Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Radio Stations/Archive 2015

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Requested edit

In the paragraph which says:

Please consider adding the Philippines to the places mentioned. Radio stations in the Philippines are not required to identify themselves on-air by their call signs that call signs, especially of most FM stations, became unknown to the listeners. —theenjay36 (talk) 08:16, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

On-air identification isn't the determining factor — even in North America, frankly, a lot of listeners know their favourite radio station only by its brand name rather than its legal call sign, and many such radio stations deliberately try to use their call sign as rarely-to-never as they can get away with. So in reality, the difference between the Philippines and North America in that regard is actually a lot less profound than you seem to think it is. It's just standard 21st-century broadcasting practice, not a uniquely Philippine thing.
Rather, the primary reason why WPRS privileges call signs over brand names, at least in places where call signs actually exist, is that (a) call signs are almost always unique identifiers, whereas using brand names would leave us with an untenably tangled mess in which nearly every station would have a disambiguated title (for example, we'd probably have something like 50+ articles called "Star 96 (City)"), and (b) brand names change frequently while call signs change a lot more rarely, so using call signs allows us to significantly reduce how often we would actually have to move articles to new titles (and how often we would have to deal with people trying to create a new article about "New Brand 106" as a separate topic from "Old Brand 106", on the grounds that the branding change somehow created a completely separate new radio station that had nothing to do with the old one.) Bearcat (talk) 05:36, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Categories For Deletion: Radio stations by frequency

FYI, there is a discussion here about removing the "Radio stations by frequency" categories, i.e. Category:Radio station 88.1, etc. This discussion began January 3, 2015, so if you want to make your voice heard, please do so ASAP. (There are also similar discussions for American TV stations by channel number, Canadian TV stations by channel number and Mexican TV stations by channel number.) --Chaswmsday (talk) 01:01, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

FCC history cards

In the past year or so, the FCC has been putting its pre-1980 license index cards online - they were maintained by hand using a typewriter dating back to the 1920s

These are an invaluable resource for researching history - for example, the article for KWKA mentions the station was started by Norm Petty, but doesn't cite a source.

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getimportletter_exh.cgi?import_letter_id=45422

Confirms that fact, as well as the date the station was licensed, and pre-1980 ownership changes24.74.37.142 (talk) 17:47, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Greek radio (and television) stations

New User:Trapezanidis 1453 has been creating a number of these, probably translating from Greek Wikipedia. It might be useful for someone from this project to assist him with infoboxes, cats, notability for broadcasters and English. I have left a note on his talk page suggesting the same. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:25, 22 February 2015 (UTC).

@Rich Farmbrough: You might want to copy this post to WP:GREECE as we typically cover US and Canadian stations. I'm not sure if anyone would know about Greek radio stations here. For the TV stations, post this message over to WP:TVS as well. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 16:56, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll do that. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:34, 22 February 2015 (UTC).

WHFS-FM

I suggest this page should be moved to WBRN-FM, per FCC.--John123521 (Talk-Contib.) RA 14:22, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Post move

That move has gone ahead, after some hickups, and I'm going to suggest a tweak to the naming conventions to make it easier next time.

It seems to me that, in the case of radio stations that are legally obliged to use a particular callsign, when this callsign changes (as in this case) the article should be immediately elligible to move to the new callsign. I think that's both the letter and the intention of Wikipedia:WikiProject Radio Stations#Modifying article titles for stations that change their call signs (see here for a permalink to the current version at the date of this comment). The only problem is, that's not currently linked to from WP:AT and so has no status as a topic-specific naming convention.

I think it should be recognised as an official naming convention. The change of official callsign has implications that mean it's reasonable to assume that the new callsign is almost instantly in common use.

So it's an unusual and very interesting topic area, and possibly has implications in other areas as well. It's a clear case I think, and might well be helpful as an example in untangling more complex cases in other topic areas.

But for now, just making future RMs that much simpler would justify some work on getting official consensus-based acceptance of this article naming convention. These callsign changes are quite common, so the investment will be quickly repaid.

