Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 33

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

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Music of the Final Fantasy VII series

According to the assessment guidelines, this project does not use the "A" grade. But there is one article that is currently being categorized as an "album" and which has received an "A" assessment because that is the assessment it has earned in other projects. See Talk: Music of the Final Fantasy VII series. The article deserves its high grade but we have some inconsistency here. Note that the article is also part of Wikipedia: WikiProject Discographies. Can something be both an album and a discography at the same time? In short, we have either a violation of this project's assessment policy, or it's not really an Album page. Should it be removed from Project Albums via a re-categorization edit? Doomsdayer520 (Talk|Contribs) 09:19, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

This is why I never look at article ratings... :( The system is designed so that each project can give it a separate rating. If a discussion at another project decided upon an "A" rating, that rating should only be associated with that project. It was improper for an editor to assign that rating from all projects. The albums project should probably class it as "unrated". --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 13:19, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I have seen articles (admittedly not within the scope of WikiProject Albums) where the talk page has two or more WikiProject templates; one or more were unrated, but one or more showed Start-class. A bot has then copied the Start-class to all the unrated wikiprojects. Sorry, can't remember all the articles, but here's one case that I can find; the bot concerned has not been active since at least April 2009. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:28, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:Biography has a bot which takes ratings from the other projects for their template. We also are consistent when making an article Good or Featured, in all projects with meeting the same criteria. I think this case is the exception, because we don't have an A class, since it's such a seemingly small issue affecting few articles, I really don't see much of a problem. Perhaps our project template shouldn't be attached, but that would go against this explanation. I don't really see what's wrong with leaving them as A class, it appears to be the correct rating. kiac. (talk-contrib) 13:12, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

All good points about the grading. But I still wonder if something can be an album and a discography at the same time? Doomsdayer520 (Talk|Contribs) 08:10, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Retrospective compilations which list the band's previous releases on the sleeve notes. For example, History of Fairport Convention. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:08, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

category discussion

There is a category renaming discussion relevant to this WikiProject at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 November 26#Category:Breathe albums. Hiding T 12:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Rate Your Music

What's the deal this site, with regard to album articles? An anon IP has just made these additions to Pink Floyd's WYWH. I'm not entirely certain that the ranking is notable? Here's a FAQ link. I'll revert the grammar changes but I don't feel able to revert the Rate Your Music thing without a second opinion. Parrot of Doom 19:19, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm wouldn't list rankings from that site on the list for the same reason that WP:FILM doesn't use IMDb rankings to note any level of importance for film articles. We don't have any proof that one user is voting once as people can create as many accounts on this site as they'd like (some even boast in reviews about creating several accounts to vote down albums). I'd only use those sites as a external link at the bottom of the page just as film projects do. Andrzejbanas (talk) 19:24, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't even use it for that. It's just a dumb internet site where you can vote on your fav songs. It doesn't reflect professional critical opinion in the slightest and doesn't have "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Totally worthless. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll remove it then, linking here. Parrot of Doom 20:02, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

The Rate Your Music site does not fail Wikipedia:External links, and at worst it's part of WP:ELMAYBE. So what's your beef with it IllaZilla? Andrzejbanas (talk) 20:06, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see anything in WP:ELMAYBE that it would pass. "Sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources"? It's not a "knowledgeable source", it's site that anyone can go to, create any number of accounts, and vote for or against songs that they like or dislike. This doesn't represent professional, academic, or even journalistic knowledge at all. It's no different from linking a Last.fm page for an album because you want to show how many people "loved" the album. It's totally irrelevant. Rather, this falls under WP:ELNO: "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article." --IllaZilla (talk) 20:47, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

All information on that site is verified by secondary sources before being posted. I've used it and contributed to the database, so I know that's how it roles. It does provide a unique resource, it provides a user based rating. Unlike Last.fm where the rating system is not nearly as notable. Andrzejbanas (talk) 23:28, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Ugh. It is a siteful of fanboys voting up albums they like and voting down albums they hate. Not a shred of info from there is useful or relevant for the Wikipedia. Tarc (talk) 00:25, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

As others have pointed out, it's a site primarily driven by user input. It shouldn't be used. WesleyDodds (talk) 01:01, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

A user based rating has no place here. kiac. (talk-contrib) 02:07, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Bah! You guys are no fun. But point taken. ;) I withdraw everything I've said! Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:55, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

USA Today, Chicago Tribune, LA Times

Can these publication sites be added to the list of professional review site? THe reviews seem comprehensive and their reviewers for music have written reviews for other professional review sites, such as Greg Kot (Tribune), Steve Jones (USA Today), Elysa Gardner (USA Today), and Ann Powers (LA Times). Dan56 (talk) 21:17, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

These are pretty much no-brainers. Are their reviews accessible online? --IllaZilla (talk) 02:16, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Do the reviews need to be online for these sources? I believe we are to assume good faith. Andrzejbanas (talk) 02:56, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

All three are online, yes. I don't understand where assuming good faith comes into this? I'll go ahead and add them now. kiac. (talk-contrib) 03:22, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I was simply asking a question. If they're accessible online, then we can provide a link to help editors. I'm not sure how my previous comment was in any way not good faith... --IllaZilla (talk) 04:28, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

No no, i was referring to the fact that when citing reviews, we are still aloud to cite them if they aren't online, right? Sorry, I think I need some sleep. Andrzejbanas (talk) 05:03, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah, of course print-only sources are fine. I was just asking so we could provide links if they were also online. No worries. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:13, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

2010 stubs?

Is time to create the respective templates for stub released from that year and beyond, unless we still want to use the ones for 2000. Zidane tribal (talk) 07:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why not. Albums stubs are sorted by decade ({{1980s-album-stub}}, {{1990s-album-stub}}, {{2000s-album-stub}}, etc.) and Category:2010 albums already exists, so might as well, right? — ξ ^xplicit 07:52, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with that motion. 2010 is less than two months away, and there are albums being anticipated which are planned to be released in 2010 as well. I'm for it. Backtable^{Speak to Me}about what I have done 21:35, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Done The templates and categories for the decade-genre stubs for the 2010 decade are ready and listed. Thanks Explicit for pointing in the right direction. Zidane tribal (talk) 07:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Reviews in infobox: scrap?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Looking back, it seems that the whole reason reviews were included in the album infobox in the first place was to give people a quick list of links where they could find them. Obviously this provided to be flawed as there are reviews only available in print, and now we're at the point where all reviews in the infobox need to be inline cited as opposed to bare links. Basically, do we need reviews in the infobox at all? The original purpose of including them is no longer relevant, and it's material that doesn't lend itself to infobox summaries (stars and number rankings: fine; anything else, we have to resort to the dreaded "favorable" and "unfavorable" terminology, which can be pretty subjective). Note that the song/single infoboxes stopped including a review field years ago, and films have never used one. WesleyDodds (talk) 14:11, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree, always in favor of uncluttering (is that a word?) the infobox. 'Reviews' sections within the body of the article can be added to individual pages at the discretion of the editors. J04n(talk page) 14:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Heh, somewhere in the archives are two or three suggestions from me to scrap "favorable" and "unfavorable" as too subjective, without ever achieving consensus to drop 'em. So you certainly have my support on that point. However I think links to online reviews are still convenient, whether they have inbuilt star/number ratings or not, as well as print ones with ratings that are cited. I agree there's no point including print reviews that have no star/number rating because without that objective indication of their gist they serve no purpose. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:50, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd support removing them as well only to inspire users to start writing sections in albums articles rather than simple stubs. I'd get much more user input on these review systems as if we remove this, there's going to be a huge backlash from several users who do not follow this page. Gah! Andrzejbanas (talk) 15:25, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

This idea of getting rid of the "professional reviews" field in the infobox is something I've been mulling over for a while, but figured it probably didn't have a snowball's chance, so thanks Wesley for bringing it up. I agree that it's not the type of information that lends itself to an infobox presentation, especially now that we're not even providing the direct links to the reviews in the box itself (since we switched to inline citations). This makes it, in reality, a "professional ratings" field rather than a reviews field. I've also noticed, as Wesley points out, that there's no other infobox for creative works that uses such a field to attempt to summarize critical reception. Check {{Infobox film}}, {{Infobox single}}, {{Infobox VG}}, and {{Infobox book}}, among others: all of these are creative works that are typically reviewed by critics and given ratings, yet none of the related projects felt it necessary to list reviews in their infoboxes. I think it makes sense not to, as critical reaction is something that really has to be explained in prose to be given proper context, which can only be done in body paragraphs. Now undoubtedly there would be a major backlash if we were to remove the field, as there are a great many editors who care only about the infobox and its pretty, pretty colors (and would like to see articles reduced to nothing but infoboxes, but I digress), so a thought I had on how to meet this halfway is to create a "critical ratings" box to accompany reception sections. This would be a 2-colum table box that could be placed alongside body paragraphs in a reception section and contain a column listing the source of criticism and a parallel column with the rating assigned by that source. This way we still have that "at-a-glance" ratings summary that the infobox currently contains, but it gets placed immediately alongside the contextualizing prose. And it helps cut down on the backlash. Thoughts? --IllaZilla (talk) 15:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you thinking of something like template:VG reviews? Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a strong case for removing them, but would be happy for them to be listed in a separate box as suggested above. I think it should be preferred to have a 'Critical reception' section summarizing the reviews and citing them as sources, but this takes more time than simply adding them as they are now, and isn't going to happen overnight. Wholesale removal of the reviews, rather than relocation, would be counterproductive, since these are often the best available sources for album articles. If we want to migrate to a different structure over time, fine, but let's not remove them simply to try and force this. --Michig (talk) 18:20, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Andrzejbanas, I think {{VG reviews}} is a perfect model and exactly what I'm aiming at. Perhaps it could be converted into an all-purpose reviews template and used for video games, albums, and other works as well. Michig, if we remove the field then the current reviews in the infoboxes will simply stop being displayed, but they won't be lost (the text will still be there in the edit window). Therefore I think the most efficient method for encouraging editors to write reception sections, or to move the review scores to such sections, would be to have a bot leave a boilerplate message on the talk pages of all articles using the template (yes I realize that is a massive amount of pages, but it's an effective way to communicate this change to the community at large). --IllaZilla (talk) 19:28, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I've placed a notice on the template's talk page directing editors to this discussion, hoping we can get more input. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think non-display would be appropriate. Where the reviews are cited as references I presume it would leave references with no context at the end of the article, and where reviews are simply linked they would disappear to the reader. If all reviews were removed or even just 'hidden' we would end up with a flood of album articles being PRODded or taken to AFD by editors who require little excuse to do so. If someone could write a bot to relocate them to a separate box that would be far preferable, or failing that just let it happen over time (as is happening with the shift from links to citations for reviews). I'd rather have a table of reviews with no commentary for a while than no reviews until a critical reception section is added, which could be years for some articles. --Michig (talk) 20:57, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Michig has hit the nail on the head. I agree that removing them completely now would only be detrimental, and besides, there's no compelling reason for removing them, other than "we don't like them and they're not necessary". Reviews in the infobox have worked fine since their inception, and I use them for quick access to reviews for articles I'm working on. This field has attracted much less controversy than other fields that still exist, such as the genre, and, just like the genre, critical reception of an album is a key part of its article and should be represented in some way in the infobox. I think the idea of separating them into a separate box would work, though, only if it's absolutely necessary to get the reviews out of the infobox. Tim meh 21:07, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I see problems with the review field fairly regularly, albeit much less frequently than with genre. Arguments about how many reviews to include, or which ones to cut when there get to be too many, SPAs removing negative reviews from infoboxes about albums they really like (or just going around plugging in reviews from a single website in what amounts to an ad campaign), arguments about whether or not to use star scales, arguments about "favorable" vs. "unfavorable", etc. I think the core question is: By putting reviews in the infobox, what are we really trying to accomplish? Are we attempting to sum up the critical reception in a succinct way? Is this really something that can be accomplished with a bullet-pointed list of ratings? I don't think it can: critical reaction has to be contextualized and explained using prose, and our end goal (whether we decide to keep the reviews in the infobox or not) is to have articles with well-written sections detailing critical reaction to the albums.

