Talk:MiniDiscs (Hacked)

Track Titles

Should the titles of each track be eventually put in the track listing? The names are in the pictures of the MiniDiscs (Check the Genius.com page for the album) and also on the Google Doc page. So, should we separate each MiniDisc individually and separate them by track? Timeless Days (talk) 16:56, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Tentatively, I'd say no. It's still an unofficial document, for one, but almost as importantly—it would be a massive amount of info to transfer here and would be extremely unwieldy, to the point of being useless (though not hysterical). The Google Doc currently has ~34 pages of just track listing info. However, at this point the Google Doc has been widely cited and there's widespread consensus that it is the most reliable "guide" to the MiniDiscs. So I see no problem linking to it in external links, and I wouldn't see a problem with a note in the track list section referring to the document. —BLZ · talk 19:46, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Agreed with BLZ. Too much info, too sketchy, and we have no Wikipedia-quality sources. Popcornduff (talk) 20:04, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I've added a template in the style of Template:External media linking to the Google Doc—the only reason I didn't use Template:External media itself is that it doesn't have an option for a "document" or other text, so if anyone knows of a good pre-existing template for this purpose feel free to implement it. By prominently displaying a link to the Google Doc, my hope is that the template (and accompanying note) will be informative for readers, allow easy access for those who are just looking for the link, and (most importantly) dissuade attempts to recreate the entire Doc—or some other unofficial description of the contents—on this Wikipedia page. —BLZ · talk 21:11, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Discogs

Yo BLZ. I removed this (without seeing it was you who added it) because I don't really understand why it's useful or what the "list of releases" text means. Can you explain it? Popcornduff (talk) 20:02, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Discogs is a pretty useful all-purpose database for music releases. It's especially helpful for cataloguing different editions/reissues of the same release, and has some other benefits like sometimes providing extensive scans of album artwork. The templates on Wikipedia are Template:Discogs master and Template:Discogs release; the former is linking to the "master" entry for a release (which I think typically displays the info of the first issue by default), while the latter is for linking to a particular issue. Sometimes there are major differences in content between issues, but most of the time the difference are format (CD, LP, etc), region, or even something as minor as catalog number. For example, this is the "master" entry for OK Computer, while these are some individual release pages: the 1997 Chilean issue of OK Computer on CD, a rare promotional 1997 OK Computer box set with a VHS, the UK edition of the 2009 Collector's Edition, and a Ukrainian bootleg cassette of OK Computer.

I've added a Discogs link back, but this time I went with an individual "release" link because the differences between the "releases" are extremely minimal (it just boils down to what quality/digital file you prefer to download). —BLZ · talk 20:49, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I suppose it's no different to linking to IMDB from a film article. Popcornduff (talk) 11:04, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

That's kinda how I look at it—Discogs is more or less useful depending on the article subject (and the reader's level of interest), but I find it a useful-enough site to link to it whenever possible. Also, unrelated: based on the sentence "Material that appeared on the OKNOTOK cassette is also excluded)" in Rolling Stone, I noted that previously released material from OKNOTOK was removed from the official version. Is that right? Or is Rolling Stone saying that they've excluded consideration of OKNOTOK material from their summary? —BLZ · talk 16:20, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

I was thinking about that Rolling Stone sentence too. It's ambiguous. If it means that OKNOTOK stuff was excluded from the Bandcamp reissue, it's wrong - the National Anthem demo is on there, for example (haven't checked other stuff). On that basis I think we ought to exclude it from the Wikipedia article. Popcornduff (talk) 16:42, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Recording dates

Jimmio78, as said previously (IP was me, just created an account yesterday), It is not clear if the timespan in the source refers to the recording or the creation/transmission to minidisks, thus it is better to keep the original album timespan for now. DanWarpp (talk) 17:43, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Noting all-caps stylisation

Several editors want to note the all-caps stylisation in the lead sentence. As this is an issue that affects lots of articles I've started a discussion at WP:ALBUM: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums#Why_do_we_note_all-caps_stylisation? (talk) 22:49, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Arrest

Looks like someone's been arrested, possibly in connection to the leak: https://www.pcmag.com/news/370751/hacker-arrested-for-stealing-unreleased-songs-from-top-artis

Don't think there's enough to go on to add to the article yet. Popcornduff (talk) 19:08, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree. The connection to Radiohead is conjectural at this point—which is not to say it's bad conjecture, since this was almost certainly connected to a Radiohead-related investigation. We just don't know for sure yet. But this will unfold in due course and we'll find out soon enough. —BLZ · talk 22:11, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Album cover GIF

I think a good way to illustrate the various covers of this compilation would be to create a looping GIF which shows each cover in order. I could create the GIF if need be. Thoughts on this?

--Hostagecat (talk) 22:22, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Hostagecat, I'm not sure that's a good idea. It would be distracting and weird - no one expects a cover image to be a moving image - and I don't think there's much of an encyclopaedic need to show all the covers; cover art is protected by copyright and is mainly used to help identify the article subject. Popcornfud (talk) 23:40, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

@Popcornfud: I think it's worth pointing out that there are articles on Wikipedia which already have GIF's in their album cover box (for example, Childish Gambino's Because the Internet), so it's not like it's a completely unprecedented approach. --Hostagecat (talk) 03:56, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Weird. In 10 years of editing album articles on Wikipedia that's the first time I've ever seen that.

I also have no idea what it's supposed to tell me about the album cover. As a reader it just looks like... a bizarre animated gif.

By going further into the article I see the gif was released as the album cover, but I think it would be better embedded as a standard image in the Cover art section, with an explanatory caption, where it can be made sense of. IMO the way it's used in that article currently is confusing. Popcornfud (talk) 10:17, 7 March 2021 (UTC)