Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 60

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.

Archive 55

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Archive 58

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Concerning LabelsBase

(Cross-post from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Record Labels)

So I tried to make a thread about this at RSN recently, however it was archived without contribution. My pet peeve with LabelsBase is that after a quick look at the site's About page, I find that it falls under WP:UGC, posing a risk of incorrect information, as is the case with Nicole Bus (see this; nowhere on here does it reference Roc Nation as of this post). At the moment, it is currently being used in a few articles (see Special:Search/Labelsbase), without any of these article's watchers possibly aware of the issue. I was hoping that if found unreliable, the references can possibly be replaced with better sources describing artist connections or removed entirely? Any thoughts from this WikiProject regarding this? Jalen Folf (talk) 23:38, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, their faq seems pretty clear about it - users submit content. It fails WP:USERG and should not be used on Wikipedia. Sergecross73 msg me 12:29, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Completely agree – the "Help/FAQ" section states clearly that content is user-submitted and therefore the website is not a reliable source. It also states that a label can ask to have their information removed from the website, which then makes it pretty useless as source. Richard3120 (talk) 21:45, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the input! I have completely removed the source from all articles that used it and will continue to monitor the search for the next 6 months. Jalen Folf (talk) 00:12, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Unless there are any other objections, we can add it to WP:NOTRSMUSIC as well. Sergecross73 msg me 00:49, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

No objections to this move at all.

Jalen Folf (talk) 00:50, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Greetings! My name is Denis Brazhnikov and I'm the owner of the website(LabelsBase). The artist lists for labels are based on Beatport/Spotify data. We are scanning all of the labels releases programmatically and restructuring it into a formatted artist list. We also provide a label verification procedure, so label owners are able to correct their info officially. Each user submission/edit is pre-moderated and compared with the label's social profiles or website. We provide a label page removal not because it's a useless resource, we just respect the owners freedom. DenisBrazhnikov (talk) 12:02, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that the data on Beatport and Spotify are also provided by the artists or their management, and there is no editorial oversight there, so they aren't reliable or independent sources. Richard3120 (talk) 12:06, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, but as I understand the only reason why LabelsBase has been linked at some of Wikipedia articles is the artist list(the fact of that an artist has been released/signed by a label). If so, I can't understand why Beatport and Spotify aren't reliable sources. Publishing of the releases on Beatport or Spotify is possible only on a contract form(through a direct deal with or distributor). If some label will attach Tiesto's profile or some other artist release as their own, they will be very quickly punished. Even more, I can't imagine that an artist would be able to release an album under, say, Warner Music without a legal agreement. So, my confusing is not even in de-linking LabelsBase, but why Beatport/Spotify is not a trustable resource(if not, I don't who to believe at this world at all). DenisBrazhnikov (talk) 12:24, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia, when the rules are being followed, requires websites with editorial policies and editorial oversight, with content written by professional writers. Being user generated is almost always an auto-fail. The content can’t just come from anyone who decides to submit info, even with moderators reviewing submissions. Same goes with Gamefaqs, ResetEra, user reviews from any website, etc. It’s nothing personal, your format just doesn’t gel with our rules. Sergecross73 msg me 12:40, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Photos on Discogs

Obviously WP:USERG applies here but what about this source as a reference for a personnel section for one of the songs? Rob van vee 16:36, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

It's not user generated when it's a physical photo of a work. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:00, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I concur. Liner notes are liner notes. Just don't link to Discogs. dannymusiceditor ^oops 18:13, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Given the high level of disruptive edits the Doors articles have received recently with IP's adding loads of unsourced info and several articles being protected, how are album liner notes verifiable by someone who doesn't have a copy and suspects the addition of questionable material. I'm going all hypothetical here. Rob van vee 18:19, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

"Just don't link to Discogs." So just adding "as per album liner notes" should suffice, then? After all, an album cover is just like a printed book, isn't it? What a relief. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:50, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Use 'Template:Cite AV media notes' for the citation, without listing discogs. There's not much you can do without access to any source, except assuming good faith while asking someone with an established reputation to check the source. EddieHugh (talk) 18:59, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:06, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Agree with use of {{cite AV media notes}} but disagree that we should not link to discogs. I would never add the link as a ref, but I would also not remove a link in a situation like this. The only time I would remove a link to discogs is if was not clearly sourced there. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:26, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources: "The content on Discogs is user-generated, and is therefore generally unreliable. There was consensus against deprecating Discogs in a 2019 RfC, as editors noted that external links to the site may be appropriate." My interpretation of that wording is that discogs may be used only for external links. EddieHugh (talk) 22:13, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

That's good interpretation of that wording, but it was not a good summary of the discussion. I took part in it and, if I recall correctly, the question was whether it (and other sources) could, or even should, be used anywhere. @Michig: argued for its use only as an EL. @Ilovetopaint:, who opened the RfC agreed. user:Slatersteven said no UG content should be used at all. user:Newslinger wanted to determine if it could be restricted for use only as a reference, and when it couldn't didn't want it eliminated. user:SNUGGUMS didn't like it for any use. The remainder were clear that Discogs should not have any restrictions. I made it clear that it has many valid uses. I would argue that this was closer to the opinion of the majority. Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:47, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the original question about photos, it seems quaint how, in the age of Photoshop, some of us still accept user-generated photo content at face value. Anyway, even if one still insists on including an url with the photo, it should be noted that the only suitable place to put Discogs in Template:Cite AV media notes is the "via=" field. SteveStrummer (talk) 23:42, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I definitely oppose using Discogs for artwork when the site is full of user-generated content and therefore not trustworthy. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 00:19, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

If an editor is extracting the cover/liner note information from an image found on the web for use in {{cite AV media notes}}, it would be helpful to see where it's coming from. This would allow others to check if the info is properly represented and/or the image appears legit. Otherwise, one must AGF (using the actual album or a photo in a book is probably less common than people would like to believe):

{{cite AV media notes
| title = [[Band of Gypsys]]
| others = [[Jimi Hendrix]]
| year = 1991
| publisher = [[Polydor Records]] (Europe)
| type = CD back cover
| id = 847 237-2
| via = [https://www.discogs.com/Hendrix-Band-Of-Gypsys/release/1656768#images/2460907 Discogs]}}

produces (note that the link is directly to the image and not to the title page, which has UGC):

Band of Gypsys (CD back cover). Jimi Hendrix. Polydor Records (Europe). 1991. 847 237-2 – via Discogs. {{cite AV media notes}}: External link in |via= (help)CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)

or if |via= gives the link too much visibilty, it can be hidden with :

{{cite AV media notes
| title = [[Band of Gypsys]]
| others = [[Jimi Hendrix]]
| year = 1991
| publisher = [[Polydor Records]] (Europe)
| type = CD back cover
| id = 847 237-2
| <!--via = [https://www.discogs.com/Hendrix-Band-Of-Gypsys/release/1656768#images/2460907 Discogs]-->}}

produces:

Band of Gypsys (CD back cover). Jimi Hendrix. Polydor Records (Europe). 1991. 847 237-2. {{cite AV media notes}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)

—Ojorojo (talk) 15:45, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

That is exactly the way it should be used as a reference. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:06, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Classification of Evanescence's Synthesis

Hello everyone. I was looking for more input in this discussion, about Evanescence's album Synthesis. Details are here. Thank you! Sergecross73 msg me 18:33, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Amazon.com as RS for music video remixes

Can someone take a look at this disagreement:

Talk:Cold_(Maroon_5_song)#Track_listing

It's my understanding that we don't use the official video of a remix as its own WP:RS to establish mentioning it in the article, as was the case here:

Cold (Maroon 5 song)--track listing section (previous version)

I also find it strange that the remixes are listed as "track listings", when they are not part of an album. --David Tornheim (talk) 22:28, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Spotify and other streaming and downloading services as RS

Is it safe to say that we should not be using streaming services, such as Spotify, DatPiff as WP:RS? Same with downloading services like Bandcamp. The article Currensy discography is filled with DatPiff used as references and other similar cites, and this seems little different than using iTunes, Amazon.com, or official YouTube videos for references. I wanted to check here before continuing to delete these 'references'. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:42, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

David Tornheim, Altho I think they are probably fairly accurate for releases in the 21st century, I think they should definitely be discouraged or outrite banned because their concern is not accuracy but moving product. A journalistic outlet (even one that is for pop culture, lo-stakes journalism like a music review magazine) at least has accuracy for basic factual information like this as a priority. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:45, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Its best to replace any removed refs with better ones rather than just removing them, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 05:46, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Draft:Woman (Wallis Bird album)

I would luv some help pls ? Seems a shame - this editor has too many other things on at moment GerixAu (talk) 11:40, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Can Sputnikmusic even be used as a Wikipedia source anymore?

Today I found out that lately the reviews in Sputnikmusic are somewhat virus-ridden and lead me to sex/porn sites. I honestly think websites that give you computer viruses or other sites that are unwanted are unacceptable on Wikipedia and should be moved to the "unreliable" list, but I don't know if that only happens on my computer or someone else's. So can any of you please check if that same thing on Sputnikmusic happens on your computers? If it does, then Sputnikmusic shall be deemed unreliable with any of its sources in Wikipedia articles removed A.S.A.P. If it doesn't, then it can stay....for now. Thanks!SirZPthundergod9001 (talk) 10:09, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

It's working fine for me, it could have been a temporary problem that has been cleaned up by the site. Its best not to overact as most sites get targeted now and again even the government sites, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 11:28, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I can say that the same is happening for me. The main page is fine but as soon as I click on a review, it opens the page and in 2 seconds redirects me to a site my antivirus warns me to stay away from. This may be a temporary issue as this site is generally pretty secure. Rob van vee 11:35, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I’d say it’s something to keep an eye on, but nothing to freak out about yet. I was just reading a review on it the other day without any issue... Sergecross73 msg me 13:23, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I didn't have any problems when I went today. Can someone provide a link example? Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:37, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Checked again today, no problem. They obviously resolved the issue. Rob van vee 15:30, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

YouTube videos

Based on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums/Archive_59#YouTube_references_(and_others_like_it)_used_improperly, would anyone object if I added YouTube to WP:NOTRSMUSIC? I think this was also discussed at WP:RS/N with similar results. --David Tornheim (talk) 11:24, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, it would require some explanation though. It’s not wholesale unusable. For example, if Billboard (magazine) uploaded a staff-created video to their official verified YouTube account, that would be usable. But yes, in a general sense, all these random self-published Youtubers or unofficially uploaded music, yes, that would be off limits. But because it’s more of a “medium” than an actual publication may be why it’s yet to be put on there yet. Sergecross73 msg me 13:47, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

It can be reliable or unreliable as explained above so best left off the list imv Atlantic306 (talk) 21:12, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

I do agree that it is not "generally unreliable", as a YouTube video of an interview with band members by say Rolling Stone would be good WP:RS. Ultimately what I am looking for is a place to refer to that explains succinctly for the most common case that comes up over and over again--WP:PRIMARY--using the official YouTube video of a song, a remix, or on a TV program as a ref for itself rather than independent secondary sources. And to mention the problem that it effectively acts as advertising for the video rather than part of building an encyclopedia. If worse comes to worse, I will use these discussions, but I would rather than a more centralized or indexed place that's easy for all of us to find the appropriate discuss and conclusions rather than having to search the archives of this NoticeBoard and/or WP:RS/N.

And although Reliable sources/Perennial sources discusses issues with YouTube, but it focuses on copyright violations rather than the official video which is the problem here. WP:YOUTUBE doesn't clearly address this issue either. Maybe one of these locations we could add something about what has been determined with regard to albums and official videos? --David Tornheim (talk) 21:31, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

YouTube can't be a reference itself, but any video published by its maker on an authorized, official account can serve as a reference: see WP:VIDEOREF. SteveStrummer (talk) 22:01, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Using uploaded file as source

Hello! Hopefully you'll be able to help with my question.
FIMI is quite unfavorable in their delivery of yearly album/single etc charts - via zip files. And this year even using outsourced file storage (wetransfer) . Is it allowed to cite reuploads of the zip content (e.g. using web archive such as this) or would it count as unreliable?
Thank you for your time! Kleool (talk) 19:58, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Kleool, The main thing that makes the source reliable or unreliable is who wrote and published it. However they deliver the content is equally reliable. The problem here may be with how verifiable it is, since downloading zipped archives from a third-party site is definitely cumbersome and obnoxious. But that's also true of citing books that are very hard to find and out of print: that doesn't invalidate them as sources, since in principle, you have a citation that you can find from a reliable source. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:43, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Two metal zines up for discussion at RSN

I added The Metal Onslaught and The Metal Resource at WP:RSN five days ago and no one has commented there. Should I copy those here or would editors like me to copy the questions here instead? Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:25, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Nomination of Amor Artificial for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Amor Artificial is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Amor Artificial until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Theprussian (talk) 22:19, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

RIAA certification for Mi Reflejo

Can someone please have a look at Talk:Mi Reflejo#RIAA's site says Mi Reflejo sold 6 million? More opinions are appreciated. --Muhandes (talk) 09:24, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Noticeboard discussion on reliability of Blender

There is a noticeboard discussion on the reliability of Blender. If you are interested, please participate at WP:RSN § Blender. — Newslinger talk 09:29, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:ALBUM needs an official MOS

For the majority of media-based articles such as TV series, Films, Video games, and novels, they all have a consistent organization format that is reasonable at first glance. Production history, Release History, Reception & Legacy. IF there is an episodic format and it's not split into history, or the a list of the contents matter, it will be near the Production or part of Release history. Album articles however don't have a consistent and logical design. Albums however, are organized very awkwardly and inconsistent and have zero logical sense.

Here are the following key issues i found on both Featured and Good album articles:

1. The Track listing location is inconsistent between articles. However, the common place i find it is at the far end of the article, this information in my humble opinion is equivalent to plot/story to a TV/Film/Video game article and should be at the top or near the top. It makes no logical sense to keep it so far down the article.

2. All Reception information is commonly divided into Critical reception, Charts, and Certifications. However, these sections are treated as three individual, completely unrelated, and in separate locations in the article. Charts are usually properly sequenced, but . Even though they are all in some shape or form "Reception".

3. Personnel is another section that is just on its own near the bottom when its clearly part of Production. And once again, there is no logical reason to keep it separate.

4. There are sometimes two Release sections. The first is "Release and Promotion" or "Release and Reception" and the second is a chart saying "Release History". Why are they separate and so far away from each other in the article's location?

