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Usage of Non-free album covers

Discussions continue at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. A current discussion is going on regarding the addition of the following to WP:NONFREE policy under the heading "Examples of unacceptable use":

"A CD cover, album cover, or boom [sic] cover used to illustrate an article about the CD, album, or book, when the article does not justify this by reference to attributes of the cover art. The mere fact that a picture has been placed on the cover of an album to sell it is not enough.

Supporters of this statement feel they are simply clarifying policy, detractors feel that they misinterpret policy [disclaimer, I'm a detractor]. The argument seems to depend upon what one deems to be a "significant contribution" of an image to an article. If you have an opinion and have yet to join the discussion, you may want to take a look. -MrFizyx 16:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Update. Debate on when policy should or should not allow the use of Album images is continuing at WT:FREE. One proposal is that covers should be allowed for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (the underlying album), not for identification without critical commentary, together with the strong recommendation that "If the artist, design company or photographer that created or designed the image is known, they should be clearly indicated in the article; if the image has a particular relevance to the underlying work, this should also be discussed"; but without such discussion being an absolute mandatory requirement.

Others still want to go further, and prohibit "A CD cover, album cover, or boom cover used to illustrate an article about the CD, album, or book, when the article does not justify this by reference to attributes of the cover art". Debate is continuing.

Special explanations advisable for Album cover images larger than 300 x 300

Either way, on a different aspect of this issue, both by the law and by the policy, cover images must be of a resolution no greater than the minimum necessary to achieve the purpose for which fair use is claimed. WP convention puts this at about 300 x 300 for album covers used in infoboxes.

But there are a lot of album cover images out there that are larger than this. It is likely that sooner or later, someone will make a sweep through the album cover images category to find all images larger than 300 x 300, and, perhaps, automatically replace them with smaller ones.

If there is a particular reason for a particular album cover that an image of only 300 x 300 will not do the job, it is strongly advisable that someone adds an explanation of this onto the image's media page, to say why it should not be automatically replaced with a smaller one. For example, Image:Beatles_-_Abbey_Road.jpg might justify a larger image, to illustrate Paul's bare feet and other details specifically commented on at Paul is dead. The fair use rationale needs to explain this: "Exceptionally, an image larger than 300 x 300 is appropriate because..."

Sorry for all this legal crap, but it is something we have to deal with, and some people have got a real bee in their bonnets about. From our side, we need to just make it go away, with as little collateral damage as possible. Jheald 08:42, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I fail to see where a guideline actually specifically mentions 300px. You've said it's wp convention, but I can't find any Wiki reference to the fact. As to the legalities, they vary based on the country of origin. In the UK, the Fair Use laws are different and here in Australia also are very different. In the USA they're the toughest of all, but here in Aus, they're pretty simple and lax, in the UK they're tougher and so in accordance, the items released from Australia have looser requirements to be referenced. I'm not saying this to contravene or dodge the Wikipolicies, but am simply saying that the actual laws really don't have a lot to do with it, as long as it passes general internet copyright procedures, and I don't know a country in the world that has copyright and fair use laws as strict as those here on Wikipedia. As I pointed out on the tag for the cover of Chasing Mississippi, if you were to actually print something at 600px², you'd end up with an image less than 4cm² (2'²), which is tiny, (just) less than a third of standard printing size, and the proposal of 300² would mean that were one to print it, it'd exactly an inch (that is, 300DPi is standard commercial printing definition). Now the purpose of Fair Use is to provide that something cannot be replicated in such a way as to take from the artist/copyright holder's capacity to earn from it, in short. If I'm printing something at that size, there's no way loss or damage could be attributed on account of its quality, because even though on a computer monitor it shows rather large, their printing ability is terribly lower than the resolution of a regular album, and less still than a Record cover. --lincalinca 09:54, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I think for ones more than 300px we might consider making a second image copped just showing Paul's feet. It would work better in the article anyway. Secretlondon 17:16, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Delimiting genres

Prompted by this change, I think we should have a guideline for how to delimit (and capitalize) genres. Commas and <br /> are commonly used as delimiters, slashes more seldom, and now asterisks. For consistency with existing articles, I think we should pick one of the two most common delimiters, commas or <br />. Related to this issue is the fact that most genres shouldn't be capitalized, per WP:MUSTARD#Capitalization, which is a common mistake. I propose we choose commas, because that makes the capitalization more obvious, and is consistent with Template:Infobox musical artist. Therefore I propose we change this text:

Genre
One or more music genres, for example, "Rock" should link to Rock music, "Alternative" should link to Alternative rock, "Punk" to Punk rock, and so on.

to this:

Genre
One or more music genres, delimited by commas. Genres should be linked (piped linked where needed), for example, "Rock, pop" should link to rock music and pop music respectively. Note that most genres aren't proper nouns, and shouldn't be capitalized, but the first genre in the list should be.

It's a bit of a repetition from WP:ALBUM#Disambiguating links, but I think that is warranted. Any objections? --PEJL 20:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Commas should be fine: more line breaks just make the infobox unnecessarily tall. Also, there should really be as few HTML tags as possible. –Unint 21:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I second the use of commas... vertical lists just look bad when the rest of the entries in infoboxes aren't separated the same way. The change looks good to me. ~Gertlex 15:30, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
checkY Done. Thanks for the feedback. --PEJL 23:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

What about UPC / Catalogue #?

I've just stumbled along this page and I apologise if this has already been covered, but what about an optional field in the details for an album to be its "cat number" (that's what it's called in Australia, where I work for a music retailer) or "UPC" is a term I've seen used for a similar thing in the US (although I'm not very sure about that). This is a unique short series of letters and numbers to identify a CD. I already use wikipedia heavily to find information on artists and albums for customers, and the ability to know a CD's cat number would help immensely with finding it in our store's database. This is one example of which I'm sure there are many where this information would be useful and relevant. Frob 13:38, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

UPC is the 12 or 13 -digit number below the barcode. It's different from catalog numbers, which are internal to the company. UPC's are distinct for every product, from floor cleaner to record albums, whereas many record labels have a product with the catalog number CD01.
Many albums have multiple product codes, especially those released internationally, or reissued.
I don't think this sort of information is widely included on Wikipedia, but it might be worth including in cases where it helps identify different content (e.g. different edits, hidden or bonus material, remastering, defects, et cetera) found in different version of a same album. Since Wikipedia is not album complete (and by policy, won't be), it will never serve as a comprehensive database of product codes. / edgarde 14:51, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
There are periodic requests to include the catalog number in the infobox, and there's never been any consensus to add it. In my own personal opinion, I think it's infobox clutter, but if you think it's helpful info and find a way to work it into the text, that's fine. In addition, there are questions about the usefulness of cat numbers in an ever changing list of releases. -Freekee 23:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I admit, I sometimes add a section at the very end of an article on the release history and if possible include a table of catalog numbers. Many sources include these in discographies and articles, so obviously somebody finds them useful (although I'm not entirely sure how/why). If you feel it makes your article more complete somehow, add that bit of data, but do it at the bottom of the page, there is no need to further clutter the infobox. -MrFizyx 23:32, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The endash in the track listing

