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Archive 1Archive 2

Infobox

The original infobox proposal is being removed, please see #Second infobox proposal for the current –proposal/discussion
B.Mearns*, KSC 15:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

It's been pointed out that the Similar artists field lends itself to POV issues. I really like the idea of having it there, I think it's very useful, but I definitely see the concern. bmearns, KSC(talk) 17:14, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Color codes - a couple of ideas

I think color codes are nice but not so easy to remember, either for editors and for readers (when I have edited Romanza (album) I had the corresponding Wikiproject page open in another page of the browser). One idea would be to include a very small legend section in a corner of the infobox itself, giving hints about the meaning of each color in the form of a tooltip. Something along these lines

Legend:            

Note: of course this is just a quick hack to illustrate the idea. Many variants are possible and the table should perhaps be slightly smaller. I would prefer squared color boxes (rather than rectangular) and a maybe a squared arrangement if the number of colors allows that. Such a legend could also be in a footnote.

Another idea would be to use icons instead of, or in addition to, colors. A set of well-designed icons can immediately convey complex meanings to the user, without relying on arbitrary and hard to remember conventions. --Gennaro Prota 02:09, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


I agree that memorizing what the different colors mean can be a little forboding and isn't terribly practical. I really like the way your demo key looks, but I'm not sure how practical it is for inclusion in the infobox. For instance, it's got color but no code, as the commerical goes. If you look at the color-scheme definition for WikiProject Albums, you can see how large an informative key is likely to become.
What I'd rather see, personally, is a link to the color coding scheme as laid out on the main project page. Until recently there was actually a link to the Project page on the infobox, but it was removed according to some wikipedia guidelines.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the colors are meant to represent the genre, which is already mentioned in the infobox's text. The idea of the colors was not to be the soul source of that information, but to provide a quick reference for those who are familiar with the color scheme (e.g., those who work alot with WikiProject Music genres). If you need to look up the color in a key anyway, why not just read the infobox? B.Mearns*, KSC 16:44, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Being a programmer, I'm a little paranoid about these kinds of things :) Seriously, one of the Big Laws of information processing is that two disconnected pieces of information that should be in sync won't be some day in the future. Incidentally, have you seen the tooltips in the example table above? They are what would eliminate the need for the long descriptions you talk about. In fact, they were actually palliatives: they just make it easier for readers to spot a mismatch between the genre name and the color used in the infobox; but they don't *prevent* the mismatch itself. What I would rather like is some kind of "trick" that would force editors to specify just the genre name (or anyway just one piece of information); the color (or any other dependent "variable") should be derived appropriately. But I'm new to wiki. Is this possible with templates? Also, what about the icons? --Gennaro Prota 18:52, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm a programmer, too, and if you come from the Abstraction Oriented school like I do, you may learn to hate mediawiki as much as you love it. But that aside, I didn't see the tooltips, and that definitely makes it better, I'm just still not sure if there's really room for a key to be practical. If you look at the the actual color-scheme, you can see that even with emsp sized blocks, it's gonna get pretty big.
But I do like your idea of having them specify the genre and having the color be implicit from that. I have one concern, but I think I can address it. First the concern: there are two different aspect of genre addressed in the infobox. First is a broad generalization of the genre used by the color scheme, and the second is a potentially much more specific genre (e.g., Oi! Punk Rock versus simply Rock) which is specified in the text of the infobox. I don't think there's anyway in the wiki software (or any code, for that matter, the genre-list goes on ad-infinitum) to automatically generalize the given specific genre to one of the colors. Now my solution: we leave the infobox template as is, but create additional templates that the project recommends for usage in the style of Template:Infobox MUSART Rock and Template:Infobox MUSART Blues. These can then delegate (one of my favorite words when I'm coding) to the original template with the correct color, and the article writers won't even have to think about colors, it comes for free. The only other problem is there's currently 30 different entries in the genre color-code, which means 30 different templates that need to be created. But it's still a finite and relatively consumable number; we can always add it as a task for the project.
I don't have any problem with icons per-se, but I'm not sure what your idea is exactly? Where do they go, how do you specify them, what do they represent? I'm just failing a little at how it's really different then specifying the color? B.Mearns*, KSC 21:18, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi Brian, just a quick reply because it's 3:40 AM here and I definitely need some rest. Surely tomorrow I'll be something more useful than now :) I didn't know the complete list had 30 entries, so I agree with you that having the key in the infobox is impractical. I'll try learning a bit more about the template feature of the wiki software (if only they were C++ templates...!); maybe there's a simpler way than creating 30 different related templates. As to the icons I meant having, for instance, an icon representing an electrical guitar for rock, two tango dancers for tango etc. This way the visual information would not be a color but an image. I'll provide some example tomorrow. --Gennaro Prota 01:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi Brian, sorry for abandoning this project but I was really frustrated by the name choice and lost interest. I wanted you to know however that it is indeed possible to set up the template code so that the user just specifies the genre name and the corresponding color is chosen automatically. Once you are done with the infobox and all the colors are chosen you can drop me a note and I'll modify it so to implement the auto-selection stuff. --Gennaro Prota 16:05, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Where exactly is the master copy of that genre color code kept? It's certainly not at Template:Infobox Music genre; in fact, the system being used for the actual music genre pages seems to be similar, but not quite the same, to this one. –Unint 01:45, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

