Template talk:Infobox single/Archive 3

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Discussion proposal: Classes of single

I find that a need to properly document a maxi single still exists and that my previous Template:Infobox Maxi single failed to meet the requirement (deletion discussion, begun 28 June 2007 at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Infobox Maxi single: NTemplate deleted 05:45, 6 July 2007 (UTC) - BCS). Given what WikiProject Albums did on providing for studio, mix/remix, compilation, collaborative, &c. albums on Template:Infobox album, I have reason to believe that this Template may be modifiable to provide better flexibility for similar requirements in terms of studio-original, cover-version, mix/remix, and collaborative singles and maxi singles; notable cover singles are released when warranted, e.g. "You're the One That I Want (from Grease)," released as a studio original on RSO in the 1970's and as a cover version on Epic UK in the 1990's. What classes would be warranted on an improvement of this Template? - B.C.Schmerker 13:25, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Misc no work

I am using {{Infobox Single}} on the page Marvin (song). When I added something to the Misc field, it was displayed in the main text of the article. Er ... 216.123.197.22 02:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

You can't just put any information in the "Misc" field, only templates that are meant to be used there. --PEJL 04:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, so where can I find a list of the templates that are meant to be used in the Misc field? 216.123.197.22 04:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Good question. Digging around a little I found Category:Music infobox templates. There are some templates there I wouldn't recommend using, but it does include the relevant ones: the Template:Extra... templates (Template:Extra album cover 2, Template:Extra chronology 2, Template:Extra musicsample, Template:Extra tracklisting) as well as Template:Singles (only relevant for the album infobox, not this one). --PEJL 09:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Note that the displayed Usage for Template:Extra musicsample does not mention

| Type           = Single

. 216.123.197.12 08:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Renaming Template:Extra tracklisting

I propose Template:Extra tracklisting be renamed to Template:Extra track listing to use the standard phrase "track listing" rather than the non-standard "tracklisting". (Leaving a message here as well because this talk page likely gets more traffic). Any objections? --PEJL 09:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me, though for consistencies sake, it would be a good idea to try and AWB those articles using the template to reflect the new name so the old name isn't simply replicated by those copy'n'pasters. If needed, I can probably do this. -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 22:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer. (I have been granted AWB access, but I haven't started using it yet.) We might also want to rename Template:Extra musicsample to Template:Extra music sample. --PEJL 23:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I haven't yet renamed the templates mentioned above, but I have renamed Template:Song infobox to Template:Infobox Song as proposed on that template's talk page. If someone goes through and updates existing uses of that template, I recommend at the same time adding the standard comment to the first line of the infoboxes, where missing. --PEJL 09:49, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

You mean the <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Songs --> part? Yes, that should be easy enough to do. I'll attempt to get a start on this when I get off work this morningon Saturday (I hate work), though given the nature of AWB (sometimes fast, sometimes slow) I cannot guess how long it'll take. -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 10:08, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, exactly (after a space but no pipe, to be precise). Great, thanks for doing this! --PEJL 10:23, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

When you do so, would you mind keeping track of the number of replacements you make of Infobox Song? If I remember, AWB does it for you. The number of uses of this template will be useful in deciding how to deal with misused fair use images as is being discussed at Template_talk:Infobox_Song#Cover. Λυδαcιτγ 05:06, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

That wouldn't be very representative, since that only gives the number of uses of the infobox using the name "Template:Song infobox". Some already use "Template:Infobox Song" (which was previously a redirect). This can quite easily be counted using the "What links here" feature in Wikipedia. I found 2128 links to "Template:Song infobox" and 852 links to "Template:Infobox Song", which makes roughly 3000 links total. Some of those are links from non-song articles (references from talk pages like this one for example), but it gives a rough estimate. --PEJL 09:47, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Catalog number

The fields in the Infobox include Label, so why not Catalog number? My workaround to this was to tack the information onto the end of the Label, eg "Label = [[Polydor]] (POSP 261)". Is there a better way? 216.123.197.12 08:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Edit-protected request: add hCalendar mark up

{{editprotected}}

As described debated and implemented for Infobox Album. Thank you. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 14:12, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 15:14, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you again. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 15:40, 1 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)

Worldwide Points

Can wikipedia please include worldwide points for singles in the infobox, it will be included for singles that have entered the United World Chart. It is very informative. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ginascrew (talk • contribs) 01:55, August 20, 2007 (UTC).

