Wikipedia talk:Notability (music)/Archive 1

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Top 100 hit

"Has had a Top 100 hit on any national music chart"

Is this relevant? Many bands avoid labels and prefer self promotion and distribution, and are very successful (and respected) in their chosen genre(s) - despite not having (or caring to have) top 100 hits. A band's worth shouldn't be determined by corporate-driven popularity contests. I'm sure most non-hit bands would either meet or not meet other guidelines in this section, but I question whether this verbage should be retained in light of legal P2P distribution and self-promotion.

Note that the intro to the list says "A musician ... is notable if it meets any one of the following criteria". In other words, if a band doesn't have a top 100 hit but meets any one of the other criteria, it's still considered notable. The top 100 criterium is helpful for evaluating groups that appeared prior to the P2P era. --Lee Hunter 19:27, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Stick to driving a truck, because you'll never make it as a singer."[1] -- Eddie Bond (a successful musician) to Elvis Presley (who?). And now who's got a page? And who doesn't? Ewlyahoocom 11:44, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

"One-hit Wonders"

I'm wondering about the relevance of the Top 100 criteria as well. There are several artists that have one solitary hit and then either flame out, or disappear from public view. We'd be bombarded with dozens of entries on 1-Hitters, from The Jets (mid-80s, US); Sonoko Kawaii (late-80s, Japan) and so forth and so on. I'd wager that the majority of bands of this stripe aren't worth a Wiki entry, if anyone can remember them at all. --Mitsukai 17:23, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about that. A lot of one hit wonders are notable eg. Right Said Fred I'm too Sexy or Haddaway What is Love. I think if any song reaches the Top 100, its notable and therefore the band is notable in some sense or another. I mean, we have an article for every Pokemon.. they gotta be more notable than that. Sasquatch′↔Talk↔Contributions July 9, 2005 00:20 (UTC)
Many "one hit wanders" are huge parts of the culture. Also, I thought (maybe I'm wrong) the purpose of asking for "top 100" was mainly to stop garage bands from using wiki as free advertising/web-hosting, to get exposure. As long as somebody has established success *before* appearing in wiki, I think you can hope the article is being created/edited by people other than just the band themselve/management. In fact, I suggest an article written about an old one-hitter is probably much more sober and objective, than any article about a current on-going mega-star. I suggest the biggest current stars (and some dead ones), who have many fans/editors, have the *least* encyclopedic articles. The best articles are often written by non-fans looking at an old artist from a historical basis, and not as a fan. --rob 09:13, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Guideline questions

I like this set of guidelines. They add some clarity to discussions which, today, are too dependent on the judgment of individuals. We suffer because of the lack of consistency.

That said, I am uncomfortable with the 5th and 6th of the recommended standards as they are currently written. In order to facilitate the discussion, I'll lay my concerns out separately. Rossami (talk) 05:15, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Is making a living sufficient

6. Has made enough money recording or performing that the member(s) live entirely off those proceeds (i.e. are a professional or full-time musician)

This standard would not be sufficient for any other profession. The third-chair violin in the Peoria Symphony (made-up example) does not automatically deserve an encyclopedia article. We don't give out automatic encyclopedia articles to doctors or other highly competitive professions. We require some degree of excellence in their field. I do not believe that we should have a lower standard for musicians than we do for other people. Rossami (talk)
I originally had a second thought here that I did consider the converse a reasonable standard (that an inability to earn a living in music can be taken as evidence of non-notability as a musician). After further thought, I'm not even comfortable with that. I remember reading about at least one classical composer who achieved greatness yet had to maintain a separate career in order to feed his family. (My argument would be much stronger if I could remember who it was. How about an example outside music? Einstein became a notable scientist when he published his influential papers in 1905 yet he was still a clerk in the Swiss Patent office and was unable to make a living as a scientist.) The converse may be a useful hint but I don't think it rises to the level of the other rules that have been proposed. Rossami (talk)
Well, the fact that a band does not not meet that criterion doesn't mean that it isn't worthy of an article. I was a bit hesitant about this one for precisely the reason you mention -- are you sure that the hypothetical 3rd violinist in Peoria would be full-time, though? I don't know much about orchestras, but I rather assumed that only the conductor would be full-time in most orchestras. Maybe not, though... I just linked to this page from all over VfD, so maybe we'll get some more opinions on this one. Tuf-Kat 06:11, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
Rossami, maybe you're thinking of Charles Ives? I'm sure there are others, too. - Jpo 00:55, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree that being able to earn a living at music is a very low bar. There are bar bands that earn a living, music teachers, orchestra members, studio musicians (some make a lot of money doing commercials), even some buskers do ok. I don't see that earning power is relevant. --Lee Hunter 04:59, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In light of comments, I have removed this guideline. Tuf-Kat

Can notability be "inherited"