We're not Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes, who only provide scores, brief excerpts of reviews, and nothing else. We're an encyclopedia, and we want our articles to develop into having "brilliant prose". While having the reviews in the infobox does allow us to easily pull from them in order to build such sections, it's not like removing the field would change that. As I said earlier, the urls will still be there in the edit window, they just won't display, so editors "in the know" will still be able to find them and use them for sourcing. It'd be preferable to have a bot move them into a ratings box or something, but that might prove complex. Any articles that get PRODed or AfD'd simply because the reviews disappear from the infobox should be easy fixes, as these sources obviously still exist and thus it can be easily shown that they pass WP:N & WP:V. Anyway, an article that relies solely on its infobox review links to keep it alive obviously needs the kind of work that a prod or AfD would generate. Unfortunately, Michig, I don't think it's feasible to "let it happen over time": if we remove the field, then all articles will stop displaying it within a few days. If we don't remove the field, then editors are going to keep using it in new articles, and keep adding to it in existing articles, and thus the problem will never solve itself. If it takes years for some articles to catch up and start reception sections, so what? It's not like we have a deadline. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:12, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I find the statement "an article that relies solely on its infobox review links to keep it alive obviously needs the kind of work that a prod or AfD would generate" very worrying. PROD and AFD are NOT for cleanup, and they shouuldn't be used to prompt improvement to articles. I'm sure a lot of album articles would be missed at PROD and deleted before the reviews could be worked into a prose section.--Michig (talk) 07:33, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

←I'm OK with removing them. They are essentially a web directory, which isn't really our job. They give undue weight to online reviews over "high-quality" print reviews, when we should be doing the opposite. They're magnets for good-faith links to no-name sites, which forces us to be the bad guys to users who are trying to contribute positively. They boil down nuanced reviews to point scores, which is not particularly encyclopedic. They're all formatted wrong, and no one really likes the updated format we added to the infobox documentation (I don't even particularly like it).

On the other hand, it's a useful feature and a huge number of users rely on it. They're almost always the first think I look at when I'm reading about albums. Removing them wholesale is a pretty harsh way to do this, and the backlash will be immense.

I'd be happy with some summary, like VG reviews, that could go later in the article. I like that format and it might encourage people to actually write articles about albums (imagine that!) instead of settling for an infobox and a track list. IllaZilla's argument is pretty convincing. —Gendralman (talk) 01:44, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I am fine either way. There are lots of infoboxes that contain duplicative info--its their nature to just have an executive summary of the longer text. But I don't have strong feelings on this.--Epeefleche (talk) 01:58, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

After originally arriving here with a backlash-kind of attitude, my opinion has been turned. Which is a good sign for fighting off the backlash in the future. I completely agree with what IllaZilla, Gendralman and especially Timmeh said. As much as I think removing these would definitely be detrimental to lesser articles, it is something which could/should in the end be a positive move for improving prose. I will also put a big support behind the VG reviews idea, this would sum things up nicely and avoid us having to change our current methods of writing reception sections, of which I know almost everyone takes the reviews from the infobox to build. I do think if we're going to go ahead with removing the field, we need a solid reason/statement behind this consensus. kiac. (talk-contrib) 02:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd favor leaving things the way they are, but if reviews are removed from the album infobox, either by a bot or by editors, I really feel quite strongly that they should be moved to a {{VG reviews}} type of template, rather than just being deleted from the articles. Otherwise you'd be removing hugely important reliable, independent references from thousands of articles. — Mudwater^(Talk) 02:29, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

As others have mentioned above, the idea is removing the review field in the infobox would simply emphasize the need for discussion of critical reception in the prose. All Good and Featured articles do this anyway, and oftentimes the infobox simply repeats citations that appear later in the article. We definitely don't need a separate "reviews" template; this is information that belongs in the prose. WesleyDodds (talk) 03:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Also the single infobox has a deactiveted review field that still lists single reviews, even if they don't show up live. Simply click the edit link and you'll find the reviews. So if we deactivated the reviews field for the album infobox, the field would no longer show up on the page, but all the links/citations would still be there for edtiors to then transfer to the prose. It would be a lot of work, but then again there are many album articles that still haven't switched to inline citations for the field. WesleyDodds (talk) 03:30, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems that some editors in this discussion are saying that it would be reasonable to simply have the infobox stop displaying the reviews, without either moving them to a new template or moving them to a Notes or References section. I strongly disagree. Like I said before, you'd be removing vitally important, independent, reliable references, or at any rate reducing them to markup comments, rendering them invisible to readers, and leaving editors with the gargantuan chore of manually reworking the articles. Yes, adding a prose section about critical reception, with referenced quotes, is the ideal, but the infobox reviews don't stop anyone from doing that. On the contrary, they provide a handy way to add references that can then later be reworked and expanded upon. I think reducing them to markup comments in thousands and thousands of articles would be a huge mistake. — Mudwater^(Talk) 03:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

All the refs and links would still be there for editors to work into the prose. They would just be invisible until someone got around to working them into the prose. It is a garantuan chore if you consider every single article, but most articled require some sort of cleanup anyway, and in fact it would encourage the development of article sections for those stub pages that only have a track listing and infobox. In the case of pages on my watchlist, most of the reviews are discussed in the body anyways, so nothing is actually lost. WesleyDodds (talk) 05:36, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Mudwater on this. Also, as someone who regularly cleans up after amatuer editors, I'm wondering do we really want reception sections that read "Rolling Stone gave it a 5/5, NME a 4/5, Spin a 3/5, Drowned in Sound a 8.5/10"? I suppose it may be a little simpler to expand upon, but it would be very difficult to change an entire Wiki-culture that has always supported people just adding reviews and scores. Don't expect your average editor to be willing to put more effort in. kiac. (talk-contrib) 04:26, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

"I'm wondering do we really want reception sections that read "Rolling Stone gave it a 5/5, NME a 4/5, Spin a 3/5, Drowned in Sound a 8.5/10"?" Well, obviously they would be better written than that. See In Utero or any other FA albuma article for comparison. WesleyDodds (talk) 05:24, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Then that's fine. I see so much vandalism with users who just add reviews to the infobox which are often either incorrect or very biased. Encouraging prose would reduce vandalism here as well. Andrzejbanas (talk) 04:52, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Kiac, that's why I think switching to a {{VG reviews}}-type template would be helpful. I think there's certainly a place for listing critics' ratings, I just don't think the infobox is that place. Obviously we have engendered a Wiki-culture that likes having the ratings in a convenient, table-style format; the use of a ratings template would allow that practice to continue while encouraging it to be located next to explanatory prose, and also avoid us having to mention the ratings in the prose itself (with the repetetive "source x gave the album y stars" type of thing). I'd be in support of a bot simply moving the ratings out of the infobox & into such a template, but I have no idea how technically feasible that idea is. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Personally I really don't like that video game reviews template. For one, there's far more music press media than video game press, so fashioning such a template for each article would be far more challenging. The goal isn't to make a directory of reviews; the goal is provide a concise summation of critical reception. This can be done in prose, and I for one always value prose over tables, because then it's easier to provide context. WesleyDodds (talk) 05:29, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I've just done a bit of testing to see what these different scenarios might look like, and what the immediate effects of removing the field might be. I used In Utero as my test case.

Here's the article as it currently appears, with the reviews in the infobox.
Here's what would likely happen if we simply removed the field. I simulated this by commenting out the reviews (). As you can see it does break a few of the references (#s 71-74), but I believe that the AnomieBOT would correct this error automatically by coming along & moving the orphaned refs out of the template (as I've seen it do many times).
Finally, here's what it looks like with the reviews moved out of the infobox and into a table within the Reception section (I used {{VG reviews}}, which would only support 8 reviews as it's formatted for common video game sources, but you get the idea).

Personally I like the last option the best, with the ratings right there alongside the Reception prose. Obviously this involves physically moving the text from the infobox into the new template, which could certainly be done manually or possibly by bot. As I said, I think the AnomieBOT would come along to save any orphaned refs if the field were removed, so the new table could be added at editors' leisure. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:46, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Also Wes, I don't think we need to create as complex a box as {{VG reviews}}. For whatever reason, they decided to create custom fields for all of the most common video game sources. While we certainly could do that, I was picturing a more generic setup (basically just using their "custom reviewers" fields). --IllaZilla (talk) 05:49, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I really don't think a review template is necessary, since critical information is best conveyed in prose. Really, it's what the reviewers say that's more important, not the ratings or the stars, especially because those are often not indicative of the reviews themselves (for example, the writers never pick the rating numbers for Rolling Stone reviews; editors do that). And of course, there are the reviewers who don't provide any sort of metric, instead just providing prose reviews. Summarizing critical reception just isn't something that works well in a table or infobox format, which is part of the reason I propose deactivating the field in the Album template. WesleyDodds (talk) 06:02, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

@WesleyDodds - My point was obviously not insinuating that every article would turn out that way (complete summarisation of ratings and reviews in prose), the well written ones, such as FA class articles, would not change. However, the stubs, the poorly written 'amatuerly'-run articles, would suffer greatly. You cannot seriously expect every article to be written like In Utero], that's completely unfeasible. I don't think our aim should be to accomodate FA articles, it should be to accomodate the majority, the articles which do suffer from having minimal reliable sources and require these reviews as a reassurance of notability.