Removing chart positions field

I'm not going to ask why we have the chart positions since that seems pretty obvious, but from what I've seen, having them in the template isn't worth the trouble. Awhile ago, the convention was to include English-speaking countries since this is the English Wikipedia and countries where it reached the top forty. English-speaking countries are no longer used by default since that's biased toward the Anglosphere. What remains is probably a worse bias; it only includes the countries where the single did somewhat well. Now, the best solution, in my opinion, would be to do what's normally done with record charts, which is using the largest music markets (IFPI publishes yearly lists of the countries' shares in the world market). But this just raises another question: why would we be using an abbreviated list of an already non-comprehensive list of chart positions at the end of the article?

My other concern is just the logistics of the section. It usually takes up several lines of space, one for the "Peak chart positions" heading, and then several lines of the positions themselves. That can lead to messes like this. Even a trimmed list is relatively unhelpful. With several lines of space, we can include, say, the writers, producers, length, and genre of a song, which are far more fundamental characteristics of a single. An individual chart position is not exactly a defining characteristic, so it seems best to leave that information in the text of the article itself. 17Drew 04:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

As noted at WT:SONG#peak positions (where this proposal originated), I agree with removing the peak positions from the infobox, and instead having them only in the article body. --PEJL 05:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree. I've been deleting # signs to adhere the guidelines but IPs and other users kept on reverting and even leave a message not to erase the sign which contradicts the policy. Just keeping the page cluttered and leaving the home chart futile because of repeated not-so-essential infos. BritandBeyonce ^{(talk•contribs)} 07:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I fully agree with the idea of removing Chart positions from the template if they already exist in chart form. Chart form inherently allows for a better display of information. Personally speaking, I'm about to be bold and remove positions from templates for the articles I follow (Evanescence primarily)...after leaving a message on the main article talk page, no one has objected or even commented on the issue. And speaking to 17Drew above, that particular article you link to has way too many chart entries as it is, rather violently going against WP:CHARTS.

Ultimately, I would suggest the removal of this field from the template itself. I have never seen an article with only position information in the template. Thoughts? -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 08:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

So, what were gonna do now? Admins? BritandBeyonce ^{(talk•contribs)} 09:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to make a sandbox for this template. I'll ask an admin to make this change after having done so. --PEJL 09:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks PEJL. Put it this way, the primary argument here is needless replication of large amounts of data. -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 10:02, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It may be a good idea to wait a day or two before requesting the change. The template's applied to a bunch of articles, so if there's any opposition to making the change, it's best to discuss it now. Otherwise, it could turn out that there are a bunch of editors who oppose the change, and we're pointing to a brief discussion between a couple of people. I did leave a message at WT:SONG to notify people of the proposal. 17Drew 13:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree about waiting a few days. I've made a sandbox and a testcase, and applied a number of changes to the sandbox, see here. Note that I've made some other changes as well, of which the visible changes include:

• showing the album the same way as the other fields, for consistency with the recent change to {{Infobox Song}}
• removing "(s)", for consistency with the recent change to {{Infobox Album}}
• tweaking the column widths, for consistency with the recent change to {{Infobox Album}}

--PEJL 13:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks great PEJL, thanks again. Though I was always rather fond of the "from the album..." line ;) -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 19:28, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm also Agreeing. Chart stuff not need in the infobox if it is already within the text and/or in the charts table at the end of the article. This is just another mess that is best removed. - eo 14:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, definitely agree we should ditch them. It makes no sense to list chart positions in the 'single' infobox and not the album one. Now, if we could get this kind of consensus to scrap the reviews section in the album box... Flowerparty^☀ 15:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Seems we have the consensus already? Admins? please consider this one. Thanks. BritandBeyonce ^{(talk•contribs)} 07:42, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Fine, let's go ahead with this change. Please apply the current sandbox to this template. --PEJL 10:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Wait, where did the "from the album" bit disappear to? Was that discussed somewhere else? 17Drew 08:46, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I moved it to a regular "Album" field, as noted above. No, it was not discussed. I was WP:BOLD and made that change to the song infobox a few days ago. No one has complained so far, so I made this change to this infobox as well. Do you disagree with this change? --PEJL 09:09, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I made this change because:

• It was the only information that was bold (which goes against WP:MOSBOLD#Boldface) and center-aligned without being a table heading.
• The capitalization was inconsistent with the rest of the infobox.
• I didn't see any reason for this info to be shown differently than the other fields.

