Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 36

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Allmusic.com changed their review links

So, how do we go about this? Taylor Karras (talk) 23:04, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean. I just went to 5 different articles, clicked on the allmusic links, and was taken right where I expected: to the review of the album. So it appears nothing has changed. What do you mean that they have "changed their review links"? --IllaZilla (talk) 23:13, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Photo comparison opinions wanted

File:AllDayMusicWar.jpg

Please have a look at the "file history" thumbnails in the page linked above. I am trying to replace the original picture, taken from a CD reissue, with a photo of the original LP. One problem is the LP was printed with a background of metallic silver ink, and I predicted it may not photograph well. The CD reissue is printed with dark grey instead, which gives better contrast and colour. But I wanted to replace it with the LP cover because the layout is a little different (picture centered, and band name at very top), which is a more "honest" depiction of the cover.

Problem: I have two computers, and on one it looks fine, but on the other, it looks awful! As soon as I uploaded, I saw how it looked, and reverted to the CD cover, which is why there are four pictures in the history thumbnails. Then I tried fixing the picture and uploading again. On my first computer, the latest picture looks fine, and its colours and contrast match the cover when I look at it beside the monitor. On my other computer, the first attempt looks muddy, and the second has a strong green tint. I also see a halo in the top half, of bad colour resolution, which I don't see on computer #1.

How does it look to you? If the current picture looks bad to others, I'll give up and revert to the CD cover. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 23:39, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

To me, the latest version has a faint green tint but I wouldn't worry about that. I don't think you can get any closer to the original silver background. – IbLeo^(talk) 17:40, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll keep it then. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 02:17, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Certifications subpage - isn't it redundant by now?

It appears to me that our Certifications subpage is completely redundant with List of music recording sales certifications. What about tagging the subpage as historical, or even redirecting it to the latter? – IbLeo^(talk) 20:58, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

AGREED. Redundant, but both state 'sales' when at least in some markets, like USA RIAA it is 'shipments'. More clarity is still required.—Iknow23 (talk) 03:16, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

It looks like parts of the opening paragraphs were intended as advice on how to add certification info to an article. These parts could be moved to the main project page, with a link to the current article that has the details. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 08:12, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done. I have updated the Certifications section on the project page and marked the subpage as historical. Knight, I am not quite sure about which parts of the opening paragraphs you think would be of any value to our members. As far as I can see, all the information is either available on Music recording sales certification or List of music recording sales certifications, which are both now linked. But feel free to improve. – IbLeo^(talk) 20:14, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Another review site for consideration

Would like to hear the community's opinion on Blabbermouth as a site for acceptable album reviews. Thanks J04n(talk page) 21:26, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Any comments on this? The site is independent of Roadrunner Records and the reviews are written by the site's writers not fans. J04n(talk page) 00:22, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

It's a perfectly good source. Just have to be careful to spot articles that are largely based on press releases.--Michig (talk) 08:42, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

citation archive

How can I use the citation archive from webcite.org, like it was used on the 1st Born Second article (ciation [6]), to archive this url which is a monthly feature that is not archived by the website? Dan56 (talk) 05:41, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Misc/additional chronology

The extra chronologies seem a little too big, with the text size, like at the Blackout! 2 article. Is there a reason for this or had it not been addressed yet? Dan56 (talk) 01:44, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it is indeed a problem. I believe it is caused by the 28 March edit to {{Extra chronology}} by MSGJ. Not sure that I understand the rationale behind as he refers to a discussion about track listings in the Song infobox. – IbLeo^(talk) 06:50, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Er, IbLeo my good man, the change's edit summary has a wikilink to the discussion, in which we see the change was made because YOU agreed to it!!!!!! (And I agree with it as well; I don't see anything wrong with the current version, looking at the article in the link above.) --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 15:46, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Knight – my good man ;-) – in the referred discussion I agreed to a change to the "Track" parameter of {{Infobox song}} so it matches the font size in {{track listing}}. MSGJ implemented this change on the 16 March, as stated in his own closing edit of that discussion. Then on 28 March (so 12 days after) he did the edit I refer to above, pointing to the same discussion. Maybe there is a connection between the two, but for the moment I am missing out on it. And to my eyes (although through thick glasses and FireFox 3.6.2) the extra chronologies (i.e. the last 3) in Blackout! 2 definitely displays with a larger font than the first one. I don't mind if they are bigger or smaller, but at least they should be the same. – IbLeo^(talk) 17:19, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I dropped a word on MSGJ's talk page to get him to comment. He is probably the best man to clarify this. – IbLeo^(talk) 17:26, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I responded to a request on Template talk:Extra chronology, which was:

Please fix Similar to Template_talk:Infobox_song#Suggested_change, the font on this is unnecessarily small. Why are the title to the second chronology smaller than the main one (see the above transclusion)? Please standardize the size of these fonts. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:11, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I assumed it was related to the other discussion. Let me know if this change needs to be reverted. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:25, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. Back in July last year, when the infobox font was standardized there was quite a stir about the size of the chronology sections and it took a while to get things sorted out: See Template_talk:Infobox_album/Archive_5#New_look. In conclusion, I think you should fall back this change as it has introduced a coherence issue. Furthermore, I really don't see much of a consensus for the change; I would think that it should be properly discussed at a more visible place than at the sub-template {{Extra chronology}} which I suspect very few people are watching. – IbLeo^(talk) 21:49, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

IbLeo, apologies for any misunderstanding. Right now I'm looking at the Blackout article on 2 different computers (running different versions of IE) and on one the font of chronology 1 is the same size as the other 3, and on the other it is a little smaller. It's possible that Martin/MSGJ is not able to see the difference, as I was not, before. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 13:19, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Apologies accepted, no worries. In the mean time Martin has undone his change, so it is really worrying if you still see a difference in the font order on ANY of your computers (except if one of them cached an old version of the article). Cheers from your man. – IbLeo^(talk) 16:42, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Notification regarding Wikipedia-Books

Hadronic Matter An overview

An example of a book cover, taken from Book:Hadronic Matter

As detailed in last week's Signpost, WikiProject Wikipedia books is undertaking a cleanup all Wikipedia books. Particularly, the {{saved book}} template has been updated to allow editors to specify the default covers of the books. Title, subtitle, cover-image, and cover-color can all be specified, and an HTML preview of the cover will be generated and shown on the book's page (an example of such a cover is found on the right). Ideally, all books in Category:Book-Class Album articles should have covers.

If you need help with the {{saved book}} template, or have any questions about books in general, see Help:Books, Wikipedia:Books, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia-Books, or ask me on my talk page. Also feel free to join WikiProject Wikipedia-Books, as we need all the help we can get.

This message was delivered by User:EarwigBot, at 01:36, 2 April 2010 (UTC), on behalf of Headbomb. Headbomb probably isn't watching this page, so if you want him to reply here, just leave him a message on his talk page. EarwigBot ^{(owner • talk)} 01:36, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Fan club releases

Category:Fan club releases, which is under the purview of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 08:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

A note for the crusaders of this WikiProject

Let me reiterate something for certain editors here who go on their crusades making pointless changes to album articles - this is a WikiProject, and whatever ideas it dreams up from week to week, are just that - ideas, guidelines. They aren't policies, and aren't mandatory. I thought I should point that out to some here who seem oblivious to this. LuciferMorgan (talk) 11:20, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Believe me, every day I see pointless changes to album articles, and don't know if it's worth kicking up a fuss. But I wonder why you are posting this here. You say "Let me reiterate", but I don't see any previous posts from you (without going into the archives), so I'm not sure where the "re" is in "reiterate". What articles are giving you problems, who is doing it (if naming names is necessary), and how is this related to the WikiProject? If someone is making changes to articles you have worked on, based on project guidelines, my first impulse is to say those changes may not be trivial after all, and may have validity. But I can't say for sure without knowing more. Don't treat the WikiProject as your opponent. Use it to gain allies if you're having struggles with others. But that means you have to discuss your concerns, and accept that your point of view may not be in the majority. (Don't take offense; without knowing what the problem is, my reply is all hypothetical.) Anyway, please, don't leave us in suspense. Tell us more! --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 12:17, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Follow-up: I'm going to presume your post was in response to this revert edit which you made. The infobox rules for the "released" field state that there should only be one release date: the earliest one. I don't know that this rule has ever changed. Also, flag icons are discouraged in infoboxes Wikipedia-wide, and always have been, as far as I know. I can certainly say that rules like this do not change "week to week". Nor do I see anything in the edit summary of the person who made the change, which you undid, that refers to this WikiProject. Nor can I find any conversation between yourself and the other editor on either of your talk pages, or on the article's talk page. Apologies if it's there somewhere and I missed it. But it looks like your edit summary is going "on the attack" and insulting the work of others for no reason. If you're asking for an opinion on the 2 versions of the article, aside from the standards issue, I think the flag icons, as used, are not informative. Not everyone recognizes flags of the world, nor understands that a flag icon beside a date means "released in this country on this date". Furthermore, the Europe flag just looks like a blue box. The other editor was making a good improvement to the aritcle by taking out the icons and replacing them with a "release history" table, where country names are spelled out. What objections do you have to the table, aside from it just not being your preferred method of presenting this information (which becomes an article ownership issue)? --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 12:49, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Articles about songs are covered by WP:SONGS, surely? B.hotep (talk) 13:06, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Hah, I missed that! A possible explanation: maybe the two editors did have a discussion somewhere, and the other editor pointed out that the album's infobox has a better description of what the release date should cover, and what to do about reissue dates. To quote Template:Infobox album: "Only the earliest known date that the album was released should be specified; later release dates (incl. re-issues) can be mentioned in a Release history section". Which is exactly what the editor created, and what the poster above objected to. So I can add another admonishment to the editor: this isn't about "policies (that) aren't mandatory", it's about official instructions on how to use the fields. (Of course, since this is a rule in the album infobox's instructions, the editor is just using it as advice on what to do with a song with multiple release history, but in my opinion, it was a good call.) --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 13:31, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Propose to mark more project subpages as historical