I am unsure if this has been discussed here recently. Is there a particular reason that the endash is used to divide the track name from the track length? This may be an idiosyncratic use of an endash; usually an emdash would be used for this sort of function—see, for example, WP:LIST#Definition lists. I bring this up here because there are now discussions under way at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Hyphens and dashes in the MoS to replace some dash guidelines with this draft. --Paul Erik 16:26, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Disclaimer, I've only glanced at the new guideline and not looked at the discussion. What would be the alternative to using spaced en dashes as we do now? Unspaced em dashes? The proposed new guideline seems to disallow spaced em dashes, which are acceptable in the existing guideline, so that wouldn't be an option. Spaced en dashes seem to be an acceptable alternative to em dashes in both the old and new guidelines. --PEJL 16:55, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Update: The guidelines have been updated, and they now explicitly say to use spaced en dashes in track listing and credits sections of album articles. --PEJL 13:11, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we have a new section for each Album page called...

'Accepted As Given Rock Music Fact', this way all of us true rock fans who really know our rock facts can make the given declarations we ALL know to be true, like the Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street is their greatest album and Nirvana was really a punk band (everybody knows that, right?)... stuff like that.

Am I being facetious? Of course. But this attitude runs rampant through the album pages. Whole histories of an album given with barely a citation or reference in sight, liberally sprinkled with much non-NPOV. I know of many Album pages where I could delete histories that are 6 to 7 paragraphs long leaving nothing because not a word of it is cited nor referenced. But we all know the uproar this would cause. SO... what to do, what to do... Buster 18:26, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

You are encouraged to source, edit, delete or {{fact}} tag such writing. Uproar is common when removing fancruft — if it becomes controversial within a given article, you could probably canvass this Project to editors who can help.
Lots of rock/pop listeners try to express personal experiences of passion rationally (and then just barely). Not an optimal starting point for NPOV or encyclopedic writing in general.
WP:NPOV#A_simple_formulation uses The Beatles' "greatness" as an example, providing a clear example for music pages. (Interestingly, The Beatles still has statements like "are the greatest band ever" reverted almost daily.)
I often point writers to WP:PEACOCK. WP:ATT or WP:CITE for unsourced statements. Maybe WP:BETTER for the rest. / edgarde 19:01, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
BTW, Edgarde, thanks for your help. Buster 00:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with 'Buster', it could be a problem coming from a 'giddy' 12 year old editor, but who's to say that I could give a hoot what the managing editor of Rolling Stone Magazine thinks from his regurgetated, commercialized, possibly inaccurate accounting of the band?(that's why they call em' retractions)

I will tell you that if i'm searching for a band, one that i've never heard of, like say: 'Black Tears'. If there is no content in the article, someone has left it blank due to no citation, I would much rather read about how some 'giddy' 12 year old got to go backstage and meet the "kewlest band in the werld" than to be left with absolutely nothing. This at least gives me a relatable article that has one experience that I may gleen some info of how this band was significant at that time(even if it is to one person). Leaving it up to my own imagination? I'd rather play Russian Roulette.
I say, leave it in with a "citation needed" tag until it's cited or replaced with the (sheesh)mighty, all-powerful 'Rolling Stones' quote...--ZapperZippy 20:13, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
If one really values unsourced opinions and original reviews from non-notable writers, I'm sure a Google search can find something free from quality control. / edgarde 21:48, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Hey, I was just playing Devil's Advocate. We don't have to quote from Mind Police, it's No Fun. Besides, that would just create Anarchy in the USA. I hope I'm not being too Boring...Who's to say Nirvanna was *not* a punk band? Thank God for Google--ZapperZippy 04:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
You are being somewhat boring (since you ask). But more to the point, you're using a talk page as a chat forum. As a general rule, talk pages are for discussion related to improving the article. Perhaps it's time for you to start a blog or something. / edgarde 19:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Are you stalking me? =)--ZapperZippy 23:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
I would very much like to see better references for all music related articles. Unfortunately, there are very few usable sources in the field, if you're to follow official Wikipedia guidelines. You can't even use a band's own website. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources. We need to allow for a bit of stretching the rules, when necessary. -Freekee 22:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I think what you are talking about is allowed and under the right circumstances does not involve breaking the rules. See WP:SELFPUB. Of course third party sources are always better. When you can find 'em use 'em. -MrFizyx 22:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Help requested

Hi,

Is it customary to have a nav box for between songs on the same album. Specifically, I'm talking about this TFD for Template:Mutter. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:42, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

No. There's the artist temp box already, for released singles. A temp box for a specific album is not needed, as unreleased singles usually do not have their own page anyway. — « hippi ippi » 10:45, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
For what it's worth - here are two examples that I have noticed: Blackbird (song) & Charlie (song). It's not common, but when there's an article for just about every song on an album, it seems to be a good idea. Putting the info in the infobox look better than a template at the bottom of the article, in my opinion.--Fisherjs 12:55, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Non-English language reviews

We now have a list of review sources that should not be used in the professional reviews section, at WP:ALBUM#Non-professional. I added Infomusic, a review source in Polish, to that list yesterday, but that change was reverted just now. How do people feel about non-English language reviews? My position is that the majority of readers of English Wikipedia will not know Polish and won't be able to read that review. Editors who don't know Polish are also unable to assess if that review source meets the requirements on review sources (being clarified at #Professional review sources). Opinions? --PEJL 17:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:MOS-L#Foreign-language sites seems to support this. --PEJL 18:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I reverted that deletion. Thanks for linking WP:MOS-L so I didn't have to. A agree that non-english reviews don't work here.
Might consider an exception for articles on non-english speaking music (especially song-based) that isn't otherwise known in english speaking countries, but that should be justified on a per article basis. Even then, might require a translation of some sort (via Babelfish or whatever). / edgarde 19:13, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Non-English language reviews may still be useful in case there are no other reviews available but inability to assess the source by most editors is a fair point. Jogers (talk) 10:07, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
What about creating a category for it? And additionally, if the album's in a certain language, the review should be in the interwiki of that language. If someone understands the language of the review, they should understand the language of the interwiki article. --lincalinca 06:34, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Sputnikmusic's placing on non-professional list

I've noticed recently that Sputnikmusic has been placed on wiki's list of non-professional review sources, with the description: "As a matter of policy, reviews from these review sources are not considered professional, and should not be included in album infoboxes."