I wanted to review the MOS and propose a revision until i realized there is no official MOS for WP:ALBUM. WP:MOSALBUM redirects to an Album article style advice that is considered an essay and not an official guideline. I think this is a serious issue. I propose we convert Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Album article style advice into an official Manual of Style. The first step is re-organizing the "Article style advice" by making it more clear but also simplify some things by combining some sections.

Personnel should be part of production section; charts, certifications, and critical reviews should be subsections under a Reception, and we should make it clear what "release" should be. The proposed sequence of sections should be in my humble opinion: Track list (top)>> Production >> Release >> Reception/Legacy (last before References). I understand there are other sections that we can evaluate the order, but these are the most important sections to focus on.

Here's an example of what I personally believe is a logical method of reviewing, but i'm open to suggestions for any adjustments.

BPP's first proposed organization method
# Background Track listing (tentative) Development Musical style, writing, composition Production Personnel Recording Release, promotion, marketing Artwork, packaging Touring Reception Critics Charts Certifications Legacy

The reason why i'm bringing it up is because this is an actual concern. The current organization system makes it difficult to edit articles because whenever its revised in a logical way, editors will undue it because of the so-called "MOS" that is currently available when its just an essay.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 21:04, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I would prefer to see the following order

background
musical style, writing, composition
recording, production
artwork, packaging
release, promotion, marketing
touring
critical reception
track listing
personnel
charts
certifications
release history
legacy

Note: every section is optional. This is very close to Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Album article style advice. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:18, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@Walter Görlitz: Did you read my concerns? Because you're comment didn't address them, only further enforced there is a concern.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 21:21, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I did, and if you're going to create an official MoS, the one that's currently an essay is nearly ideal. I did not write that essay. I have not had any part in crafting it, although I did make some changes to agree with other guidelines and manuals of style, but think it is an extremely logical ordering and is very much in-line with professional works that discuss albums. The only thing that is missing is a legacy section, which makes sense to me after history.

What you don't address in your proposal is why those sections would go in that order. When we see an article with this level of detail, we have a table of contents. If a reader only wants the information contained in the track listing (not a track list), they can click on it from the top of the article. If they only want to see the personnel who worked on the article (it's not only the production staff) they have the same option.

I don't think that reverting (that would be "undo", not "undue" as you wrote) based on this generally accepted standard is undue. You state that "whenever its organized in a logical way", but clearly, what you are saying that whenever it's in your preferred way, and I don't see the logic in that way, even if it's consistent. The track listing is not the most important. I want to know about how the album was created and what went into making it, not just what and who. If I were to suggest any changes it would be the following:

background
1. musical style, writing, composition
2. recording, production
3. artwork, packaging
4. release, promotion, marketing
5. release history
critical reception
track listing
personnel
touring
charts
certifications
legacy

That is moving all of those previously level-two sections to be sub-sections of the background, and move release history up as the final sub-section. The reason for that is often re-issued works are reviewed again and so introducing the various releases should be introduced before the reviews of those subsequent releases. Moving touring after personnel is preferable for me since it's usually well after the release and is secondary to the studio work. Oh, and thanks for changing "Reception" to "References" as it didn't make sense when I read it and was crafting my initial reply.

As for merging reviews (critical reception), charting and certification, we're talking about several different concepts that should not be conflated by joining them into one large section. The first is when music professionals offer their opinion of the work. The second is how much hype the marketing department was able to create around the release, the third reflects the longevity of the work. For instance, Time Out (album) took more than fifty years to get to platinum status and that points to something that appeals to multiple generations of listeners. Three different concepts deserve three distinct sections. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:49, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Based on my personal analysis and interpretation of the anatomy of a (media) article, they are divided into four key parts: The first is the internal contents of the subject and what it is, the second is the development and production history/process of the subject, third if there is significant information to be separate from development is the release history/process, and lastly what cultural impact the subject left. So the reason why "Tracklist" should be at the top or at least near the top is because the track list is basically the main content of the Album. The contents of other media subject in question is usually at the top. For example TV series and Films, the primary content is "Plot" and "Cast/Characters" so that is at the top or near the top. Video games is "Gameplay" and "Plot". It wouldn't make any logical sense to have the Story of a film/TV or gameplay of a video game near the very bottom. It just doesn't make sense because its the primary subject people are looking for. Reception is how well the subject was received or what cultural impact. So that applies to Charts, Certifications, and Critical reception. All three are reception because all three reflect how the subject was received.

WG's pproposal vs BPP

Walter Gorlitz

Internal Content
Production history/process
Release history/process
impact

background Production history/process
musical style, writing, composition Production history/process
recording, production Production history/process
artwork, packaging Production history/process
release, promotion, marketing Release history/process
touring Release history/process
critical reception impact
track listing Internal Content
personnel Production history/process
charts impact
certifications impact
release history Release history/process
legacy impact

BPP

Background Internal Content
1. Track listing (tentative)Internal Content
Development Production history/process
1. Musical style, writing, composition Production history/process
Production Production history/process
1. Personnel Production history/process
2. Recording Production history/process
Release, promotion, marketing Release history/process
1. Artwork, packaging Release history/process
Touring Release history/process
Reception impact
1. Critics impact
2. Charts impact
3. Certifications impact
Legacy impact

so maybe you can clarify why you organize it the way you did. Take the perspective of a first-time casual reader. What do you expect to find first?Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 23:33, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I did. Is this WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT or something else on your part?

And there's no way a critic's informed review can be considered "impact", cultural or otherwise, it's analysis. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:47, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I don’t feel like it really matters. We’ve got a standardized way of doing things, and very few people question (or even understand) the authority difference between Wikiproject versus MOS. It’s just...a solution to something that’s not even a problem that’s happening. Sergecross73 msg me 01:13, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

To clarify: one editor is getting reverted for not following the standard, so it's happening to someone... Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:44, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Would such a change in organization mean that someone will have to go through 120,000+ album articles and reorganize them all? Richard3120 (talk) 02:23, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

If we wanted to make that happen, we could likely commission a bot to do it. The process would be simple enough for the bot:

Select a small percentage of articles at random (maybe a total of 200 pages over maybe 2 hours at first) that fall within our project's purview
If a section title appears in what we have listed in the MoS, everything in that section would be moved to the appropriate location
If a section title does not appear in what we have listed, it reports that page to a project page
1. Someone (or possibly a team) would have to investigate what the problem was and determine if that section should be added to our MoS or where to place the unknown section
Update the article's talk page that the page has been visited by the bot, with the bot's version number

At some point, when it's stable, percentage of pages could increase and we would run the bot in a larger group and traverse all pages in the project within a few months. We could also have it clean-up small in infoboxes per MOS:SMALLTEXT, OVERLINKed genres, genres that do not exist, infobox parameters that do not exist or cannot coexist (venues for studio albums, etc), lined dates or years, converting "links" in reviews to references, tagging when no references exist at all, and the list could go on. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:09, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

@Walter Görlitz, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT links to disruptive editing by pushing an idea long after consensus has decided. I'm not intending to ignore and I personally think the discussion is still really young and we have plenty of room for more opinions and thoughts I humbly ask to assume good faith.

However, based on what I read I wasnt convinced you took the perspective of a first time casual reader. What led me to believe this is how little you cared about the Track list and felt completely comfortable with having it at the bottom. but you never explained how that's beneficial to other readers.

I recognize that you believe charts, certifications, and Critical reception are three different things that convey different information. maybe cultural impact isnt the best choice of words but the point is that they all provide data how well/poor the album was received, one from a critical standpoint, another from how popular it is, and another certifying the sales for further proof. I argue that each correlate similar information and still Reception at its core. I still dont understand why these shouldn't be next to each other or why your current order is the order is the most optimal.

@Sergecross73: I'm personally trying to make the best articles I can and it's unfortunate that something that is reverted only because a standard was accidentally created because no one pursued to create a quality MOS.

I understand WP:ALBUM has their own method, but my point is that it's a flawed method and isn't helping produce the best quality articles. In my humble opinion, any article that follows this formatting and is considered "Featured", isnt truly the best possible article we can have aand should be challenged. The formatting is confusing and I am saying it makes harder to follow.

I think it's an idea worth investing. And you've edited other media articles before too. Surely you see the benefit.

@Richard3120: We should never worry about how many articles we should fix. the sooner we invest in it, the better the formatted and organization will be in my humble opinion. and I'm sure a bot can do some adjustments.Remember the goal is to make better articles.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 04:50, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I don’t think we need to rework everything we’ve got set up just so you can win a dispute. Just start up a (much more concise) discussion about whether or not it makes sense to stray from our standard set up in your particular instance. Sergecross73 msg me 17:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: I did. This is as concise as i can be. If you need it anymore concise, itll be at the loss of necessary information and make it easier to strawman or oversimplify my concerns.

I do not believe WP:ALBUM has a true quality article with how terribly organized it is. It doesnt have any logical sense. And there is no official MOS, which the standard was most likely created by WP:LOCALCONSENSUS.

I dont know why the respinces have been very dismissive. I presented a chart explaining why its dis-organized.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 20:40, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I’m sorry, you come into an long-term, active WikiProject you’ve generally not been active in, jump right into complaining about the lack of quality and “terrible organization”, and then you complain about us being dismissive? Come on... Sergecross73 msg me 20:48, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Maybe you need to step out of this conversation, take a breather, and get some additional perspective before returning. You clearly are offended by the very idea that WP:ALBUM articles are not properly organized, that I dont think they deserve to be featured, and you are now taking it personally.

Im not accusing WP:ALBUM editors of being dismissive. The one and only editor I'm accusing that is the one I'm currently responding to. So far only Walter Görlitz gave a response. And even though he doesnt agree, hes been attempting to be respectful.

I brought this conversation up because I had good faith in WP:ALBUM editors. I thought that they would either agree that we can discuss improve articles further by improving the organization, or disagree and give a proper explanation as to why the current organization is the most optimal and has logical reason.

You have only assumed bad faith by assuming I'm only trying to "win an argument" when I'm just thinking about the best for Album articles. Notice how you didnt even respond to the proposed version?Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 21:02, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Are you talking about me? I’m not mad in the least. I just found it ironic that you were complaining of dismissiveness. Sergecross73 msg me 22:22, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I sincerely do not find it ironic. Im not dismissing anything that's relevant to the topic at hand.

I'm doing my best to respond at the topic at hand. So if you think it's ironic, then please forgive me. Please enlighten me what u have dismissed. Why dont you look at my proposal and see it is an improvement. Or perhaps look at the best article and analyze it and ask yourself,"Does this organization make sense? If so, why? And tell me your opinion.

Even if the proposal doesnt get consensus, I still would like to be informed as to why we chose this organization setup and why it's the best one over the one I proposed.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 23:34, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

@Blue Pumpkin Pie: I've been doing some research to see if I can answer your questions. The current style guide looks like it was implemented by Fezmar9 in December 2010, just before I joined Wikipedia, so I had no say in it. It looks as though he/she first proposed the guide here – I don't know if anybody else had a say in the layout, but I'm sure other editors still active on this WikiProject were around then.

I think in general the guide (and album articles) follow a reasonably chronological order, from the conception and writing of the album, to its recording, its release and critical reviews, and the aftermath. This is why charts and certifications are historically separate from critical reception: yes, they are all "reception" of some sort, but in the past the critical reviews often happened the week before the album's release, when music magazines obtained preview copies, and charting and any subsequent certifications obviously happened once the record was out there and available to buy. In the internet age, especially where artists like Beyoncé drop an album without any warning, critic reviews and charting happen almost simultaneously so this distinction is now redundant.

There aren't many places where you can find both a review and a track listing of an album in the same place, but the track listing isn't usually the first thing, as you suggest. AllMusic places the album review first and the track listing afterwards. Martin C. Strong's "Discographies" books have the track listings right at the end of each artist's entry. And when a new album is announced to the media, it's usually presented as an announcement of the release date, quotes from the artist, etc. with the track listing being the last thing in the article. I can see your point, but I'm not convinced that when a reader looks up an album on Wikipedia the track listing is the first thing they want to see... personally I want to find out more about how the album was made and its story, rather than track names and timings. I can understand why it was placed in its current position in the style guide... as the writing and recording process of an album goes on, tracks get changed, rewritten, dropped, and the final track listing isn't fixed until the album is released, so the track listing comes after the sections on the album's creation and its release.

I probably agree with you on the "release history" table, it might make more sense to include it within the "release" section. But I suspect the reason track listings, personnel, charts, certifications and this table are all at the end of the article is because you don't usually start an article with lists and tables of "facts and figures" before the text comes in, and I'm not sure it looks particularly encyclopedic. In any case, this release history table is rarely used on albums released in the 21st century: once something has been released digitally the concept of "reissuing" it in remastered or deluxe formats becomes moot. I quite like the tables personally, but I know a lot of editors aren't enthusiastic about including them.

Theoretically, I agree with both you and Walter that the legacy could be the final "summary" of an album and come at the bottom of the article – again I think the reason why this might not have happened in the past is that this final paragraph of text might get lost between the lists and tables and the references.

I'm not saying I agree 100% with the style guide as it is, and I'm open to changes, I'm just trying to answer your questions as to why I believe the guide is in the order that it currently stands. Richard3120 (talk) 18:00, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. And the goal isn't to vote my way or the high way. I think it will be beneficial if we all participate and give our own thoughts. I'll review your thoughts and see what adjustments i can make.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 15:38, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120: I considered your thoughts and opinions and I'm still not convinced that Reception information should be separated from each other. Yes, they convey different types of reception, but if they are all still technically Reception, it should be under Reception. I don't see the benefit of keeping them spread out in the article. I understand you want these sections to convey the information they want. But no one has explained where their current location assist in that.

Critical Reception for popular media will always have early reviews. Films, novels, comics, and even video games all have early reviews from 2 weeks to sometimes even a month. As i previously told Walter Görlitz, i don't want the Tracklist at the very top, but in a more logical location.

If we follow this principle or rule, we should be ok:

What is the content
How it was produced.
How it was Released and marketed
How it was received.

Organization is not just about getting what you are looking for immediately at the top, you also want it to be easy and logical. Similar to how Navboxes are organized. But again, it might be more difficult to review the organization as a casual first-time reader instead of a seasoned WP:ALBUM editor which music is their personal interest. I gave Abbey Road, New York Dolls (album), Thriller (album) as an example to some of my co-workers who had moderate interest in famous albums. One of the things mentioned was confusion with "Background" and what it pertained to, they didn't understand just by the name, some asked "Is that just a biography?". They believed that Track list should not be near the bottom. They didn't share my sentiment that it should be at the very top but they thought it should be higher and one suggestion was in the production. One in particular confusion was Sales being in "Release" section and Certifications being separated from sales since they correlate to each other.

