just use the "former" field for defunct acts and cut the "current" field entirely, exceptional cases be damned). I agree that the "exceptional cases" seem to be chosen by WP editors based mostly on the fact that they prefer it that way. I agree with your statement below that members at dissolution is not generally useful (one of the reasons I'm against adding this as an option). I also agree with your idea that changing the template so that the "current members" field actually displays as "current members" rather than just "members" could help resolve the issue, though I'm certain that if we did that we'd have the Beatles and Nirvana people coming for our heads forthwith. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:01, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

  Let's make that rendering change and do nothing else for now. The intended semantic of this field is clearly "current members"—the clue's in the name—so we're perfectly entitled to render it as such. Then, those who favor exception can come up with their own proposals of how (and why) they handle their "exceptional" case. Uniplex (talk) 05:49, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

• To be honest, I wasn't so sure my previous suggestion was good; having now read the previous discussion, I'm even less sure. Members at dissolution is not generally useful (e.g. the Doors), only specifically useful (e.g. the Beatles). The most important things, for the benefit of the readers, are to keep it simple, and to keep it consistent. So, let's remove the explicit possibility of exception from the current guideline (which is in any case superfluous: local consensus can always override a guideline if it's clearly an exceptional case, outside the scope considered by the guideline). This gives us something simple. To help make sure that it is applied consistently, the infobox rendering could make the word "Current" explicit, before "Members" (though I'd hope that this shouldn't be necessary: the guideline should be enough). That, I hope, just leaves one problem: that some editors believe that major and minor past members should be distinguishable. In fact, the Beatles nav box does this already by using bold text to make the distinction, so the same or similar scheme could be used in the infobox. Not a perfect solution, a local consensus is still needed to decide the major past members, but this should normally be evident from the article sources and, as in the case of the Beatles for example, has already been done. The guideline for this could be something like "Optionally, names of past members may be rendered in bold text to distinguish them as 'major' past members, if they are established as such in the article body." Uniplex (talk) 20:03, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with IllaZilla (also as per my comment above). Suggestions like those by Uniplex may be well intentioned but merely create unnecessary complexity and clutter the page. People can read the article for a membership history. Hekerui (talk) 21:12, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
• Can someone explain to me what the big deal is. It displays as 'members' not 'current members' thus the great majority of people who see page (or readers, the people the site is for) see members. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hot Stop (talk • contribs) 03:14, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

• I have been randomly selected to make a comment but find myself unable to understand what this is about. First, I don't know how a "defunct" group is defined. Does that mean a group that has split up? In the case of the Beatles mentioned above, I see at our article has for members John, Paul, George & Ringo as I would expect, and for past members, Stuart Sutcliffe & Pete Best. Again, as I would have expected so the Principle of least astonishment is satisfied - for me anyway. So if the proposal is that the fab four should be described as "past members" rather than "members" of the Beatles because the Beatles are "defunct" then I oppose that change. Alex Harvey (talk) 07:53, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

  The thing that astonishes our readers is that we're inconsistent; compare with The Doors for example. Uniplex (talk) 09:31, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

  I would suggest then that we fix the inconsistency. Surely it would be wrong if we made no distinction between Paul McCartney and Pete Best. I now learn that Pink Floyd included a fellow Bob Klose whom I had never heard of until now. This is confusing. Alex Harvey (talk) 14:27, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

  You're astonished that you learned a fact you didn't already know, and you think that's a bad thing? I really don't understand this kind of thinking. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:53, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

  That is not the point. I am happy to know that Pink Floyd had a band member Bob Klose briefly in 1965. It is confusing in that a false impression is created that Bob Klose was a regular member of Pink Floyd and contributed, for example, on their famous recordings. Since this didn't actually happen, it would be much better if he was in a separate category from the others, as with our article on the Beatles. If I didn't already know the history of Pink Floyd reasonably well I'd have to read the entire article to understand that Syd Barrett and Bob Klose were not really part of the band after all. Alex Harvey (talk) 00:58, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

  What do you think of my suggestion above (@ 20:03, 7 Oct)? It's not my personal favorite solution; it's an attempt at a compromise, the goal being to achieve consistency, and reduce edit-wars and RFCs. It moves the problem elsewhere, but maybe it's a lesser problem. If you look at the Pink Floyd nav-box, you'll see that Syd is considered to be a major member (rightly IMHO); Bob is not listed at all here (but a non-bold, non-linked entry wouldn't hurt). There are other things to be considered too: sometimes a list of past members is considered too long for the infobox so is linked to a section in the article, but I guess that's not an issue. Uniplex (talk) 04:32, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

  I think the way the template is used in the case of the Beatles is right. I think the way it is used for Led Zeppelin is wrong. Calling the well known line up "past members" immediately causes the reader to raise his eyebrows. "What does this mean 'past' members? Oh, okay. The band doesn't exist anymore - therefore Jimmy Page is a 'past member'. Got it." It's too complicated - Led Zeppelin was a band with four members, Page, Plant, Jones & Bonham. Keep it simple. Now as discussed, I think the way it is used in the case of Pink Floyd is not only wrong but quite confusing. Finally, the way it is used in Van Halen is again right. There are members, and past members. In many cases the distinction between a band that "split up" is a bit silly anyway. Just about every famous band gets back together again sooner or later. So, I don't see any need to change the template. It seems we are just not using it right in a lot of cases. Alex Harvey (talk) 05:47, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

  Good points, Alex. Binksternet (talk) 16:15, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

• Of course they should be listed as just "Members." The fact that we are even discussing this shows how screwed up this whole template is in terms of the way it deals with members, and for some reason privileges "current members" above historical incarnations. As it stands, when bands have had large, rotating memberships over the years and still exist, the template will only list the current members, who in many cases are barely notable session musician types, and not mention anywhere seminal founding members. Notice that our infobox for Lynyrd Skynyrd does not mention Ronnie Van Zant. Our infobox for Yes does not mention Jon Anderson or Rick Wakeman. This kind of thing is unforgivable. I think in general it would probably be better to simply list all members and former members in a single template with parentheses for their years active with the band. This is how most music reference books deal with this kind of issue. john k (talk) 13:22, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

  In the case of a band like Lynyard Skynyard - or similar situations like the Yardbirds or Tower of Power - another perfectly reasonable solution is just to put everyone in the members field. Again, there is no reason why the present template won't handle it fine. For your other issues - can't you just go fix them? As for adding the years in brackets, I suppose that would be fine - providing you're volunteering to go through all the already written articles and adding these details for the sake of consistency. Just kidding. ;-) And if by "of course they all be listed as just 'members'" you mean "of course the Beatles had six members and we should list them all equally" I think we would be a laughing stock if we did that. Alex Harvey (talk) 14:03, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

  A laughing stock? Really? If we included years, it would be no different from what a large number of actual published reference books do. Certainly the current situation is just as bad. And the present template could handle whatever, but there seems to be a lot of people who oppose using the present template in this way. john k (talk) 17:57, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

  Are you seriously suggesting we should say in the Infobox that the Beatles consisted of six members "John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe, Pete Best, Ringo Starr"? It may appeal to lovers of trivia but a bit of common sense is needed. My feeling, from looking at these music articles, is that common sense has been dropped by the wayside. It would be fine, in the case of Pink Floyd, to simply forget about the minutiae and assert that the members were Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason. Syd Barrett and Bob Klose can appear as past members. Alex Harvey (talk) 13:38, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• Yes Google are irrelevant here. This system has worked for years, and should work like this only. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ ^{Talk Email} 10:50, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
• Case by Case Too-rigid application of the rules would diminish the value of the template. Do it right for the obvious cases, for the less obvious ones, add extra parameters. As above, the Beetles should list John, Paul, George and Ringo as "members," and the other two as "past members." The Doors can list all as "past members." Hipocrite (talk) 14:22, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

  How is the reader supposed to know what was obvious to an editor? Is it obvious that dead people can be members of a band? Uniplex (talk) 05:06, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• Clarification: In every band, we have three categories of players, at all times: the original members, who formed the band; the current members who form the current line-up; and the former members who played in the group but are no longer in it. In case the band has dissolved and is no more, the only difference in the above three categories is that the last one, the category of current members, becomes the last line-up at the time of the break-up. (One can have a separate category comprised of people who have played with the band and/or contributed to its records without being part of the official line-up, e.g. Billy Preston with the Beatles; Nicky Hopkins with the Rolling Stones.) But, if the band is notable enough and its line-up has gone through significant changes, we must account for all the members through the changing line-ups! That's the encyclopaedic way. So, my answer is Yes, past members are to be mentioned and listed, as appropriate. For every notable band, extant or dissolved, that has gone through a significant number of line-up changes, a table of Line-ups timeline will provide all the necessary information. You can see such a table in the entry for the Soft Machine. -The Gnome (talk) 04:06, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

