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Release dates

Good day. I was wondering why the "release" parameter of the template stipulates that a commercial release date be used. A couple of my edits (1, 2) were semi-reverted because I had added a cited radio release date to a song's infobox rather than a cited commercial release date. What really bugs me is that the original dates are uncited. I can understand why commercial release dates are preferred over radio dates (even I prefer them), but what do we do for songs that never received a commercial release, especially from the late 90s when that was common in America? I know radio releases can be hazy sometimes, but the same goes for commercial singles, especially if it was released across multiple formats over a series of weeks, or in rare cases, years. True, a release history section could remedy this, but that doesn't really answer my "no-commercial-release" question. Another country's commercial release date could be used, but often, it's not the earliest one unless it was released in the musician's country of origin. Should we amend this parameter to say that the earliest release date be included in an infobox, whether it be a physical release or not? That makes more sense to me and doesn't insinuate that non-physical singles should not have a date added. ResPM come to my window 12:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

For songs released on albums, the release date is that of the album. If they were released as singles (before, after, or independent of an album), the date the single was released is used. Of course, these should come from reliable sources. "Commercial release date" is used to signify the wide-spread, publicly-available release, as opposed to songs/singles that were leaked, advance copies, promos or other limited releases. See also the |type= guidance: "If an album track was later released as a single, use the most notable or best known. For example, 'Stairway to Heaven' was released as a promo single in several markets and as a digital single in 2007, but became best known as a song from Led Zeppelin's fourth album" and the album release date is used in the infobox. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:39, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
@Ojorojo: I'm still a little confused because you didn't really answer my main question. Are you saying radio counts as a "wide-spread, publicly-available release"? To clarify, I'm referring to physical singles (CD, vinyl, etc.) when I say "commercial"; sorry if I didn't make that evident. I'm speaking strictly about radio-only singles in the US, such as "Iris" and "Don't Speak", and songs that received physical releases several months after its radio debut, e.g. "Angel" and "Everything You Want". In cases such as these ones, which is the better release date: its earlier radio date or its later physical date? Either I or the editor who removed the dates I added is misreading the meaning of "commercial". ResPM come to my window 16:10, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
The wording "commercial release date" is a carry-over from the old infobox single and applies to retail-type availability rather than airplay IMO. Is a radio-only release actually considered a single? ("promo singles" didn't use infobox single, if I remember). If it's something like an album track or promo that received radio airplay, then the album date would be used, since that would be the wide-spread, publicly-available release. If it was later released as a bona fide commercial single and that became the best-known, then that release date would be used. —Ojorojo (talk) 17:40, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
All right, I see what you mean, and it makes sense to me in some circles. Like I said before, I heavily favor the commercial single over the radio debut, but I just wanted to make sure I was reading "commercial" the right way, which I guess I wasn't. Thanks. ResPM come to my window 18:17, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Define commercial

For the release date section, it says to use the commercial release date? However, it does not give a clear definition. Does this mean when it was released to radio, the charts, or an actual physical copy? If you can, please include a note to further clarify this, as there have been multiple users who have this same question.2603:8081:160A:BE2A:BCAE:63F:A7D2:B29B (talk) 02:14, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

It means the date when the ordinary person was first able to obtain a legal copy in exchange for monetary payment. Radio stations often get advance copies (which they don't always have to pay for); records don't always reach the charts (most don't) and of those that do, it's often on a date later than the release date - except sometimes in territories where radio plays make up a portion of the chart statistics. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:22, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request

Under the release date section, please add a note next to "commercial release date" that defines the commercial release date. Many users have gotten confused about what this means and have brought it up here.2603:8081:160A:BE2A:D0C3:D0A9:F28C:D85C (talk) 05:05, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:37, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

The IP seems to be referring to the "released" parameter description/guidance rather than the coding. Based on the previous discussions and general usage, the following addition (highlighted) is proposed:

released

Indicate the commercial release date, whether it is a single, album, or other. Usually, this is the date that it became widely available to the public, such as in retail. Dates for leaked copies, advance or limited promo releases to radio stations, etc., generally are not used, but may be included in an appropriate section of the main body if noteworthy. For example, album tracks that receive airplay should use the album release date, rather than when they were added to radio. If the same song is later released as an actual single and that becomes the best known (and |type=single is used), indicate the date the single was released. Enter the date using ...