5. Contains at least one member who was once a part of or later joined a band that is otherwise extremely notable

If the band-member is notable independent of their participation in this band, then this band should be mentioned within the article about the notable band-member. (Another made-up example) Phil Collins' middle-school garage band was still a garage band. It should be discussed in the article about Phil Collins, not split away. Until an article becomes overly large, we should keep related material together so that future readers can better understand the context. Rossami (talk)
Meeting this standard doesn't mean that a separate article has to be made. I suppose it could be evidence that a redirect would be warranted. My original justification for adding it was Pete Best, who definitely deserves an article but wouldn't have met any of the other criteria (looking more closely, apparently the Pete Best Band had a "modicum of independent fame"). Tuf-Kat 06:11, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
Note: I have added a disclaimer that redirecting a former or spin-off band name may often be more appropriate than a separate articles. Tuf-Kat

Albums, songs (folk or pop), symphonies, record labels

Anybody have any ideas for criteria for these things? I tend to think any folk song with a verified history of more than a 100 years old can be considered de facto notable, though article on such songs should be deleted unless it has more content than the lyrics (which, even though they're public domain, are more suited for WikiSource). What about record labels? Do Greatest Hits albums really deserve articles? I think WikiProject:Music's standards say to redirect greatest hits to a page with their track lists, collected by artist -- this isn't enforced, though. What about ordinary, uninteresting soundtracks to notable movies? Theme songs to un-notable TV shows? Symphonies -- I don't know much about classical music, are all compositions by someone like Beethoven or Mozart notable? What about the lesser-known ones? I've been recently updating US state music articles (e.g. Music of Alabama, Music of Connecticut) with various things, including local orchestras and the like -- I usually link to articles on them (which don't exist), but perhaps I shouldn't

Just thought I'd try and get people thinking about this. Tuf-Kat 01:07, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

large and small countries

It seems very POV to include large and medium sized countries, and not small countries. This is pure prejudice against small countries and should be completely unacceptable. I don't know how the article should be rewritten, but it must be so, because to have NPOV you cannot discriminate against small countries. For instance at the momnent it implies you need to break into a large or medium size country Top 100, but No 1 in a small country is not valid. Also I assume by small they mean not many people, and not a small space, like the UK. Nothing is made clear except the authors prejudice against small countries. --SqueakBox 23:05, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)

These are guidelines and are allowed to be POV. The criteria explain what kinds of things might make a performer notable, meaning of significant interest to a large enough number of people to deserve an article in the Wikipedia. I think a person that goes on a national tour of the United States or Canada is pretty much de facto notable because that is expensive, time-consuming and could only be done by someone that a lot of people care about. In contrast, someone who goes on a tour that crosses all the major population centers of Tuvalu or Anguilla is not necessarily notable because this is not so difficult to do. (for the touring guideline, both population and geographic size should be taken into consideration, since I'm not sure "national tour" even means anything in relation to Singapore, for example).
WRT to the charting guideline, I think the same issue applies (a lot of small countries probably don't even have charts compiled) -- even if everybody in Tuvalu bought a particular record and went to see a performance by the artist, that would still only be 11,000 people. That doesn't mean such a performer doesn't deserve an article (if everyone in Tuvalu actually bought a particular record, it probably would deserve an article for reasons not directly related to sales anyway), all it means is that doing so does not make a performer notable.
The issue of deciding where to draw the line is an important one, and should probably be handled on a case-to-case basis until a consensus develops. I do think that "small countries" for this purpose should be a very short list, basically comprising just a couple tiny microstates and barely-inhabited Pacific or Caribbean island nations (I don't really think there should be an actual list, since there's going to be a wide gray area that will require human interpretation, consensus and common-sense). Basically, I had the same concerns as you when I wrote the guidelines, but wanted to put a qualifier in so nobody could claim their garage band was notable by virtue of playing in Monaco once or twice or selling their record to a couple hundred residents of Saint Helena (assuming there are charts in Saint Helena at all). Tuf-Kat 00:57, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)
Since it's a simple question of the sales figures needed to get into the charts, and thus the size of the audience, I think the rule is sane as long as "small country" is somehow clarified along the lines of what you're saying. As it currently stands, one might get the idea that "large" refers to the U.S., "medium" to the UK (and other countries with a population of 50+ millions) and everything below 50 million is a small country.
One solution could be a rule that corresponds to the population of the country. A suggestion: For countries with a population of 5-20 million (e.g. the Netherlands, Sweden, Mali, Ecuador), you'd have to be top 40 or top 50, for countries with a population of 1-5 million (e.g. New Zealand, Latvia, Leshoto, Uruguay) you'd have to be top 20, and for countries with a population of less than 1 million (e.g. Iceland, Bahrain, Suriname) you'd have to be top 5 or top 10, and somewhere below 250,000 chart position in itself isn't really a criteria for inclusion. / Alarm 18:45, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps a clarification that "small" is interpreted strictly, but I would disagree with adding something as specific as you propose. I wouldn't revert if you added it (they're only guidelines anyway), but I'd rather wait until this becomes an active issue with some more discussion and a few sample cases to look at. (I'd hesitate to say, for example, that a Top 20 Icelandic hit isn't de facto notable since I don't anything about any bands that would meet that criteria without meeting any of the others) Tuf-Kat 22:26, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
You're right, it is probably a bit to specific, but then again, the current criteria are rather specific as they stand. And any way you look at it, there is a certain difference between having had a Top 100 hit on Iceland and having had one in the U.S. But I'm not sure my suggestion above is ready to be incorporated in the text as it is. Some kind of clarification on "small" is definitely needed, though. / Alarm 23:01, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I put in a little footnote, basically saying that there is no accepted definition, but that "small" is defined in a very limited way. Tuf-Kat 01:37, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