Comments? Andrewa (talk) 01:21, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Typically, when a page is moved, there is a redirect left over. So, when someone searches for, say WHFS-FM, they will be redirected to WBRN-FM. In most cases, with a disambig page, there is a reference to a previous use of a callsign or a hat note.
Just for reference, when a callsign is changed on a station, the station begins using it immediately at Midnight local time the date of the callsign change, per FCC rules. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 01:28, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
"The change of official callsign has implications that mean it's reasonable to assume that the new callsign is almost instantly in common use." Uh, define "common use". With many stations, particularly popular cookie-cutter commercial stations, the average listener is more often likely to know their favorite station only by its brand name or position on the dial. It doesn't help that these stations tend to mention their call signs as little as possible, generally only as required: a local station, KTDZ, makes a big joke of it in most of their legal IDs (with routines to the effect of "the FCC makes us say that, but really, it doesn't matter, because you know us as TED!"). It's long been the convention on Wikipedia that an entity's common name trumps its official name. Saying that a change in call letters constitutes a de facto switch in common name just confirms my suspicions about many members of this project WRT coverage of U.S. stations: namely, that Wikipedia's coverage of said radio stations need not amount to more than a user-friendly mirror of the FCC database. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 03:16, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
@RadioKAOS: We here at WPRS try to make radio station pages waaaay more than a mirror of FCC info. Give WINC (AM) a look-see, history, information, backstory...that's what we try to do.
As for the point that RadioKAOS made about common use, that wouldn't work here. In the US, as with Canada, there are MANY stations that use the same brand name. "B", "K", "Z", "The X", "Mix", "Froggy", "Kiss", "Star", "Bob", "Jack", "The Fox"...I could go on and on. If we used common use, it would be a mess. With the callsigns, it works, with little to no mess and easy cleanup when moving pages. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:59, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
Define common use... It's a basic term used in many places. As a start note that WP:common usage redirects to a section of WP:AT which uses the term common usage several times, and also of course noting that this is Wikipedia:official policy. Andrewa (talk) 20:44, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
I direct you to my post above yours. You all are trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist, but will create a MUCH bigger one, that you all won't be around to clean up. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:26, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
I take it from this that you oppose creation of an official topic-specific naming convention. Why? What problems will it cause? Do you really see no benefit to it? Andrewa (talk) 05:44, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
If some dedicated editor cares to maintain disambiguation pages for every single Mix 102.3 or Mix 102.7 in the world, more power to them, but radio station branding is ephemeral and often difficult to source or trace. In the US, FCC-issued (and in Canada, CRTC-issued) call signs are the single best way to be sure the long history of a radio station can be tracked verifiably and with authority. All the reliable radio reference sources are organized by call sign, not the marketing nickname of the moment. - Dravecky (talk) 07:18, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
@Andrewa:: As I said above, and Dravecky said, as always, in a much clearer fashion, a Common Use version for each radio station page would be disastrous. I can think of 3 stations off the top of my head which use the "B" name and operate at 101.5 FM. So, B-101.5 would have information about a station in Philadelphia, PA, Hartford, CT and Fredericksburg, VA. That's just insane. It's easier to have the pages use the station's callsigns, WBEB, WWBB, and WBQB.
As I said above and apparently need to say again: In the US, as with Canada, there are MANY stations that use the same brand name. "B", "K", "Z", "The X", "Mix", "Froggy", "Kiss", "Star", "Bob", "Jack", "The Fox"...I could go on and on. If we used common use, it would be a mess. With the callsigns, it works, with little to no mess and easy cleanup when moving pages. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 10:49, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
Very well put. And that is exactly why we should have a topic-specific naming convention, to document and support this practice and the reasons for it. Andrewa (talk) 14:54, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
  • De-dent Late to the party, but I figured I'd throw a couple of points in here. First, Andrewa, you're absolutely right — these call sign changes are ridiculously common, so the naming convention is critical. Honestly, though, I didn't realize this was even a matter of any contention. Radio station (and television station, for that matter) articles are renamed regularly. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that it numbers in the dozens of times each month, given how long the FCC's call sign changes report usually is. There are several editors here who specialize in this (myself among them) and several admins active in the project who are able to assist with deletions to facilitate renamings when necessary (again, myself among them). Have we really had difficulty getting these approved at WP:RM? Second, and more importantly, the topic-specific naming convention you're advocating already exists, and it's linked from the sidebar at WP:AT. It's called Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(broadcasting), and it covers both radio and television stations in North America, which appears to be the genesis of this thread. Mlaffs (talk) 17:37, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
    • Great stuff! And yes, found it now on the sidebar, and yes, it's quite official and I had missed it. But I must make the point that you seem to be the first one in a longish discussion to know it was there and/or relevant. Suggestions as to how to make it more prominent? I think I will have a few. If it is not used, it is useless. Andrewa (talk) 19:17, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Mexican radio stations by state navboxes need your help!