Rather than make any unilateral changes, as an editor at Sputnikmusic I'd ask you to reconsider this position, as Sputnikmusic's staff review section is recognised as a professional source by a number of media outlets, bands and record labels, who've cited and reposted our reviews on their sites and in literature. Reviews are also tallied by Metacritic, who draw from the staff list exclusively.

We would be happy to assist in removing any non-staff reviews which are cited as professional in other articles, as it has never been our policy to include them thus, but we'd urge you to reconsider. Perhaps Sputnikmusic could be included on the professional listing with a disclaimer urging contributors to verify that it's written by a staff member ("STAFF" will appear beside the authors given name on the page).

Anylayman 22:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I didn't recognize the distinction between Sputnikmusic's staff and non-staff reviews. It seems very reasonable to include the staff reviews among the professional reviews. I'll update the non-professional list to only exclude non-staff reviews. --PEJL 23:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I had already removed about 70 Sputnikmusic review links before this was brought up, of which I've now restored the ones which were staff reviews (only about 30), a sign that we need to keep an eye out for non-staff reviews being added in the future. --PEJL 19:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Is there a quick way of making the distinction between the two? Like, other than physically going in? (like based on the link to the review) I am a member of Sputnik and have left my 2 cents there a few times, and have never seen anything that at a glance appears to be anything different from anything else (maybe I've been looking at the wrong reviews). --lincalinca 06:32, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Not AFAICT. --PEJL 16:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


The only indicator right now is that the author's name has "STAFF" written beside it and is catalogued under the staff section of the site. I can make enquiries about a separate url structure however. Anylayman 07:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Template:Album cover article rationale

Well, Template:Album cover article rationale sprouted from the discussion above about more fair use images being tagged. It is simply a template to provide a fair use rationale for album covers used in their respective album articles, since there was resistance against hard coding the fair use rationale in to the template. Perhaps this can be added to the main page? Cheers. -- Reaper X 00:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I like it. Good work. But is the "user" parameter necessary? Jogers (talk) 09:56, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

No, but I've seen a fair amount of rationales with it though. It just adds credibility I guess. I can remove it if you feel that strongly about it, but I think it's good as is. -- Reaper X 02:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree this is quite good. I've done a whole bunch of rationales recently, primarily on Bowie single covers (Rebel Rebel is an example, if interested) without employing the user parameter and would prefer to see how those pan out before making it part of a template. Apart from that, I'd used variations of most of what you've included in the template except for item 3, which I think is a good 'un. Partly to make each rationale technically unique and to clearly state the article(s) for which FU is claimed, I also included the following line: "It is used to identify and illustrate the article <<album/single article link>>, which is the specific recording related to the cover image". Cheers, Ian Rose

Labels

Should distributing label be included in Labels line in an album's infobox? Daniil Maslyuk 07:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:ALBUM#Details says that only the original label should be included. Does that answer your question? (I don't know exactly what you mean by distributing label.) --PEJL 19:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Don't do it. For any given album that's distributed all over the world there would be far too many such labels. –Unint 02:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Can I get you to clarify your question? If I understand what you're saying, some artists are distributed by different companies internationally (such as Jive Zomba being distributed here in Australia by BMG until they merged with Sony) or do you mean where an album has several labels attached (such as Room for Squares having Aware records, Columbia Records and Sony BMG all attached, because they're all participant in its creation etc)? In that case, I'd do the latter, but not the former. Generally, I'd just attach anybody who's (a) in the article AND (b) actually funded the album and done initial local distribution. --lincalinca 06:24, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Sourcing lists (specifically track listings and credits)

Please see this article which contains dummy statements at the top of the "Track listing", "Credits" and "Chart positions" sections, whose only purpose is to hang references on. That seems suboptimal. Firstly, do we need to source these pieces of information? I ask because I looked at some FA album articles, and only some do this, and then only for some of these sections. Assuming we do, is there a better way to do this? Hanging the references on the headings doesn't work well. For tables the references can be attached to one of the table headers, such as the "Position" header in that example, or to individual table cells, but that won't work for lists. Thoughts? --PEJL 00:04, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Any FA article that doesn't would not be there I's day because other references throughout the page would provide the information, because this information itself is doubtlessly some of the most importance information to be included on the page/in the article of all. --lincalinca 06:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Should track listings include lengths?

Regarding WP:ALBUM#Track listing, it was brought to my attention that we don't explicitly recommend including track lengths in track listings. We do describe how to include them (delimiting using en dash), but do this vaguely (without actually mentioning that the delimiters are for track lengths, and for them alone, per existing practice) and don't mention when they should be included (always or only when appropriate, for some definition of appropriate). In practice the example is probably interpreted as a guideline that they should be included. A vast majority of album articles do include track lengths; about 90% in my sample of 1501 album articles do. (While some of the rest may not include them based on a conscious decision not to do so, I suspect most don't simply because no-one has bothered to enter them.) Therefore I propose we change the following in WP:ALBUM#Track listing, to codify existing practice:

Use an en dash (–) rather than a hyphen (-) as a dividing horizontal punctuation mark. [...]

to this:

Track lengths should be included for each track. Use a spaced en dash (–) rather than a hyphen (-) as a dividing horizontal punctuation mark before the track length. [...]

Any objections? --PEJL 12:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I say do it. Violask81976 13:27, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm a big fan of the en-dash. Might be helpful to mention the HTML character reference (&ndash;), which is more convenient for some users to type. / edgarde 16:56, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
The HTML entity is already mentioned in the continuation of the paragraph, represented by "[...]" above. --PEJL 20:04, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Do it. --lincalinca 01:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Oppose - this is meant to be an encyclopedia of notable information, not trivial tidbits that are listed simply because they are there. How does a track duration listing help? According to WP:NOT, wikipedia is not just a list of random info, but important info. Merbabu 04:50, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Track duration is helpful in several ways. The most obvious is as a clue to identifying different edits of songs. If we were voting I'd give this a big thumbs up. / edgarde 05:36, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with edgarde. I find track lengths quite useful. Jogers (talk) 08:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't particlarly fuss me whether durations are included in an article or not, provided they follow a standard appearance when they are included. Cheers, Ian Rose 09:11, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Hey guys. We do need the,. It's in the B class requirements, as i'll show and link here:

A B-class article has:

  • All the start class criteria
  • A completed infobox, including cover art and most technical details
  • Times in the track listing
  • Authors for all songs
  • Full credits, including technical personnel and guest musicians
  • At least one section of prose (excluding the lead section)
Bold emphasis is mine, but there you have it. it's been made B class requirement, so obviously B and upwards should all have it included. See: B-class requirements. --lincalinca 12:36, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Does such a requirement make sense? Things can be changed, right? ;-) Merbabu 12:43, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
In my mind, yes it makes a lot of sense. Time is a notable thing about music. Music is all about time. It would, however, be senseless to explain why each song was of such a lengt in the dialogue of an article. It's as important a number as the album sales, the date it was released. I know I'm not arguing the point very well, but it's unhelpful to not include it, basically. How is one to know that a song doesn't go for 20 minutes while the remaining songs on the album average at 4 minutes (such as Love Over Gold)? --lincalinca 01:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
checkY Done. A majority were in favor, and it was as noted already a B-class requirement (and implied by existing text and examples), so I made this change. --PEJL 21:08, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Back covers for original realeases