If there are no objections, I'll add this. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:29, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

@Ojorojo: yes, I suspect the IP is the same person who started the "Define commercial" thread immediately above this one, and RedRose64 replied in almost identical fashion to your suggested wording. I have no objection to the addition of this information. Richard3120 (talk) 16:50, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 Done —Ojorojo (talk) 15:04, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Other language (title) fields besides 'English_title'

Is there are a reason that other fields (e.g. Dutch_title, French_title, etc) aren't implemented in this template? GravityIsForSuckers (talk) 18:59, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

The field is used for an English translation of a song title that appears in a non-English language (see for example, "Frère Jacques" or "Quando quando quando"). To provide translations of these titles into say, German, is appropriate for the German Wikipedia ("Bruder Jakob", "Wenn Wenn Wenn"?), but of little value here. —Ojorojo (talk) 20:20, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Recent edit

Just noticed this change while reading articles. I noticed that it removes several useful links and changes "Genre" to "Musical genre" ("Musical" is unnecessary because the box is already in an article about a song). However, there is no edit summary, so I don't know the reasoning behind the change. Pinging Tony1 in the hopes that he can provide some clarity. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 03:52, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I also think that this change was unhelpful. Tony1, was there a discussion about this change? – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:35, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
OK, I'll revert it. Is there any way of not linking the very very common term "song", then? Tony (talk) 06:36, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Tony1, the link to "song" is at Template:Infobox song/link. I'd be fine with removing it, but let's hear from others before implementing. Noticeable changes to a template of this scale should be discussed first.
The relevant guidance is at MOS:OVERLINK. The main argument for removal is that "song" is an extremely common term. However, we tend to link terms in the first sentence even if they're common, e.g. '''X''' is a [[Y]], and an argument could be made that we should do the same for the infoboxes. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 07:01, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
There's rightly no mention in MOS of linking common terms just because they're in the first sentence; and it's there that they're most likely to dilute the whole linking system for the reader. The problem for me in linking "song" (whatever would that mean?) in the infobox is that I'm trying to unlink "song" in the main text – a definite no-no. And the "links to song" list includes a gazillion articles that just link to the item in the infobox. If you want to have it blue for decoration, why not apply colour? Unless there's consensus against, I want to remove the link ... in a couple of days' time. BTW, I'm trying to improve articles and their readability. Tony (talk) 01:13, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Tony1, MOS:OVERLINK is often misinterpreted as a blanket ban on linking to highly generic terms. That's not what it actually advises—the relevant line is Unless a term is particularly relevant to the context in the article, the following are usually not linked:, and the "unless" part of that is important. I'm still personally on the fence, but there's a very plausible argument to be made that Song is absolutely particularly relevant to an article about a song and should therefore be linked. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:24, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
If you lower the benchmark to that extent, we could link a whole lot of terms in an article that are "particularly relevant", but of utterly no use to readers. Any reader who doesn't know what "song" means is free to type the word into their search box. I'm guessing that might happen once a decade. My concern is that more useful "relevant" items be linked, not very unuseful "relevant" items. This was decided by the community in 2009. Tony (talk) 01:30, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Well, wikilinks go to encyclopedia articles, not Wiktionary definitions, so there's use for them beyond just explaining unfamiliar terms. You've pushed me into laying out the case for including the link, so I'd like to see what others think. Again, I'm personally somewhat ambivalent, but the point is that it's not an uncontestable change, and potentially controversial changes should have consensus before they're rolled out to 60,000 pages. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:52, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

I believe we should add a part for "times played live" or "live plays"

IslandUnity (talk) 22:50, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Where would we find a reliable source with this information? Richard3120 (talk) 02:36, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Auto short description bug?

I'm having trouble figuring out what is generating the year used in the automatic short description. Text Me Merry Christmas is displaying the current year (2021) instead of 2014 when it was released. The documentation suggested that maybe it was WikiData, but after adding a publication date there, it is still not showing properly. -2pou (talk) 16:06, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

2pou, this is currently being discussed at my talk page. If you've added the publication date, it should solve the issue for that page, but it may take a little bit for the cache to purge. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 23:16, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Why does {{External music video}} and {{Audio sample}} still exist?