  That seems a very good suggestion: nothing is open to interpretation—the "significance" of a particular member (which was previously being conveyed in an ad-hoc way) can be inferred from the timeline. So the guideline could become: Past members of the group, listed in order of joining with no other notation than names. If a group is inactive, all members should be listed here, and none in the "current_members" field. Separate multiple entries with <br />. Any variation of group membership with time should be noted in the article body in a Line-ups timeline section, perhaps illustrated by a simple example. Uniplex (talk) 07:49, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

  I agree, but suggest changing "in a Line-ups timeline section" to "in a Personnel section". Our MoS already calls for a Personnel/Members section, while we don't require a timeline nor do we have any standards in place for such timelines (personally I dislike the timelines: there are no standards or guidelines for their usage, so their application and features vary greatly from one article to another). --IllaZilla (talk) 09:02, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

  Fair point; no probs with the suggested amendment. Uniplex (talk) 09:10, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Members of defunct groups: post-RfC

The RfC has now run it's course; this section may be used to continue/close the discussion. Uniplex (talk) 08:52, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Evaluating the RfC, as we should now do, "through the lens of Wikipedia policy", we have: "Consistency in language, style, and formatting promotes clarity and cohesion", and "Using an infobox makes the data within it available to DBpedia" (DBpedia provides "structured content" from WP). It's apparent that using a single field for several distinct things ("current members", "most notable line-up", "members at dissolution") goes against these, so I suggest to proceed per the final proposal made. A couple of options those who still wish to list the "most notable line-up" and/or "members at dissolution" in the info box are 1) gain consensus to add such field(s), or 2) picture and caption the particular members in question using the image and caption fields (see The Beatles for an example of this). Uniplex (talk) 11:51, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Updated per RfC above with minor copy-editing. Uniplex (talk) 20:47, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

That's a good point you make about database robots coming through our articles to scrape information. The more types of member parameters we have the more accurate the data will be. Binksternet (talk) 02:18, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Lowercase the genres

It says that the genres are supposed to be lowercased because of them not being proper nouns, so would an admin kindly lowercase the genres in Mariah Carey's example infobox? Sorry, it's just a pet peeve of mine. • GunMetal Angel 02:36, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

You can change it yourself if you want to. The documentation for the template is on separate page that's not edit protected. It's at Template:Infobox musical artist/doc. If you change it, don't forget to change both the displayed infobox and the corresponding code. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 02:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

 Done. Output and code. Varlaam (talk) 18:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

"Past" members

There is a lot of archived discussion that refers to "former" members, which to my ears is the more euphonic phrasing.
There is a good reason why it is Past and not Former?
Varlaam (talk) 18:30, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I like the German Wikipedia's way

Check this out: [1]. It's way better when used for bands. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 13:17, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Image width anomally

Anyone noticed that images on music pages are suddenly pinched? IE: thin/postage-stamped. We have always had the rule that we had to "250" a landscape=yes image... but if the image was portrait format it would look after itself. But now, just in the past 2 days, all portrait style images are suddenly squinched into the center of the box making it look very unattractive/cosmetically-wrong. Look at an article like Jimmy Page. A very tall image and, for now, fill the box (almost too much) because I tested the size field and found that it needed the 25 included in order to fill-out the box. The effect by NOT putting the 250 in is very similar to what infoboxes used to look like when someone had a tall/portrait styled image in place.... but then turned around and set the landscape field to '=yes'... which, of course, would result in the tall narrow image becoming extremely small inside the infobox. This isn't just suddenly happening for musicians.... I notice the files for album covers in all the album article are also appearing smaller??? It's like someone/somewhere in Wikipedia's bowels altered an all-encompassing code line that has had an impact across the entire project. Any thoughts? Anoyone know how to make it so that the '250' should look after itself in all the 'landscape=no' infoboxes?? Mr Pyles (talk) 14:48, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

It's actually 220 rather than 250 in the docs. Someone set it to 160 on the 6 November 2011. Try it without an size set and it should default to 220px width. -- WOSlinker (talk) 16:25, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, it can be different sizes, depending on your "my preferneces" settings. In the Appearance tab, have a look at what your "Thumbnail size" is set to. If the image doesn't have any size set then it will default to whatever your "Thumbnail size" size is. -- WOSlinker (talk) 16:29, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the tips. I never thought to look in my own pref setting to see if I was throttling image sizes (I wasn't) There ere a few other setting that popped out in there that rally improved my page views and load speeds. Have a very Happy new Year! Mr Pyles (talk) 16:37, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Origin

Origin is very often of far less encyclopedic interest than where the artist has largely been based. I'd suggest a |based_in= tag for current or at least most relevant locale. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 01:16, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

That's quite debatable. Many acts' cities/countries of origin are of great significance to their histories, whereas where they happen to be currently based is not. For example the Descendents arose and released their early albums during the early-1980s punk rock movement in Los Angeles, and are historically associated with that scene, though in recent decades the band has been more or less "based out of" Fort Collins, Colorado (where 2 of the members live and where their recording studio is located). Similarly, Alkaline Trio formed in Chicago and the band and its members are still closely associated with the Chicago scene, even though 2 of the members don't live there anymore (and the 1 who does wasn't a formative member of the group). These are just a couple of examples of acts whose place of origin is a key part of their identity and historical importance, whereas their current base is not very significant (think of all the musicians and actors who move to LA after becoming famous). --IllaZilla (talk) 22:52, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 3 January 2012

I want to change the color of boxes to red from yello......plzzzzzzzzzzzz Yamaaan 14:57, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

 Not done No consensus for this change. The {{edit protected}} template is to be placed after consensus for a change has been reached. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request

Can you add alma mater to the infobox? --Orangecandi (talk) 22:05, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

 Not done As with the request above, no consensus has been established for this change. The {{edit protected}} template is to be placed after consensus for a change has been formed, or if the requested edit is unquestionably uncontroversial. Also, alma mater would be irrelevant to the vast majority of musicians. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:32, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Musical Groups

This infobox seems geared towards individual musicians. I'd like to see some additional parameters for groups, like Lead Singer, Bass Guitar, etc, rather than just a lump of generic members. Comments?  The Steve  01:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Nah. We already have current and past members. Making individual fields for each potential position in a group would be ridiculous. That's what Personnel sections in articles are for. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree with IllaZilla. Do not need fields for individual performers in the band. It might make sense for a four-piece band that has a drummer, bass, rhythm and lead guitar, but what about the five-piece with keys, or bands with horn sections? Non-traditional rock instruments like mandolin, ukulele, accordion, djembe, clarinet and didgeridoo would be required. Then we would need to deal with vocals. Not all bands have a single lead vocalist with several members sharing vocal duties depending the song.

So what would be needed is what you see in football (soccer) templates. There you have The numbered, matched parameters yearsn, clubsn, capsn and goalsn, where the values are matched on a specific line in the infobox. The way it would have to be implemented here is currentmembername1 and currentmemberinstrument1. The one thing that this would do is allow us to prevent wikilinking of instruments, which I suspect is against WP:OVERLINK. What it would create is an unnecessary duplication of information with the members section and a great deal of visual distraction in the infobox. I don't think it's needed. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:01, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

That's exactly what I want to see. Now you say it isn't needed and will crowd the box, but take a look at the German wiki sometime. It looks fine. F'rinstance, Lead Singer is something that should absolutely be in the infobox.  The Steve  06:44, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

There are a lot of things done on other wikis that we do differently here. Adding positions would clutter the box, especially in cases of groups with fluctuating memberships over time (which describes the majority of groups). We are trying to keep things simple: It is not necessary nor desirable for the infobox to try to contain every factual detail. That's what the article is for. We have personnel sections, various types of membership timelines, etc. to denote individuals' roles within a group. No need to cram it into the infobox. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:50, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Except you already have a field called instrument. Apparently its important for individual musicians, but not if they're in a group. Which is my point. This template is for individuals, but somehow its being used for groups as well. The Steve  11:00, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