I prefer the third option, there needs to be some kind of summary because we can't expect well written prose to just pop up in every article. kiac. (talk-contrib) 08:44, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how this would effect article notability at all, Michig. If there are reviews, they would still invisible on the page in the infobox field; they would just need to be integrated into the prose. There's no reason articles should even make it to AfD. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that is true for current and past articles with the review field already filled, and made invisible. But what about in the future, when there is no field to add these reviews to? Editors will obviously just not add the links to articles at all (in some situations, at least), thus making notability an issue and perhaps bringing up AfDs which would not have been contemplated if there were a couple of reviews present. Think about when we had the genres removed, was there really a massive income of style and genre sections? Not that I recall. kiac. (talk-contrib) 11:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

[Reply to WesleyDodds] It wouldn't affect the notability of the album, but for some it would affect the perceived notability, and too many editors see an article without references (lets face it they're not going to go into edit mode and check for 'hidden' reviews) and slap a CSD/PROD or AFD tag on it. There are a hell of a lot of articles already that get to AFD/PROD that shouldn't get there, which soaks up an awaful lot of editor-time. Also, it's going to take a lot of time to migrate a list of reviews to a critical reception section, and there are also lots of deletion-happy editors who would try to get articles deleted if this hasn't been done in what for them would seem like a reasonable time period. If consensus is to not have reviews in the infobox, how about having a new version of Template:Infobox without the reviews section, which can be used in articles when the reviews have been worked into prose/moved to a separate table, but leave the existing one there for the rest with a maintenance tag on the article to indicate that the existing infobox is deprecated and to prompt editors to undertake the migration? It isn't feasible to make such a big change overnight, and simply removing or hiding reviews to try to prompt this change deson't seem particularly constructive.--Michig (talk) 19:12, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

In the future? They simply should be added to the prose. That's supposed to be the priority in the first place. I mean, when I work on an album article, my first thought isn't "I need to put some reviews in the infobox", it's "I need to cover all the details of the album in the prose." Infoboxes aren't substitutes for articles, even though you occasionally see a stub page that's only one sentence yet has a completely filled-out infobox. The absence of reviews in an infobox is no excuse for there to be no critical commentary discussion in the articles. The point of an infobox is to sumamrize the article, anyways. WesleyDodds (talk) 12:03, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

If an album article turns up at AfD which doesn't contain a section with reviews even though the album has been reviewed, then the nominator hasn't followed WP:BEFORE and found the reviews. It's possible the reviews may only be in print publications, but I wouldn't have thought there would be that many. --JD554 (talk) 12:18, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

For pre-2000 albums, there are a hell of a lot where print reviews exist but there's little or nothing online.--Michig (talk) 19:12, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

That's why I love libraries, Rock's Back Pages, and eBay. WesleyDodds (talk) 03:56, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes but that's you Wes, you're a great editor. Not everyone is going to follow that, the majority will simply not add the links and leave. I agree JD, they should be finding online reviews before nominating, and I do believe a possible increase in (perhaps unjustified) AfDs is no reason to halt the course of this discussion. I simply think it is an issue that may need to be tackled in the future and needs to be prepared for, or at least brought up for consideration. kiac. (talk-contrib) 12:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I've read through this whole thread and now feel stronger that the reviews should be removed. This will be the perfect opportunity to expand stubs. I don't think that folks that start stub articles are too lazy or incapable of writing up critical review sections, they just don't know to do it (they're already listed in the infobox). Folks would love "their" articles to be longer with more substance but there is just nothing else from them to write. Not every album has had the volumes written about it as In Utero has, but the majority will have been reviewed somewhere (or they probably won't last long here) so it's a kick-off point for expansion. I'm not yet sold on the video game style table of reviews either. I see no significance in the rating, so it becomes just an 'external links' section. Why not just move the unincorporated reviews to 'external links' then move on from there?J04n(talk page) 13:10, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

IP Here- I think this discussion gives the average wikipedian a little too much credit. The opportunity is already there to provide a reception section, but in many cases it doesn't happen. Most people aren't out to make an FA- they're out to throw in their two cents, or create an article of their interest. That's why we have so many stubs. The review section is a great at a glance tool. You have to look at where most wikipedians are making their contributions to show an album's reception- it's the infobox. I'm confident that although some articles may move from B-class to A, many, many more are going to simply become less informative.136.181.195.10 (talk) 20:48, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Simply, removing the listed reviews completely would not help editors or the articles in any way. It would not encourage editors to write prose about the reviews, especially since many review sources are used to create such sections. And what problems is the current setup causing that don't occur in other parts of the infobox or article? Conflicts in opinion and editing are a given on a site like this; you're not going to eliminate them by removing whole fields of an infobox.

According to the MOS, infoboxes are meant to "present summary information about an article's subject". Omitting such a large part of a subject as critical reception would make the infobox no longer a complete summary of the article. I would support IllaZilla's separate box proposal, but only if some aspect of critical reception, maybe the average of all the ratings or a simple "unfavorable", "favorable", or "mixed", is left in the infobox to represent the album's reception. Tim meh 22:06, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

But we're not Metacritic, and selecting favorable for overall reception would surely just attract an insane amount of disputes. I do see your point in summarising in the infobox, it is something that shouldn't be eliminated completely. kiac. (talk-contrib) 00:42, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Why not? There's no other infobox for a creative work that tries to summarize critical reaction in its infobox, and they all do just dandy without it. Would any of our quality articles be hurt by not having something in the infobox that tries to reduce critics' analyses and opinions to bullet points? It's just not the type of information that lends itself to infobox presentation, any more than you can try to reduce an album's inspiration, its writing process, or its marketing and promotion to a bullet-point blurb. This is essentially the same argument I had for supporting the removal of genre back when that brouhaha happened: infoboxes are for simple, black & white facts. Release date, writers' names, record label, etc...these are all simple facts that can be presented in an infobox without any real problems. But attempting to summarize critical reaction? That's something that simply has to be done in prose, and only in prose. The only real reason I support creating a ratings box is because ratings are, in a way, still black & white and lend themselves more easily to a table presentation that could pair nicely next to the prose. --IllaZilla (talk) 01:02, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Now that I think about it more and consider what exactly infoboxes should be used for and are in other areas of the project, you do have a strong argument, and my whole perspective on this seems to have just changed (oddly). Such things as clear facts and statistics are what belong in the infobox, not opinions, and summarizing is for the lead section of an article. I think your separate box proposal is a good idea, but I would strongly oppose removing the ratings altogether, as they are a useful article-building tool and quick reference. Tim meh 01:38, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Ratings can be discussed in the prose; the abscene of an infobox or template containing them does not mean they would be excluded from articles. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:39, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Reviews In Infoboxes - Continued

Let's start a new header, as I have a fresh argument (I hope).

After looking at reviews added to The Fame Monster earlier this evening, I attempted to change them to the style that I know of. Using an example from the page, it reads:

Allmusic link

After being berated for it (not really, just seemed like it at first), I came to WP:ALBUM itself and was shocked to find that the new "standard" is:

Allmusic ^[1]

Look at the source code for the two, non-wikified here:

*[[Allmusic]] {{Rating|3.5|5}} [http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:3jfuxzualdse link]

* [[Allmusic]] {{Rating|3.5|5}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:3jfuxzualdse|work=Allmusic|title=Overview: The Fame Monster|accessdate=November 23, 2009}}</ref>

One is cluttered and involves having to fill out a reference tag with all sorts of information, something that can be done completely wrong by many editors (I still make mistakes sometimes even on simple ones that I then edit immediately to fix). I used the shortest one I could find; try putting the review source for The Independent for that album; the citation is four lines long in the damn infobox. Also, the more cluttered version is the LEAST user-friendly option. For a paperback encyclopedia I'd go to read in the library, I would expect an infobox to contain sources because I can't just touch the review details and automatically flip the pages to that article in a completely different book. In an online encyclopedia...forgive me, but it's complete bull****. Instead of directly linking from the infobox, we clutter it up with a four-line citation and at the exact same time make it less user-friendly. I personally would open new tabs via each "link" in the infobox if I want to read reviews; now each new tab would be another copy of the article, and I'd have to go and individually click every single reference at the bottom of the page (honestly, I don't care when it was accessed).

Leave sourcing to the article; don't clutter the infobox with it when it's not necessary and completely user-unfriendly. If this is going to be the standard, I'd rather remove all reviews from the infobox and give them their own section; at least THAT way, the sourcing belongs there. Sources DO NOT belong in an infobox except in extremely rare cases.

That's my piece, feel free to discuss. CycloneGU (talk) 04:45, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Citations don't have to be four lines long. You simply just condense them. "Title". Publisher. Retrieved 2009-11-25. Simple, nearly on one line and easy. I believe having citations instead of links is now non-negotiable, we're not making it back into a link directory, pointless. There is also actually a bot that removes citations from infoboxes, if they are used in the article. So if you are doing what you are suppose to be, as is being discussed above, and writing a reception section to accompany the reviews in the infobox, then the bot would come along and move the refs to the reception section. kiac. (talk-contrib) 05:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Interesting question, then. Some of those numbered bullets ARE used in the article. I changed all of them to the format I learned to do (now a year ago or so, I see now that it was changed when I first added the Charts section in May and I never saw it). Some...are not. This would lead to having inconsistency in the infobox. It also leads to inconvenience to the user in another way; if I want to read the AllMusic review and it's sourced somewhere in the article, I now have no link from the infobox. I use two main things most of the time in an article: the infobox and the track listing. The rest of any music article has varied usage from myself; in fact, I sometimes just go straight to the track listing from the infobox, then close the article.

We need to maintain consistency, but keep the infobox user-friendly. How about where multiple reviews are given (mostly new releases), we simply just leave ratings in the infobox and then put in Reviews? Those articles for newer albums tend to have people interested in what others think about the album (The Fame Monster being an example). That way, we don't have to limit ourselves to ten reviews in the infobox and can instead present a fair and balanced review in a separate section where an infobox might favour one side or the other. I'd still be in favour of axeing it completely from the infobox as not having a list of reviews right next to the ratings serves absolutely no purpose to a user.

