Template talk:Infobox album/Archive 7

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Archive 1

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Archive 5

Professional reviews

For articles without a detailed reception section, can the list of professional reviews be included in the infobox itself? For example, in many of the soundtrack sections of film articles, we do have only the track listing section and adding a Review box there will surely affect its readability. --Arfaz (talk) 04:37, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

It was decided quite some time ago (going on 2 years now I think?) that we were going to get rid of the "professional reviews" field (we really need to crap or get off the pot on that one...). If all you've got is a track listing, you need to expand the section. Then the review box won't affect readability. Why not use the reviews to add prose to the section, thus expanding it to solve the readability issue? If the ratings template would still clash with the infobox, then simply don't use it. There's no requirement to use the ratings template. Simply state the ratings in the prose (ie. "Critic A of publication B gave the album a score of x out of y and remarked 'yadda yadda yadda'"). --IllaZilla (talk) 04:46, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Why does the template still accept Reviews? By now that functionality should have been disabled. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 05:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I am keen to see it removed, but I thought it would be easier for the community to swallow if we did it in stages (it places articles into a hidden cat). But I have seen recently-created articles using the parameter. Let's pick it off now. Anyone else? Adabow (talk · contribs) 05:39, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't look like anyone disagrees. Go for it.MrMoustacheMM (talk) 19:09, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Seriously, kill it already. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:13, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree, take it out. J04n(talk page) 20:27, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

A strong consensus was previously reached that the Reviews field in the album infobox should not be disabled until a bot moves all the reviews to Album Ratings templates. To disable the field in the infobox without first moving the reviews would be a major disservice to both readers and editors, because it would remove (or rather turn into non-displaying text) important and reliable references for thousands and thousands of articles. See Template talk:Infobox album/Archive 5#Removal of "reviews" field for one of the previous discussions about this, and the beginning of that section has links to more discussions. So, where are we at on having a bot move all the reviews? — Mudwater^(Talk) 23:27, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

We've been held up by that factor for too long. No action's been taken since the bot stopped working last year, and no one's expressed interest or ability in getting a new bot up & running. In the meantime new articles are being created that use the reviews parameter because we still haven't disabled it. Given the amount of time that's passed without a better option having been presented, I think it's time to just do it. Perhaps a bot could then be set to simply identify articles still using the parameter, and place them in a category for cleanup. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:53, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I really think that disabling the Reviews parameter is not a good idea until a bot has moved all the reviews to Album Ratings templates. Otherwise there will be thousands and thousands of articles that will have some or all of their references turned into comments that are not visible to the reader, and that would require a really massive effort to manually convert. If the bot isn't happening now, then I think we need to leave the Reviews parameter activated. It's not an ideal situation, but deactivating the parameter at this point would make things a lot worse, in my view. — Mudwater^(Talk) 06:42, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The reviews need to stay in the infobox until they've all been migrated to a separate box. There would be far too many articles affected, and if not displayed we would no doubt get careless editors prodding and AFDing lots of album articles because they appear to have no sources or evidence of coverage. Since many articles that use the new infobox end up with a reviews box directly below the main infobox anyway, I can't see why people feel that it's a major issue for the reviews to be in the main infobox until they've been migrated. --Michig (talk) 09:52, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

We've been waiting for the magical migration for well over a year. It hasn't happened, and there's no indication that it will happen anytime in the near future. Affected articles can be fixed by anyone who reads or edits them. As for the potential of losing some articles to careless deletions, you're not supposed to PROD or AfD without looking for sources first. If reviews exist, and especially if they're already there but just hidden, the article will survive deletion (and we have Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Article alerts to notify us of any PRODs or AfDs that are placed). Any article whose existence hinges solely on the infobox reviews needs some improvement anyway. You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, and we've been standing still on this long enough. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:02, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

We have well over 100,000 album articles here. These would probably take years to migrate manually. This is why it hasn't happened. It can take place gradually over time - there is no deadline here, and it was never going to get sorted in a few months unless a bot was written to do it. Hiding reviews until these thousands of articles get migrated is not a viable option, and the change to a separate reviews box was not agreed on on the basis that the reviews would either get migrated quickly or disabled. Yes, many of these articles would survive PROD and AFD, but many editors don't look for sources first and these would inevitably end up at AFD, wasting a lot of editors' time, and would make the reviews unavailable to readers. --Michig (talk) 19:41, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

There's no deadline, but there's no progress either. No one's stepped up to get the ol' bot running or write a new one, so what do we do? continue to sit here with a half-finished maneuver? We've now got a mess where some articles have reviews in the infobox and others have them in the ratings template, and every week I run into some new editor adding reviews into infoboxes because they've seen it in other articles, and I have to inform them that this parameter—even though it still works—is no longer used. The workload only gets larger as we twiddle our thumbs waiting for someone to appear with the deus ex machina. Nothing changes if nothing changes. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:52, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

What have you done to progress it? It isn't going to happen based on a few people having a discussion on a talk page. Perhaps making the new review box more widely known by contacting related projects would help? If someone could get a bot working, even better. A mixed economy is better than hiding reviews in tens of thousands of articles. One option would simply be to make the reviews box optional for shorter articles - it makes a lot more sense for C-class article or above (less than 3,000 articles) than it does for Stub/Start articles (where it usually ends up directly below the infobox, making hardly any difference), and concentrating on the more-developed articles would probably see a greater benefit than trying to get all album articles changed over.--Michig (talk) 20:08, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

(undent) Could the template be modified, so that when the Reviews parameter is removed, it leaves a little note in place saying something like "This template has recently had its 'Reviews' field removed. Please help by moving any contained reliable sources to an appropriate section in the article, such as a 'Reception' section."? This would help take-over from the bot until someone gets it up and running again, and would encourage the creation of the Reception section in articles lacking one. It may also stimulate work on the bot, when some editor sees that it is no longer working. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 23:45, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

That's a good idea. Another suggestion: If moving the reviews to a ratings template is a complex task for a bot, perhaps we could simply have a bot that identifies articles that are still using the field. It could then place a boilerplate message on those articles' talk pages and put them in a category. This might stimulate editors to start building reception sections, cutting down on the workload, and it would give us a maintenance category to work off of. I'm not bot-savvy, so I don't know how feasible this is or where to ask to get it done. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:04, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

It's just too odd to have reviews listed in the infobox. thats not really key info towards the album itself. Regardless, we could make a chart for notable reviewers to add ranking given by them.Bread Ninja (talk) 00:26, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

You're a bit late to the game on this one, Bread. We established consensus to take the reviews out of the infobox about a year & a half ago, and created {{Album ratings}} as an alternate place for them to go. The problem is, the bot that was being used to move the ratings stopped working, & nobody's come up with a new one to finish the job. A concern is that if we just axe the field, a lot of sources will suddenly disappear from infoboxes (which could cause problems in the article body too, if the citations are linked together). So we're trying to figure out how to get the process rolling again. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:32, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Have you guys reported this? If this was done half a year ago, i would've imagined the Bot to be nearly finished unless you guys still kept using the old parameters/template. And by "disappear" do you mean they literally disappear or they just aren't visible?Bread Ninja (talk) 03:39, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I've put in a bot request, as it seems that everyone would be happy if a bot did the work soon. Adabow (talk · contribs) 03:40, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, because this shit wasn't convoluted enough already. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 03:52, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

My bot request got no response. I believe we have three options:

go round in circles leaving the infobox as it is, while the backlog grows every day
put in another bot request, and hope that it gets a response
remove the parameter, and the info will be hidden

Honestly, with a backlog of over 50,000, a bot seems necessary eventually, but by axing the parameter now we can stop the growth in numbers. There is a possibility we could get a bot to notify any user that edits an article with the infringing parameter, but such a code sounds too complex. Adabow (talk · contribs) 23:52, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	link
Blender	link
Pitchfork Media	7.0/10 link
Rolling Stone	link

OK, so we'll phase it out slowly and give editors a chance to fix the major articles (and draw attention so someone can get a bot going). Step one is to add a little message like on TFDs: These reviews should be removed from the infobox and placed in a separate section. See {{tfd}} (inline) for what I'm talking about. Step two, after a month or so, is to hide the review field and place the same message saying There are reviews for this album, but they are hidden. Please edit this page to retrieve them. Step three, after a while longer, is to remove it entirely. Hopefully a bot will show up by that point.

Step one should be easy. We can do it today. —Gendralman (talk) 12:08, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

The best approach is to leave the reviews in and put in a bot request. How about moving the reviews to the end of the infobox as an interim measure, perhaps with some separator to make it distinct from the rest of the fields. For many shorter album articles this would have almost the same effect as moving the reviews to a separate reviews box, which would be directly below the album infobox anyway.--Michig (talk) 12:14, 6 March 2011 (UTC) ...if something clever could be done with the infobox code to get the reviews to appear in a separate box, all the better.--Michig (talk) 12:16, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Michig. J04n(talk page) 12:18, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I still think that stopping the reviews from displaying, without first having a bot move them out of the infobox, is a really bad idea. As I've said before, doing that would take important, valuable, reliable references -- in some cases, the only references for the article -- and render them invisible to the reader, in thousands and thousands of articles. This would be a disservice to the readers, and place an undue burden on editors. Based on previous discussions, many other editors agree with me about this. Having the reviews display at the end of the infobox, perhaps offset somewhat, as suggested by Michig, would be a much better approach to take, until a bot moves the reviews. — Mudwater^(Talk) 14:18, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

What do you all think about my suggestion above (adding a little message to draw attention to the problem)? —Gendralman (talk) 03:57, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Gendralman's idea seems good. I had thought of creating a bid red error or something similar (that would get some action!), but a small TFD link seems OK. And with regards to Michig's idea: I hadn't thought of that - that could work too. But at the end of the day we need a bot or backlog elimination drive to work through the muck of the backlog. Adabow (talk · contribs) 04:00, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Length