I found three more project subpages that looks more or less redundant to me. I suggest marking them as historical, unless someone thinks otherwise of it. – IbLeo^(talk) 21:23, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Articles

Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Articles – last update: 13 December 2006 – IbLeo^(talk) 21:23, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done. I tagged the subpage as {{Historic}}. – IbLeo^(talk) 20:13, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

audio samples

Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/audio samples – last update: 29 December 2008 – IbLeo^(talk) 21:23, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done. I tagged the subpage as {{Historic}}. – IbLeo^(talk) 20:16, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Featured Albums Project

Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Featured Albums Project – last update: 10 June 2007 – IbLeo^(talk) 21:23, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done. I marked the subpage as {{Inactive}} and removed references to it from the main project page. It can obviously be brought back to life at any time, should someone wish to do so. – IbLeo^(talk) 20:23, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Article on Music recording sales certification

Someone recently added the article Music recording sales certification to the Albums Project, which I noticed because it is currently on the "Unassessed" list. I'm not sure if adding that article to the project is appropriate given its topic. And how would it be assessed, especially regarding Importance for the project? I would consider removing it from the project altogether, but see no need to be so bold because the article might have some use as background info for project work. Comments? DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 21:59, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I add the WikiProjects tags as recording sales certification is something that is relevant to albums. It's commonly link directly whenever a 'Certification' is used, so it's used on perhaps many thousands of album articles. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 23:03, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Allow me to clarify... it's information that is certainly relevant to albums, but the article in question is not about an album itself. That's my concern. DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 23:30, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

See Album, Historical album, Remix album etc. They belong in WikiProject albums, almost all WikiProjects have some concept articles are part of there project, because they are so relevant and if WikiProject Albums don't include album articles who else is going to? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 23:44, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:The Essential

Category:The Essential, which is under the purview of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 02:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Xenobot Mk V request for Category:Jazz albums etc.

Hello, I am proposing/requesting that Xenobot Mk V would tag and auto-assess the articles in Category:Jazz albums and its subcategories. I have prepared a list (User:Gyrofrog/jazzcat albums‎) of these subcategories for the 'bot to use (rather than having it automatically go through all of them itself). I would like for it to add the {{Album}} template, in addition to {{Jazz-music-project}} (I have already brought up the latter at WP:JAZZ regarding the Category:Jazz articles in general). Thank you, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 22:45, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Update: I went ahead and made the request to be only within the scope of WP:JAZZ (now complete). Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:21, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

infobox question

A user that edited the The Element of Freedom article put a line break between "Empire State of Mind" and "(Part II) Broken Down" in the infobox singles section, so it would look better. Should it be like this or without the break? Dan56 (talk) 23:27, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that happened over 100 edits ago! I couldn't find where the change took place, or if there was any reverting of it going on. Couldn't this be raised on the article's talk page? There are plenty of editors working on the article, who could have addressed this over there. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 23:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The line break first went in with this edit, but it has been subject to some modification/revert/counter-revert actions. I think, however, that Dan56 is asking on a general matter of preferred style, rather than this specific album. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah thats what im asking about. Dan56 (talk) 21:22, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The edit summary says "single's full name" and doesn't say the break was added to make it look better, so I presume you agree it looks better. If so, I don't know why you would object to it. There is no rule stating breaks can't be used for things like this. (Debates about commas vs. breaks in a list of things, is another matter.) So if you're asking about it as a generality, the answer is, there are no rules for or against. If you're asking which looks better or is preferred by the many editors of the article, you should try to gain consensus at the article's talk page. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 23:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Talkin about this edit on January 31 in which the editor said the it "looks better" with the break. Dan56 (talk) 03:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

What do you think? (And if you disagree, have you discussed it with other editors on the article's talk page? That should happen first, before you ask here... which is what I've been trying to say, if I haven't actually said it.) --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 11:56, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Should some people articles be tagged for WikiProject Albums

Unsure about what to do with these that I've found: Paul Linford, Džej Ramadanovski. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 13:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The first one looks okay, as a potential/former (didn't check which) album article has been merged into an artist article. It's not a typical practice, but not against the rules. Merging is encouraged when a potential article is not notable in itself. Any categories you would use if it were an album article, would be okay here. The second case used to have an album article within it; a track listing was removed January 9, so it looks like the category is a left-over remnant. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 13:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Album Proposed Move...

I recently launched a proposal to move the album article The Story of Town Where Cherry Blossoms Bloom to Sakura Saku Machi Monogatari, its original location, and I was advised that I should seek input from this page due to the somewhat unique situation. The move proposal is found here for anyone interested. Thanks. Sorafune +1 06:29, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Album assessment issue

Problems Recently, Illinois (album) was promoted to GA status. While I agree that the article was altogether fine and in particular, User:Jujutacular put in a lot of effort to improve its quality, the version that was promoted didn't even pass all of the C-list criteria (e.g. it lacked a personnel section, which I have just added.) I don't know that there is a systematic brokenness with the review system, but it's simply sloppy to let an article pass through C-, B-, and GA-status without actually passing the proper criteria, so if this is common practice, I would like to admonish WP:ALBUM members that at least one article slipped through the cracks and it may be the case that other such articles are passing assessment without meeting the appropriate criteria. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:50, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I for one can tell you that i never ever had allowed an article get C or B without the strict criteria, and i do most of the assessment around here. Zidane tribal (talk) 21:07, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

It could be sent to a GA Reassessment, occasionally things slip through, it's not a problem specific to WP:Albums. Errors happen at all quality assessment levels, but you can re-assess it yourself(up to GA level), or else send it for a procedural re-assessment. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 21:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks I have no problems with the quality of the article now (and it is still improving, largely through the efforts of Jujutacular and myself) and I'm sure that anyone who reviews it for FA status will be more thorough, but there's really no point in it getting that far without passing the criteria for C-status in the first place; that will just result in more headaches and failed FA nominations. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:35, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

The Albums project uses different and more specific criteria than the broader WP community. If we're going to hold GA reviews to our criteria as well, we're going to have to be aware that reviews are happening, and care enough to participate. Aside from that, we'd look kinda stupid if we rated an article to C, even though it passed GA. -Freekee (talk) 00:25, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I suspect that the problem arose from the fact that this particular article went directly from unassessed to GA. So. nobody from this project (read: Zidane tribal and his "co-assessers") ever had a chance to check that it fulfills our particular Start, C, and B-criteria. I don't have any personal experience in the fine art of GA assessment, but I would guess that it does not happen very often, making this is an isolated event. – IbLeo^(talk) 06:01, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

"...we'd look kinda stupid if we rated an article to C, even though it passed GA..." – or, maybe whoever passed it as a GA would look stupid because we only rate it a C. :) --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 12:57, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Rolling Stone magazine

It looks like they've revamped their website. Artist bios, which used to be at http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/foo, now appear to be at http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/foo/ and then some code. It also looks like a lot of album reviews have disappeared. --JD554 (talk) 08:06, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

When things like this happen, you have to wonder if the entity is aware, or cares, that their pages are linked from Wikipedia (and elsewhere). (Not saying they can't reorganize their website, but they could have had their own people fix WP's links, or put redirect pages on their site.) --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 12:54, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Peer review request

I recently put the album article Xtort up for peer review. I figured that editors in this project could offer more precise criticisms, on average, than any random passersby, so I'm just putting a note about it here. Thanks in advance for anyone that helps out, and apologies if this is not an appropriate forum to request attention. Torchiest (talk | contribs) 11:43, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Question: Additional Notes

Old vynil albums and some CDs include notes and additional texts that may be included in the relevant wikipedia article, I'm not sure if it is allowed. --82.85.226.37 (talk) 16:16, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Not only is it allowed, there is a template to assist when using as a citation: Template:Cite album-notes. Use is optional. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 16:50, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for restoring and answering that, as I was kinda curious myself. I'll definitely be using that from now on. Torchiest (talk | contribs) 17:05, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I should add, the usual fair use copyright restrictions apply: entire essays and song lyrics cannot be quoted, just relevant excerpts. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 17:43, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I might add that an alternative template exists: {{Cite music release notes}}. It supports not only albums but also singles, it has the "language" parameter that allows you to quote non-English releases (a feature that I personally find very useful), and as far as I remember it's display is more streamlined with the other citation templates. So in some ways it supersedes {{Cite album-notes}}, but I feel they ought to be merged. It's a shame to have two different templates doing virtually the same thing. – IbLeo^(talk) 19:08, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Album titles that are numbers or volumes

I've put a comment here > [1] about Black Sabbath's album Vol 4 which I (and others it seems) think this album should be titled just "Vol 4" not "Black Sabbath Vol 4". I found this Stone Temple Pilots album [2] which is named "No. 4 (album)" not "Stone Temple Pilots No. 4" or even "No. 4 (Stone Temple Pilots album)" so I was just seeking a bit of guidance on the whole area of numbered rather than named albums. I had a look round wiki for a bit of guidance but couldn't find any. Cheers. JSL595 (talk) 19:58, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

It's not unusual to see a title like that written out in full on an LP label, i.e.