As Help:Infobox explains, it is important that the infobox remains concise. Fields like instrument are appropriate when using this for an individual, but if you tried to add that amount of detail to a musical group, you sacrifice concision. And this infobox is meant to be used for both individuals and groups. This is because there is a lot of overlap between the information conveyed, and to keep things consistent across the music projects. However, not everything overlaps; there are fields that are for a group that is not applicable to an individual, and vice versa. —Akrabbim^talk 13:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I just checked German Wikipedia and they have the an occupation parameter: Besetzung1a = matched with a second |Besetzung1b = . You list the name beside the first and the role beside the second. Unfortunately, that leads to wikilinking of both. The music infoboxes are very long. As an example, pick a few band articles and then open the Deutsch version of the article to see the differences. If the article is long it might help, but many of the articles I watch and edit are not long and it would overpower the rest of the article. Ironically, one of the articles I looked at, Bruce Springsteen doesn't even have an infobox on the German site. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:52, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• Another problem with this would arise from bands like Kiss or Grateful Dead (how often are those two used as the same example?) who have different members singing different songs. I believe adding this will lead to lots of clutter, the fact that the German Wikipedians don't overdo it doesn't mean English Wikipedians won't either. In my experience folks over here LOVE filling up an infbox. J04n(talk page) 00:49, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I addressed this earlier: "Not all bands have a single lead vocalist with several members sharing vocal duties depending the song". The Beatles are an example of this, and the German page is complete overload. In fact, the German versions actually present less information than English wikipedia in most cases and manage to make it look ugly. I'm not holding them up as paragons by any stretch of the imagination. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:18, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for missing your earlier post post but looking at the German Beatles page confirms my doubts about adding these fields. J04n(talk page) 01:34, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Not a problem. There's a lot to read, but I'm making the same point that you are: we don't want that sort of infobox overload. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:47, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

template modification idea

As they are currently set up, it includes "Current Members" and "Past Members". I was wondering what other people think about including a section "Original Members" to differentiate Past Members from ones who were not part of the original lineup. Some of these bands have been around for many decades and some past members may have only been a member for a very short time many years after they were founded. --T1980 (talk) 15:05, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Original members are often only in the band for a short time as a lot of bands go through several changes before reaching a stable lineup. I don't think we should complicate the infobox further - the detail can be included elsewhere in the article.--Michig (talk) 15:19, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Agree w/ Michig. Past proposals to differentiate "original members" or "longtime members" within the infobox have failed to gain consensus. The infobox is kept simple for a reason, and the information in it is not meant to be nuanced. Details on original members or other notable lineups are best left to the article body and Members sections. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:24, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Good idea, but who are the original members? The ones who were in t he band when they first started, were first signed, when they first made it big? There are three possible interpretations. And what do you do when bands change their name? Are the original members those who were in the original band or in the new band? Too many variables. I suspect that with some bands the edit wars could be worse than with genres. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:27, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:OVERLINK

Should we be encouraging linking state/province, and certainly country and instruments, etc. in light of WP:OVERLINK "Avoid linking the names of major geographic features and locations, languages, religions, and common professions."? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:38, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

So you know every state and location in Africa and Asia? Yes, musical artists exists even in Asia and Africa. mabdul 19:21, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

We're talking about the wording of the guideline. It addresses all of the nations of Asia and Africa with its wording, but the policy doesn't specify states or provinces. However, nations outside of North America don't usually list state or province. Do you have instances where state or province is listed and linked in a geographic listing in an article Asia and Africa like Los Angeles, California, US. or Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada? In instances like this, the article on the city lists which state or province it's in and so linking that is an overlink. As for cities, which is what I assume you mean by "location", they can never be overlnked. However the question also extends to the issue of whether we should we be linking instruments as well. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:41, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I think linking the instruments is too much, but the "state and provinces" problem is more a problem of having a bad documentation - The documentation should state in which situations (say: in which nations) which field should be used (or not) and in this case a linking of states isn't bad in my eyes. As far as I know (e.g.) many Europeans don't know where which states of the US/Canada are and thus linking is useful. mabdul 18:31, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Don't blame Europeans for not knowing where US states and Canadian provinces are located when most North Americans don't either =). However, the city article should indicate in which geographic region its located as well as country. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:36, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Cities might not use it, like Chicago, or NYC, but if an artist comes from a small village which has only ~3000 citizens, this will make every person problems. I still think that the doc needs only a better explanation, not a removal (useful) parameter. mabdul 20:07, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Ordering in certain parameters

For the parameters "alias", "genre" and "label" it is currently not specified which order they should be in, i.e. should aliases be ordered by the date in which they were adopted or alphabetically, should genres be ordered by prominence in the artist's overall output or alphabetically, and should labels be ordered by the date in which they were signed or alphabetically? I think rules should be established for these, otherwise it is a source of confusion. If we were voting, I would choose the first option for each subject. While I have something written here, I may as well also ask the question of whether it's inappropriate to separate items with the word "and" rather than just commas? Is there a reason why we don't use it in infoboxes when we do in general text? E.g., for the label section, "Virgin and EMI" or "Virgin, EMI"? LF (talk) 07:34, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Multiple values should be separated using {{Plainlist}} or {{Flatlist}} (the former displays lists vertically, the latter horizontally). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:25, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Why do we need consistency? If one list wants to include them alphabetically and another chronologically and another in a different format is it at all important? The lists are usually short.

Also, I am opposed to using templates when it can be done manually. It causes more overhead both for the server and the browser. Unless there's a reason to use the template I would strongly advise against using it. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:01, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

The templates I mention improve our compliance with W3C web standards, the accessibility of our content, and the availability of our data to parsers and scrapers and services like DBpedia. Unless literally hundreds of such templates are used on a single article, server overhead is negligible, and there is zero overhead for the browser. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:58, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm' sure that I could look into the templates but how exactly do they improve compliance with W3C standards, and with which standards do they improve compliance? Also accessibility as measured by which standard? There are three that I know of. And while you're on accessibility, how does it improve our compliance with it (them)? Since the HTML presented is identical to the ones with the templates, how exactly is a parser's work any different?

For instance, I modified the head of the Bruce Springsteen article.

The existing comma-separated list generates the following HTML

<th scope="row" style="text-align:left;"><a href="/enwiki/wiki/Music_genre" title="Music genre">Genres</a></th> <td class="" style=""><a href="/enwiki/wiki/Rock_music" title="Rock music">Rock</a>, <a href="/enwiki/wiki/Folk_rock" title="Folk rock">folk rock</a>, <a href="/enwiki/wiki/Heartland_rock" title="Heartland rock">heartland rock</a>, <a href="/enwiki/wiki/Hard_rock" title="Hard rock">hard rock</a>, <a href="/enwiki/wiki/Roots_rock" title="Roots rock">roots rock</a></td> </tr>

The Plainlist generates the following HTML

<th scope="row" style="text-align:left;"><a href="/enwiki/wiki/Music_genre" title="Music genre">Genres</a></th> <td class="" style=""> <div class="plainlist" style="margin-left: 0em;"> <ul> <li><a href="/enwiki/wiki/Rock_music" title="Rock music">Rock</a></li> <li><a href="/enwiki/wiki/Folk_rock" title="Folk rock">folk rock</a></li> <li><a href="/enwiki/wiki/Heartland_rock" title="Heartland rock">heartland rock</a></li> <li><a href="/enwiki/wiki/Hard_rock" title="Hard rock">hard rock</a></li> <li><a href="/enwiki/wiki/Roots_rock" title="Roots rock">roots rock</a></li> </ul> </div> </td> </tr>

More complexity. Same information but incorrectly formatted as it is not comma separated. Flatlist adds bullets rather than commas.

I have seen some articles, although not music-related, that have dozens of templates on them and they are slow to load, at least for editors. The static versions do come back more quickly. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:19, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

This was discussed in detail during the discussions creating the "hlist" "plainlist" classs; but in brief, see WP:HLIST, and the recent Signpost item on that subject. What you describe as "more complexity" of the underlying code is irrelevant to our readers, as they don't see the markup, merely enjoy the benefits. The HTML presented is not identical; with the templates, it is accessible and semantically correct list markup, as require by the W3C's HTML and WCAG standards. What you have seen on "articles… not music-related, that have dozens of templates on them" elsewhere is irrelevant to this discussion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:31, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Both Plainlist and Flatlist generate bullets as separators, whereas the instruction for Template:Infobox musical artist states "Genres should be separated with a comma delimiter" This is beginning to produce unneccessary reversions with some users converting comma-separated lists to Flatlists, and other editors reinstating the comma version. Can we reach an agreement to avoid edit-wars? - Arjayay (talk) 13:10, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

They both produce semantic, standards-compliant and accessible list markup, as I describe above. However, {{Plainlist}} does not produce bullets (when our usual CSS is applied), hence its name. The template documentation should be updated, for the former reasons. (I'm unaware of any edit war related to this issue.) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:20, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

1. It produces bullets in our list so what else do we have to change?
2. We haven't decided to use them yet so no documentation needs to be updated. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:08, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