I believe that the length of the album should be presented in {{Track listing}} only, not in {{Infobox album}}, because it is more correct. James Michael 1 (talk) 08:11, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah i also think that it's more suited for track listing template, but unfortunately most people don't realize there is a template for this. so including it with the infobox is the safest way we can make sure people will include it.Bread Ninja (talk) 08:17, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, we wouldn't be able to do that without making the use of {{Track listing}} mandatory, and I don't think that would fly as there are a lot of editors who prefer a simple numbered list to a template, especially for uncomplicated track listings. --IllaZilla (talk) 14:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Well i don't see the problem with that. sometimes they would add a table instead of a tracklist template which makes me think there are people who don't know of it. rather simple ones can still use it. I've seen singles use them quite a lot depending on the article. We could make mandatory but allow certain exceptions. Bread Ninja (talk) 14:57, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why there's a problem with having the length field in the infobox. The infobox is there to provide an at a glance summary of information relating to the album and the total running time is certainly worthy of inclusion, I would say. The rather vague reason of "because it is more correct" given for removing this field by the OP just smacks of folks looking to change things for the sake of changing things. I also agree with IllaZilla that there are a lot of editors, myself included, that don't like to use the track listing template unless a release has a particularly complex track listing, involving multiple editions. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 01:33, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I would rather use track listing template for every track list (unless less than 2 tracks). It just looks messy to merely list the tracks alongside the article. that and without the template, most would be inclined to make a tracklist template. But regardless of "want" i think it's a good idea to make it mandatory. i don't see the problem, it cleans up a lot of articles and organizes information and provides even more clarity than the simple list. And also keeps articles consistent. total running time is probably most worthy when theres more than one disc. other than that, i haven't seen much relevance under the infobox. Bread Ninja (talk) 04:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Bread Ninja, I really don't think there's a strong chance of making the template mandatory. I'm a template man myself (I like the way it looks...nice & clean, especially if one is making use of more than just the title and length fields), but I know there are a lot of other editors out there who dislike it. Point is, it's not mandatory and never has been, and even if it was that wouldn't be a strong case for removing length from the infobox. Like Kohoutek1138 says, length is part of the at-a-glance factual summary info that we want to have in the infobox. Consider the name of the producer: That's also presented in the Personnel section, and rightly so, but we also feel there's value to giving it at-a-glance in the infobox. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:06, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

that logic is rather upsetting...seriously. can we provide a better reason than the fact that we have to do a little more work? "it's not mandatory and never has been" isn't an argument either. stating the past doesn't affect the future. "want", "i don't want". this seems oddly ridiculous argument...if we were fighting against common sense, then you would have more of an advantage in the discussion. but overall, it seems stupid to put your labor over the improvement of wikipedia. Bread Ninja (talk) 05:43, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Again, I don't want to sound like the bad guy (like I said, I prefer the template and use it in most articles that I work on), but I have read very well-reasoned arguments by other editors over the past few years that give pretty sound reasons for not making use of the tracklist template mandatory. In a nutshell: Some argue that for simple tracklists (that just have numbers, titles, and lengths), templates create an unnecessarily complex view for the reader and that we needn't bother with template magic where plain text will do. Also, the template always justifies the lengths to the far right, so when all you have are titles and lengths you get a wide span of empty space in between that can make it hard for readers to easily see which length matches up with which track (somebody has a humorous screen capture of this on their user page, but I can't seem to remember who even though I just came across it recently). Finally, it's been observed that the template behaves differently—and not always favorably—with different browsers. For example in short articles where the tracklist would line up beside the infobox, some browsers will automatically force it below the infobox causing a large area of empty whitespace. Again, like I say, I prefer the template and almost always use it, but I can understand the arguments of the other side and why it might not be ideal in all situations. Most editors agree that the tracklist template is preferable in articles with complicated tracklists, such as when you need to list individual writing credits for all or most of the tracks. But trying to impose a one-size-fits-all solution simply isn't realistic. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:00, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I would second this. I like {{Track listing}} for intricate track listings, but for simple title and length listings, it's pointless. Adabow (talk · contribs) 08:23, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Not really. this argument is still going pretty slow. it doesn't matter if it's to the far right....if you're talking about a wide empty space, the normal listing also does that. the tracklist covers more space but unlike the tracklist, the average listing wouldn't be completely clear as it will not tell you which is which. I also can't imagine the average FA or GA rank article not having a track list template. The problem with the infobox-tracklist is a problem that will eventually be fixed, but overall i believe infoboxes for albums are used far too often and should be much more limiting. saying that, if there was a small section with an infobox that clashes with the tracklist template, i would choose to remove the infobox. And no, i'm not saying one-size-fits-all. i'm saying one-size-fits-all except for the occasional six-toed foot. basically i'm saying that tracklist can fit anywhere unless the tracklist has something the parameter doesn't cover.Bread Ninja (talk) 15:51, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

But you do realize that {{track listing}} involves typing in a lot of parameters into pre-formatted code? Many unexperienced editors will be scared off by using such a lengthy template and still just use a numbered list because the templated form takes a lot of time to enter. Apart from that I really don't like the idea of removing another parameter from the infobox – I fear the infobox will soon be degraded to a nice coloured frame for the image of the album cover with no relevant info left in it at all. That said I'm strictly against making the use of {{track listing}} mandatory. De728631 (talk) 17:05, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Can we stop using the the contributor as a significant reason to oppose, please? this is ridiculous. And that's all the infobox is practically, the infobox is the lesser version of other infoboxes we've seen in the past. There are many things that are mandatory, and inexperienced users still don't put in. That said,if it were mandatory, we would still see people manually list the tracks themselves, the difference would be, we woud be obligated to change it once we see it or to put it simpler: choose to follow the rules.Bread Ninja (talk) 17:23, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, calling arguments ridiculous in a debate is ridiculous too. As for the infobox as such, let's have a look at the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes): the purpose of an infobox is to summarize key facts from the article. So, is the length of an album a key fact? "Is it summary information, or more extended detail that may be better placed within the body of an article?" In your reply to Michael James 1 who proposed the removal you seem to be eager to ensure that the length of an album is included in an album article so apparently it's not just a detail that could also be left out anyway. De728631 (talk) 18:57, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

the total length doesn't seem that important as it seems like tracklist kind of thing. whether it decides to be kept isn't much of a discussion. removing it wont cause much harm, but will cause some people to defend it.Bread Ninja (talk) 19:15, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I would just as soon keep the length field in the infobox (it would be helpful to clarify (if it isn't spelled out elsewhere) whether editors should use the original release length, or CDs with add'l tracks, or to simply specify which release the length indicates). ~~And because WikiProjects do not own articles (i.e., a given article falls under other projects, besides WP:ALBUM)~~ I don't think we can mandate the use of {{Track listing}}. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:45, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

i'm not talking about limited to a wikiproject, i'm talking about in general, a tracklist template being as mandatory as list of chapters template. or so on which often holds more information, but the contributors still put them in. If not mandatory, then as a standard use.Bread Ninja (talk) 17:52, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, somehow I got it in my head that WP:ALBUM was driving this. I do think standardized use would be better than mandatory. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 18:12, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

basically it's the same thing, but mandatory is more like forcing someone, and standard would just coincide with the rules. anyone else want to add something significant other than ILIKEIT or IDONTLIKEIT?Bread Ninja (talk) 16:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me? I see several well-reasoned arguments above as to why the length is the kind of information suitable to the infobox. I don't see any ILIKEIT arguments in that regard. By contrast, arguments like "the total length doesn't seem that important" read as IDONTLIKEIT. You and James Michael 1 seem to be the only ones here who don't think that length is something that belongs in the infobox, while 4 or 5 other editors think that it is. The length is at-a-glance factual summary information, which is exactly what an infobox is for. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:10, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, that argument is rather more arguing toward preference. so in reality, that one can go from both sides of idontlikeit or ilikeit. I'm talking about standardizing the tracklist template.Bread Ninja (talk) 17:20, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Well I gave several reasons above why making the template the standard probably won't fly. Some of those reasons are technical, so I don't see how it amounts to idontlikeit. P.S. would you please indent your comments? It helps to keep the discussion organized. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:26, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

too many indents. organized is one thing, but it's not necessary to fully indent every 10 0r 7 comments. i break the chain once there's enough to distinguish it. It's usually newer members that are obsessed over indentation (not implying you're new). regardless, technical issues such as what? i will only accept the technical, not preference. I admit ones that only have one track or so is probably not necessary. but multiple tracks in general should make it in. as for it clashing onto the infobox, it's probably due to the article or section not being big enough to merit an infobox. And any other technical issues? like the far right issue, i also don't think we should worry as there's a light gray to help readers navigate. that and i believe tracklist should be taken as a whole, not as a track by track basisBread Ninja (talk) 17:54, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "tracklist should be taken as a whole, not as a track by track basis". I personally don't have trouble following the shaded grey to match lengths to track titles, but I'm an a music geek who's collected thousands of albums & is used to looking at that sort of thing. I can see how those who aren't might have trouble with it (the shade of grey is not very distinct). Take This Addiction#Track listing as an example, to pick one I wrote: I can totally see how a reader might not be able to match the lengths up with the tracks, as they're far to the right and the grey bars are very lightly shaded. What other kind of table puts one data set on the far left of the screen and the other on the far right? Not many. Most tables either have fixed column widths or justify to the size of the data. The clashing with the infobox is a genuine concern, especially for short articles that need expansion. We require infoboxes as a standard. If we made {{tracklist}} a standard too, we'd have a lot of this problem. And like I say, it seems to be happen or not happen depending on which browser one is using, so there are technical issues with the template that need to be ironed out before we consider making it any kind of standard.