I've just had some back covers removed from the Beatles pages. These cover shots were from the original UK releases from the 1960's and since the vinyl format is no longer the dominant format then I would argue there are historical interests to have them displayed. In most cases, a lot of back covers for albums in their original LP or even cassette/8 track or Reel to Reel format, will never be reproduced in the same way again (especially albums that were release pre-barcode). There are generations of people that have never seen a record on the store shelves in their lives, so I believe it is of educational value to display the originals on Wikipedia. A classic example is the back cover of the original 1969 release of Abbey Road. This version beared no mention of the song Her Majesty, yet the later reissues and the 1987 compact disc, which replaced it, include the track on its track listing. What does this mean? It means that the world’s first hidden track is, now and forever, stripped of its title.

Besides, who said the cover had to just mean the front? Isn’t the definition of a cover just something that protects and promote the album? The back cover is included in this as this is where the track listing is so people know what songs they are going buy with the related album. I know this idea has changed in the itunes era where the front seems to matter, but this just supports my earlier argument for having the LP back covers. And look at wrap-around covers like Led Zeppelins Houses of the Holy or Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall that can never be reproduced in the same way with standard CD packaging. It is also interesting to add that for an influential band as big as the Beatles. I found very little images of the rear sides of their original LP’s online.

Again, whether it’s Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones or AC/DC it is of interested that we don’t let these images become the memories of baby boomers and let them be replaced with the bastardised CD versions. paulisdead 20:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The move to the CD format has robbed "pop" of one of its most important parts: the cover. Imagine a future where albums are available in a format no bigger than a postage stamp - not difficult to imagine - in such a hypothesis Peter Blake's Sgt. Pepper cover would no longer exist. In the case of a postage-stamp sized album it would be difficult for anybody with environmental credentials to justify a 12" square cover - perhaps the images could be encoded in the mp3 we download in the future? (Thinking about Pepper, for example, I mean including the original stickers/cutouts etc.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mvaughan0072000 (talk • contribs)
As I noted on your user talk page, the problem is that including back covers isn't considered fair use (see WP:FU) in most cases. This was previously discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 13#Back covers. See also lengthy discussion of fair use at Talk:The Beatles discography#Problem with album covers, which is about including covers in lists of albums, but the policy and guidelines discussed apply to back covers as well. --PEJL 11:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Last time I looked at WP:FU, the consensus was on the side of an album cover being fair use in the album article with no special 'critical commentary' regarding the cover, provided the image file itself included a fair use rationale; however the back cover would certainly require some commentary in the article to justify its appearance. Cheers, Ian Rose 09:08, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
The reasoning provided by PID here is valid, but that reasoning needs to be provided on the articlespace as long as it's encyclopedic and not original research. I am 99% sure an admin won't delete a back cover if you're appeasing the requirements of fair use, but the ones you refer to from the sounds of things don't appear to be meeting fair use. --lincalinca 12:28, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I did provide reasoning for each cover; being that the original covers form the 1960's are different to the current CD's and LP's - meaning they havn't been commericaly avalible in over 20 years (38 years for Abbey Road). The captions were there but the images were still taken down. I will post them with clear reasoning and making sure that the fair use is stated. paulisdead 17:10, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
You have now added for example this and this. I doubt those satisfy our fair use guidelines. See User:Durin/Fair use overuse. --PEJL 10:51, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
To clarify: My interpretation is that Wikipedia's fair use guidelines don't allow back covers (or other supplemental album artwork) to be added for a random article just because critical commentary is provided about the artwork in question, because our use of fair use images should be "minimal". That does not preclude it being included in cases when it is especially notable. (This goes further than the consensus from the previous discussion, based on the recent crackdown on the use of fair use images.) --PEJL 11:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
To further clarify: It's seldom "especially notable," as PEJL put it, to include them. If there was controversy over the content of the back cover, such as nudity that caused the album to be prohibited in places or had to be packages in "brown paper" 9so to speak) then THAT would be notable, especially if it could be seen as a reason for notoriety or sales being affected. Another case of where it may be acceptable is cases like this where, such as in this case, a word is misspelt, would be worthy of noting. I'm not even that sold on its importance, to be honest, considering that it's something that could easily be described in words, such as the description of the cover art of Time on Earth, where the description indicates the way the letters are spelled on the cover. As it's the front cover, it's somewhat irrelevant as the front cover is acceptable irrespective, but you should be able to get what I'm saying by now. --lincalinca 11:38, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Conflicts in Album Names

I am currently going through and doing a complete discography of Cowboy Mouth's albums (before I go and rework their page, which has been sporadically worked on). I'm hitting a conflict that their second last album was called Uh-oh. There is already an album on Wikipedia, by David Byrne, under this name. Is the proper method to link to Uh-oh (Cowboy Mouth), as someone has done somewhere else (though without actually creating the entry), or is there a better way to indicate whose album is whose? --Thespian 11:42, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

If there's already an album article for Uh-Oh then the name you should use is Uh-Oh (Cowboy Mouth album) - see the project naming standards. Cheers, Ian Rose 12:20, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
It should actually be Uh-oh (Cowboy Mouth album) and you should move David Byrne's version to Uh-oh (David Byrne album). By moving the DB version, it'll make the original page a redirect. Convert the redirect into a disambiguation page linking to both articles. Alternatively, you could just put a tag on the David Byrne version such as {{redirect}} and use the explanation of the redirection that the Cowboy Mouth version is at Uh-oh (Cowboy Mouth album). Hope this helps. All the info can be found amongst the pillar pages. --lincalinca 12:23, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank you both. While on this kick, I note Mercyland redirects to David Barbe, a member of a band named Mercyland that disbanded 16 years ago (seems to have been part of the Athens 80s college rock scene, but not of note). In the case of a more recent album under that title, by a still active band, should/can it be changed? Or does the redirect stand, and a redirect go on the page? The album has not been reissued, but was on a major label MCA Records. Though I'm at around the 700 edits mark, I've never really worked with something that was going to require a lot of wiki-fiddling (I mostly just gnome), so I thank you for your help here. --Thespian 12:54, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Byrne album should not be retitled