With the number of AM to FM migrating stations in Mexico in recent years, the by-state navboxes need serious updating.

While I'm working on improving station article stubs in general (with such standard features as cited powers, concessionaire/permitholder names and {{mexico-inf}}), the infoboxes need help. The Federal Telecommunications Institute lists 21 FMs in Aguascalientes. Our {{Aguascalientes Radio}} template shows 9.

It's easy to help! Just ensure every FM you see here is listed in the appropriate state radio template. The IFT sorts stations by state, and the abbreviations should be straightforward, so you don't even really need to know Spanish! (While some AMs need to be removed, the IFT removes so many of them from their lists while they are still on that I'm not touching them.)

This would be really helpful in the development of potential future station articles and in updating the navboxes to reflect the sheer quantity of recent FM sign-ons in Mexico. Raymie (t • c) 07:41, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

College radio by state templates

Not sure if it'll show up on the article alerts or not, but just in case - wanted to highlight a discussion happening here for a series of requested moves I've submitted. The suggestion is to rename the various templates for college radio stations in each state so that they're named consistently with all the various format-by-state templates. I don't actually think this will end up being controversial, but since the change affects 40-odd templates, better safe than sorry. Posting here since this is the audience most likely to care. Mlaffs (talk) 02:26, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

FCC Website is Down

If you have noticed that the FCC link on the {{FM station data}}, {{AM station data}}, or {{LPFM station data}} templates is not working, don't panic. The link is not broken. The FCC website has been down since late on Friday and as of this post remains so. It will probably remain that way until sometime tomorrow, it is the Federal Government after all.

The Radio-Locator and Arbitron links continue to work. If you do need basic information concerning a radio station, try the Radio-Locator link. There, you will get a Google Maps link for the tower location, tower height and power information (from the FCC file), along with a coverage area map. I wouldn't completely trust the format information, as that isn't always up-to-date, try the Arbitron link for that. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 13:45, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

  • Update: I called the FCC and they have been notified about the AMQ, FMQ and TVQ portions of their site being down. The person I just spoke to at the FCC didn't have an ETA when those areas of the FCC website would be back up and running. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 12:22, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Online: As of about 10:20am EDT, the FCC website is slowly coming back online. Pages are a little slow to load still, but the website is back online. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 14:30, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Planned FCC database outage

Per this, the FCC has a scheduled outage of their databases upcoming on the evening of September 2nd through the morning of September 8th. It's not explicit whether or not the AM/FM queries will come down as a result, but I find it hard to imagine that they won't. Mlaffs (talk) 21:20, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I really hope not. But if they are going to fix things, then I'm all for it. The FCC database is wonky enough as it is. With info being added days, sometimes a week, after the fact, the fun KVOQ callsign mess (did that ever get fixed?) and other issues. I hope they fix things and not just make filing easier. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:58, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, it looks like the FCC has rolled back that KVOQ/KDCO swap as though it never happened; no record of it in the call sign changes tables. Mlaffs (talk) 13:01, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
Like I said, all kinds of wonky. I really hope they go in and fix everything, even if that means the site will be offline for six days. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 15:51, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

FCC Outage Update

At 8am EDT, the planned outage of the entire FCC database should have ended. As of this writing, it has not. No updates from the FCC as to when the FCC Query links will begin working again. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 12:50, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Parts of the FCC Query links are working, but a large portion of the site will remain down until 8am EDT on Thursday the 10th. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 13:42, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

KHKY

While catching up on various cleanup and doing new page patrol, I came across this:

KHKY may refer to:

  • KHKY (FM), a radio station (92.7 FM) licensed to serve Akiachak, Alaska, United States
  • KHKY (defunct), a defunct radio station (92.7 FM) formerly licensed to serve Akiachak, Alaska from 2007 to 2014