I also added "Album" as an alternative name for the field "from Album", for consistency with the other fields. It was inconsistently capitalized compared to the other fields in the infobox, and "Album" works fine. We don't have "by Artist", so no reason to have "from Album". Both "from Album" and "Album" will continue to work, but we can update the documentation to use the latter. --PEJL 09:28, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm a little mixed on it. Although not included in the heading, it looks like it was being used as one, especially since it forms the phrase "Single by <artist> from the album <album>" when read with the previous line. If I understand correctly, singles were originally issued to help promote an album. (I'd argue that they still are, to some degree, since singles generate less profit than albums.) It seems to me like articles about singles are akin to subtopics of an album article, much in the same way that album articles are subtopics of an article about an artist. So, it seems like the artist and album are the fundamental characteristics of a single, while the other pieces of information are important, but not as defining. As for the change from from Album to Album, that sounds fine to me, and it's easier to remember. 17Drew 22:34, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, to me it doesn't form the phrase at first glance, mainly because of the differing background color. If we want to keep the "from the album..." bit and want it to be seen as part of the preceding table heading we should consider moving it into the table heading (which visually means giving it the yellow background color). I've done so in the sandbox, see testcases. I think both of these solutions are improvements on the current template, and would be fine with either. I'm updating the editprotected request below to use this method, as it is a smaller change from the current template. --PEJL 23:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

At first I figured that adding the line into the table heading would make the color overwhelming. But it doesn't look too big at all in the sandbox, I'm guessing because the single cover is much larger. That looks like a good solution to me. 17Drew 00:01, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I assumed the same, which is why I initially used a separate "Album" field. It looks better than expected. (Consider also that most artist names will be longer than "Blur", in which case it will look even better.) I just noticed a bug, so I'm removing editprotected while i debug. 00:16, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

There was no bug, just a typo in the test case. I tried to improve the line wrapping further, but didn't come up with anything that works for all combinations of artist/album name lengths. So let's go ahead with this change. --PEJL 01:08, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The code in the sandbox has two issues: one, it introduces a lot of extra code to make cells text-align:left, when the old system was better. There are more fields that would benefit from the table being text-align:left than there are headers that benefit from being able to not use text-align:center. Two, I'm sure there are plenty of pages that use the chart parameter. If it's suddenly going to be removed, the template code should generate a category of all the pages that use the parameter (e.g., {{#if:{{{chart|}}}|<includeonly>[[Category:whatever]]</includeonly>....) so that a bot can remove those fields or a person can ensure that the information has been moved / merged into a separate section. Also, I'm not really seen on using width's (e.g., 5.2 em;) throughout the infobox, however, if you do use those, they only need to be declared once. The rest of the cells below will conform; there's no other option for them. If any of my comments were unclear, let me know. Cheers. --MZMcBride 19:09, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The code in the sandbox has been changed for consistency with the album infobox, which has this formatting. The old system isn't actually better IMO, it uses less markup, but the markup is less correct HTML. The field labels are technically row-scope table headings, and should be marked up as such. The widths need to be used on every row, because we don't know which rows will be included in the infobox, as they are all more or less optional. The category sounds like a good idea. --PEJL 20:32, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

I have added the category. Please apply the current sandbox to the template. --PEJL 23:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I did want to comment on the category. Not that it shouldn't be added, but I wanted to make sure to ask that no one put in a bot request once the category is established. Since it's removing a conspicuous field from a widely used template, there's a decent chance that there may be people wanting to include the template coming to the talk page. In that case, we don't want to lose the information until it's established that there's consensus from not only people watching this page and WT:SONG, but the community as a whole. 17Drew 01:32, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

It'll be a long process that must be done by hand, no doubt; any idea of how many articles are using the template at the moment (sorry, nowhere near a computer with AWB). However, it'll be more tedious than difficult, since the field can simply be removed if a chart is already present, or the data migrated if there isn't. If someone can work up a set of instructions on how to use AWB to do this chore, I'd gladly assist...I just have no idea how to use Regex or any of the higher fuctions of find/replace in that program. -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 18:01, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 18:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I just want to say it was a good decision to remove the chart positions. By excluding redundant details already repeated elsewhere, we're maximising the usefulness of the information in the infobox and articles. Spellcast 10:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Category: Single articles with infobox field chart position