I'm not aware if there's an obvious reason why these templates haven't been merged into {{Infobox song}}. ili (talk) 20:30, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

"Publisher" field

Can this be added? I tack the information onto the year published currently, No big deal. Tillywilly17 (talk) 04:41, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Why do you think this is important? It doesn't strike me as vital information to include in the infobox, and it can be quite long... sometimes if a song is composed by several people, each of them uses a different publishing company. Richard3120 (talk) 13:22, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
|published= is normally used for songs that originally predate recorded music, i.e., only available on sheet music. Otherwise, who published the song before a recording of it was released is not important enough to warrant a listing in the infobox (rarely are these mentioned or referenced in the main body). Template:Infobox musical composition contains a number of parameters, including |publisher=, that may be more appropriate for more traditional or historical songs. —Ojorojo (talk) 14:03, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
It is very important when tracing the history of one of those old songs. Never mind, I have work-arounds for everythingTillywilly17 (talk) 14:40, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
It's odd that the publishers are only being added to the infoboxes[1][2][3] and not mentioned nor discussed in a "Compostion"-type section in the main body of the articles if indeed they are "very important". By the way, user-generated-type sites, including secondhandsongs and 45worlds, are not reconsidered reliable sources (see WP:USERGENERATED, WP:NOTRSMUSIC). —Ojorojo (talk) 15:52, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for pointing some things out to me, I just spent an hour reading and planning new strategies. I don't trust any of those sites, but several provide scans of the original media, which I need to cite directly. Also, many contributors to User Generated sites detail their sources, many of which I am familiar with. But I didn't know 45worlds and discogs were nono's, so I won't cite them anymore. Thanks Tillywilly17 (talk) 11:32, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
If the original media is being used as a source, {{cite AV media}} should be used rather than citing discogs, youtube, etc. Also, "According to the database of secondhandsongs.com, ..." was added to an article just hours ago.[4] Again, Secondhandsongs.com is listed on WP:NOTRSMUSIC and should not be cited or linked in WP articles. —Ojorojo (talk) 14:37, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
I will use that template, and Musicbrainz has scans and info (I work for them too). secondsongs has a huge database of covers. I would not use them for dates etc. I get publishing info from BMI and ASCAP, and so do they. All my info is triple checked, I just have to get better at choosing my sources. Thanks for all your comments and recommendations, I am still green, but I will get better. Tillywilly17 (talk) 01:08, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Automatic short descriptions

I've coded an automatic short description for this infobox, which you can check out here. It won't override any existing short descriptions, but for pages without them but with |type=, |artist=, and the publication date on Wikidata, it will use those to create the description YYYY type by artist. I've tested it on a bunch of pages and have not discovered any instances where it'd do any major damage (it doesn't handle flatlists such as at Time Warp (song) very well, but it's still better than nothing for them). Please let me know if you have any concerns, and hopefully we'll be able to implement soon. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 07:07, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this on. I think it might possibly need a bit more work to ensure that the first infobox on the page is used for the short description. See Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Auto short description for some examples of how infoboxes generate short descriptions, especially the one in {{Infobox album}}. I tested it at All Along the Watchtower, expecting the SD to show the Jimi Hendrix version, but it worked correctly, so maybe I'm wrong here, or maybe the noreplace is working as intended; what happens when two SDs both have noreplace? – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
If I reading this correctly, a potential problem is that song articles are often about more than one rendition. For example, Train Kept A-Rollin' discusses four significant versions, each with its own infobox. Is it possible for the auto function to identify the article by the writer, such as "Song written by Tiny Bradshaw" or "Song by Tiny Bradshaw also recorded by multiple artists"? Otherwise, a description such as "Single by Tiny Bradshaw" may lead some to conclude that the article is limited to one rendition. Also, using |type=single only describes one aspect: articles are usually (or should be) about songs (piece of music), rather than how they might have been marketed at one time. —Ojorojo (talk) 17:27, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
Thanks both! Jonesey95, I had missed the album one, so thanks for that link. It looks to be doing something very similar, so we'll want to borrow some elements. Namely, including it within the unsubst, replacing {{delink}} with {{Plain text}}, and checking to make sure that the infobox is in the lead.
The other major difference is that it appears to fetch the year by searching for a string of four digits in |released=, rather than through Wikidata as I do. I don't have an opinion about which is better, but if someone wants to switch it to the string search, they should do that rather than me as I'm not overly familiar with the string module.
Ojorojo, I don't think there would be an easy way to automate that. "1951 single by Tiny Bradshaw" is at least accurate; for cases where we want to tweak it to particular circumstances, it'll always be possible to override the automatic description. Regarding "single" vs. "song", |type=song is an option, and can be used for pages where "single" wouldn't fit. In the short descriptions I've seen done manually, most ones for singles tend to use "single", so that's what I coded for now. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:48, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
Update: So I implemented the three things from the album infobox. The lead check has the beneficial side effort of making it so that articles with multiple instances of {{Infobox song}} don't generate an automatic short description, which should help with the concern about songs with multiple versions. It also has the less beneficial side effect of making it (I think) so that redirects such as {{Infobox single}} (770 transclusions, which isn't too much compared to 60k) won't generate a description. I also made it so that instances where |type= is left blank will default to "song", since the infobox already does that for generating the heading. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:25, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: Is it necessary to use |type= to generate the description? Some of the types include "demo" and "remix", which may be unfamiliar to many people and might not describe the article. Instead, maybe for any use of Infobox song, it can simply generate "song", as in "2000 song by So & So". If editors feel that it is important to further describe the song, they may add it manually. —Ojorojo (talk) 14:24, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
|type= uses the {{Infobox song/link}} helper template, which has the types "single", "song", "demo", "promotional single", "remix", "instrumental", "composition", "hymn", "nursery rhyme", or custom. For many of these, it's very clearly helpful to have the more specific type; we don't really want to call nursery rhymes like Humpty Dumpty songs, and calling hymns hymns rather than just songs seems an improvement. Regarding "demo" and "remix", I'd like to hear from those more familiar with them, but if it's good enough for the top of the infobox, I'd think it'd be alright for the short description as well. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:56, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Year error