That color code has vanished. It used to be somewhere under Wikipedia:WikiProject Music genres, but it's been removed. I'm not part of that project, so I'm not sure when or why exactly. If you look at the discussion over the second infobox proposal (below), a new color scheme has been proposed and is being discussed. B.Mearns*, KSC 16:12, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Fields

Some thoughts.

  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums currently recommends against hidden "year in music" links piped as regular year links. But then, I'm a little suspicious as to how up-to-date the entirety of that project page is kept. Might be worth getting a ruling on this one.
  • Quite a lot of fields here, making for a very bulky infobox in appearance. There certainly are lengthy infoboxes out there now, though; probably the best solution is to either increase the width or decrease the text size. (See Template:Galaxy and Template:UK motorway routebox, respectively, just as two examples I picked out at random.)
  • Differences to the way Infobox band handles information:
    • Record label fields could probably be consolidated as one. "Primary label" vs. "Other labels" is not always a clear distinction; what about artists who jump around labels so many times that there is no "primary label" to speak of? Or a simpler scenario: if an artist's best-known recordings are on one label but they currently record on another label, which label is primary?
    • No fields for members, or geographical location, at all? As a general-purpose encyclopedia, Wikipedia is probably better-suited to clear and biographical information like this rather than judgment-dependent and music-specific information like "Related artists" and "Notable songs". In fact, there's already been a discussion to that effect, which I wholly agree with.
  • I'm not sure what kind of links one would put under "Professional reviews". They probably wouldn't be standardized in any way like album reviews would. Reviews of specific albums, songs, or concerts would work better placed closer to information about those albums, songs, or concerts, and if you mean biographies or reviews of lifetime achievements... Well, isn't that what we're trying to create with the articles themselves?

