Template talk:Infobox album/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions about Template:Infobox album. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

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Image frames in infoboxes?

Can't seem to puzzle this one out. I'd like to add a frame around the image for this album, since the cover art is a small strip of photo on a white background, it makes it look like the cover is just that small strip and not the whole white square. But adding extended image syntax is ignored by the infobox since (I assume) it interprets the piped additions like "|frame" as non-existent fields and ignores them. Tarc 13:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no support for adding a border to the cover in the infobox. The only way to get a border (AFAIK) is to add it to the image itself. Quite a few album covers have white backgrounds, and the cover images don't generally have any borders. I don't think adding a border is needed in general. (Note also that the infobox doesn't have a white background, it's actually a light grey color.) --PEJL 13:18, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Looking at that, I can tell where the border is. I'd say don't worry about ading a frame. -^Violask8₁₉₇₆ 14:10, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Using CSS, we could probably set it up so that an image casts a shadow in here, and turn it on or off using a yes or no option. It's be purely decorative, but it may serve in cases like these. I don't have enuogh experience designing esoteric functions on that scale, but I'm certain it could be done. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lincalinca (talk • contribs).

There is the border template, but of course that cant be applied to the image field. We could somehow integrate it into the infobox, but I don't know if it's warranted. Looks okay to me. -- Reaper X 17:00, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Collapse

Can a [hide] button be put on the infobox to allow it to be collapsed? It's handy if an album is discussed in a section instead of a whole article. Thanks --Joowwww 10:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Note that album infoboxes should normally be used for a single article rather than a section. (See this recent change to WP:ALBUM#Article body, based on the discussion at WT:ALBUM#One album per article.) Given that, such a link would not be useful in a majority of cases. --PEJL 11:32, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Demo type

Is there any chance of adding another type to the infobox. There is a lot of resistance to changing demos to studio albums. They are different from studio albums and maybe deserve there own type. Dommccas 09:35, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been meaning to propose the same based on the same (justified) resistance regarding a different Metallica demo—No Life 'Til Leather. Let's do so. We only need to decide what color to use. The two options that make the most sense to me is either reusing the same color as for studio albums or creating a new color. As I think we should be restrictive with introducing new colors, especially with unusual album types (as colors are only useful to readers if easily recognizable based on having seen them many times) I think reusing the studio album color is the best choice. I've created change requests at Template talk:Infobox Album/color and Template talk:Infobox Album/link for this change, which can be converted into editprotected requests if this is considered acceptable. --PEJL 11:50, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Go for it, make the demo type and re-use light steel blue. I'm surprised this hasn't been done already. -- Reaper X 17:24, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I've requested this change be made. --PEJL 13:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. good change. -Freekee 03:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Just clarifying here that the change has been made. --PEJL 03:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

It has been added, but I think it'd be better to distinguish if it were a different colour, as usually, Demos either don't include full songs, or are between the track amounts of real albums (usually, about 7-9 from my experience). I think it should perhaps be a slightly darker or lighter blue? What do you guys think? Or am I on this branch by myself? --linca ^linca 11:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I commented on the color choice above, and my conclusion was that it should be the same color, as it is too rare a type for most readers to be able to recognize the color and attribute it to mean demos, the way they currently can for example with studio and live. Note that compilation, greatest, remix and box all share the same color, presumably for this reason. I also made the same argument regarding the musical artist infobox in the lengthy thread here. --PEJL 12:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

While we're at it, what do you guys think about adding other types in a similar fashion, using already existing backgrounds? Like what about promos and mixtapes? -- Reaper X 04:46, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any examples of notable albums of either type? --PEJL 05:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

No, it was just a suggestion. While I cleaned out Category:Non-standard album infoboxes, mixtape was the most common type that people put in instead. A lack of notability is a fair argument though. -- Reaper X 05:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

G-Unit Records WikiProject

I'd like to invite you to join the WikiProject G-Unit Records. We are currently on demand for new members and we believe that the project could benefit from your contributions. Make me sure that you'll think about this and remember cooperative works can do amazing things. Regards

--The-G-Unit-Boss 20:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Formating

I know this doesn't seem to affect the outcome for the infobox, but it makes it hard on me as an editor, and doubtless the same applies to other editors too.

This is what I'm talking about:

{{Infobox Album |
  Name = |
  Type = |
  Artist = |
  Cover = |
  Released = |
  Recorded = |
  Genre = |
  Length = |
  Label = |
  Producer = |
  Reviews = |
  Last album  = |
  This album  = |
  Next album  = |}}

Two things here: is there any issue with articles that use the infobox like this? I find it frustrating and inevitable reformat all of them like this to make them more easy to edit. The second thing is that they omit the "" section at the top.

My question is: Is this acceptable? Can anything be done to bot the change to format these correctly? --linca ^linca 12:15, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't like this format too. I once tried to make a set of regular expressions that would allow to convert it automatically but I run into so many special cases that I gave it up. Perhaps I could do it if I knew how the MediaWiki software parses template parameters. Jogers (talk) 12:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that reformatting articles to use the canonical format from WP:ALBUM#Code is good. I use a set of regular expressions to do this when I edit articles. They handle most of the pipe-last uses, but there are some edge cases I haven't bothered fixing yet (because I only run these manually). I can post them if there is interest. --PEJL 12:56, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like that, thanks! --linca ^linca 11:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, here are the regexes I use to reformat album infoboxes. I've converted these from another format manually, so you'll want to test them before using them. --PEJL 12:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

s/(= (?:[^\r]*[^\|\r ])?) *\|+ *\r *(?:\| *)?/\1\r| /
s/{{(Infobox Album|Album infobox|Album infobox 2) *\|?( *<!--[^-]+-->)?\r *\|? *Name/{{Infobox Album <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums -->\r| Name/
s/\s*\|\s*Last album/\r| Last album/
s/(\| Next album *= *[^\r]+)\s*\|\s*\}\}/\1\r}}/
s/(\| Type *= *)(?:\[\[Album\]\]|Studio album)(\s*\|)/\1studio\2/
s/(\| Type *= *)(?:\[\[Live [Aa]lbum\]\]|Live album)(\s*\|)/\1live\2/
s/(\| Type *= *)(?:\[\[EP\]\]|EP)(\s*\|)/\1ep\2/
s/(\| Type *= *)\[\[Cover album\]\](\s*\|)/\1cover\2/
s/(\| Type *= *)\[\[Compilation album\]\](\s*\|)/\1compilation\2/
s/(\| (?:Last|Next) album *= *)'''''([^\r]+)'''''/\1''\2''/
s/(\| [A-Z][^=]{10} =) */\1 /
s/(\| Label       = )\[\[([^]|]+) Records\]\]/\1[[\2 Records|\2]]/

Image size

At the moment, the documentation says "Ideally the image should be at least 200px wide (it'll be resized to 200px wide for display anyway)." This encourages people to upload high-resolution non-free media. If there are no objections, I'll change this to "The image should ideally be 200px wide as this is the default display size. However, it must be under 300px wide to satisfy the fair use criteria." Papa November 13:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, good idea. -- Reaper X 14:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree in general, but would soften "must" to "should", as 300px is more a guideline than a recommendation. --PEJL 14:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've made the change with the above amendment. I'll keep watching this discussion for objections. Papa November 14:53, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Linking to add cover (again)

User:PEJL/Template:Infobox Album test Reviving this topic, it turns out we could get rid of the blue "i". (It appears to have been supported all along, and thinking it wasn't possible seems like an oversight on my part.) That means the problems which kept this from being implemented have now been resolved. Therefore I propose we make this change, which restores the nocover image (both for empty Cover parameters and parameters with Nocover.png) and links it to Template:Infobox Album/No cover, which in turn links to Wikipedia:Upload. Any objections? --PEJL 15:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea very much. We could even use an alternative version of special:upload with detailed instructions analogous to these at fromowner upload page. Jogers (talk) 16:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, let's do this. --PEJL 13:42, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 22:05, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Adding maintainance categories

Please make this change, to add maintainance categories, per WT:ALBUM#Cfd:Albums without cover art. --PEJL 13:42, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 22:05, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Unfortunately Category:Non-standard album infoboxes was also removed, which means that category is now broken. --PEJL 01:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to clarify that this was fixed here. --PEJL 02:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

No Cover Available

Is there a way to over-ride the "No Cover Available" function? The default image is disruptive to some articles, mainly the ones I've been working on to add soundtrack album information to film articles. The current sentiment of editors on WP:FILM is that film articles should have a soundtrack section instead of a separate soundtrack article. There are exceptions, where the soundtrack album has taken on a life of its own, such as Saturday Night Fever, Pulp Fiction or O Brother, Where Art Thou? But generally the soundtrack articles do not become more than stubs with few wikilinks other than from the film article itself. Also generally, the images on the soundtrack albums are duplicative of the film poster, so the general sentiment is to not upload the soundtrack album image, since the rationale for fair use (identification purposes) would be weak. I guess this is a case where the infobox template is being used by another project, and its usages conflict with that of the main album project. I'm a member of both projects and come here first in search of a solution. Maybe WP:FILM should develop its own infobox soundtrack? — WiseKwai 00:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a reasonable request. We could add a separate parameter or special parameter value for this purpose. Another method is to use a special 200x1 transparent image, like the one I just uploaded to Hidecover.png. See example of this to the right. The disadvantage to using this image is that the white region is slightly larger than it previously was without the cover. BTW, do you have an example of such an article? --PEJL 01:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

What about just using override_cover=yes? Also, would anyone have an objection to me removing all of the empty HTML comments? --MZMcBride 02:07, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

A parameter would indeed be a better solution. We should try to find a shorter parameter name though. For consistency with WP:ALBUM#Advanced usage (and keeping in mind that Compiled by will likely be renamed Compiler), we want something no longer than 10 characters, like Cover hide=yes. My preferred solution would be to reuse Cover size with Cover size=0. I assumed the HTML comments served some special purpose, in relation to MediaWiki's special handling of spaces. Feel free to remove them if you feel confident they serve no purpose. --PEJL 02:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Everything should be fixed now. I added a new parameter called "Cover hide" which can be set to "yes" . Additionally, I did a little code cleanup, which reduced the template by about 200 bytes. Cheers. --MZMcBride 02:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I still think Cover size=0 would be better than Cover hide=yes for the following reasons:

"Cover hide" is ungrammatical. (Yes, I know I suggested it.)
We don't use =yes parameter values anywhere else.
We may still want to support Cover size=0, as people may use it. (Currently it generates a redlink to the existing image if Cover is specified, which looks like a MediaWiki bug, and does nothing if Cover is not specified.)
It makes the documentation slightly shorter.