If the David Byrne album is clearly more likely to be searched, it should not be retitled. There should be an {{Otheruses}} template leading to a Uh-oh (disambiguation) page. I'm not a fan of Byrne so please don't expect me to be biased toward him — I just think that album is more likely to be looked up.
This has been discussed before, and is consistent with disambiguation precedents. Several (I think 3) albums are entitled "Rush", but Rush (album) goes to the Rush debut, with a dab. / edgarde 23:44, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Disambiguate where necessary is the general rule, but the David Byrne album is one of his least successful releases. Another thing to note is that his page has the redirect tag and it goes to uh-oh (expression) which server to explain the expression and act as a disambiguation page, which is not good enough. The disambiguation page should be the base page (uh-oh) and the others should all stem from that. It's just common sense. --lincalinca 01:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Sittin' on Top of the World

Please refer to my comments on the discussion page of Sittin' on Top of the World. Ikeshut 03:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Assessments

I've made quite a few changes and tidied everything up quite a bit. All of the assessment related stuff is now at WP:ALBUMA. I've also nominated this page for deletion, as it is missing loads of assessments, there is already a bot-managed assessment archive and the results of assessments are shown on the project banner on the article talk page. Does anything else need to be done? Papa November 1 11:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Moving ABBA to Abba (band), per WP:MOS

Can someone confirm for me this is the right thing to do? No one's responding to the suggestion I left on Talk:ABBA, but the {{Capitalization}} template I left was quickly deleted, so I'm a little creeped about making this change. I would actually affect about 10 articles.

Relevant rules: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks), Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)

Trademarks should be written in a way that follows standard English text formatting and capitalization rules. If this isn't an acronym (and no one calls this group Ay bee bee ay), this needs to be changed in titles and and articles. / edgarde 17:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

But the article says that the group name ABBA is an acronym formed from the first letters of each group member's name: Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid (Frida). Jogers (talk) 18:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Even so derived, it appears to be a name, not an acronym. / edgarde 18:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't need to be pronounced ay bee bee ay to be an acronym. See NASA and NATO. --Fritz S. (Talk) 18:18, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Why on earth would you want to lose a perfectly good article name ("ABBA") and replace it with something unnatural and unweildy ("Abba (band)"). If it ain't broke, don't fix it - and imho it ain't broke! --kingboyk 22:00, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
It's probably best to just remove the tags, unless anyone has any better ideas. Escape Artist Swyer | Talk to me | Articles touched by my noodly appendage 09:32, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

How should this be handled?

In my editing I ran across The Very Best of Rod Stewart which needs quite a bit of clean-up. What I want to know is should this just be one article? The article actually discusses three albums - that is three seperate physical packagings. Technically, The Story So Far:... was realeased in the UK as one double-album. The other two albums were released seperatly as Vol.1 & 2 and only in the US. However it's not just a split double-album. There are songs on the US discs that are not on the UK double and vice versa.
So my question is should this be one, two, or three articles? I was hoping that someone more experienced than myself could help me with this and possibly provided examples of how this has been handled in other cases. (Sampm 04:35, 21 June 2007 (UTC))

Most Beatles and Stones albums in the 60s had different track listings for the US and UK - they are always discussed in the one article so you could have a look at them. For a more recent compilation example there is The Singles Collection (David Bowie album)‎ - though it's very basic. Cheers, Ian Rose 08:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

A class review

Now that the assessments page is up to date and I have received no negative comments, should we start to implement the A class? Personally, I think it is a fairly useless classification as the guidelines for assessment seem like a vague intermediate point between GA and FA. If we decide to use it, can we decide on some project specific rules for articles to put on WP:ALBUMA? How about something like:

An A-class article must:

  • Have passed the GA review procedure and meet all B-class criteria
  • Completely describe the album, including all relevant sections from the following:
    • Background and history (may be separate sections)
    • Significance
    • Recording, production and marketing (may be separate sections)
    • Musical style and lyrics (may be separate sections)
    • Critical reception and aftermath (may be separate sections)
    • Artwork (may be separate sections)
    • Chart performance
    • Accolades
    • Singles
    • Any other notable information relevant to the album
  • Be of an appropriate length
  • Be well written
  • Have a well written lead section
  • Be fully referenced, with all references as footnotes in the correct format
  • Have no copyright problems. All non-free media files must have proper fair use rationale

Any suggestions? - Papa November 1 00:17, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

It is rather useless, considering that it's not essential to be a GA to be awarded A class, which I find bizaare. Anyway, your list is good and comprehensive, but I can't help but feel there's something else that should be there. --lincalinca 10:56, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Is this based on any actual articles? Can we see what an article which meets those criteria looks like? Looks a bit overloaded to me, and some very fine Featured Articles don't cover all that. --kingboyk 16:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Please add to that list: "Should describe the contents of the inlay(s), in particular whether the lyrics are included in the inlay". Gronky 14:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Trivia imho. --kingboyk 16:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
FYI, this suggestion emanates from Template talk:Infobox Album#Can inlay info be added? Such as lyrics. --PEJL 17:17, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. With so many pressings around the world, I personally think such information is trivia unless there is something extraordinary to mention (the typeface of 1987's cover, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band's printed lyrics - apparently a first in the UK, and so on). Looks like you agree? --kingboyk 17:22, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes I do (although my response over at Template talk:Infobox Album was specifically about including it in the infobox). --PEJL 18:03, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
The list is based on sections found more than once in the current featured album articles. I said "relevant sections" as it is not intended to be definitive. There's probably a better way of specifying it, if anyone has any suggestions! Papa November 1 15:43, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Update on tagged album articles

I asked, and Alai delivered. Updated lists can be found at User:Alai/wonkyalbum and the whole lot transcluded at User:Alai/wonkyalbumall. If you're interested, help to whittle these down. Unless you are busy, of course, working on the current collaboration. --Fisherjs 10:53, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Stubs requiring sources?

One user is taking it upon himself to continually edit a stub album I created, Manos (album), adding a template to say that it requires sources. My reading of WP:V suggests that only material likely to be challenged requires references. How is a track listing such as an album stub likely to be challenged? I have no idea why he has taken it upon himself to continually do this to one stub album.