"It produces bullets in our list" Which list? What browser are you using? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:33, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I said it was producing "unneccessary reversions" (e.g. at Dr. Feelgood) and wished to "avoid edit-wars", please don't misquote me.
Currently, although not in the instructions, some (probably most?) editors insert line-breaks at each comma, producing a vertical list, similar to {{Plainlist}}, but with commas, whereas {{Flatlist}} creates line breaks part way through an entry making them much more difficult to read. Whatever the decision on Commas v Plainlist, I think each entry should be on a separate line, precluding the use of Flatlist. Arjayay (talk) 08:05, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

If there are no edit wars taking place, we don't need to take any steps to prevent them. I haven't quoted you at all, much less misquoted you. If you want each entry on a separate line, use {{Plainlist}}. However, I see many instances currently where entries are listed on one line, so that's a separate style change, that would need consensus, if you wish to apply it universally. {{Flatlist}} does not create any line breaks. I cant see any reversions, unneccessary or otherwise, in Dr. Feelgood, relating to these templates. Which edits did you have in mind? (eAndy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:33, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps I have a different understanding of "Prevention" i.e. preventing something occurring, rather than trying to stop a war after it has already broken out.
I agree that putting each entry on a separate line is a style change, which is why I proposed it for consideration, hoping to achieve consensus. This is not the same as using, and trying to insist that others use, a template which is clearly contrary to the currently approved style.
With regards to Dr. Feelgood, look at the revision immediately before the one you have just made. You inserted a Flatlist on 9 January, User:Hiddenstranger changed this back to a comma separated list on 25 March, (which is what brought me to this page - to see whether the instructions on commas in the template had changed) and you have just instated a Plainlist. - Arjayay (talk) 11:09, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

None of those edits are reverts. First, I converted an untemplated, horizontal list to use {{Flatlist}}, and thus proper HTML list markup. Then Hiddenstranger changed it to a vertical list, separated with line breaks (not a comma separated list). Lastly I converted that, still as a vertical list, to use {{Plainlist}}. This is the normal Wikipedia process of incremental improvement. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:34, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Please see WP:REVERT: "reverting may also refer to any action that in whole or in part reverses the actions of any editors." --Walter Görlitz (talk) 13:41, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Native name

Please sync from the sandbox where I have added |native_name= & |native_name_lang=, copied directly from {{Infobox person}}. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:03, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not very technical. What's the effect of this change? --IllaZilla (talk) 21:25, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It looks like it would add a native name and native language field. Why is this needed? Where is the request to add this parameter? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:59, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

That's what I thought. Why are these parameters needed? No discussion about them took place. I'm disabling the editprotected request, since that's only supposed to go up after consensus for a change is formed, or if the change is totally uncontroversial. If it's adding new fields, those need to be proposed and discussed first. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Where is the controversy? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:38, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

This is the request to add the parameters. They're needed in this template for the same reason they're in {{Infobox person}} and many other, widely-use biographical infoboxes; to enable and encourage non-English names to be marked up correctly with the ISO code of the language used, in accordance with web and accessibility standards; and so that the name parameter (and the metadata emitted by it) is not corrupted by the inclusion of two or more version of the name. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:38, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

All of this can be done in the article body, no need to clutter the template. Hekerui (talk) 10:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Please explain how we may avoid overloading the name parameter (as is often done currently) with two values; and emit native names as properly-marked up metadata, in the article body. Also, such information is not clutter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:43, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what that means, but your argument that it's in Template:Infobox person and has been since 2008-06-27. Now that I understand, I don't object to its inclusion. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:58, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Andy, can you give an example of what you mean by "overloading the name parameter (as is often done currently) with two values"? I've never seen anything like that, and I'm curious to see what the problem is that this change would fix. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:34, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

According to the metadata emitted by Marija Šerifović, her name is "Marija Šerifović Марија Шерифовић". The requested change would fix that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:41, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

No comments in nearly a week since I provided the requested example; and Walter withdrew his objection; so {{edit protected}} reactivated. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:17, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Would it not be simpler to either (A) only put one name in the name= field, and leave the "native name" in the lead sentence (as we do for artists known by pseudonyms eg. Skrillex or for taxonomic names of species eg. tiger shark), or (B) not have the metadata key off the infobox (I don't know much about metadata, but could it not either key off the article title or be manually adjusted)? --IllaZilla (talk) 20:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

While it would be simpler, it would also be less useful. We could simplify much of Wikipedia by leaving stuff out. Your analogy with species' names is flawed, because those are labels we attach to them (and are available through interwiki links), not the names used by the subjects themselves. For people like Skrillex, we have |alias. The metadata we emit isn't just the name, but also any of the other fields in the infobox; and manual adjustment isn't an option, it needs a parameter into which we put it. You haven't actually said why you believe that this would be a bad addition to the template. (BTW, please stop inserting line-breaks between comments, the "::" characters, which we use to indent, do so by making nested lists, and you're making them into non-nested, separate lists). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I find it difficult to read in the edit window without spaces between comments. Anyway, I'm just thinking of simplicity, and generally I err away from adding more fields in the interest of keeping the infobox short. It seems to me that the Marija Šerifović infobox should just have "Marija Šerifović" in the top banner of the infobox, with the Serbian characters ("Марија Шерифовић") left in the lead sentence. This being the English Wikipedia, I guess I just don't see why the infobox name banner is trying to be bilingual. I'm probably in the minority on that, though. I guess if the name displays in the top banner (eg. Saddam Hussein) then it's not making the infobox any longer than it already is, in which case my argument's probably moot. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:48, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I know that bike-shedding about infobox changes is a common pastime around here, but it is plainly not productive to add a parameter with the stated rationale of compatability with {{infobox person}} and then to change the syntax. It's in the best interest of both template maintainers and editors for our various biography templates to be as compatible with each other as possible. If these fields are to be added, they should have the same names and output as with the person template. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I would agree that the fields should be added, if only to maintain consistency with Infobox person. Enwiki-wide consensus has been that it is useful and informative to have Vladimir Putin's name in Cyrillic in the infobox, and I don't see why that can't be extended here. Also, if there are cases where it is unnecessary (I can see people trying to add it to Regina Spektor where in that case it would only serve as cruft), then that can be handled on an article-by-article basis. —Akrabbim^talk 16:26, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support - same problem like the persondata template/as discussing in the recent persondata-tfd: we need to get the (person related) infoboxes standardized to remove the unnecessary template! mabdul 19:30, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done: copied from sandbox, with additional fixes to the stuff just before the documentation (some of it was limited to articlespace, but not all; some of it was includeonly, but not all; all of it is now both namespaced and includeonly). Please update the template documentation with the new fields. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:34, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

The docs need to be updated. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:03, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done copy and paste job of Template:Infobox person/doc; I recognized that the doc now contains following:

birth_name
This field is only relevant for individuals. The person's name in their own language

native_name
This field is only relevant for individuals. The artist's name at birth.

That sounds like two parameters for the same, or? mabdul 19:50, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

No. |birth_name= is for people like Reg Dwight and takes no language parameter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:40, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:40, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Can you "update" the doc so that this is clear(er) for the users? I don't find any better explanation, maybe an example will fit. ;) mabdul 20:11, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

I am still confused as to what to put in each one of these name parameters now. Is this a correct example for a Japanese person; birth_name is for the name written in Japanese, native_name is for the name written in English, and for native_name_lang just put "ja"? Also birth_name says "in their own language", this appears to be too vague because what if someone is bilingual? And I don't understand how there would be more than one response to native_name_lang. Xfansd (talk) 01:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Adding a spouse parameter

I think it would be helpful to add a "spouse" parameter to the infobox. Many artists are (or have been) married, often to famous people who themselves have an article that could be linked to in the infobox. Many other biography infoboxes have this parameter and I would like to be able to use it in musical artist infoboxes. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:50, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

See the note at the top of this page. Numerous proposals to add a spouse field have failed to gain consensus, most recently in an RfC. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:51, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Well I have now looked through the archives and I see that this has been brought up many times by many different editors. That seems to indicate there is a pretty sizable demand for adding it. I also have not read any compelling arguments against making it an optional parameter. As such, I still request it be added to the template. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:18, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Read the archives again. The argument, very strong, is always against. As it should be. bad idea. Might fly on a site designed to look like 17 Magazine. But has no bearing in a music article on an encyclopedia project. Mr Pyles (talk) 23:22, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

If it is used in a biography article, then yes it does belong. Perhaps the correct solution is to split up this infobox into 2 separate infoboxes. 1 for individual biographies and the other for groups. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:24, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Um, no. There are very strong arguments for adding such a parameter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:12, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Care to summarize? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:18, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

They're in the same archives referred to above. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:27, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

So you don't care to summarize the best of their arguments? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:32, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