As such I propose we apply this diff. --PEJL 03:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 05:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Cover size 0 works great. Some examples: the Coen Brothers films (The Ladykillers (2004 film)#Soundrack, Intolerable Cruelty#Soundtrack, Blood Simple#Soundtrack, Raising Arizona#Soundtrack, etc) and Robert Rodriguez films (Spy Kids#Soundtrack, Desperado (film)#Soundtrack, etc). — WiseKwai 15:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Header alignment

Did the title area recently get changed to left-align, or has it always been that way? Regardless, I think this looks worse and doesn't correspond to the formatting for Template:Infobox musical artist. I think all header fields should be center-aligned. Thoughts? = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 04:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you should check your browser settings, because it's still centre aligned and hasn't been changed. Maybe your browser's going off and doing its own thing? Otherwise, is there an example of it doind this, because I double checked (just to make sure) and it's not been changed and I've checked a few articles and they don't show it on the left. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lincalinca (talk • contribs) 04:49:08, August 19, 2007 (UTC).

Weird… here's a partial screenshot. I don't think I've changed any browser settings but I'll take a look. Thanks for the response. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 04:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems your browser is only responding to explicit citations of "text-align:center;". Without that explicit code, your browser isn't interpreting <th> tags as centered, even though going back to basic HTML, <th> tags are traditionally centered and bold unless specified otherwise. Your browser is looking for a CSS declaration. The code used in this template is similar to code used elsewhere. It seems to be a problem on your end. Somehow, your browser is being told to interpret <th> tags differently. --MZMcBride 05:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess it is—Internet Explorer is just fine, but Firefox is crapping out. It's also suddenly not displaying certain sites. Something's very wrong over here… well, thanks for the help. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 05:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It was just a corrupt browser. A reinstall fixed everything. Thanks = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 05:48, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

We should make this template consistent, either always explicitly center-aligning <th> elements or never doing so, to not rely on web browser's default styles. I'll look into that. --PEJL 05:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. Anyway it turns out that it wasn't my browser's fault; it's just that this only happens when I'm logged in. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 05:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed this, and made some other changes summarized here, which I'm requesting be applied. The changes include:

Formatting changes, per above, as well as other non-visible changes for consistency and better use of HTML/CSS
Dropping support for the undocumented parameters "extra cover1" and "extra cover2", for which all uses have been converted to use {{Extra album cover 2}}, see here for proposal
Adding support for "Compiler" as an alias for "Compiled by" (which will be deprecated), see here for background

Don't forget to restore {{pp-template|small=yes}} if you copy from the later version. Thanks in advance. --PEJL 10:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Any reason for including scope? Haven't seen that used anywhere else here. --MZMcBride 15:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Accessibility. See for example the HTML spec. --PEJL 16:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 19:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} All headers in the <th> tags are left for me! Please place the "text-align: center" in the style field so that this is not browser dependent. ~RayLast ^«Talk!» 14:14, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. Check your browser though. Happy‑melon 10:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

"Current album" titles to be in italics and boldface

Has anyone yet explained why the "current albums" in the album chronology section of the infobox are supposed to be in boldface? I recently received a notice that the following is the correct format:

| Last album = ''[[Album 4]]''<br />(1994) | This album = '''''Album 5'''''<br />(1995) | Next album = ''[[Album 6]]''<br />(1996)

The only problem I have with this format is that it doesn't appear to do anything. The text in italics without boldface looks exactly the same to me as the text with boldface. I think it might have something to do with the size of the font? Is something wrong with my browser? I have trouble seeing the importance of formatting it this way if I can't see a difference. Pele Merengue 05:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi again. It is possible your font is corrupt or just very limited. Bold text should definitely look bold. Restarting your computer may clear up font corruption issues. --PEJL 05:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

This happens on my work computer, its just your browser. If its formatted for bold, its bold. Grk1011 (talk) 14:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Quick fix requested

{{editprotected}} There is an extraneous instance of "{{{Compiler}}}", causing that text to be displayed when the "Compiler" field is active. –Unint 19:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I see what's going on—both the new "compiler" and the old "compiled by" parameters are both getting displayed. If we wait until Cat:Album articles with infobox field compiled by is cleaned out, then all the stopgap code could get cleaned up at the same time. –Unint 19:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Now I notice this was just implemented yesterday. I suppose maybe the category hasn't been filled completely yet. Removing editprotected notice for the moment. –Unint 19:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I intentionally added support for "Compiler" in addition to "Compiled by", with the intent to remove support for the latter only when the category has been emptied, to allow those articles to be seamlessly upgraded. Hope that clears this up. --PEJL 01:54, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Ahh! Now that I was going to actually start emptying the category, I see what you mean: {{{Compiler}}} is actually visible on articles that use "Compiled by" (and vice versa). Please change {{{Compiled by}}} {{{Compiler}}} to {{#if:{{{Compiled by|}}}|{{{Compiled by}}}}} {{#if:{{{Compiler|}}}|{{{Compiler}}}}}. Sorry for the mistake. --PEJL 02:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Should work now. --- RockMFR 02:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Requested change: Remove support for "Compiled by"

OK, I've updated all uses of "Compiled by" to "Compiler". Please apply this version, which does the following:

Makes the protection conditional on being the live template, which makes it easier to apply changes from sandboxes in the future. See non-diff.
Removes deprecated support for "Compiled by". See diff.
Changes to output "Language" instead of "Language(s)", for consistency with other fields which may contain multiple info ("Genre", "Producer", "Compiler") and to the label column less wide. See diff.

Thanks in advance. --PEJL 17:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 00:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Update from sandbox

{{editprotected}}

Please update the template from the sandbox. For reference, the sandbox contains the following changes:

Outputting "Untitled" (unitalicized) for an empty Name parameter value (instead of a lone apostrophe) or a missing Name parameter value (instead of {{{Name}}}).
Reducing code duplication (by using {{#switch}} instead of {{#if}}
Special-casing the Cover parameter value ???, per a possible interpretation of the recently restructured Template:Infobox Album#Details
Adjusting the method used for specifying the widths of the columns (but keeping the widths roughly the same) to avoid rendering anomalies in Safari and Opera
Adding some conditional code to allow the template and sandbox to be identical

--PEJL 17:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 20:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Text alignment problems

I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but I recently noticed that the text portions (released, genre, label, etc.) of the info box are all crammed to the right, and single words get stacked upon each other, while leaving a big gap between the left-side bolded text. Maybe it's my browser, but the boxes never looked like this before. Ebonyskye 11:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I made some changes recently that were intended to fix some text alignment issues in certain browsers (Safari). Can you tell us what browser you are using and give an example of an article that shows this behavior? --PEJL 12:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I noticed it using IE 5. The text appears this way in all music album info boxes, but looks fine on the band info box. It also looks fine in NS7. Must be a browser issue. Didn't look like this in IE5 about a month or so ago. I can't really remember exactly when I noticed it. I took a snapshot of the screen (which I hope can be deleted later without issue).Ebonyskye 07:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I just tested stand-alone IE 4, 5 and 5.5 on a IE 7-native WinXP and IE 5 on Win2000, and the text alignment looked fine in all cases (although I did notice various other problems, such as boldface not working in the chronology, as can also be seen in your screenshot). What operating system are you using? Also try clearing your browser cache. --PEJL 08:27, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

What's the peach color?

The peach color at the bottom of the color key, what's it represent? Lara❤Love 00:09, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

For when you don't put in a type. -^Violask8₁₉₇₆ 00:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, okay. So could that be used for things not listed? Like B-sides? Lara❤Love 05:18, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Peachpuff is used to highlight mistakes. All of the different types of albums are covered in the template. When you enter one of them in the blank for type, it displays the correct color. If you fill in a type that results in peachpuff, you've either mispelled it, chosen the wrong type, or used the wrong template. For example, B-sides are songs, and would use the song template. (Singles use the single template. Non-single songs use the song template.) See Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs. -Freekee 05:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

And even if you can think of an album type that isn't listed, you shouldn't invent it. Unknown album types (resulting in peachpuff) get added to the maintenance category Category:Non-standard album infoboxes, where they are addressed. --PEJL 10:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, okay. Thanks. Lara❤Love 17:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks like that category got renamed Category:Album articles with non-standard infoboxes. --kingboyk (talk) 20:58, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Requested change: Apply sandbox

Please apply the current sandbox to this template. This will add support for video albums, as discussed at WT:ALBUM#Video infobox. (Specifically this involves tweaking the chronology heading for video albums and adding support for a "Director" field. See Template:Infobox Album/testcases#Video parameters for an example.) --PEJL 16:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. Fl owerparty^☀ 16:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Please apply the current sandbox to this template. This will make the font-size in the caption consistent with the font-size in the chronology, and more importantly decrease the line-height in the caption and chronology sections. See examples of the changes here and here. --PEJL 03:55, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

You removed a {{!}}, are you sure that is ok? If so, I will apply the changes. -- ReyBrujo 04:31, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes. (The new code puts the cover and the caption in the same table cell, to decrease the margin between the two.) --PEJL 08:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I've added a change to treat "single" as an inappropriate type value, per WT:ALBUM#Make Type=single generate peachpuff. Please apply the current sandbox to this template. --PEJL 17:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. I usually wait for confirmation to apply changes in this template because it generates a huge job queue and changing it often is not recommended. -- ReyBrujo 17:38, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Please apply the current sandbox to this template. This will make the template use HTML instead of wikicode, to fix the issue noted at WT:ALBUM#Possible Infobox Glitch, and will also avoid populating some categories on Template:Infobox Album/testcases. --PEJL 16:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

done. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Unfortunately I made a mistake and forgot to update the sandbox with the changes to the live template, so we'll need to restore those. Please apply the current sandbox. --PEJL 13:06, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Done. --ais523 13:37, 16 November 2007 (U T C)

Coding help - {{Infobox Artist Discography}}

Hey Guys! I'm trying to fix {{Infobox Artist Discography}} in the graphical sense, but can't seem to figure out how. What I'm trying to do is make sure the rows all appear as the same heigh, but every so often, the lines get blown out in size (see some of the articles that links there to see what I'm talking about). Anybody know how this can be fixed, retaining the knockout function (i.e. the way that it doesn't show unnecessary lines). I'm asking here because, well, this seems to get a little more trafffic than some other places. Help here would be great, especially considering the increasing number of discogs this is being used on (not to mention, the increasingly higher profile artists' discographies having it placed in them). --linca linca 13:46, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Split album

Is there a need for a new type, Split album? Some of the titles mentioned on that page have articles already. --Theodore Kloba (talk) 16:52, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

While creating a new type shouldn't be a problem, I don't quite see why one is needed. If it's a split single, label it single. If it's split studio album, label as studio. Etc, etc. The only occasion where I can see this new type having use is when each part is a different form of album (studio/live mix, studio/ep, etc)...in this case, could compilation substitute? -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 19:33, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Certainly compilation could substitute; A split album is really a special case of a compilation. I thought since Split album merited its own article, it might merit its own type designation here. --Theodore Kloba (talk) 17:07, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Edit request for image border

{{editprotected}} I would like to add an optional parameter to the infobox to enable borders to be placed around album cover images that may blend in with the back of the template. Adding border to the image link would add a light, 1px border around it, just to distinguish its edges. A good example would be the cover of U2's Boy, or The Beatles' White Album, which is seen below.