Historical importance

Looking at the current criteria, I'm thinking it seems aimed at consideration of contemporary artists, although this seems not to be specifically stated. What about artists of historical importance? For example, Buddie Petit, Tony Jackson, and Leon Roppolo might have trouble being justified as article worthy under these criteria, but they (and others we don't yet have articles on) can be found in books like "Who's Who of Jazz" and are acknowledged as important historical figures in writing about their style of music. I doubt the intention is to put articles such as these on vfd (or am I wrong?). What would be a good way to remedy this? Allow for artists who are acknowledged as important influences on others who fit the criteria? Allow for artists who are mentioned as historically important in print by multiple writers with no personal connection to the band or musician? Wondering, -- Infrogmation 19:12, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

These are primarily intended to help guide discussions on VfD, and historical artists (say before 1970 or so) don't come up too often, though it has happened a few times (can't think of any names right now). So, I don't really think any such guidelines are necessary, since this hasn't become a real issue (perhaps just a disclaimer that these apply to contemporary musicians?). However, if you wanted to add something along the lines of your suggestions, I'd be fine with it, I just don't see a need. (I don't think "multiple writers" is necessarily important, and may be very difficult to meet for some fields -- I could write stubs, for example, on historical and notable calypsonians from the early 20th century, but could only cite one source mentioning them; there are undoubtedly more sources available, but that seems like asking a lot). Tuf-Kat

Genres

Proposed standards

Genres and subgenres

This section is being discussed on the talk page. Please exercise caution before relying on the guidelines proposed in this section.

A musical genre or subgenre is notable if at least two of its participants (either by self-definition or according to a major music media), musicians or ensembles, meet the criteria above. Additionally the genre itself is notable if it:

  1. Has had two or more international concert tours named or promoted as being of that genre (for example the tour Ozzfest for genre heavy metal music), or two or more national concert tour in a large or medium-sized country*
  2. Has been prominently featured in any two major music media in a feature devoted primarily to the genre and not a specific artist who plays it
  3. Is a genre that contains within it a subgenre that otherwise meets these guidelines
  4. Has historical interest through influencing a notable genre, musician, or ensemble
  5. Has a category in a major music award, such as a Grammy, Juno or Mercury Music Award
  6. Contains at least three musicians or ensembles who are referred to using the name of the genre as their primary field by at least three sources of any kind each; note that by primary field, the musician or ensemble must be more commonly referred to by the genre in question than other, possibly more established genres
  7. Two or more major mainstream or alternative music media refer to the genre without using so-called "scare quotes" or defining the genre appositively or parenthetically (i.e. they assume the reader will be familiar with the term)