As someone who spends much of his time on Wikipedia cleaning up infoboxes, I can attest that if there is an infobox field it will be filled in with something. This will lead to non-notable spouses/boy- girlfriends/one-night stands/etc being continuously added. If the spouse (or any other family member) is notable, by all means add it to the body of the article (with appropriate references), not everything in an article must be included in the infobox. From Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes "If the field is relevant to very few articles, it should probably not be included at all", overall a small percentage of musicians have notable spouses. I would also oppose a separate infobox for musicians and ensambles. J04n(talk page) 00:08, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes - infoboxes should contain material which is of direct relevance to the notability of the article subject - they aren't supposed to be a collection of random 'facts'. A 'spouse' parameter serves no useful purpose, and invites contentious (and unsourced) edits. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:24, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

In the interest of not repeating things I've said numerous times in previous discussions, I'll simply concur with J04n & AndyTheGrump. They sum it up rather well. Rreagan007, the argument "If it is used in a biography article, then yes it does belong" isn't compelling. Many biography articles use {{Infobox person}}, which is bloated with superfluous fields. That's precisely why we have field-specific infoboxes like this one: to stick to the info most relevant to that field (in this case, music). --IllaZilla (talk) 00:49, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

There are other fields in the infobox that are not relevant to the musical notability of the subject but are only there because it is a biographical article, such as birth_name, native_name, native_name_lang, alias, birth_date, birth_place, origin, death_date, and death_place. You can put all that stuff in the text of the article just as easily as you can put the souse there. But it's in the infobox for quick reference convenience, because most readers at a biography article would like to be able to just glance at the infobox to see basic biographical info on the subject such as when they were born, if and when they died, and if the are or were married. Rreagan007 (talk) 01:58, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

What the person's name is, and when they lived, is certainly pertinent to their career. These are also characteristics that every person has, by definition. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:10, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

If they were married ISN'T "basic biographical info" because it doesn't normally affect anything related to why they have an article on WP in the first place. Antonín Dvořák was happily married but this had no effect on the fact his music is still beloved today. Not even most hardcore classical music fans could name his wife's name off the top[ of their head, however. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 06:20, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Alias is also pertinent, particularly when dealing with some musicians. Some are actually known by their alias (Bono, The Edge, and Bob Dylan, the latter has a great many additional aliases) and so it makes it vital. native_name to a lesser extent is important for similar reasons. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Was Dvořák's wife notable? Do we have an article about her? The proposal is for a parameter for people whose spouses meet those criteria. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:31, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Will you be patrolling the template articles so that it is used in the way you're suggesting? I suppose that we could 1) force the template to only be a link and therefore meet notability and 2) commission a bot to patrol the template to ensure that it only contains articles with links. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:57, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Your question is irrelevant to the issue at hand; unlike mine, which I note you failed to answer. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:10, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

<irony>It's amazing that the project somehow survives, given all the unspeakable havoc that results daily from all the other infoboxes that have a spouse field.</irony> JN466 16:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

No my question is not irrelevant. Consistency and correctness must be maintained. I wasn't planning on answering your question because I thought it was rhetorical. It's not really relevant either. Individual situations should never be used to make a rule. And quite frankly, I agree with your point. Non-notable individuals don't need to be listed. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:10, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Resting place

The graves of many deceased musicians are notable; we should therefore add |resting_place= and |resting_place_coordinates=, as used in {{Infobox person}} and other biographical templates. Their display could be disabled for subjects which are groups or similar. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:00, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

No thanks. Not key information for an at-a-glance summary, little to nothing to do with why the person is notable. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:27, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

The graves of many more is not notable and adding a parameter for that would simply invite adding it to the infobox. The external links section is the correct place for this information. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:53, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Really? Can you give examples of some non-notable graves of musicians? If the information is suitable for an external link (what if no website lists it, only paper sources), why is it not suitable for the infobox, where it then becomes available as metadata, and usable by partner sites like Google, Yahoo and DBpedia? Can you justify your "invite adding" hypothesis, and say why that would be a problem? To quote another editor, above, "It's amazing that the project somehow survives, given all the unspeakable havoc that results daily from all the other infoboxes that have a resting-place field". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:28, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Where is the requirement that infoboxes only contain information "to do with why the person is notable"? The birth and death dates do not meet that criteria. The regular and predictable dismissal of attempts to add generic biographical fields to this infobox, used without drama in most other biographical infoboxes, is tiresome, and smacks of attempts at WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Andy, please familiarize yourself with WP:IBX: It contains useful advice on the purpose of infoboxes:

"When considering any aspect of infobox design, keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize key facts in the article in which it appears. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance. Of necessity, some infoboxes contain more than just a few fields; however, wherever possible, present information in short form, and exclude any unnecessary content."

There's a reason we have a specialized infobox for musicians and don't just use {{Infobox person}}. An infobox is not meant to contain every conceivable detail about a person. Where they are buried is not a "key fact", nor is it necessary content in the vast majority of cases. Some details aren't pertinent to an at-a-glance summary. Such details can of course be included in the article body; that's what the body is for, all the details. Dates of birth and death are key information for an at-a-glance summary, place of burial much less so. I feel that with suggestions like this, you are sometimes treating the infobox as a storehouse of biographical details, which isn't its purpose. What effect this has on metadata or other non-Wikipedia sites/search engines really doesn't concern me. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:54, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

And furthermore, birth and death dates might not deal with specifically 'why' a person is notable, but for ANY person they are important to help put into the context of what they did and when. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 23:29, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

There are a great many non-notable graves of musicians. Dana Key in fact I think I'll stop there. In short, graves such as Jim Morrison's and Elvis Presley's are notable while most are not. Just because a musician is notable does not confer notability on the musician's grave. Perhaps you could list notable graves of a dozen musicians. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:02, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I did not suggest that we use {{Infobox person}} in place of this template, so please avoid unhelpful straw man arguments. I'm fully familiar with WP:IBX and attempting to patronise me by pretending otherwise does nothng to advance this discussion. My comments stand. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:56, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

In your request you stated "as used in {{Infobox person}} and other biographical templates." I'm pointing out the reasons why we don't have as many fields as that infobox, because we have a narrower focus. I'm sorry you find every counterargument patronizing, but bringing up a suggestion like this one indicates to me that no, you don't have a very good grasp on the purpose of an infobox. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:13, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't "find every counterargument patronizing" - that's another straw man. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:54, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Speaking about not answering questions...the suggestion that we use the parameters listed in another template is not relevant, although their inclusion in other templates can help to inform our choices. The goals for this project may be very different from those of other projects. Let's address what our goals are rather than argue based on what other have or have not done. Soon, we could open this discussion to what they're doing on the various international versions of Wikipedia. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:13, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Te only project goals are of any import here are Wikipedia's. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:17, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not in favor of this suggestion. From Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes "If the field is relevant to very few articles, it should probably not be included at all", overall a very small percentage of musicians have notable resting place. J04n(talk page) 20:34, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

So what do you see Wikipedia's goals to be in this matter? Are you suggesting that the projects goals are somehow not in harmony with them? Please elaborate. I'm suggesting that we focus on why it would be beneficial to add this new parameter or keep it out. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:44, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

It's an unreq'd field for a musician. Superfluity = useless. Just say no to wheel-spinning infobox fields. Mr Pyles (talk) 01:03, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Classical musicians/ensembles

The documentation for this template opens:

Infobox musical artist is the standard infobox for non-classical musician articles…

including the disputed (see unresolved 2009 debate) wording "non-classical". Since the option |background=classical_ensemble is available, this is patent nonsense, and that wording should be removed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Done. Just a question, is there another that is used with classical artists? If so, we should add it to a see also section. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:53, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Only {{Infobox person}}. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:44, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with the removal of the words 'non-classical'. These were added a long time ago after substantial discussion. They should not be removed just at the whim of one or two editors, without informing all interested parties at the Classical music and Composers project. Pending a proper discussion I am reverting. Thank you. --Kleinzach 08:42, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Those projects have no special rights in this matter. Please justify your view, with reference to my point about classical ensembles. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:03, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Infobox musical artist is fine for popular music but it doesn't work well for classical; this is the experience of classical music editors, going back through years of WP history. Kleinzach was right to put back the missing word "non-classical". Opus33 (talk) 15:53, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Somehow it's a little hard for me to understand how WP:JDLI can trump years' worth of discussion and consensus. Milkunderwood (talk) 17:34, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Please justify your view, with reference to my point about classical ensembles. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:53, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I've already done this; please look at the link that Milkunderwood provided (you can search under my user name). Opus33 (talk) 18:08, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I can't see anything there where you addresses my point, or anything like it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:57, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

In light of Kleinzach's revert, I would like to voice two objections. The article now indicates that this is the template for non-classical musician articles, but does not indicate what should be done for classical musician articles and this gaping void must be filled immediately or I will restore the edit regardless of prior consensus.