I think after looking into this, i understand why i have a problem with the organization. the track listings, Personnel, Charts, and Certificates are treated as footnotes of the article and inconsequential. I showed them Achtung Baby and had a more positive response. The same issues were still present, but it was better than the others.

I want to be clear, i'm not here trying to s***post on WP:ALBUM, but perhaps provide more perspective. I know liaison of coworkers isn't the best method to get the most neutral unbias view. But i thought it was a nice experiment. If you dont like my findings, we can also ask toher WP editors from other projects see if it makes sense.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 00:29, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

As the person who wrote most of the current guideline, I can say that the reason why certain sections are apart from one another is that some of this is narrative and some of it is lists or tables. I think it makes sense in the order currently suggested by the guide (or else I wouldn't have written it that way) as it's more or less chronological for the narrative section followed by the most important list-type information. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:37, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the lists and tables work well separated from sections of narrative, and it's the approach I was encouraged to follow years ago in GA reviews. Some albums have had such extensive chart and sales success, and personnel sections can be highly detailed when the album's from an era of high experimentation, exotic instrumentation, etc. These issues can be and are discussed in the narrative (whether it's under Recording, Release or Reception), so the reader has an overall picture where it's useful but without being swamped by detail.

I don't think the "Album article style advice" needs reworking or to be formalised. I've not looked at the article structure it suggests in a good few years, but I'm pleasantly surprised that, when I do now, it is something I seem to have found easy to adhere to (whereas I figured I'd probably drifted far from it). Each album has its own story and there has to be leeway to allow the subject to be presented in the way that best captures the "story". So I'd be against anything too rigid being imposed with regard to article structure, anyway, but especially a reworking of the suggested structure in the way that's being proposed here. JG66 (talk) 04:56, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@JG66: and @Koavf: this is an opportunity to really look at the article layout in a whole new light and see things from a new perspective without preconceived notions. Forget how you were conditioned to make GA and start asking if this way actually helps make better encyclopedia article. And I know this is difficult to ask WP"ALBUMS editors because they can only see it from the perspective of their prior knowledge and how one was taught.

We should ask ourselves: Is this really the most beneficial way for first-time casual readers, or is this aimed at music-enthusiasts? the coworkers who I surveyed and myself thought it was immediately apparent that there was issues with organization and that it didn't make sense. Maybe we can survey this out to other Wikipedia editors from other popular media and see if this layout makes sense. Maybe WP:TV and WP:FILM, or even WP:VG. just to get the true unbias perspective of how well organized it is. Or if the organization follows a logical and easy to understand pattern.

Another point I want to make clear is, in my humble opinion, i dont think that we should be worried about controlling the narrative or "story" because I think that is outside of our jurisdiction as wikipedia editors. I know sometimes we forget, but we're not the history channel or MTV that can add certain flavor to some content. The goal is to convey information in the most neutral way possible. The current layout wont change too much with the proposal I have given. the only difference that Personnel and Tracklist will be a bit higher up and in a more logical place (which is open to suggestions).

The Charts and Certifications will still be near the end of the article, but be more joined with prose.

If you give me the opportunity to create a proposed MOS, create a draft of an existing features article, and open the discussion even further outside of this project, such video games, novels, films, and TV, I think it would be very beneficial. It will take me about 24 to 48 hours to show results. Would it be a good idea to survey this out to other Wikiprojects aswell? I think it is just because I think the goal is to help the first time casual readers.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 05:55, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm afraid I stopped reading at the end of your first para here ... To say that editors "can only see it from the perspective of their prior knowledge and how one was taught" is just rubbish, imo; one learns and adapts with further experience and, where necessary, each different article. That's the point I was trying to make about returning now to the structure guidance/suggestions and finding that what's stated in theory has in fact continued to work well in practice. JG66 (talk) 06:22, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Learning and adapting is indeed something I was hoping to gain in this conversation. Because in was positive I was going to get a logical reason why the article is. But so far, the further this discussion continues, the more I see there is no logical pattern to organization and based on what certain editors want to personally achieve.

I've seen some points such as to control the narrative, the story, and some just because Receptikn conveys different information.

I dont understand what you meant that in theory it has in fact continued to work well in practice. What do you mean by in fact if this is also in theory? And how do we define continued to work? The number of times people have questioned?

since you started that you stopped reading, I will repeat that decided that I'm going to create an MOS prototype, and create drafts of features articles and how the organization would affect them. And I will also open it up to other editors outside of WP:ALBUMS. I think this will be beneficial, as I'm sure everyone knows what an album is and have a basic idea but also new perspective can help optimize the organization.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 07:05, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Blue Pumpkin Pie, I appreciate that you're trying to improve our encyclopedia but it's just hard for me to pretend like I didn't put a lot of thought and effort into this guide. Additionally, it seems like it works by and large, so I don't see a compelling reason to change it. I'm confused as to why you think we should rearrange how album articles are laid out in some normative fashion but then you also claim that "we should[n't] be worried about controlling the narrative or 'story' because I think that is outside of our jurisdiction as wikipedia [sic] editors" since being an editor is literally arranging raw information into a coherent narrative. If we aren't doing that, then I'm confused as to what we are fundamentally doing working on a reference volume... ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:18, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

My thoughts generally align with Justin and Richard on this as well. Sergecross73 msg me 11:51, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

My concern is that there are too many comments relating to "I would like to see..." but in reality different albums would have different amounts of coverage on each of the sections. Overall, it is generally accepted that the final sections of an album article are:

Tracklisting
Personnel and credits (these are usually others who have worked on the album apart from producers and song writers)
Charts
Certficates
Release history
References.

I think what happens above the track listing is irrelevant because depending on the album there are varying amounts of coverage available. There isn't always a similar narrative to albums across different genres. For example, high profile releases and pop albums will infinitely have more coverage than indie artists or artists of say Trap or grime music. I don't think an MOS would be helpful for assessing the quality of such articles by trying to apply a set and limited narrative format. Furthermore the GA and FA processes should focus on best practise like accessibility and also reliable sourcing rather than arbitrary standard for section titles which have been set by a limited number of users all in agreement. That isn't reflective of each individual article or the merits that it should receive for the quality of the way it has been written and referenced. → Lil-℧niquԐ 1 - (Talk) - 13:32, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@Koavf:

I appreciate that you're trying to improve our encyclopedia but it's just hard for me to pretend like I didn't put a lot of thought and effort into this guide. Additionally, it seems like it works by and large, so I don't see a compelling reason to change it.

I argue that its objectively organized poorly, based on how relevant information is intentionally kept separate and there is no logical pattern for it other than thats what WP:ALBUM editors prefer. And that is compelling reason enough.

But rest assure, your hard work on creating the article advise essay isn't going in vain as 90% of the article advice guideline will be retained to create an official MOS. There will just be more effort on how all the information is going to be organized. I think its important because officially, this is an essay and not an actual guideline. So how this wikiproject monitors article organization relies on WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. An official MOS will still be beneficial. You can play a key part into that if you're willing to work with me on it. If we want an official recognized guideline for albums, we'll need perspective from both WP:ALBUM editors and non-ALBUM editors.

I'm confused as to why you think we should rearrange how album articles are laid out in some normative fashion but then you also claim that "we should[n't] be worried about controlling the narrative or 'story' because I think that is outside of our jurisdiction as wikipedia [sic] editors" since being an editor is literally arranging raw information into a coherent narrative. If we aren't doing that, then I'm confused as to what we are fundamentally doing working on a reference volume...

Because the goal for optimizing the layout isn't to control the "narrative" directly, the purpose is to keep related content together as that is the sensible and logical thing to do. How that affects the narrative is subjective. If we're trying to have a similar narrative style as the history channel or the MTV channel or any other non-encyclopedia that has the freedom to add their own personal narrative by keeping relevant information separate form each other, then that's something that shouldn't be within our jurisdiction IMHO. If the content itself negatively impacts the way information is presented from an objective standpoint, then its how the information is presented, not how based on how the article is organized overall. So in reality, keeping this layout may indirectly be hiding flaws in the way we present specific information.

@Lil-unique1: I agree that not all articles are going to be the same, but that has nothing to do with how we organize the content. I still expect an album of an indie band to have a production section, release section, and reception section, as well as a track list. I know its accepted now, but i don't believe it should be because there is no logical reason to separate Personnel (production) from Production section, or Charts (reception) from Reception, or Certifications (sales) from sales. Again, the content is treated as footnotes and inconsequential. I believe that if we do move forward with the change, it wont take long to wonder "Why didn't we do this before". But i think you will need an example, so i'm working on a prototype of an MOS, and a prototype article to see how the changes will look like.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 19:15, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Blue Pumpkin Pie, I don't think anyone here is agreeing that it is "objectively" organized poorly, nor do I see any actual metrics for measuring this other than your opinion. The way it's organized now is actually sensible and logical as it forms a more-or-less chronological narrative of how the album was made, released, promoted, and received followed by tabular data at the end. This is also how (e.g.) a technical report would work with appendices of supporting data or a biography that has lists, charts, genealogical tables, etc. at the end. Your explanation about how "the goal for optimizing the layout isn't to control the 'narrative' directly" is only more confusing than what you originally wrote. If your explanations make less and less sense over time and no one is buying what you have to say, then I don't think you're going to get any consensus for a radical change like the one you're proposing. Good luck, I guess but if I'm being honest, this is getting increasingly incoherent. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:01, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

+1 on Koavf's response. Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:00, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Another +1 here too. Sergecross73 msg me 23:08, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

+1 on Koavfs respond. I don't need an example - I think we're going to end up in situation with a bunch of square pegs (albums) trying to fit into round holes (the MOS for albums). FA and GA processes should rely on the quality of the information available, the way the prose is written and how it is formulated. Whether something is labelled "Production" versus "Recording and Production", "Songs and Lyrics" is really inconsequential. → Lil-℧niquԐ 1 - (Talk) - 11:35, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@Koavf: Forgive me, words not my strongsuit but this is an example of what you're describing with what i'm describing. Biography and albums are nto the same thing. But most importantly, theyre not even close to being organized similarly.

Example A	Example B
1. Background 2. Production 3. music and lyrics 4. release 5. Touring 6. Critical Reception 7. Legacy 8. traclist 9. Personnel 10. Charts 1. Certification	1.Background 2.Development 2.1 Recording 2.2 Composition 3. release 3.1 Singles 3.2 music videos 3.3 Re-releases 4. Reception 4.1 Critical 4.2 Charts and Accolades 4.3 Sales and Certifications

Notice how the Tabular information isn't created equal in WP:ALBUM the same way as WP:BIOGRAPHY, there is tracklist (content), but they're just moved to the bottom without clear logical pattern. They're not under "Tabular data" section, or so, they're just there. Take a look at New York Dolls (Band) and New York Dolls (Album) as an example of how they are not organized similarly.

The more i look into this, the more i see this flawed organization method more of a band-aid that covering up the bigger issues. If the tabular data is getting in the way of the prose, it's not because the tabular data is getting in the way of the prose, but the information isn't presented in a better method.

But at the moment, i'm creating a prototype MOS, and prototype articles to show you the differences and what they will look like.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 00:06, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I don’t mean to be rude but...am I missing something here? What is motivating all of this? I didn’t even think you worked in the music content area very often. And the people who do work in the area...don’t want this. Can we just...stop this? I can’t make you or anything, but you don’t seem to have any awareness of how poorly this is going, and I feel like you’re only going to feel worse the more time you sink into this. Sergecross73 msg me 00:19, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

While we cannot stop Blue Pumpkin Pie, we can update the existing essay and promote it to an actual MoS. I think the timing is right. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:31, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: I've been noticing borderline WP:OWN tendencies so far. Relying on based on what the editors preferred method (regardless if its logical) or not.

I acknowledge this is going poorly, some people haven't completely answered my questions or the answers given were inaccurate. when Koavf claimed the article is organized chronologically, I was quickly able to prove that its not.

all I did was provide a proposal with room for change and although some disagreed, the majority has been based on personal preference and following formatting of other websites. I dont even have a concrete style, but I wanted to see if WP:ALBUM editors could provide more insight.

Its not about me or my experience with editing. It shouldn't matter how much experience one has over the other. Would it make a difference if I made 10 featured articles, as oppose to just 1 start? I'm just thinking about readers afterall. I think there is a better method of organizing the articles even if you disagree the prototype earlier given wasnt the best.

And this was supposed to be more of a discussion and have more open ideas of how we could improve it further, not a debate. How we organize articles should be for the best for readers. so I ask you: who are you thinking about first, yourself and music enthusiasts or all readers regardless of their background or interest?

Tomorrow I will ask other editors outside of WP:ALBUM about their opinion about the album articles. it's not a vote, but just a survey. even if they all agree with me, i wont use it to gain consensus for change. but I still think it will be beneficial.

I surveyed my own coworkers after all and they immediately were confused by the layout without me having to point anything soecific. I wouldn't have brought this discussion further if it was just me.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 01:13, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

That still doesn’t explain your motivation - I don’t mean for it to sound like an OWN thing, I still don’t understand your borderline-obsession over this. Why the insistence on unsolicited help on this? Why are you trying to railroad through the people you’re supposedly trying to help? Sergecross73 msg me 01:21, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Blue Pumpkin Pie, "when Koavf claimed the article is organized chronologically, I was quickly able to prove that its not." I must have missed that because other editors have come along and agreed that the prose sections of the article are generally laid out in a logical fashion because they are more-or-less chronological. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:39, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Blue Pumpkin Pie, No worries if your English or writing skills aren't so strong--everyone is welcome to participate. And yes, articles that are biographies versus articles about a piece of media will be different. I'm still not seeing the pay-off for your work. If you want to make your own draft Manual of Style for album articles, have at it but since no one here seems to be on your side even in principle, it seems like a lot of wasted effort on your part. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:38, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

WP:OWN usually implies an individual behaving in a way that owns the article. That is definitely not the case here. In fact, why don't you count the number of project members who had gone against your proposed change to see how ridiculous that sounds. It's not that we're suffering from Stockholm Syndrome here as we're not captives of the current essay, we agree that it make sense. Some of your ideas—such as adding a legacy section—have merit, but others—track listing at the top, moving the opinion of recognized experts further into the article—do not. Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:50, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: because my main concern was for the readers. and I didnt see that being a priority based on the responses. or those that did were already imagining music enthusiasts.

I understand the benefits from an editorial standpoint but not from a first time reader or even a hobbyist wikipedia editor. to force readers to get use to the current organization because we have control over it didnt sit well with me.