As for the "old style" being non-negotiable...it's always negotiable. Some just prefer not to discuss it because they themselves don't prefer it. I still consider having a review link much more user-friendly, and I thought we wanted a user-friendly encyclopedia. I've never been told my method was wrong; this is the first time I've been told such. (This also is not directed at that person...simply a general statement.) I'm sure I'm not the only one who prefers my method. CycloneGU (talk) 05:16, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I realize that you only used The Fame Monster as an example but it isn't a review, it's a rating. There is no review on that page and the infobox section says 'Professional reviews'. If that were added to a page on my watchlist I would revert saying that there is no review there. Now in the vast majority of cases there is a review there (I expected one when I clicked), and it is by a writer. If we are going to be citing that writer's work we should be naming that writer, hence the need for the inline citation. I apologize for wandering away from the topic but as someone who has been published in the real world (not saying this is a 'fake world' don't jump on me) I feel strongly about it. BTW User:Mr.Z-man/refToolbar makes referencing extremely easy. Back on topic: I still don't see why anyone cares about the rating. This magazine gave it a 4/5, this website a 6/10, how is that important? Think of your favorite album, I bet you know when it was released, who produced it, where it was recorded, but do you know (or care) what Allmusic rated it? Timmeh, you said that the ratings "are a useful article-building tool and quick reference", did you really mean the ratings, the reviews, or just the convenient link to Allmusic? I admit that I use them as a useful link and sulk when I have to scroll all the way to the references for the link, but that is what you have to do for every other page on Wikipedia. Other than that I have no strong feelings. J04n(talk page) 05:42, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Quoting "Back on topic: I still don't see why anyone cares about the rating." - I fully agree. The only use I'd have for it is if it's a newer artist and I'm getting a first opinion from someone. Thing is, a newspaper editorial is by a person. Check out Waking Up the Neighbours (which still uses the linklist, mind, but that's not why I'm linking it). A Bryan Adams album with his most popular song ever ("Everything I Do I Do It For You") got a bomb from a very critical reviewer who gave him low ratings on three successive albums (Reckless was also included, home of "Summer of '69"), all of which were the ones that launched him into the mainstream media. This guy didn't review another Adams album after this one. So yeah...I fully agree, rating means nothing; music and a person's own attitude to it does. A 5/5 rap album still scores a 0 to me; I don't listen to it. Hence, let's go back to the other discussion: why the heck is this still in the infobox?

On another note, while I favour removing this from the infobox, this will raise a LOT of article issues. Many people link to the AllMusic listing and then don't place any reference on the track listing. Removing the infobox will lead to a lot of unsourced information claims. We'll have to immediately categorize all album articles and each select a group to comb through for such problems. Would a source elsewhere in the article alleviate this without putting it in the listing itself? Or just a "See also" at the end? CycloneGU (talk) 06:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

So someone added a bit of POV to an article, what's new? It happens everywhere and I'm sure it would be a lot more common if a bias editor like that was to write an entire section about Mr Adams. As mentioned above, if the field was removed, the information would still be there, including references, invisible but still present on the editing page. And as reply to the earlier post about using direct links, no we don't discuss it now because it was settled and we've moved on. It's not even debatable that simple direct links attract WP:Link rot and will cause problems down the road, it is also against Wikipedia's policies to have citations as direct links for the sole reason of convenience (one click instead of two...?) and thus creating a link directory. Lastly, your biff with clutter could only be exacerbated by direct links... which take up more room in the visible article than citations. Let's ignore the editing page for now, which is really not all that difficult to navigate and shouldn't be grounds for any influence on this discussion. Oh and my tip of the day, don't mess with Legolas' Lady Gaga pages! :p kiac. (talk-contrib) 06:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

note to self: do not edit any Lady Gaga pages. J04n(talk page) 19:52, 25 November 2009 (UTC) :)

Note to self: Revert bad edits only...post requested changes at Legolas' page...*LOL* CycloneGU (talk) 03:32, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Reviews in infobox: next step

I think we're of general consensus now that we should remove the reviews (The issue of a separate review infobox seems less decided at this point, but that can become a separate discussion). However, I suggest someone contact all the relevant music WikiProjects about this discussion so they know what's up. Nothing cause more gnashing of teeth on Wikipedia than having a change implemented that not everyone has been privy to. WesleyDodds (talk) 01:04, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't think that's the case. There is definitely significant opposition to complete removal. Some only support removal if the reviews are also put in a separate box, and a few others don't support any change to the current setup. In addition, this discussion has only been going on for three days, one of which is a big holiday for many. Give it a full week before even trying to figure out whether or not we have consensus. Tim meh 01:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't mean "implement this right away". I meant the shape of consensus was forming enough following an idle thought by myself that definitely merits presenting it to others for serious discussion/polling. Hence "the next step". WesleyDodds (talk) 11:37, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed with Timmeh. Definitely inform as many projects as possible (and wait a week or two) before going anywhere with this. —Gendralman (talk) 01:23, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I've dropped a note at the Music project to see if anyone there wants to contribute to this discussion. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:11, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

How about the subprojects (genre and band WikiProjects)? That's what I primarily meant; the overarching Music WikiProject seems kind of low-traffic compared to some of the others. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:37, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment from the music project (actually just from me but I saw Zilla's post over there): I would agree with what many people seem to have already stated. It seems like moving a chart-like display of the major reviews into a body section from the infobox is the most reasonable idea. However, we shouldn't just block the section from the infobox to provoke edits to move them. I don't know the best way to do this, but I propose that any new infobox uses should be strongly encouraged to include review information in the body instead. Collaboration should also be encouraged to start making the same changes on the already-existing infoboxes. Since most of the new articles will be using the new guideline, and work will be going on to fix the old articles, I think that eventually the changes will pick up speed. I think it would take a while, but be relatively unobtrusive. I just don't know how to actually get people to do the change on the new infoboxes, beyond some kind of notice on Template:Infobox album/doc. —Akrabbim^talk 04:53, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

It wouldn't be "block the section from the infobox to provoke edits to move them". It would be deactivating the field for reasons established above. Editors moving the reviews to the article body would be a by-product, and in some articles wouldn't be necessary since they are already there. The basic idea is "we don't need this in the infobox". WesleyDodds (talk) 11:37, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I really like having the reviews easily accessible, as for me, it's one of the most useful aspects of the wiki album pages. I really don't like the new style of moving the links to footnotes for two reasons: 1) some album articles are really long and its a pain to scroll down the bottom to click a link that should be readily available from the infobox (it's only an arrow afterall), and 2) the infobox clearly shows what publication the review is from, while the footnotes do not (and the review footnotes are mixed in with other footnotes). This makes the new setup quite cumbersome for someone who wants to quickly identify the critical reaction from key publications and read their articles. My preference is listings in the infobox with links. I understand some people don't like this and have proposed moving reviews into the article. I think that would be fine, as it would allow for a summary of critical reaction, which I think is useful. This would be my second choice. The current practice though of listing the reviews without hyperlinks and having links in the footnotes does not work well and I would support its replacement. It is not user friendly.Ww adh77 (talk) 13:46, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

You do realise clicking on the citation number takes you directly to the bottom of the page? It does using Firefox anyway, and it also highlights the relevant citation for you, so it is essentially two clicks instead of one... and now it is in line with the rest of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a links directory, or an advertisement tool for wannabe reviewers, which is what the field is used for when it requires little to no effort to add a simple link. kiac. (talk-contrib) 14:01, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Bot usage

If it is decided to remove the reviews from the infobox by deactivating the Reviews field, then a bot should be used to move all the links to a different part of each article. The links should either be moved to a new Reviews template, or to a Notes, References, or External Links section. Something similar was done earlier this year when links to IMDB and AMG were removed from the {{Infobox film}} template. There's an archived discussion about that at Template talk:Infobox film/Archive 16#External links (imdb, amg, etc). An example of an edit by that bot can be seen here. Simply deactivating the field and trying to encourage editors to re-add the reviews manually would be a huge disservice to both readers and editors, since it would comment out vitally important reliable third-party references from an extremely large number of album articles. With that being said, I'm still in favor of leaving the reviews in the infobox, and it seems that a number of other editors are also in favor of leaving them there. — Mudwater^(Talk) 15:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Given discussion in the above section, very few people are still of the opinion of keeping reviews in the infobox; many people who wanted them to stay have later changed their minds after some discussion. There are people who suggest a separate review infobox, however. WesleyDodds (talk) 02:24, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

In the case of any reviews that are formatted as inline citations (per our recent change in format), the AnomieBOT should rescue any references that are orphaned as a result of the field no longer displaying. As for articles that still have the reviews as bare links, we'd have to employ or design a different bot to handle that task. I would be in favor of a bot that, if not moving these reviews into a separate box as I expressed desire for earlier, would at least move them to an external links section. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I gave my two cents earlier- and I do agree after reading the discussion that the infobox is not the place for reception. I still strongly, strongly disagree with removing it before there's consensus on where else to put the information. I realize that the ideal scenario is having it in the prose. But there are good editors, and there are most editors. Articles under the care of good editors most likely already have a reception section. Most of the articles have neither a reception section nor the types of editors who are likely to write one. Bottom line, the simple mass removal of sourced information will do nothing to improve wikipedia on the whole. It needs to be relocated. 136.181.195.10 (talk) 18:11, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Where we stand

Remove reviews	Move to separate template	Keep in infobox	No opinion
WesleyDodds	IllaZilla	Ww adh77 (would also support separate template)	Epeefleche
J04n	Michig	Mudwater (second choice is a separate template)	JD554
Andrzejbanas	Gendralman	-	-
CycloneGU	Kiac	-	-
-	Timmeh	-	-
-	Akrabbim	-	-
-	136.181.195.10	-	-
-	Zidane tribal	-	-