Uhh, lessee here. Same call letters, same frequency, same licensee, same community of license. Sorry, but it constitutes an "epic fail" to expect readers to believe that we should treat this ONE STATION as two separate entities merely because they failed to renew their broadcast license one year and obtained a new license the following year. It also validates the point I made which so many of you were eager to blow off, about how we're parroting the FCC's perspective at the expense of reflecting things as readers may possibly see it. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 19:36, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Actually, no, amazingly...the FCC isn't at fault here. :) The first KHKY had it's license lapse for whatever reason. The company that owned the station is trying to bring it back, same frequency, same calls. Yeah, it's weird. But the former station was defunct for 6 months before the "new" station was planned on paper. So I guess the editors of the article figured they'd create a new one.
You're right, it is silly to have two pages for the same station. I recommend that the defunct and current articles be rejoined (paging Dr. Mlaffs) and it go from there. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 19:57, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Uh, "company"? Places such as Akiachak, which are quite small and remote and don't have much of a cash economy to speak of, typically lack commercial stations for obvious reasons. I think the local school district is the licensee in this case, but I haven't looked it up. Also, it's expensive as fuck to ship much of anything into or out of that region. If they brought all that equipment in, it would just go to waste sitting there. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 20:37, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
I took a guess on who owned it. :) Unless there is some big upgrade they are doing that I'm not aware of, I do believe they are just reusing the equipment they already had to begin with. Alaska isn't my primary area of expertise, so I am speculating on that last part. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:01, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
Back to my original point. I believe that editing activity such as this reflects a peculiar view of things which isn't necessarily helpful to readers (I think I've made much the same point in the past in this venue and it was similarly misunderstood or misinterpreted), but it's probably best to leave it at that. I don't see how I can elaborate on this without making it appear that I'm unnecessarily disparaging Mlaffs, which is hardly my intention. Still, it would be nice if Mlaffs would ever appear here and explain themselves. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 03:28, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, folks - the original ping came while the FCC was down, so I couldn't look at the history of these two licenses to see what the reason was why I took this approach beyond 'they're separate licenses'. Then I forgot I'd been pinged. Thanks for dropping the note on my talk page, Neutralhomer.
Pretty straightforward explanation - the FCC is turtle-slow in updating their databases and there's now more information there than there was at the time. When I disambiguated the original license as defunct and added the new license to the disambiguation page, the only information that was available was a February 5, 2014 filing that the license had been cancelled for failure to file a renewal application. The new license had been applied for and granted, but there was nothing in their construction permit application that referred to the old license in any way. Ordinarily, you'd expect that there would have been some kind of petition for reconsideration if they'd just forgot to renew, and a ruling from the FCC on that petition, but there was nothing. So, absent any other context, I made a logical assumption that the school district had a reason for wanting to keep the licenses distinct, and I made a judgment call to follow our standard process of license = article.
Since that time, there are now two more filings in the database for the cancelled license - one letter on November 28th from the school district and one on December 8th from a state assemblyman. These two letters provide context around why there wasn't a license renewal, and discuss the idea of a petition for reconsideration. However, either there was never a formal petition filed, or there was a formal petition filed and then denied by the FCC and they just don't have any of those filings in the database yet. I think both possibilities are equally likely.
Regardless, with the benefit of context that didn't exist at the time I was making the original set of changes, I'd say that there's a more direct connection between these licenses than was apparent at the time. Moving the article back was a good call, with the caveat that we should also refer in the infobox to the original license number, and link to the FCC records for that license as well in the external links. Mlaffs (talk) 12:42, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
@Mlaffs: Do you have the links for the November 28th and December 8th letters? I would like to add those to the article.
I did add as much information as I could find regarding the original KHKY in the text of the article, with the current information in the infobox. I figured if I added too much information in the infobox about the previous license it would get confusing. Everything from the first Construction Permit to the first issuing of the callsign is in the "First Launch" section.
The standard process (ie: "license = article") made perfect sense to me, so that wasn't an issue for me. I just wasn't sure if there was some page history that needed to be moved along with the page itself. That's where my main concern lied, but I was able to figure that part out. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 14:21, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
The two letters can be found here. Mlaffs (talk) 18:24, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

@Mlaffs: Thanks! Just added the info from the letters to the page. Lemme know what you think of the article. I know the "Second Launch" section is lacking a little bit, but that's due to lack of addition information. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 03:29, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Break (slight change of subject)