What about genres? Specifically Dronology. Hyacinth 23:53, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think this page should have criteria for genres, record labels and anything else worthwhile. Go ahead and propose some criteria. Tuf-Kat 00:29, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. Hyacinth 00:52, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
See also, for someone else's thoughts on metal subgenres, Talk:Heavy metal music#Infobox. Wikipedia has numerous articles on metal subgenres, like circus metal, that should probably be deleted (IMO) but almost certainly wouldn't pass VfD. Consider also desert rock and genre+region articles like Icelandic hip hop. Tuf-Kat 01:25, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
This is tricky! Hyacinth 01:55, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I added a couple, and reworded one to make it more specific. (say Rolling Stone does a feature on some band, perhaps referring to them as "kaleido-rock" in a brief aside -- does this make "kaleido-rock" notable? I switched it to music media doing a feature specifically on the genre, and not an artist who plays it). The one about an artist playing in a genre, then switching to a new one, with notability going de facto in both directions -- I'm not sure I agree with it. Is there a specific reason for that guideline I'm not seeing? Would it allow for a genre that otherwise would not meet the guidelines? Tuf-Kat 02:38, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
I worry that some of the standards proposed may be too low. Just because a single article coins a neologism does not mean that it is yet appropriate for a full encyclopedia article. Criteria 5 (Has a category in a major music award) strikes me as about the only criterion on the list that is objective. 6 and 7 might be indicators but if that's the only evidence, it should still be tested on a case-by-case basis (which means in practice, subjecting the article to the VfD process). Rossami (talk) 14:16, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I would prefer the standards are too low rather than too high. Hyacinth 19:49, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
What about the standards strikes you as subjective? Criteria or standards 1, 2, 6, and 7 refer to external sources. Hyacinth 19:49, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Regarding 6 and 7 -- these are all only guidelines and will not preclude any article being nominated for deletion, nor, once nominated, deleted. Meaning all these guidelines should evolve over time -- rather than argue over specifics, maybe we should argue over actual articles. Do you think circus metal should be deleted? What about Icelandic hip hop? Why or why not? Tuf-Kat 00:53, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
  1. Touring - establishes notability by assuming a large and diverse audience for a large-scale tour
  2. Media Featuring - if some arm of the major music media promotes a genre, that constitutes proof both that the audience exists and is of interest to a sizable number of people
  3. Subgenre->Genre Reflexivity - this one just seems logical to me, but probably won't apply in very many cases
  4. Historical Interest - kind of a vague, none of the above or miscellaneous category
  5. Award Category - constitutes proof that the genre is widely-known and respected
  6. 3 Performers - if three performers (I'm assuming these performers are notable in and of themselves, BTW) are considered primarily part of a genre, this establishes that there is something which separates the genre from related styles, and that it is a phenomenon which involves a number of people
  7. Assumption of Knowledge - if the media feels fit to refer to an artist as being of a certain genre, without requiring an explanation (or scare quotes to indicate the subject's obscurity or imprecision), they must be assuming the reader is already familiar with it. Those readers who are not familiar with the genre will want to to turn to a reference work to find out what it is ---> Wikipedia.

On an unrelated note, what about radio formats like adult contemporary music? Are they de facto notable? Tuf-Kat 22:56, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

I meant to express some skepticism but not to the point that the guidelines should be removed altogether. My concern is that once a criterion becomes an accepted part of this list, it will be used by some (many?) on VfD as an absolute justification to "keep" without regard for mitigating factors or reasonable judgment. While we should err in VfD decision-making on the side of "keep", I prefer a far more conservative approach to the creation of specific guidelines.
As I said before, my primary concern is the subjectivity of the designation. (Not subjectivity of the guideline.) As written, the guidelines could be interpreted to encourage the inclusion of articles about "sub-genres" which are really nothing more than the one-time marketing ploy of a single promoter or a single hack magazine writer. If there were multiple tours advertized as the genre or independent articles in multiple magazines, that would begin to provide evidence that it is no longer a marketing ploy or neologism. If the term is only used by a single magazine, I remain skeptical that it is yet real. Likewise with the "historical influence" criterion, could that be misconstrued as applicable if it is the opinion of a single author?
Criterion 3 has logical appeal but I haven't been able to think of an example where it would ever apply. Every "parent" genre I could think of would already meet at least one of the other criteria.
Anyway, those were my thoughts. I like the list but wanted to provoke some thought on the wording. Rossami (talk) 18:16, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Regarding the music media guideline, I think marketing generally promotes bands, not genres, which is why I added that the feature must be on a genre independent of any particular performer. But then, I don't read the mainstream music media, so maybe I'm out of the loop on that.
On the historical interest guideline, I'm not sure it's necessary. It's vague enough to be nearly useless, and I can't think of a single genre that wouldn't otherwise be included. Even the most obscure subgenres of the blues or gospel or something, I'm sure these wuld all meet at least #7 and probably #6 and maybe #2 (depending on if you consider a blues specialty magazine "major music media" when talking about the blues... I would, but your mileage may vary). I can't really see anybody but a troll upset over the deletion of his pet genre nominating something like the Piedmont blues for deletion, and I don't think the VfD community would feel at all obliged to delete just because the article doesn't meet these guidelines, so... that guideline could probably be removed. Like with the musicians guidelines, we should specify that these are meant primarily for contemporary or relatively near contemporary genres -- they may not apply to Baroque music, for example. We could also expand "major music media" to include academic books, which would certainly make it easy to justify any historical genre.
On the genre-subgenre reflexivity guideline, I'm the one who added it and wouldn't mind if it was removed. I don't think it harms anything, but it will probably never apply. I'm not sure why I came up with that one.
Perhaps we should start off the guidelines with a goal, explaining that the guidelines are merely the closest we have yet come to defining how to meet the goal. For example, we could probably agree on something like A genre is notable if the term is used by a large number of people, at least some of whom are not directly related to the genre, to describe a reasonably-fixed group of performers who share identifiable characteristics. The guidelines, then, are approximations of how to measure that in as objective a way as possible. We could also look at what genres we don't want -- maybe even try coming up with some guidelines for what is not appropriate for Wikipedia. Tuf-Kat 22:39, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