Without border (current)
[[Image:The White Album.svg|200px]] With border
[[Image:The White Album.svg|200px|border]]

–Dream out loud (talk) 07:32, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

UPDATE: I have written the code for the new parameter, and tested it successfully using {{X2}}. Below is a copy of the first several lines of the template, with my additions in large, bold text. The parameter "Cover border" must be added to the template code in the article, with any type of text, such as the word "yes" → | Border = yes .

<includeonly><table class="infobox vevent" style="width: 20em;">
  <tr>
    <th colspan="3" scope="col" class="summary" style="background: {{#ifeq:{{Template:Infobox Album/color|{{{Type|}}}}}|khaki|{{Template:Infobox Album/color}}|{{Template:Infobox Album/color|{{{Type|}}}}}}};">{{#if:{{{Name|}}}|''{{{Name}}}''|Untitled}}</th>
  </tr>
{{#ifeq:{{{Cover size|}}}|0||
  <tr>
    <td colspan="3" style="text-align: center;">{{#switch:{{ucfirst:{{{Cover|}}}}}|Nocover.png|???|=<imagemap>
Image:Nocover-upload.png|200px|No cover image exists
default [[Template:Infobox Album/No cover|Click here to upload the cover image]]
desc none
</imagemap>
|#default=[[Image:{{{Cover}}}|{{min|200|{{{Cover size|}}}}}px|{{#if:{{{Border|}}}|border{{!}}}}{{{Name}}} cover]]
}}

–Dream out loud (talk) 20:57, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm worried about users who try | Border = no or | Border = false. They'll get the wrong effect. Would you object to having the code be explicit to "yes"? --MZMcBride (talk) 05:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

That's a good point. I think it should be mandatory to set the parameter to "yes" for it to work. –Dream out loud (talk) 02:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Not done yet - so what would the code be? Neil ☎ 11:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Replace {{#if:{{{Border|}}}|border{{!}}}} in the previous code with {{#ifeq:{{{Border|}}}|yes|border{{!}}}}. Ms2ger (talk) 09:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, here's the new code, thanks to Ms2ger:

<includeonly><table class="infobox vevent" style="width: 20em;">
  <tr>
    <th colspan="3" scope="col" class="summary" style="background: {{#ifeq:{{Template:Infobox Album/color|{{{Type|}}}}}|khaki|{{Template:Infobox Album/color}}|{{Template:Infobox Album/color|{{{Type|}}}}}}};">{{#if:{{{Name|}}}|''{{{Name}}}''|Untitled}}</th>
  </tr>
{{#ifeq:{{{Cover size|}}}|0||
  <tr>
    <td colspan="3" style="text-align: center;">{{#switch:{{ucfirst:{{{Cover|}}}}}|Nocover.png|???|=<imagemap>
Image:Nocover-upload.png|200px|No cover image exists
default [[Template:Infobox Album/No cover|Click here to upload the cover image]]
desc none
</imagemap>
|#default=[[Image:{{{Cover}}}|{{min|200|{{{Cover size|}}}}}px|{{#ifeq:{{{Border|}}}|yes|border{{!}}}}{{{Name}}} cover]]
}}

–Dream out loud (talk) 01:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Done Gimmetrow 06:36, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Alternative Covers

I was wondering if it's possible to have more than one Alternative covers on one article as the extra album 2 template just replaces the old one and displays the latest album cover. I am trying to put two alternative covers on the article Iowa (album) but I'm not sure if it's possible with this template. Here it is in my sandbox: User:Rezter/Sandbox. So is it possible any other way? Rezter (talk) 11:05, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Try this:

| Misc = |misc=|misc=|misc=|misc=|misc=|misc={{Extra album cover 2 ... }} |misc=|misc=|misc=|misc=|misc=|misc={{Extra album cover 2 ... }}}}

-Freekee (talk) 16:37, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you that worked a charm! Rezter (talk) 16:42, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

chronology

Wouldn't it be more useful if the link in the "artist chronology" field could link to the artists discography? And to the artist if no link is given? Somethingvacant (talk) 04:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Requested edit

Since some bootleg albums have articles (such as In My Ghetto), that type of album should be added to the album types. The colour should be the same colour as the video album code colour is. This should be done or the articles about bootleg albums won't have a skin for their own. Rappingwonders (talk) 23:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I have made a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Films for further input on this. As it's a fairly intricate template, more input would need to be given. SkierRMH (talk) 01:41, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The infobox color for bootleg albums should be the same as the color for video albums? Why? — Mudwater 02:14, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Because that colour is the best of all in terms of how it looks. Rappingwonders (talk) 02:39, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest that no new type need be created. Even if a bootleg, it will still fall under one of the existing categories...the above mentioned album is placed into "studio". Also, colours are used just because they are pleasing to the eye (though pleasing colours schemes were a factor in their use), but because they can link similar types together visually. If such a type is created, I would suggest that the colour be green, since that is sort of a catch-all for the more disparate types. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 03:40, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Certification

Is there a place for certification in the infobox, ie. platinum? I know that the singles infobox has a spot for it.Grk1011 (talk) 22:14, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Is this not doable? Tenacious D Fan (talk) 16:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Professional reviews link

The template says a piped link to the year is preferred for reviews. But what's wrong with inline citations? Surely either format is acceptable as long as the article is consistent. Dedication 2 uses inline refs and it looks just fine. Especially when the infobox reviews are later used as references anyway (likely in a "Critical reception" section), inline refs seem more flexible. Spellcast (talk) 05:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Either are fine, in my experience; inline citations are generally for backing up specific statements made while the infobox section is for a quick look at general opinion and links. I think it would be acceptable for the same links to be in both. Just my opinion/experience, though. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 05:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I was just wondering what other editors thought of inline refs. Albums with critical reception info use the same reviews in the infobox. So I thought it was unnecessary to have 2 separate links to the same review. As long as no-one is an instruction creep and cites this template saying reviews must be piped, it should be ok. Also, I don't ever recall seeing inline refs for infobox reviews (except for the one above). Spellcast (talk) 06:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, okay, I see what you're saying. Yeah, it would definitely make sense to cite reviews in the infobox rather than link them. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 06:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Release date

Ongoing discussion here touches on an issue covered by this infobox. The release date section is currently in fairly wide use for future albums. So, an article might read "Released: March 25, 2008" today (February 28, 2007). I started to remove some of these, enduring that the date, if sourced, was in the body of the article, for reasons detailed in the admin note referenced above. I also indicated some other possible solutions to this that I feel are warrented. I am inviting the editor from the admin notice and one other to join this discussion. Mdsummermsw (talk) 13:52, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I like your suggestion of changing it to "Release date." Alternatively, you mentioned adding "(scheduled)" along with the date. Of course, we could just say in the documentation to leave the field blank for unreleased albums. But we might also ask if it is a problem to have a date there. You suggested that the info might not be kept up to date, if it changes, or even when the record is released. I'm not sure that's a big deal. And I think it's obvious to any reader that even though the field is past tense, if the date is in the future, the album hasn't been released yet. In any case, I would support a change to "Release date". -Freekee (talk) 04:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a minor issue of grammar and affects a tiny fraction of articles for only a couple weeks at a time. It doesn't cause any factual information to be incorrect. I don't see it as an issue, but if it was going to be changed, "Date of release" is my choice. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 20:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

While it may impact few articles, the results are pretty obvious when it goes awry. Take And I Love H.E.R.: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.

17 December 2007 "It is expected to be released on January 22, 2008." Infobox provides the same (actually, it gives three dates, but that's a different problem).

18 January 2007 "It was originally expected to be released on January 22, 2008 (see 2008 in music), but has been postponed for various reasons." Infobox still says Released: 21 January 2008.

Until just now, the article said it was scheduled for release on 22 January 2008, but wasn't released... except that it was released 21 January 2008, 22 January 2008 and 29 January 2008.

At this point, I'm heavily leaning toward adding "(scheduled)" or somesuch to avoid that kind of thing.

Mdsummermsw (talk) 18:16, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

That's an excellent point. It shouldn't be difficult to add a field called "scheduled_release" or just "scheduled" for these circumstances. As for the above issue, I would favour "Release date" over "Date of release" simply for brevity's sake, but in any case agree that the change may be a good thing. Is there any reason why the longer format with 'of' makes it any more correct or proper? — Huntster (t • @ • c) 06:33, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

IMO, "Date of Release" seems to imply a past event, "Release Date" is at least weakly more accurate. If I see either one listing April 1, 2008 after that date, I'd tend to assume the album was released, though the date might have been put there far earlier and the release may have been delayed or cancelled. - Mdsummermsw (talk) 15:34, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Please direct any further comments on this issue to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums#Release_dates_listed_pre-release. I am individually inviting the editors in this discussion to join the discussion there. - Mdsummermsw (talk) 14:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

speaking of release dates

The documentation requires that the start date template should be used for the release date section; however, it is rarely used, even though it should be. I suggest placing an empty start date template in the code for people to copy and paste. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 06:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

It does? I never noticed that. How long has it said that? How important is it? I think you have a good idea, but I wonder if people are going to understand the template without having to look it up, which is annoying. -Freekee (talk) 05:24, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, and I have no idea how long it's been that way. You're right, though; it's not incredibly important, and some people would be confused by it, but I was just throwing that out there. Though it's not a complex template by any means. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 05:54, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

'Singles' sub template and other skins

The Singles sub-template appears to be specifically crafted for the Monobook skin. It is way too full of "line height = 11px" and related stuff and breaks horribly under other skins. View A Rush of Blood to the Head in Classic skin to see what I mean. Needs fixing. -- SGBailey (talk) 22:03, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Infobox album location

Any reason why album article's infobox are turning on the left hand side of the page now rather than the right hand side as is the norm. --Wolfer68 (talk) 23:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Is it still doing it for you? Everything looks fine on my side, so it may have been a temporary parser error or other minor screwup. Nothing has changed on the template itself. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 20:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Video albums

Could someone add the ability to IMDb and AMG references to video albums. I mean, television shows have IMDb references in their infoboxes, so why not video albums (ie music DVDs etc). Tenacious D Fan (talk) 21:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was under the impression that with IMDb anyone could make an account and edit those pages as if it were a wiki, so shouldn't that not be used as a source? Grk1011 (talk) 21:42, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The last time I checked, IMDb does not work like a wiki. Rather, users can submit edits and other changes, which the editors either accept or reject. However, it appears that there is very little fact-checking going on, and thus IMDb should *not* be used as a reference. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 23:53, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, shouldn't IMDb be pulled out of all wiki templates? Tenacious D Fan (talk) 16:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Certainly not. They are perfectly valid external links which do provide additional or more detailed information than what we provide. They simply are not valid for use as references. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 18:40, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand me. I mean the imdb_id parameter that can be found in film infoboxes, would be useful for video albums. I can't put in an edit as this is locked. Is this not a good idea?? Tenacious D Fan (talk) 15:52, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Like this Template:Infobox Film. Tenacious D Fan (talk) 15:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

So you just mean you would like to see an IMDB link in the infobox, not that you want to use IMDB as a reference? Even then, I don't see why such a link is justified in the infobox, when it can just as easily be placed in the External links section. It makes sense for a film infobox, but the primary focus for this box, in my mind, is music, not video.