Speaking of which, I came across an issue with {{TelevisionTranslators}}. That template was created by Mlaffs by copying code from {{RadioTranslators}}, so I assume the same issue exists in that template and therefore is of relevance to this discussion. The problem is that entering the FCC-listed community of license into the appropriate field results in a corresponding wikilink, with no way that I could see to modify that. How many articles which use these templates have redlinks to non-existent communities as a result? The template is not used on KJUD, but that station provides a good example. KJUD's translator for the Mendenhall Valley is located on Heintzleman Ridge. The name "Heintzleman Ridge" has become far better known in recent times for the translator location, as B. Frank Heintzleman died in 1965 and therefore the story of how it came to be named for him at around that same time diminishes in collective memory. Still, Heintzleman Ridge is not a community, it's a mountain ridge. We would only be misleading readers if that article were to use that template and contain a redlink to "Heintzleman Ridge, Alaska", such as is already occurring in articles which do use the template. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 03:28, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I did a quick check and the only translator for KJUD is licensed to Douglas, Alaska and is directed to southern part of Juneau and across the water in Douglas proper. Only KTOO-TV has a dedicated Mendenhall Valley translator and it is licensed to Mendenhall Valley, Alaska. Beyond that, I'm confused as to what KJUD's translator, or lack there-of, has to do with KHKY Radio. I do believe Mlaffs may have missed this thread. He has been working on keeping the other thousands of radio station articles updated. I will make sure the KHKY article gets moved back to KHKY (FM) and is updated with the current information. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 03:40, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
If changing the subject midstream bothers you, I added a subject header to accommodate that. KJUD's hourly legal IDs referred to a translator on Heintzleman Ridge FOR DECADES, including during the current "Alaska's SuperStation" era. I last stepped foot in Juneau in 1997, plus I'm back to no longer owning a television, so I have no easy answer to your point about why your search turned up nothing. As to "what does this have to do with...", it could very well be that reflecting factual accuracy and proper weight are overriding concerns no matter what we're talking about. Bringing this back around to the beginning (or do I need another separate subject header for that?), responding to "He has been working on keeping the other thousands of radio station articles updated": I was recently dragged into another WP:LAME poster child, rooted in the attitude held by many active editors that historical context is unimportant to coverage of a community, while 15-year-old census data is of the utmost importance. The reality is the latter is in the public domain and can be used to automatically fill up articles, whereas the former often has to be organically sourced and written. Evidently, none of these geniuses feel the need to soil their hands with such bitchwork. There's really a lot of parallels there when it comes to broadcasting outlets and the FCC. Giving undue weight to something because it's easy pickings isn't necessarily serving the readers. Finally, while it's not so much a big deal, here's further evidence of a bizarro mindset. We're changing article titles and other content based on the CURRENT STATUS of the entity's FCC license (not just KHKY, this sort of thing comes across my watchlist fairly often), yet I've read quite a number of radio station articles and not a one offers information on when the station's current license was issued and when it expires. Inconsistency is one thing, schizophrenia is another. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 05:47, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
Some translators were allowed to expire with the DTV switchover, some TV stations just keep ID'ing them anyway. I don't focus on TV stations much anymore. WAAAAY too much annoyance from certain editors, my main focus is radio stations now.
As for KHKY, we use the "current status" information just because it is easier (ie: current callsign). Believe me, you don't want to even know what would happen if we used the branding (see Froggy (brand) or Jack FM). When a radio station's license expires is typically every 7 to 10 years. For example, KHKY's license, granted on April 6, 2015, expires on February 1, 2022. WINC-FM's license, granted on September 27, 2011, expires on October 1, 2019. So one is around 7 years, while another is around 8 years. Why? Who knows with the FCC. We don't list when these expire or are issued. We list when the first "License to Cover" is issued (which allows a station to sign on for the first time) and if a station loses their license, but not the in-between. It's just not notable. TV stations work the same way, same process, just not notable.
Finally, changing the subject "midstream" doesn't bother me at all, I just wasn't sure what KJUD-TV had to do with KHKY-FM. No need to be snarky. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 06:08, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
Since it is almost 2:30 in the morning, Eastern Time, I went BOLD and moved the KHKY article myself. I will, of course, let Mlaffs have the final say where it goes in the morning. I am updating the KHKY article now with current information. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 06:25, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
Took me a couple, but the page has been updated with all current information and a modest history regarding the first and second launches of the station. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 07:37, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
outdent Yes, you're correct that both of these templates force a link for the community of license. In fact, it's one of the required fields for the templates to work. It's not a frequent occurrence to come across a red link for a community of license, given the nature of what that data point represents. Even if there isn't a direct link because the CoL is some dry river bed in Arizona or a mountaintop in Alaska, it usually isn't hard for a good editor to find a relevant link and pipe or redirect it. In the case of your example above, a pipe to the Mendenhall Valley, Juneau article would have been the logical and easily-found solution, as it specifically references Heintzleman Ridge.
That said, yes, not every editor who might use the template is going to be diligent at trying to address red links and so some will sneak through. In rare cases, it's possible that even a good editor wouldn't find the right pipe and it would remain a red link, but red links aren't automatically a bad thing. Maybe the Heintzelman Ridges of the world deserve their own articles, but just haven't been created yet (side note - there are no existing red links to Heintzleman Ridge, Alaska, for what it's worth).
Either way, the automatic linking of the CoL is simply a matter of how the templates were coded. If you feel strongly that this causes more problems than it solves, then let's break it out into a discussion on the talk pages of the templates. I'd argue that the utility of the automatic links is a key benefit of using a template and outweighs the downside of the red link, but I'm just one opinion. In fact, although I created the television version, I'd hazard a guess that I'm far from the most frequent user of it, and I can guarantee I'm far from the most frequent user of the original radio version. Mlaffs (talk) 13:05, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