• Black Sabbath
• Black Sabbath Vol. 4

I don't own a copy of that particular album so I can't confirm how it's stated on the label. (Though it is on my list of albums I'd like buy sometime.) --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 12:18, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

We have 1 (The Beatles album), 1 (Pole album) and others. So Vol. 4 (Black Sabbath album) would follow the pattern. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 12:29, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Likewise Vol._4_(Lullacry_album) and Volume_4_(Joe_Jackson_album). Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 12:31, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Another case for the longer title: "Volume..." is more common in book titles, and is an appendix to a title (A History of Cowbells in Rock and Roll, Volume 3), not a title in itself. So stating "Vol 4" as a title in itself seems strange. It is Vol. 4 of Black Sabbath's series of albums, not "Vol. 4" of nothing in particular. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 12:39, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Manfred Mann Chapter Three Volume Two. The sleeve pic shows "Manfred Mann Chapter Three" in one colour, and "Volume Two" in another, so the album title is probably "Volume Two". I don't have a vinyl copy, only a CD reissue, which gives the title three different ways! --Redrose64 (talk) 15:54, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Knight, you're right that it does seem strange, but I would think that these days, most bands intend for the short title (Vol. 4) to be the full Title. There's a certain humor in that. I think the only way to know for sure is to ask them. Or find out how the label lists it. Also, see Volume One. -Freekee (talk) 16:37, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind that, as much as we like logic and consistency, our job is to repeat knowledge that is already out there, not come up with our own ideas and standards. We shouldn't create a all-encompassing guideline because of things like Led Zeppelin III, which has a pretty strong consensus for its title, based primarily on common usage. If we can't figure it out from the cover art or record label catalogs or official discographies, the title of the Black Sabbath album here on Wikipedia should reflect the most common usage, with redirects and possibly a comment in the lead sentence or something clarifying other common names for it. —Akrabbim^talk 18:47, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

The album's name is Black Sabbath Vol. 4, see RIAA and Billboard. J04n(talk page) 17:51, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

The record itself would be a more official source. The band's own intentions would be the ultimate source. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 02:19, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the band doesn't qualify as a reliable source. As for the record itself, we can't tell. That's why we're discussing it. -Freekee (talk) 02:52, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Akrabbim: an across-the-board rule can't work here. The STP album is definitely No. 4 and the Led Zeppelin album is definitely Led Zeppelin III. The Black Sabbath album is ambiguous, so it should reflect whatever reliable sources agree on. If there's no agreement, list both titles. (In response to A Knight Who Says Ni: keep in mind all the weird cases, like Led Zeppelin IV or Sign o' the Times, where we defer to other sources, not the album itself.) —Gendralman (talk) 02:58, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I have the CD in my hand, along the side it says 'Black Sabbath/Black Sabbath Vol.4' and on the disc itself it says 'Black Sabbath' and under that says 'Black Sabbath Vol. 4'. J04n(talk page) 10:04, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

You would really need to go back to the original vinyl release - later CD packaging isn't really relevant. The LP cover has 'Black Sabbath Vol 4' - whether this is the title of the record, or whether, like most releases, it's a combination of the band name and the title, is open to interpretation. The original label, however, has both 'Black Sabbath' and 'Black Sabbath Vol 4' [3], which suggests the correct title is indeed 'Black Sabbath Vol 4'.--Michig (talk) 10:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I've looked at the CD I have and on the CD itself it says "Vol 4" (Castle Communications 1996 GAS 0000304ESM) but as this CD is such a poorly printed affair with incorrect lyrics in the wee booklet etc I wouldn't trust it 100%. The website www.black-sabbath.com refers to it as "Volume 4" [[4]] and as far as I know this website is the official one. SunCreator above mentions other similarly named albums which follow the "convention" I would expect to see... namely "Vol 4 (Black Sabbath album)". But wikipedia doesn't have a convention in this area it would seem. Sadly I gave my original vinyl copy to my brother years ago... who promptly lost all his vinyl (yes he is that useless) so I can't refer to it. Freekee says that the band themselves wouldn't be a reliable source which I find strange to say the least. JSL595 (talk) 18:47, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is strange. "Wikipedia articles should be based mainly on reliable secondary sources." I've seen questionable information on bands' own official websites. Not until info is (ideally) verified and reported by a reliable source, should it be used here. Though in this case, album titling isn't exactly controversial, and if someone told me why he chose a certain name, I'd be inclined to believe him. -Freekee (talk) 05:47, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I've provided a link to the original vinyl label above. The sleeve just has 'Black Sabbath Vol 4' on the front.--Michig (talk) 18:58, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

For something originally released on vinyl, when the CD version first appeared several years later, the CD is not a reliable source. I have several CDs where the title is at variance with the title on the label of the original vinyl. In the case of Black Sabbath Vol. 4, the original release was in 1972 so a CD liner cannot be used. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:21, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Why would a CD liner not be usable? If there was a discrepancy between the original vinyl and the newer CD, you'd go by the original, but if the original is ambiguous and the CD is not, why not use the CD? -Freekee (talk) 05:47, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

What I mean is that for anything first released prior to 1 October 1982, any CD version which may exist cannot be an original release, but a reissue; the artwork will have been designed for the 12" vinyl album format, with suitably sized lettering. For the CD version, the CD front cover is not necessarily a simple 2.6:1 reduction of the vinyl front cover, since in many cases this would make the lettering unreadably small, so larger lettering is used, which can differ from the original.

In my experience, the title of a CD usually appears in at least three different places: on the booklet front, on the inlay card spine, and on the CD upper surface; and they are not necessarily all the same. Earlier on I mentioned Manfred Mann Chapter Three Volume Two. Here's how the title is given in my CD version:

• Manfred Mann Chapter Three Volume 2 (front cover)
• Manfred Mann Chapter Three Volume Two (vinyl front cover reduced 3.5:1)
• Manfred Mann Chapter III Volume 2 (back cover; spine x2)
• Manfred Mann Chapter III Vol. 2 (CD upper surface)

Look through your CD collection and see how many exhibit discrepancies between the various places on the same album (let alone discrepancies from the vinyl). You'd be surprised... --Redrose64 (talk) 14:53, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I understand the discrepancies, but if the vinyl isn't clear, and the CD is I think we can go by the CD. OTOH, maybe such a case would never happen? -Freekee (talk) 15:55, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we can go by the CD, especially when you think some CD releases out there get the lyrics in the wee booklet so wrong it's untrue, they've probably got the title wrong as well. I've attempted to contact someone connected with Sabbath to try and clarify the name but I've no reply yet... probably won't get one either. "Who's this fool asking such stupid questions" Ha ha ha... JSL595 (talk) 16:50, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Try asking Sharon Osbourne. She might be wacky, but talks a lot of sense too. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:43, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Preemptive disambiguation

For albums that have a notable lead single with the same title, should both of the articles be disambiguated? I don't see this specific example mentioned in the project. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 20:51, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Presuming you mean a case like the disambiguation page titled Help pointing to Help! (film), Help! (song), and Help! (album), the answer is yes. But I don't see the need for Help! (song) to have a hatnote pointing to Help! (album) or vice versa, because the reader can tell from the article title when he is at the wrong page, and both have links to the other, appearing very early in the articles. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 22:14, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so if only an album and a song article exist, no disambiguation is needed for the album (just the song). – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 22:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Well that's not what I answered. Can you tell us the title in question? --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 22:32, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure. The upcoming Miley Cyrus album Can't Be Tamed will have a lead single called "Can't Be Tamed". A search for "Can't Be Tamed" doesn't bring up any other articles or anything that would need disambiguating, at least. So I created the redirects for Can't Be Tamed, Can't Be Tamed (album), and Can't Be Tamed (song). From what I understand, the "Can't Be Tamed (album)" page would technically be preemptive disambiguation. The "(song)" article is okay though. But I couldn't find any similar articles that didn't already have disambiguation pages with videos or live albums, etc etc. So my question is, with only an album title and a song with the same title, should the album article be disambiguated, or not? Does that make sense, or am I muddling it up? lol – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 00:05, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Here's one big one: Money (disambiguation)#Music. Note there are four actual "song" pages, and one "album" page, and all five are disambiguated. I think it makes sense to disambiguate both, or all, as the case may be. Torchiest (talk | contribs) 01:04, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I understand disambiguation when it's "album", "song", "video", and/or more. But since "Can't Be Tamed" doesn't have anything more than "album" and "song", which page titles are preferred?

1. "Can't Be Tamed" and "Can't Be Tamed (song)"? Or,
2. "Can't Be Tamed (album)" and "Can't Be Tamed (song)"?

– Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 01:06, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

It can pretty much remain as you have it now, to be honest. Leaving Can't Be Tamed as a redirect now will leave it open to being a disambiguation page in future, maybe. In reality, the album article could have been created at the root (non-disambiguated) page with a hat note to the song, but in my opinion, that doesn't really matter right now. It's when someone else brings out an album called Can't Be Tamed that we have real problems! ;) – B.hotep •talk• 11:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

← Both ways of doing it co-exist peacefully:

1. Foo + Foo (song): Bat Out of Hell + Bat Out of Hell (song); Back in Black + Back in Black (song); Born in the U.S.A. + Born in the U.S.A. (song); Come Away with Me + Come Away with Me (song);
2. Foo (album) + Foo (song): Space Oddity (album) + Space Oddity (song); Purple Rain (album) + Purple Rain (song); Brothers in Arms (album) + Brothers in Arms (song);

A recent discussion here arrived at the conclusion that if one of the two is a primary topic then it should be the main entry. So for the examples in (1), the album is considered the primary topic, while for the examples in (2) the album and the song are considered equally important. In other words, it's decided on a case-by-case basis, as stated by WP:PT: "There are no absolute rules for determining primary topics; decisions are made by discussion between editors, often as a result of a requested move. If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic." – IbLeo^(talk) 11:38, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you all for your answers. In this particular case, it looks like the primary article became the album. Like IbLeo (talk · contribs) said, it's probably a case-by-case basis each and every time. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 17:41, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Horizon (Carpenters album)

Has anyone else seen this article? I've tagged it as it reads like a review. However, going by the talk page, there is some confusion to its tagging. Maybe it needs fresh eyes. Any thoughts?--Tuzapicabit (talk) 22:28, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I think you're right. I made some remarks on the talk page.