I'd be really swell if we could get additional comments from others... — Huntster (t • @ • c) 17:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I think his point is that if this box is to be used for video albums, it should have capabilities appropriate to videos. But personally, I don't see a place for it here, even for videos. I don't see the point of having it in the film infoboxes, either. -Freekee (talk) 01:52, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with Freekee. I am not being petty, but IMDb can give just as much misleading information for films as music videos. However, take Tenacious D - The Complete Masterworks, this could be enhanced by having a IMDb link in it. Tenacious D Fan (talk) 02:08, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Given that we're an encyclopedia, I think it would be strange to post a link to another source of information in a place so conspicuous as the infobox. Everyone knows what IMDb is, and they would have gone there first, if that's what they were looking for. -Freekee (talk) 02:28, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Providing links is fine, I just don't believe the infobox is the right place to do it. If you want a link to IMDb, just use the External links section, as you are doing now. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 15:59, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Please, restore genres section!

Genres are very important in pages about albums, I think it's necessary to restore this section soever. Vziel (talk) 18:55, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

No The Real Libs-speak politely 15:58, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Vziel, there is an ongoing conversation about this at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Music#Time_to_remove_genre_section_on_info_box.3F. Please feel free to join it. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:20, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Hiding the reviews

Could we maybe add a show/hide button to the reviews section, like with the "influences" section in Template:Infobox Writer. What do we think? Fl owerparty^☀ 00:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

That could be nice. I hate when the infoboxes are longer than the actual articles, so it would work great in that situation, and also help make the infobox look neater. Grk1011 (talk) 01:06, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd be all for it. I never liked reviews in the infobox. -Freekee (talk) 01:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Me neither. They look sloppy and its not really encyclopedic since it depends on what type of music you like. Grk1011 (talk) 02:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Reviews are encyclopedic enough to be included in articles - critical reception is an important part of an album's history. I just don't think they qualify as the basic enough information, to be included up top. Also, I prefer having a little context with reviews. They're too abbreviated in the box. -Freekee (talk) 02:51, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Yea, maybe its just that im jealous that I can't find reviews for the album pages I maintain, lol. Grk1011 (talk) 02:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This sounds like an excellent idea. Hidden by default, preferably. Perhaps set up similar to how {{Infobox Dotcom company}} does their screenshot (see YouTube). — Huntster (t • @ • c) 02:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, as long at it is formatted correctly and looks like it fits. But, is it really needed at all in the infobox? Grk1011 (talk) 02:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I think its fine for the infobox, since it fulfills the box's purpose of providing an overview of information...in this case, what established systems rate the album. No, it isn't really necessary, but then again, quite a bit of anything you find in infoboxes isn't really necessary. It is, however, occasionally convenient to the reader. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 03:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I've been fiddling with this here. I'm trying to use Template:Collapsible list, but this makes the coloured bit around "Professional reviews" look too narrow. Anyone got any bright ideas? Fl owerparty^☀ 12:07, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I've tried myself, and the best I can come up with is this. While the problem is partially solved by not setting "border" to 0 (rather, setting it to the same variable as "background"), this causes additional display problems, and I daresay yours looks better. I'm fairly convinced the problem actually lies either in the {{Collapsible list}} use of <div> tags, or deeper, in the class="NavFrame" set itself. I've tested enough to be reasonably sure that the problem is not on our side of the code (when using just the style tags and without <div> or class tags, it displays exactly as it should). It may be a problem that cannot be overcome by conventional means. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 19:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, yeah. Good try. It looks like the problem is in having a table within a table. Apparently the borders of the inside table aren't the same as the borders of the outside table. I don't know if there's a way round this. Can we do it without using an internal table? Template:Infobox Actor has the same issues, but it's less noticeable since the coloured bits are further apart. Fl owerparty^☀ 20:39, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I tried not using the Collapsible list template, and coded the classes directly into the table, which did not work. It appears classes are reliant on using the div tag, and I don't know any other way to replicate the collapsible format. The only other way I can think of would be to not use coloured bits at all, but to simply have a transparent left-aligned "Professional reviews" header. It wouldn't look quite right, but any spacing issues would not be apparent due to no colour being used. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 01:24, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I've put a word in at WP:VPT. Fl owerparty^☀ 16:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

We're live! Looks good to me. I should credit CharlotteWebb for fixing the code. Let us know if there's any problems. Fl owerparty^☀ 23:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I find this "click to show" feature highly annoying and unnecessary. Why do reviews need to be hidden? Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme (talk) 00:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Well i think seeing them is annoying. I'll be the judge of if i like an album or not, lol. Grk1011 (talk) 01:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering where all the reviews went--it took me a day to realise there was a '[show]' link. I came here to ask what was going on, because I don't see the point of it. It's just an obstacle between the reader and the information. 'I can't see this helping situations where the infobox is longer than the article--well-known albums with many reviews will (or should) always have articles longer than the infobox. I'd at least like to see them shown by default. — maestrosync ^talk — 06:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. This is really annoying, I gotta say. Since there's a 10 review limit, I don't really think this is necessary.–FunkyVoltron ^talk 10:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm pleased with the [show] button; it's a good addition. Thom (talk) 10:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I also agree. I don't see a good reason for this barrier. —Zeagler (talk) 11:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Please change it back; without the show/hide button. Such a decision affects thousands of articles across many Wikiprojects and cannot be made by consensus among a couple of editors. Besides, the change is rather contrary to the purpose of having an infobox; the whole point of including reviews--anything for that matter--in the infobox is that a reader can quickly gain important, objective (dates, ratings, names) information at a glance. Now how does hiding information make sense in any way?? Thank you indopug (talk) 17:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I liked having that sort of information easily visible. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 17:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I third the sentiment. I'm not a regular contributor but I am a regular reviewer. There doesn't seem a good reason to hide this info. If anything, when people get worked up about infoboxes being bigger than articles, it should encourage them to expand the articles... The Rambling Man (talk) 17:44, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

"Often the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it," Mark Twain said. The thing is, these reviews really have no business being in the infobox in the first place. If they weren't included already, there's no way we'd agree to put them in. Try suggesting that film reviews should be listed in the film box, or book reviews in the novel infobox - it won't happen. (I've seen people arguing that film reviews are fundamentally different, but they're not.) Having the section there really just encourages a lot of links to allmusic and a few other sites without adding any meaningful information - "someone you've never heard of thinks this record is worth 3 stars out of five".. so? Anyway, we're not losing any information, this 'show' button is just a compromise to make things a little tidier, and to make the more relevant information easier to see. Of course we can revert if there's really a feeling that this is a bad change, but are the people complaining just against change all together? Fl owerparty^☀ 18:44, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

What you're saying has a lot of validity (and heck, i might even agree), but the fact is Template talk:Infobox Album is hardly a hot-spot for consensus-building and discussion. This is a major change and requires discussion first before implementation; so revert it asap, then inform as many music-related Wikiprojects etc of this proposal you have. Then we'll have formal discussion, and then implement the changes (if any) to the infobox. For now though, revert the nearly unilateral edit that has been made. indopug (talk) 20:17, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, at the time it was implemented, there were four people supporting it (including nom) and none opposing, so calling it unilateral is misleading. I do think its implementation was rushed, and perhaps should be reviewed, but I still don't think its a bad idea. I also don't think the information is technically being hidden...remember, everything in the infobox should, theoretically, be discussed elsewhere in the article. Doesn't always happen, especially for mundane things like running time, but still.... — Huntster (t • @ • c) 23:51, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Look, I'm not arguing whether or not its a good idea or not, what I'm saying is the proposal took place in an obscure corner of the Wiki-universe and hasn't been advertised AT ALL. So change it for now, initiate a discussion, and then, we'll see. indopug (talk) 08:19, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Changing the show/hide default for reviews?

I suppose I can understand that some folks don't like to look at the review listings, or possibly other parts of articles that they read. Would it be a reasonable compromise to make the default to "show" the reviews and to then allow the end user to "hide" them? I would suppport this for a couple of reasons. First, many readers might not realize that the reviews are present. It seems to me that the show/hide feature is typically used in footers to hide the entire content of templates. It is not typically used to hide parts of an infobox. As another has noted above, it adds a barrier between the reader and information that others have taken care to add to the article. Second, the reviews section is not solely for external links. I often reference reviews with citations to footnotes in the article's "References" section (in fact this is the only good way to do it if the review appeared in print media). Now that the content is hidden it is not possible to backtrack from the reference to the citation hidden in the infobox. Thus we are losing one of the features that allow readers to navigate the article. -MrFizyx (talk) 00:32, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that the infobox is a brief overview of the album. It lists important facts such as release dates, the cover, the artist's chronology, etc. The reviews are basically someones point of view which is not really a fact. How does it help to know that some random person liked or disliked the album? I don't understand how it even got into the infobox in the first place considering that certifications are not there which actually show if people liked and bought the album. I say keep it hidden. Grk1011 (talk) 00:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I get that you don't like having the information there. The information is there. It probably will remain there. Hiding it creates problems. -MrFizyx (talk) 00:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, you make a good point about the backlinks. Alright, I've reverted for now. I don't see the point in having it default to 'show' - might as well just not have it in that case. Fl owerparty^☀ 08:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a good compromise. That said, I have no (personal) issue with the change (I was alerted to this discussion by indopug, who is against it), but I don't think that going flat out against the wishes of some highly constructive editors is a good idea. So yes, support this. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 08:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Even though I had something to do with creating the new template code I'm not sure this change is necessary (except maybe as an option when there are a dozen-odd reviews), but I could really care less either way. Still an appropriate application of bold editing in any case, hardly worth panicking about. — CharlotteWebb 17:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Mix

Might I suggest two additional fields? Specifically for where an album was mixed and by whom, as there are already fields dealing with noting the recording studio ("Recorded") and the producer ("Producer"). Why not have a field below "Recorded" called "Mixed" and a field below "Producer" called "Mixer"? Thom (talk) 00:59, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Are these really necessary for an infobox? I think this would be more appropriately handled in prose. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 01:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

If necessity is the issue, then perhaps all recording information (Recorded, Producer, Mixed, Mixer) could be documented within the article? Thom (talk) 13:12, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I think covering all these things in the article or listing them in the "credits" section of the article is a good idea. The infobox should summarize the most important points. The producer of an album is a much higher profile person than whoever, engineered, mixed, or mastered the album and is thus more worthy of inclusion in the summary. -MrFizyx (talk) 00:40, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

As an example of the preceding point, I would tend to list the executive producer of an entire album project in this Template, as the individual Songs in the applicable Album may have diverse producers, engineers, &c. When available, I'd list the Engineer(s) in either the Track Listing section or (as a fallback) the Personnel section of the Article. B. C. Schmerker (talk) 00:33, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Release Format: shouldn't this be in the infobox?