@Walter Görlitz, I think you forgot what the purpose of this discussion. it was never about my way or the high way. I keep re-iterating that it's not about moving the Tracklist at the very top but perhaps higher than where it's currently at in a more logical place. rather than be considered a footnote.

And moving reviews wasn't the intention, but the common place for reviews has always been in the bottom end of the article for all. charts and certifications will still be lower than reception.

WP:OWN in principle recognizes group consensus being too isolated. now, again, i wouldn't bring it up if this was in the readers best interest but i haven't seem that argument come up yet.

And no one wants to look into improving the organization even when we all ad.it there is room for improvement.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 02:11, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

You cite your reason as “for the readers”, but no one is complaining except for you, and a random polling of four people you know outside of Wikipedia. That’s...not a strong argument. I speak to non-wiki people too, and they often don’t understand or agree with how Wikipedia works. One person didn’t like that you had to add sources. But I don’t go around stating “We’ll, I polled 5 people around the office, and they don’t like WP:V. It needs to be changed.” You can cite your tiny anecdotal polling all you want, the fact of the matter is, your concerns are rarely, if ever, brought up by anyone here or in any music articles I’ve created/maintained. I don’t think you’re looking at the big picture here... Sergecross73 msg me 02:48, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Can you enlighten me on what the big picture is, Sergecross73? I agree that just a few people in the office isnt the best proof. It was proof enough for me to continue the discussion, but for WP:ALBUM and myself, I thought we could make a better survey other projects of popular media.

And again, this survey is just to gain perspective. it's not to push for a consensus. We can just ask three questions 1) what are yout thoughts on the layout. 2) Is there something that confuses you and 3) how would you improve kt. Even if the majority of WP believes the current organization needs to be modified, it's not about to gain consensus.

If the majority of WP outside of WP:ALBUM shares your sentiment, then it shouldn't be a problem.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 03:11, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I guess I’m just confused. I put myself in your shoes: Let’s say I go over to the Military WikiProject and tell them the way they list out their gun articles is illogical. I garner no support. I haven’t edited military articles in the past, or gave particular plans to start. They don’t want my help. I can’t come to any other conclusion than “what the hell am I doing here?” And moving on to something else. But that’s just me I guess. I was just trying to figure out if there was some other motivation at play here. Because it just doesn’t add up. Especially considering we’ve interacted for years at WP:VG, and don’t specifically recall you being so difficult or headstrong to work with over there. And that’s a content area you regularly work in. This whole exchange has just been very bizarre to me... Sergecross73 msg me 03:27, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Off-topic request for @Blue Pumpkin Pie: Please read MOS:INDENTGAP and please stop leaving spacing between your content and what you're replying to, and between paragraphs! Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:46, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I really attempted to follow this conversation as best I could and it doesn't seem to be making sense.

I see an editor attempting to compare the organizational layout of music album articles to the organizational layouts of video game, movie, and television articles. In my opinion, we're talking about four different mediums here and these should all be treated accordingly; they should not be considered universal when outlining an article that is supposed to cohesively summarize (and detail) the subject in question.
I've yet to be convinced that pushing the track listing further toward the top of a music album article is "logical" in any way. Wikipedia is supposed to possess encyclopedic value of some sort, right? I mean...this ain't Discogs. If a casual user really only wants to see the track list of an album, the ToC is right there at the top for them to navigate to the track list.
I don't see any WP:OWN here on the part of the respected and established editors who have dedicated so much time and knowledge to this Wikiproject. What I am noticing is one editor attempting to strong-arm an entire Wikiproject into making a major structural layout change based on personal opinions belonging to themselves and their non-WP editing coworkers (of which is secondhand opinion to me). When you tell another editor, "You can play a key part into [an official MoS] if you're willing to work with me on it," that unequivocally informs me that you will be moving ahead with whatever plan you have, regardless of project consensus or opinion.

I'm not trying to be rude. I'm not trying to be a d*ck. And forgive me for interjecting with my opinion here as I have not been incredibly active as of late, and my bad if I'm totally misunderstanding absolutely everything. But I'm not getting a good vibe from this. Is this something we can do a poll on? — Miss Sarita 05:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: I intend to be even more active with WP:ALBUM and be a valued contributor, this wasn't a one-time discussion and i'll leave WP:ALBUM forever. So its very discouraging when you suggest i should move on from WP:ALBUM. If we are going to compare my activity in WP:VG and WP:ALBUM, i just think WP:VG has a very sensible and logical organization, and even the smallest details of their MOS they are willing to update it. And even if it gets rejected, i never see an editor get any negative responses to them as an editor. I think any positive contributions to WP has been because they've been great and patient editors. Not to say that WP:ALBUM is the opposite, but it is "different". I'm sorry this discussion was upsetting. I was just looking for satisfying answers to be a better editor.

@Koavf: I think its beneficial because i don't think anyone understands what i was trying to do. But at the same time. I'm not going to use it for an RfC, but just as an example to truly get a visual aspect of it. If i provide an example, and it is at least seen, and it still wasn't accepted, i would like to know what it fails in. It's beneficial to me even if you still don't want to use it. As a learning WP:ALBUM editor, i want to still learn. I would hope you give a thorough review of it and give explanation why they don't work or why it's not as beneficial. Again, it's a learning experience. Can you promise me that if i show you an example, you would give it a serious review?

@Miss Sarita: You're taking some of my comments out of context. That response was to someone who was concerned about their hard work being lost by creating or modifying the "Article Advice" essay. I was trying to re-assure that it's not about starting over, and that 90% of their work will still retain.

The goal of this discussion was to discuss things and analyze the organization, not strong-arm people to have it my way and my way only. this isn't even an RfC and i don't have an ideal organization set in stone yet, i thought i open it up to other WP:ALBUM editors to learn before attempting to give an example by myself. if someone else came up with another method to organizing, i would give my thoughts on it. There are things i personally feel strongly about. For example: I don't think Personnel, Charts, Certifications, and Tracklist are not equal tabular information and they shouldn't be treated as the footnotes of the article. Or if WP:ALBUM believes it should be treated as footnotes, then we should make that clear distinction on how we organize it so readers can understand that. I was just trying to review the layout and see if we can improve it further. Because at the very least, the current organization is questionable at first glance. I agree a table of contents is helpful tool, but that's kind of the point, the current organization we have makes the ToC not as user-friendly. If you compare New York Dolls and New York Dolls (album), it makes it obvious.

I guess what makes it so dissatisfying through this entire process is that i'm not getting the most logical explanation, hence i don't feel like i'm learning anything. I just being told it is logical, and that it's no problem, and to shut up because i'm annoying some one. if i'm being honest, no one really seemed like they took the idea seriously. And i would've preferred no response than a dismissive one. I think that if no one took this idea seriously, then it could've been ignored to obscurity, and no one would have to respond so negatively.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 19:10, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Is "I don't think Personnel, Charts, Certifications, and Tracklist are not equal" and intentional double negative?

I see, you don't think they're footnotes either. So no, it was shoddy writing. References are footnotes. The rest are in the article's body. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:21, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

The bottom line is that prose should be prioritized in an encyclopedic environment. Am I wrong? Encyclopedic content usually does not start off with tables and list; tables and lists are used to summarize information that has already been detailed in the upper sections. Track listings should be used for basic informational purposes only and to give a music album article a well-rounded approach to completing a concise article. I just don't really understand what exactly you're trying to accomplish here... — Miss Sarita 20:08, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@Walter Gorlitz you're right. Maybe footnotes isn't the best choice of words. More like secondary information. I personally don't think they're secondary information, but the way WP:ALBUM described by our fellow editors, they're moved to the bottom treat it as secondary information. my concern is that the tabular information is being moved indiscriminately to the bottom of the article, even though there are clear descriptive sections that correlate to those charts, it can be confusing. Charts and Certificate don't correlate with Track list and Personnel but Charts and Certificate does correlate with reception, Personnel correlates with Production, track listing is up to debate, and i'm more than happy to move that in the back burner. For example: New York Dolls (a biography) moves tabular information at the bottom, but it's all that information correlates with each other, so it makes sense.

@Miss Sarita: It depends on the type of article you want to make. Tables can be non-intrusive depending on how they're presented. Blade Runner for example. For albums, Charts and Certification will still remain in the lower-end of the article. The real problem is the track list, personnel, and release history. For Personnel and Release History, i'm debating whether we need that information the way it is presented. Most release history that I've seen are short lists. In other media like films and TV only listed the key-cast, or if they are given specific attention in the prose, they are allowed to be listed.

However, i'm aware that is a whole new situation i'm presenting, and this is where my inexperience comes in. So if you all believe that a Personnel and Release history sections are vital to making quality articles, i'm inclined to believe at this time. I'm just throwing ideas. Nothing concrete.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 23:14, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Blue Pumpkin Pie, I would be happy to see how you think we could improve. I'd suggest taking a few featured articles and move them to your namespace with some remixed layout. E.g. User:Blue Pumpkin Pie/Illinois (Sufjan Stevens album). Then maybe users can see what you mean. With complete candor, I'm still pretty skeptical and I don't see what you're suggesting as an improvement (certainly not enough of one to warrant overhauling all our articles) but I am willing to do a once over, for sure. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:16, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

For jazz recordings, the personnel section is as important as the tracks. The same can be said for some pop and rock albums. Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:28, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't aware it was considered as important as track list. now that i think about it, for large bands or orchestras, personnel could be necessary. I'm not sure about Pop or Rock when they have limited primary cast. I'll re-evaluate my stance then.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 23:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Work on the essay

Do we have any traction in modifying the essay and attempting to promote it a guideline? Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:50, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I think a notice to WP:MOS would be a good idea. I dont know if its necessary.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 02:22, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Walter Görlitz, I've been in favor of this since I initially drafted it. In fact, it was called a "style guide" for awhile and someone moved it to "style advice". I don't understand the distinction and didn't have the energy to get involved in fighting over it. But yes, I feel like the guide that I wrote and that has been progressed by subsequent editors provides a good enough perspective on how articles about albums should be laid out on the English-language Wikipedia. I've no doubt there are things that can be improved but i don't see radical changes to be made. Additionally, @Blue Pumpkin Pie: while I see that you're sensitive to WP:OWN issues, I have disagreed with several users here, including Walter over elements of this very style guide but while he and I have disagreed before, I think we both think that we're good faith editors attempting to make a better encyclopedia and I don't think we have such fundamental disagreements that end up with intractable conflicts. My assessment of the WikiProject and broader community is that we all generally think it's good (or good enough) and doesn't need a radical change, so it's hard to argue that anyone in particular is "owning" this. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:46, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

For WP:OWN it was more because there's no official guideline, this was just a select group of editors that been following a unofficial guide not recognized. Also because of the types of responses i received. To me, it's not about what the consensus is, but the motives and attitude behind it. Occasionally pointed out that i'm not a WP:ALBUM editor, and one editor flat-out admitted the priority wasn't for first-time readers, and they should adapt to the way we organize. My motives were questioned constantly, and a lot of what i rejected even when i said i was open to other discussions. It didn't seem like some editors thought i deserved a proper answer. There were moments i thought they were suggesting that i should give up on WP:ALBUM articles and move onto somewhere else. OR even when i gave a valid response, people just didn't care enough to continue. I wasn't even trying to make a definitive official MOS, but just open the discussion to see if we can improve it further to make it one. As far as this article essay is becoming an MOS, i'm not against it. Having an official MOS instead of an un-official one is beneficial regardless if i think its poorly written. Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 17:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

That doesn’t make it an OWN issue though. I think you’re getting caught up a bit on technicalities and bureaucracy here. It doesn’t matter what format it’s in, there’s a long-running, strong consensus on how to handle things, which has been working just fine. No one has been making a stink about it over the years except you. I don’t really care where we host it or what it’s called, but what we have is working without any problems. Sergecross73 msg me 18:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Well MOS are official guidelines, and the current article advice essay is an essay, something we can choose to follow, or ignore completely. We can ignore an MOS to a degree, but the core organization is recognized as a valid guideline that we should all be using. they're not created equal. Even if it's not called an MOS, making it an official guide and not an essay is still benefit, in my humble opinion. There's no need for comments such as "you're the only one making a stink about it". I still respect you as a fellow editor no matter how you respond to me, but i will still ask to receive the same treatment.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 17:53, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

You’re missing the point on all the important points. There’s a strong established consensus. It’s working without issue. You’re the only one taking issue. Sergecross73 msg me 18:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Then it should be no concern making it an official MOS, right?Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 18:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

No, just a time sink on something that wasn’t an issue to begin with. Sergecross73 msg me 18:18, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Wikipedia:Manual of Style are style manuals for all English Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines addresses the various Wikipedia:List of guidelines used to help us edit. Don't conflate the two as one thing.

Back to the initial question: shall we attempt to promote the essay again to a guideline? Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:13, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I think its beneficial to do so.Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 18:28, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Reverb.com

Is this considered a reliable source? It's primarily (I believe) a shop site used for buying and selling used music gear, but also has staff articles about gear history - example. Popcornduff (talk) 18:09, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Reliable for what? It's reliable to source the sale of a specific piece of gear, but the articles are not written by recognized experts and so should not be used to source anything. If the article can be shown to have been written by an expert, it could be used. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:29, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Walter Görlitz, thanks for this. Popcornduff (talk) 03:16, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

open.spotify.com

FYI: MUSICSTREAM × Spotify @ WP:EL/N. –84.46.53.84 (talk) 07:44, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

What? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:24, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Solved by HaeB as ELREG on WP:EL/N, please fix the MUSICSTREAM info. –84.46.53.84 (talk) 08:51, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

You have got to use words. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:03, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

My DEnglish can be horrible. The Spotify issue was answered on the external links (EL) noticeboard: Websites requiring a registration should never be linked (per ELREG), and your project "album style guide" should be updated (near shortcut WP:MUSICSTREAM).