Me too. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 22:40, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Copyvio link? I can't check it out at work. --JD554 (talk) 11:50, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the entire information section is cut and pasted from that site. I removed it all. Torchiest (talk | contribs) 12:20, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The person that added the text wrote it, and posted it to their myspace blog as well, so I don't think it's a copyvio after all. Torchiest (talk | contribs) 12:32, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Might not be a copyvio, but it is very unencylopedic and we aren't, after all, a messageboard for people's own writing. – B.hotep •talk• 12:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Oops, yes, I suggest further comments be added to the article talk page to avoid cross posting - I am guilty as charged! :) – B.hotep •talk• 13:02, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks guys. Looks a lot better now. Did a little extra cleanup. I guess I should have been bold and just got rid of the offending section to start with.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 23:10, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Since you had some opposition at the article's talk page when you proposed the change, we helped give you some back-up. Sometimes, that's what we're here for! --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 23:38, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I see you went back and restored the factual, non-controversial parts of the deleted content. Good work! --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 23:41, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Should we remove Rolling Stone from the list of review sites?

It's not that it has become unreliable in its content, it's that the site is basically almost impossible to navigate now. Album reviews which were once incredibly easy to find are now gone. I know part of the new features on the site is that you can pay a monthly/yearly fee to have access to all of the complete issues they have ever published, maybe album reviews are part of it? If so, is there really any point to having Rolling Stone reviews on album articles anymore, if the average reader will not be able to see that actual review for themselves? 24.189.90.68 (talk) 07:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

That makes no difference. We can easily cite the actual publications if the links have gone dead, just like we can cite any print source that isn't available online. As long as the citation gives the pertinent info like issue number, etc., then readers can verify the information for themselves by accessing the physical copies. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:36, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"High Priority" stub requiring some attention

Studio album is still in need of lots of TLC even though it survived a deletion attempt. It is still in the same very very poor condition that led it to get nominated two years ago! Active Banana (talk) 19:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Bonus tracks that were released as singles.

There appears to be an ambiguos point of view here: "Do not include singles that were added as bonus tracks on a re-release of an album." This doesn't make sense. When an album is re-released the information is added to the original album's page therefore the singles should be added too? or are we trying to say that such album's should have a second single chronology with singles from the re-release? This makes the infobox messy. I request that this is removed from the project page because it appears to be contradictory and it is blatantly obvious that this practise is outdated considering that virtually every artist is reissuing album's left right and center at the moment and this rule is not being obeyed on wikipedia anyway (not in my 200 or so encounters with musical articles anyway). Just think... the pussycat doll's re-released Doll Domination about 4 or 5 times so if we fully followed WP:albums then two singles would be removed which specifically changes the context of the album in terms of success and reception etc.Lil-unique1 (talk) 00:27, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

You're referring to the list of singles that you can add to the bottom of the infobox for an album? The intention for this field is to only include singles that were released with the album. So we have album X, with single "x". Then single "y". Then two years later, they do a best of compilation, and release single "z". Song "z" was on album X. Singles "x" and "y" go in the infobox for album X, but not "z". Single "z" goes in the infobox for best of. Even if songs "x" and "y" are on best of, they were not released as singles at the time that compilation was released.

To keep the infobox concise, there should not be a second list of singles to track the singles released with a later version of the album. These singles can certainly be mentioned in the text of the article, so that shouldn't change the success and reception in the article. We just like to limit infobox creep. Sometimes it might not be clear whether the single was released in conjunction with an albums, and in these cases, do what you feel makes sense. -Freekee (talk) 01:28, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes it does kind of make sense but my point is that often an album is now released with a deluxe edition and then often re-released several months later with new bonus tracks. my question is, are we stating that songs which are released as singles but only appear on the deluxe or reissue of the album shouldn't be included?Lil-unique1 (talk) 16:18, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I say no, they shouldn't be included. To parallel Freekee's hypothetical with one of my own, let's say album A is released, and songs h, i, and j are put out as singles from the album. A few years later, the artist writes song z for a movie soundtrack, and the song is released as a single from the soundtrack album. A few more years down the line, album A (deluxe edition) is released and includes song z as one of the bonus tracks. Song z doesn't belong on the singles list for album A, because it's not from album A, it's from the soundtrack album. Just because it's included as a bonus track on a later re-release of album A doesn't make it "from" that album. It's originally from the soundtrack album, and belongs in the singles list of that album's infobox. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:35, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Album or demo

Hi there. Your input and comments are needed here. Thank you. Amsaim (talk) 11:38, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

No Line on the Horizon FAC

Hello all, I would just like to inform you that No Line on the Horizon is currently undergoing an FAC. I was told the last time that an article I nominated failed to be promoted that in future I should "aggressively recruit music editors to review [the] FAC". I'm not looking for votes, only for feedback, and I thought that posting this notification here would be the best way to go about that; I apologize if I have done so incorrectly. A similar notification has also been left at WT:ROCK and Talk:U2. Cheers, MelicansMatkin (talk, contributions) 05:43, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to auto-narrow the width of Template:Track listing

There is a proposal to change the way the width of {{Track listing}} over at Template talk:Track listing#Proposal to auto-narrow width. I invite people here to join the discussion. – IbLeo^(talk) 05:14, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

C-class a little too stringent

"A track listing containing track lengths and authors for all songs." Why do authors have to be included in the track listing? For example, I've just finished adding information to the article 12 Gauge (album) and I'll be adding more soon with several interviews I've just found. After all this work, the article is still going to be rated "Start" because I don't have access to the actual CD booklet information? If I finish all my work, including fixing the references (most are primary sources), and then add the C-class-required authors of each song... the article jumps from Start to B-class. C-class seems kind of... unnecessary. I've had this problem with several band articles I've worked on as well. Not enough of a gap between C and B. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 06:35, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Here are your song credits, so that should solve your problem. In a more general sense, the criteria at Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Assessment#Quality scale are not necessarily hard and fast. Clearly 12 Gauge (album) in its current state is above start-class, and I doubt any project member would object to its being rated C. Usually the track authorship is something that's added early on, as it's primary source info that's pretty basic. This case seems to have been an exception, but that's not really an obstacle to its being C-class. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:45, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with both of you. On one side the track author and lengths are usually added on the early edits of an article but certainly the difference between a, let`s say, "Good C" article an a "Just B" article is blurry to say the least, at that point it becomes even subjective member to member, but i don`t think is that big a problem, after all, C or B, are just grades, the objective is GA or FA, arguing about criteria below those two, is secondary. Zidane tribal (talk) 07:00, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

IllaZilla, thanks for the link! Hmm, as for writing credits, I'm still a bit stumped. Even with a higher-profile album, like Stone Temple Pilots (album), I haven't been able to find writing credits (and I checked Allmusic, since you linked me there). I always figured songwriting credits were late in the contributions, but (like a lot of things), I'm sure it's different from band to band. In the case of the latter, interviews with the band somewhat hint at who's written what, but I prefer a concrete source to reference. But Zidane makes a great point: these are just grades between the more important GA and FA statuses. Still, I have a thing for articles "earning" their way up. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 07:04, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Since Stone Temples Pilots isn't scheduled for release for another 3½ weeks, that may be why you can't yet find the credits on Allmusic. If you have access to a copy of the album, you can cite the album notes using {{Cite album-notes}}. Failing that, Allmusic often has track credits for most high-profile releases. Outside of that I'm not sure where to look; I typically write about releases that I own, so I just cite the notes. I'm sure the credits for Stone Temple Pilots will become citeable from somewhere as the release date draws closer. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:36, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Ahhh okay, I'm sorry, ignore what I wrote. I "mixed up" released and yet-to-be-released albums in my argument, and that was really dumb : ) Obviously once the STP album is released, the information will become available. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 07:43, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

12 Gauge – Great album, great article. :) – B.hotep •talk• 21:47, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, B.hotep : ) – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 20:45, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Therion page

I'm Germano from Italy, i correct the term that compares in the Miskolk experience spotigle in the correct italian spoglie. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.48.142.138 (talk) 08:08, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, and welcome to Wikipedia! --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 12:34, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, although the name should be "Vedi! le fosche notturne spoglie", Therion (perhaps deliberately, we don't know) actually used "Vedi! le fosche notturne spotigle"[5][6], so I've reverted your change[7], but please don't let this put you off contributing to Wikipedia! --JD554 (talk) 13:01, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Non-English reviews

I understand that, according to WP:ALBUM/REVSIT, "reviews in languages other than English should generally not be included unless the language is especially relevant to the album in question." However, the album article I'm working on, 12 Gauge (album), isn't a very well-reviewed album in the States. In fact, I have found many reviews, but the English ones are unreliable (they are blogged or user-submitted) and the majority of the reliable (I assume) reviews are in German. There are two or three reviews in Finnish, which is the language specific to the album. So... in short, I have no English reviews that I can use. What should I do? I have no problem working with the German and Finnish reviews, but in this case, they won't be diluted with English reviews. I can provide a list of the reviews as requested. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 05:00, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Finnish is relevant, since it's a Finnish band. I see no problem with using German reviews, either, since there is a scarcity of English reviews. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:30, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Greatly appreciated, thanks for the response! – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 06:18, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Verifiability#Non-English_sources. English is obviously preferred, but foreign-language sources are also acceptable (they do still have to meet the reliable source criteria, though). —Gendralman (talk) 04:09, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I think I did an okay job of pulling relevant information from the reviews without any "loss in translation". I weeded out the obvious non-reliable sources (all but one were English) and I think the ones remaining are both reliable and somewhat broad in their views, since the extreme metal scene is taken a little more seriously outside of North America. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 06:07, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposal

A proposal has been made at the Still Standing article talk page, about a type of table that tracks sales of an album; is this suitable for this article and other album articles? Dan56 (talk) 02:12, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Intervention required