It's been seven days, which I think is long enough to attain adequate discussion and consensus. I'd say we're now pretty close to a general agreement that the reviews don't belong in the infobox, but that they should be put into a separate template similar to {{VG reviews}}. Does anyone disagree? Tim meh 19:33, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I can live with that. J04n(talk page) 19:35, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for counting my IP 136.181.195.10 (talk) 19:57, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I would've hoped you'd call me out on it if I hadn't. You were a participant in this discussion, and you should be treated as such, regardless of whether you're just an IP or a registered user. Tim meh 20:15, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree w/ the assesment; it seems to reflect the opinions & arguments expressed above. We should start devising a plan on how to carry such an action out. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:46, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Here, I created {{Album ratings}} based on {{VG reviews}}, and {{Arprose}} based on {{Prose}}. Here is a diff of something a bot could do (applied to Monuments and Melodies). The Reception section could be added just above the track listing section. —Akrabbim^talk 22:58, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The example edit looks good, but we also need the bot to be able to determine if there is already a reception section in the article and make the appropriate edit based on that determination. If we can find someone who is able and willing to program a bot to do what we want it to do, we shouldn't have a problem getting it up and running. As for your templates, they're going to need documentation before we can start using them. Tim meh 23:51, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I like {{Album ratings}}, but does it need to say "Reception" across the top? Couldn't "Review scores" just be the headline banner (presumably 99% of the time it's going be under some kind of "Reception" or "Critical reaction" section header already)? Also changing "Publication" to "Source" might be better wording, as not all of the review sources are publications per se (are Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic considered publications? I don't know...I'm not really that concerned about this one actually). --IllaZilla (talk) 02:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I actually took out the aggregates section from the VG reviews template because I didn't think it was as important to albums as it is for video games. Are there other aggregates for albums besides metacritic? —Akrabbim^talk 03:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Aggregates was correctly removed in my opinion. Metacritic is the only major one, and isn't even all that extensive. I think he was just saying that online reviews don't always come from sources that are considered publications, so "Sources" may be better to use. I also think Score could be changed to Rating, since no one really scores an album, they rate it with stars and what not. I like the templates, it works for me. kiac. (talk-contrib) 03:23, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I finished the documentation, and made some of the recommended tweaks, so they are bot-ready, I think. —Akrabbim^talk 04:55, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

We also need to sort out what we're writing on our project page here. Also, is it worth considering posting a note on the album template so it is explained on talk pages and people don't continuously ask there why the reviews were moved. Or could we leave an invis note with the new review table with the bot edits, saying to come here for discussion or something (Similar to the album template invis tag). kiac. (talk-contrib) 09:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it would suffice to summarize the outcome of this discussion (and link to it) in our project guidelines, then have the bot's edit summary link to that guideline. --IllaZilla (talk) 16:48, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

←Just a quick point - 16 people have so far contributed to this discussion yet there are approx. 400 members of the Albums WikiProject not to mention the users that are in related projects but not this one. My main problem with Wikipedia is the way 'consensus' is gained by a few highly active editors taking part in discussions that the vast majority of users never see. Given that any change would potentially impact a huge number of users could we at least send a bot message to all members of the Project informing them of the discussion and asking for their input? I consider myself to be a reasonably active Wikipedian but I've only just stumbled across this thread. For the record I'd prefer to keep the reviews where they are with moving them to a separate template as my second choice. Cavie78 (talk) 12:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It's an interesting idea, but surely any project members who consider themselves even remotely "active" will be watchlisting this page? People won't necessarily contribute to the discussion if they're happy with the way it's developing. I think it would be inappropriate to "spam" editors with a request for input. If they aren't watchlisting the page, that says enough. PL290 (talk) 13:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

While I agree that this is an unfortunate result of building consensus on a talk page (especially on the project talk page, which apparently far less people watch than they should), it is actually more in line with WP:CONS. First of all, if we waited for even 20% of the members to show up, everything would take forever. Secondly, if hundreds of people get a message dropped on their talk page, most will probably simply show up, quickly state their opinion, and leave it at that. This does not aid the spirit of establishing consensus. From WP:PRACTICAL: "The quality of an argument is more important than whether it comes from a minority or a majority." At this point, a lot of discussion has taken place, maybe enough to establish consensus, and I think it would be a disservice to the people who take the time to watch this page to wait for a month before enacting any change.

Along the same lines, some very strong arguments have been given in support of moving them out of the infobox: the fact that consensus has already been established in other projects for the other infoboxes not to include ratings, how infoboxes should not be a list of links, how moving them would encourage reception sections in prose, among other arguments. However, those that would rather keep them in the infobox haven't given such strong arguments. Why don't you think that they should be moved? In my opinion, based on WP:PRACTICAL, is that consensus has been reached. —Akrabbim^talk 13:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Many users, myself included, concentrate on writing articles and don't have the time to get involved with the myriad of discussion pages. I think they're an essential part of Wikipedia and I applaud those who are there to answer queries and bring up issues such as this, but what you are proposing is a significant change to the way at least 84000 (!) album articles are displayed. Even though I don't usually get involved in discussions I would certainly appreciate a heads up that the issue is being talked about and I don't think I'm alone. For the record I believe the reviews should stay where they are because the infobox is there to provide an 'at a glance' summary of the main facts relating to the album and ten professional reviews does an adequate job of summing up the album's critical reception.

I'm not sure why waiting for more input from members would be "a disservice to the people who take the time to watch this page" - what's the rush exactly? Surely it would be infinitely preferable to come up with something which has widespread acceptance throughout the Album Project community? I don't think we should wait for a set percentage of the community to take part in the discussion, simply that we should let everyone know about the discussion so they can contribute if they like, perhaps giving them 2-3 weeks to do so. I have a problem with the view that it should be assumed editors not contributing are "happy with the way [the discussion is] developing" and also that if "they aren't watchlisting the page, that says enough". Cavie78 (talk) 14:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Well if they are watchlisting and reading the discussion and still not contributing, then I'm sure they're quite happy with it. I know if I didn't like the way something was heading, I'd definitely poke my opinion in. My problem with placing hundreds of messages to the less active is that they will do the exact same thing I was going to do when i first saw this discussion; call it a load of crap, blurt out that it shouldn't be done and depart. After reading a few posts, which not everyone would do, especially with the size of this now, I was convinced otherwise and saw this as a way of moving forward. Sure, if people come and provide some quality insight it will help. But I don't think people as a whole will do this, it'll turn into one of those stupid voting polls. I believe we don't need to invite 400+ people in. I'm sure there will be a backlash, but this is a pretty solid discussion that will take a fair bit of respite to overturn, and I'm just not seeing any solid arguments on the keep side of things. We should be notifying all Wikiprojects involved for sure. kiac. (talk-contrib) 15:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree there's no point in bot-messaging 400+ project members: any member who is truly active or who really cares about how the project affects articles should at the very least be watchlisting this page, and thus should already be aware of the discussion. I also placed notices on the Infobox's talk page and on the Music project talk page, so a good-faith effort has been made to involve a wider slice of the community in this discussion. That said, I also agree that we shouldn't rush a decision this big; this discussion has only been going on for a week (though a lot has been accomplished in that time), so there's no harm in waiting another week or so before moving forward with the change. Of course it will probably take that long for us to decide on the execution of that change and develop the tools (bot) to carry it out, so there's also no harm in us discussing that probability and working on the solutions. If consensus changes in the next week or so, so be it. But so far we've got enough of a consensus to at least be developing our action plan. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Cavie78, I should perhaps have pointed out in my post above that I am in exactly the position I described: I have not contributed at all throughout the discussion—except to your post—and by watchlisting, I consider myself to have been kept sufficiently aware. I also agree with the additional points others have just made. It's not a question of "what's the rush"—there is no rush—but I think such an action as you mooted would be very likely to trigger drive-by responses from people who may not take the time to study the whole discussion, and hence indeed be a disservice to those who have devoted considerable thought and discussion to reach what may now be consensus (and thereby a disservice to the project). Finally, remember that nothing is irreversible: if consensus changes again later, usage can change again accordingly. PL290 (talk) 15:56, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

How we can start

As it probably be a good idea to hold off on a full-scale attack with bots and all that, I have an idea. What if we start making the change with well-written articles (like In Utero) that already have the appropriate information in prose? This could help us move forward in a number of ways. Firstly, it may bring more people who are watching those pages into the discussion to inform them of the changing consensus. Secondly, it could be a good dry run for how well the change actually works out, and we can see what kinds of backlash we could receive, and make changes for the better. If it turns out that the change doesn't work out, then we'll know before a bot changes thousands of articles. Thirdly, if it turns out that it truly betters the encyclopedia (which it hopefully will), then people will see these high-profile and well-written articles as an example of how to improve the lower-quality articles (and we'll need less of that {{Arprose}} template). Does this sound like a good idea? —Akrabbim^talk 17:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. It's almost always good to start with the FAs and work our way down. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we should leave this discussion open while beginning to implement our consensus. Editors who don't like the changes for whatever reason will come here and leave quick, uninformed comments against our current consensus. Editors who don't mind, or are in favor of, the change will have no reason to come here and voice their opinion, so they won't. Therefore, the discussion would quickly turn in the opposition's favor due to an unequal balance of participants. I think any implementation should wait until after this discussion has been marked as closed. Tim meh 21:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

How long do we have to wait? When do we know that the discussion is "closed"? I would just prefer to make some WP:BOLD edits to see how they are received while someone works on programming a bot. —Akrabbim^talk 21:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I think we've gotten a clear enough consensus from this discussion. It can be closed, meaning adding {{Archivetop}} and {{Archivebottom}} so that it is officially closed (as is often done at the noticeboards), right now if no one objects. If some implementation leads to significant opposition, anyone is free to start a new discussion contesting our current consensus. Tim meh 21:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I think you all deserve it

I was following along the discussion, just as other members of course, and i think it was worth something shiny. (But i don`t feel like giving 15-ish shiny things) so...

		The WikiProject Albums Barnstar
		I Zidane tribal give this barnstar to all the members who participated in the discussion about the location of albums reviews in the articles, it was civil and very useful. Zidane tribal (talk) 02:54, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, and I'm glad the discussion remained civil and productive. The efficiency at which we were able to achieve consensus is truly amazing when you look at other areas of the site where almost no idea gets proposed without strong opposition and unneeded drama. Tim meh 03:35, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Singles VS EPs

Hopefully I am posting this in the right section....

In Greece, singers usually release Singles/CD Singles. These CD-Singles chart on IFPI's singles chart, get certified as singles, and are classified as singles. Usually though, these CD Singles contain a number of different songs on them. Some examples of this is Fos, Remixes 2004, Mia Kardia, Theleis I Den Theleis, Kalanda, This Is Our Night. Some of the songs on these CD-Singles are usually released as radio singles with accompanying music videos.