How come that one very basic information, the media format of the album (CD, LP, shellac, CD-R, Cassette...) isn't appearing in the infobox template? Irina666 (talk) 14:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Many reasons. For one thing, most albums are released in multiple formats. Any widely known album from the seventies, for example, has been released in every format possible. For another, does it really matter? If it's important, it should be mentioned in the article body anyway. -Freekee (talk) 05:06, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, occasionally an album goes through major revisions in production, as in the case of Deborah (Deborah Gibson album); there, two Compact Disc pressings occurred in the United States, with the second having two entire tracks changed out. All albums were produced in some combination of 12" 33-1/3 rpm vinyl, open-reel tape, Compact Cassette, eight-track cartridge, and Compact Disc Digital Audio from the 1940's (when 78 rpm box sets were phased out) to the late 1990's. As of 17 June 2008, almost all new albums are on Compact Disc; some (e.g. the Rhino Hi-Five series of EPs) are available as over-the-Internet digital downloads; and a rare few are available on 12" vinyl, in certain cases as 180-gram pressings. B. C. Schmerker (talk) 07:09, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, 12" vinyl is not that rare, especially in overseas markets. They're not hard to get hold of here in the US, if you know where to look. -Freekee (talk) 03:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Modification for Discussion: Types

I found that, much as LPs are differentiable into studio, demo, compilation, cover, and tribute, the same is true of the EP; as examples, Rush recorded a cover EP, Feedback, while Rhino Entertainment has compilation EPs available over the Internet as the Rhino Hi-Five series (Rhino Hi-Five: Brandy, one such compilation EP, has an Article already, and, as of 00:55, 15 June 2008 (UTC), I'm working on the eventual Article Rhino Hi-Five: Debbie Gibson (see User:B.C.Schmerker/Article PrototypeB) ). I therefore propose an expansion of the Type parameter to accomodate the following types of Album:

Studio LP
Studio EP
Demo LP
Demo EP
Live LP
Live EP
Remix LP
Remix EP
Greatest-hits LP
Greatest-hits EP
Compilation LP
Compilation EP
Box set
Split album
Cover LP
Cover EP
Tribute LP
Tribute EP
Television soundtrack
Film soundtrack
Film score
Music video album

The Split Album is a new type currently under discussion at WPAlbums (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums#Proposal for new album type). Music video albums, currently provided for under "Video," actually consist of multiple music videos per each.

What pros and cons for the expanded-types vs. the existing (Studio album, Demo album, Live album, EP, Greatest-hits album, Remix album, &c.)? B. C. Schmerker (talk) 00:55, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

This list indicates the sheer ridiculousness of this 'album type'-by-colour business. In what way would such a change be of any help to anyone? If we have 20-plus distinct colour categories there's no way anyone will become familiar with them all, bar maybe a select handful of rabid editors. The question you have to ask is how does this help the reader? Far more sensible to trim down the existing colours to a maximum of 2 - one for LPs and one for EPs. Or better yet, have none at all. The whole colour code is entirely an invention of wikipedia and as is too often the case we've managed to come up with something completely unnecessary. Flowerparty^☀ 02:21, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I've long been unhappy with the single "EP" grouping. The way I'd like to see it is a separate line in the infobox for album versus EP. Give studio EPs the same color as studio albums, and so on. The only difference would be the line just below the cover art. So there would be no new colors. As fro Flowerparty's concerns, I wouldn't object to the elimination of most or all colors, but it's not really the colors that are the issue. It's the category names that we have to maintain. We're still going to have to keep a list of different allowable types. -Freekee (talk) 05:14, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I won't object to the type expansion, I just want to point out that the proposed usage of LP is inappropriate as it refers to the vinyl media (so does not include CD). The appropriate term is still album. – IbLeo (talk) 07:46, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Point noted. I used LP and EP to differentiate length, as had been done in the late 1940's when Columbia Records introduced the LP in the form of 12" vinyl at 33-1/3 rpm; the EP, as I understand the industry, runs about 30max minutes, vs. the LP, which may approach a full hour (make that 76 minutes for the Compact Disc Digital Audio). B. C. Schmerker (talk) 04:17, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. Your last comment makes me think that it would be nice to add definitions for album and EP, as the distinction is not very clear to me. The 30 minutes barrier sounds like a good starting point. But of course this is an issue that should be treated independently of your proposal for expansion of the types. – IbLeo (talk) 08:43, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Apparently the Extended play as a subset of the album is an issue to Wikipedians other than myself (e.g. User:Freekee), as well, as it complicates proper ID in the Type parameter of this Template, and Longtype apparently has no effect on the relevant portion hereof. I pictured the EP entries using the same Type color code as their full-album equivalents; how this can be done better is the basic issue, as I understand the situation. B. C. Schmerker (talk) 06:57, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but maybe I wasn't clear: I don't believe that EP is a subset of album. They are distinct animals. On the other hand, LP is a subset of album; an album is also an LP if it is issued on vinyl. So the point I wanted to make is that in my opinion "LP" should be replaced by "album" in your otherwise fine list above. Secondly, the discussion about the definition of these concepts goes on over here. – IbLeo (talk) 22:23, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

The discussion of EPs versus albums is ongoing... sort of. Maybe more intermittent. It's often hard to tell the difference between EPs and full-length albums. The record company has the final word, but they don't always give it. I've been outvoted several times (or at least not gained enough consensus) concerning changes to the infobox regarding EPs. We really need a perennial proposals page. -Freekee (talk) 03:10, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Further point noted, but I cannot see justifying a split to provision for a Template:Infobox EP, which would otherwise be redundant to this Template; I was the center of a Single vs. Maxi Single debate at WPSongs a year ago, and there was no consensus concerning provision for maxi single as a type in Template:Infobox Single after ~~Template:Infobox Maxi single~~ was deleted as redundant. B. C. Schmerker (talk) 06:25, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Extra album cover 2

The Extra album cover 2 template is currently a bit broken; the cover size and border parameters do not work. I'm not very familiar with how to edit templates, so I didn't manage to figure out how to fix it. Gaaarg (talk) 20:08, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

All Music Guide → Allmusic?

Resolved

– "All Music Guide" has been replaced by "Allmusic" in 35000+ articles by User:J Milburn Bot – IbLeo (talk) 20:58, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

As the All Music Guide has been rebranded to Allmusic (and its article moved accordingly, see discussion here), shouldn't we change all references in the Infobox accordingly? – IbLeo (talk) 11:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes indeed. I've been doing so myself. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 12:07, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean in articles? Do you have some examples where you did it? – IbLeo (talk) 13:19, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, in article infoboxes. I can't think of one I did myself, but obZen is one example. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 21:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. So the new format in infoboxes would be as in obZen. That is also what I would expect. – IbLeo (talk) 22:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Unless somebody opposes, as a first step I will change the Infobox documentation page. – IbLeo (talk) 14:22, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Done the change on the Infobox documentation ~~place~~ page, as well as a few other central ~~places~~ pages: WP:ROCK, WP:ALBUM, WP:SONG and WP:NM. That should at least assure that new editors use the new name. – IbLeo (talk) 13:43, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 15:17, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Second (and less trivial than the first) step would be to perform the renaming in the existing articles. I get 35327 hits on the string "All Music Guide" in the article namespace so I hastily conclude that correcting them manually is not an option :-) Any ideas about how this task could be automated - or where to bring it up? – IbLeo (talk) 11:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

This would be a good job for a 'Bot; I amended some Wikilinks for All Music Guide to point to the Article Allmusic on some of the Articles I have in prototype, as some readers are not yet used to AllMusic.com's new policy. Doing so en masse to the Articles I contributed to in the past is one thing; to all applicable Articles is something else. B. C. Schmerker (talk) 16:17, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

You are right. As I am clueless regarding bots myself, I propose to do it via a bot request. However, we need to be careful, there has to be some exceptions. E.g. in the Allmusic article itself, we shouldn't blindly replace all occurrences of "All Music Guide" with "Allmusic". So before launching the request I will bring up the issue over in WP:ALBUM to get it out to a wider audience. Somebody else might spot some issues of concern. – IbLeo (talk) 11:10, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

As nobody has expressed any concern I have made a bot request over here. – IbLeo (talk) 21:23, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Doing... - well, I'm not, User:J Milburn Bot is :-) – IbLeo (talk) 20:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Length and bonus tracks

Include? I have seen a number of albums that include an extra note in the length field about the length of the album including bonus tracks, but I do not see a preference in the template's documentation nor the talk archives. Thoughts? I'm partial to including it as an album is only made up of its songs and if the same album has two different sets of songs it has two different lengths. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:48, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I would not support this. The Infobox should only contain details about the original album release. Certain albums are often reissued several times with different bonus tracks, so it would become quite tedious to indicate which reissue the album lenght refers to. I would say that the same rule applies as for the release date or the label. – IbLeo (talk) 21:33, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I concur with User:IbLeo concerning bonus tracks by release medium--those can be done in the Article itself, as I did in the Sections Track Listings in the Articles Electric Youth (in re Atlantic Records SD 81932-1/2/4) and Anything Is Possible (in re Atlantic Records SD 82167-1/2/4). Overall length of the album is something worth discussion concerning this Template, but lengths for tracks released as singles, should I have such data available, would be in an auxiliary Template such as Template:Singles (Example: User:B.C.Schmerker/Article PrototypeB, concerning the Rhino Records EP Rhino Hi-Five: Debbie Gibson, not ready for release to Wikipedia^® Article space as of 17:26, 7 July 2008 (UTC) ). B. C. Schmerker (talk) 17:26, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Text centering

I noticed that the album title and other headings are not in the center of the box but rather on the left when using Firefox 3. Maybe text-align="center" should be replaced with style="text-align: center"? It would be correct usage of CSS as well rather than HTML attributes. So#Why 08:18, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm also using FF3, and everything looks fine. Looking at your userspace subpages, I cannot immediately see anything that would have an impact on display, and given that there have been no reports of this before, I'm thinking it is something to do with your browser (though I'm at a loss as to why). Nevertheless, I've put your suggestion into play, since it is a good idea. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 06:25, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Box sets

Would it be possible to have a drop-down box within album infoboxes which deal with box sets. For example, Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath (1970–1978) could have a drop-down box which mentions each album that it is contained it it. Tenacious D Fan (talk) 18:51, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

That sort of box set is rare. Most box sets are compilations of hits and rare/unreleased tracks. If the box set is a re-release of an artists catalog then that sort of detail will already be specified in the main body of the article. Anger22 (Talk 2 22) 23:21, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Certification

Surely we should be able to add the album's certification in the infobox Queer As Folk (talk) 17:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm still a little upset with you for voting to delete the greek artists templates :/ , but I asked this question before and the answer was because there could be several different certifications. I know what you're thinking. Like Platinum in Greece or something, but some albums are certified in several countries and we don't want like ten certifications in the infobox. Grk1011 (talk) 17:27, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Aah point taken. Like you said, I just thought it would be convenient to have it there, but I can see how that could easily turn into a problem with mega successful albums. Yes, the greek artists template will be sorely missed, but in my opinion it had to go based on the logic that it could never be 'complete', but it will always have a place in our hearts ;) Queer As Folk (talk) 13:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Automatic categorization

Why not? I think it might be helpful for the infobox to automatically add albums to several categories. As best as I can tell, filling out the infobox in full could add the article to:

ARTIST albums
LIVE/REMIX (possibly other) albums
YEAR albums
GENRE albums
LANGUAGE albums
RECORD LABEL albums
Albums produced by PRODUCER

The only problems I can see with this are that you have to be careful if you have (e.g.) [[Cream (band)|Cream]] as the artist, to add only what occurs between [[ and |. The same would apply for many of the fields. Can this be done? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Multiple Misc categories

Does having multiple misc categories normally screw up an infox? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_Quartets_1-3

This is an album with two primary artists and three different covers, but I can't get the infobox to display all of them. --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 18:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Categories? I'm not entirely sure what your question means with the phrase "multiple misc categories," but getting several chronologies, album covers, etc., in the Misc field can be tricky. I did it on Everything That Happens Will Happen Today after much work and failure. If you need help, post on my talk. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:19, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

This is the problem. The alternate cover and the Balanescu Quartet chronology are not displaying. The alternate cover has been marked orphaned and will be speedy deleted if the issue is not resolved soon.