–84.46.53.84 (talk) 09:16, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Nice, very helpful addition to make. No disrespect if English isn't your strong suit: we're happy to have your contributions, no matter how good you are at English. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:21, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Attack Magazine

Can we consider Attack Magazine a reliable source for music gear? Popcornduff (talk) 03:19, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Seems fairly reliable to me. If you look in their about us section, it states that they have an editorial team - "Our London-based editorial team is drawn from a multi-faceted background, bringing together a group with extensive experience of club promotion, pro audio, DJing, music publishing and the record industry." This is one of the acid tests for reliability, that the content is referenced and written by someone qualified and not just a random blogger. It might be worth bringing up at the reliable sources noticeboard for a more definite answer/wider conversation about this. → Lil-℧niquԐ1 - (Talk) - 10:45, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for this. Popcornduff (talk) 12:23, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

@Popcornduff: I don't know if you took this to WP:RSN after all, but I'm happy that this source is reliable and the staff have journalistic experience. Editor Greg Scarth worked for most of the other UK electronic music publications (Future Music, Computer Music, T3) before founding Attack; major contributors like Kristan Caryl and Chandler Shortlidge have previously written for reputable publications such as Mixmag and DJ Mag. Richard3120 (talk) 16:48, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Richard3120, thanks. I'll add it to the list of reliable sources and link to this discussion. Popcornduff (talk) 01:50, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Executive producers

An editor named Lil-unique1 has been removing executive producers off the infoboxs, such as this edit in album-related articles. And I been thinking, do the executive producers really belong in the infobox? Executive producers are not the same as record producers, so why are they there in the first place. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 23:15, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up. To me its really clear that the description for the field is about people who actually produce the records i.e. are responsible for music production. An executive producer is often responsible for co-ordinating production, overall direction, tweaking etc. In my eyes, and from what information we have in our articles, Exec producers don't belong in the record production field. If people want an exec producer field that's fine but I don't believe record and exec producers are the same and hence I do think they don't belong. → Lil-℧niquԐ 1 - (Talk) - 09:41, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Lil-unique1. Executive producer =/= Record producer. The "Producer" parameter on the {{Infobox album}} clearly refers to Record producer. Bluesatellite (talk) 11:23, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Some article infoboxes contain a long list of producers (one has 29). Are these really considered "key facts that appear in the article" (as per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE)? Sometimes they are not discussed or even mentioned in the main body, except maybe listed in a "Personnel" or track listing section. At some point, the infoboxes may overwhelm an article with numerous entries for studios, extra chronologies, singles, etc. Have any alternatives been explored to better handle long lists? —Ojorojo (talk) 15:12, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Lil-unique1: @Bluesatellite: I agree with both of you guys on this, executive producer and record producer are different things, I don't know why anybody didn't pointed it out before.

@Ojorojo: There are albums that listed multiple record producers such as Fortune, to me it's better to use a collapsible list in the infobox but that's against MOS:COLLAPSE. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 19:59, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

We've had discussions about this before. I think it was at the infobox itself. The (very slight) consensus at the time was that there's no harm in having them. I believe that was opposed to it. I would now add that MOS:SMALLFONT should be respected. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:06, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I am of the view that Collapsing is fine in tables within the article itself but in infoboxes there is no need for it. Infoboxes are supposed to be a summary of the article itself. Additionally they can cause complications with screen reading technology. As able-sighted users, we have to try and get out of the mindset that "there are a lot of producers, so lets collapse the list as it looks nicer" and consider how this would appear to those hard of sight or who use screen reading technology. I removed the collapsing and exec producers because together they were providing incorrect information for the infobox fields at Fortune. Overall there are already a lot of links and fields within an infobox, adding more complication with collapsing fields makes things more complicated than absolutely necessary. Wouldn't it be wiser and more succinct to link to the credits section if you're worried about the length of the infobox? → Lil-℧niquԐ 1 - (Talk) - 10:12, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

The thing is the parameter is wikilinked to Record producer, so to include the executive producers there is totally misleading. I think {{Infobox album}} should address this thing explicitly. Just like on {{Infobox film}}, where it states "Only producer credits should be included, not executive producers, associate producers, etc. ". Bluesatellite (talk) 04:55, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

It should be discussed at the template. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:05, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Listing producers has come up before and nobody was in favor of including executive producers. Maybe between that and this discussion, there is enough to add something like Bluesatellite's wording to the template documentation pages. If a more formal discussion is desired, include both Template talk:Infobox song and Template talk:Infobox album since both infoboxes use |producer=.

Regarding long lists: I think both collapsed and <small> can be ruled out based on existing policies. So the options seem to be: include all or move them (all or some) out of the infobox. Maybe set a maximum limit of five or so entries per parameter in an infobox; longer lists may be added to an appropriate section in the body of the article. Lil-unique1 suggested adding a link (presumably in parameter=) to the appropriate section. Some editors don't like "See credits", etc., but leaving the parameter blank may not look right either.

—Ojorojo (talk) 15:54, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ojorojo: How about we remove producers that's only credited as co-producers or additional producers off the infobox, such as Run the Jewels 2. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 13:33, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

When several different producers have been identified for specific tracks, it seems much more meaningful to include them in a track listing, rather than lump them all together in the infobox. Would this work for other albums where it's not clear which tracks an individual actually produced as opposed to exec/co-/assistant/etc. roles? —Ojorojo (talk) 20:23, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

That was discussed last time at the infobox as well. Execs were frowned upon, and most were in favour of including only producers of the entire work. With today's trend to have multiple producers work on an album, two producers split the work for an an album, each taking a certain number or style of tracks. But then there are cases where there are multiple producers per track and no producer supervising the entire album. A&R personnel, production coordinators or executive producers usually fill the role of guaranteeing consistency across the whole album. It's hard to know based solely on liner notes. No advice (as I'd like to see executive producers removed as a bare minimum) but I know that there will be push-back from the pop, hip hop, and R&B editors on this. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:33, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Would something like this sum it up so far:

producer Enter the name of the person(s) credited with the record production. This is someone who oversees the recording process and is usually different from the artist or songwriter. Generally, only add the producer(s) responsible for the actual production of the whole album; do not include executive, co-, or assistant/associate producers whose roles are unclear. Also, producers only credited with certain songs should be included in the article body or track listings rather than be listed here. For multiple entries, see Notes[2] for details.

What to do when all of the songs have different or no common producers? Or on the flip side, what if 20–30 "producers" are credited without any identification of specific songs or as exec/co-/ass't? —Ojorojo (talk) 16:03, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

K.I.S.S.

producer

Enter the name of the person(s) credited with being the record producer. Generally, only add the producer(s) responsible for the actual production of the whole album; do not include executive producers or those whose roles are unclear. Also, producers only credited as producing individual songs should be included in the article body or track listings rather than be listed here. For multiple entries, see Notes[2] for details.

Co-producers are actually producers. I believe assistant producers are as well. Since I've never seen "associate" producers, you could add that since I do not know their role in the process. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:02, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

"Vocal producers" should be excluded as well, they're just doing the vocal arrangement, which is not really that essential in overall album/song making. Bluesatellite (talk) 03:29, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Coming to this discussion quite late, and I confess I haven't read all the comments above. I agree that the likes of "vocal producer" don't merit inclusion but that a "co-producer" is usually a genuine production credit.

I think it's difficult to apply a general rule, especially with regard to executive producer, and hope that it'll prove satisfactory across all album articles. For instance, overlooking Lewis Merenstein's exec producer credit for Van Morrison's Moondance would be a major omission, to my way of thinking, given Merenstein's production of Astral Weeks and how he stepped away to allow the artist more control on Moondance. For the period of albums whose articles I work on, at least, sometimes an executive producer is more of an executive; other times they're way closer to a producer. Also, the co- and assistant production credits might be implied rather than formally used – eg, in a credit such as "Produced by Jeff Lynne with Tom Petty and Mike Campbell" for Full Moon Fever. George Martin himself described his role as more of an executive producer for the Beatles' later recording projects (even if he retained sole production credit) as the band members took charge of the process, which is why I flag the Merenstein/Moondance example. JG66 (talk) 04:04, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, no vocal producers either. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:15, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Of course there will be exceptions – the use of "generally" should indicate that all instances of a certain designation should not always be automatically excluded. Perhaps the wording can be clarified to further underscore the point or examples given to illustrate it. Unfortunately, many of the sources used may not indicate their level of involvement. —Ojorojo (talk) 17:05, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I see your point. Perhaps

Enter the name of the person(s) credited with being the record producer. Generally, only add the producer(s) responsible for the actual production of the whole album. Only include other producers roles if the article clearly establishes that they were vital to the creation of the album. Producers only credited as producing individual songs should be included in the article body or track listings rather than be listed here. Do not include executive producers or those whose roles are unclear or not well established as being vital to the production of the album. For multiple entries, see Notes[2] for details.

My only concerns are that it's getting too and "generally" leaves a lot of wiggle room for those wanting to be wikilawyers to include everyone in the infobox. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:04, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ojorojo: @Walter Görlitz: I suggested that we only remove the executive, additional, and co producers off the infobox and leave the only credited producers in the infobox to make the list of producers to look shorter. For example, I made these edits here at the article Fortune, Ojorojo is currently reviewing the article and one of the criticism is that the list of producers is too long, I remove the producers that only credited as co-producers and producers are only credited in the bonus tracks, to make the list of producers appears a lot shorter then before. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 11:21, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

We should keep producers, co-producers, and additional producers as they contribute to the actual production of the songs. List executive and vocal producers elsewhere in the "Personnel" section. Stop edit warring until a consensus is reached please! Nice4What (talk · contribs) – (Don't forget to share a Thanks ♥) 19:13, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nice4What: That's just your opinion, mostly everyone in this discussion suggests not every single producer should be in the infobox it's make the list unnecessary long. And you're only one who have a history of edit warring, stop making bold edits, I only reverted you twice in those articles. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 13:27, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

The Kids See Ghosts (album) infobox lists 17 producers, but the track listing shows that West produced 5 out of 7, Blanco 2/7, Dean 3/7, Pat 4/7, Mast 3/7, Vernon 2/7, Francis 1/7, Cat 1/7, Goldstein 3/7, Cudi 3/7, Beast 3/7, Andre 1/7, etc. So while they might have contributed to some songs, it is misleading to identify them all as album producers, which is what the infobox parameter is for. Maybe this would help clarify (mindful of KISS):

Enter the name of the person(s) credited with being the record producer. Only add the producer(s) responsible for the actual production of the whole album. Do not include producers only credited as producing some individual songs or if their roles are unclear; component or limited production roles should be included in the article body or track listings rather than be listed here. For multiple entries, see Notes[2] for details.

—Ojorojo (talk) 20:12, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

That works. It is clear and concise. Not sure if you were planning on incorporating the italics in the final copy, but I don't think it's necessary. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:19, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ojorojo: Should you ask an administrator to add that quote in Template:Infobox album or have a discussion there instead of here. But anyway I agreed with you it's misleading to include all producers in that Infobox. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 15:24, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

A change to an existing practice that affects thousands of pages should have a full airing. But I think it can be done here to show the discussion so far with a notice on the template talk page. Should this have an RfC or ? —Ojorojo (talk) 14:37, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Sure. We should link to the RfC on the talk page of both templates. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:26, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Also chiming in rather late. What happens in a case where a definitive producer for the whole album (most hip-hop albums it seems) can't be identified? Would the recommendation be to leave the production section of the infobox empty? Rob van vee 18:38, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Empty is fine. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:53, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I concur! Preferable to 17. Just making sure I'm getting the crux of the conversation. Rob van vee 19:08, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I tried to work this in earlier. Some editors object to a "See [linked section]" or "various", so simply leaving it blank should satisfy them. Should "If no one producer for the whole album has been identified, leave this blank" be added? —Ojorojo (talk) 20:36, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I actually prefer "majority" (50% at least) rather than the "whole album". For example, Walter Afanasieff is definitely worth mentioned on the infobox of Merry Christmas by Mariah Carey, since he's credited as a "producer" on 9 out of 10 tracks (not the "whole"). His production is definitively the key element of the album. Bluesatellite (talk) 23:37, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ojorojo: I agreed with Walter Görlitz, I think we should do a RfC on the talk page. About the producers being remove off the infobox, I don't generally agree with that, but I do believe we should remove producers that are only credited as co and add producers. I try to do that in several articles including Kids See Ghost and Ye but Nice4What seems like to be only one who against that, so I just leave it there. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 20:28, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

OK, see the RfC a few entries down (added link on the template and music project talk pages). —Ojorojo (talk) 15:57, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

So, the conclusion of the discussion on this very section is that we all agree that executive producer should not be include on the |Producer= of the infobox album. Bluesatellite (talk) 16:46, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

No, I don't. Where it's a problem, because there are so many of them, then fix it there and only there. But not all executive producers are there because of record company or other corporate connection, and it's not always a problem. Simple. JG66 (talk) 17:33, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Of course, there is the M.B.E. (Mandatory Beatles Exemption).

How about adding "unless a reliable source identifies their contribution as substantially the same as the main producers". —Ojorojo (talk) 18:03, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Ojorojo: Well, it was actually that Van-the-Man–type example I was thinking of(!) ... The additional wording you suggest would be helpful, yes. I'm just wary of – and the decision to only have formal ratings in the reviewer ratings box was one example – a rule being put in place centrally without consideration for all scenarios relating to decades of music-making and recording; you might be solving a problem that happens to have caught a few people's attention here and now, but also creating new, unforeseen, ones elsewhere. Thanks, JG66 (talk) 03:49, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes. That is the consensus I saw as well: no executive producers listed in infobox. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:21, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm up for exec producers being removed but producers being kept, sans co and additional. --Kyle Peake (talk) 19:04, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

JG66, Kyle Peake, and others: If you haven't weighed in yet, your comments would be helpful in the RfC on producer entries in infobox album below. Thanks. —Ojorojo (talk) 22:29, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd say that it's difficult to have a universal rule about this. A better rule, imo, would be that any producers who worked on a whole album be included, and if the album includes numerous production credits, put a note in the producer section of the infobox and then put the producers in the note.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 03:31, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

3family6, It is fairly rare--especially among certain genres of music--for a producer to work on every single track on an album. And actually, "executive producers" are frequently the only producers across an entire album and this RfC is tacitly aimed at getting their credits out of the infobox. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:40, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I'm very well aware that some genres, such as hip hop and R&B, use producers more on a track-by-track basis than for a whole album. Throughout my reading this whole discussion this was at the front of my mind (specifically the some of the hip-hop album articles I've written or extensively worked on).--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 03:53, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Justin, executive producers do not actually work on the album. At best, they help get the people who do work on the album together. Sometimes they arrange for the financing, but they do not push any buttons or make decisions about production.