Do I need references? If so, WHAT? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Generica (talk • contribs)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 17#Sourcing lists (specifically track listings and credits). --PEJL 09:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Hardly seems canonical though. Is this documented wikipedia policy? I mean, I can understand needing this to get FA status, but for a stub, seems over over overkill --Generica 09:24, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I think it's a bit of overkill, but then again, it's likely to be challenged if it can't be sourced. It's almost silly to say that something doesn't need a source if it won't be challenged. Heck, people argue that the world is flat. We use documented sources to confirm even the finer, generally undisputed facts. --lincalinca 04:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Prompted by this change, I think we should adjust the wording at WP:ALBUM#Professional reviews to say that a review must have either a link or the date of the review. Any objections? --PEJL 16:06, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Should be a link if the review is available online (like AMG) or date at least if not. However I'd suggest that if the review is not available online then it really should be properly cited - footnoted if necessary - with author, date, publication, page number. Cheers, Ian Rose 22:09, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Proper citing for unlinked reviews sounds good (better than banning them). Here's the change I'm proposing:
[...] If there are no online sources, you may include no link at all, but should then cite the information properly. The link should display as the date of the review being published, preferably including the page number – even if there is no link, this information should still be included. If you can not find the date of publication, the word link will suffice. Either a link or a date must be included though.
What should we do with existing and newly added reviews without either a link or a date? Remove them? Add {{fact}}? I'm tempted to just remove them, because {{fact}} implies that the information should be cited with footnotes, when we'd really prefer a link. --PEJL 13:31, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
checkY Done. I updated the wording per above. --PEJL 17:27, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Logos for album names

A number of albums have recently had logos added to them, replacing the text for the album name in the infobox. I think we should decide if that is something we want or not, and say so in the guidelines. In my opinion these logos don't improve the article, and appear to be solely for decoration. In most cases they would also just duplicate the text on the front cover. I also doubt that including the logos is fair use (unless they are discussed in the article, in which case it might be more appropriate if the logo was placed adjacent to the text discussing it). Therefore I propose we add some text to the guidelines to explicitly say that the album name should be written with text, not an image (unless the name cannot be represented using text, like the symbol-name for Led Zeppelin IV). Any objections? --PEJL 12:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's over the top to include logos as well as an album cover, particularly as the logo is just the title lettering from the cover. I'd agree with dropping them - it's pushing fair use boundaries and not at all necessary. Cheers, Ian Rose 12:24, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
If this is just one user doing this, I don't think we need to change our guidelines. Avoid instruction creep, right? Just tell that one user that they should stop as adding these violates Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria. --Fritz S. (Talk) 12:39, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it would probably be instruction creep in this case. Such a guideline would be quite useful in Template:Infobox musical artist though. --PEJL 13:05, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
This is not limited to just one user. The Evanescence editors did it earlier, for a start (see Fallen (album), etc). –Unint 15:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
The Led Zeppelin IV is an interesting piont. Also, an artist like Marilyn Manson will have a different logo with every album he does. Also if the front covers don't breach Fair Use then I can't see why a part of the cover (i.e the font of the album text) would. The example I used was the Carpenters album Close to You. As long as the logo can be read and contains alt text for disabled users I can't see a problem. If the logo can not be understood in it's released language then there should be text to translate it. Personaly, I don't think they're too distracting but if the Wiki community feels this strongly about the issue then I have no beefs about having them removed but I am just going on other examples that I have seen through about the site. What's good enough for one has to be across the board.paulisdead 12:36, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Close to You serves nothing to the article having the image as the text and is difficult to read for many, but is not really a breach of fair use simply because it's use of a freely available font with yellow on grey. --lincalinca 03:14, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the question here is educational value - does it serve eductaional function? Having a different font GENERALLY does not, but I suppose it's possible. I feel that the Close to You example serves nothing. A reader can see which font is used by looking at the album cover. Same with Sgt. Pepper. If the font or logo used has value in itself, I think that it should be used and also explained within the article - not just what font, but the importance.
As another note, I feel that Led Zeppelin IV is not part of the same thing. It falls more in the category of alternate name such as The White Album or <FAIR USE REMOVED>. I think we can treat this thing case by case as long as it doesn't get out of hand (unless it already has). Anyway, consensus rules I guess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sampm (talk • contribs)
I don’t see something ascetic based as being a bad thing as long as it doesn’t impede on information. However, you could argue that since a band’s logo is a business logo and an instantly recognisable sign (meaning there’s the same educational value of including it as there is including a logo for IBM), then an albums logo is the recognisable sign of the business’ product. On another note: obviously, given the layout of the info boxes – there is no section for a logo to be included and given the artistic nature and associations of the art form, it’s to be expected that people will that this opportunity to merge titles and logos together. paulisdead 18:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Given that this was more widespread than initially thought, perhaps a note in the guideline would be appropriate after all. I propose we add to the following:
The album's title using text (not a logo), which will be automatically italicized.
This doesn't mention the Led Zeppelin IV case (one could argue that its symbol name is text, just not text representable in Unicode), but keeps it short and simple (as there was a concern about instruction creep). --PEJL 00:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it adds anything to the article. The logo is already in the picture directly below that. It could be considered to take away from the article, in that the font makes it more difficult to read, but I don't think I'll argue that case. I don't think it's a fair use problem in that a logo is fair game to illustrate a subject, but I don't think it's necessary to show it, in this case. I second PEJL's suggestion on the rules text. -Freekee 04:41, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
checkY Done. --PEJL 14:43, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I've been fixing the links to Pitchfork reviews (they changed their URLs again?!?), deleting the star rating templates for reviews from sites that don't use a star rating system and adding the new Review-Christgau template where applicable. While I've been at it, I've noticed that quite a few of the Rolling Stone links point to a URL that has the text of the review, but doesn't indicate their star rating. Oddly, I've found that there's usually another page with the same text that does include the star rating. For example, [1] says "NO STARS", but [2] says . What to do, what to do? I could replace the "NO STARS" URL with the URL that includes the star ratings, but if they're in the middle of re-doing their URLs, this extra work may be a waste of time. Any thoughts/suggestions? --Sanfranman59 18:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like a glitch in their system. Perhaps you could contact Rolling Stone and ask them if this is intentional. While we're on this subject, some articles actually list the reviews as "Rolling Stone (no stars) link". I don't think this is appropriate, as we have a guideline for what to do for reviews without ratings (use a descriptive word or nothing), and because saying "no stars" may give the impression that the album was given zero stars, which I assume is not what they meant. --PEJL 18:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I was going to contact them, but their "Contact us" page doesn't really have a link for questions about the web site. I'll just pick one of the others and see what happens. I agree with your point about "no stars". When I come across this, I'll remove that text. --Sanfranman59 19:13, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I've emailed RS. Assuming I get a response, I'll post it here. --Sanfranman59 19:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Don't forget that for some album reviews at RS the star rating is a "user rating", not the professional reviewer's rating. I don't think we should use a user rating. Cheers, Ian Rose 22:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Ian. Yes, I'm aware of that. The example I gave above refers to the RS rating. Both pages have the user rating, but only one has the RS rating. --Sanfranman59 23:44, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
No response from RS so far. I'm not terribly surprised. Since they have the text of the review, I think I'll leave these links alone for now in the hope that RS fixes the problem at some point. --Sanfranman59 17:03, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Standardizing the credits section header

I'd like to standardize the credits section header. In my experience most album articles currently use either "Credits" and "Personnel" for this section. (No stats, sorry.) I'd like to standardize the heading (probably on one of those), similar to how we currently have a standard section header "Track listing". I don't really have a preference which is chosen, but I will note that we sort of imply that it should be "Credits" at WP:ALBUM#Credits, and that "Credits" (to me at least) sounds like a broader term. Specifically I propose we add something like the following (where the addition is underlined):

A credits section should be included under a primary heading "Credits" and should generally be formatted as an unordered list of names and instruments, delimited by en dashes [...]