At the end of the day, this isn't really the place to have this discussion. If you want to propose making {{tracklist}} a standard, WT:ALBUMS is the place to do that. This is the infobox discussion, and the topic of this thread is whether or not to remove length from the infobox. Let's not turn it into a separate discussion about adopting {{tracklist}} project-wide. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:25, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm saying we should list tracks in one template, not merely listing them individually. Infoboxes are used as a standard, not for just albums but for various other media and people aswell. That said, it's perfectly acceptable not to use an infobox depending on notable it is (note not all albums have their own article). But considering this is the infobox album, i think it's being taken much less serious, or vaguely important. lightly shaded, is still shaded, and be navigated easily. Unless the reader has problems with vision. Just letting you know, your argument is highly subjective.

the same as removing the total length...i think that can be covered in tracklist template...or unnecessarily important. As from what i seen, people don't see total length as key info. But if you think it is key info please elaborate.Bread Ninja (talk) 18:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

This is what Album says about length: "According to the rules of the UK Charts, a recording counts as an "album" if either it has more than four tracks or lasts more than 25 minutes.[3] Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as "mini-albums" or EPs. Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yes's Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks. Other artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder refer to their own releases under 25 minutes as "albums" despite the normal distinction."

Length is a key factor that may determine whether a recording is regarded an album or not, e.g. four lengthy songs can still constitute an album. Covering this parameter in the tracklist template involves adding this template in the first place which is just fine but the main place to sum up information and statistics of an article is by definition the infobox and adding one does not justify the removal of the other. De728631 (talk) 19:47, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Well said, De728631. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:50, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

ok, the two are vaguely connected...anything we can verify is there, just cuz UK charts does it like that doesn't mean it has to be like that for everything else. Whatever label we verify we add, we dont' determine it through length such as EP or mini album. regardless, the total of track numbers wont affect all labels given. Now length in general is a key factor to determining what type of album it is (for UK charts). that is as much what you verified, but not overall key factors on albums. overall, either it goes on the tracklist template or not really notable to be added imo. i think it serves as extra info. UK charts may think it for determining album type, but not overall.Bread Ninja (talk) 19:54, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Forgive me for not reading this full thread but I've come to this conversation later than I would have liked so I'll just give my two cents. Normally I'm in favor of simplifying the infobox but in this case I don't think the album length clutters it up so I would prefer it stayed. As for making the tracklist template mandatory I would also !vote against. Admittedly the template is useful when the list is complicated but not so much when it is simple such as with this article. J04n(talk page) 00:09, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

then i suggest a table, to replicate a template, but serves it need and not have any technical issues. And it's not whether the total length clutters the infobox, it's more of whether it's key info.Bread Ninja (talk) 05:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Question about Alt field

Exactly how detailed should we be in the Alt field? The album infobox documentation only says to go read WP:ALT. WP:ALT gives several examples that depend on the context. One example of alternative text goes into a lot of detail about the image: "A red flag divided into four by a white cross slightly offset to the left," while other examples are as simple as "photograph." Would something as simple as "Cover art for <album>" suffice? Fezmar9 (talk) 04:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

No, that's not sufficient. The alt text needs to be a description of the image that conveys what the image looks like; the purpose is to provide a representation of the image for those who cannot see the image. In articles about people, that typically means describing what the person looks like rather than identifying them by name. For instance, the alt text for the Thriller cover would be something like "A man with dark skin and curly black hair is lounging on a surface, leaning on his left elbow and facing the camera. He is wearing a white sports coat, partially buttoned black shirt, and white trousers with a black belt. The text 'Michael Jackson' and 'Thriller' appears in script at the upper left of the image." —C.Fred (talk) 04:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the documentation here should be updated to explicitly state the level of detail required for this field. Fezmar9 (talk) 05:09, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Italic title and parentheses

I take it that the italic title function seeks out words or phrases within parenthesis and does not italicize them? This makes sense for articles like Adore (The Smashing Pumpkins album) so that it only Adore is italicized as that's the only part of the article title that is also the album's title. But what should be done in the case of Our Color Green (The Singles) where a parenthetical phrase is also part of the album title? The documentation at {{Italic title}} suggests I use {{Italic title|force=true}} however this didn't have any effect. Suggestions? Fezmar9 (talk) 22:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I've done it for you. You have to force it. Yves (talk) 22:57, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

That was so simple it makes me feel stupid. Thanks! Fezmar9 (talk) 23:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

No problem! The "force" option should probably be noted somewhere in the documentation, though. It's only mentioned once, in a banner, but that only addresses longer article titles. 23:12, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

RfC: Template:Singles and the reporting of 'Radio add' dates.

After many discussions at WT:SONG, a consensus has been reached that a 'Radio add" date can 'create' a 'single'. However the template formatting displays "Released:" but the industry does not call Radio a 'Release'. We are attempting to resolve the reporting of Radio date HERE. Also feel free to review the considerable material prior to the subsection given in the link. Please contribute and thank you.
If consensus is reached I anticipate that we will seek the following changes

ADD field

 | Single 1 radio  =

to render Radio:

Change field

  | Single 1 date  =

to

 | Single 1 released  =

to render Released:
and continuing for subsequent singles as well.
—Iknow23 (talk) 02:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Template:Infobox album#Professional reviews

There is a link to WP:ALBUMS#Reception in that section. Since there is no longer a "reception" section on the page it links to, can it instead link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Review sites or something which talks about the article's reception section? I am requesting this, since I can't edit it myself. Thank you. Backtable _{Speak to me}^{concerning my deeds.} 18:48, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The info from WP:ALBUMS#Reception was moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Article body#Critical reception. Fezmar9 (talk) 19:24, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

But no-one has done what Backtable requested and changed the link - I came here to complain about this, only to find I'm not the first. Arjayay (talk) 14:13, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I think I fixed it. Next time be bold and fix the problems yourself when you see them. Adabow (talk · contribs) 22:56, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Revised link needed.

Hello,
At Template:Infobox album#Released there is a link at 'Release history' that should now go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Article body, the 'Release history' section.—Iknow23 (talk) 04:34, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks. Yves (talk) 05:12, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Chronology link to discography

In the article To Love (Faye Wong album) I used the chronology parameter to link to the discpgraphy, as follows:

 | Chronology  = [[Faye Wong discography|Faye Wong]]

I think this is an improvement compared to two automatic links to the artist in both the dividing bars within the infobox.

If this is considered good practice, then I suggest that the documentation should suggest it. At the moment it is not clear whether this would be encouraged. - Fayenatic (talk) 13:03, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

i find the chronology in release rather useless...Common sense, people wouldn't be looking for order of release within an infobox, bur rather in a navbox but even then, its just to organize rather than show any chronology.Bread Ninja (talk) 08:44, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

This link change seems like a reasonable suggestion. Adabow (talk · contribs) 08:47, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm opposed to this, on the basis of WP:EGG. I favor the "principle of least astonishment", where a reader clicking on a link winds up where the words they clicked on would intuitively be expected to lead them. In other words, a reader clicking on an artist's name expects to go to the artist's article, not to a discography. That said, I agree with the point that having 2 links to the artist in the infobox is redundant, and therefore propose de-linking the artist's name in the chronology banner. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:56, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

What about linking [[XYZ artist discography|XYZ artist chronology]]? Adabow (talk · contribs) 08:59, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I still think that flirts with WP:EGG, and isn't really necessary. If there's a separate discography article, then it'll be linked either via navbox or a "see also" section. --IllaZilla (talk) 09:02, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. Adabow (talk · contribs) 09:07, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Parameter deprecation notice

This is being discussed in too many places. Please unify discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums#In-infobox reviews deprecation rather than fragmenting conversation or copy/pasting things to all the different pages. Thanks! –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 18:51, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

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.

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Consensus for notice of deprecation can be read at this discussion at WikiProject Albums [edit: and in archived discussions linked below]. Please insert the following highlighted code into this template as follows:

| header11  = {{#if:{{{Reviews|}}}|Professional reviews}}
| data12  = {{#if:{{{Reviews|}}}|<div style="text-align: left; padding: 0; margin: 0">
{{Template:Infobox album/Reviews deprecation notice}}
{{{Reviews|}}}
</div>

The result can be seen at the current testcases page at Template:Infobox_album/testcases and further on my own sandbox. When the Reviews template is used, a notice of deprecation will appear. Thank you so very much! – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 06:20, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I would have thought we would need more than a 2-day discussion with 3 editors agreeing on this to form a consensus for this change?--Michig (talk) 06:36, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh, am I misusing the term? Sorry, maybe I shouldn't have said that. I like things to happen, I hate stalling, but if you think this needs more discussion, then feel free to collapse the {{editprotected}} template. As far as I'm concerned, this was discussed a long time ago, nothing came of it, and it's time to kick things into high gear. But that's just me. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 06:41, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

We've had consensus to move the reviews out of the infobox for 2 years. This is just a notice to help that actually happen. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:43, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Here's one archived discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums/Archive_39#Professional_reviews, which in itself linked to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums/Archive_34#Professional_reviews_moved_from_infobox. Both reached agreements that reviews should not be removed, but relocated within the article. Another discussion is at Template_talk:Infobox_album/Archive_5#Removal_of_.22reviews.22_field which discusses the bot that was supposed to do this work for us, but that fell through. It is also agreed there that reviews should be relocated before the reviews template is deactivated. And so on... like IllaZilla said, there has been consensus to remove the reviews parameter for a while, and since the bot thing failed, it's time to go manual. I hope we're not at another "stall" now. I've reincorporated the word "consensus" in my original post, and added some text in brackets. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 06:57, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Not done for now: The text next to the warning triangle is so small on my browser (firefox) that I cannot read it. So this needs to be looked at. I would also make the comment that, instead of placing an ugly warning in article space, it might be better to simply remove the parameter from the template. We could also populate a tracking category to help people find where these parameters are being used. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:41, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I still have my doubts about this approach but I've read your discussion and you have consensus for this so I will not stand in the way.

Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:48, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I'm removing my alternative example because, one, it's uglier than the current one in use, and two, I think the current one gets the point across. Any alternative notices can obviously be suggested and the template changed with consensus. MSGJ, thanks so much for putting the notice into the template. I think it looks great; it's definitely ugly as all get-out, but here's hoping it works. (If it doesn't, it's back to square one: the bot, most likely.) We may even get a flood of complaints, but all this should help get those reviews moved. It won't happen overnight, but here's hoping that at least people stop creating new articles with the Reviews parameter. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 12:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Consensus that reviews should be moved out of the infobox is one thing. Adding a huge warning symbol and illegibly-small text to thousands of articles does not have consensus. In Chrome it simply isn't doing anything useful as the text is too small to read. It should have been discussed further and tested properly before being implemented. Remember the people who come here to use this as an encyclopedia.--Michig (talk) 17:32, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I believe I have fixed the small-text issue. It was set to 50% font size, but the infobox already uses small-than-normal text size, so it was appearing illegibly tiny. I upped it to 100% and it appears legible now for me in IE7. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:59, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

(undent). I support the idea of including a notice, but I really don't like the overall style of it as-is. How about this version instead (see the testcases). Less obtrusive while being more consistent with other cleanup templates and the like. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 18:20, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and, the text size in my example is fine... but I'm using Linux, which IIRC has a different default text size. If it needs to be set bigger, go ahead. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 18:22, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I personally think that the exclamation point warning would seem more eye-catching. I have noticed, as I posted on the WikiProject Albums talk page, that there has already been a decrease in the amount of pages with reviews in infoboxes. The red warning is more confrontational, while the orange warning is more reserved yet still noticeable. If I had to pick one, I would probably choose the one that is currently implemented, the red one. Regardless, though, this warning is a positive development in getting rid of the reviews from the infobox. Backtable _{Speak to me}^{concerning my deeds.} 19:18, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be working. We were only a few hundred away from 53,000 and now we're at 52,500. My apologies for the too-tiny text, but the template for the notice is not fully protected and can be changed (which it has) to correct problems. And rather than stalling in endless discussion as to what the notice should look like, the deprecation can move forward like it should have a long time ago. Anyone interested in helping can do a few articles listed in Category:Infobox album with reviews. I'll put a few hatnotes on this discussion and the WP Album discussion with a direct link to the category (I find myself constantly hunting around for it, though now I finally have it bookmarked). – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 22:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Good point; how about now? –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 22:24, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm going to be bold and change it to use an ambox. I've seen other people comment on how ugly it is, and I think that the ambox should attract attention without being so in-your-face ugly-looking. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 15:33, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks great! Hopefully this will expedite moving the reviews out of the template across the board, thus making any eventual clean-up a much easier task. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 00:39, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks appalling - but then the whole idea is flawed

The entire idea is wrong, and seems to have been discussed by a select few, in an obscure corner, rather than the large number of editors of music articles.
The reviews template hasn't been thought through either, it isn't the same width as the infobox and has also generated objections (see Template talk:Album ratings)
This discussion is taking place in several places at once eg Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Moving infobox reviews into article space diluting the intensity of feeling
The box with the warning triangle and "The reviews parameter has been deprecated. ...." is extemely ugly, annoying and unneccessary

Now other editors are aware of this, the reaction on several talk pages is clearly entirely against. PLEASE STOP THIS NOW - and yes, I am shouting, but politely.
Arjayay (talk) 16:45, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

This is a horrible idea and a step backward in the usefulness of album pages on wikipedia. 67.139.75.102 (talk) 17:49, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

The consensus to move reviews out of the infobox (found here) happened a year and a half ago, involved 18 editors, was advertised here and at WT:WPMU, and has been re-discussed several times since then with consensus not changing. Hardly "a select few, in an obscure corner". Every effort was made in good faith to inform "the large number of editors of music articles" (by having the discussion at the Albums projects and notifying both the Music project and the template talk page). If you are just getting wind of it now, then you probably don't participate much in the music-related projects. Discussions of article structure and format generally happen at the Project level, so if you want to have a say in them then it's a good idea to watchlist the project talk pages.
There's no reason that {{Album ratings}} needs to be the same width as the infobox. It's supposed to go in a "Reception" section within the article body, which in a decent article should be well below the infobox (the whole point here is for the ratings to be adjacent to prose sections about reception, rather than in/near the infobox). And in any case I don't see why it needs to be the same width; we don't require that every other item in an article be the same dimensions as the infobox.
The main discussion is at WT:ALBUMS#Album reviews, and has plenty of participants and discussion. This discussion is specifically about the deprecation notice in the infobox, not the broader topic of moving reviews out of the infobox. As far as I know these are the only 2 areas of discussion at the moment. Whether this "dilutes the intensity of feeling" in your view is rather irrelevant.
The deprecation notice is meant to catch people's attention and get them to move the reviews out of the infobox. That you personally find it "ugly, annoying, and unnecessary" is irrelevant to this purpose.

Again, the consensus for this is quite clear (and now pretty longstanding). I do not see evidence that "the reaction on several talk pages is clearly entirely against"...again, I only know of 2 primary areas of discussion (here and WT:ALBUMS) and the consensus at both is pretty clearly in favor of moving forward with the deprecation of the field. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:18, 17 June 2011 (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.

Allmusic reviews in infoboxes

I've got an idea to monitor the situation at Category:Infobox album with reviews. What if a bot was to cite and make a table for pages with simply one allmusic review in the infobox, so that the allmusic reviews could be moved from there. I have noticed that the amount of pages in the category is less than it was near the end of April 2011, where numbers stacked at around 52,772. A few days ago, the category had 52,658 pages applied to it, but the page numbers have steadily increased within the last few days and, as of this post, have 52,681 pages within. Another aspect of these pages I have noticed is that I have encountered many pages which only contain one allmusic review (such as 15 Year Killing Spree and Sphere (album)). If all of these pages were cut out from the category, then the amount of pages in the Infobox album with reviews category would significantly decrease (at least for the time being). I personally am not experienced with bots on Wikipedia, but I have read some of the now-archived discussion here about the large amount of articles in said category. It is inconvenient that numbers are not appearing to decrease, despite the current stance on review format and how long it has been in place. At the current rate, removing all pages from the category will take possible more than 50 years (that's not necessarily an exaggeration). Any thoughts concerning this idea or the category in general? Backtable _{Speak to me}^{concerning my deeds.} 02:05, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

WE went over this. Reviews in the infobox shouldn't be done. It should be added in prose. Also that category is not necessary.Bread Ninja (talk) 10:00, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Backtable is not talking about this. Rather, he is inquiring about getting a bot to convert articles with only Allmusic reviews in the infobox to use the {{Album ratings}} template. As for my opinion, I think that it would be just as easy to get a bot to clean out the entire category, not just Allmusic-only articles. Adabow (talk · contribs) 10:26, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Sees pretty cut and dry from the second sentence. move allreview in infobox. if he sid convert it to Album ratings template, then yes. Still....that category shouldn't exist.Bread Ninja (talk) 10:31, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

It's a terrible idea to begin with, and I've commented as such here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums#Album_reviews - BalthCat (talk) 18:29, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Add mixtape to the Album Type list

Hi. It appears that mixtape is a valid classification of album. Can this be added to the main page please! Cheers, Nik thestoned 09:50, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

It is. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 10:29, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed - not sure what I was smoking that day! =/ Nik thestoned 16:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Oops, I did it soon after Nik left this comment and forgot to say so! Sorry! Adabow (talk · contribs) 05:22, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah, that's funny. I didn't check the type's history, I was wondering what Nikthestoned was smokin'. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 05:56, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Just the usual it would seem! ^_^ Nik thestoned 08:07, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

incorrect link in the documentation

The documentation says:

See WP:ALBUMS#Singles for guidelines describing which singles should and should not be included in the infobox.

Can someone please correct that link? I can't find where it was moved. --Muhandes (talk) 07:58, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Extra chronology

The extra chronology template doesn't seem updated with the format for the regular chronology. Like in Watch the Throne, the text size is different. Dan56 (talk) 01:14, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Singles guidelines

Where are the guidelines for the Singles template (Template:Infobox_album#Template:Singles)? It says "See WP:ALBUMS#Singles for guidelines describing which singles should and should not be included in the infobox", but WP:ALBUMS#Singles is a useless redirect to the main WP:Albums page, where there's nothing about such guidelines. Dan56 (talk) 17:23, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums#WP:ALBUMS#Singles?. Since no one answered my question, I guess I'll move the material to the template documentation. --Muhandes (talk) 17:27, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

An important phrase from the 1st sentence was lost in the move, so I've restored it. Uniplex (talk) 20:07, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Details

Under the section Details, it says "Try to fill in as many of the details as you can. If some details are unknown, leave the section blank or fill it with ??? to make it obvious to other editors that the info is needed." User:Koavf has been removing the ??? from fields that have them in album articles and I would tend to agree that it is not necessary to clutter pages in such fashion. Maybe the sentence can be changed to simply read: "Try to fill in as many of the details as you can. If some details are unknown, leave the section blank." Thanks. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 17:13, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you and I have to admit that I have no idea where those ??? come from. Leaving a field blank in an infobox is standard practice if the parameter is unknown but putting question marks in there as a placeholder is not only not helpful for other editors it also makes the article look bad. I'm all for changing the documentation to "if unknown, leave it blank". De728631 (talk) 17:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Placeholder text like "???" or "TBA" is garrish and I remove it on sight. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:33, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. The only valid place for placeholder text is in tables where otherwise there would be an empty space, certainly not infoboxes. –Drilnoth (T/C) 18:52, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Also agreed. "???" just looks bad. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 19:22, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree, I've been removing them myself. --Muhandes (talk) 21:22, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree, putting "???" in fields where info is unknown is unnecessary and looks unsightly in my opinion. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 10:33, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Potential new fields

Any interest? For certain genres of music–classical, a lot of jazz, most traditional pop vocal—arrangers and conductors are just as important as the record producer (particularly for older albums, the producer was almost an afterthought.) Does anyone else think it would be useful to add fields for arrangers and conductors? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:29, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the field, so would it be fair to say that it is either the producer or the arranger which is worth mentioning, but not both? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Muhandes (talk • contribs) 16:59, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Agree with these additions especially conductor. J04n(talk page) 20:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Whilst 'conductor' on the face of it sounds sensible, it would be nice to have a couple of pointers to articles that demonstrate the need. BTW, this discussion should probably not be held here; more folk would be likely to see it were it at WT:ALBUM. Uniplex (talk) 04:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to add wording to explanation of "Alternate cover" parameter

Discussion is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums#Alternative covers all over again. Participants are welcome. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:19, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

"At least one side"?