There are many albums where the work is done by two or three people so "whole album" is misleading. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:12, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Except for the times when they are more involved, which is why I think this needs to be evaluated case-by-case.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 05:17, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

It's best to lay the groundwork for the cases now though. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:23, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Walter Görlitz, Agreed. See my above comment against including executive producers. The problem with what 3family6 is saying is that many, many albums would have no "producer" since the only type of producer who works across the whole album would be an executive producer and proper recording producers may only work on a percentage of the actual tracks. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:27, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Whatever our solution, we have to be able to address articles like Quavo Huncho where the infobox becomes useless in summarizing the content of the article. Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:56, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

As for Quavo Huncho, we could reduce seven names by using the Option 2, at least lol. The album is very large (19 tracks), so the infobox does summarize the album being a "large" project. It is what it is. Bluesatellite (talk) 12:46, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

@Walter Görlitz: @Bluesatellite: There are other articles that have a long list of producers, such as The Life of Pablo, Fortune, Astroworld, Ye, Yeezus, and Kids See Ghosts. I have remove the producers that are only credited as co and add producers to make the list look shorter, like these edits awhile ago [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 09:24, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

AOTY added to template

I added Album of the Year (website) to Module:Album ratings, which is invoked in {{Album ratings}}. Posting here for visibility and feedback. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:01, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

@Koavf: There already been an discussion of this website awhile ago. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 10:06, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

TheAmazingPeanuts, Hm. Looks like the concern was that the content was user-submitted but it also looks like they have some editorial review--i.e. the reviews to not just go live upon submission. Can anyone confirm/deny that this has some review process before just posting blindly whatever someone submits? Note that Metacritic also allows users to give feedback (as does AllMusic Guide, and as I recall, AnyDecentMusic) but it doesn't just publish anything that someone writes outside of their section for user reviews. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:30, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

@Koavf: That's true but there be other editors who would disagree with the addition. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 10:40, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

TheAmazingPeanuts, Hence, I posted. Many websites accept user comments for review (even The New York Times). That is very different from completely open wikis or message boards that would be relevant to WP:UGC. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:43, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

@Koavf: I support the website but editors like Holiday56 might not be aware of this change. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 11:00, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

TheAmazingPeanuts, Thanks. For what it's worth, I poked around and clicked on several reviews and the assessments were accurate/reasonable (i.e. an "83" on AOTY was a "B" at the source or a "76" was "7.6", etc.) ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:03, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Hmmm. I would like to see more user opinions regarding its appropriateness as a source and would perhaps refrain from undertaking any sweeping additions of its scores to articles until some formal community consensus has been established here. My initial objections to its use were indeed primarily related to WP:UGC, but past discussions have seen users raise other concerns about its usage beyond that, including notability (very little third-party coverage of the site seems to exist) and redundancy. Still curious as to how their editorial / moderation process works; the given Metacritic link indicates that Metacritic accepts feedback from professional critics whose reviews have been included on the site if they feel a score assigned by Metacritic to a review of theirs is unrepresentative of how they themselves would score the reviewed product, which to me reads as a completely different scenario. That an album's AOTY score is largely dependent on scores provided by users also strikes me as being vulnerable to manipulation – for a particular album, a user could very well deliberately only submit scores from publications that graded the album highly, and if no other user bothers to submit the omitted lower-graded review scores, the result is a questionably inflated aggregate score being reflected on the site. Furthermore, do their moderators have any professional credentials? I'm aware that WhoSampled, for instance, has moderators run through all user-submitted content prior to publishing, yet that site is classified as unreliable given that the moderation team's level of expertise is questionable. Holiday56 (talk) 12:44, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Holiday56, WhoSampled makes claims about third parties but AOTY is only making claims about itself. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:01, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Do we really need another aggregator? We’ve got Metacritic and AnyDecentMusic already don’t we? I just don’t feel like the industry really values any of these except MC, so I do t really see why we do either... Sergecross73 msg me 15:49, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

If we want to limit to two, Metacritic (413 k) and Album of the Year (67.4 k) have more traffic than AnyDecentMusic (16.6 k) but the numbers do not explain why, and since Metacritic reviews more than music, those values may be skewed by other media.

What was the rationale for adding ADM and can it apply to AotY? Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:13, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

@Walter Görlitz: Only just add two aggregator websites in the template would be fine, AnyDecentMusic don't really cover a lot of projects as Metacritic and Album of the Year does, so I don't see the issue here. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 19:18, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

If I remember right, I just think the pro-ADM voices were out in full force on the day we discussed it. I believe I was on the losing end of that consensus... Sergecross73 msg me 00:45, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: You voted "neutral" on the RfC right here. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 01:31, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. We have similar debates over at WP:VG, and I may have been confusing the two. Sergecross73 msg me 03:00, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Sergecross73, I think that aggregators are actually more important than individual reviews in this respect, since the goal is to provide an overview of what critical consensus is and by definition, a single reviewer isn't doing that. I don't see a likelihood of there being more than a few review aggregators ever being in this template, so having two or three seems reasonable. More than... five? would probably be excessive. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:20, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree with your philosophy on aggregators, I think I just draw the line much lower than 5... Sergecross73 msg me 00:45, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject Report

Hello, I write the WikiProject Report for the Wikipedia news publication the Signpost, and was wondering if three to four of y'all would be willing to answer a couple questions for me about this Project? If so, please ping me here, I would be very grateful if you did! Thanks, Puddleglum ^2.0 05:41, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Puddleglum2.0, I'm happy to help and hope others are as well. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:39, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Koavf! Once we get enough volunteers, I'll link to the questions page and ping y'all. Thanks again! Puddleglum ^2.0 15:38, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

I’ll help too. Sergecross73 msg me 15:39, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

RfC on producer entries in infobox album

RESOLVED

Limit album and song infobox |producer= fields to those outlined in Option 2 and add the wording to the infobox guidance: Enter the name of the person(s) credited as the actual record producer(s). Do not include those listed as executive, co-, additional, vocal, etc., producers, unless a reliable source identifies their contribution as substantially the same as the main producers. These should be included in the article body or track listings rather than be listed here. For multiple entries, see Notes[2] for details.

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.

[Continued from "Executive producers" section above]

The current practice for most album articles is to include all the producers credited in the album liner notes or other reliable sources. The template guidance indicates: "Enter the name of the person(s) credited with the record production. This is someone who oversees the recording process and is usually different from the artist or songwriter. For multiple entries, see Notes[instructions for using class=hlist] for details." While historically albums list one to three producers, it has become more common for albums to have different producers for each song or producers who play a limited role. Sometimes this results in a long entry of 20–30 names in the album infobox producer(s)= field. Additionally, the list may include persons who only produced one or two tracks (not the album) or whose role doesn't involve actual music production (such as in some executive capacity).

To best represent the article, should the infobox list of producers be limited in some way? Please indicate Limit, Unlimited, or Comment and an explanation. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:51, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Limit - Thanks for starting this Ojorojo. Yes, the list of "producers" has become obscene in many articles (esp Hip hop album articles), I agree with some form of limiting. Rob van vee 16:03, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
Unlimited, with caveat - I think "obscene" lists is not a valid argument unless it is impacting on the functionality or readability of the article. We don't limit facts/content just because we don't like the look of the list. However, perhaps a limit like 15 or 20, any more than this and the infobox could link to a Personnel and Credits section instead? I think this would be more sensible. The alternative would be to include exec producers only in the infobox, renaming the field and having all other producers in the credits section. → Lil-℧niquԐ 1 - (Talk) - 17:12, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
Unlimited The reality is that many albums (particularly hip hop, pop, and R&B) are made as a patchwork of recording sessions in different studios with different producers. Any attempt by us to limit how we categorize the album or list that information in the infobox will be arbitrary and only introduce more grey areas and edge cases to have some dispute. What if someone produces five out of 11 tracks? Is almost half "enough"? What if someone produces the three big hits off an album and therefore is responsible for the sounds that most listeners would hear; should that "count"? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:21, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
Limited - Limited to music producers only, not executive producers. Executive producers and all personnel who contributed to an album are listed in the personnel/credits section. If editors prefer executive producers to be noted in the infobox, then a separate parameter should be created for it, because execs should not be lumped in with the music producers in the music producers parameter. The purpose of an infobox is to "summarize key features of the page's subject". Plus, I'd argue that if there are too many music producers to list in the infobox (a limit can be established, such as 15), the parameter can just link to the personnel section. Lapadite (talk) 18:51, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
Limit – When different producers have been identified for individual songs, it is misleading to list them as the album producer, especially if they are only responsible for one or two songs. Additionally, 20–30 names in an infobox parameter is unnecessary detail that runs counter to WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE "to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article". —Ojorojo (talk) 18:59, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
Limit – I think remove producers only credited as co and add producers, we don't need to add everybody in the Infobox. The executive producers are not the same as record producers, they have no business to be in infoboxes. Also if the album have an deluxe version (bonus tracks) and the producers are not credited on the standard version, remove them as well and keep the producers who are only credited on the standard version. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 13:21, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
Unlimited I agree with my fellow unlimiters, however a separate infobox parameter as described above also seems like a good idea. Madbrad200 (talk) 21:08, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@Madbrad200: A separate infobox parameter for the executive producers is not a bad idea. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 15:58, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

I disagree, it's a bad idea. Before long, someone will want to include parameters for the studio engineer and the guy who supplied the drugs to everyone involved. More isn't always better. SolarFlash^{Let's talk about it} 23:29, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Limit - Some individual songs have a dozen people listed as producer, by the time you get through a dozen or so songs, the list is just a joke. Technically, does an "album" even have a producer if it consists of a handful of what are essentially singles all individually produced by different people or groups of people? If it's an instance in which every song or virtually every song has a different producer, I'd support leaving the damn field blank rather than list a bunch of people who may or may not have had significant involvement in the album as a whole. Some of these lists of producers are just insane and I don't see how these long lists improve an article. I'd be happy to see some type of limit. SolarFlash^{Let's talk about it} 23:29, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
Limit the infobox to just the major album producers, people who are described as producing the album. Song producers should be listed elsewhere in article prose. Binksternet (talk) 00:54, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

The "Track listing" section seems to me to be the most appropriate place to list individual song producers. SolarFlash^{Let's talk about it} 01:49, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment How would this work for soundtracks where each song might have different producers? For example, how would the producers section look like in the soundtrack album for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1? Do additional production credits on multiple songs warrant an inclusion as well? De88 (talk) 02:54, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

The current article does not lump them all together in |producer=, which is more accurate since none are responsible for more than one song each. They're included in the track listing and personnel with the associated songs which is sufficient. In this case, listing Lorde in the infobox is arguably supported by her hands-on overall involvement, although identifying her in |compiler= may be more accurate. —Ojorojo (talk) 14:35, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ojorojo: In that case, I vote Limit as it allows readers to identify the producers that contributed heavily to the respective album/soundtrack's production process. I assume this would alter the way the producer section looks for Melodrama (2017), right? De88 (talk) 05:01, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@De88: Since there are producers who are only identified with certain tracks, these would only be included in the track listing and personnel sections. Also, Lorde and Antonoff are included as producers, so identifying them as exec producers is unnecessary (also, the latter appears to be a non-musical role). It looks like some pop and R&B artist albums also have long lists of producers, so this concern does not only affect hip hop album articles. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:52, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

The scenario you are addressing is where, on a fifteen-track album, there are fifteen individual producers, none would be listed in the infobox. Definitely if there were 30 producers, and each producer worked on two different tracks, and no two producers worked on the same track, we would not list any in the infobox. The scenario where three producers worked on the whole album, however one producer was responsible for 8 tracks, another for 6, and the third for the 1, I suggest we list all three. However, if there was a someone in this scenario that worked on each track, but is listed as a "co-producer", I would list that fourth person in the infobox. In all these scenarios, I would exclude the executive producer(s). Is this in agreement with what others are thinking? Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:54, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Unlimited Agree completely with Koavf that this would negatively affect hip hop album articles. Keep producers, co-producers, and additional producers. Cut out vocal producers (which aren't usually included anyways). We can continue to debate on whether to include executive producers or not, but it may provide useful information for albums like the Wyoming Sessions. Nice4What (talk · contribs) – (Don't forget to share a Thanks ♥) 03:13, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Nice4What, To expand on my earlier comment and clarify: I am also in favor of someone being included who actually is a producer (i.e. responsible for the recording of the album) and not just someone who bought a vanity credit; the latter would be appropriate for the personnel section. Additionally, it seems like some users here are under the misapprehension that the liner notes are somehow the definitive statement on who made an album which is not true. I see this pop up a lot and I would refer you to the WP:ALBUM style guide. Liner notes are often handy and usually fairly reliable and accurate but our goal with the personnel section, track listing, infobox, etc. is not to reproduce liner notes but to make factual and verifiable claims about the album in question. (If my perspective on any of this is ambiguous, let me know.) ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:52, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Limit - to producers of the album. No executive producers. The infobox is to summarize the album. If there is more than one producer per song, and there are more song producers than there are songs, save the list for the {{track listing}}, not {{infobox album}} as they are not producers of the album itself. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:40, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

If one song has ten producers ("managers of the music production"), they may outnumber the singers and musicians! This reminds me of when record company owners added songwriting credits for distributors, DJs, and others as payment for support and not necessarily even tied to the actual song or artist. —Ojorojo (talk) 14:35, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Limit to everybody who credited as "producer" on the album, no matter how many the people are. We should exclude "co-producer", "additional producer", "assistant producer", "executive producer", "vocal producer", "remix producer". Bluesatellite (talk) 01:39, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

So, would you add all the producers, even if they produced only one or two songs (excluding those you listed)? How would you approach De88's Melodrama example? Although not identified as such in the infobox, some of the producers are additional or vocal producers (or both), as noted in the track listing. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:10, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, because they're record producers. In the previous #Executive producers discussion, I once thought of listing producers who contribute at least half of tracklist, but then I agree with Lil-unique1's opinion above. As for Melodrama, we should only include all the six people with mere "production" credit. If people are credited as "additional producer" or "co-producer", it implies that they did not contribute that much to be listed as just "producer". Another examples are Hard Candy and Thriller, both Madonna and Michael Jackson should not be listed on the infobox because they're only listed as "co-producer" (actually, this is the only Madonna album where she's not credited as "producer"). Bluesatellite (talk) 16:33, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Limit to only producers that aren't co or additional, as they are notable while the latter are not. --Kyle Peake (talk) 09:57, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Comment OK, can we boil it down to three options:

Option 1 – Unlimited or no change to the existing guidance: "Enter the name of the person(s) credited with the record production. This is someone who oversees the recording process and is usually different from the artist or songwriter. For multiple entries, see Notes[2] for details."

Option 2 – Limit to "full" producers: Enter the name of the person(s) credited as the actual record producer(s). Do not include those listed as executive, co-, additional, vocal, etc., producers, unless a reliable source identifies their contribution as substantially the same as the main producers. These should be included in the article body or track listings rather than be listed here. For multiple entries, see Notes[2] for details.