Okay, so Wbm1058 has spotted an error at Geordy Black and rolled back the automatic descriptions. Tracing it, the cause is that the Wikidata item has "19. century" as the value for the publication date. The short description was just checking that the Wikidata had a value for that property and then applying {{Year|wikidata value}}, so it was returning an error because it doesn't recognize "19. century" as a year. We could resolve this by checking not just that a Wikidata value exists for the publication date but that it doesn't return an error when put through {{Year}}. Alternatively, the approach {{Infobox album}} uses is to do a string search of |release=. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 07:31, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, so I tried fixing with this edit, but it doesn't seem to be working based on a test at Geordy Black. Anyone know why it's not registering an error output as an error? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:07, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
Oops, the malfunctioning sandbox fix was just me messing up while trying to code templates on mobile (not the best idea...). The sandbox fix is working now. I'll wait a bit if anyone wants to double check it and then restore the automatic descriptions. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 13:12, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 Restored. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 00:25, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Another issue Sdkb at Caramelldansen the year was wrong because wikidata was wrong while the local value in the infobox was correct. Shouldn't the release date in the template take precedence over wikidata? --Trialpears (talk) 11:30, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

User:Sdkb User:Trialpears I think the local value should take precedence as well. Examples of this method of implementation (totally independent of Wikidata) can be observed at Template:Infobox album, Template:Infobox film/short description, and Template:Infobox video game, and it works pretty well. These simply parse the release field for the first four-digit numerical string. — Goszei (talk) 03:38, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

"Written" parameter

In my opinion this parameter should be displayed above "Recorded" parameter, not above "Released" parameter, because this way it looks kinda odd. infsai (talkie? UwU) 22:35, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

The infobox parameters are currently displayed in the following order:
"Infobox song/Archive 9"
Song
Written111
Published222
Released333
Recorded444
During the merger discussions, there was no support to reorder the parameters (a song is recorded before it is released, but ...) Please note that |written= and |published= are normally used for more historical or traditional songs that predate commercial recordings, so these do not all usually appear in the same box.
—Ojorojo (talk) 14:13, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
@Ojorojo: Actually there are a lot of popular songs that has articles using this parameter, like "The Edge of Glory", "Telephone", "Happier Than Ever", just to name a few. I do get your point why in context of old songs it might have more sense to put it high in infobox, but with the modern examples that placement might feel weird and disorienting for the viewers. infsai (talkie? UwU) 11:51, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
If date or dates when a commercially released recording was written is an important point as discussed in the article, I suppose it's important enough to be included in the infobox. I haven't closely read the linked articles, but the exact date Lady Gaga wrote the song isn't expanded upon (there are two more writers listed; were their contributions also on the same date? The ref used doesn't mention them). It may be details for detail's sake; if there's an empty parameter, there are always those who will attempt to use/misuse it. I don't think there is enough interest in this, but an RfC at WT:SONGS may be an option if you feel strongly about it. —Ojorojo (talk) 13:30, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Overlinking

The terms "Genre", "Label", "Studio", "Songwriter", "Composer", "Lyricist", "Producer" etc in the infobox are everyday words and shouldnt be linked per MOS:OVERLINK --FMSky (talk) 22:07, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, you do have a good point. I'd say only "B-side" is a link worth keeping. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 22:32, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