I've been doing a lot of work with album covers, and I'm confused by the wording here:

The width of the image should ideally be no less than 220px (the default value of the "Thumbnail size" parameter), and it should be no more than 300px on at least one side (the maximum value of the "Thumbnail size" parameter) to satisfy fair use criteria.

What does "at least one side" mean? Does it mean that no side should be larger than 300px, or does it mean that if one side is 300px then other sides can be larger? This is posing a problem for me with covers of video albums (VHS/DVDs), as they are taller than they are wide. For example I need to resize this cover, but do I need to bring the height down to 300px (which would make the width ~180px) or just the width (which would leave the height at 550px)? --IllaZilla (talk) 14:59, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

The image should not in general be larger that 0.1Mpx, so 300x550 is too big, 180x300 probably too small. Seems the wording here could do with being improved. Uniplex (talk) 15:25, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to add a Discography section

Proposed on WikiProject_Albums: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums#Template:Infobox_album_-_adding_a_Discography_section. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 18:05, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

The proposal has not got any consensus. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 16:17, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to categorize pages using this template leaving the cover field left blank

Discussion [1] (#38).Jasper420 22:16, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

That discussion had already been archived. I would suggest bringing this up at WT:ALBUM, where more editors are likely to see it than on this page. As far as the technical solution, I think there would need to be a way to account for any comments () that have been placed in that field (as the comment, presumably, makes it non-blank). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 23:24, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

As the editors answering that request said, this could easily be achieved with simple code at the template. You don't even really need (much) consensus to create a hidden maintenance category and have the template silently populate it. I'd go bold and do it, you need an admin to apply it anyway, and then people can object. Mind you, there should be a way to intentionally leave blank, e.g. for unreleased albums. --Muhandes (talk) 11:55, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm not an admin, so even if i was bold I couldn't do it. Honestl though, I think I'm giving up. This whole process is way to confusing for me.Jasper420 17:16, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Alright, I implemented a very simplistic version in the sandbox, lets see if this goes through. --Muhandes (talk) 15:19, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit request

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Per the discussion above, the sandbox includes a very simplistic implementation where every article with an empty |Cover= or with |Cover=??? is automatically categorized in the hidden category Category:Album infoboxes lacking a cover. There should be no visible effect to this change. I tested it using the testcases and some articles and it seems to work as I described. --Muhandes (talk) 15:24, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I made a tweak to the sandbox - could you have a look and see if you are happy? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:34, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Both your version and mine added some whitespace when there was no cover, I'm not sure how I didn't notice it on the test cases. I moved the code a bit and now it looks OK. Feel free to, again, make the code clearer. --Muhandes (talk) 21:36, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Done. Ucucha (talk) 22:45, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Minor additional edit request

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

The sandbox includes a minor change of the above, making it categorize only if the template is used in the main namespace. I tested it on different namespaces and on the test cases and it seems to work, with no side effects I could see. --Muhandes (talk) 08:16, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

deployed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:54, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Further change proposal

Since this seems to have been popularly accepted, I have an idea of how to improve it, and I want to see if there is quick consensus. In some cases a cover is intentionally not added. For example, an album might be unreleased (either upcoming or cancelled, e.g. Korn Kovers). Also, an infobox may be part of a list, and WP:NFLISTS may apply, e.g. 13 Japanese Birds. How about if |Cover=blank would mean the cover is intentionally left blank, so it wont be categorized? --Muhandes (talk) 12:13, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Since there does not seem to be any objection to the above, and an invitation to comment was posted on WT:ALBUMS as well, I believe it can be implemented. The sandbox includes such implementation. Best regards. --Muhandes (talk) 09:46, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

A snippet of your code ...

{{#if:{{{Cover|}}}
 |{{#ifeq:{{{Cover}}}|blank||[[File:{{#ifeq:{{{Cover}}}|???

whenever you're checking the same parameter this many times, it's neater to use a switch I think! I've tweaked your code, please let me know if you're okay with it. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:16, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure, I don't mind. --Muhandes (talk) 12:33, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay. Could you update the documentation? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:23, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Done --Muhandes (talk) 20:24, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Album cover artist

I propose that we add a field in the Template:Infobox album for the album cover artist/photographer. We have the same field at Template:Infobox book for the book jacket artist. There are of course a number of notable album cover artists, currently categorized at Category:Album-cover and concert-poster artists. An example of notability is Hipgnosis, which has a discography of their covers, and some albums, such as The Dark Side of the Moon, have extensive sections on the cover art/design. Their covers also have their own category, Category:Album covers by Hipgnosis, within Category:Album covers by author. The subject is covered further at cover art and album cover. We have parallel categories for book covers, including Category:Book covers by Leo and Diane Dillon (full disclosure: i created this category), who have done at least one album cover, as has Richard M. Powers. We also have Category:Albums by cover artist for the album articles, not the fair use images of them (I now plan to create a parallel category for books). Given all these types of linkings and categorizations, adding a field for cover art seems like a noncontroversial, logical move, making it easier for people to quickly link to articles on the visual artists from album articles. I don't know if there are issues around this, such as this action making the templates used already somehow incomplete. I have noticed that a lot of infobox templates in use often trim out unused fields, even when they could eventually be filled.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 16:55, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Caption Why wouldn't Caption= work? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:58, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

To answer to Justin, in my experience, when the Caption= field was used to indicate cover artists it has always been edited away. Cover artists should be mentioned in the article, while the policy for the use of Caption= field is to solve any controversy about different covers for the same album. Of course, this policy can be changed or a new field for cover artists can be added to the template. In my opinion, the importance of the cover art for music albums, especially in modern music, is paramount and I agree with Mercurywoodrose that the author should be indicated in an appropriate field of the infobox. Lewismaster (talk) 18:06, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Justin: |caption= covers this. It's not just for describing controversy, it can be used to give the cover artist/photographer just as easily. I use it for this purpose all the time, for example The Devil's Rain (album) and Land of the Dead (song). No need for a new field when we already have one that suits the need. In response to Lewismaster, if you find that captions are being "edited away" for no particular reason, just revert. There's no reason why the caption can't/shouldn't be used to give the name of the cover artist, and really no reason for a new field simply to serve the same purpose. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:25, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I never thought to use |caption= for this purpose but it is a good idea and The Devil's Rain (album) is a perfect example (and I enjoyed reading the article!). I must agree that directly under the cover art is more appropriate for this information than lower down in the infobox. J04n(talk page) 18:41, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

This usage is not yet documented for this template. This should be documented if used this way. I also think the caption field seems rather important to have as an advanced field for the template. i have added the album cover artist info to the caption for Dark Side of The Moon and The Beatles (album) (with more to come) and explained why I did so, so people can comment on it here (or there)Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:24, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

If we all agree to use Caption= as a field to be filled with all sorts of info about the cover, it should be clearly clearly indicated in Template:Infobox album#Caption, just as a guide for all editors. Lewismaster (talk) 20:30, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Session albums - which template?

Hi, I have a query. I have a few albums that I need to redirect in a template, but to where? They are recordings made for John Peel / Bob Harris Radio sessions and released as individual CD's. They are not live as there is no audience, so are they to be classified as studio albums? Each CD spans several sessions too, so does that make them compilations? I searched the archive but nothing popped up. Any pointers appreciated, thanks. Stephenjh (talk) 16:47, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like studio albums to me. A lot of albums are recorded "live in the studio" but would still be considered studio albums, as they are not recorded in a live setting such as at a concert (How to Ruin Everything is the first example that jumps to my mind: the band recorded it "live off the floor" in the studio, with all 3 musicians playing together as they would in concert rather than recording their parts separately and then mixing them, but it's still a studio album). As for whether it's a compilation I guess that would depend on the nature of the recordings: Do they span several sessions separated by significant periods of time? Were any of them previously released? If they were all recorded fairly close to each other time-wise, and none of them were released before, I wouldn't call it a compilation. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:16, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. To be fair I think that the category studio album isn't really suitable, it's what we have and I'll use it, but I think that sessions recorded for radio broadcasts should possibly have their own category, or something else! I know that the artist doesn't consider these recordings to be, or define them as "studio albums"; but this is due to the semantic difference between 'an album that happened to be recorded in a studio' and an album release that is considered part of a performers artistic output / portfolio (also recorded in a studio). Thanks once again. Stephenjh (talk) 09:15, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, this kind of live-in-studio-for-radio-station stuff can be kind of a gray area/red herring. I guess it depends on context: Is the album generally understood to be part of the artist's main catalog (studio album), or is it an on-the-side thing (live album or compilation). How to Ruin Everything was all-new material and clearly always intended to be the band's 6th studio album, but Thunder Down Under, recorded live-in-the-studio for Triple J, consists of live recordings of the band's prior material and was intended to be/is considered a live album. I guess it's going to be a case-by-case, context-based thing. --IllaZilla (talk) 09:22, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Just have a look at Peel Sessions (disambiguation) for a list of Peel sessions (which is exactly the instance I am working on with another artist). They are listed as "EP" and "compilation" mostly, but the article introductions state "album" when it's an "EP", "live album" when compilation templates are used etc... it's all over the place! I know life sometimes "throws spanners in the works" but wouldn't a "session template", sub section / title help out somewhat? :-D Stephenjh (talk) 09:34, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

These kinds of radio sessions albums can be a tricky area, but with a little thought, I believe that they can all be fitted snuggly into the existing templates. On the one hand, the fact that a sessions album is recorded live in the studio, doesn't really change its designation as a studio album. Let's not forget that before the mid-'60s, a lot of studio albums were recorded live in the studio, with little or no overdubbing -- the majority of The Beatles' first album was recorded like this, for example. But on the other hand, the fact that many sessions albums feature tracks recorded months, if not years, apart from each other, makes them much more like compilation albums than studio albums (see Ride's Waves album, for example).