Option 3 – Limit to "full" producers for the whole album (not just some tracks): Enter the name of the person(s) credited with being the record producer. Only add the producer(s) responsible for the actual production of the whole album. Do not include producers only credited for some individual songs or as executive, co-, additional, vocal, etc., producers, unless a reliable source identifies their contribution as substantially the same as the main producers. These should be included in the article body or track listings rather than be listed here. For multiple entries, see Notes[2] for details.

—Ojorojo (talk) 18:03, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

comment, Option 1 is basically changing the template from record producer to Executive producer. Call a spade a spade - if this is being proposed, those who are credited with producing a whole album are nearly always exec producers. Additionally I think it's really arbitrary and will lead to lots of edit wars to not include co-producers, additional producers etc. It's too simplistic to say that all other types of producers did not contribute significantly to a song. Sometimes songs are produced then additional elements are added later and hence some people are credited with additional production. I'd like to therefore propose a 4th option - "if there are 10 or fewer producers credited on the album, list these in the infobox. If there are more than 10, link to the personnel and credits section in the wider body of text". → Lil-℧niquԐ 1 - (Talk) - 09:04, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Option 1 is not intended to change anything, but to maintain current practices. Ideally, the field should follow the accepted definition of the linked record producer; whether it does or not for a particular article needs to decided case by case. As with most WP guidelines, WP:COMMONSENSE should prevail: there may be times when a producer's designation may differ from their actual contribution and should follow and cite reliable sources. Nobody else has brought up a numerical limit, but if additional editors support expanding the options, they can be proposed. RfCs often fail to decide anything when presented with too many choices. —Ojorojo (talk) 16:56, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ojorojo: I don't generally agree with Lil-unique1's opinion on this. I think we should remove producers who are only credited as co and add producers in the album's credits. I think option 2 is the best choice. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 03:25, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Agree with TheAmazingPeanuts, Option 2 is much better IMO. As for Option 3, is there really any popular music album these days with a producer responsible for entire tracklisting? What about Walter Afanasieff, who is credited on 7 out of 10 tracks on Music Box (1993)...not the whole album, but we can see that his contribution is very fundamental for this project. Bluesatellite (talk) 11:51, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

if the consensus is option 2 without a numerical limit, I would support this as it seems to be most popular option. I would want to query whether vocal producers or not should be included? → Lil-℧niquԐ 1 - (Talk) - 13:23, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@Lil-unique1: As Bluesatellite pointed out, we should exclude vocal producers as well. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 19:19, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Lil-unique1, TheAmazingPeanuts, Bluesatellite: Option 2 includes "vocal" as an example of a limited producer role that shouldn't be listed in the infobox, subject to "unless a reliable source identifies their contribution as substantially the same as the main producers." Do you think there's been enough discussion to ask for a formal vote on option 1, 2, or 3? —Ojorojo (talk) 15:05, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ojorojo: I think so. → Lil-℧niquԐ1 - (Talk) - 10:54, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

OK. Possible preferences based on the RfC comments so far. If you agree, please <u>underline</u> your name; if not, move your name to the right option and underline, or remove it altogether (add comments at bottom, if wanted): —Ojorojo (talk) 16:06, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Option 1 unlimited (leave as is) – Koavf (include producers who actually worked on the album [i.e. not executive producers]), Madbrad200, Nice4What
Option 2 limit (exclude executive, co-, additional, etc. producers unless RS says substantial) – Lapadite77, TheAmazingPeanuts, Robvanvee, Bluesatellite, Kyle Peake, Lil-unique1
Option 3 limit (exclude executive, etc. and producers for only some songs, unless ...) – SolarFlash, Binksternet, De88, Ojorojo, Walter Görlitz

Closing It has been a month (including the initial "Executive producers" discussion), so it's time to wrap this up. "Limit" has a clear majority, with Option 2 having a bit more support than Option 3. Unless there are objections, the Option 2 wording will be added to Template:Infobox album#producer and Template:Infobox song#producer. —Ojorojo (talk) 17:30, 9 February 2020 (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.

Help with understanding a review

Hi! Could you help me with somethtng?
In his review of Avril Lavigne's The Best Damn Thing, Robert Christgau writes:

I never cared whether she was really a punk (as if)--I just wished she'd act like one ("The Best Damn Thing," "Everything Back but You"). ** (source)

Does he say that "The Best Damn Thing" and "Everything Back but You" are the two best songs on the album? --Moscow Connection (talk) 16:04, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

It's not very clear, but I understand it to mean that those are two examples of songs on the album that sound like punk – not that they are necessarily the two best songs. Richard3120 (talk) 17:12, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

This was my takeaway too. Sergecross73 msg me 17:40, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120 and Sergecross73: Yes, it does look like that. Especially since the full stop is placed after the closing bracket.
It's just that there are quite a few reviews by Robert Christgau with a list of songs at the end in parentheses. And I've always thought that's how he lists the songs he considers the best. For example, look here, here and here. --Moscow Connection (talk) 09:54, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

I just can't find anything on his website which clearly explains what he means when he puts the songs in brackets – without a proper explanation, we are just guessing, and so we can't make an assumption as it would be OR. Richard3120 (talk) 19:18, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Question regarding reviews from magazines I cannot find

Hi there! I'm going to copy most of what I wrote on Popcornduff's talk page. I am currently working on In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and I'm just about ready to put it up for good article nomination. The only section I still want to work on is the first paragraph of the legacy section, regarding retrospective reivews. In it's current state, it's fine, but I still think it can be touched up. The problem is, I don't have access to two of the legacy reviews (Mojo and Uncut). I cannot find them anywhere. The references do come with short quotes from the review, but another problem is that neither reference contains the issue number, just the year. Whoever added those references more than likely got it from websites like this. I'm not sure if anyone here has access to these magazines, but if you do, I'd be very grateful. If not, what do you suggest I do regarding these reviews? Should I get rid of them since I don't have access to them? Famous Hobo (talk) 19:12, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Those two magazines don't have full online archives (Uncut archives some, but not all, of its reviews, and probably not going back as far as the album's release), so you won't find them anywhere on the internet. If I were in the UK I could go to the British Library and check the Mojo reference at least, but unfortunately I'm not there right now. Richard3120 (talk) 19:24, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

You can submit a request here. EddieHugh (talk) 19:44, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

@EddieHugh: I think the problem is that Famous Hobo doesn't know which issues the reviews ran in, or the page numbers – he would have to order 12 issues of Mojo and 12 issues of Uncut to check them all. Richard3120 (talk) 20:15, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Exactly. I'd rather not send someone (or myself for that matter) on a wild goose chase to find a review if I don't know the exact issue it comes from, or if it's even the correct year. Famous Hobo (talk) 20:22, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

@Famous Hobo: I'd just point out here that according to MOS:TITLECAPS, "over" should not be capitalized... you'll need to change every instance of it occurring in the album title, and move the article page itself. Richard3120 (talk) 20:40, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

There's no need to order as such. If someone has access to physical copies, then flicking through to the given page numbers would be a very quick way to check/find. You may as well ask (with a caution about the lack of detail) if there's no other way of finding out; you did ask the same thing here! (I looked in Rock's Backpages, but they're not there.) EddieHugh (talk) 21:56, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

In answer to your last questions: if there's no way of checking and all indications are that they were copied from a non-RS (looks like oldies.com, although here's the edit that added Mojo, with cduniverse as the source), then yes, get rid of them. EddieHugh (talk) 22:08, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

I think I have to agree with EddieHugh here... if you're going for GA, it's probably best to get rid of them for now. Next time I'm in London (end of this year, probably) I'll be happy to look up the Mojo source (if I remember to do it), and re-add it, it won't take a moment. Uncut might be harder, because the British Library only has digitized copies of that particular magazine, and they're only up to the year 2000, so it doesn't look like the Library will have it. Richard3120 (talk) 22:49, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Does anyone have a subscription?

If anyone has a subscription to Christgau's substack newsletter, please let me know. Would love to incorporate the reviews into album articles. isento (talk) 14:09, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Article title question

Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien has announced his first solo album, Earth. He's releasing it under the artist name EOB.

The current title of the article for the album is Earth (Ed O'Brien album). Should this be changed to "Earth (EOB album)"? That's more "correct", but most sources have described it as an album by Ed O'Brien (as he is already a famous name), not EOB, so perhaps WP:COMMONNAME applies?

I have no preference for either title so I thought I'd ask for opinions. Thanks. Popcornduff (talk) 10:28, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

@Popcornduff: -- Sorry you did not get a quicker response here. Someone else has already taken care of the issue, and moved (renamed) the article to "(EOB album)". This is because O'Brien is promoting his solo act as EOB, and that can be considered the official "artist" name. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 15:26, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

That makes sense to me too. (And I also apologize that I never saw this sooner too.) Sergecross73 msg me 15:54, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Infobox for Unconventional New Product

The Gorillaz have released an unconventional new item, Song Machine, that combines new songs with videos, to be released as an ongoing "series". As of now the article has an Album Infobox, and the article is showing up in the infobox errors report because an editor created an un-approved term for the TYPE field. This item does not correspond to any of the long-standing TYPES like Studio, Compilation, Live, etc. I wonder if it should not even be described as an album at all, and instead as a video collection. Therefore the Video Infobox would be used instead. Any ideas? ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 15:33, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe we handle it like we handled “Music video compilations”, like we did when that was a thing bands did? Though the only one that comes to mind offhand, If All Goes Wrong, is probably not a good example of how to handle...anything...on Wikipedia. Sergecross73 msg me 15:52, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

I think it depends on how it will be packaged and what sections stores are going to sell them under. will there be a version with only music or will it be released as physical media?Blue Pumpkin Pie ^Chat ^Contribs 15:58, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

It's an album series, like (e.g.) Nuggets, so the album infobox is inappropriate. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:07, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks all. Justin has already taken action based on his assessment (remove the infobox altogether) and I am convinced. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 20:24, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

How are genres determined?

I realized early that I was starting to edit war with others on the Man Alive! article of the genres. A review in NME describes the album as Cool jazz, Hip hop music, no wave, and post punk]. And that NME review is the only reliable source I could find that mentions genre. Editors keep changing or removing genres without sources though. What should be done at this point? Can genres be determined through consensus or only through reliable sources? Bait30 ^Talk? 07:26, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

The short version is, go by what reliable sources say. (See WP:RSMUSIC for commonly agreed upon usable sources - NME is one.) Unfortunately, what you describe is one of the problems with Wikipedia - there’s an endless supply of self-professed genre experts who put in every genre they can think of. It generally require constant maintenance and discussions to maintain a properly sourced version. It’s just the way it is. Sergecross73 msg me 13:38, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, go with what the sources say. But go with what the sources say explicitly about the music genre(s). The NME source states "The 25-year-old's renowned versatility – his expansive soundscape often blending jazz, no wave, post-punk, hip-hop and a whole host of other diverse sounds – is flexed throughout the album." Reading it carefully, this sentence doesn't actually say anything about the genre(s) of this specific album. But this is the kind of discussion/argument about what sources actually say that can waste a lot of time. It's better to concentrate on improving the article itself than on infobox wars. EddieHugh (talk) 18:24, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Ah yes, good point. The sources do need to explicitly be referring to the genre of the album, not just the artist or a song from the album. It should be talking about specifically the album, and the album collectively. Sergecross73 msg me 19:25, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Additional info at WP:GWAR Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:56, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for the input. It’s greatly appreciated Bait30 ^Talk? 18:30, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

I guess I have a follow up question actually. What sources do you usually use for genres? Because it doesn't seem like music reviewers seem to mention album genres, at least not explicitly. Bait30 ^Talk? 01:51, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

WP:RSMUSIC for sources that are usable, WP:NOTRSMUSIC for sources to stay away from. And yes, many sources don’t state genre directly. That’s part of the struggle. No way around it. Sergecross73 msg me 02:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Ok cool, that's what I've been using. Yeah it's definitely a struggle haha. Bait30 ^Talk? 04:54, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Rolling Stone Top 200

I've been seeing Rolling Stone Top 200 being added to articles as a chart, such as here. Is it actually a chart? Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:17, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, it was established last year I think. I don’t know why it’s being added all of a sudden, unless some editor(s) recently found interest in it or something, but I’ve noticed it being added a lot recently too. Sergecross73 msg me 03:33, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

That particular editor has been adding the RS200 chart positions to every article he/she can find, and some other editors have brought up potential issues with its use – you may want to add your thoughts at Wikipedia talk:Record charts#Rolling Stone chart problems. Richard3120 (talk) 17:50, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Vince Guaraldi

It's nice to see that an editor has been working on expanding Vince Guaraldi's discography by creating articles and creating a navbox ({{Vince Guaraldi}}). However, I'm concerned that not all of the works meet our notability criteria. Some only have an AllMusic entry. Others have local coverage. Granted, most of these works are close to half a century old and, if memory serves me, the Internet wasn't around when they were released so online sources may be few and far between so print may be all we have to fall back on. Could someone take a quick walk through the existing articles with a view to meeting notability? Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:22, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I've noticed these being created over the last couple of weeks, and while a couple of the articles definitely have GA potential, I share Walter's concern that others don't meet notability. In particular, the three that most concern me are the two compilation albums titled Vince Guaraldi and the Lost Cues from the Charlie Brown Television Specials, which are just albums of bits and pieces outtakes that were only released decades later, and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown – it has an AllMusic rating but the entire (meaningless) review is just ten words, which just leaves the Spectrum Culture review as the only good source. I'm not an expert on Guaraldi and his music so I wouldn't know where to look for more sources, but these are the three articles which need further investigation, in my opinion... I think all the others have enough sources to pass. Richard3120 (talk) 21:12, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

SoulBounce

Hello,

I have some doubts regarding the credibility of the aforementioned website for various reasons. First, when you go to their about section they have won various Weblog awards, but have also been featured on Washington Post, CNN and other news media outlet and some of this are interviews with the editor-in-chief (more on her on the next paragraph). Secondly, once you get to their staff section they seem to have two senior editors, despite having news written by other people not featured here. So we would say so far, so good...or are we?

The first Butta, real name Kimberly A. Hines, is the editor-in-chief who has written for "VIBE Confidential, the first blog on VIBE.com, Clutch Magazine, The Root and Vibe Vixen". On top of that, she was the blogger of "SoulBounce at the GRAMMY Awards as the official R&B Community Blogger since 2010", then she goes on naming her favorite artists. She is also the owner of the website "SoulBounce.com a division of Kimberly Shines Media".

Then, we have D-Money, real name Donte Gibson, who is the senior editor, who doesn't seem to have any experience besides SoulBonce, as I'm writing this. Regarding the latter case, it worries me that "When he's not writing about his first love (or throwing shade at Justin Timberlake)", sure we are all biased, but in his biography saying openly that he doesn't like a certain artist doesn't seem professional. Then it goes on naming various artists he enjoys.