Record labels

From historic examples of print encyclopedic works (eg, Brian Rust's American Record Label Book and such) which tried to include EVERY company that issued 78rpm records, I'd say that at least through mid-20th century there's a reasonable arguement for including any brand commercially mass produced. Of course back then the technology of putting out records wasn't such that anyone with a few bucks to spare could get the equipment to make them in their living room. My thought is that it is not reasonable to try to continue this into the recent digital era, as home produced demo cds are generally non-notable. I'm not sure where to draw the line in between. Any thoughts of rough rules of thumb? Should we try to extend default inclusiveness up through the gramophone record era, does the proliferation of vinyl singles and small label albums in the later years of the LP era make that too much of a can of worms to consider? What should be considered: Distribution? Sales? Notability of content? Pondering, -- Infrogmation 05:37, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Go ahead and propose some specific criteria -- distribution, sales and content could all establish notability, I think. Would any record label that released an album by a notable artist (as defined by the guidelines here) be de facto notable? I'm not sure. Tuf-Kat

Suggested guidline for musicians

Perhaps a criterion ought be added that if a musician has at least one complete album available on a legitimate and reputable pay-to-download service (as an example, iTunes or Napster), such musician or group is eligible for a Wikipedia article.

This would add one more test for the legitimacy of indies -- a sort of Google test.

Jeff Anonymous 14:51, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What does it take to achieve that? How difficult is it to do? Tuf-Kat 02:48, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

IF IT WERE AT ALL POSSIBLE...

these words would be even bigger. Providing a framework to determine notability is a good thing - in that it provides utility to the users in the from of added informational value. However, using this notability guide (which is subjective, unlike NPOV) for any purpose other than to inform the end user, or give her more power - is Not A Good Thing. In case it isn't clear, this means using the subjective quality of a musical ensemble's notability according to the arbitrary criteria enumerated to inform decisions which are binding on all users (deletion) is not acceptable. You can make Wikipedia better by giving people more choice or more information. You cannot make Wikipedia better by giving people less choice, or less information. nsh 06:56, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

You would have a BETTER POINT if the word "DELETION" had actually been USED in these DISCUSSIONS. However, the words "MERGE AND REDIRECT" have been used QUITE OFTEN. Calm down, please. Soundguy99 07:54, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm always calm, at least ok Wikipedia, the subject heading is a reference to a joke, which can be edited if it seems indicative of anger or frustration. The above comment is not made in response to any particular discussion or action, but merely as a reminder and instructional aid. It is better to respond to what someone has written, then what you believe they are thinking :-) nsh 08:24, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • OK. I have no idea what joke you're referring to, but I'll assume good faith. I suppose my response may have been more wiseass than was appropriate. Sorry. My personal opinion is that it's extremely rude to edit someone else's comments on the talk page, so I don't do it. Besides, if I'd edited your comment, your joke would have disappeared entirely, no?  ;-) Soundguy99 15:23, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
More information is better if and only if that information is reliable. Topics which are extremely obscure or "non-notable" can be functionally impossible to verify and extraordinarily difficult to protect from subtle vandalism. As someone else once said, node theory shows that an increase in the number of nodes will increase the value of the entire network as long as the added nodes have positive value. False or even unverified articles (nodes) have negative value to the network. They distract the reader and discredit all the articles. Wikipedia is better without them. Rossami (talk) 14:07, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ditto what Rossami says. Plus, the general idea of these guidelines is to increase "informational value." For example, some articles have been nominated for deletion because an editor finds them and says, "I've never heard of this band, and the article sucks because it's two sentences and three links. Delete this." With a set of guidelines, it's easier (and, hopefully, more likely) for an editor to do ten minutes of Google research, compare what he/she finds with the guidelines and say, "Well, maybe I've never heard of this band, and the article sucks right now, and I have no interest in expanding it myself, but it's likely that somebody could expand on this, so I'll just tag it as a stub and move on." Then somebody who is interested can find it and fix it. Soundguy99 15:23, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

College bands/groups and notability

I apologize for adding articles about minor bands if they're not important enough for Wikipedia; most of the recent ones I've created certainly don't come anywhere near meeting these Notability and Music Guidelines. But I would still like to see more articles about college bands on Wikipedia. It really helps to give a better feel for the music scene of an area or university. Maybe this group and other groups whose writeups I've created aren't "notable" in and of themselves, but small discussions of their music really humanize the writeup for the university that they are students of. If you're going by the letter of the law, these writeups should probably be deleted, but please leave me a message before you do so.