A few weeks ago, one editor put The Roxx Regime Demos up for deletion. It was determined that it was notable and so was dropped. The majority of the work was done by another editor. I started watching the album as I started to expand my interest in watching albums. When I joined it the two editors, User:Amsaim and User:Koavf were at it again. This time it was over how the Type = should be listed in the infobox. Amsaim insisted it as a compilation while Koavf, having lost the first battle, insisted that it was a demo. I thought studio would be a good thing. Amsaim had Koavf blocked for 48 hours for "for repeated abuse of editing privileges" (see [[8]]). In his absence Amsaim requested that consensus be reached. Discussion was ongoing and consensus was forming. As soon as the block was lifted Koavf came back and changed several things including the Type = value. I laid into him and probably broke a few rules myself in the process, but the edits stopped. Consensus was then reached. Based on the evidence we felt that the infobox should list it under the category of compilation and that the categories of compilation album and demos were both suitable for the footer. Now Amsaim is not satisfied and is telling us that the latter category is not appropriate. He is also insisting that without verifiable sources (which we have provided) that he would either remove the category or slap it with an unsourced tag. His argument is that a demo is a single work that is unreleased and this doesn't qualify. He has changed his reason for not catting it as a demo but it always comes back to his opinion that the title itself is not a valid source, which I proved was wrong, and that no verifiable source could be found to indicate that it is a demo. He is not relenting and his arguments are, in my opinion, either an attempt at ownership of the article or a way to demonstrate dominance over Koavf. So if some of the WikiProject types wouldn't mind dropping over there, reading the volumes of discussion, and weighing in it would be appreciated. I am taking a break from the page since Amsaim refuses to discuss the issue, he only wants to make his point. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:28, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

My discussion on the article's talk page is according to Wikipedia's guideline on consensus: "Discussions should always be attempts to persuade others, using reasons." Furthermore WP:Consensus tell us this: "Developing consensus requires special attention to neutrality and verifiability in an effort to reach a compromise that everyone can agree on." I do not claim to own the article and I have accepted the community consensus. However, for the inclusion of the Demo-album category there is still no source cited. The editors who voted for the inclusion of the 'Demo album' category into the article, have not been able to provide a reliable verifiable source which calls Stryper's 2007 compilation a demo. On the other hand there are many available reliable sources which call 'The Roxx Regime Demos' either a compilation or an album. Lastly, I am merely discussing the issue on the article's talk page, as I have been accused of not doing so in the past. To my surprise after just a short time of discussion yesterday, some of the editors began to 'close' the discussion by asking others to continue the discussion elsewhere. Let us please discuss the issue at hand, (and in doing so let's not leave out WP:V): is 'The Roxx Regime Demos' a demo / demo album, or is it an album / a compilation? Thank you. Amsaim (talk) 04:14, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

1. You don not claim to own the article, you just act like it. If it walks like a duck ....
2. You tried to close the discussion. You claimed that consensus had been reached. Two editors immediately stated that what you assumed was consensus was not in fact what the rest of us thought was consensus. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:27, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Hello, WikiProject Albums. I have suggested a centeralised discussion on all of the issues drawing from several different albums as examples: User talk:Jubileeclipman/Demo album. Cheers --Jubilee♫clipman 11:11, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Music Notability

Hello, I'm opening a discussion about the refinement and clarification of notability criteria. your opinion here would be appreciated. Lil-unique1 (talk) 00:11, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Using a forum "largely unacceptable"

I am hoping to get a bit more input from other editors regarding a discussion on the Wintersun Time talk page about using an update posted on the band's official messageboard by the band's creator/songwriter. Perhaps supporting my desire to do so, according to Wikipedia:RS#Statements_of_opinion, "Never use self-published books, zines, websites, webforums, blogs and tweets as a source for material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the biographical material." Does this allow an exception in my case?

This is just an observation, but some of the bands I follow, and whose articles I contribute to, will post updates on their actual website, either the main index page or on some "News" page, and then these updates will be reprinted almost verbatim by, for example, Blabbermouth.net. Because Wintersun's update was on a messageboard, his words have not been (and I doubt they ever will be) reprinted by a secondary source. Until he does interviews in the future, his "updates" seem to be limited to his messageboard. So, any thoughts would be fantastic so I may either go ahead and add some of the info, or drop it entirely. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 22:21, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

A more detailed explanation is here: WP:Verifiability#Self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves. Anything the band posts on their own forum/website/etc. is considered "self-published". You're free to use self-published information by the person/group who wrote it, as long as it's only about themselves (not some unrelated subject), it's not questionable information ("We finished recording the album" vs. "We've already sold 60 million copies") and isn't the only source the article uses.

When they say forums are "largely unacceptable" it's just a rule of thumb, since most forum posts are by anonymous people. The quote you posted ("...unless written or published by the subject") is the more detailed and accurate policy. —Gendralman (talk) 22:51, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

That's wonderful, then. This definitely helps in updating with lesser known bands' articles. I appreciate the quick response! – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 23:12, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

It's good to use a bit of context when using sources such as this. Like, "according to the band's website..." -Freekee (talk) 04:09, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, okay, that's a good suggestion. I will do that. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 09:19, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Single releases

Are live versions of album tracks listed as a single release in the infobox? A Momentary Lapse of Reason for instance, has a few live single releases due to the tour which followed its release, and one of them charted. What to do? Parrot of Doom 07:25, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I would say that it would probably follow the same reasoning as the discussion above about bonus tracks released as singles. Technically, they aren't singles originating from the album, rather the songs originate from there but in a different form. Were they ever released on an album (say, a compilation) eventually? – B.hotep •talk• 07:48, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Possibly, I haven't checked. Now re-reading my sources I'm not even sure that both sides were live, I think one side might have been from the album, and the B-side from the concert. So confusing... Parrot of Doom 09:11, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

To me, it's even looser than the "bonus singles" category; the main thing to consider is the primary track (ie the A-side(s), or equivalent) of the single: is it the same recording as appeared on the album? If not, it's not a single from the album. Turning now to specifics: I assume that you are thinking of On the Turning Away, which according to the A Momentary Lapse of Reason infobox, is a live single (although that's not stated on the OtTA page). The album track is definitely studio; so if the same song on the single be a live recording, it's not a single from AMLoR. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:59, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Tips

Hello guys..Moxy here the guy that does the portals...We have made a Tip/guidelines section to help navigate Wikis vast rules!! Pls if y0u like add this to your project page if it apply to you guys here!!..Moxy (talk) 16:37, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

?	Use common sense. Ultimately, assume good faith on the part of others, be bold in editing because perfection is not required. See Wikipedia:Editing policy for more information. Before starting a new article! - Notability is a concern that must be adhered to. See Wikipedia:Notability (music) for more information. Need help starting a new article? See Wikipedia:Article wizard it will help you through the process of submitting a new article to Wikipedia.
I.	Use references. This is an encyclopedia, so remember to include a ==References== section listing websites, newspapers, articles, books and other sources you used to write the article. New articles and statements added to existing articles may be deleted if unreferenced or referenced poorly. See Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Cite_sources and Wikipedia:References for more information.
II.	Use proper spelling and grammar. This is a very important aspect of an article. There is helpful guidelines in regards to styles. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music) for more information.
III.	Use footnotes. Take advantage of the footnote ability Wikipedia has, instead of including html links inside the context include them as footnotes. See Wikipedia:Footnotes on how to use them.
IV.	Write a good lead. Be sure to write a lead that concisely summarizes the entire article into one or two paragraphs, which make sense to someone who may know nothing about the subjects in question. See Wikipedia:Lead section for more information.
V.	Stay on topic. Many articles are criticized for length; sticking to the subject matter helps eliminate this. See Wikipedia:The perfect article for more information.
VI.	Keep it simple. Remember that the average reader should be able to comprehend the erudition. Although you should use a broad vocabulary of regular, non-technical terms, do not provide such a quantity of locutions as to impel those who aspire to derive serviceable information from the article to consult a dictionary.
VII.	Use images if possible. Images enhance articles greatly, but only use them when they are necessary, and ensure that their copyright status has been specified and we are allowed to use it on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Images

Overcategorization of albums

Per the Categories section of the Wikiproject page it states "For album articles, there are three "top-level" categories: Category:Albums by artist, Category:Albums by year and Category:Albums by genre. Each album page should be placed into two categories, Category:<Artist name> albums and Category:<year> albums, which should be sub-categories of the respective top-level category." But recently User:Koavf has been making probably over ten thousand edits over the past week, although it is hard for me to tell the number because there are have been so many, that I would characterize as overcategorization. I asked Koavf if there had been some consensus found somewhere for all of these categorizations and they stated they were being bold, which I also had a problem with one editor making this many of edits in such a short time span without any sort of consensus to back up the edits.

Koavf has been making edits such as moving Kapuso sa Pasko from categories Category:2004 albums, Category:Christmas albums and Category:Compilation albums as mentioned above to categories Category:2004 Christmas albums, Category:2004 compilation albums and Category:Christmas compilation albums. I find these adding of years to the types of albums and adding Christmas to the compliation albums to be overcategorizations that are not needed. Also for example is a category like Category:Carmen McRae live albums for two albums needed when the parent category Category:Carmen McRae albums only has five albums for a total of seven albums or a category like Category:Live Christmas albums needed for six albums. Maybe I am the only one who feels this way, but I thought I would get others' opinions of these categorizations. Aspects (talk) 16:02, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I would tend to agree. Sub-dividing into such tiny categories decreases their utility substantially. The smaller the categories, the more they come to resemble individual articles, which are what we're trying to group together in the first place. Torchiest (talk | contribs) 16:07, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

What I've done First off, I would like to point out that I am not responsible for either Category:Carmen McRae live albums or Category:Live Christmas albums. As noted above, they are pretty small intersections from already small parent categories. What I did was as follows:

I went through Category:Albums by artist and took a look at every category that had 20 or more articles in it. For these larger categories, I created subcategories if there were five or more of the following: live albums or compilations. I did this per the consensus at this CfD.