State Market Templates

Some misguided editor has nominated all of the state market templates and some of the market templates as well, for deletion. Discussion can be found here. These are used across all radio station pages, both the market and state market templates. To lose these would unlink thousands of articles and essentially create thousands of orphans. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 17:42, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Consistency across lists

A question for the project. I was having a discussion recently about how much linking there should be from the various "List of radio stations by state" lists, as there's currently no consistency other than the call sign being linked. The opportunities for additional linking would be city of license, licensee, and/or format - some states link none, some states link one or more, and some states link all.

On the Canadian lists by province, all those columns appear to be linked, with the exception that redlinks haven't been created for licensees without articles. On the few Mexican lists by state, only the call sign appears to be linked.

So, any thoughts about where we might want to land? Do people see value in some or all of the other data points being linked where available, and in having consistency across the set? Mlaffs (talk) 22:12, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I would only link the Community of License. I think linking the licensee and format would get make the pages almost (Wiki)LINKFARM-y. Linking Country, Adult Contemporary or Active Rock over and over would verge on overlinking.
Slightly off-topic, I do believe that all the state pages need to be updated to have all the stations listed with correct info. In some cases, the licensee field is blank, in others the format field is blank. In some cases, whole stations aren't listed. Some state/station list pages are more updated than others. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:53, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
I think I said this before, but our coverage of media outlets is already too weighed towards merely promoting the current batch of media companies. I perused a few lists at random. A number of broadcasting companies have Wikipedia articles independent of their licenses, plus other non-broadcasting entities with Wikipedia articles also hold licenses, yet only iHeartMedia is linked in any of these lists I looked at. What message does that send other than gratuitous promotion? RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 03:29, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
Cumulus, Alpha Media, and Bristol Broadcasting are linked as well, see List of radio stations in Virginia....so is American University. Others could be linked like Entercom, West Virginia Radio Corporation, and others. It's just Mlaffs doing that updating right now....so bear with him. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:17, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
If it's an issue of warm bodies, that's one thing. You further illustrate the point I was trying to make. Linking big radio companies and not linking local/regional companies, school districts, universities, etc. isn't in keeping with a neutral point of view. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 06:16, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
@RadioKAOS:, the linkage of iHeartMedia is actually what inspired this conversation in the first place. They're all linked as a result of a clean-up I did coming in behind an overzealous editor who changed licensee names to owners. I knew linkage was happening inconsistently - several of the larger owners are linked, but not all, and some of the schools are linked, but not all. That's why I wanted to put it to the project that we might want to consider a standard. As I noted, the similar lists for Canada have every licensee linked where there's an article to the parent. Much easier task in Canada, naturally, where there are fewer stations and practically an oligopoly.
Personal opinion, I'd lean toward linking licensee (where a link exists) and CoL, but not format. Just my two cents. Mlaffs (talk) 01:42, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
Continuing...here's some suggestions for these lists in general:
  • It appears that in the case of each state, the list serves as the main article for the corresponding category. For that reason, the lists should have at least a paragraph describing the history of radio stations in the state. If it really came down to it, you could insert the same paragraph each time, modifying as needed.
  • The call sign should not wrap. Removing the line break in the header could solve this problem.
  • A recent discussion brought to mind the use of "City" versus "Community" of license. This is just from memory, so it could be wrong. I recall that some stations' anachronistic CoLs originated from an insistence by the FCC that the CoL be an incorporated community, but such is no longer the case. In states where "city" is defined as a type of incorporated municipality, as opposed to more common or popular definitions of "city", calling a census-designated place or unincorporated community a city may present contextual issues.