So, the deciding factor is whether the album in question collects sessions from a single occasion, in which case it is a studio album (unless it happens to collect a concert broadcast, in which case it is a live album), or from multiple sessions on different days, in which case it is a compilation album. Of course, if a radio sessions album only has a handful of tracks on it, then it is clearly an EP and not an album anyway -- like The Smashing Pumpkins Peel Sessions EP, for example.

So, to my mind, the vast majority of album length Peel Sessions releases are compilation albums, pure and simple. The fact that they're compiling live radio sessions, as opposed to officially released singles or album tracks, makes no difference. As for radio session albums being "all over the place" in terms of the templates that they use, that is precisely how it should be because of the wildly varying sources, formats and circumstances that they encompass. I honestly don't think that there is any need for a new template to accommodate these radio session releases. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 16:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Multiple sessions = compilation. Note that most Peel Sessions were not live radio sessions - they were recorded in the studio (usually Maida Vale studios) and broadcast later. Some, particularly some of the later sessions, were live-to-air recordings, sometimes with a live audience. I think this highlights the problem with the current categories where they describe both the type of recording and the type of release, and often fail to provide an adequate categorization.--Michig (talk) 17:15, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, in case there is any confusion, you're right that the majority of radio sessions are not broadcast live, but they are essentially recorded live -- hence the phrase "live in session". The point being that the session captures the band or artist more or less as they sound live. Totally agree with the "multiple sessions = compilation" thing though...that was really what I was trying to say. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 18:01, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Use in sections

The {{Infobox album}} template is used inside a Minecraft article section to give a summary of an album that has no article of its own. The problem is, the template does not work well with {{Track listing}} and leaves an area of whitespace. In that article I have moved the template to after the track listing to reduce the problem, but this workaround is not ideal. Is there a way to improve the template to work better inside sections? I know the template is not designed for this, but it would be useful nevertheless. -84user (talk) 17:32, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I simply removed the collapse parameter, so that there is no white space any more. The tracklist is only slightly longer than the infobox anyway, and I think it looks pretty good. Feel free to revert if you don't like it, but if I were a reader checking out that page, I'd think it looks alright. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 17:44, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, removing the collapsed parameter is a definite improvement, and it fixes the whitespace in Firefox 8.0, but not in Opera 11.52. Is there any additional changes that can fix this? Template talk:Track listing#Width issues with infobox present noted the problem back in August 2011 but not which browsers, so I am posting a link there in case someone can find a better solution. -84user (talk) 18:40, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Poor choice of Template:Infobox album example

I think it was a poor choice to select Nirvana (Nirvana album) as the example album in Template:Infobox album. To confuse users, almost uniquely the album cover for this release "does not meet the threshold of originality needed for copyright protection, and is therefore in the public domain", and the file dimensions are 600 × 594 pixels rather than "The width of the image should usually be 220–300px; for a square image, 300 is ideal".

I'm sure the reasoning behind this was to avoid misuse of non-free media, but I think an example album should be representative of good practice on wikipedia. Could overuse of the non-free media be reduced by changing the example album each month (suggestions for example albums could be made here)? memphisto 11:15, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

HTML comments away from the documentation

The sample templates have comments pointing the the WikiProject for further information - these comments are widespread on the wiki (I put many of them there myself) but are not really appropriate. Information about the use of the template should be (and is) in the template documentation. Rich Farmbrough, 23:50, 2 January 2012 (UTC).

Agreed I never use them and frequently delete them. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:31, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

OK making it so. Rich Farmbrough, 15:49, 16 January 2012 (UTC).

Templates having such widespread use as this one should almost always have some hidden note pointing to the template documentation. Thousands of new editors simply copy the syntax from one article into another without ever reading the instructions, so we want to point them towards the documentation (A) so they'll be aware that there are instructions on how the thing's meant to be used, and (B) to encourage following those instructions, resulting in greater consistency between articles and fewer problems that we have to clean up later. So, I suggest leaving the hidden comment in, but having it point to Template:Infobox album rather than to WP:ALBUMS (I suspect it pointed to the project for so long because the template page was transcluded onto the project page...I've seen that sort of thing a lot). I know it seems redundant to have a template point to itself, but most newbies don't realize that these templates actually have pages, and that you have to type "Template:" in the search box in order to get to them. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:33, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes I did think of that. However the value of having a pointer to documentation may be inverse to the popularity of the template. And having pointers for every template seems a little .. pointless. We should just as well have pointers for the categories, since they may also have important documentation. All the templates are listed at the bottom of theedit page with links, of course, that may well be enough. Rich Farmbrough, 20:04, 19 January 2012 (UTC).

Linking to producer's article

In the case of a solo artist, if they are also the producer of an album, should they still be linked in the producer's field? If so, that would then result in three linked instances of their name within the infobox: "Studio album by __", "Producer: __" and "__" chronology". I have no problem with that, but I'd like to know what Wikipedia considers best practice. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 00:54, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Classic case of WP:OVERLINKing. I've never like that the infobox already links the artist's name twice ("Studio album by __" and "__ chronology"), no need to do it a third time. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Got it. In which case I've got a lot of overhauling to do, heh. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 16:33, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Last album field

When dealing with an artist's first album, should the "Last album" field be removed if it truly is their first ever recorded work? I've only seen one user on WP who does this, but I'd like to know—from here, where everything is seemingly set in stone—if it's absolutely necessary. I actually like keeping the field intact just in case some new demos or whatnot happen to surface for that artist, but if minimalism is the way to go, then.. alrighty. What do you folks think? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 02:27, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

If it's their first released work, then yes you might as well cut the last album field altogether, since by definition there isn't nor can there ever be a previous release. Even if a collection of early demos were to be released later, it would still go later in the chain, since this is by order of release, not recording. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:08, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds right. Looks like I'll be sifting through all the debut albums on my watchlist for a while then, heh. This perfectionism lark will scramble my brain one of these days.. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 03:15, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Linking to producer's article

In the case of a solo artist, if they are also the producer of an album, should they still be linked in the producer's field? If so, that would then result in three linked instances of their name within the infobox: "Studio album by __", "Producer: __" and "__" chronology". I have no problem with that, but I'd like to know what Wikipedia considers best practice. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 00:54, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Classic case of WP:OVERLINKing. I've never like that the infobox already links the artist's name twice ("Studio album by __" and "__ chronology"), no need to do it a third time. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Got it. In which case I've got a lot of overhauling to do, heh. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 16:33, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Last album field

When dealing with an artist's first album, should the "Last album" field be removed if it truly is their first ever recorded work? I've only seen one user on WP who does this, but I'd like to know—from here, where everything is seemingly set in stone—if it's absolutely necessary. I actually like keeping the field intact just in case some new demos or whatnot happen to surface for that artist, but if minimalism is the way to go, then.. alrighty. What do you folks think? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 02:27, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

If it's their first released work, then yes you might as well cut the last album field altogether, since by definition there isn't nor can there ever be a previous release. Even if a collection of early demos were to be released later, it would still go later in the chain, since this is by order of release, not recording. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:08, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds right. Looks like I'll be sifting through all the debut albums on my watchlist for a while then, heh. This perfectionism lark will scramble my brain one of these days.. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 03:15, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Linking to producer's article

In the case of a solo artist, if they are also the producer of an album, should they still be linked in the producer's field? If so, that would then result in three linked instances of their name within the infobox: "Studio album by __", "Producer: __" and "__" chronology". I have no problem with that, but I'd like to know what Wikipedia considers best practice. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 00:54, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Classic case of WP:OVERLINKing. I've never like that the infobox already links the artist's name twice ("Studio album by __" and "__ chronology"), no need to do it a third time. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Got it. In which case I've got a lot of overhauling to do, heh. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 16:33, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Last album field

When dealing with an artist's first album, should the "Last album" field be removed if it truly is their first ever recorded work? I've only seen one user on WP who does this, but I'd like to know—from here, where everything is seemingly set in stone—if it's absolutely necessary. I actually like keeping the field intact just in case some new demos or whatnot happen to surface for that artist, but if minimalism is the way to go, then.. alrighty. What do you folks think? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 02:27, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

If it's their first released work, then yes you might as well cut the last album field altogether, since by definition there isn't nor can there ever be a previous release. Even if a collection of early demos were to be released later, it would still go later in the chain, since this is by order of release, not recording. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:08, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds right. Looks like I'll be sifting through all the debut albums on my watchlist for a while then, heh. This perfectionism lark will scramble my brain one of these days.. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 03:15, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Producers in ABC order

Seems as if this guideline isn't as specific as we like to think it is! An editor has insisted on putting the producers of the album MDNA in order of how much they contributed to the album, and once I explained that they should go in ABC order, the user pointed out that there is no such rule for this. I'd say about 90% of album articles go by ABC order, and I suggest that we just add a nice little note about putting them in ABC order in the producer section. That is, assuming we all agree that they should be. Please leave your opinions on this below. Thank you, — Status {^talk_contribs 01:17, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I go by Personnel order, so in the case of MDNA, I think Madonna should automatically be first on the list because it happens to be her album. The artist, if they've contributed to the production, should always be number one. Any other producers should be ordered according to instrumentation (if they played something), and after that the order in which they appear in the liner notes. But then, I've completely made up those 'rules' from scratch years ago and have never been challenged, so pay me no mind. ;-) I'm also interested to see what others think about this, because it could have implications for Personnel and songwriting credits. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 03:30, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I understand what you mean, and that's what the other user was saying, BUT as I said to them, that would be the person who happened to edit that part's preference. To avoid edit wars against "this one should be first!" "no, this one should be labelled first!" if it should happen (and it has in the past), an ABC rule would completely erase that. — Status {^talk_contribs 03:42, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I neither agree nor disagree with ABC ordering for infobox production credits. I can see the argument for adopting it, as you've pointed out, but I'll always remain conflicted because of the "artist first" preference I mentioned above; to me it just seems ludicrous that an artist shouldn't be credited first and foremost for everything on their own album. Also, if ABC is indeed best practice for infobox purposes, where does that leave Personnel and songwriting credits? They, too, have plenty of room for POV and preference (see the write-up on my user page pertaining to instrumentation). It all ties in, and there should be consistency. So yeah, I do think it's time for a consensus on it. I've been meaning to bring it up for years, but now is as good as anything. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 03:55, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Generally, songwriting credits are usually taken as they are from the booklet. Personnel credits usually are in ABC order (at least whenever I've come into contact with them they have been). If a booklet had a "producers: blah blah blah" type of thing in it, that could be used, but they generally don't, so we have to find the best way to do that. I see what you mean, but at the same time, songwriting credits and personnel credits aren't the same thing as if the producers are labelled in the infobox in ABC order or not. — Status {^talk_contribs 04:04, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