Additionally, I will do my best to expand them before a VfD comes up, realizing that supposedly a well-written article trumps concerns of notability. I'm not taking this personally, but I would like to see at least some of these writeups stay. It is, however, finals week, and it may take 2 weeks to finish revisions for this reason. Please be patient. The complete list of my recent group inserts:

CWRU groups

Other

Thanks for your understanding. - McCart42 16:28, 2005 Apr 26 (UTC)

    • Based on a a suggestion from Vegaswikian, I will be moving the CWRU group writeups to a single writeup tentatively entitled Case Western Reserve University Music Groups. It sounds shaky as an idea right now -- any better suggestions?
      • Actually, that sounds like a fine idea, though I'd go with Case Western Reserve University music scene. That would allow you to cover individual bands as well as trends, etc. (In any case, Music Groups in your original title should be de-capitalized.) Also, it would be a good idea to leave a note on each of the articles' talk pages indicating your intentions. android↔talk 16:59, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)
        • OK, sounds good. I like your suggestion of a better title, and I'll start moving sometime soon, leaving redirects from the previous pages and a note on the talk page with a link back to this discussion. I am somewhat concerned that the writeup won't look quite as clean as the current system, though. Seems much more elegant to just have a writeup for the group itself, though I guess I see that what I consider significant in my little world might not be something anyone else really cares about. Any suggestions for what to do with the other (non-CWRU) music group writeups which will probably eventually be deleted as insignificant? Opinions on which of the music wikis to post stuff like this to? I see Music-Wiki and the Music Wikicity as possibilities, though it would be nice to have some branch of wikipedia which automatically imports the larger band writeups and also allows smaller band writeups (unlike the current WikiProject:Music guidelines). - McCart42 20:35, 2005 Apr 26 (UTC)
Nononono, you can certainly leave them on Wikipedia. The best way to prevent these articles from being deleted is to actually write a comprehensive article. All of the bands listed have multiple CD's & lots of touring experience, which at least qualifies them for borderline notability. What annoys people (or makes them suspicious) is when an article has two sentences and a link to the band's website as the only content. You shouldn't just create an article that says "They're a band from Pittsburgh, here's who's in it, here's their records, go to their website for more info." You should take the info you get from the website and any other sources you can find (including your own knowledge about the band) and write a real article. (see Archers of Loaf, Big Black for examples of reasonable articles about relatively obscure bands.) Although I would un-wikilink the band members and albums until or unless you can create real articles about them. Soundguy99 23:27, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That sounds great. I was always planning to fill out those articles, but I tend to start lots of projects before finishing one. Hopefully if everyone is a bit patient with me I can put in all I've been meaning to put in on them before they hit the cutting block. If I don't make it in time and they do get deleted, how final is that? I would certainly hope that I could make an effort to maintain that work that I put in before the article was deleted. I did once borrow someone else's brief writeup on a historic person named Liu Daxia that was speedy deleted, and I have no idea where that work went, so I'm a bit curious about this sort of "lost information". - McCart42 04:11, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)
  • Well, not to blow my anonymyity, but I can definitely say from personal experience that the bands listed under "CWRU groups" (except JFJO, which is not a CWRU band, although they've appeared there several times) are way under the notability guidelines, and would be likely to be nominated for deletion under Vanity Pages, Verifiablilty and several sections of What Wikipedia is not. I think your proposed solution is swell, although I would add "Student" somwhere in the title to differentiate it from any "official" music groups that exist as part of the CWRU music degree program. Good luck with finals.  ;-) Soundguy99 18:04, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • I agree with making an article on the university music scene, but I don't see any reason to limit it to student groups. If the article gets large, that could be a way to split it, but it's not like we have enough material at this point to worry about an overly large article. Tuf-Kat 01:48, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)
      • My "Student" suggestion was based on Vegaswikian's suggestion that he create a section of the main CWRU article for the bands listed above at "CWRU bands", not a separate article. I think that's a good idea, since a separate article on the "music scene" at CWRU (it's a small school) could also very easily come under fire for deletion. So if he's creating article sections, I think it's better organization to differentiate between self-organized student musical groups and university-created musical groups. FWIW. Soundguy99 02:29, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
        • All these suggestions are well received. One of these options will be fine for the situation at hand, I think. I have already put a section for CWRU music in the writeup, but I worry that if I add all the groups' writeups to that section it will become overburdened and awkward. I do think that if it wouldn't be deleted, a single writeup for the CWRU music scene would be best. - McCart42 04:11, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)