Category:Single articles with infobox field chart position seems to appear in many or even all articles with this infobox - and even this discussion page. Could that please be sorted. Agathoclea 20:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

See above. --PEJL 21:09, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

ok. Someone else just as puzzled as myself created the Category in question. Maybe you could fill the category with a blurb about the purposeif the cleanup will take longer. Please remember to get it deleted once the cleanup is done. Agathoclea 17:20, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Y Done. -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 22:26, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Req: Reduce line-height

{{editprotected}}

Please apply the current sandbox, which reduces the line-height in the caption and chronology sections, for consistency with the recent changes to Template:Infobox Album, Template:Extra album cover 2 and Template:Extra chronology 2. --PEJL 17:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 02:05, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Certification details

Where are the detailed guidelines in adding/editing certifications? BritandBeyonce ^{(talk•contribs)} 01:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Not sure if there are guidelines, but I would suggest the following:

• Add citations for any certifications.
• If there's only a couple, add them in prose to the appropriate section of the article (ie. "Mainstream success", "Critical reception" etc.)
• If there's more than a couple, add them as a table.

Does that help? Cheers. -- Reaper X 02:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok. But what i am looking for is in the infobox thing. BritandBeyonce ^{(talk•contribs)} 07:29, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Make sure you add them to the article body as well, not just in the infobox. Add citations in the article body. --PEJL 10:50, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

What i've observed in most singles articles do have ceritfications on the infobox field but wasnt edited in detail in the page. Usually, users do not cite sources in the certifications thats why it's sometimes dubious. BritandBeyonce ^{(talk•contribs)} 11:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Chart Positions

Somebody deleted the "Chart Positions" section. Could somebody put that section back again? It's really helpful when editing articles. Cuyler91093 (talk) 17:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

It has been decided tht this should not be inluded anymore. Please delete the field in articles when you come across it if it contains no data. Also, this template it broken. I unsuccessfully tried to fix it and so reverted it to a revision as of 19:42, November 5, 2007. Somebody please try and fix is ASAP. --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 17:59, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Could you tell me why it has been decided to be deleted? Thank you. Cuyler91093 (talk) 18:32, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

See WT:SONG#peak positions. --PEJL (talk) 20:04, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

And also the thread above; Template_talk:Infobox_Single#Removing_chart_positions_field. --¤ The-G-Unit-฿oss ¤ 20:16, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Images used in singles chronology fields

Does Wikipedia and this template support the use of images within the singles chronology fields? See Teen Age Riot

Or should the images be deleted from the infobox in the above example?

Noting that the three examples shown on the template page do not make use of images, but at the same time there is no statement make to indicate that images should not be used. Dbiel ^(Talk) 03:38, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

We had this issue some time ago, and it was determined (as I recall) that use of images in that fashion violates fair-use policy. The images do not directly support the article in any fashion other than decorative, and should be removed with extreme prejudice, as the saying goes. — Huntster (talk • email • contribs) 05:16, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Audio sample field

It seems inappropriate for the "Audio sample?" field to be implemented they way it has been...aren't we pushing fair-use enough with allowing cover art to be included with every single/album, even if it is not discussed in the article itself? Including this seems to be a intrinsic allowance for audio samples to be included, again, regardless of whether or not the sample is discussed. Further, using a category to list all articles without samples seems even more inappropriate, as it gives the impression that an article *should* or *must* have a sample. Has any of this been discussed, or were these unilateral edits? — Huntster (t • @ • c) 22:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

It appears that Esprit15d (talk · contribs) added the "Audio sample?" field, but I don't see any prior discussion of it on this or any other talk page. I was thinking the same thing: if I'm reading Wikipedia:Non-free content#Audio clips correctly—music clips must be "accompanied by appropriate sourced commentary"—any song article containing a sample from that song should contain (reliably sourced) information about the style and/or subject matter of the song. As far as I know, a lot of song articles (probably most, in fact) include information about secondary, almost peripheral aspects of the song (chart positions, music video, etc.), but little about the song itself. I don't see how the presence of audio samples in these articles would constitute "fair use". Extraordinary Machine (talk) 23:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Indeed; as a general rule I avoid audio samples like the plague, because it is so difficult to justify their use. Is there any agreement that this may be best removed until proper discussion takes place? — Huntster (t • @ • c) 06:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, well, there was a prior mention towards the top of this page, but no real discussion was made, and nothing resulted except the formation of {{Audiosample}}. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 18:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)