How about something like: If the artist produced or co-produced any material on the album their name is to be listed first, followed by the rest of the producers of the album in alphabetical order. — Status {^talk_contribs 04:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

For songwriting credits I've always gone by how they're labelled in the liner notes (or CD surface). That doesn't bother me, and for now it doesn't seem to be the bone of contention. For personnel, however, I would strongly disagree with putting them in ABC order. It would absolutely pain me (go melodramatics, heh) to see something like that. Like I said, how silly would it look if Madonna is not listed first on the list? Take her her self-titled debut album, for example: putting bassist Anthony Jackson (who doesn't even have a WP article) ahead of her? Ridiculous! But again, that's totally a preference matter. I would only concede on that if there's a consensus. When it comes to infobox production credits, I don't have a problem with artist first followed by ABC. That's fine by me. But then, that still leaves room for preferences on Personnel, which I actually think is potentially much more edit war-provoking. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 04:22, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Personally and generally speaking, I've seen most articles use Allmusic as their source for personnel credits. Allmusic lists it all in ABC order, and it's usually just posted in the same way (although I'm sure in a lot of cases it's been tampered with). Personnel doesn't really effect this template, so I would have to say that part is for a completely different discussion. — Status {^talk_contribs 04:29, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

DJ mix album type

Can we an include a DJ mix album type, for, well, DJ mix albums. There are a lot on wiki. Or is this a mixtape?--TangoTizerWolfstone (talk) 11:53, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I think this would be worth adding as a distinct type. There have been a huge number of DJ mix albums released, and they're not really the same as mixtapes or compilations.--Michig (talk) 12:01, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree that adding a DJ mix album type would be beneficial. There's no way that an album like The Chemical Brothers' Brothers Gonna Work It Out should be listed as simply a compilation album. Virtually none of the songs mentioned on that album's track listing are featured in their entirety and the synching of excerpts of different records over the top of one another, which is intrinsic to this kind of release, creates something wholly different from the usual compilation album format. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 12:40, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

This has been suggested before. I believe the consensus has been that these fall under studio albums, in the same way that an album of remixes or mash-ups would. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:53, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

A lot of these albums are recorded 'live' in clubs, so they wouldn't fit into studio albums, nor really live albums.--Michig (talk) 16:42, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

If it's recorded in a live setting, why isn't it a live album? Granted it's a mish-mosh/remixing of other artists' work, but if done live I don't see how that's any different than any other DJ or electronic artist's live work. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:06, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Relevant prior discussions here. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:11, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Those prior discussions appear to be re. Mixtapes (of which there are at least two distinct types), not DJ mix albums, and the only discussion that seemed to generate any sort of consensus seems to be based on mixtapes as multi-artist compilation tapes.--Michig (talk) 17:24, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure how a DJ mix album can be deemed a studio album in the same way that a traditional, single artist recording studio-produced album like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heats Club Band can...that seems somewhat ridiculous to me. To return to my above example of Brothers Gonna Work It Out, none of the songs on that album were written or even performed by The Chemical Brothers (although there were one or two of their remixes of other artist's work included). Clearly it's not a Chemical Brothers' studio album like Dig Your Own Hole is. Neither is it really a compilation in the traditional sense, for the reason's I've outlined above. Albums like this are a bad fit for either of these designations -- but especially for "studio album". I'd also question whether an album of mash-ups should be considered a studio album...in my mind it would be better suited to the proposed DJ mix album type (assuming all the mash-ups were created by the same DJ). --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 17:47, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I guess I don't quite understand: If Brothers Gonna Work It Out is a collection of tracks by other artists, with the shared characteristic of having been mixed by the Chemical Brothers, how is it not a compilation album? Did they compile and then remix all the tracks, or were these tracks they had previously mixed/remixed and that had been previously released elsewhere? --IllaZilla (talk) 21:03, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

See DJ mix. --Michig (talk) 21:41, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

So they're recording a live set of them mixing various tracks together. Sounds like a live album to me. I saw Girl Talk do a set at a club last year, and if he'd recorded the set & released it as a CD then I'd call it a live album. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:03, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

To answer your question IllaZilla, Brothers Gonna Work It Out is a collection of other artists tracks mixed together by the Chemicals (but not necessarily featuring the Chemical Brothers own remixes of those songs, if that makes sense). However, it’s quite different from a regular compilation album in my view. For example, if you look at track 1 of that album, it features five separate songs, and of these songs, excerpts from one may only be heard for a few seconds, dropped in on top of another track. Likewise, there are also tiny fragments/samples of other records not even listed on the sleeve that make fleeting appearances, mixed on top of other tracks. So it's not like all the tracks listed on the sleeve are included in their full form or even included in their unadorned state.

This, to me, is why these DJ mix albums are a bad fit for the compilation album designation. These are distinctly different releases to a Now That's What I Call Music album, were all of the listed tracks are included in their entirety. On a DJ mix album many of the songs only make brief appearances and may be virtually unrecognisable, due to having other songs mixed across them.

I understand the point you're making that these are still technically compilation albums, but the designation just seems like a bad fit to me. I think there is definitely a need for a separate album type in cases like this. Oh, also, as far as I'm aware, Brothers Gonna Work It Out was not mixed live, but was instead created in the studio as a replica of one of the Chemical Brothers live sets. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 13:51, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

With your explanation of the album's nature, I agree that compilation album may not be the best fit: It's not a straight-up compilation of preexisting tracks, and the Chemical Brothers obviously did a lot of studio work mixing, blending, sampling, etc. to make it a cohesive work. However, I still don't think we need a new album type designation for this. I think it fits the bill of being a studio or live album, based not on the degree of originality of the material but on how the album was created. So they took a bunch of songs and made a DJ set by mixing and sampling them. That's exactly what mashup and sampling artists do (like Girl Talk), and their works are generally considered either studio albums (if they made them in studio or like setting) or live albums (if it's a recording of a live set). To my eye Brothers Gonna Work It Out fits the bill of a studio album: they took a bunch of preexisting works and spent time in a studio remixing and meshing them into a new creative work. If you don't think "studio" fits, we already have a designation for remix albums. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:20, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Funnily enough it was Brothers Gonna Work it Out i brang it up in the first place. I don't think it counts for a "Compilation album by various artists" or "Compilation album by The Chemical Brothers". Just to sort it out, it was a stuio mix, whilst Live at the Social was live. So hopefully now you might know i wanted there to be one.--TangoTizerWolfstone (talk) 16:34, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Consensus so far is to add it. Should we do it now or give it a few more days? --Michig (talk) 10:56, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Where's this consensus you see? You and 2 other people? 3 editors isn't enough to justify adding a field to a highly-visible template like this. You need a broader consensus. --IllaZilla (talk) 12:11, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

This is about the level of discussion we usually get, and changes have been made in the past with a similar level of input. 75% in favour is usually considered a consensus. I don't see how adding an extra option for a different album type will cause anyone any real problems. --Michig (talk) 12:28, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with IllaZilla, it seems like either live or studio, depending on where it was recorded. If you can't decide, we have an "other" type for undecided cases. (And I also agree three people after three days is way too early to add a type to this widely used template) --Muhandes (talk) 16:32, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

For future reference, how long and how many do you think would be enough? I generally agree that more input is needed for controversial changes. It looks like the (very controversial and much more effort-requiring) proposal to move reviews out of the infobox had input from about 13 editors over about 4 days before someone decided consensus had been reached.--Michig (talk) 16:50, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Copies Sold

Could we perhaps have a "copies sold" section? It would be useful to have it within the infobox rather than only in the article. Thanks! BigSteve (talk) 10:32, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

No thanks. Not relevant to an at-a-glance summary, and would be very difficult to calculate in many cases. Best left to the article body. Articles on major albums almost always have tables for their sales, certifications, & chart positions, so this info is already easy for readers to find. --IllaZilla (talk) 12:09, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

The problem with number of copies is that we rarely have up to date sources for these figures, and when we do, they soon become out of date. A 'Certification' field might be appropriate (e.g. Silver/Gold/Platinum), but I would be inclined to leave that to a mention in the body of the article.--Michig (talk) 12:33, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

We recently moved ratings out of the infobox, which was sensible because they're not attributes of the album itself. Well, neither are sales figures or certifications. Two Hearted River (paddle / fish) 12:57, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Neither is the chronology, nor every fanboy's opinion of what genre an album is, which we seem to be stuck with. The infobox should summarize the essential facts in an article, whether or not that content is an 'attribute' of the subject. In this case, I don't think sales figures (which we won't have most of the time) or certifications (of which an album may have several from different countries) really fall into that category. --Michig (talk) 13:28, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

The "certification" field for singles shows how badly this works. The last thing we want is a number which is very rarely undisputed added to the infobox. --Muhandes (talk) 16:34, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I didn't know that correct sales figures are so difficult to come by - I thought it was pretty cut-and-dry, like box office takings for films... But if you all say so, that's cool, thanks for the explanations! BigSteve (talk) 06:55, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Britpop albums

It seems most britpop albums have just 'britpop' as the genre, but i don't really think that goes. Britpop was more of a scene than it was a genre. I think that britpop should be left in the genre for these albums but others added, e.g. indie rock/alternative rock. Bare in mind that you can have well known albums like Be Here Now and The Great Escape have just 'Britpop', even though those albums really aren't anything alike in the musical variety (b-sides are a different story, for those that have heard some of TGE's later b-sides, after britpop had finished these hint towards the band's self titled album from 1997).