Concerns

I have to express some strong reservations regarding these guidelines, as they seem to be heavily weighted in favor of commercially successful artists. More directly, many of these criteria mostly equate to having or earning a great deal of money (specifically 1, 2, 3, and 7). Underground bands, or even musicians from poor areas, would never be able to afford to have a top 100 hit (how can you be on the billboards if you can only afford to press 500 records?) or ever dream of touring internationally because of cost. Following the current guidelines will, I fear, lead to a pro-mainstream and pro-Western bias in "notability" for music articles. I'm hoping to open up the discussion on this since I don't think it would serve the project's interests to so restrict what should and should not be included. siafu 21:04, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Before you can suggest scrapping this set of guidelines, you must propose a counter-solution. Specifically, how can the average reader/editor possibly be expected to verify the content of the article if the subject could only afford to press 500 records? This set of guidelines may not be perfect but these rules have so far proven to be a pretty good proxy for our ability to write a verifiable, NPOV article. If anything, my concern is that they are not yet exclusive enough. Rossami (talk) 02:39, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'm not suggesting yet, I'm simply pointing out a perceived bias, hence my comment on wanting to open up the discussion. I'm not sure which you facts you think would be difficult to verify; small distribution means you don't seel many records, not that they're kept secret. Sticking to fact, and citing opinion to its source (e.g., music reviews) makes for an NPOV guideline. Verifiable, NPOV articles on notable musicians need not be limited to subjects chosen by the media. siafu 22:16, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Do you have any performers in mind that don't meet any of these criteria but you feel deserve an article? Wikipedia has numerous articles on non-mainstream acts with few sales or pop success. Sales are simply one way to gain notability, as are being the most prominent representative of a specific style, winning a respected music award, releasing just two albums on a major indie label, or going on a national concert tour (which, though costly, is done quite frequently by unknown bands, especially outside of the huge countries like the US and Canada -- how many British unknown bands have gone on national tours? quite a few, I'd imagine, and the same with Germans and Japanese, etc, less so for American unknown bands). In any case, I'm certainly open to expanding the criteria, but you have to suggest something before there's any discussion, or otherwise there's nothing to discuss -- you may feel these are biased, Rossami may disagree, and I may perhaps secretly prefer that only members of The Spice Girls deserve articles, but none of that's relevant except in as much as it involves changing, adding or subtracting one or more guidelines. Tuf-Kat 21:31, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)
Actually, a ton of unknown U.S. bands go on national tours, too; nothing in the guidelines or real life says a national tour can't be four smelly guys in a beat-up Ford Econoline van. And a lot of obscure U.S. bands do some pretty significant European touring; often they do better there than in the States. Soundguy99 14:21, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
National tours usually are four smelly guys in a beat-up Econoline van, I agree, but just what is a "large" or "medium" size country? What is to be made of the apparent contradiction in terms "Major indie label"? I acknowledge that I may have a personal stake given my interest in garage punk, and that these are not "hard and fast" guidelines, but would, for example, the stub I started on The Spits be kept, or axed under these guidelines? The problem with these guidelines is that they provide multiple easy ways for "big" bands on major labels (U2, the Spice Girls, whatever) to "qualify" and few, if any, means for bands with large cultural significance but little commercial success to be included. For example, The Minutemen might only qualify because Michael Azzerad chose to include them in his book; the same for Mission of Burma before their recent reunion. siafu 23:23, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Ditto what Tuf-Kat says below, with the added point that writing articles is better than writing stubs. If you genuinely can't expand due to real life time constraints, leave a note saying so on the article's discussion page, and then return and expand ASAP. The ability to write a reasonably complete, well-resourced article about a band is kind of a de facto guide to notability - if you can't get more than a couple of short paragraphs out of them, they probably haven't done enough to warrant an article. Soundguy99 15:18, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Terms like large and small country, and major indie label are meant to be vague. These guidelines don't replace human judgement -- they're just supposed to guide decisions. In the context of a band that played in every corner of Luxembourg for twenty years, I'd vote to keep, but a garage band that crisscrossed Iceland once may not be notable. The Spits don't appear to be very notable from their article -- why did you bother writing an article on them? (that's a serious question... whatever the answer is ought to be in the article) Assuming notability is desirable for our purposes, either The Spits 1) meet one of the guidelines, 2) they don't but are notable for some other reason (in which case, please explain so the guidelines can be expanded), or 3) they aren't notable and shouldn't have an article. I don't see what U2 or the Spice Girls have to do with anything, because no one really argues they should be deleted; what does it matter if U2 meets every requirement and Mission of Burma meets one? They're both far past the grey area anyway. I guess my point is that you seem to be reading more into these guidelines than they're supposed to have -- this isn't meant as an exhaustive list of all possible conditions under which a music-related person or group would deserve an article, and it's not an enumeration of the requirements for a performer to validate his or her life's work. No one's going to slap our collective wrist if the guidelines aren't strictly adhered to. If you're not sure if a band is notable, you can look at these guidelines and see what kinds of things you should be looking for; if the band doesn't meet any of the guidelines, then there's presumably some other reason you think they need an article, so explain what that is. In other words, a band that meets these guidelines is probably notable, one that doesn't probably isn't. This simplifies considering VfD candidates, since most fall quite clearly on one side or the other -- yes, there are still some that are debateable, and some exceptions to every rule, but that's the reason VfD is a human-guided process, and not a simple algorithm, and if the guidelines simplify most of the band VfDs as clear keeps or deletes, then they're helpful even if some still require human discretion, judgement and common sense. Tuf-Kat 02:44, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
WP is not a catalogue of every musician, no matter how obscure. I would need strong evidence that an artist is notable if they haven't made several records which sold well within their genre. It's not so much that WP is weighted against poor artists as it is a difficulty for poor artists to become well known (i.e. notable). That's unfortunate but it's really not an encyclopedia's role to correct the problem. --Lee Hunter 12:17, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