  • The Licensee and Format fields take up an awful lot of horizontal space in the table relative to the information value they offer. I would think that the station's first air date and the current license's expiration date (and possibly also issue date) is information useful to readers, who presently may have to hunt far and wide across the web to obtain such information.
  • Defunct stations should absolutely be moved to a separate section rather than deleted out of hand such as I've seen thus far. In putting my reference library back together, I'm once again seeing a world of defunct stations apart from current/recent activity. When I see editing activity in articles which suggests that a radio station was notable one day and suddenly not notable once their FCC license is cancelled or deleted, common sense would cause me to question whether the station was ever truly notable to begin with outside of limited contexts. There's also WP:DEGRADE to consider.
  • Should translator stations or unique aspects of radio in a particular state be listed or at the very least acknowledged in state lists, or should such information be left to the individual station articles?
  • I see a slew of articles on NOAA Weather stations, more articles which collectively illustrate a point about the stations' inherent notability but individually don't offer a whole lot of information to speak of. I don't see these mentioned in the lists, even though they are radio stations one can pick up over the air (with the proper radio, of course).
I'll see what else I can think of. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 04:46, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
A few thoughts in return on some of these points:
  • I'd agree that "City" could be changed to "Community", and that'd certainly be easy enough to do. The FCC does seem to refer to it that way as well in their search explanations.
  • I'd be willing to bet we'd end up with massive amounts of blanks if we added first air date to these lists. It's an element in the article info boxes, but very inconsistently populated, as I'm sure you know. Current license expiration date and issue date aren't article elements currently, so it'd feel strange to me to have them in the lists.
  • Not the first time maintaining defunct stations as a section in these lists has been raised. That's exactly how it's done in the television by state lists. Would take an awful lot of work to build out that information going backward - would be easy as pie to create it going forward.
  • Adding translators, again, is an interesting idea. It's only a few years ago that -LP radio stations were consistently included in these lists, so you could argue adding the translators would be a natural evolution. Again, there are parallels for the television by state lists. Generally speaking, -LP and -LD stations that have their own programming are all included, but the -LP and -LD stations that are pure rebroadcasters tend not to be, although it's not consistent. On the other hand, it'd make these lists that much harder to keep current.
Not much to add at this point on the other bullets. Mlaffs (talk) 01:42, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
I do believe "community of license" is the official term for U.S. stations. Adding first air date and license dates would result in a massive amount of work for a very small number of editors and all for the benefit of even fewer readers that care. Let's link the licensees, where possible, but don't redlink the ones without articles. If we're leading off with a few paragraphs of text, we don't need to link the format for every station in the table as long as we include a paragraph like "Radio stations in Alabama play country music but are just as likely to offer urban contemporary, adult contemporary, or talk radio formats. Other radio formats with multiple outlets include...." we offer readers useful links without repetition. I would not include NOAA stations in this list. Perhaps a single separate list of NOAA stations for the United States organized by state? - `Dravecky (talk) 06:28, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Request

In my work with the uncategorized pages tool, I just came across WSGT, a brand new article which just consists of an infobox with no actual article attached to it. Could somebody who's more knowledgeable about American radio stations than I am take a crack at fixing it? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 18:39, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I'll add it to my to-do list for after dinner. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 21:36, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
 Done - Neutralhomer • Talk • 06:42, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

REC Networks

It's been brought to my attention that the code in {{RadioRebroadcasters}} which generates links to each call sign's station profile on the REC Networks website appears to be dead; it now just generates error messages. The call signs in question are still in their database, as pages turn up if you look for the call sign in question through their search function once you're there — so the problem appears to be with our template code.