The second issue is that the circular logic that is presented is inconsistent. The next line reads "See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians/Infobox for more information" and the project reads "{{Infobox musical artist}} is the standard template to be used on a non-classical musician's or musical ensemble's page. However, there are cases where a more specific template may be more appropriate, such as college or university marching bands, which should use {{Infobox college marching band}}." The two locations should be harmonized, including the objection above. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:10, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

This page relates to a particular infobox that has been designed for a particular purpose. If you are concerned about other infoboxes (existing or imagined) they can be discussed on appropriate pages, but let's keep on topic here. --Kleinzach 22:59, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

My comment also relates to this infobox. I'm removing the comment until further directions can be added to the documentation. We must clarify which templates may be used as an alternative for classical-music articles either in the lede or in a see also. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:38, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello, I don't think there's any need to launch an edit war over this. Classical music articles simply don't use infoboxes, by consensus among classical music editors. To satisfy Walter Görlitz's sensible request, all we need to do is put a few words to this effect into the description for this template. Opus33 (talk) 15:33, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree that there's no need to launch an edit war. I'm simply making my point clear. We can't introduce this exclusion without explaining what those who are caught in the exclusion should do. The template maybe used with classical music subjects so it's really a non-issue. We should add it back to the documentation when we explain what the excluded group may use in lieu of this template, if anything at all. It may be appropriate to create a new essay or guideline to explain how classical artist articles should be created and link to that. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:59, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed lede sentence

{{Infobox musical artist}} is the standard infobox for non-classical musician articles, and is within the purview of WikiProject Musicians. Classical musician articles may use {{WikiProject Biography}} if it is more appropriate to the subject.

Feel free to make additions or suggestions. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:19, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:23, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Articles don't use projects; projects don't own templates; and this ignores the point about classical ensembles which I raised above. The current wording, without the words removed as a result of the above, is fine. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:57, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello WG, This looks sensible but I don't fully understand it -- does the template {{WikiProject Biography}} get placed on the talk page of an article? Opus33 (talk) 05:53, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think this is ideal – it sounds as if that wikiproject tag were to be placed on the article in lieu of the infobox template. Also, the issue here is not what Wikiproject is "in charge" of an article. If you want something explicit about the concrete issue of what to do with infoboxes in those articles, a clearer alternative would be something like "For classical musicians, authors may want to consider the recommendation of the Classical Music WikiProject to not use an infobox." Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

There is indeed a bit of confusion about the details of WG's proposal. I'd favour FP's suggestion because it is clearer. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:00, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry. My mistake. Perhaps change to one of the appropriate templates listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Infoboxes. I like Future Perfect at Sunrise's suggestion. Please craft a new opening. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:23, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I would change the link location from "not use an infobox" to include the whole phrase starting at "consider the recommendation". --Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:28, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Given that that recommendation is not binding, why would we mention it at all? If we do, we should made clear that it is non-binding. Also, the proposed wording still ignores the matter of the template explicitly catering for classical ensembles. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

P.S. WP:Advice pages applies. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:57, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I also like Future Perfect at Sunrise's suggestion. WG's amendment is fine with me. Opus33 (talk) 22:30, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Use of this infobox on Marian_Anderson/ Samuel Barber

Discussions have arisen, at Talk:Marian_Anderson#Infobox and Talk:Samuel Barber#Infobox, about whether to include this infobox on those articles, or whether "prior determination" prohibits that. WikiProject Classical music has been canvassed, but other interested projects talk pages were not notified; hence this post. Wider participation would be welcome. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:21, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Classic Line-up parameter for defunct bands

A relevant discussion here indicates a need for a third option for defunct bands, in addition to "current members" and "past members", I suggest a "classic line-up" field, or some variation thereof. Any thoughts, suggestions? — GabeMc (talk) 00:02, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Great idea. Have a required classic_line-up_ref and if it's blank then the other parameter's values are not displayed. I know several bands that have two or more "classic line-ups" and it would be a fight to determine which is the correct value to use. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:20, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Do you know how we can acheive this? Could we have several "classic line-ups" if need be? — GabeMc (talk) 00:29, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Whoever makes the addition could make a check for the reference and if it isn't present then...

As for multiple classic line-ups, they could be numbered, but could be redundant. One band I'm thinking of had the same lead guitarist for 23 of its 25 years and two different lead classic vocalists. And the drummer spanned the two vocalists but started after the first and left before the second vocalist did.

classic_line-up1

classic_line-up1_ref

classic_line-up2

classic_line-up2_ref

It's been done with clubs in {{Infobox football biography}} and other places as well I suspect. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:40, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Can we add this field now, or does someone need to alter the template? — GabeMc (talk) 00:48, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

This has been discussed and rejected before, I believe most recently here. "Classic" is inherently POV, and there are very few cases where a "classic" lineup is relatively easily defined (Beatles, Nirvana). Consensus at a single article's talk page does not equate to a consensus to change this highly-used template. --IllaZilla (talk) 01:48, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

1)Is "principal members" inherently POV? 2) Shouldn't "Past Members" be "Former Members", to be technically more correct? — GabeMc (talk) 03:42, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think "principal members" is POV. There might be some disagreement about who the "principal members" are for some bands; that would be ironed out in discussion. But it doesn't seem to invite disagreement as much as "classic line-up. Cresix (talk) 03:51, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

We clearly need a third choice, this is a good option. We could then list members for active bands, as well as their principal line-up and any members who were kicked out or left. How its applied will be determined at the article level. — GabeMc (talk) 04:00, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

See Talk:The Beatles as the discussion is now a mile long concerning problems with the Infobox's formatting. Steelbeard1 (talk) 04:03, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't know about a mile long, but the current vote is 9 to 9. — GabeMc (talk) 04:08, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I get really cranky with posts like "This has been discussed and rejected before." (Not meaning to shoot the messenger. It's the message that annoys me.) Obviously GabeMc brought this here because there's a problem. We need to find a solution, not just say "We can't find a solution." At the moment the Beatles article has four "Members" (ending up with that heading by being listed as "Current members" in the Infobox template!) and two "Past members". That delineation is silly. They're all "past" members, but nobody calls them that. Using the template "correctly" would have six people listed as "Past members", with no indication of the significance of the role played by each of the six, which is also silly. So let's get something that works for defunct groups. I'm a Beatles generation person. When I talk about bands from that time I say "The members of the band were..." I would never say "The past members were..." And sometimes I'll say "X and Y were also occasional members." We need to find a way to put that kind of natural language in the Infobox, rather than the garbage that gets generated now. HiLo48 (talk) 04:17, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't see the suggestion of a WP:RS as a reference required to display. This would clearly remove POV or OR problems. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:22, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

• Lewisohn, 1992, p.59, "On that night, the Fab Four was born." Need more? — GabeMc (talk) 04:34, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
• Gould, 2008, pp.127–128, Starr would be "central .. to [their] iconography", and "the Beatles became almost unimaginable without him." — GabeMc (talk) 04:49, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

This is not a discussion about a specific band. Please don't try to turn it into one. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:57, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, I thought that's what you wanted. What's your point Walter? — GabeMc (talk) 05:11, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

My earlier comment was that if you have paired parameters you couldn't add list without adding a reference. See the comment near the top of this section. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:20, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I would be more comfortable with this in situations where we could find reliable sourcing for what would constitute the "classic" line-up of a given band. For some bands this is relatively simple -- the Beatles, for example, as we've been discussing -- and is so obvious that sourcing is scarcely needed. With other bands, the Moody Blues for example, or even Pink Floyd, this could be harder, and at some point any definition of a "classic" line-up does become arbitrary and potentially POV. I don't think it's inherently a matter of POV, though, and the suggested change would certainly help clear up some confusion on several articles. Obviously it needs to be an optional thing that isn't deployed on just any article; it's use needs to be reserved for special cases, lest it become a source of contention like the edit-warring that regularly springs up concerning genres in the infobox. We can leave the establishment of whoever constitutes the classic line-up of a given band to editors at the page in question, and it should self-regulate just fine. Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 05:30, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

The Beatles
Members	John Lennon Paul McCartney George Harrison Ringo Starr Stuart Sutcliffe Pete Best

The reason I bring up that "This has been discussed and rejected before" is because all these arguments were made in the previous discussion, and I don't see anything new here. The perceived "problem" arises from a misconception of the purpose of an infobox: There's a common misconception—usually accompanied by strong opinions—that the infobox is somehow supposed to indicate the significance of the individuals involved (some feel it already does this). This simply isn't the case. The infobox is just a list of facts, and the members fields are just that: lists of members. The order in which they're listed has nothing whatsoever to do with how "important", "significant", or "classic" the individuals were. That some editors perceive it as such is a problem with their perception, not with the infobox. The significance of individual members can and should be discussed in the article body (which is where the sources attesting to their significance belong, not in the infobox), and the most notable members should certainly be mentioned in the lead, so it's not like we're misleading readers (as I'm fond of saying, we do expect readers to actually read our articles beyond just the colorful box in the top corner).