"Sample" parameter

Considering the widespread use of samples on infoboxes, why don't we have |sample=? Is there any good reason why samples need to be relegated to |misc=? ili (talk) 09:35, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

What problem would this solve? The |misc= parameter is flexible and useful for a variety of media types and lists. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:35, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Label

Is there any difference between a label having "Entertainment" in its name as opposed to "Records", or are both words treated the same way and removed regardless? The company/label formerly known as Big Hit Entertainment became Hybe Corporation in 2021 and created a music label subsidiary named Big Hit Music. If the name is shortened in the infobox to just Big Hit for works released prior to the creation of BHM, how would a reader know at a glance (save them actually tapping on the label name or scrolling past the infobox (displays before lead on mobile) to read the lead where the full label name is written) that the 'BH' being referred is the orig ent. co. as opposed to the new music label? -- Carlobunnie (talk) 00:14, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

musical

can we have an option for linking the next and previous songs for a musical number? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 17:01, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Template talk:Infobox song/Archive 8#Make it go away -- partial track listing is the last discussion that led to their removal. —Ojorojo (talk) 14:38, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

More contrasting shades

Based on Template talk:Infobox album § More contrasting shades, I would like to propose a change in the color of type Single to meet the WCAG AAA contrast level with the blue links that the template itself generates:

Type code Current color Proposed color (WCAG AAA)
Single
Link, text
Link, text
Other values
Link, text
 No change needed

I think it makes sense to concentrate the discussion at Template talk:Infobox album § More contrasting shades since the colors here are a subset of those used there and it is seems like they should be kept in sync. --Fernando Trebien (talk) 19:15, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Countries

Can we please have a Country parameter? In the same way that we need to know the country when we watch a movie; we also as readers need to know that info regarding songs. Link if a song is in Spanish, we need to know in the info-box whether it's from Spain, or Mexico, or Uruguay..etc. Many thanks!

Fragrant Peony (talk)

A song doesn't come from a country, the songwriter and the artist who sings it do - a song doesn't belong to any specific nationality. I'm not sure what you would do for cases where different versions of a song are sung by artists from many different countries, or songs like "My Way" or "It's Now or Never", which were originally French and Italian, respectively, but are most famous in versions with English lyrics sung by American artists. I also worry that it couls give rise to some editors indulging in edit wars based on petty nationalism - arguing whether a song is Kosovan or Serbian, or Macedonian or Greek. Richard3120 (talk) 12:10, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 12 April 2022

I've cleared up Category:Pages using infobox song with deprecated parameters, so deprecated parameters can be removed from the code now. Or the code should be corrected so that it will put all the empty values into the category as well. Since now it only places parameters with values. Deprecated parameters are: comment, format, from_album, ISWC, Last single, next, next_no, next_single, next_track, original_artist, prev, prev_no, prev_single, prev_track, This single, track_no. Solidest (talk) 19:19, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

 Partly done: I have removed the deprecated parameters from the sandbox version of this template. Can you please update the testcases page so that it uses only supported parameters? That will allow us to see whether there are any glaring bugs with the sandbox code. There may be additional, more subtle errors that are not covered by the testcases, so feel free to add more complex examples to that page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:27, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
@Jonesey95. Done. Also added one testcase where all the parameters are used at the same time. There are still unneeded AKAs in sandbox code that are not used anywhere on wiki: "english_title" + "from_album" . And I also don't get the purpose of "__µ", which also isn't used anywhere (if it's necessary to keep it, maybe it makes sense to give it a more descriptive name?). Solidest (talk) 19:22, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 Done Nice work on the testcases page. I have also removed the apparently unused __µ and from_album parameters from the unknown parameter check; if they are truly unused after the job queue updates the tracking category, we can remove the associated code. Ping me in a week or so, if you remember, and I'll finish the job. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:49, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
@Jonesey95, ok, thanks. But what about lower-cased english_title? Currently capitalized version is used ~940 times and lower-cased is used 20 times: [5]. I could also change everything to capitalized version. Or did you, on the contrary, leave the lowercase so that it became the main version? Solidest (talk) 21:06, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
The standard appears to be lower-case parameter names, so I would hesitate to get rid of |english_title=. I also wouldn't get rid of |English_title=, since it is properly capitalized. It's fine to have a few aliases; they do little harm. If many editors have strong feelings about one or the other, though, I'm fine to go with consensus. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:13, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
@Jonesey95: I just imported a short description to a song from WikiData, then thought... "That's weird. I thought these were automatic." It looks like in the edit to incorporate this change at Special:Diff/1082744716 actually removed the auto-generated short description logic inadvertently. I'm thinking that was unintentional, but I wanted to point it out. - 2pou (talk) 21:20, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
Great catch! The top of the template was filled with such a morass of unspaced, uncommented spaghetti code that I mistakenly deleted the short description code. I have restored it. Thank you for notifying me about my error. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:46, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi, could any of the recent changes to the template have caused this to There Goes My Miracle? All I did was "subst" the infobox to perform an auto-cleanup and it turned into a bunch of code instead. Thanks. StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 04:50, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