The dilemma here, is what to classify them as on Wikipedia. Some users argue that they are more like a tradition EP. On the other hand, Wikipedia itself isn't clear on this. In the EP article it states "Usually, a CD single has around 10–28 minutes of music, an EP has up to 36 minutes...", supporting that these releases could be classified as Singles as they do not exceed 28 minutes. It further goes on to say "In the United Kingdom, the Official Chart Company defines a cut off between EP and album classification at 25 minutes length or four tracks (plus alternative versions of featured songs)." Again, not so clear since it talks about the UK. The article also states "An EP is typically seen as four (or more) tracks of equal importance (as opposed to a 4-track single with an obvious A-side and 3 B-sides).". Again, it seems that it is not clear, as it is a matter of interpretation.

Furthermore, on the Singles page, it states "In music, a single is a type of release, typically a short recording of one or more separate tracks. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear on a album. Sometimes these are usually the most popular songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses, and in other cases a recording released as a single does not appear on an album."

As you can see, Wikipedia seems to support the fact that they could be classified singles, which is what they are considered as in Greece. On the other hand, the EP article mentions a 4 track cut off in the UK, while most releases in Greece are around 4-5 tracks. It also states that an EP can be 4 or more tracks of equal importance. The fact that vague words like "typically" and "usually" are used, don't help as it implies there could be exceptions. I personally, think they should be classified as CD-Singles since they seem to meet the singles criteria, (of course depending on interpretation) and they are released as such in Greece. On the other hand, some editors have already gone ahead and started changing articles to say they are EPs without a proper consensus on the issue. Any help on this subject would be appreciated.Greekboy (talk) 05:27, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Are there any official guidelines to differentiate singles and EPs in Greece? Also, my vote would be to classify releases as singles or EPs according to three factors:

The rules and customs of their native nation
The categorization that the musician(s) give
The categorization that the release is most widely reported to be.

If the third one is a tricky one to determine, and the release is widely interpreted as both formats, then the first two rules should be the most depended upon in this situation. About the second one, see what the musical establishment calls it in their blogs or anywhere else the band posts. Of course there is that possibility that they don't post anything about it and aren't very interactive, though (or that they do, but don't talk about whether the release is an EP or a single). I hope there is available information of the first condition, though, since I don't have that much information about such rules and customs in nations.

I hope that this post was of good service to you.

Backtable^{Speak to Me}about what I have done 06:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

There do not seem to be any official guidelines. In Greece, these releases (like the samples provided above) are widely reported as CD-Singles by every source. They are interpreted as CD-Singles by IFPI, the record labels, the musicians themselves, the media, and the music stores, etc. I could easily provide online verification from all these mentioned if desired. They have never been interpreted as EPs. The only place where the EP argument/interpretation comes up is here on Wikipedia, where some editors see them as EP's instead. Greekboy (talk) 09:04, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the defining criteria must be how the relevant organisations/chart providers for each individual country treat an EP, if they are prepared to call them "singles" then that must be good enough for Wikipedia. This may mean variance country to county, and indeed, era to era, obviously, as usual, verifiability is also a criteria. You should be able to find something on the net to help you verify how Greece treats their "EPs." You might like to have a look at MPGreek to see what they say.--Richhoncho (talk) 09:15, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Well MPGreek is just a music download service, so I am not sure it will help much. But here are some recent articles/press releases verifying CD-Singles. Although some are in Greek (sorry), you can still see CD-Single in the text. Press releases from different labels on new CD-Singles: Sony Music press release,[1], Heaven music press release. News articles on CD-Singles from the two biggest music channels in Greece MTV Greece and MAD TV: MAD TV article, MTV Greece article. I can also provide the singles chart from IFPI (the chart providers) once archive.org is up and running again (currently down for maintenance). IFPI Greece is currently not producing charts, so I can't link the site directly. But as mentioned above, they chart as singles and are certified as singles. (In fact the one Sony Music press release talks about a new Gold certification for the "CD Single" in question.) As you can see, these releases are handled as "CD Singles".Greekboy (talk) 10:14, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, my greek is non-existant. But you will find that IFPI and/or the manufacturers have come to an agreement regarding what is an EP, a single, an album etc if only to stop each other gain an advantage on the other (or the purchaser might find they can buy 60 minutes of music for the price of a single LOL). Bearing in mind you say that EPs appear in the singles charts, I would take that to mean that that there isn't a separation between singles and EPs. Interestingly, I suppose it could all come under the general title of "price fixing," which, as we all know, is illegal in the EU. Cheers.--Richhoncho (talk) 18:26, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it isn't even clear if these releases are EP's in the first place, and should be called that, since they are just called CD-singles, and the Wikipedia articles are not clear on what defines them. Greekboy (talk) 19:59, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Assuming what you say is correct, if they are released as CD-singles then they must be singles. It's not a job for WP to define anything, but to report verifiable information, trying to assess them as EPs would be POV and wrong. --Richhoncho (talk) 19:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

That is what I was thinking too. Besides being POV, it is also on the verge of original research to define them as EP's. Greekboy (talk) 22:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

There are no consistent hard and fast rules for classifiying releases as singles, EPs or albums. The best approach is to use the classification that it was released as. If these are released as singles, call them singles. It's fairly common for CD singles in the UK to have 4 or 5 tracks, but if the release is named after one lead track and the others are all effectively 'B-sides', it's still a single. It annoys me when singles and mini-albums are classified as EPs here due simply to some ill-conceived view that ignores the history and seems to be based on editors' own narrow experience of what constitutes singles, EPs, albums. But now I'm ranting, so I'll stop.--Michig (talk) 10:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

The thing is though, most of the times with these releases there are more than one radio singles. So basically there is more than one 'A-side'. (Sorry, not good with the A-Side/B-side stuff). Take for example the case of Kalanta. Two songs from it were released as radio singles with accompanying music videos. It is stuff like this that causes certain editors to classify them as EP's, even though they are released in Greece as CD-Singles. It should also be noted, that Ipofero, the highest selling single in Greek history, also falls under the same category. It too had 2 radio singles/music videos, (and falls into the EP debate with the rest) but yet was even awarded by Richard Branson for its high sales as a CD Single. As I have said though, I personally believe they should be called CD-Singles. Greekboy (talk) 03:49, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

As I stated before, I could verify the singles chart. Here is a verification of the singles chart by IFPI from January 8, 2007: IFPI singles chart. As you can see, the single Kalanda is at the top of it, since as stated, they are released as CD-singles. Actually most of the chart is full of those type of releases. But as you can also see, traditional international singles like Christina Aguilera's Hurt and Fergie's Fergalicious are charted on the same chart. Greekboy (talk) 19:52, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Note: Previous discussion on this topic can be seen at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 27#CD Singles. --IllaZilla (talk) 13:18, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but besides the fact that the discussion wasn't directly asking about the singles vs EP debate, it still was not made clear. Greekboy (talk) 19:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the major concerns are:

Using a singles infobox (which is designed for a song) to describe a sort of "mini-album" and all the troubles that causes for the fields and chronology since there are actual "real" singles by these artists.
Talking about singles released from a CD single (for instance Mia Kardia (written as if EP per last disc mentioned by IllaZilla) was released as a CD single, but the title track was not released as a single, though tracks from it were. Also none of the songs were featured on a full length album.

If we chose to label as a CD-single, I think some parameters would have to be adjusted in these templates to say the least, not to mention the wording must be clear to make it so the reader knows we are talking about the disc CD-single, not the song single. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 18:21, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Well I think the major concern of THIS discussion, is what they should be classified. Not the info-box. That is mixing two discussions that sort of have a different purpose as I started above. Second, it should be noted in the case of Mia Kardia (As well as others), you are talking about radio singles/music videos being released. Not actual single on CD. (Just to clarify it for everyone). Also to clarify, not all the debated CD-Singles have the same exact case as Mia Kardia as stated by Grk1011. Greekboy (talk) 22:09, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Well actually it is a concern of this discussion because it is all intertwined. If we do decide to keep classifying as CD singles then how the templates are used is an important aspect. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 22:45, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I generally agree with the argument that it's not Wikipedia's job to define anything, but rather to report on verifiable information (as stated by Richhoncho). However, it is Wikipedia's responsibility to generate coverage of encyclopedic merit. Therefore if these "cd-singles", as labeled in the (Greek) marketplace, exhibit characteristics of EPs, then it might somehow be worth mentioning. I know that there aren't any objective criteria for defining EPs, however by convention on English Wikipedia we have many examples of how the American, British, Australian, and larger Western markets (with large music industries) classify their CD-singles, which in turn have formed the predominant definitions/criteria/characteristics of CD-singles. We know that most CD-singles (or digital "singles" in the current era) are titled after the single they are designed to promote, the a-side, whereas the rest of the tracks tend to either be remixes of that a-side single or (other) b-side tracks. It's rare to see more than one a-side from what I've observed, unless that second a-side track is a remix and not the original album version. All the Greek "CD-singles" mentioned above are almost exclusively a-side containing releases (quadruple a-sides, surprisingly, in some cases)- a characteristic of EPs. Ultimately I think we should not be changing the fact they are commercially labeled as "cd-single", but to somehow point out that these CD releases contain multiple singles and therefore resemble EPs, which is credible under an encyclopedic context. Now we just need to find a way to do phrase this and see how the templates will harmonize lol. Imperatore (talk) 05:47, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I guess a quick question would be how do we format the names when we reference the cd single. As I was saying above Remixes 2004 is a CD single, but its not a song, so would it be in italics instead? Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 01:52, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Consensus/Final thoughts?

Can we get a final thought on this subject? There is currently a user going around randomly changing and moving articles to say that they are EPs without a proper consensus. From the above discussion, it seems general consensus is leaning toward labeling these releases as CD-Singles, since they were releases as such. But as some users brought up later in the discussion, we still have a minor issue with use of infoboxes and wording. Any further comments would be appreciated, as there has not been any activity in this discussion for almost two weeks. Greekboy (talk) 04:10, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

List-class albums vs. discographies

I have noticed that a fair number of discography articles have been tagged with the Album template and given a "List" grade. For example, see this section of the Project Assessment table: [List-Class_Album_articles]. Also, some of these have not received tags for Wikipedia:WikiProject Discographies of which I am also a member. So my question for the folks in this project is: does this project deal ONLY with album pages, with discographies left to the proper project? I could start removing the Albums project template from the articles in question but wouldn't want to go nuts if project folks find it inappropriate. Doomsdayer520 (Talk|Contribs) 09:20, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes you're right. Album template is for pages about individual album articles (as well as pages that include soundtracks, such as film pages); discographies should only be using the discography template. That project is much better suited to dealing with discogs than we are. kiac. (talk-contrib) 16:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'm on it. I have removed inappropriate Albums Project templates from a few dozen articles, almost all of which were in the scope of the Discographies Project instead. I did this by going through the Albums Project assessments table in all grades except Stub and Start, which are just too big for me to tackle right now. This is perhaps a long-term To Do collaborative task. Doomsdayer520 (Talk|Contribs) 10:27, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Albums with title songs

A discussion is currently underway at Talk:My Life (Mary J. Blige album)#Rename about the naming of album articles that also have title songs with articles, and about the best way to handle these entries on disambiguation pages for popular titles with many albums & songs listed. The dab page involved is My Life (and an alternative version).--ShelfSkewed Talk 15:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

TuneLab Music?