{{Infobox Album <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums -->
| Name        = String Quartets 1-3
| Type        = studio
| Longtype    = 
| Artist      = [[Michael Nyman]]
| Cover       = NonFreeImageRemoved.svg
| Cover size  = 200
| Caption     = art by Paul Richards<br>clockwise from top left: Balanescu, Musker, Hinnigan, Carney
| Released    = [[June 14]], 1991
| Recorded    = November 1990, [[Church Studios]], [[Crouch End]] using [[B & W Loudspeakers]]
| Genre       = [[Contemporary classical music]], [[Chamber music]], [[string quartet]], [[minimalist music]]
| Length      = 63:17
| Language    = 
| Label       = [[Argo Records|Argo]]
| Director    = 
| Producer    = [[Andrew Cornall]]
| Reviews     = 
| Compiler    = 
| Chronology  = Michael Nyman
| Last album  = ''[[Out of the Ruins]]''<br />(1990)
| This album  = [[String Quartets 1-3]]<br />(1991)
| Next album  = ''[[Prospero's Books]]''<br />(1991)
| Misc        = {{Extra chronology
  | Artist      = Balanescu Quartet
  | Type        = Studio
  | Last album  = 
  | This album  = [[String Quartets 1-3]]<br />(1991)
  | Next album  = Byrne/Lurie/Moran/Torke<br />(1992)}}
{{Extra album cover
  | Upper caption  = 1991 Alternate Cover
  | Type           = 
  <!-- Commented out: | Cover          = Altsq1-3.jpg -->
  | Lower caption  = 
  }}
{{Extra album cover
  | Upper caption  = 2002 Decca Reissue
  | Type           = Reissue
  | Cover          = NonFreeImageRemoved.svg
  | Lower caption  = 
  }}
}}

Xmas and remix albums

I suggest we add infobox support for Christmas and remix albums. LetsGo67 (talk) 20:06, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Christmas is sort of too specific i think, but id support remix albums. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 20:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

um, there already is remix album support... = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 02:22, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought it sounded familiar lol. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 02:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Engineer?

What about adding an optional field for the recording engineer/engineers. The code could be added after the producer, and would be something like this:

{{#if:{{{Engineer|}}}|
  <tr>
    <th scope="row" style="width: 5.2em; text-align: left;">Engineer</th>
    <td colspan="2" style="width: 14em;">{{{Engineer}}}</td>
  </tr>
}}

☺ Spiby ☻ 12:38, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} My above suggestion seems to be uncontroversial, and has met with no opposition. ☺ Spiby ☻ 10:46, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Not done. I don't see why this is necessary. The engineer's name isn't vital information. Flowerparty^☀ 11:06, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree w/ Flowerparty. I don't think we need to list personnel in the infobox. I'm not even sure why we list the producer, except that, other than the artist(s), they tend to be the most notable names associated with the album. If we add engineer, then it would stand to reason we should also list mixer, drum tech, masterer, etc. etc., none of which seem necessary to the infobox. Keep it simple & uncluttered. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:49, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Genres

Suddenly none of the genre fields are showing up in a lot of infoboxes. Some do show them, but I can't figure out why. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 20:24, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The genre field has been removed, by overwhelming consensus, by the music project. And good riddance. Its a change that should've been done a year and a half ago. The field is gone from both the musician and album boxes but is going to be re-assessed for the song/single boxes in the next few weeks. The consensus at that time will, hopefully, be the same and the stupid "edy war fodder" field will be gone forever. The Real Libs-speak politely 21:05, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Uh, no it hasn't. It's clearly still listed in the template page and some article pages ((example).

I've just done this in this template, per above consensus. It will take some time for cached pages to refresh using the updated template. Otherwise, we are looking for a bot operator to traverse existing articles and make the necessary changes. --Rodhull andemu 22:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh wow, I had no idea that'd happened. Okay thanks. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 23:09, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

It's unnecessary to remove it, but I understand why. Many people will be upset if all are removed. It should be kept. Charmed36 (talk) 00:24, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

We're finally getting the truck unstuck from the mud. Lets not get it stuck again by even remotely considering putting that stupid "opinion" field back into the template. Wikipedia is breathing a huge sigh of relief today as one of the biggest pov edit war battlefields is finally being removed. Its a change that should have been made eons ago. The Real Libs-speak politely 00:55, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a mess. We need wider discussion for this. It's also not being implemented consistently. Genres are showing up in some infoboxes and not others. And no genres aren't "opinion"; they can be sourced via reliable sources. Removing the genre field in infoboxes doesn't remove genre debates from the articles, because genres still need to be discussed in the prose. WesleyDodds (talk) 01:03, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

That is just the cached versions of the page. Once any edit is done to a page the field goes bye-bye (hurray!) It'll all work itself out and we will finally be rid of the battlefields. There is discussion about send a bot out to clean up all the useless fields. And now we can set sights on the song boxes. The overall consensus was to rm it from them to but the admins said that the songs would get a separate discussion. The result will still be the same. The overall response from todays changes has been incredibly positive. It should have been done 2 years ago. The Real Libs-speak politely 01:11, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Please direct me to the discussion about the genre field in song articles. WesleyDodds (talk) 01:14, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

It hasn't occured yet. The original "rm the genre field" discussion had a huge push from all involved to rm the field from all music related boxes. Then a second, "less stringent" proposal was made to leave out the songs for now and re-visit them later. The second proposal was gladly accepted but many editors said they still supported the first proposal to remove them all. Which, hopefully, we will. The Real Libs-speak politely 01:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

This discussion has been moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music#Time to remove genre section on info box? If you wish to comment, please do so there. --IllaZilla (talk) 01:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Broken parameter in Extra album cover 2

Could a sysops powered editor have a look at Template talk:Extra album cover 2 and (if it works) implement the proposed fix for the broken size parameter? – Cyrus XIII ^(talk) 08:59, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Format of release date

Current documentation says to use {{Start date}} for the release date. Firstly, I have never understood the merits of using this template, and rarely seen it respected – I even remember being reverted once I used it myself. Secondly, and more important, it seems to be against MOS:SYL, even though some never-ending debate seems to be going on over this. In fact, why don't we simply refer to MOS:DATE for the format and respect whatever it says? – IbLeo (talk) 20:52, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Seems to be making mountains out of molehills, IMHO. I prefer simple, straightforward text like "December 1, 1980". It's just so much easier for us as editors and also for readers not to make simple thinks like text so darn complicated by debating about links, templates, etc. I haven't seen any proposal yet that has any substantial, contextual advantages over plain, unlinked text. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:16, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

"December 1, 1980" (or "1 December 1980" depending on the article style) is exactly what the current MOS:DATE recommends, so I take it that we are on the same wavelength. It also corresponds to current best practice AFAIK. So unless nobody express their disagreement in this space in the next couple of days I will go ahead and change our guidelines to say something like "respect MOS:DATE". – IbLeo (talk) 17:47, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Done. As nobody have expressed any opposition against this, I have just updated the template documentation. Hope it is clear, otherwise don't hesitate to clarify. – IbLeo (talk) 08:06, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

EP in Chronology

An EP isn't an album, strictly speaking. Should then, an EP be listed in the Chronology variable as the previous/next album? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 07:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion about this subject taking place at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums#Chronology wording. Please join in the discussion there. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Holiday album sub-type

I feel as though holiday albums need their own type. They can technically be considered studio albums but the material on it is different than what is typical for a Studio album by any given artist. Usually, most artists step a bit out of their usual type of songs specifically for holiday themed songs. And since most aren't compilations because the song are recorded specifically for the intent of a holiday album, compilation wouldn't make sense for them. Also cover type wouldn't make sense because often artists write their own original holiday songs so the album wouldn't be all covers. I propose we add a holiday type with either the color for an existing type or a new color for itself. Ratizi1 (talk) 02:01, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Seems unnecessary. Whether a single artist or multiple artists were involved, the album would still fall under Studio, EP, Live, etc. At the very most, we might consider a Type for albums with multiple artists. "Holiday" type is just too specific, considering how many types we already have. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 03:38, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

So if a holiday album, like 8 Days of Christmas, is a non-live holiday album with a sizable track list it would fall under studio album? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ratizi1 (talk • contribs) 00:33, 20 December 2008

Definitely so. Aside from being a "holiday album", there is no real difference between it and any other regular album. I've made this change to that article, and retained "Holiday album" in parentheses. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 06:03, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Just to add, previous discussions have noted that we don't categorize (for infobox purposes) albums by content, but rather by the manner in which they are recorded (studio, live) or the format of the release (EP, single). This was noted under a previous discussion about comedy and spoken word albums, and it was decided that since they are either studio or live recordings the existing types cover them. In essence, type is not analogous to genre or style of content. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:33, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Chronology link

At present the musician's name in the chronology section links to the musician page where it says "Foo chronology". There is already a link to the musician page at the top of the infobox where it says "Studio album by Foo". It would be useful to have a link to the musician's discography page - if there is one - in the chronology section. So for George Harrison the link would go to George Harrison discography for example. Is it possible to do this? SilkTork *^YES! 21:15, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Probably not automatically. We could create 2 different parameters, one for the current use and one for a link to a discography article. But we would have to depend on all users reading the instructions (which is not likely!). Also, one of the most common split/merge actions in music articles is separating out a discography section, and possibly merging one back into the main article, and such moves would require remembering to change the infobox, as well as knowing that such a change would be required. If there is a way to automate it, I'd say go ahead and do it, but a manual solution is not practical. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 16:34, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Right column too far over