--PEJL 01:15, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the title of "Credits" being more appropriate. "Credits," though broader, is also much vaguer and could mean anything that contributes. "Personnel" is a more defined term indicating any persons who enacted work upon the album. This term includes anybody including artwork and such, whereas the term "credits" entitles studios to be entered which, though not illogical by that term, is not appropriate as they've generally been mentioned in the infobox for a start, and often another time or two in the album text (possibly exponentially more, dependent upon the breadth of the article). On this premise, I believe "Personnel" to be a more appropriate term. Less about corporations. More about people.
Secondly, on the topic of how to depict the information, I agree, though not necessarily with it being an "unordered list." There are a few ways I could suggest that it ought to be done, but we should choose one and run with it. First: alphabetical. Please don't go with alphabetical, but if you must, the option's open, but I just don't like pre-defined lists being re-created into alphabetical order unless absolutely necessary (maybe it's just me). Second option: just as it is on the album sleeve. This option isn't great since some album sleeve's are vaguer than the minds behind much of pop music; if we go with this, I suggest clarification where there are multiple versions of albums (such as Thirsty Merc) for any additionally recorded tracks, any personnel appearing on those tracks be listed last, or in sequence of addionally added content. Now the third suggestion I'm making is the one I think would work best, which is how I generally edit my pages: If there's a band performing, list them first in the same order from the album's article (as appropriate according to lineup changes etc). The band should be listed under their own sub-section. Another subsection should indicate any additional performers. These should be grouped according to instrument type (such as on Songs for the Deaf). A third section should indicate non-performing personnel, such as artwork, producers, engineers, non-performing songwriters etc. Again in heirachy of type (Producer first, engineer next, exec producers next etc).
I know I'm proposing far greater than you're mentioning, but this is how I would suggest it. Otherwise, sure. The en-dash is fine with me. --lincalinca 13:05, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I should clarify that only the text inside the insertion tags (underlined) in my proposal is the proposed addition. The rest of the text is the existing guideline, so the use of unordered lists and en dashes is already in the guideline. I too think using sub-headings is appropriate in many cases, but chose to propose standardizing the primary heading as a first step. --PEJL 13:16, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, saw the forest and the trees, but missed the signs. But yeah, all of what I said is still what my opinion is. --lincalinca 13:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't have a serious issue with either word but my preference is also for 'Personnel'. FWIW, I'm pretty certain that was the standard header wording a while back, though I'm prepared to be corrected... Cheers, Ian Rose 16:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I like Personnel as well, tho I've been using Credits as it seems more the established norm. Does anyone have an opinion on
Personnel
Band name
Additional musicians
... as is used on A Bigger Bang#Personnel? There has been some demand (needing under the current rules much reversion) for listing the "main" members separate from the session players. / edgarde 20:11, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
"Personnel" indeed used to be a standard a while ago but it was changed after rather brief discussion.[3] I don't have any opinion about the subject. Jogers (talk) 01:04, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Jogers for validating my memory! Re. Edgarde's suggestion, I've never been that interested in dividing the session players up from the 'proper' band in such a manner, I just list the ongoing members first and the guests afterwards - which I realise some people might see as a bit haphazard but it's often the way things appear on the actual album credits. However I would be happy to go with this as a guideline when appropriate, and I use those words deliberately. It's fairly hard-and-fast for 'a band' like the Beatles, Stones, Smiths, etc, to nominate the 'real members' and then the session players. Bit more of a challenge when you have an artist like Bowie, Numan, and so on, who though solo in name usually had a fairly constant group of musicicans behind them for a few albums (e.g. Bowie's Spiders) - but their augmentation was entirely at the whim of the leader. Happy to go into more detail here if requested but enough for now - so as long as the guideline is for 'proper' bands, I'm cool with it, and there may be instances when it's appropriate for so-called solo artists as a judgement/consensus call. Cheers, Ian Rose 01:14, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Though I agree Ian, I say we go with whoever is published on the album as the players of the band. For instance, Crowded House have (now) five studio albums. The first had Neil Finn, Nick Seymour and Paul Hester and additional musicians like Mitchell Froom (who also produced the album). The next album had the same three but Tim Finn appeared as a guest. The next album, Tim Finn was considered a member while Mark Hart, an American musician, was a pianist/keyboardist. The next album, Tim Finn had left and Hart had been enlisted completely. Now, with the new fifth album, Hester has passed and now has been replaced with Matt Sherrod who, according to the album sleeve (and several press reports), is also now a member. On each album there are several stand-ins and certainly live, there have been many. The incarnations of Crowded House has varied, but at any given time, it has been clear who is the central band, unlike the certainty of membership of groups like Simon and Garfunkel or The Beatles. I know this has been longwinded, but I'm simply saying that though bands change, the membership at the time of the album recording is what matters most... except for A Fever You Can't Sweat Out... I'm still not sure who actually played bass on that album. --lincalinca 03:13, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and edgard, I agree with the way you mention it. That's how I usually do it, but as I mentined before, the Production credits also should be in there like in Dream Days at the Hotel Existence#Personnel, I believe. Though the section may be small, it's inapropriate to put the producer as a band member or an additional musician (even if they may also be a band member or additional muso). --lincalinca 03:18, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
I prefer "Personnel." Partly because that word makes it more likely that the list is by person first, as opposed to function. I like to use bulleted lists, with line breaks between band members and production personnel (and sometimes between members and guests). -Freekee 04:33, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
checkY Done. Everyone seemed to be in favor of standardizing and of using "Personnel", so I made the change proposed above (using "Personnel"). --PEJL 14:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Professional reviews sorting

The guidelines at WP:ALBUM#Professional reviews say to sort the professional reviews alphabetically. It is unclear what that means for personal names like Robert Christgau and Piero Scaruffi. These are sometimes sorted by the first name and sometimes by the last. I can see arguments for both methods. Sorting by last name is the obvious way to sort personal names. On the other hand sorting by the first name brings greater consistency with the other review sources (which are in a majority) and is in my experience more common (leading one to assume that editors in general consider it to be the more obvious method). I'd like to standardize this as well, and am fine with either method being chosen. --PEJL 17:16, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I've been sorting on first. I'm not sure why. / edgarde 17:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Both methods make sense but I always sorted them by first names without even realizing the issue. Jogers (talk) 09:53, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Let's just decide to sort them by first name then. --PEJL 14:46, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
After probably going through a similar internal deliberative process as others, I've sorted by first name because that's the way the names are displayed. It didn't look right to me sorting Christgau's reviews as a C when the name is displayed as Robert Christgau. --Sanfranman59 17:07, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I just realized that we have a similar sorting inconsistency with review source names like The Guardian as well. --PEJL 22:09, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Error in template