I've been seeing this site used for reviews quite a lot. It just seems like a glorified blog to me, can anyone give any insight? It's used enough that it should be added to the yay or nay list. Rehevkor ✉ 16:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The site's main page describes it as "a rock music community"[2]. A WP:SPS that shouldn't be used as a reliable source. --JD554 (talk) 17:00, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I might do a little research on this, because I do admittedly get confused when you have TuneLab, TheTune, TheTuneMusic (blacklisted) and another 3 or 4 Tune-orientated names of websites, so my opinion may be bias, with the other bad sources influencing me. I am of the opinion at the moment though, that it should not be included. Also, I hate Strange Glue's usage here, but that's another matter. kiac. (talk-contrib) 03:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Jimi Hendrix Cry of Love

might be a good idea to stop gersracing from continually reverting the page with the only two references in the entire article and replacing it with his blatantly, unreferenced, self-promoting POVJameselmo (talk) 19:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The user has apparently received many warnings for vandalism, perhaps with no result if he/she never looks at the talk pages. If the shenanigans continue, take it here: Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit. Doomsdayer520 (Talk|Contribs) 08:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Book-class

Since several couple of Wikipedia-Books are about albums, could this project adopt the book-class? This would really help WikiProject Wikipedia-Books, as the WP Albums people can oversee books like A Rush of Blood to the Head and Dream Days at the Hotel Existence much better than we could as far as merging, deletion, content, and such are concerned. Eventually there probably will be a "Books for discussion" process, so that would be incorporated in the Article Alerts.

There's an article in last week's Signpost if you aren't familiar with Wikipedia-Books and classes in general. If you have any questions just ask. Thanks. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

This seems to overlap with the Good and Feature Topic concepts. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, well there was a drive to turn Good topics and Featured topics into books a while ago, since books are by nature topical. The books are different in purpose however (off-wikipedia, offline, or print reading). Likewise, categories make good choices to convert into books. But then there are books that go beyond topics and categories, although there currently is none for your project.

For example there are lots of books on coldplay albums. These could (should?) probably be merged together, into one book called "Cold Play albums" or something like it. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 15:27, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Is the book class meant to replace another class, or is it supposed to be an additional tag to keep a Category:Book-Class Album articles? —Akrabbim^talk 15:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It's its own class, meant for any page that starts with "Wikipedia:Books/..." (like the template-class is for pages that starts with "Template:..." AKA the talk page of books would be tagged by {{WP Albums|class=book}}. It doesn't replace any other class. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 15:40, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

What I meant by replace is that an article formerly rated GA-class would be changed to Book-class, not completely replacing a different class from the project. Is this correct? If so, it seems like it would interfere with our current assessments. —Akrabbim^talk 16:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) There's no chance of that happening. Wikipedia:Books/Dream Days at the Hotel Existence is the book [collection of articles] (the one that will be tagged by |class=book), which is completely different than the Dream Days at the Hotel Existence article (which would be tagged |class=GA or whatever). Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 16:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's back up and get a proper explanation of the whole "book" deal. I think that would help orient discussion (aside: is "books" really the most helpful name for this? It isn't that intuitive). WesleyDodds (talk) 08:41, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

A Wikipedia-Book is essentially a collection of articles, which you can arrange in a certain order, separated by chapter an so on. For example Wikipedia:Books/Anton_Bruckner is divided in his biography plus four sections (Insights, Music, Compositions, Symphonies) [I'm not saying this is the best way to arrange the articles, but that's how it is as of writing]. This compilation, meant to be read like a book, can then be downloaded electronically, or ordered in print. See this example PDF.

Does this clarify? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 17:16, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion regarding Succession boxes

Hello, I would like to extend an invitation to join the discussion regarding the use of succession boxes at Wikipedia talk page for record charts
For completeness of discussion please make any comments there. Thank You.—Iknow23 (talk) 03:05, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

After reading the discussion at Wikipedia talk page for record charts, I agree that Succession Boxes don't seem to be good for much more than navigating to unrelated articles. But some of the rhetoric over there about false advertising and whatnot is unnecessarily harsh. I will point out that with albums, many people interested in music history might be fascinated by the fact that Led Zeppelin II was #1 between Abbey Road and Bridge Over Troubled Water. Doomsdayer520 (Talk|Contribs) 08:41, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't saying "false" advertising. I meant that it seems to function as circular or affiliate advertising in that it goes to unrelated articles that 'in return' go to it.
I have also made the point that I believe that Succession boxes are an indiscriminate collection of information as an "Excessive listing of statistics" that are not notable to the subject.—Iknow23 (talk) 01:27, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I also apologize, as your noteworthy statements on "affiliate advertising" were exaggerated by some of the folks in that earlier discussion. Anyhow, your concerns are worth talking about so I hope a robust discussion breaks out here. Doomsdayer520 (Talk|Contribs) 13:05, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. For others that are similarly concerned, please note that I said "seems to me [to] have the effect of being..." I was not trying to say that it is being done deliberately for this purpose.

This issue also pertains to WikiProject Songs and an invitation has been extended there as well. For completeness of discussion please make any comments HERE. Then all concerned can reference back to the one Central discussion. Thank You.—Iknow23 (talk) 04:33, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the contents of the Bottom of the page box

Please join the discussion at LINK. For completeness of discussion please make any comments there. Thank You.—Iknow23 (talk) 03:27, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Delusions of Adequacy

This webzine can be used for professional reviews? It is been used at "Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel", which is under a GA review done by me.--Canniba loki 22:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Spin ratings?

I've had a rather POV-enthused IP accuse the Spin ratings of being user-submitted. Now... this could mean thousands of edits. Please see This Is War, middle of the page rating, anyone know if the user ratings actually calculate this rating? I would have thought not... kiac. (talk-contrib) 03:34, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I took a quick look. It appears to me to be user-submitted as the box showing the rating encourages one to "Login or Register to rate this item."—Iknow23 (talk) 03:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Does the print magazine give ratings? I guess even if they do, we are still going to have to go through them all and make sure that we have given the one from the magazine, and not from the online community. —Akrabbim^talk 04:34, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah, yes. I was about to mention that :) I have a July 2006 PRINT issue and it gives reviews with a rating and the reviewer's name. So I would say that the PRINT ratings should be good as Akrabbim suggests.—Iknow23 (talk) 04:43, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Check if the print review ratings match up with the online ones, if they do, it's a proper rating. They might just give the users an option to give a rating, and publish it somewhere else. There isn't much integrity for the reviewer if they're publishing a user rating smack bang in the middle of their article. kiac. (talk-contrib) 08:44, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I can't find any online reviews there to compare for the albums reviewed in the July 2006 edition. Perhaps it is because they are too old? Someone with access to a newer print edition please help. I do agree about the integrity issue for the reviewer, but even if it is the reviewer giving the rating, the design of the webpage having an invitation to "Login or Register to rate this item" RIGHT INSIDE of the box with the rating makes it appear to be a 'floating' rating dependent upon the users' votes. This prima facie uncertainty of the online reviews could easily remain a matter of contention, so is probably an unreliable source.
Random: the July 2006 issue also has an interview with Jimmy Wales.—Iknow23 (talk) 04:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

We seem to have it worked out, Nouse logged in and rated the album, it only changed a rating on a different page - which had two votes and was 5 stars. As opposed to the 1.5 stars published on the review. Just an IP making crap up. See Talk:This Is War. kiac. (talk-contrib) 02:14, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

A valid reference should not give even the impression of being otherwise. It should be able to stand on its own, without anyone having to conduct research to confirm what it really says. It does not meet Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden of evidence "must clearly support the material as presented in the article." The fact that research is necessary means it is UNclear.—Iknow23 (talk) 22:34, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

The discussion continues. Please see Talk:This Is War#RfC: Guardian and Spin reviews—Iknow23 (talk) 01:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

'Common sense' tells me when observing the commingling of the album artwork + a rating + "Login or Register to rate this item." all enclosed within a box, that those whom perform such actions are contributing to the 'rating' that is displayed.—Iknow23 (talk) 04:06, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

How to format Greek CD singles

The discussion above died without any conclusions, but in the meantime there are certain formatting issues that need to be addressed now. My example is the "CD Single" Remixes 2004 (which has been converted to EP now, so I chose a previous version) which consensus seems to be to refer to it as the Greek public do, a CD single. But this creates formatting problems on wiki. When referring to it in prose do I put it in quotes or italics? It's a single, but not a song name. Complicating matters is when using the singles infobox, the quotes are added automatically. Any thoughts? Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 15:39, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I would be inclined to treat it as an EP, since that is what it is. You could use the EP infobox, italics and then just refer to it as a CD single, perhaps stating that it is in fact technically an EP. You might want to add the line "is an extended CD single, otherwise known as an EP in other regions." Nothing wrong with a little clarity. kiac. (talk-contrib) 15:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Since the term 'Remixes 2004' is the name of a work, and not of a song it should be italicized. Technically, even traditional US/UK singles are treated the same way, except that the name is rarely treated as anything but the song. If you wanted to be incredibly specific, track 1 here would be "Under the Bridge", from Under the Bridge. The article is about the song "Under the Bridge", which is most notably part of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, which is why we use quotes in the infobox and in the lead sentence. However, 'Remixes 2004' is 'only' the name of a work, not of an individual song. If it is really considered a single, and not an EP like it would be classified in the US/UK system, then I guess you could just tweak the singles infobox to allow for optional italicization. (Hey, that's really a word!) —Akrabbim^talk 15:54, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Leaks