Just a thought really--TangoTizerWolfstone (talk) 18:27, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

This isn't really the place to discuss this. This page is for discussing the infobox template itself. If you're having issues with the genres listed in particular articles, you should bring it up on the talk pages of those articles. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:59, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Cast recordings

Not soundtracks but probably worth sharing the same color scheme, it might be worth adding Cast recording as a "TYPE" within this infobox. Would that make sense to do? --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars^{Talk to me} 09:19, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Requested edit

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Alt text Since the alt field should be filled in for every image, I propose amending the infobox so that it has some code like the following:

{{#switch:{{lc:{{{Alt|}}}}}
  |
  |Alternative text
  |* = [[Category:Album infoboxes lacking alternative text]]

Please add this code and make the appropriate tracking category, so that album articles can be in line with WP:ALT. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:09, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Is this commonplace? I'm not aware of any other infobox that does this sort of tracking. Can existing tools not be used to check if articles have alt text for all their images? Disabling for the moment pending more info. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:45, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Responses As far as I'm aware, no other infobox uses this, but per WP:ALT and W3C guidelines, alt text is normative and should be used. There are tools that can check for alt text, but they require being run on those articles--a tracking category is by far the easiest method for resolving this and since 99% of album articles only contain cover images, this would be an excellent way of ensuring that most all album articles comply with WP:ALT. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:21, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

This sounds useful to me. But, could code for the infobox be written so that the Category:Album infoboxes lacking alternative text is only added if the infobox has an album cover image? That might not be too hard, there's already a Category:Album infoboxes lacking a cover. Also, I'm assuming that both of these are maintenance categories, that won't be displayed on the articles. Is that correct? — Mudwater^(Talk) 02:55, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Maintenance Exactly, they would employ {{hidden}} and be discrete for editors, not displayed to casual readers. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I see no reason not to add, creation of a hidden maintenance category can only help the project. J04n(talk page) 08:29, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, sounds good. But, again, I think limiting it to infoboxes without covers would be the way to go. There are currently 17,270 pages in Category:Album infoboxes lacking a cover -- a lot more than I would have guessed. — Mudwater^(Talk) 11:20, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Not done — When using the {{editprotected}} template, please have a clear, specific implementation of the change, with the code already written and specific instructions as to where you're wanting it added. A sandboxed version is typically a good idea. --slakr^\ talk / 01:39, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Italics

In some cases, {{infobox album}} is used on non-album pages. For instance, Keith Palmer (singer) — the album doesn't have enough info to warrant a spinoff article. But how can I make the template not italicize the article name at the top of the page? Is that possible? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 18:41, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Adding the | Italic title = parameter and setting it to 'no' should do the trick. — ξ ^xplicit 19:27, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I went to add this to the documentation, but it is already documented right there at the top of the documentation page. As this question (and the matching question of "why does it not italicize"), can someone think of an even clearer way to document this? --Muhandes (talk) 06:25, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Prose tags

I must've missed some kind of discussion on this. A few months ago, noprose=yes in the professional reviews section yielded "This section needs to expanded using prose" externally, but now it doesn't. What's changed? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 17:16, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Different template You want {{Album ratings}}. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:09, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Italic title misbehaviour

(Pain in the neck, I know.)
Oddly, we now have Greatest Hits (The Mamas & the Papas album). Whole thing italicized, including the qualifier.
Control cases like Greatest Hits (Bruce Springsteen album) and Greatest Hits (Queen album) look the way they should.
It's that magic '&' character, isn't it? Varlaam (talk) 02:06, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Compilation albums in infobox chronology lists

I think I recall a previous dictate that compilation albums were not to be included in the chronology link section of album infoboxes. That was a good idea, and stopped those best-ofs interrupting the sequence of albums. Maybe I'm wrong about having read it in the past, but would there be support for such a policy? BlackCab (talk) 01:48, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Consensus changed on that issue in 2010, and it was decided that "In general, all albums and EPs should be placed in a single, chronological chain in order of release date" (as the documentation now reads). --IllaZilla (talk) 03:53, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Cast albums: adding "cast" to the list of choices

A couple of editors have brought to my attention that "soundtrack" is not appropriate for an original cast recording of a musical, such as at My Fair Lady (Broadway cast recording). How would we feel about adding "cast" to the list of accepted choices? If not, how do people think such an album would be Typed?--Mike Selinker (talk) 04:42, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

A cast recording is essentially a soundtrack album to a stage musical. So "soundtrack" is the correct type, IMO. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:12, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Support in general. I quote from the two relevant articles, Soundtrack album... A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film. and Cast recording... A cast recording is a recording of a musical that is intended to document the songs as they were performed in the show and experienced by the audience. Seems that WP should differentiate. How is another question which I shall leave to others using the template more frequently than me.--Richhoncho (talk) 07:53, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Support. A cast recording is most certainly not a soundtrack. It is an album by the actual cast of a stage musical - either an original cast album or a cast album by a revival cast. We have a few thousand articles on musicals in Wikipedia, and many musicals have cast albums, so I think it is a good idea to designate them as such in the template. -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:36, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
I guess I just don't see why that isn't covered by "soundtrack". "Soundtrack" has a pretty wide definition in popular usage: If you're being really technical, then a soundtrack is only the audio portion of a film (including dialogue), but that's almost never what the term is actually used to refer to. It's used to refer to albums of scores and even albums of songs from or featured in a film (which may not even appear in full in the film itself). It's not limited to films, either; there are soundtrack albums for video games, stage productions, theme park attractions, and many other forms of entertainment. And generally speaking, they are released to help market whatever that thing is. For example, American Idiot: The Original Broadway Cast Recording is, for all intents and purposes, the soundtrack album to the American Idiot stage musical: It's the songs featured in the production, sung by the cast of the production just as they are in the show. How is that not a soundtrack album? --IllaZilla (talk) 17:53, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Support. A cast recording is exactly what it says; a recording by a cast of performers. A soundtrack, I'm led to believe, is a complete score by a designated composer. The two should not be confused. -- Cassianto ^Talk 15:30, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Support per above.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:20, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Support, as per the above. - SchroCat (^ • @) 17:25, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Support. "Cast Recording" would seem to be appropriate and I see no problem with using the same color scheme that "Soundtrack" uses. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars^{Talk to me} 20:34, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
Done Since they are still related, I've used the same colour scheme as for soundtracks and film scores. De728631 (talk) 21:12, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks!--Mike Selinker (talk) 14:35, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Executive producer

Should executive producers be included in the producers field of the infobox? The example that is used, Together (The Supremes and The Temptations album), has Frank Wilson listed as a producer, but he is also credited as the executive producer, which is not mentioned in the example. Throughout other album articles, editors place (exec.) or (also exec.). The role seems to indicate that they funded the production, rather than produced the music. Dan56 (talk) 02:37, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I say just list them as a producer. The full credits can go in the personnel section. Probably won't be a big issue since (I think) not many albums have an executive producer. There were some long discussions about this in regard to the film infobox (here and here), but a great deal of films have exec producers whereas most albums don't. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:41, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

As an aside, in the days of tape, if not digital, many listed as producer were actually executive producers, It's a skilled profession, and contrary to common currency, not everybody can do it - think "self-produced." In answer to the question, where it is admitted that a producer is executive, just add (executive) after the name. --Richhoncho (talk) 06:59, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

So it's more than just financing a production? Dan56 (talk) 07:05, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Far more complex than that. In many instances it will be deals within deals and money will be the relevant decider, in other instances the "named producer" may delegate because he is too busy, sometimes the label chief gets the credit, if you check many "self-produced" the "engineer" is somebody who has substantial producer credits in their own right. From my own experience I know of people paid to "produce" whilst somebody more famous finished up on the credits and I am talking "Grammy-nominated." Ah but I am a cynic anyway and WP should be reporting "as verified." FWIW I am usually more interested in who the engineer is on taped recordings. Digital is different because it is non-destructive, so theoretically, anybody can do a blinding good production providing they have enough time.--Richhoncho (talk) 07:24, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

BTW, since I'm here, there have been a lot of variations on how to place producers in general: alphabetical order (by last name or by full stage name/credited name), or by descending order of contributions, like here. I was wondering which is correct. I cant really tell from the example at this template page. Dan56 (talk) 14:59, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I think we should list producers by alphabetical order, seperated by commas. I don't think formatting should be used per WP:ACCESSIBLE → though there is no size specific requirement for text, I do believe it makes it harder for people with disability and it looks messy having different font sizes. Producers should be credited however they're credited in the album's booklet. Rodney Jerkins is a good example, he's sometimes credited as Rodney Jerkins, sometimes as Darkchild and sometimes as Rodney 'Darkchild' Jerkis. All are correct but he should be credited specifically as to however he appears in that release — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 ^[talk] 15:46, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Template:Duration

this, to me, seems an utterly pointless template. if anything, it even takes longer to enter in this template than just to simply write XX:XX, and to achieve exactly the same result. I would be interested to hear what the point of it is, otherwise I am nominating it for deletion. Lachlan Foley (talk) 03:53, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

It appears to have something to do with microformat, which is a bunch of technojargon that I don't understand. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:55, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Looks like it helps to pass information to other programs easier than just typing XX:XX. I think it's worth continuing to use the template, it only takes a couple extra seconds to type, and it's apparently helpful. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 05:02, 3 October 2012 (UTC)