I removed the very complex substing code because all of the articles using the long-deprecated parameters (with populated values) had finally been replaced in article space. Why did you feel the need to subst the template in that article? Is this need going to arise frequently in the future? – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:45, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
When I see an infobox that has old parameters or is in a general mess from manual entry, I will sometimes "subst" it to clean up formatting, etc. If that's no longer practical I won't do it anymore. Thanks. StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 16:21, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
There shouldn't be any song infoboxes with unsupported/old parameters that are populated, since Category:Pages using infobox song with unknown parameters is essentially empty (4 articles at this writing). If people try to add values to unsupported parameters, the values will not display, the editors will see an error message in Preview, and that error category will be applied. Manual fixes should be fine at this point. If there are many pages with empty outdated parameters that need fixing, a bot should be able to fix them easily. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:11, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 11 April 2022

Place the {{Short description}} statement inside a new {{if}} statement in order to reduce some pages that are populating Category:Articles with long short description unnecessarily.

{{#if:{{Has short description}} |<!--Do nothing--> |{{short description|...

The above is coming from how the film infobox handles this difference at {{Infobox film/short description}}. See the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Short description/Archive 11#"Category:Articles with long short description" isn't working for some additional context, but basically, when the song is populated with lots of featured artists in the infobox, it blows up the short description. If a manual SD is added to shorten it, it should remove the page from the above category, but it is not doing so. -2pou (talk) 17:53, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

To editor 2pou: honestly not sure I have it correctly in the sandbox. Please check to see if that passes the test(s). If not, then make any changes it needs and let me know. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. put'r there 07:38, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
@Paine Ellsworth: That looks like it worked great in Special:Diff/1084116132 and Special:Diff/1084116464. Both were removed from the hidden category, as expected. I think it can be merged. Thanks!
The category currently has ~3,119 pages, and this should reduce the number of entries when the actual infobox has the change. Any chance you can do the same for {{Infobox album}}? Those two infoboxes are big contributors that were easier to see how this might apply. Museum is another one I remember affecting the category, but that looks like its using some slightly different code that I'm not sure how it would translate to yet. -2pou (talk) 17:08, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
Glad it worked! Please be sure to revert the sandboxes in those two examples you gave. For now, we can call this  done in this template; we can see how well this works before applying it in another ibox. Let me know how this turns out, and thanks very much for your help on this gnarly challenge! P.I. Ellsworth - ed. put'r there 20:40, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
To editor 2pou: this is to let you know that this change has been added to {{Infobox album}} as of 23:17, 23 April 2022‎ (UTC). P.I. Ellsworth - ed. put'r there 23:24, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Omit words like "Music" and "Entertainment" in record label parameter

Currently, the description for the "label" parameter tells us that we should remove "Records" from the name of the record company if it does appear in it (e.g., Capitol). Other templates such as Template:Infobox musical artist included words like "Music" and "Entertainment" that we should be omitting (piped out). Can we also do the same for this template? If so, may the text be updated in the template's documentation? So that other users can hopefully properly use the template. Thanks! – SARASALANT (talk | contributions) 10:11, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 18 June 2022

The quotes around the song titles shouldn't be bolded 77.22.105.13 (talk) 11:26, 18 June 2022 (UTC) 77.22.105.13 (talk) 11:26, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: This is a contentious edit, or this has already been discussed, so you'll need to discuss first with other editors. If there is an existing discussion on the talk page please contribute to that section. If there is no existing discussion you may explain why this edit should be made in this section, or start a new section on this talk page. See previous discussion (there may be more). The quotation marks are bold because the top line of the infobox is a header; headers are rendered in bold. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:28, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Short description

I think that the last edit has a small problem. The {{{noreplace}}} parameter needs to be a bracket-pair earlier. The infobox SD is overriding the local SD in some cases — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 07:53, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