I started breaking up Category:Live albums and Category:Compilation albums further by genre and year. This is in part to mirror the scheme from Category:EPs by year and Category:Video albums by year--which were not initially created by me either.

Basically, what I was doing was simply an extension of the preexisting scheme to 1. break up categories for artists that are large and 2. to break up album type categories into album-by-year subcategories. I did not come up with either of those schemes of my own volition and both of them have a prior consensus for their existence. I simply applied that consensus to several more examples where I saw large categories--e.g. thousands of live albums--that could use diffusing; I decided to be bold and do just that. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:17, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Addendum I am also not responsible for creating the compilation album-by-genre scheme as--e.g.--Category:Hip hop compilation albums existed before I got here and survived a CfD of its own as well. Virtually none of this is my own original idea and it has a prior consensus for its existence. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:22, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

FYI and FWIW, on a related note (I think), see my (archived) comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Jazz/Archives/2010 1#Sub-categories. Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Sans a few hiccups here and there, I generally think Koavf's edits are helpful...or at least not harmful. Of what real utility is something like Category:Live albums containing every live album? It would have tens of thousands of articles in it, and thus not be of much use to a reader trying to navigate through the sea of articles. A category that large ought to be divided into more specific subcategories, and it seems like by-year subdivisions are logical. And as Koavf points out, it mirrors the existing system of Category:EPs by year and Category:Albums by year. Clearly there's a common-sense limit to how far down we subdivide; we don't want categories with only a handful of articles in them. But cats like Category:2009 live albums or Category:2009 compilation albums seem to be just about right, as each contains a few dozen articles. Anyway, that's my 2 cents. --IllaZilla (talk) 16:57, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I do agree that it is overcategorization as well. Under nomination for CfD is the family of categories under Category:Soundtracks by date, which I listed not long before this discussion began. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 18:12, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Keep it all. There are so many Christmas, compilation, live, soundtrack and video albums and other stuff released every year, it would make sense to use categories. J 1982 (talk) 18:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with IllaZilla here, splitting these categories by year is more helpful for navigational purposes, as far as album types (studio albums, EPs, live albums, etc.) go. The only one that sticks out to me as a problem—mainly because I haven't gone too deep into this—is Category:Live Christmas albums, as that narrows down into album type and theme. To me, this would be equivalent to creating Category:Live concept albums or similar, which is not only overcategorization, but it really makes things more complicated and less accessible than they need to be. — ξ^xplicit 20:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

My two cents It appears that a small consensus is forming for keeping these categories--particularly the large and broad scope of by-year. I'm going to continue categorizing along those two schemes and I'll check back here for any developments. I.e. I am now watching this talk page. If for some reason, the consensus is to bring these to CfD, it would be a simple matter to reverse this--much simpler than adding them in the first place--so I feel comfortable going ahead with these. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:07, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry, but this discussion involves your edits and you should wait until it closes before you engage in the edits again, since a consensus could be found that would conflict with your edits. This is not an extremely pressing matter and it could wait a few days before it could be started again if consensus is found that way. Also, you are not even staying by your standards of sticking to by-year categories. This edit, [9] moved the album from Category:Dire Straits albums to Category:Dire Straits live albums, splitting a group of sixteen albums into four and twelve albums. No one has approved of those categories here. Aspects (talk) 23:30, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Aspects, see Category:Live albums by artist -Freekee (talk) 00:33, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I think it's out of hand. Why does an artist with only three album articles such as Kurt Elling need to have a category for studio albums and live albums. Even worse, do we need to go as deep as having further subdivision of categories with Category:Live jazz vocal albums and Category:American live albums? What's next Category:American live hip hop compilation video albums? --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 00:51, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that I am not responsible for Category:Kurt Elling live albums. Quadruple-, quintuple-, etc. intersection categories are so rare as to probably be impossible, so it is very unlikely that there would ever be enough demand for Category:American live hip hop compilation video albums, as that is the intersection of albums, video albums, compilation albums, hip hop albums, live albums, and American albums. On the other hand, "Genre live albums" is the intersection of three properties and is commonly used to diffuse large categories--e.g. Category:Live albums. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:09, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

You may not have created it, but this is exactly what this type of scheme leads to. "Oh, that's how this is, so this should be like this, too", regardless of how many studio albums or live albums an artist has. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 03:12, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay You've just argued against all intersection categories. cf. Slippery slope. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:29, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

No I didn't. I am against overly narrow category intersections as in this case. You've created a precedent with all these "live albums by artist" categories, but you don't think every artist who has a live album needs to have a live albums category as stated below. But someone who sees the scheme will create the live albums for an artist because their favorite artist has released a single live album. The usefulness of the Foo albums category is to see all Foo albums in one location, not in various subcategories for that artist. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 16:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

'Intersections A category with 300 articles is hardly overly narrow. You cannot have all three of the following things: 1.) a desire for manageable album categories, 2.) to respect consensus, and 3.) to delete the "X live albums" categories and remerge them to live albums. Ive neither created a precedent "live albums by artist" categories (again, they were around before me, and I nominated them for deletion in the first place), nor have I stated that I don't think every artist who has a live album needs to have a live albums category; I was ambivalent. It is correct that someone who sees the scheme will create the live albums for an artist because their favorite artist has released a single live album, but that's always a risk you run; any unnecessary categories can be deleted in CfD or the consensus could be to leave "[Artist] albums" just for studio albums and create "[Artist] EPs/live albums/compilation albums/remix albums/video albums" as they are released. I see a case for that as well. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:26, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

---

Do you think that all artist album categories should have a subcat of live albums (assuming they have live albums)? Or should there be a numerical jump-off point (either by amount or percentage)? -Freekee (talk) 04:53, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Good question That's a very good question, so I started--mostly--with artists who had large enough discographies that diffusing them would be almost entirely non-controversial--e.g. Merzbow or John Zorn. And with the exception of this single post to my talk over the past two months, I've had no complaints. As to whether or not it should be extended to all artists, I'm on the fence: I can see it being a useful categorization scheme as well as being unnecessarily narrow in many, many instances. Of course, small categories are justified by being a part of a larger scheme, so... Anyway, I haven't really ventured into the territory of categorizing smaller albums-by-artist categories for exactly this reason. Do you have any input? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:07, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

My initial answer to your question was "no, I have no input." After thinking about it for a while, I'm still not sure how much I care.

Here are two choices:

1. Categorization in live albums by artist cats. This ensures that we can find all the live albums through cats.
2. Create these cats only when the artist's albums cat gets too big.
3. Do not have cats for live albums. Not really a choice, I don't think.

With the second choice, you should probably place the individual album article in a live album cat, which begs the question of how to set them up.

I kinda prefer the first, though that's more rules, and splits up the artists albums cats. -Freekee (talk) 02:04, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

The Christmas albums by year is great, though I'm annoyed by having both "by year" and "by decade" cats. The live subcat seems okay. Shouldn't live Christmas albums be a subcat of Christmas albums by genre, rather than in Category:Live albums? Should we put all the subcats of Category:Live rock albums in Category:Live rock albums by subgenre or something? This would make it a genre-only category, and then the band-specific cats, like "live Queen albums" can be in a their own cat, rather than be mixed with subgenres. It just looks weird. Why is 20 the magic number for breaking up categories. I think it should be more like 200 (a full page). I don't think a discog cat with thirty albums is unwieldy, even if ten of them are live albums. -Freekee (talk) 00:52, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

If this scheme is going to be standardized, rules need to be put in place and the statement "Each album page should be placed into two categories, Category:<Artist name> albums and Category:<year> albums" will have to be changed. However, unless it is all or none, no one is going to be consistent with putting albums in Category:<year> live albums (or other similar) just based on the number of album articles an artist has. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 22:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes You are correct that the wording of WP:ALBUM should be amended, but that is a simple matter. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:26, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Once consensus is reached, which is hardly the case so far for either way. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 08:06, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I support the splitting of categories into Category:Live albums by artist, Category:Compilation albums by artist, etc. I find the "too small" argument unconvincing, especially when we're supposed to create subcategories under Category:Albums by artist for recording artists and bands, even if they only ever release one album. By splitting by type of release (live, compilation, etc.), it would become easier to navigate through categories like Category:Live albums and Category:Compilation albums; the subcategories of Category:Live albums by artist, Category:Compilation albums by artist and so on, would all fall under WP:OC#SMALL, just like the subcategories of Category:Albums by artist do. — ξ^xplicit 07:37, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Why shouldn't we use the 'Reviews' field in Infobox anymore?

Hi,

I was wondering why we're not meant to use the 'Reviews' field in Infobox anymore (although most albums still do)?

On the article about the Josh Ritter album So Runs the World Away there is an empty gap (you can see it here: http://twitpic.com/1nqmhx/full), which in my opinion looks really bad, and un-wikipediay. It can be fixed by putting the reviews in the infobox (you can see that here: http://twitpic.com/1nswtn/full). But because of the consensus not to use the Reviews field of Infobox album anymore, I can't get rid of the gap.

What can I do?