Ok im getting fed up of users including information about album leaks and song leaks. I really want a consensus to be reached for if and when leaked information should be included in an article. I am of personal believe that if the leak provokes an artist and/or label response like the leaking of 50 Cent's Before I Self Destruct did then there is legitimate reason to include the fact that the album leaked. But for example with cassie's Electro Love althought the leaks have been high profile on Blog websites there has been little or no official response. Therefore i was opposed to including leaked information. But a CERTAIN user seems determined to include this information. Please can we reach a consensus and make the rules clearer. Lil-unique1 (talk) 16:28, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree, IMO they should only be included if covered by reliable sources (i.e. not blogs or fansites). Please though, assume good faith and discuss the edits and not the editors. J04n(talk page) 16:36, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
What does WP:LEAK not say that you would add?—Kww(talk) 16:41, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, there you go. J04n(talk page) 17:12, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:LEAK mentions much about 'The date an album was leaked', but I SUPPORT extending it's reach to include ANY info about leaks (albums or songs) must come from reliable cited sources. The sources would not have to be limited however to just the artist or record label.—Iknow23 (talk) 04:37, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

In the case of 50 Cent, Billboard also announced that due to the leak they had temporarily altered some policies for his convenience, like he needs the help. I would think this is valid notable information, but am strongly against any type of leak date being published. It is complete ignorance to think it is even worth mention, every album leaks, all it does is advertise for piracy. kiac. (talk-contrib) 13:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with kiac. that leak date should not be shown. I hadn't thought that specific part though, as I just found it mentioned there at WP:LEAK.—Iknow23 (talk) 16:25, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

10% rule for song sample

Ok, so I'm a bit confused about this. The Wiki guidelines here Wikipedia:Music samples state pretty much what I thought: that song samples should "not be longer than 30 seconds or 10% of the length of the original song, whichever is shorter" but this is preceded by the word generally which isn't really explained. When it was on the front page a few weeks ago I noticed that the song sample used for the article Remain in Light was 38 seconds in length so I posted a question about it on Rafablu's talk page. He replied with the following

The ten-percent/thirty-second fair use rule is a debunked standard and shouldn't be in a Wikipedia guideline. US and EU copyright law allows the use of as much, or as little, as necessary to prove your point with critical commentary. I followed the 10% rule out of courtesy more than anything. I could have used much more since the critical commentary is pretty detailed and sourced and is also present in the rationale of the file. It's a nice rule of thumb to stop excess but let's not amend US and EU copyright law.

He's an experienced editor so I'm not doubting what he says but I do think we need to clarify our stance on this issue. I've been told that I need to trim song samples before to get articles through GA and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Cavie78 (talk) 14:38, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

If copyright isn't an issue, I'm not sure why 10% should come into play. Thirty seconds is still a reasonable guideline, as very rarely do you need more than that to illustrate an idea. But the total length of a song shouldn't have much effect on how long that takes. Obviously ideas tend to develop more quickly in shorter songs; I just don't think they do to the the extent that there should be a written guideline in that regard. 136.181.195.10 (talk) 16:35, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that it's very difficult to come up with clear guidelines for a very unclear legal concept. From a legal standpoint, Rafablu is right that copyright law doesn't specify a length of time or proportion of the original. A :38 second sound sample of a 3:00 minute song supported sourced, critical commentary is more likely to be judged "fair use" than a :10 second sound sample of that same song that is accompanied by no commentary whatsoever.

The guideline used to outright forbid samples longer, but the language was changed in 2007, here, in recognition of the fact that it is a guideline, not policy. Anyway, more conversation about the time length can be seen at Wikipedia talk:Music samples. My recommendation would be, if you think that the length exceeds fair use, to question it at WT:NFC or to tag it {{Non-free reduce}} (meant for images, apparently, but no reason it shouldn't work). Mind you, I wouldn't do the latter at this point, since you've already spoken to the contributor about it. :) If you disagree, I'd get further opinions at WT:NFC or even WP:MCQ. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:51, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

The 10% rule was at one time strictly enforced and followed. However, it's recently become more of a rule of thumb, and based on a discussion I had a while back at Wikipedia talk:Music samples, I've just changed the wording to be less strict. Any disagreements can be brought up and discussed at the guideline's talk page. Tim meh 21:36, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

It's been long established that Wiki fair use guidelines are stricter than any legal limits for fair use. Go by what Wikipedia determines to be suitable for its purposes. WesleyDodds (talk) 09:11, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Reviews discussion continued

Isn't it a bit soon to say consensus is determined? It hasn't even been two weeks, and I was hoping to get more people involved. I for one have been too busy to be on Wiki in recent days. As I noted above, have all the music wikiprojects been notified of the discussion? Also, is the review template mandatory, or optional? I don't mind it being optional, really, but it's a bit much to make it mandatory, especially since reviews should be cited in the prose. WesleyDodds (talk) 08:27, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

At this point, I think there is still opposition to the idea of completely removing the template, under the argument that they are very useful for a quick scan of the article. Their usefulness of course diminishes as the prose gets better, but it is hard to say (at least for me) when the article is actually improved by their removal. My first thought would be to leave it up to be determines by consensus on an article-to-article basis, but I fear that would only lead to widespread edit warring and 3RR violations. —Akrabbim^talk 12:48, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) A week is normally long enough for discussions like this, and I believe IllaZilla notified some other WikiProjects several days ago. Since we have a pretty clear agreement that the reviews should not be removed altogether, I believe it would only go against consensus to make the template optional. It would also cause unneeded conflict in articles where some editors want the template shown and some don't. Tim meh 12:49, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me like it shouldn't be mandatory per se, but if there are sourced reviews in the infobox, I would think they should all be moved to the new template. I don't see much of a reason not to.136.181.195.10 (talk) 15:23, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I think if we're doing this then we should be moving all current reviews to the template; making it mandatory to have the template could then be useful I suppose, then people's arguement that "they are very useful for a quick scan of the article" would be diminished, as the template offers the same usability. I think you will find once people start seeing the new shiny template they will use it irrevocably - look at the track listing template, guidelines say it shouldn't be used except for complicated situations, and it pops up bloody everywhere. kiac. (talk-contrib) 16:45, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I might not be clear on what is meant by mandatory. If it means putting the template in every article, even if it's empty, I'm not sure about that, though it wouldn't bother me much. But if there's a reception noted in the article, it seems like the template should be there to reflect that as well.136.181.195.10 (talk) 17:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Mandatory would mean that there is an official guideline saying that there is supposed to be the template to go along with the prose section. The idea would be to create a guideline that minimizes the need for WP:IAR. —Akrabbim^talk 19:01, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the best way to go about this would be to require that all reviews currently in the infobox be moved to the new template. We could then strongly encourage, but not require, that the new template be created to accompany any prose section on critical reception that is created later on. Adding the suggestion to Wikipedia:ALBUM#Article body would probably be the best option. Making the template completely optional would be a bad idea; we should be aiming for consistency throughout all the album articles. Tim meh 21:33, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Consistency of layout for articles of the same type is not mandatory on Wikipedia. This is not the same thing as a Manual of Style. WesleyDodds (talk) 03:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

A review template should not be mandatory at all. Currently only the video games project uses such a template. Film, comics, etc. don't use them, and do quite fine without them. You don't need a box full of reviews, particularly since one of the reasons I brought up from removing the reviews from the album infobox is you can't summarize some reviews. And unlike chart positions, there's no default body like Billboard you can default to for clear inclusion. The article prose is still the best place to deal with critical reception, and in the case of GA and FA articles, it's essential. I understand not wanting to remove the reviews wholesale in the process of deleting the reviews field in the infobox, but mandating that reviews must be in a new infobox only solves half the original problem in the first place. Bear in mind there are fundamental issues on what infoboxes should and shouldn't be used for, as well as access issues. Have those been considered fully?

Not to mention any sort of infobox is not mandatory in the first place. There has been plenty of discussion about that topic; for example, here's a recent chat at the FAC talk page. The prose is always paramount; infoboxes can be useful, but they aren't necessary, particularly if the article is well-written enough to be FA status. Remember, an infobox is not a replacement for prose. WesleyDodds (talk) 03:28, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The points brought up by others in the first discussion still hold true. Such infoboxes, specifically the referenced reviews, are very helpful for those looking to expand or rewrite articles. They don't replace prose; they encourage editors to use their cited reviews to create prose, especially since this infobox would be accompanied by {{Arprose}} if the reception section of the article does not contain prose. They also provide an at-a-glace overview of the critical reception of an album. A simple template listing the professional ratings an album has received is certainly helpful to a lot of editors as well as readers, and I see no clear contradiction with Help:Infobox. About consistency, I know it's not required and never said it was, but making these optional would only cause problems. The most prevalent of which would be to instigate conflict. What justification, other than a personal opinion, could an editor have for removing one of these templates? For adding one? Tim meh 05:38, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not denying a reviews infobox can be helpful. They just aren't essential. As someone who's written and contributed to a number of FA and GA album articles, I don't find reviews in infobox format particularly helpful, which is part of the reason I started the initial discussion in the first place. As for valid reasons for not including an infobox: all reviews are discussed in the prose, none of the reviews use a rating system, the infobox itself causes formatting or access issues (the latter is particularly important)--just to name three. A lot of things aren't mandatory: pictures, soundclips, even external links. If you can work them into an article, fine, but you cannot force people to use them if they can craft a well-written article without them, and wider consensus beyond this project establishes that you can. Hell, William Butler Yeats went through an Featured Article Review, and during that process the article's infobox was removed. Also, to say that having something being optional will lead to conflict is faulty logic. In some instances that may be true, and in some it may not be. Note that citation templates are optional; if there are disagreements on whether or not to use them, that doesn't override the fact that they are still optional. People can and will argue just about anything in Wikipedia; it's not a valid rational to declare something isn't optional in order to mitigate that. WesleyDodds (talk) 08:49, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be madness though to lose links to reviews entirely from articles that have them, if only because they are useful for anyone wishing to expand an article. Are you talking about removing them, or about a painstaking process of incorporating them into the article text? I think existing review information should at least be moved to an EL or further reading section, so they are not lost to the article. 86.40.58.26 (talk) 00:43, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to disregard; I missed that there was further further discussion below, and have commented there now I have noticed. 86.40.58.26 (talk) 01:09, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

^ "Overview: The Fame Monster". Allmusic. Retrieved November 23, 2009.

[1] "Overview: The Fame Monster". Allmusic. Retrieved November 23, 2009.

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