–Unint 21:02, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all the great feedback. I've revised the template a bit as follows:
  • Removed "professional reviews" sections. That was originally just copied from the Albums infobox, but you make a good point.
  • Consolidated "Primary label" and "Other labels" into single field, "Label(s)".
  • Removed "related artists" field. You're the second person to comment on it, and I can see the NPOV point.
Haven't added members of geogaphical fields yet. I'm fine with the geographical field, but I want to check the {{Infobox band}} to see how it's done. I'm a little aprehensive about members because it seems like it'd add too much clutter, but I'll look at it on the other template.
Re. notable songs and albums; all the fields of course are optional. As discussed in the link you included, not all musicians/bands are mainstream enough if to really have a "best known" song, but I think for those who do, this can be a helpful field. For instance, you know the song but don't recognize the artist, now the infobox can help you make the link at a glance. But I'm certainly open to more discussion on this. As far as albums, I actually had something other than popularity in mind, I was thinking more about albums that were notable as far as the band is concerned, for instance gold or platinum albums, major label debuts, or first self-produced albums. Again, if you think this is still too subjective or otherwise inappropriate, I'd love to hear more.
I'd love to make it wider to fit the fields in better, but I can't figure out how to. I'll work on it some more when I can, but please feel free to fix it if you feel like it.
B.Mearns*, KSC 03:55, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh yeh, this year in music. I've seen the note on the Albums page, but thought it meant in the body of the article. I think it's perfectly relevant to link to the year in music in the infobox, and I think using the full text ("[year] in music") in the infobox would be too crowded. B.Mearns*, KSC 03:59, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Piping years in music links is dicouraged by Wikipedia guidelines (see WP:PIPE). Also, I don't really see why this new project isn't using the band infobox, which is already quite wide-spread on Wikipedia. --Fritz S. (Talk) 18:13, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

"Musical Artists" and "Composers"

Hi,

I think the main issue we should solve is: how does this project relate to WikiProject Composers? Composers are musicians/musical artists, so is it the intent for this to be a super-project of Composers? --Gennaro Prota 23:06, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feed back. I'm going to move this discussion to the top-level talk page since it's Project-wide. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musicians#"Musical Artists" and "Composers" B.Mearns*, KSC 16:25, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Salary, RIAA cert

About salary, I dont have a strong opinion, but I think it's a highly unreliable piece of information. I've always had doubts about salaries of singers, actors, football players etc. reported by newspapers and magazines (i.e. I think they earn even more than what is declared :)). How could the information be verifiable?
Good point. I don't have particularly strong feelings about this either, except that it struck as kind of odd, only because it's nothing I personally could imagine caring about. But I'd say if someone can come up with a reliable and verifiable source, I'd support it. B.Mearns*, KSC 16:16, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
It's not something that should be in an opening infobox on a group (or other musical act). --FuriousFreddy 16:56, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Why not? How could you decide if joining that group or not?? ;) --Gennaro Prota 17:00, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Because the RIAA only applies to the US, and it's difficult to get accurate record sales information for the rest of the world. There's no use in listing dubious information. --FuriousFreddy 17:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
That was actually (intended to be) humorous. Sorry if it didn't come out very well. A few lines above you may see that I agree with you. --Gennaro Prota 19:14, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh. Sorry. My humor functions aren't working today :( --FuriousFreddy 22:07, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Second infobox proposal

The proposed infobox definitely needs some formatting to make it less, well, guady. B.Mearns apparently finds the Infobox Band template "ugly", but I think that it is to its benefit that it avoids color. Color can be used, but we need to establish a decent color scheme and color usage scheme. Coloring the borders and the music genre text aren't professional solutions.

I think the infobox would work better if it were something like Template:Superherobox as far as its uses of color. The infobox itself is well-balanced and works well, and it uses color more gently. There is a color strip to define the comic book producer, and one to define the type of character (hero, villian, or both) the character is. I will try and work up a second proposal. --FuriousFreddy 17:02, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