I think GhostInTheMachine is right. Please link to an article where this was happening so that I can check. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:18, 28 May 2022 (UTC)
(P.S. I moved one pair of closing braces, so I think that this problem is fixed. I verified it by creating a new SD on a page that had an infobox-generated one.) – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:58, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

This edit to Ours (song) and this edit to Better than Revenge removed the short descriptions. Could this template be removing the SD when an infobox isn't in the lead, or has insufficient detail to generate one, even if a previous infobox tried to add a useful SD? Certes (talk) 09:08, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

GhostInTheMachine has kindly added SDs to both my examples manually, but I think there's still a potential problem. Certes (talk) 18:44, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Edit request 3 September 2023

Suggest adding a |version= parameter into the infobox template

There is a tiny thing I've noticed in many song articles for a while but hadn't really given serious thought until now. On the "singles chronology" section of infoboxes, the "remix" parenthetical is always inside the quotation marks: see Kill Bill (SZA song) or 34+35 Remix. Per MOS:MUSIC#Popular music: "For titles of works and releases, purely descriptive phrases in parentheses or after dashes, such as 'remix', 'acoustic version' and 'remastered', should not be considered part of song titles".

Hence, when writing a version of a song on, say, an article's track list section, one would write "Song" (original version) and not "Song (Original Version)". However, the same cannot be done to the article infobox due to the template's constraints. Perhaps a parameter that allows a "version" parenthetical to be added after the song's title on the header and the singles chronology would prove useful and more MOS-compliant? Something like this. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 05:07, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

@Your Power: I've implemented a version of this in the sandbox and you can see an example at Template:Infobox song/testcases#Previous/next tracks requiring disambiguation. Does that look good, or do you think the formatting should be different?
Also, this should probably be added to {{Extra chronology}} if it's added here. Elli (talk | contribs) 18:08, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
Thank you @Elli. That looks great. One thing I seem to be missing: what if the song in the infobox also needs disambiguation? Apart from that, things should be good; and yes, we should probably ask the folks at {{Extra chronology}} as well. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 00:41, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
@Your Power: One thing I seem to be missing: what if the song in the infobox also needs disambiguation? Given that the disambiguation is not actually part of the title, it probably doesn't, given context? Though maybe I am missing something; if you can give an example of where that would be necessary, I'd be happy to help with implementing that. Elli (talk | contribs) 04:11, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Just curious and have an observation: in the Kill Bill (SZA song) ibox, the param + arg are
  • |next_title=[[Special (Lizzo song)|Special (Remix)]],
and in the [test cases] iboxes the param + arg are
  • |next_title=[[Special (Lizzo song)|Special]]
so there won't be a redundant "(Remix)" followed by "(remix)". This appears to require edits to many, many song iboxes in order to get rid of the unwanted "(Remix)". Isn't that correct? P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 11:37, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
@Paine Ellsworth: not exactly. There will be many edits required to convert from the old format to the new one; but by default the old format will be used (there won't be an additional (remix) added until someone converts the format). Elli (talk | contribs) 21:11, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for that, editor Elli! Good to know. Should this request be deactivated, then? P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 22:51, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Was waiting for Your Power's reply to my question before I went ahead with implementation. Elli (talk | contribs) 22:53, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
@Elli: What I meant is that the infoboxes present in sections of articles like Save Your Tears#Remixes, Homemade Dynamite#Remixes, and Bad Guy (Billie Eilish song)#Justin Bieber version present information on remixes, so the header and singles chronology must indicate that disambiguation. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 02:42, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
@Your Power: Ah, yes, thanks for the examples. I'll get on that (a bit busy tonight, so feel free to ping me in a day or two if I haven't gotten to it, to remind me). Elli (talk | contribs) 03:19, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
@Elli: ping as requested. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 01:57, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
@Your Power: does what I've done at Template:Infobox song/testcases#Current track requiring disambiguation look good? Elli (talk | contribs) 03:46, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
@Elli: all good to me. Thanks! ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 06:25, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Great, will implement the changes tomorrow (sleeping on it to recheck in the morning and make sure I didn't miss any mistakes as I'm rather tired right now). Elli (talk | contribs) 06:31, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
"Ariana Grande singles chronology" still shows a "(Remix) with uppercase "R". P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 07:21, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
@Paine Ellsworth: yeah, that's because {{Extra chronology}} needs to be similarly modified. Elli (talk | contribs) 22:04, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
@Elli: I already made the edit req. in the template's talk page. In the meantime we can edit this template first. ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 22:50, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
@Your Power:  Done; please let me know if any issues arise. Elli (talk | contribs) 01:43, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
@Elli: Thank you for making the edit, though whenever I look at the real-time preview when using edit source, a preview warning message pops up. "Preview warning: Page using Template:Infobox song with unknown parameter 'version'". ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 03:56, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
Ugh, thought I addressed that. Fixing... Elli (talk | contribs) 03:57, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
@Elli: pretty much that's all that needed to be addressed here. Thanks for your responses! ‍ ‍ Elias 🌊 ‍ ‍ 💬 "Will you call me?"
📝 "Will you hang me out to dry?" 00:30, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Significant changes should be discussed