The right column is too far to the right, can it somehow be slided more to the center as it is in the Infobox musical artist? J04n (talk) 03:42, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you tell us the article where you are seeing a problem? --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 06:13, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Every album I look at Mob Rules (album), Born Again (Black Sabbath album), Cat 1 (album), Gillan's Inn, even the example on the article for this talk page. I use Internet Explorer 8 if that helps you. J04n (talk) 10:50, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

That's curious...everything looks in order for Firefox 3 and IE7. Perhaps it really is something in IE8 causing it, but I would have thought we'd hear something before now. The table should automatically minimise the left column and maximise the right column. Of course, no one ever accused Internet Explorer of executing HTML (or behaving in general) in a reasonable manner. It would be interesting to see just how bad the problem is. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 11:43, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I am now at work on IE6 and there is no problem, it must be IE8. Thanks for your effort. J04n (talk) 12:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Np, and this article section explains how IE8 may go a little sour with "HTML non-compliant" (read, not Microsoft's version of HTML) websites. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 20:12, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

DJ mix album type

Missing on the album type list is "DJ mix". Please note that this is not the same as a compilation album or a remix album, which are presently supported in this template. Here are example articles that could benefit from this addition: Funky Skunk, Uproot, et al. (see also this list.) I'm not sure what colour to associate this with, so an editor familiar with this template should ideally suggest/add this. Thanks for your consideration.+mt 19:05, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

From the article: A DJ mix or DJ mixset is a sequence of musical tracks typically mixed together to appear as one continuous track. How does this differ from a compilation? -Freekee (talk) 04:21, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's pretty much the definition. The Uproot article I started a few days ago (yes, a stub at the moment) is a good example of the contrast between "compilation" and "mix". Think "ingredients" and "cake". There is the compilation release, which features unmixed tracks from each artist, and the mixed release, which are time-shifted and blend together into something different than the source material. It's an artform that is more complicated that it may seem. +mt 04:56, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Compilations are groups of tracks, DJ Mixes are albums that create new material through the skillfull manipulating of tracks. As he said, it's giving you the ingredients or making you a cake with them. I support this as a new type of album type. -^Violask8₁₉₇₆ 01:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I've got to disagree. If the DJ is changing the source material, it's a remix album. If s/he is laying them down so they overlap at the ends, it's a compilation. If s/he's overlapping them a lot, so their sound is totally new, it's a remix album. -Freekee (talk) 06:05, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Relatively speaking, a mix is closer to a compilation—a remix is a bit more distant in principle, sound, style, and production value. A "remix" is typically a collection of tracks originally derived from 1 or more songs by one artist or group that has been reprocessed and reinterpreted by one or usually more different artists. This type of album takes much more production among different artists in the intent of producing a release together with the co-operation of 1 or more producers or music groups. (A good example is by Mogwai here.) A DJ mix is produced by only one person (the DJ), whereas a remix album is by more than one producers. You would never find these three types of albums in the same place in most record stores: remix albums file under the original (source) artist, DJ mixes file under the DJ's name (as though he composed it), and compilation albums are in the Various Artists section.+mt 06:34, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

And tribute albums are sometimes filed under the band being tributed. Some compilations are of songs by only one band, and they're filed under that band's name. What's your point? You make a good case for DJ mixes being a product of talent. I still don't think they're so unique that they deserve their own infobox type. There are many albums that only marginally fit the existing types. -Freekee (talk) 02:03, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Cover/Tribute album

Per this discussion, could anyone shed some light on why both cover and tribute albums shouldn't be merged with studio album? Surely, these refer more to the content of the album than the type of album? If these are included, why not holiday or concept albums? J Milburn (talk) 23:55, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

No thoughts? Would anyone be opposed to me changing it? J Milburn (talk) 21:15, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, the fewer types to choose from, the better. I think quite a few of these could be merged. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 23:17, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree as stated on the project page a few days ago. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 23:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I think I agree too, on the basis of the distinction being content-based rather than type-based. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I Agree as well. When you say "changing it", does this include converting the existing albums of "cover" and "tribute" type into "studio"? Do you have any idea of the volume of articles that will be impacted? – IbLeo (talk) 12:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Could it become a depreciated usage? As in, make those parameter values give the same results as "studio", and remove it from the documentation, then get a bot to change articles later, which will be a transparent change by that point. The values could be removed when changes are complete. PS, I agree with this change as well, and would like to see at least one of these kinds of proposals go through. Maybe we could get some kind of ball rolling... --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 15:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

That's what I planned to do- just merge the keywords for cover and tribute albums with the keywords for studio albums- there's not really any need to get a bot to go through and fix them after that. J Milburn (talk) 17:40, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The articles which use this parameter value should be changed eventually to avoid confusion. A bot could scan for this usage and if there are not many results, the changes could be done manually. I wasn't sure if IbLeo's comment means he suspects there are many instances to change. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 23:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Honestly I have no clue about the number of albums of type cover and tribute; my question was out of pure curiosity. And I agree with Knight, I would also prefer to clean up the parameter values, otherwise someone will probably come along in a few months time and claim that the template doesn't work. – IbLeo (talk) 05:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I would have no problem with this change, including changing it all to studio, though I imagine there are a few live tribute albums. -Freekee (talk) 22:24, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The change has been made, and I have announced it here. J Milburn (talk) 20:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It works when the type is "cover" but not "Cover" (note capitalization). = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 20:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

What shows when the type is "Cover"? J Milburn (talk) 21:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It's purple with the "cover" type. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 22:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Try purging the page. There is no cover type any more within this template, or within the colour template. Further, the Cover/cover distinction should count for nothing, as I don't think the keywords are case sensistive. For instance, only ep is listed, but EP is still recognised. J Milburn (talk) 22:34, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

This was the first cover album I thought of, and it definitely still says "cover" on it and it's purple. I've purged a couple times. = ∫_t^c 5th Eye 01:50, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

To me Emotive (album) is blue and reads "Studio album". So J Milburn's change seems to be working fine, which leads me to think that 5th eye probably hit a cache in Wikipedia's database. – IbLeo (talk) 07:59, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Works fine for me too. Have you tried purding both the article and the template cache? J Milburn (talk) 09:45, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

What is the rule on extra chronology of an artist assiciated with a collective, as shown in this article?

Dan56 (talk) 20:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It's confusing having two chronology chains with the same heading. Aside from that, when we attempted to define the usage of chronology fields last year, we mainly explained that a chronology needs to be in the form of a consistent chain, which has been done correctly here, and did not dictate the actualy content usage, although we did make recommendations. I have never seen a chain that includes solo work, but I notice one of the solo albums appears to be an alternate version of the one you linked to, and this could explain why it was done. If you're thinking the chain without the solo artists should be removed as unnecessary, you could make a case for it at the artist's talk page, but if they want to keep it, it's not actually against the rules, even if it's against the recommendations. If both chains are kept, the second heading needs to change. Perhaps "Wu-Tung Clan and related artists chronology" (or solo artists) could be used. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 04:35, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Ten review limit?

Why is that in place, exactly? I think we should assemble as many notable reviews as possible for the album infobox! Tom Danson (talk) 03:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Please realise that because this is an infobox, it is designed to summarize things, not provide comprehensive coverage. Ten is an arbitrary limit designed to keep a cleaner appearance. I can't imagine that more than ten reviews would be useful or even desirable in the prose, much less the infobox. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 03:42, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree w/ Huntster. If we didn't have some sensible limit in place we'd wind up with infoboxes longer than the articles. If there are more than 10 reviews, limiting the infobox to the 10 most notable ones seems sensible (after all, if you have 10 from highly-notable sources then you hardly need the various ones from non-notable websites & zines). Further reviews can of course be mentioned & cited in the article body (ie. in a Reception section), though of course if there are many reviews available then you likely don't need to mention them all, if some aren't saying anything different from what others are. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:07, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Text justification for infobox fields

Misuse of text justification creating poor spacing for *Dirt* infobox. See river (typography).

I was just looking at the article for Dirt—which happens to be the example in the documentation for this template—and the use of justified text isn't just misplaced, it's actually detrimental for such short columns of text. I'd like to see standard left alignment within this infobox template. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 01:16, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Look at the actual article for Dirt, as the documentation doesn't demonstrate the effect I'm talking about, since the data presented is different. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 01:19, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a problem. What part of the infobox is a concern? Headings are centered (i.e. "studio album by..."), the "recorded" section is long but looks okay, "singles from" has indented entries that look all right. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 01:30, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

For whatever reason, I'm not seeing the justification shown in the pic (at right) that was added after my post. On my browser, it's left justified. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 23:01, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm seeing left-justified, like Knight. Russel, maybe the problem you're seeing lies somewhere other than the template itself (browser configuration, etc.)? --IllaZilla (talk) 23:54, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there some reason you've brought this back up, Russel? I'm looking at Dirt (album) in IE and I still don't see the problem you're describing. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:40, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

It's MediaWiki-generated CSS. The infobox inherits from #bodyContent. The stylesheet contributing the rule that affects this is
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=-&action=raw&maxage=2678400&smaxage=0&ts=20090514022804&gen=css.

When logged out, MediaWiki generates the following:

/* generated user stylesheet */
a.new, #quickbar a.new { color: #CC2200; }

When logged in, it serves up this:

/* generated user stylesheet */
a.new, #quickbar a.new { color: #CC2200; }
#article, #bodyContent, #mw_content { text-align: justify; }

This obviously affects article contents as well. For those not seeing this, are you using any custom user css? -- C. A. Russell (talk) 03:51, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm still not seeing full justification anywhere, and if logged-out users aren't seeing it, their view should be the default for everyone. I am using the default monobook skin, and I do have a CSS file, but it only has one line (you can look at it if you like) which is unlikely to have an effect. We're not trying to downplay your concern, but it doesn't appear anyone else posting here is getting your results, and we should figure out why. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 13:09, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Ditto; I don't even know what CSS or Monobook are, and I've never seen full justification anywhere, whether logged in or logged out. I'm in agreement w/ Knight that the problem you're experiencing may lie elsewhere than the template itself. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:56, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