JoseySmith (talk) 23:07, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

This appears to be an accessibility issue. What browser is being used to view the article that shows the gap? Does it look the same in different browser? What is the resolution of your monitor? There are various factors that can explain why this problematic gap appears and could potentially be fixed with altering the coding of the {{Album ratings}} template. — ξ^xplicit 23:18, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

See here With some more information here and here. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:20, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

The big white gap appears on Internet Explorer 7, between the heading "Release and reception" and the text "The record's release was met with ..."; basically, the start of that text is horizontally aligned with the upper edge of the {{Album ratings}} template. The gap does not appear under Firefox 3.6.2 or Chrome, where the text begins immediately under the heading, as normal. All of these are for Windows XP, and whether the skin is Monobook or Vector makes no difference. It's worse at higher resolutions - but you've got to get the screen right down to about 640px wide before the gap becomes small enough to disappear, at which point the infobox is about the same width as the text in the lead section. One fix would be to move the "Release and reception" section down, so that other sections use up the remaining space to the left of the infobox; but that doesn't always work: try looking at Led Zeppelin II in IE7 - the image in the "Album sleeve design" section pushes the {{Album ratings}} template downward, so there is a white gap between the heading "Release and reception" and text to the left of the template. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

There was a long discussion about it which you should find in the archives if you're interested, but basically it was agreed that the ratings shouldn't have such prominence in Wikipedia articles, as Wikipedia is not something like Allmusic. Its purpose is not primarily to provide a review of how good someone thinks something is, but to provide information in a more encyclopedic manner. I agree with the change. Ratings rarely tell the whole story, and it's far better to see them alongside Critical reception prose that presents the reception information in a balanced and informative manner. You're right that not all albums use the new layout yet, but they're getting converted when opportunities arise. About the gap in the article you mentioned, it's OK in FF, Opera and IE8. I do see it in IE7, but why would anyone use IE7?!! But anyway, the problem will go away once the article's developed further and there are more sections. (Try it by editing the page in IE7 and hitting Preview.) Currently there's plenty of stuff in the lead that never gets a mention in the main text. Per WP:LEAD, the lead should only summarize what the article already says. A couple more points to elaborate upon in Release and reception:

• Released as part of Record Store Day in the United States.
• The vinyl record came packaged with a CD version of the album as well.

And some signs of a burgeoning Composition and recording section:

• Ritter said of the album that it "marks the beginning of a new period in [his] life,"
• ...and that overall, "the songs are larger and more detailed, and feel to me as if they were painted in oil on large canvasses."
• Ritter got the title from a line in the third act of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Just a couple of suggestions at a glance. There's probably a lot more that can be said apart from those if you want to develop the article more fully. PL290 (talk) 15:13, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

(1) It seems to me that there should be some way to fix the technical issue of the "gaps" in the articles when viewed in Internet Explorer version 7, but I'm not sure of the best way to get help with this. Upgrading to IE version 8 would be a reasonable work-around for most people, but it would be better if the display worked in IE7 also. (2) The archived discussion about moving the reviews out of the infobox is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 33#Reviews in infobox: scrap?. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 19:57, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all for replying. I will have a look at developing the article. JoseySmith (talk) 23:27, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

At one point there was a consensus not to detach the reviews field from the infobox if there wasn't enough content to separate the two boxes. Aesthetics should always be taken into account, and having two different-sized boxes touching looks bad. —Gendralman (talk) 14:52, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Problem with inter-Archive links

At the top of Archive 33 there are link to the first (#1), the previous (#32), and the last (currently #36), but the link to the next (#34) is missing. Same issue for all other archives since #30. It's quite annoying for archive browsing. Does someone know how to fix this? – IbLeo^(talk) 05:02, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't look like the {{atn}} template supports what you want it to. I don't see the point in such a fancy navigator, I would just use {{archive-nav}} or {{talkarchivenav}} and if I needed to jump around a lot, I would just type the archive number into the URL. But yeah, I can see where that's frustrating. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 05:25, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I've replaced {{atn}} with {{atnhead}}. It seems to have fixed the problem. — ξ^xplicit 05:30, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Possibly a bug? I found that it stopped working at Archive 21 and up. I left a note on the template's Template_talk:Atn#Bug_at_Archive_21.3F talk page. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 05:53, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Almost forgotten about this one... which shows that it's not the most important problem in the world. Starting from archive #31, the archive header is implemented by {{atn}}. So Explicit, I think you are on the right track, it's probably an issue with that template. Keraunoscopia, you lost me. Archive #21, as all other archives up to #30, uses {{atnhead}} for the header and it links to both next and previous archives, but does not provide the links to first and last. So I am at loss with your post over at Template_talk:Atn#Bug_at_Archive_21.3F talk page. – IbLeo^(talk) 20:01, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Allmusic's genre sidebar

Is Allmusic really a reliable source for genre identification? From my experience, Allmusic slaps up to a half a dozen genres (or "styles", they call them) onto any album, essentially blanketing the album in every possible genre it may touch. If an Allmusic review specifically mentions a genre and even delves into why the album is that genre, then I'm game. I'm just curious what others have to say about the sidebar info. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 21:54, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

In most cases the "styles" section seems to cover just about every genre known to man. Surely just because one or two songs may touch upon a certain genre, it doesn't mean the album should be classed as that genre. Otherwise we'd be looking at anywhere between 5 and 10-15 genres per album. I don't think the "styles" section should be used as a reliable source for genres. Bretonbanquet (talk) 22:02, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I would be comfortable using it cite bare necessities of genre such as an electronic music album or a rock album but I wouldn't get to far when calling things nine different types of hip hop or heavy metal. Feel free to use it as a source, but use common sense and do not go overboard when citing genres. When in doubt of allmusic or any other professionals genre description, look up definitions of that genre and see if it's appropriate. Andrzejbanas (talk) 14:40, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I've been involved in a number of discussions about this, over at Talk:List of nu metal bands and Talk:List of industrial metal bands, and the general consensus is that the sidebar genre list is not acceptable for use as a source, but reviews on Allmusic are acceptable. I've seen industrial and metal bands with "Rock/Pop" listed as genres on that sidebar, which is clearly nonsense. Torchiest ^talk/_contribs 18:41, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Great, thank you for all the suggestions! I would love to use the consensuses reached at some of these discussions for support in removing certain genres as given by Allmusic. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 21:26, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I think Allmusic's categorization (specifically, jazz sub-genres) has been mirrored to some extent here at Wikipedia. (Funny you brought it up as I had just mentioned this to someone else the other day.) I haven't seen some of these genres mentioned anywhere else outside of Allmusic (well, and now Wikipedia) - e.g. see these comments, or these. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 22:01, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

"Other" Album Class in Grid

Resolved

 – Redrose64 (talk) 10:49, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

In the assessment grid for the project there are currently more than 800 album articles classified as "Other" in the Class column. I browsed through a selection of these in a cursory fashion, and most of the ones I looked at have received legitimate Class assessments such as Stub, Start, etc. I can find no spelling or formatting errors in the respective talk page Album Project boxes that might throw off the bots. So many, if not most, of these 800+ articles should appear with their proper class numbers elsewhere in the grid. Does anyone know why this is happening? DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 02:44, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure that the assessment stats grid isn't recalculated every time that an article is assessed, but must be rebuilt periodically. Judging by the page history, rebuilding is performed automatically by User:WP 1.0 bot, on a daily basis, and the last such rebuild was this one.

I suspect a buggy 'bot, certainly there are other wikiprojects where the actual category for unassessed articles is empty, or nearly so, but the grid shows many unassessed articles. Perhaps only a partial rebuild is performed? I'd love to know how to get those grids thoroughly recalculated... --Redrose64 (talk) 14:12, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the stats grid is updated every day (roughly), but I don't think that's the only issue. For example, if you look at the grid right now, there is one article in the grid box for "Other" class and "High" importance. That happens to be Talk:Menace II Society (soundtrack) where the assessment (Stub/High) has been in place since January 2008. Sorry I didn't mention the timing angle in my first comment, but this is certainly a long-term issue, and not one in which the stats on certain album articles are temporarily out of whack for a day or two between bot calculations. DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 15:06, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

That just happens to be the one which I examined! That's why I suspect that only a partial rebuild is performed daily; certainly there is nothing wrong with the usage of the {{WikiProject Albums}} template on that album's talk page. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:17, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I've left a message at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index#Degree of update. Hope that's the right place... --Redrose64 (talk) 17:04, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

This was  fixed early this morning: the "Other" row has disappeared. Some of my assumptions above were incorrect; see thread linked in previous post for details. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:49, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Nice work by all involved. Thanks Redrose for asking the proper questions over at the Editorial Team page. I'm not much of a techie so I have no idea what happened, but it's cool to see a nice clean grid. --DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 18:41, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Pink Floyd

This is extremely silly that I'm even here, but to humour the belligerents, why not? I have two users currently trying to tell me that the Pink Floyd studio albums More, and Obscured By Clouds, are not studio albums, because they're soundtracks. Both of them complete albums, of course; both of them recorded in the studio completely by Pink Floyd. And, as I have said, using that twisted logic, then The Wall is not a studio album, as it is a soundtrack. Of course The Wall is a studio album, just as More, and Obscured By Clouds are. But for some strange reason, these two feel that 2 of their studio albums that are also soundtracks are, somehow not studio albums, whilst another studio album, which is also a soundtrack, is a studio album. Anyone?Mk5384 (talk) 20:48, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I would tend to draw a distinction between an album of music scored for a movie vs. an album of of music used in a movie. Look at how it is broken down in the Queen discography; A Kind of Magic was music written specifically for The Highlander but it is still considered a regular studio album, while Flash Gordon is more of a traditional film score. So for this case, IMO More should not be considered a studio album but Obscured... would. Tarc (talk) 21:01, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Why not both? As you correctly pointed out, these albums are not live--they were recorded in-studio. At the same time, they serve as the musical accompaniment to two films, so they are soundtracks as well. I don't see what the conflict is. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:05, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't see what the conflict is either, yet 2 users are, pardon the reference, raving and drooling over the fact. As I see it, they are both studio albums, whilst still being soundtracks. Other Pink Floyd projects, such as Zabriske Point, and Tonight Let's Make love In London, are soundtracks, yet are not Pink Floyd studio albums, as they are compilations.Mk5384 (talk) 21:13, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Studio album, while admittedly a tiny, unreferenced stub article, says what I expected it to:

A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio, as opposed to a live recording made at a performance venue or a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material.