When I've done an onsite search, the working URL that shows up in my URL bar is structured differently than the failed URL that shows up if I've clicked on the link in our template, so this does most likely result from a change in REC's URL structure — but what's odd is that this only seems to affect the RadioRebroadcasters template: the {{RecnetCanada}} template that's used to generate an external link for the parent station's base ELs section still finds the right profile, even though it's looking for the same URL structure that's killing the RadioRebroadcasters link. In the particular example that was shown to me, CBO-FM, all of the RECNet queries in the "rebroadcasters of CBO-FM" table fail, while the "Query the REC's Canadian station database for CBO-FM" link under ELs still gets you to the right base profile — which means that the pass or fail difference boils down solely to which template is being used to generate the link, rather than to any coding differences in either of the templates.

And since I'm not familiar with complex template coding, I can't fix {{RadioRebroadcasters}} myself to correct for the new URL structure. ({{RecnetCanada}} is a much simpler template, so I can technically look after that one on my own — but for the moment, I've left it at the old structure so that anybody who helps out on this can actually properly observe the success/failure difference.)

Can anybody assist in getting this fixed? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 14:09, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Paging @Mlaffs: and/or @Diannaa:. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 16:20, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
I don't know how to fix this. I've noticed other broken templates too, such as Template:Albumchart and Template:Certification Table Entry. -- Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 16:27, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
I thought it was a simple admin issue (protected template and all). :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 19:28, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Well, I don't know much about template coding myself, but I think I might have figured it out. The two templates were actually looking for a slightly-different URL — the RecnetCanada template used a leading database call, while the RadioRebroadcasters template had the database call at a folder level. I have no idea why one would work differently than the other all this time, but the fix needed no more than bringing the RecnetCanada template URL across to RadioRebroadcasters, adjusting the country code, and accounting for the possibility of multiple entries.
@Bearcat:, you'll probably have to do a purge on pages until the template change shoves its way through the maze, but it appears to be working properly now. Mlaffs (talk) 23:16, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Vandals on the WGTR page

There are vandals on the WGTR page adding their opinions about the morning show & a billboard the station has. They keep reverting my edits. It's an IP address user.Stereorock (talk) 23:29, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

I issued a Warn2 warning and requested temporary semi-protection. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:29, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
Thank you!Stereorock (talk) 00:33, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

FCC External Links

The FCC updated it's website today and when doing so, they changed the links for all FCC license documents. The {{AMQ}} and {{FMQ}} templates have been updated with the correct links, but the new link is still trickling through the system.

If you come across a 404 error when accessing an FCC link, remove the "www" and add "transition" in it's place and it will work. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 19:39, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

This sounds like a task for a bot. If the links are not systematically updated now, they will be dead links in the future and the chances of anyone finding those, and then seeing the above comment are slim. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  04:57, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
I have been monitoring the various links and I have found less and less 404s as the day has gone on. It appears like the updated link has populated through to all the pages. I am going to check again momentarily. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:21, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
Etamni: I went through, a couple dozen random stations (AM, FM and TV) and I came up with zero 404s. So the new links have populated through to all the pages. If there are one or two still with the old links (which I doubt at this point), those will correct themselves soon. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:40, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
It's worth noting here that in these situations where a coding change in a template doesn't automatically propagate through all uses of that template right away, it's also possible to force the change through an article by simply doing a "null edit" on the page (i.e. clicking "edit", then hitting "save" without actually making an actual edit.) It's not always realistic, obviously, but one trick I use in some cases (e.g. when the "Members of the Legislature" template is changing after an election) is to run a "pages transcluding this template" batch in AWB, and null-edit that batch of pages so that the updated template pushes through. Typically that's only a realistic option for small batches which can be autopiloted through in a few minutes at most, rather than batches that number in the thousands as in this particular situation — but it's worth being aware, if only for future reference (e.g. radio station market templates) that it does work. Bearcat (talk) 21:38, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
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