Now, the instructions for the past members field do say "Past members of the group, listed in order of joining with no other notation than names. If a group is inactive, all members should be listed here, and none in the "current_members" field. If membership of the group has varied over time, it should not be noted here, but may be discussed in the article body."

...which is what's done in most articles about defunct groups, and if I had my way that's how it'd be done in the Beatles and Nirvana articles too. But articles on massively popular acts like that are generally overseen by (understandably) strongly-opinionated and often-intractable editors, who scoff at the thought of listing the members in the order they joined because *gasp* that's put Pete Best's name before Ringo's (and wouldn't that just make Wikipedia the laughingstock of the internet?). Fine then, use the fields in whatever way you feel is best for the article. The Beatles and Nirvana articles have been considered among Wikipedia's best work for years; a little thing like listing the primary members under "members" and the less significant ones under "former members" isn't going to change that. If you feel it really doesn't work for the Beatles article, you can quite easily do something like what I've shown on the right: list everyone as "members" but put the most significant ones first. A disagreement at one article (which has used the infobox as-is for years and still managed to remain one of Wikipedia's finest articles) doesn't mean we need to change the fundamental workings of the infobox. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:41, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

No. Not all these arguments were made in the previous discussion. The need to provide a reference was not made. That is new. Understand your reasoning. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:46, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I understand my reasoning perfectly well, thank you. The subject of requiring references in the infobox has also been discussed in the past, primarily in relation to the genre field. As I mentioned, references don't belong in the infobox, they belong in the article body. The infobox is merely a summary of key facts, not nuanced information or claims that require context and sourcing. It is not the infobox's job to communicate who were the most significant individuals in a group. That's the article's job. The infobox's job is merely to list who was involved. If editors would stop treating the infobox as a source of context and nuance, forcing it to do a job it isn't designed or suited to do, these problems could be easily avoided. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:53, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but there's a sad arrogance on display there. If regular editors, who should know how it's supposed to work, get confused over the meaning of things in the Infobox, how the hell are innocent readers supposed to cope? Obviously they will be confused. Is that what you want, IllaZilla? Stop blaming the reader when it's the message that's stuffed! Oh, and yet again, nobody in normal English describes the members of defunct bands as past members. Why should we? I get the distinct impression that you're defending an indefensible status quo by calling the readers dumb. That's not very nice. HiLo48 (talk) 07:31, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Having been invited to contribute, here goes. Interesting question.

As has been pointed out, "classic lineup" is in many cases a POV issue. OTOH it is (equally in many cases) clear-cut. Beatles: JPG&R. Some bands have more than one: Floyd: 2 classic lineups: the Barrett one and the Gilmour one. Deep Purple: Mk.I, II, III and IV, and then various others after their heyday. Then there are bands you can't really pin down to a classic lineup: those which are the brainchild of one person, e.g. King Crimson, and those which are not even that: e.g. Soft Machine, whose later lineups didn't even have any members in common with their early ones. And how do you classify Hawkwind, who in their so-far-40-year history had one "classic lineup" which lasted exactly two albums? (Yes I know that last statement is POV - it just illustrates the problem we have.) Or Marillion, whose "classic lineup" again lasted for about 4 years, but who have continued for another 23 years with a solidly unchanging "non-classic" lineup? And what about Fleetwood Mac? Which is the "classic lineup": the Peter Green one or the Buckingham/Nicks one?

There would be an interesting thesis available to anyone interested in getting a doctorate in sociology which would involve the classification of bands into these various different "types": the strongly-knit never-changing (or barely-changing) bands like ed Zep, The Who, The Beatles etc., then those based around a solid core of two or three people (e.g. Kinks, Rolling Stones, Status Quo), and those with a loose conglomeration of people which come and go almost on whim (Gong comes to mind here).

Finally, then (TL;DR): if you want to ensure complete consistency across Wikipedia, then the classification of a "classic lineup" is impossible to define. However, if you want to indicate this fact for the "obvious" examples, like the Beatles and The Who, and Faces, and (I'll shut up or I'll go on for ever) then as long as sources can be found that state: "This was a classic lineup" it works for me. I have no strong views either way, but whichever way you jump, you need some sort of established policy. --Matt Westwood 07:40, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) HiLo48, I never said readers were dumb, and I've never seen any evidence that readers get confused over the meaning of things in the infobox. Have you ever had a reader complain that the infobox made it impossible for them to understand who was in The Beatles? I highly doubt it. I said that some editors misinterpret the purpose of an infobox, and that the suggestion to add a "classic lineup" parameter is an example of this. The message is not "stuffed", it's plain as day right there in the title banners: "these are the members", "these are the former members". I believe most readers can easily figure that out through simple reading comprehension. Again, if you think readers are getting confused because you're still using both "members" and "former members" to describe a defunct act, then fixing this problem does not require changing the workings of the infobox. I gave an example of a simple solution above. It seems to me that those who want to add further and further parameters to describe various lineups are those who aren't giving our readers credit for being able to figure things out on their own, or even giving our readers credit enough to assume they'll actually read our articles. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:46, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't feel comfortable with idea of formalizing something as potentially subjective as a "classic line-up" field. Readers should be able to find the members on a certain recording session, concert, etc. where appropriate, but as to whether a particular line-up is "classic", that feels like opinion to me and we should be dealing in fact. 75.39.36.21 (talk) 13:55, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

At the risk of extending this discussion even more, let me again bring up Encylopedia Brittanica's terminology: "Principal members". For The Beatles that would be the big four. For other bands, such as Fleetwood Mac, all of the major contributors could be included without regard to "classic lineup". Certainly there would be disagreements, but that's inherent in Wikipedia for a lot of reasons that most of you already know. My point is that "principal members" would incite fewer disputes than "classic lineup". Cresix (talk) 14:59, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

• Not in favour. These things are better detailed in the body of the article rather than trying to do this in the infobox. No band should have a 'classic line-up' listed. If one line up had a longer life or was more artistically or commercially successful than others then that will be apparent from a decent article on the band without having a definition based on some editor's opinion. --Michig (talk) 15:12, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
• I like "principal members", with maybe "Other members" (with dates) as extra fields. But hey, I don't edit band articles, so maybe my liking that doesn't count for much! Pesky (talk) 04:17, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry IllaZilla, I seem to be talking past you.

First, I'm not stating that the addition be referenced but that the reference be a parameter. If that parameter is not present the other parameter would not be displayed at all.

Second, I'm not in favour of adding it either, I was merely proposing a way to add it so it wasn't purely OR. And I try not to shut other people down but I encourage discussion so that consensus can be reached.

Third, it's your opinion is that references don't belong in the infobox. It's one that many editors do not share. It prevents genre wars and a reference added in one place (article body) can also be added in a second (infobox). This discussion is off-topic. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:33, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose This is a mixture of original research and a non-neutral point-of-view. Let readers decide what constitutes a "classic line-up" as it's trivial. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:08, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Semantic wiki markup

There is a solution to The Beatles problem being discussed at Talk:The Beatles#Straw Poll III. I have said there, "*Support for now. It could be the first step towards solving the problem - the box now looks right. The remainder of the problem is to do with semantic markup (i.e. semantic wiki markup, not particularly semantic HTML). I believe that there are several projects to do with the semantic web that use Wikipedia info boxes to obtain categorised data about the article subjects. Semantically, what we now state is that there are seven entries under past_members, two of whom are 'Principal line–up' and 'Other members' Messrs line-up and members will appear to semantic data harvesting software to have been past members of The Beatles. There is a world of difference between putting text into bold type and labelling text with a meaningful heading. Therefore the discussion should continue at Template talk:Infobox musical artist until the fields and labels of the info box are altered to be in line with this proposal. If this solution is carried forward and implemented, and the info box is never updated, then this will be just an ugly hack that actually reduces the usefulness of info boxes in particular and Wikipedia in general." I wonder what people here think about that? Am I right, or am I making an issue out of something that you info box template guys actually don't really care or think about? --Nigelj (talk) 15:50, 22 April 2012 (UTC)"