@Jonesey95: Can you please undo this edit by Tony1? It hasn't been discussed and it affects a widely used template by unnecessarily making the margins for the parameters wider by including the full wording ("recording studio" is now across two lines, which I am sure plenty of editors would not like). Not sure why a few links to perhaps less widely used terms that readers may not understand should have been removed (as in these cases, it is debatable that WP:OVERLINK applies). I have asked Tony1 to undo his edit but he has not edited in several hours, and such significant changes should be discussed before being implemented. It appears Tony1 made this edit several years ago, but it was disputed then (Template talk:Infobox song/Archive 9#Recent edit). It should not have been implemented without consensus now. Thanks. @Pythoncoder and Sdkb: who previously disputed this edit. Ss112 14:15, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

It is strange that Tony1 (whom you should ping when you are discussing their edits) made this edit after it was objected to and reverted in 2020. My guess is that Tony1 did not remember that previous discussion and was just cleaning up various pages. I sometimes make a repeated change to a page after a gap of a few years, simply because I do not remember a previous discussion or objection. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:13, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
@Jonesey95: I already left a note on Tony1's talk page about the edit, but yes, I probably should have pinged him here too. Ss112 15:28, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
You're right: I didn't remember any prior edits. Tony (talk) 01:24, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
I have reverted Tony1 again for a similar undiscussed edit. This is disruptive behavior by someone with template editor rights. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:10, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
I simply forget; and it keeps appearing on my list. I'll make a special effort to remember this appallingly linked infobox and not touch it. Tony (talk) 01:26, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Should editions of the album be included in the infobox?

If a song is released on a re-issue of an album should the infobox have the edition the song is included in or should it just be the album title by itself and the edition be noted? 2600:1015:B12C:CF88:B557:9722:E43C:E820 (talk) 15:23, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Add-on: I don’t personally think it should seeing as some artist can release them on multiple editions of the album, for example “Hits Different” appears on two different versions of the same album so just seems easier to have just the album title and then have the edition it is included on noted. 2600:1015:B12C:CF88:B557:9722:E43C:E820 (talk) 15:33, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Some instances are not generating short descriptions

See Module talk:Is infobox in lead#When multiple infoboxes are present, the one in the lead does not appear to generate a short description for details. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:50, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Edit request 1 March 2024

Description of suggested change: I would like to create an "albums" parameter for songs which appear on multiple albums. Examples of pages which could use this parameter: Muñecas (song), Outside (Calvin Harris song). SaltieChips (talk) 13:25, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Muñecas has a workaround: [[Cupido (album)|Cupido]] ''and'' [[Hiroquest 2: Double Helix]]. Would you want only the word 'album' in the infobox be changed to a plural if an |albums= parameter is used? SWinxy (talk) 03:02, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
@SaltieChips: There is a reply here for you. SilverLocust 💬 04:59, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes, perhaps an ''and'' would default to a plural. SaltieChips (talk) 12:00, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
That is not what was suggested by Swinxy. The suggestion is that |album= works as normal with Album, but |albums=Cupido and Hiroquest 2: Double Helix will change the label to Albums — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:28, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
@SaltieChips: Another reply here. I suggest clicking "subscribe" at the top of the section for notifications. SilverLocust 💬 15:36, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
Deactivating edit request pending a reply. In any event this would need to be sandboxed and tested before being implemented. * Pppery * it has begun... 00:50, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

What about adding the key signature?

What about adding the key signature of a song? Abhiramakella (talk) 14:54, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

@Abhiramakella: I think this would be impossible to do – many songs change key throughout the song, and in addition, different versions of the song are often in different keys. Richard3120 (talk) 01:00, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Remove unused capitalized aliases

|Released=, |Type=, |Artist= – these aliases are no longer used anywhere[6] and are not needed in the code. Solidest (talk) 04:04, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

 Done. Those braces are pretty nested, and the template has many parameter checks, so let me know if I missed anything. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:45, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
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