It's quite clear that the template is not at fault here, but my original request was that a rule be added to override the global text justification in this infobox. Obviously, this affects other infoboxes as well, this just happens to be the one that annoyed me the most at the time that I made the comment. It follows that whatever decision we come to here should be applied to other infoboxes that exhibit the same behavior. In the process, we seem to have uncovered another issue which is causing confusion, that is, the issue of MediaWiki possibly selectively sending out CSS for no apparent reason. Since this is where the original request was made, I'd like to get a handle on what's going on before escalating this to someplace else. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 16:11, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not good with technical stuff and I don't understand a lot of what you're saying. However, I clicked on the link (while logged in) and I got /* generated user stylesheet */a.new, #quickbar a.new { color: #CC2200; }. I tried it logged out and I got the exact same thing. I did not get the <br />#article, #bodyContent, #mw_content { text-align: justify; } portion in either case, which I gather is the portion that's causing the justification issue. I recommend taking this request somewhere like WP:BUG which is more geared towards technical issues; I don't think there are too many tech-minded folks watchlisting this page. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:03, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I also did some investigation, looking at the preview options for other skins from the "my preferences" page. It doesn't appear we can preview anything other than the main page. I didn't see any full justification on the main page from any of the alternate skins. How does the main page look to you? And have you checked to see if you are using an alternate skin? Another point is that we may not want to add a new default to clobber another, if that's even possible; there could be some conflicts with that. I still think we should try to figure out why it's happening. But you can open a bug report as suggested, and including a screen capture picture will be helpful. Maybe the tech people can figure out the cause. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 10:35, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I've found that it's actually a preferences (under Misc.). Regardless, infobox data is not prose, and treating it as such obviously results in poorly-displayed results, so the overrides should be put in place. I will take this to a larger forum of discussion regarding infoboxes in general. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 03:10, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Right. So could you go to the above URL and confirm or deny whether the text justification style rule for the bodyContent div exists or not? -- C. A. Russell (talk) 16:11, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Links to reviews

Is there any particular reason that this we're advocating linking to third-party reviews in the way we are, rather than using <ref> tags? Since the introduction of Cite.php, most unsightly inline links have been removed from article text. Moreover, linking to reviews simply with the anchor text "link" is bad web authoring. I propose articles link to reviews using standard citations, and articles be updated to do so. Actually, I'm not sure why we don't template the text for reviews themselves. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 01:43, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I would describe editing Wikipedia as "web authoring", but anyway, the template doesn't actually show how to code the review link (except for mentioning that templates exist for certain review sites; your complaint is presumably about linking to sites that don't have a template), but shows the word "link" in the example at the top of the instructions, like this:

Allmusic

link

Probably we should be giving more explicit instructions on how to use the field. While I understand your concern, I also think it looks straightforward and is easy to understand by people viewing articles. Here is the code for the line above:

[[Allmusic]] {{Rating|4.5|5}} [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:z3fe4j870waq link]

We are trying to avoid making "Allmusic" a link, because it is already being used as a link to the Wikipedia page about Allmusic. And we don't want to have all that stuff in the URL become visible. What is your proposal for replacing the line above? --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 23:22, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Reference tags are better-designed for this stuff, as they can include actual citation information (assume that all URLs will be dead in five years) and using "link" as a link title is discouraged on the modern web. The template documentation should encourage this.

Allmusic link Alternative Press (favorable) March 1993 (p. 40) Robert Christgau (B) link Q February 2002 (p. 120)	Allmusic ^[1] Alternative Press (favorable)^[2] Robert Christgau (B)^[3] Q ^[4]
	^ Huey, Steve. "Review: Dirt." Allmusic. ^ Author (March 1993). "Review: Dirt." Alternative Press (p. 40). ^ Christgau, Robert. "Review: Dirt." ^ Author (February 2002). "Review: Dirt." Q (p. 120).

—Gendralman (Talk) 01:47, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me. But I think that for the Christgau reveiews, we should continue to use the template. (This is the only reviewer-specific template we have, as far as I know.) A solution might be to change the template to accept an additional "ref description" parameter, and display the results in your recommended format where used, but continue to display it like it is now ("link" visible) when the parameter is missing or blank. You might ask the user who created the template if this is feasible; he is still very much active on Wikipedia: User talk:Edgarde. Aside from that, I'm in favour of changing the instructions page. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 07:01, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I am also in favor of this idea; it always seemed odd to me that the professional review section is the only place in album articles where we allow external links outside the "External links" section. A few remarks though: (a) I think we should recommend use of the citation templates. (b) I agree with A Knight Who Says Ni that the Christgau template should be kept; I would actually like to see more of that kind of templates as they make life easier for editors. (c) Before changing anything in the guidelines, I believe you should bring it to the attention of the WP:ALBUM project; I doubt that everyone watch this page. – IbLeo (talk) 15:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Could someone provide a link to the Christgau template? I'm not familiar with it & can't seem to find it. Does it include a citation within the template? At any rate, I like the idea of using citations rather than external links. It would make formats more consistent across the project. It'll take a lot of fixing, though, what with the many thousands of album articles we have. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:53, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

It's here: {{Review-Christgau}}. And, yeah, retrofitting such a change would be a huge challenge. Best solution would probably be a bot, if this is feasible. – IbLeo (talk) 18:48, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

IbLeo: Agreed, on all points.

The interesting thing is: looking at Christgau's template, I see it would be extremely easy to modify it to generate a citation tag automatically in all articles that are using it. Of course that'll make for a lot of inconsistent infoboxes, and I don't think that's the best way to do it. It is an interesting thought though.

This will definitely take a long time to propagate, but 90% of album articles have bigger issues than this anyway. It's not a huge deal. I don't think a bot would be suited for this since the ref tags would require more than just the URL. And editors are generally opposed to using bots to enforce style changes. I personally would have no objection if someone wanted to try. —Gendralman (Talk) 19:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I had suggested the Christgau template could function as it does now, where a new "ref description" field is not used. (If citation is used instead, it could work the same way.) Wouldn't that fix the problem, and remove the need to change existing uses of it? --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 20:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I don't care if the links are moved to the Ref section, or kept as is current, but if kept, I like the use of the word "link". This is because it is an external link, if you make it a word, people will expect it to take them to a WP article. -Freekee (talk) 03:10, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, they're in a different color, and have that icon. And most links in the references section are external links. —Gendralman (Talk) 04:51, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I meant that if the links to the original reviews are kept in the infobox, rather than the References section, they should be named "link" (or not named, displaying a number). The simple fact that they're green isn't enough, IMO. I am still caught by that sometimes, expecting to be taken to a WP article. Besides, not everyone can see the color. -Freekee (talk) 04:59, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I misunderstood you. I agree. —Gendralman (Talk) 05:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} It looks like there's a consensus for this change. The documentation Template:Infobox Album/doc should be changed to this: Template:Infobox Album/doc/Review citation sandbox. I changed both of the sample infoboxes and the paragraph relating to citations. WP:CS requires full citations for embedded links, and recommends replacing them with footnotes, so this change is in line with WP policy. —Gendralman (talk) 04:24, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

The documentation is not protected so you can make these changes yourself if you feel consensus has been reached. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:29, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, done. —Gendralman (talk) 14:36, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

As already stated above in my first entry, I think it's a shame that the new guidelines do not take advantage of the standardized formatting for citing sources provided by the citation templates. That would be {{cite web}} for the online reviews like Allmusic and {{Citation}} for magazines like Q and Mojo with no online database for their reviews. Would anybody mind that I update the guidelines in that direction? – IbLeo (talk) 21:49, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I say do it. I always use citation templates, and although they are not required it's been my experience that FA reviewers almost always ask for them. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:17, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Me too I always use them, and your FA argument is a damned good one! As I don't consider such a change controversial I will boldly go ahead and take action on it. – IbLeo (talk) 19:29, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Done. To make life easier for the project members (myself included :-), I included the wikicode for some typical well-formatted professional review examples in a table. The only thing I am slightly unhappy about is the Christgau review template that still displays the embedded link. I am not sure what to do about this right now. Any ideas are welcome. – IbLeo (talk) 22:48, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Brainstorming...

a) Change the Christgau template to generate a footnote automatically

b) Eliminate the Christgau template, make a new template that generates a footnote automatically

c) Eliminate the Christgau template, make a new template for just the icons rather than the whole entry... or add "bomb icon" capability to Template:Rating... or just make a Template:Bomb icon or whatever

d) Eliminate the Christgau template, use the titles instead of icons, as the icons are inappropriate, distracting, and give undue weight to Christgau's reviews, which do not deserve it in my opinion

e) Ignore it... according to the MOS embedded links are OK as long as they're clarified in the refs section

The quickest and easiest is (a) but complaints will arise. (c) is probably the most realistic. I don't see why you need a template for the whole entry... people just like to make templates for no reason (case in point: Template:Cite web, Template:Cite journal... what is the point of these?). —Gendralman (talk) 23:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Not much of a fan of this new policy.

-WP:External Links lists "For albums, movies, books, and other creative works, links to professional reviews." under links to be considered. In this case I think they are useful as they provide users with POV information which can't be fully provided by the Wikipedia article.

-The new policy states "Make sure to take advantage of the standardized formatting for citing sources provided by the citation templates.". Citation templates are currently "neither encouraged nor discouraged" according to WP:CITE; so this bit should maybe be removed or atleast turned into a mere suggestion.

I actually like how the Robert Christgau template works. Best of both worlds: the rating is well cited, and readers have quick access to the review.--AlexTG (talk) 02:26, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, those templates aren't recommended anywhere, and this isn't the place to do so. I took that part out, and IbLeo should take out that whole section on how to format citations and how to make a references section. That information is available elsewhere and is outside the scope of this page. The point that there should be a citation is sufficient, readers can go to the actual style guide for references (which is linked anyway) if they don't know how to do it. —Gendralman (talk) 03:26, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your constructive feedback. I believe you raise several different and independant issues that I will address separately for clarity:

Thanks for putting me straight regarding the ambiguous status of the citation templates. You are right, I was far too directive in the instructions. I will also remove the explanations on references; in hindsight I agree that it out of scope of this project and explained elsewhere.
Regarding the Christgau template, Gendralman's proposal (c) is an excellent short-term solution to the extent that the template for just the icons already exists: {{Rating-Christgau}}. I will go ahead and update the guidelines as you propose.
As for a long term solution I would rather go for (b), i.e. gradually depreciate the existing template and replace it by a new one. I must admit I do like templates as they provide a standardized way of presenting the same type of information. However, I at this point of time I have no clear idea about how to construct a new Christgau template including the reference. A subject for further reflection.
AlexTG, if I understand you correctly, you would like to see the link back in the infobox. Doesn't that take us back to point zero, i.e. before Gendralman brought this subject up for discussion?

– IbLeo (talk) 19:20, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Done. I updated the guidelines with respect to (1) and (2) above. – IbLeo (talk) 20:40, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Allmusic link ^[1] We do need to correctly reference the rating. But the actual review contains alot more information than a few stars. So that users have access to why each reviewer gave the rating they gave, I suggest we give an external link aswell. I know they can use the reference to do this, but I'm not sure most users ever look at them, and it would cause annoyance being taken to the bottom of the page for each review.--AlexTG (talk) 00:05, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

As I said above, I don't care whether we use the link with the review, or a reference, but certainly I don't see the need for both. Is there important information about the source given in the formatting of the reference, that doesn't appear in the source itself? -Freekee (talk) 04:35, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

^ Huey, Steve. "Review: Dirt". Allmusic. Retrieved 4 June 2009.

[1] Huey, Steve. "Review: Dirt." Allmusic.

[2] Author (March 1993). "Review: Dirt." Alternative Press (p. 40).

[3] Christgau, Robert. "Review: Dirt."

[4] Author (February 2002). "Review: Dirt." Q (p. 120).

[AMG-5] Huey, Steve. "Review: Dirt". Allmusic. Retrieved 4 June 2009.

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