Perhaps those saying otherwise would explain the rationale. PL290 (talk) 21:19, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was just looking over this page and noticed this discussion. I would consider Pat Garret & Billy the Kid by Bob Dylan a soundtrack and studio album (I think it's classified as both on wikipedia as well) which I believe is the same sort of thing as these Pink Floyd albums, so I'd agree with you as well. Kitchen roll (talk) 21:22, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There is a fundamental difference between The Wall and the other two. Pink Floyd were commissioned by Barbet Schroeder to write and perform the soundtrack music for films already in production (More (film), August 1969 and La Vallée (film), July 1972), which were contemporaneously released as soundtrack albums (Soundtrack from the Film More, July 1969 and Obscured by Clouds, June 1972). In the case of The Wall, the album came first (November 1979), and Pink Floyd The Wall (film) very much later (August 1982). It's therefore not a soundtrack album. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:23, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

What does this have to do with whether they are studio albums, i.e., albums recorded in a studio, or not? --TorriTorri(^talk/_contribs) 21:40, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

More and Obscured by Clouds were written for films: they are soundtracks. The Wall was not written for a film: it is a pure studio album. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:46, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not disputing that. Are you saying that "soundtrack" and "studio album" are mutually exclusive categories? IMO, they are not. --TorriTorri(^talk/_contribs) 22:33, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

As someone with studio experience, can I just point out that practically all releases at some point see the inside of a studio, no matter where they were recorded. Many of the albums in Pink Floyd's discography contain sound effects or music not recorded inside a studio. I would consider a studio album to be one where the band have specifically congregated to create a wholly new album, composed by themselves, recorded in a studio(s), and released specifically as a "artist" album. Parrot of Doom 22:42, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Why all those "extra" conditions? Why not just "where the band have specifically congregated in a studio(s) to record an album"? --TorriTorri(^talk/_contribs) 22:59, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't particularly care. The problem here is that at some point a decision was made as to the numbering of these albums, and nobody has really questioned that. This user, instead of raising the issue first, has simply stormed in, insisted his version is correct, and refused to discuss the matter first. The entire Pink Floyd studio album chronology is now fucked because of this. Parrot of Doom 23:59, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

The Wall was, indeed, written for a film. The film happened to be released later for various reasons. It was, however, always intended to be a movie. That doesn't change the fact that all 3 in question are studio albums, plain and simple.Mk5384 (talk) 23:41, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

What is your source for this assertion? Parrot of Doom 23:59, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

It's in the book Saucer Full Of Secrets. By the way, More, and Obscured By Clouds both meet each of the criteria you have set for what you yourself say you consider to be a studio album. This is one of the strangest debates I've ever had.Mk5384 (talk) 00:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

What page? Parrot of Doom 00:30, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Let me add something else. The fact that "at some point a decision was made, and nobody really questioned it", is far from a plausible reason to continue with something that's incorrect. I have not "stormed in here" (again; my opinion of how you seem to feel that you own the article). And I have no idea why I would have been expected to "discuss the matter first", in making so simple a correction. It is in no way "my version". And finally, the statement about "the entire Floyd chronology being fucked", is ridiculous. Several of the albums were off by 2. Nothing to hard to fix.Mk5384 (talk) 00:25, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

You know what? I don't care what you think. Really. I'm sick to the back teeth of people like you spouting this "ownership" business, its lazy and insulting. You're clearly incapable of any kind of rational debate, and I'll waste no more of my time with you. I have more appearling things to do, like clean the toilet. Parrot of Doom 00:35, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

The fact that your "sick to the back of the teeth with people" leads one to believe that I'm not the only one "spouting" about this "owership business". If you get that much of it, perhaps you should take a look at yourself. Saying that I'm "clearly incapable of any kind of rational debate", and the like, is just childish. In any case, the Floyd chronology that was "completely fucked" is now "completely fixed.Mk5384 (talk) 00:43, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

• This is becoming supremely unhelpful, and is veering into WP:ABF territory. What we have here is a simple distinction between whether an album recorded in a studio for intended use in a film is a studio or a soundtrack album. To me, it's clearly both, although our infoboxes don't make that unnecessary distinction. The Wall is clearly a studio album, which later spawned a film, much as did Tommy. That doesn't make the latter a soundtrack album. Some common-sense would be welcome here, and the distinction seems to be supremely unnecessary, since it is our readers, and not ourselves, whom we are seeking to provide for here. Rodhullandemu 00:55, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

To you, me, and most everyone it's clearly both. The distinction is indeed, "supremely unnecessary". I understand where you're coming from with the ABF, but please realise that I was accused of "making a unilateral decision that will affect thousands of articles", simply for correcting the chronology of a few Pink Floyd albums. In any case, the issue seems to be over, so , all the better.Mk5384 (talk) 01:37, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

• Can I just point out the following:
  • "French film director Barbet Schroeder had commissioned the group to compose the soundtrack to his new movie, More. EMI agreed to release the record, but, as it was a private commission, Floyd were denied the use of Abbey Road, booking into Pye Studios instead. EMI's willigness to let the band make a film soundtrack, rather than 'a proper record', after their last three singles had flopped seems surprising in the 21st century." (Blake pp 131-132), "Unexpectedly, for what the group considered 'a stop-gap album', the soundtrack made it into the Top 10 in June" (Blake p133). "Although the band made some muddled comments about Obscured by Clouds not being a 'proper Pink Floyd record', and 'just a collection of songs'" (Blake p183).
  • ""Gilmour describes Pink Floyd's experience with More and its successors as 'contract work. You start in the studio without anything and you work until you come up with stuff...It's not the same process as making your own music for yourself: much more hurried, and less care tends to be taken." (Schaffner pp 133–134) In this same book Mason describes Obscured by Clouds as "a sensational LP", and the author is more positive about its importance. (Schaffner pp 155-156)
  • Glenn Povey's Echoes is more focussed on discographies and a precise chronological directory of where and what the band were doing, but it contains sections of prose. I've looked several times and he appears not to mention More and Obscured by Clouds, focussing instead on the band's live work, and their studio time on Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, and DSotM (and beyond).
    • I'm therefore not yet convinced that these two albums should be included in the same chronology as the band's other studio work. Parrot of Doom 09:03, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Years ago, when I was one of the many "regulars" watching and helping maintain Pink Floyd articles, we thoroughly discussed this issue and developed a policy about the soundtracks. We decided that most artists had their soundtrack work separated out because it did not fit in musically or thematically with their other work, or was difficult, if not impossible, to insert it into a chronology because of the gap between recording and release dates, which are often years apart. Also, some artists' soundtracks are released on other labels from their studio albums, and it becomes difficult to determine the order that albums were released. I have frequently cited Tangerine Dream as an example of this problem; they released soundtracks as frequently as they released normal studio albums, but on many different labels, usually with undocumented recording dates, and the appearance of older line-ups of the group suggested some were actually recorded years before release. We felt that no such problems existed with Pink Floyd's soundtracks, and the fact that there were only two albums to deal with, led to a decision that there was no need to separate them. We also felt that such a separation would create an unhelpful interruption in the chronology chain. This decision was made at a time when I believe the current participants in this discussion were not among the "regulars" watching Pink Floyd articles. So Parrot of Doom is incorrect when he says that "nobody really questioned" this before. It was reviewed quite thoroughly, but that was before his time. I do realize that what we decided back then, can be superceded by what has been discussed since. But here is the policy we used to have, for what it's worth. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 14:47, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Obviously I meant "nobody really questioned this before" - insomuch as I couldn't find any such discussions on the Floyd wikiproject. If there are more discussions I'm unaware of then I apologise for the inference. Parrot of Doom 15:32, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Way back then, rightly or wrongly, most discussions about Pink Floyd related policies took place on Talk:Pink Floyd, not the WikiProject's talk page. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 15:43, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

What a ridiculous argument. The distinction between "studio albums" and "soundtracks" is arbitrary and unhelpful. Echoes was conceived as a soundtrack, and indeed later used as one. The Final Cut began as a soundtrack, but emerged as a "studio" album. Both of the albums under discussion feature long-standing live favourites; yet have significant differences to the music used on the film soundtracks. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:37, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

So

So, can we perhaps clarify how this project identifies a studio album? Is there an industry-wide specification that would help? Do we classify albums based on time spent in a studio? I've had a look around and unfortunately I have not yet been able to find any sources which might improve Studio album, which is probably what we want to do. Parrot of Doom 08:43, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how an article on "studio albums" would necessarily steer WikiProject guidelines. Nobody was disputing that the albums under discussion were studio albums; the question is, when they are studio albums as well as something else, which takes precedence, when dealing with something that requires one and only one categorization? In this case, the question had to do with an infobox chronology chain. In other circumstatnces it could be about the infobox "type" field, a discography's sub-sections, and let's not forget navbox breakdowns. If we were to develop a policy for albums in general, it would belong in project-specific guidelines about writing album articles, and/or template usage instructions, not in an article about studio albums. As I've already suggested, I can see different answers being appropriate for different artists (and maybe even specific albums), so the answer is, it should be decided on a case by case basis. Therefore it's always helpful to review talk page archives on the artists and albums in question, to see if the question was asked previously, get a recap of arguments presented, and find if a consensus was reached. If it was, the question should be re-opened and new consensus reached, before editing and changing what was agreed upon, of course. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 12:34, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

This seems to be quite a matter of personal opinion. Just thinking of a few other artists with complete conceptual "soundtrack albums", I was quite suprised that in The Beatles discography, Magical Mystery Tour is included in their studio albums chronology, yet Prince's Purple Rain is not in his. To my view, the particular Pink Floyd albums in discussion here should be included in the studio album discography as this is how I've always thought of them - an overall concept, and on the whole no different to any other studio album - but my reasoning for this is loose and I can see that other people may have different ideas on this. Another example: I believe The Monkees' Head is where it should be. Rob Sinden (talk) 13:03, 18 May 2010 (UTC)