IMHO, the guidelines are actually looser than they appear at first glance (in a good way); while chart success is the first guideline, the "indie label", "media attention" and "national tour" criteria open it up to many, many acts that have not had chart success. Also, while it's not clearly stated in the guidelines, W'pedians tend to de facto allow for a certain slack by considering "importance or notability within genre"; i.e. if somebody's active in the Canadian folk music scene, they can get an article (even though nobody in the U.S./England/Australia knows who they are), and they've probably passed one or more of the guidelines. As far as the pro-Western bias goes, well. . . . you've got a point, and there is a project (sorry, can't remember the name) that's attempting to generally expand our coverage of non-Western topics, but, well, this is the English Wikipedia - it could certainly be argued that it's not our mission to give free publicity to acts from non-English-speaking countries, no matter how talented they are or how popular they are in their home country. And, again, the looseness of the guidelines means that, say, (making an example up off the top of my head) a musician from Senegal could have an album on Rounder Records, come to the U.S. and hit a dozen of the major cities (in venues that specialize in world music, which can include art museums and other non-rock performance spaces), have an article in each of the papers in those cities and some media attention from "Guitar Player" magazine and NPR, and all of these added together "pass" the guidelines, which means a reasonably well-written and sourced article would be kept, and probably not even questioned. Soundguy99 14:21, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Criterion 4

Has been prominently featured in any major music media

The piping of "major music media" to Category:Music magazines implicitly excludes online resources like the allmusic.com (cited later in the guildeline) and bbc.co.uk. I would prefer to see this to read "major music media including respected music magazines and independent reference websites".—Theo (Talk) 09:37, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Should also include television and radio. Kappa 10:03, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I considered that but decided that TV and radio broadcasts are ephemeral and unverifiable.—Theo (Talk) 11:38, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Not that unverifiable - don't most TV shows/networks have info online about their musical guests ? Plus I'd figure a TV appearance would be prominently mentioned on a band's website; it's a big deal for most bands, since it's a quick way to get a lot of publicity. And there are radio trade mags that track radio play. Soundguy99 17:33, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I think you'll have to define "major". Perhaps add "with peer review or informed editorial control" to any mention of media outlets, because you don't want Wikipedia, message boards, public-access TV, student-run college radio, MP3.com, and other self-publishing/self-promoting media outlets to be included in "major music media." — mjb 9 July 2005 05:55 (UTC)
  • Association of "major music media" with Category:Music magazines is simply inadequate. In addition to omissions described above by Theo, it also includes website-onlys and other relatively insignificant mediums that, if a band cannot satisfy ANY of the other criteria, are not a big enough deal by themselves to merit WP inclusion. Dcarrano 01:14, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Music genres

I'm getting sick of VFDing imaginary music genres. Every garage band thinks they have a unique style which they'd like to name, and even worse, every journalist, reviewer, webzine, and blog likes to make up their own terms to describe musical styles. Typically, WP articles on styles give examples of bands which play in that style, but if you read the band's article, it uses some other name for their genre. Accordingly, I'd like to propose the following criterion for a music genre to be included:

  • A music genre may only be included in Wikipedia if at least one Wikipedia article on a musician or band uses the genre as a principal description of their style.

—Wahoofive (talk) 23:49, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

How would that guideline address the problem of 'every garage band thinks they have a unique style which they'd like to name'? As for 'every journalist, reviewer, webzine, and blog likes to make up their own terms to describe musical styles', the unfortunate reality is that more often than not, it is the music press, not academic musicologists in some ivory tower, that creates new genre names. The names are all legitimate to the degree to which they are adopted by the music producers, brokers and consumers. It's difficult to know where to draw the line. — mjb 00:03, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
That's why the line I'm proposing is that there be a legitimate WP article (i.e. not a garage band) which uses the term to describe that band's style. This puts the onus on the editors of each band page to determine which term is appropriate for that band. I don't care who came up with the genre term, but I'd like to see a consensus so we don't have ten different terms (coined by ten different webzines) for the style of the same band.—Wahoofive (talk) 01:39, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Mmmmm. . . . . Too self-referential, IMHO. W'pedia articles aren't neccessarily proof of the existence of a genre. I would think a guideline should say something about multiple verifiable uses of the term in major media, and associated with a minimum number of "unrelated' acts (i.e. acts that don't have important members in common; just because one guy has five projects he's working on with different members in each project, it doesn't constitute a genre.) Also, just to be sneaky, my gut instinct is that a lot of these "fake genre" articles are created immediately after a new/anon editor writes an article about a non-or-borderline-notable band; after about a week the author loses interest, moves on to something else, and stops watching his/her baby articles or becomes more acclimated to W'pedia standards. So waiting a bit before VfDing might result in the fake genre getting deleted without objection. Soundguy99 16:15, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
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