I tend to think the latter. As explained above, the infobox is meant to be simple: the members parameter is meant to merely be a list of names. Adding bold headers, adjectives, and dates is trying to shoehorn a lot of context into a template that isn't and was never meant to provide context. Keep the context in the article prose, and keep the infobox simple. I don't understand why editors at the Beatles article are making such a huge deal out of a non-issue (other than my assumption that Beatles fans are quite passionate about the subject, even down to the level of presentation semantics). I don't really care what effect this has on the "semantic web", and neither do a lot of people. Our concern is Wikipedia articles and Wikipedia readers. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:01, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Well put IllaZilla. The members section of the box has always been perfect as a 'name only' field with no other text allowed (keeps all the "deceased" or "instrument played" cruft out) To slide towards the POV infected 'classic' anything on Wikipedia is just editor POV and pushes any page away from being an encyclopedia page... and more towards being a fanboy page. Keep it simple and put the details in the main body of the article. Mr Pyles (talk) 18:08, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

"I don't really care what effect this has on the "semantic web", and neither do a lot of people. Our concern is Wikipedia articles and Wikipedia readers." The more I look into this, the more extraordinary that statement seems. Perhaps you should have a look at Template:Infobox musical artist#Microformat and follow a few links. --Nigelj (talk) 19:16, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

I've tried to read those before, and it's mostly tech talk to me. Bear in mind that most editors of Wikipedia aren't programmers and aren't well-versed in the complex workings of the web; We just came here to write an encyclopedia. Hence the reason for my statement: I don't really care what effect our infobox has on "semantic data harvesting software" (whatever that is), or on other parts of the internet that aren't Wikipedia, and I doubt most Wikipedia editors understand or care a great deal about these things either. We care about articles on Wikipedia; how they look and are written. The infoboxes are a part of that. If you browse through most past discussions from this talk page, I think you'll see precious few editors concerned with hcards/microformat/etc. and far more editors concerned with how this infobox displays in Wikipedia's articles, and how it helps readers of Wikipedia to better understand our articles' subjects. That's why my response to the last sentence of your original comment ("am I making an issue out of something that you info box template guys actually don't really care or think about?") is "by and large, yes." --IllaZilla (talk) 19:52, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed improvement

How about changing the "current members" field to just "members" and the "past members" field to render "former members"? 1) "Members" is all a reader sees anyway, and member can be redundant with current in some situations (active bands), 2) "past members" is poor english, so it really should read "former members", for the sake of grammar. This way "members" can be used for active or defunct bands and "former "members" would cover anyone not already covered in "members". — GabeMc (talk) 20:10, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

What you see in the template markup doesn't affect the display, so it's irrelevant. It already displays as "members" and "former members", so what the field is called doesn't matter. It could be "field 1" and "field 2" in the markup for all the difference it'd make. Changing it would just cause us to have to run a bot to clean up thousand of usages. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:53, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I think you are missing the point here. 1) "Past Members" is bad english, it should display as "Former" members for that reason alone. 2) There is no need for "current" in the template markup as its redundant, if I am a member of a band then the band is by definition current, versus defunct. I disagree with, "What you see in the template markup ... [is] irrelevant", its not, editors have disputes over this, so its not irrelevant. If we changed it to "members" it would reduce room for disputes. We should always strive to improve the template don't you agree? I think these changes would improve the template, don't you? — GabeMc (talk) 23:58, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I see what you mean about "Past" vs. "Former", and I agree. On the second point, like I said it makes no difference what the markup says since it still just displays as "Members". My only reservation about changing it would be that we'd want to employ a bot to clean up the thousands of useages that still say "current_members" in the markup, which'd be a pain in the neck. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:00, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

So you're suggesting that we add a new parameter that is grammatically correct to the handful of editors who may see it and makes no difference to the readers, then commission a bot to move the values to the new parameter so we don't have to do the work. This isn't practical for the case of grammatical correctness. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:06, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Strike that previous comment. I thought you meant for "past" versus "former" members. Why not change the markup for the sake of refinement/improvement? Isn't that reason alone? Is it really a "new" parameter, its just changing the name of one field, the fields other programming does not need to change. That's like leaving sloppy code because no one sees it but editors. The fact that we are spending time right now debating this enforces my assertion that it should be fixed/changed. — GabeMc (talk) 03:27, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

"Former" is proper english, "Past" is not, that is reason enough to change the field name. Afterall, an encyclopedia should not permit poor english due to the amount of work required to fix it. If editors used that excuse at FAC they would be laughed out of there. — GabeMc (talk) 22:18, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Spouses

That should be in the template. There are many musical artist who have had more then one spouse so can this please be added to the template? Thanks! Swifty*^talk 06:10, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Read the notice at the top of this page, then type "spouse" in the archive search box and read the most recent 2 or 3 discussions. This has been proposed and rejected something like a dozen times. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:17, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Such a recurring request tells us that there is clearly a demand for this parameter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:09, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

@Swifty: For which article do you want to use that parameter? Why is it relevant for the article/infobox? mabdul 11:15, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Andy, we've heard that argument before. We even had an RfC over it. The field was still not added. It was rejected again just last month. Recurring requests ≠ consensus. Are we going to have the discussion all over again each time someone brings it up? --IllaZilla (talk) 13:46, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting argument Andy Mabbett. Can we also infer from the lack of requests and the number of editors who work on music articles that there is no need for this parameter? I would expect to see hundreds if not thousands of requests if it were such an obviously needed parameter, but maybe I'm reading too much into it. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:51, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I think its a good idea, that people havn't mentioned it much here is irrelevant. — GabeMc (talk) 22:14, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

And what do people's spouses have to do with their being musicians (in the large majority of cases)? Because it's not "a good idea" if you can't come up with an answer to that.♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 22:21, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

By that standard, "birth_name", "native_name", "native_name_lang, "birth_date", "birth_place", "origin", "death_date", and "death_place" should all be removed from the template, as they also have nothing to do with their being a musician. Rreagan007 (talk) 23:04, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Rreagan007, names and places/dates of birth/death are characteristics that all people have, and have relevance to both their basic biographical details and to their careers as musicians. Certainly when a person lived, and when they died, greatly affect their career. By your standard, "parents", "children", "siblings", and other familial relationships should all be added to the template, as they have just as much to do with the person's being a musician as "spouse" does.

GabeMc, if it would satisfy you, I shall start a new thread every month specifically requesting that a spouse field never be added. ;-) --IllaZilla (talk) 00:31, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

The argument that musicians' spouses "have [nothing] to do with their being musicians" is a spurious one; our biographies (and infobox content) should be about all significant and notable aspects of the subjects' lives, not just one aspect of them. If their spouse is notable, we should wrote about that; and include them in the infobox. Even so, many spouses do have much to do with our subjects' being musicians. For example, the (several) wives of three of the four members of the classic Pink Floyd lineup have been notable; one played on a Pink Floyd record, another was mentioned on one; a third wrote Pink Floyd lyrics. Four have had independent and notable careers as artists (with works in national museums), an author, or on stage. One was a titled member of the English nobility. All these activities have, naturally, had bearing on the musicians' lives. All are discussed in my and others' books and journal articles on the band. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 06:22, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Again, an argument we've gone through before. For every musician you care to name who has a notable spouse, I'll wager I could name 5 whose spouses aren't notable (or are only notable for being married to said musician). By design, the infobox does not include (and is not intended to include) "all significant and notable aspects of the subjects' lives". For example, the infobox does not include the musician's parents, children, siblings, place of residence, religion, most notable albums, awards received, alma mater, etc. etc. It continues to baffle me why, out of all the various biographical details not included in this infobox, editors continue to fixate on "spouse" more than any other detail. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:58, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

You're again presenting historical accident and personal opinions as givens and facts; there is no good reason why the infobox could not include, for example, notable parents, children, and places of residence. c/f {{Infobox person}}. Indeed, this template would be better replicating the core of infobox, with additional fields as required, rather then being used to prevent some of those core parameters from being displayed, none of which cause as much unnecessary drama as this recurring debate. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:28, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Still, the point remainds that if spouse is added, why not children or parents? Take Frank Zappa. His wife seems to be on no real notability, yet his daughter Moon Zappa clearly is. Or Jerry Goldsmith and Joel Goldsmith. One could easily go on. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:27, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

You appear not to have noticed that my comment addresses that point. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:01, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

We're just rehashing arguments you've made before. They didn't convince before, and I don't see that changing now. I don't see anything new in this discussion that we haven't already discussed several times in the past, in discussions that did not result in the addition of a spouse field. Seriously, we had an RfC about this about 8 months ago: the field was not adopted. Please let the dead horse lie. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:25, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I am against the addition of the spouse field per the reasons given by IllaZilla plus per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes "If the field is relevant to very few articles, it should probably not be included at all", overall a small percentage of musicians have notable spouses. J04n(talk page) 18:04, 12 May 2012 (UTC)