The text in the template says: "an attempt at building a useful resource", shouldn't it be "an useful"? Guirro 00:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Nope. "Useful" phonetically starts with a 'y' sound - "yoos-full" - so it gets "a" and not "an". (ESkog)(Talk) 00:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
For this same reason, we should not say "an hospital," but should be "a hospital" though this seems to be fought at times. --lincalinca 09:35, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Maintenance list update notice

I've just updated the List4. Jogers (talk) 18:23, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I've also added a list of album pages which titles contain an opening parenthesis without a space before it as requested by Fisherjs. If anybody knows how to make a regex that would allow me to make a list of titles that have an open parenthesis but not a closing one I could create this one as well. Jogers (talk) 19:24, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
\([^)]*$ --PEJL 19:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. They were only three of them. Jogers (talk) 19:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Release dates

In reference to the details, it is said that Released "Should refer to the earliest known date." now If there are a couple release dates for different countries, can we list those other dates as long as it doesn't get too cluttered? -- Reaper X 02:57, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I tend to list about 1-4 depending, but any more than that it should be a table on the page. If the info's just laid crappily on the page, and you an't be bothered making the table yourself, just chuch a {{make table}} tag in there. --lincalinca 03:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
It should refer to only the earliest date. There was some discussion about changing that guideline a while back, but no change was made. A table is a useful way to display multiple dates, which has the added benefit that it can also contain information about labels, formats and catalog numbers. See for example Kid A. --PEJL 03:57, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Chronology

I was just looking over the chronology section to try and figure out how to order many of the jazz albums I intend to enter into the encyclopedia. In jazz, unlike many other genres, recording dates are often as or more important than release dates. I want to know if the normal way of going about this entails going by release date or recording date. For instance, some albums like Hank Mobley's Another Workout was recorded years ago and not released until decades later. What is one to do in this kind of instance? Thanks. (Mind meal 09:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC))

Since one album may have several recording dates, including dates that span those of other albums, chronology can only be consistent if release date is used. Obviously recording dates should still be included in the article, if known. / edgarde 09:12, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. P.S. - I am severely addicted to this place. Just when you think you've bored yourself silly applying yourself to one task, something else comes up. Albums sound fun. (Mind meal 09:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC))
As well as dates, another issue to bear in mind with jazz albums is that many released before the mid-1950s were often repackaged compilations of material, some of which were tracks previously issued on 10" discs (typically three 10" discs worth of stuff spread over two 12") and some of which were left-overs from the recording sessions – as also happened with re-issues of albums on CDs. I think the 1949 Charlie Parker album on Dial ('The Bird Blows the Blues') was the first 33⅓ 12" jazz album; at the time 12" format was considered something for the classical market and 78 rpm and 10" EP was dominant for jazz. Gradually the small labels, like Blue Note, made the switch and merged and re-released their 10" catalogue in 12" LP format. The long-play album, containing music intentionally created to be grouped together as a commercial release, is more a thing of the late 1950s and into the 1960s, e.g. Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, or especially his and Gil Evans' Miles Ahead. Ricadus 17:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
The short version is to include the recording date and the release date autonomously in the infobox and make mention within the article of the difference or subsequent releases of the work. --lincalinca 06:40, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Making artist names show up in categories devoted to albums by a specific genre

Hello there. I just created a few categories, and intend to expand them. An example is my creation of Category:Hard bop albums, which I have made so it appears in the Category:Hard-bop musicians also, for further circulation. My question is how, if possible, one can make the name of the artist appear with the album title in these sections? Is there an easier way? I do not want to place Category:John Coltrane albums in the hard bop album category, because not all albums by Coltrane are hard bop. See the problem? Any help would be great. (Mind meal 03:01, 6 July 2007 (UTC))

When artists deviate from their regular spectrum of music, then you categorise album for album. For instance, Category:John Coltrane albums should be included in Category:Jazz albums and Category:Albums by artist, and each album by Coltrane should have Category:John Coltrane albums but those that deviate from Jazz should be individually categorised as, for instance Category:Hard bop albums. Just like Robbie Williams since not every RW album is a Swing album(like Swing When You're Winning), nor Pop (Like Escapology), nor Rock (like Sing When You're Winning) or even dance music (like Rudebox). All of his albums slant in a different area than each other so he should only have Category:Albums by artist (and maybe Category:Robbie Williams) as the parent cats of him. Does that help/make sense/confuse you further? --lincalinca 06:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, thank you for trying to clarify things further. I pretty much understand the categorization process as you just laid it out. My specific question was perhaps not as clear as it could have been. Say I categorized a Coltrane album under Hard bop albums. This category is bound to fill up with hundreds and thousands of albums by various musicians over time. I was curious to know if there was a way to format the categorization on their album page so that when the album appears in the Hard bop albums section, their name can appear after it. Also, I am not categorizing albums that fall into hard bop also under jazz, as hard bop is a form of jazz. Instead, I have created a Category:Jazz albums by genre which is now on the Category:Jazz albums page. I am curious also to know if there is a way to create a default Category:Jazz albums by artist as well, so as to tidy up the Jazz albums page and make for easier browsing. Perhaps that last bit is overkill, though. (Mind meal 07:03, 6 July 2007 (UTC))
I don't think you can add more information about category entries. That's one of the limitations of categories. Help:Category has more info. --PEJL 07:48, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I wonder if it would be acceptable to begin doing something likeCategory:John Coltrane hard-bop albums, to be found in the hard bop category only....thoughts? To do this with all artists could make order out of what will potentially become chaos. I don't want browsers to click on albums when they don't know who created it. This would make for excellent searching, imo, and could be done for many arists of various genres. (Mind meal 07:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC))
I just think this is overcategorising to be honest, though I'd leave it to the floor to give any guidance on that, because I don't know of any specific guidelines that govern this (mind you, lately I've become a fan of WP:IAR). --lincalinca 09:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, I've decided to stop going down this route anyway, as it is really tedious work. I guess folks will just have to mystery guess for now, until a solution can come along that better organizes albums by genre. Thanks for the input, anyway. (Mind meal 09:56, 6 July 2007 (UTC))

Live tribute albums

Is there consensus on what to enter in the "type" field for such albums? (Mind meal 16:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC))

I don't know of any. One option is to use the most distinctive type, for example a live album by a tribute band might be categorized as "live", while a tribute album by a non-tribute band might be categorized as "tribute". Just use your best judgement, and consider also using the "Longtype" parameter. --PEJL 22:20, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

TfD nominations for album infobox alternatives

Template:Infobox Album/HTML, Template:Infobox Album/temp and Template:Triptych Cover album infobox have been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the templates' entries on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. --PEJL 22:00, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

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