I guess we have the fact one of those has written various articles in reliable sources, covered the grammys and so on. On the other hand, they name their favourite artists and those who they don't like, which written in a biography doesn't seem quite "professional". All in all, What strikes me the most is indeed their description, once you take a closer look at it, of course. I'm really sorry if it feels like I'm playing Devil's advocate here, but I'm on the fence on this one. So the real question is are they a blog of fans or a reliable source that seems to be a bit bias?

I would like to know your thoughts and if possible reach a consensus on this matter, this is if we have or not a reliable source at our hands.

Kind regards, MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 18:56, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

HipHop-N-More

Can we consider "HipHop-N-More" a reliable source for music news? My issue resonates with only being two editors and no other writers.

This is their about page and here is the staff.

MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 15:20, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Kelsea songs classified by whether they're country or not.

Only one of the songs in the Kelsea album has its own article. We need some information on which songs in the album are country and which are not. Georgia guy (talk) 15:52, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

That's going to depend on what reliable sources use to describe the genre for each individual song, which isn't going to be easy to come by, they're going to describe the album in general. Why is it necessary to have a genre for each song? Richard3120 (talk) 17:09, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Template:PitchforkDecade, etc.

I've noticed Template:PitchforkDecade, containing Pitchfork's selection of the best ten albums by decade, being added to a few articles I watch. According to Category:Music navigational boxes, similar templates exist such as Template:PitchforkSong and Template:NMESingle. I can't help thinking this gets us into potentially difficult territory: Why Pitchfork (and the NME), or rather, why not also Rolling Stone's best albums of all time, and similar for Uncut, Q magazine and several others? ... Which could make for a mass of extra navboxes for the most critically acclaimed albums, obviously. And should we be including such navboxes at all, when they're informational value is minimal? They just reflect a particular publication's opinion. A couple of years ago, we ditched all navboxes for chart-topping albums and singles; they at least offered information relating to the subject of the article (providing weeks at number 1 spot, with preceding and successive chart-toppers).

What's the thinking on this – does anyone else see a problem with Template:PitchforkDecade and the like? Thanks, JG66 (talk) 04:08, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

No, I agree, I don’t particularly think it’s appropriate. As is, it’s a bit of an WP:UNDUE isssue, and it’s going to be a crazy clutter issue is one gets started for every RS with a song/album award. It’s also not really what NAV boxes are for either... Sergecross73 msg me 13:03, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I worry about this too... I can kind of understand having templates for the various Grammy and Brit Awards, which we do, but aside from Pitchfork we also have Template:NMESingle and Template:NMEAlbum... it wouldn't take much for someone to start adding ones for Melody Maker, Sounds, Record Mirror, etc. Serge is right, it seems something more suited to a list article or a category than a navbox. Richard3120 (talk) 14:47, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

[edit conflict] And there's Template:ConsequenceOfSoundSong, Template:RollingStoneSingle, Template:PitchforkVideo, etc., which were also "accepted" at Articles for creation. A couple of years ago, there was a similar concern about succession boxes; they were removed after a RfC. The same should be done for these. —Ojorojo (talk) 15:22, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, both. And: ah, I hadn't noticed Template:NMEAlbum because it hasn't been categories in the same cat.

It is that WP:UNDUE aspect that concerns me, along with the potential for endless navboxes simply to correct that. All the old-school, contemporaneous publications, but also (aside from those I mentioned above) Mojo, Hot Press, Consequence of Sound, etc. I've started articles here on the books Critic's Choice: Top 200 Albums and 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music, and looking at, say, Acclaimed Music's entry for The Velvet Underground & Nico (which is Pitchfork's top album of the 1960s), there could be a dozen navboxes at least for albums like that. JG66 (talk) 15:19, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

PS. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Pitchfork poll/list doesn't even appear in the VU's album entry at Acclaimed Music. Pinging Jimoincolor, since I feel it's only right to include the template's creator in this discussion. JG66 (talk) 15:25, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello. I created the template because, since I've started following music related articles on Wikipedia, there were templates for sites like Pitchfork, Consequence of Sound and NME reflecting the best album & song of a said year. Since Pitchfork is the most notorious one of these reviewers, I thought it would be interesting to create a template to reflect the best albums of the decade, which has a higher weight than the best of the year. Those templates help navigators to locate things easier, especially considering that there are not any articles pointing these decade end lists.

That said, I understand that this could open doors for a tsunami of other templates regarding different music publications, which wasn't my intention. In my opinion, only Pitchfork and Rolling Stone (maybe NME and CoS as well) should have these templates, since they seen to be the most notorious publications lately. But, if the consensus is that those templates shouldn't exist for lack of relevance, I will understand.Jimoincolor (talk) 18:19, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Jimoincolor has clearly acted in good faith, but I don't think we should be adding templates for any magazine's single or album of the year/decade – as I said above, Grammys and Brit Awards I can understand, as they are recognised, actual awards. But the collective opinion of a group of music journalists is a different thing. And it would be OR on our part to decide which magazines are the most worthy of having a template. Richard3120 (talk) 00:20, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed on all accounts. Sergecross73 msg me 01:03, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

There're tons of notable newspapers and magazines in this world, so we really don't need templates for each of them. On a side note, I'm personally also against the excessive use of Grammy Award templates. Main categories such as Album of the Year is acceptable, but Best Pop, Best Rock, Best Dance, Best Rap, etc etc? Too much! Bluesatellite (talk) 02:24, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

It should be a category. A list article, if secondary sources discuss it, would be appropriate. A navigation template may be a bit much.

The question I would ask is how are the works "related articles"? That's the premise put forward in Wikipedia:Navigation template. Now there are nav templates like Template:FIFA World Cup champions where the only thing these champions have in common is that they won the FIFA World Cup. However, I can see someone wondering who won the cup the year before the national team I'm looking at now, but I can imagine someone saying "wow, this won the NMEalbum of the year. I wonder what album won that accolade the year after?" It's possibly, but not likely. I think they're tangential to the actual album unless that was the reason the album was written. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:48, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Just to clarify, sourcing would not be an issue if the NME and Melody Maker singles/albums of the year were to be in list form... I've already looked up many of these in back issues of the magazines in the past and noted down their full citations from the print versions, so such lists would probably be better sourced than 90% on the lists on Wikipedia. Richard3120 (talk) 13:27, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Navboxes for the various Grammy awards are also unneeded. There are already articles for many awards that list the winners year-by-year. Interested readers only need to clink on the links. Rarely do these provide any additional information about the subject album, song, etc.; how many layers of tangential navigation links does an article need? —Ojorojo (talk) 14:30, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I am not talking about sourcing to the original sources, I am concerned that we have secondary sources that talk about how influential these lists are. Otherwise, they're not much more useful than the lists of "top 100 nu metal songs of all time" click bait we find on the Internet. Just because a list exists and is from a reliable source does not automatically make that list notable enough for inclusion here. Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:29, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

You're quite right Walter - it's one of the main issues I have with lists on Wikipedia, that many of them are nothing more than creating lists for their own sake, and they're in contravention of WP:NOTDIR. Richard3120 (talk) 00:52, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

It's been a week and the consensus so far is that these navboxes are unneeded. If there are no objections I'll start removing them from articles. —Ojorojo (talk) 17:11, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

I would go one step better: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. I think consensus here is clear. If they're not needed, they should be deleted. Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:56, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with sending it to TfD. You can cite this discussion as the rationale. Bait30 ^{Talk 2 me pls?} 00:28, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Several similar navboxes should be deleted in addition to the six Walter listed at WP:TFD#March 22: Template:NMEAlbum, Template:PitchforkDecadeSongs, Template:RollingStoneAlbum, Template:Rock Sound Albums of the Year, Template:Billboard Year-End number one albums, Template:NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Album, Template:Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. Did I miss any? If there are no objections, I'll add these to TfD. —Ojorojo (talk) 14:23, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

There are some others like Template:PitchforkAlbum;Template:ConsequenceOfSoundAlbum as well, which fits the criteria, I guess.Jimoincolor (talk) 18:09, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Jimoincolor. If you're up to it, it would speed things along if you added Template:Db-g7 to the ones that you are responsible for speedy deletion (see that page for instructions). —Ojorojo (talk) 18:27, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Someone consolidated the TfDs and I added the suggestions from above as they fall into the same class. Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:03, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

I think Template:Billboard Year-End number one albums is kinda out of topic, because it's based on national album sales performance (not an opinion of Billboard magazine editiors, like those of Pitckfork, RollingStone etc). Also, if we nominate the Template:NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Album, then a lot of templates at Category:Brit Awards templates, Category:Grammy Award templates should be no exception. And then, Template:Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award is a career achievement from MTV (aka Template:Grammy Legend Award), which is more notable than Template:SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award. Bluesatellite (talk) 12:35, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

The SEAMUS award is a good example of navbox over-proliferation. It's doubtful that it even should have its own article and the only references for the SEAMUS organization article are its own website. There are probably others that should be deleted as well. —Ojorojo (talk) 14:12, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Jazz.com -- reliable source?

Is this a reliable source as used in John Serry Jr.:

"Serry, John – Jazz.com | Jazz Music – Jazz Artists – Jazz News". web.archive.org. 2012-08-31. Retrieved 2020-03-23.

It looks like a questionable source to me based on typo in article: "John Serry Sr. (born c. 1915) was a musicians." --David Tornheim (talk) 22:34, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, skimming through that article, there’s all sorts of basic typos there. It reads like it was ripped from a crappy wikia or written by someone who wasn’t fluent in English. Either way, I don’t think it’s reliable either, unless we’re missing something. Sergecross73 msg me 23:48, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Bits of it are (were before it went offline): a lot of their contributors were well-established jazz writers, including Ted Panken, Ted Gioia, and Chris Kelsey. Here's the detail on how their biographical information was collected. In short, it was submitted by the subjects; how much editorial oversight there was once it was submitted is something that I don't know. I wouldn't use the biographical submissions to establish notability; they're probably at the same level as a personal website for other purposes. EddieHugh (talk) 00:01, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

EddieHugh, that's exactly what I thought when I read through it... it sounded like a biography submitted by the subject. I wouldn't mind betting it was a straight copy of the biography page at the original version of John Serry's website, the address given right at the bottom of that archived page at Jazz.com. So I don't think it can be used as a source, as it's not independent. Richard3120 (talk) 00:58, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Open Here FAC

Hey all. Would anyone be able or willing to provide some input over at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Open Here/archive2? I've nominated the Field Music album Open Here for FA. I had nominated it once before but the discussion closed largely due to inactivity. This time around it has one support vote and one additional set of comments, but it's been a few weeks since anyone has chimed in, and I'd hate to see it close again due simply to inactivity. Any input would be appreciated. — Hunter Kahn 01:30, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Hunter Kahn, Seems good to me. I just made some edits for accessibility and some simple formatting but that's mostly administrative. I have personal concerns like having three pieces of non-free media and the fact that several sources are referenced more than a dozen times but overall, this is a very fine article. I've never passed something as FA before and I don't know that I feel comfortable diving in on this topic but if you need any more support in writing it, addressing others' concerns, etc. maybe I can help there. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:17, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Question about UK Albums Charts

I was getting a bit confused by the UK Albums Chart and was hoping someone who understands how to read them could help me. lol I'm getting ready for an expansion of the article about the album Making a New World. If I'm reading this link on the charts page correctly, it says the album peaked at position #84 and stayed on the charts for one week. But if I look at this link on the charts page for the week the album debuted (13 January to 19 January 2020) it says the album was a position #35, which is obviously much higher than the position #84 listed on the other site. What am I misunderstanding here? — Hunter Kahn 20:35, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

The Chart Update isn't the full week's charts... it's kind of a "midweek chart position" after about three days of sales. Richard3120 (talk) 20:49, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Ahh, ok, thank you Richard3120! — Hunter Kahn 22:54, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Eponymous or Self-Titled?

Is there a guideline for which term to use for albums? Self-titled is the more recognized term according to a quick Google search, I just wanted to check if there is a standard on Wikipedia? Cool Marc 11:05, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

I think common sense and plain English would suggest that Self-titled is a more commonly recognised and therefore accessible term. → Lil-℧niquԐ1 - (Talk) - 13:23, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I’d agree with that. I don’t think there’s a hard guideline, but you see self-titled more often, both on and off-wiki, so it would probably be preffered. It’s what I typically use. Either that, or just writing out the name itself and putting it in italics to signify it’s the album version of the name. Sergecross73 msg me 13:40, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

DJBooth

On July 18, 2010 the website DJBooth was considered an "unreliable source" for album and song reviews by having "no significant editorial oversight, or reputation for fact-checking."[6] It was mentioned again on September 4 for that same reason.[7] In the nine years since then, it has been "consistently used" as a source for various hip-hop/R&B articles. I want to know if its status still stands or is it worthy to be reconsidered as a reliable source for music news and reviews.

The most prominent staff members of the website were:

Brian "DJ Z" Zisook, VP and Editor-in-Chief
Nathan Slavik, Former Managing Editor and Chief Creating Officer ([8])
Yoh Phillips, Senior Writer

Their "About Us" page states that you can write for them, "If you’re an experienced or aspiring writer or just a lover of music".[9] Here's a list of the more notable staff members currently working for the website:

Ronnia Cherry, Contributor (LargeUp)
Donna-Claire Chesman, Current Managing Editor (Okayplayer, XXL)
Kenan Draughorne, Contributor (HipHopDX)
Dylan "CineMasai" Green, Social Media Manager, Contributor ([10])
Andy James, Contributor
Cassidy Kakin, Staff Writer ([11])
Simi Muhumuza, Contributor
Zachary Schwartz, Contributor (Playboy, Rolling Stone article, Vice)
Hershal Pandya, Contributor
Christopher Thiessen, Contributor (Consequence of Sound, PopMatters)
Matt Wilhite, Contributor

DepressedPer (talk) 18:14, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

It looks like they’ve come a long ways in the last decade. Lots of writers with credentials now. I’m still a little concerned with the accepting contributions from anyone who is a music fan though. Is there any way to discern who these people are? So that maybe we allow content from the core staff writers, but not the random people without any professional background? Sergecross73 msg me 14:40, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Help with new draft article

The article for English electronic music artist Joyryde's debut album Brave has been submitted as a draft. Feel free to check it out and help improve upon it, whether it would be minor spelling and grammar, or adding entire sections. Micro (Talk) 06:08, 3 April 2020 (UTC)