So you wanted to color-code the first two bars with artist type/genre, as the Superherobox does with publisher/alliance, but you had to throw it out because we can't guarantee that the two colors will match?
I don't think that the two colors necessarily need to aesthetically complement each other. Look at your example on the template page itself right now: with an image that tall, the two bars are far enough apart that they don't really interact the way that the bar and border do in the first infobox proposal, IMO.
(I don't know if the Superherobox people spent a long time tweaking the colors or anything like that; however, as things stand, there are pages where the two bars don't even appear in the same screen when the article is loaded up. Of course, the two bars as proposed here are going to be much closer, but still...)
Bottom line, I say go for it. –Unint 01:36, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
The difference is the superhero infobox only uses a few colors - about five for the comic book publisher and two -a red, a blue, and a grey - for the type of character (hero, villian, or both). I'd need at least ten seperate colors to properly do the genre-coding; this is what I ended up with, trying my best to match the genrebox colors with related shades:
antiquewhite World (includes folk, polka, etc)
mediumaquamarine (#66cdaa) Classical (includes march and score composers)
indianred (#cd5c5c) Rock (includes rock and roll, heavy metal, punk, alternative, etc.)
darksalmon (#e9967a) Country (includes bluegrass)
lightsteelblue Jazz/blues (includes swing/big band, fusion, etc.)
goldenrod (#daa520) R&B (includes soul, funk, etc.)
darkkhaki (#bdb76b) Hip hop/rap
thistle (#d8bfd8) Pop music
silver (#c0c0c0) Electronica/dance (includes trance, house, disco, etc.)
khaki (f0e68c) Latin/Carribean music (includes salsa, merenge, reggae, ska, reggaeton, calypson, etc.)

--FuriousFreddy 03:46, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

That is a prettier collection of colours, but I don't really see why it's necessary to colour code everything - the colour scheme is completely arbitrary and means nothing to the casual reader. I have the same problem with the album colours, actually, but can't be bothered to raise the issue again. Seems more sensible just to have one colour, if it needs spicing up. And again, why not just adopt infobox band? Flowerparty■ 22:21, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I like the new infobox, I think it cleans up a lot of the issues mine had. The original genre color scheme was based on the Music genres wikiproject, but apparently they no longer have a color scheme. I suppose it doesn't really matter too much whether there is or isn't a color scheme, for genre or otherwise. Personally, I'm open to either.
As far as {{Infobox band}}, I think the new proposal for the infobox is a little better, particularly since it's appropriate for both individuals and bands. But if infobox band is already a prevalent fixture, then I suppose it makes sense to stick with that. However, I don't think it really applies well to individual artists, and I don't think {{Infobox biography}} is sufficient for musicians, either, as was suggested a while back.
At any rate, I'm going to yank my original proposal, because I think both {{Infobox band}} and the new proposal are better. I'll just leave a reference to it in the new proposal section in case it becomes relevant. B.Mearns*, KSC 15:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Notable albums, Notable songs and Related acts all seem very likely to violate NPOV. Also, I think the new infobox needs to be merged with the existing band infobox, as it seems completely unnecessary to have two different templates for the same thing. Maybe someone should start a discussion about this at that template's talk page. --Fritz S. (Talk) 15:51, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
That's a good point, and actually somebody already has. I believe the creator of the second proposal has posted a section on that talk page about his new proposal.
As far as songs and albums, if you look under the discussion for the original proposal, you can see my original response to that critique. Basically, I agree that there's some potential for POV there, but "notable" albums in particular was intended more for historically significant albums for the band, for instance, self-produced, or major label debuts. But if the consensus is still that it's too prone to POV, then they should be removed. B.Mearns*, KSC 16:06, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Yo. Just figured that as a musician I'd add my opinion. This is a decent-looking template. I certainly prefer its colorful look and variety of options to {{infobox band}}, which I have always seen as rather ugly. I mean, infobox band does what it's supposed to do — it organizes the FAQ about any band into a tidy box and adds a nice frame for a picture. However, it's not really useful when compared to what you've presented to us here. I definitely prefer your box. On the issue of color, I say that Wikipedia, to the average (unregistered) user, they see Monobook. They see PNG-rendered LaTeX. They see blue and red links in black text on a white background. They don't see a lot of color, which is why most articles have photos or illustrations and why most articles have boxes that break up the monotony of paragraph after paragraph of prose. We are not writing an encyclopedia when we make these boxes; we are crafting a website, and we want it to look nice. This box will add color to any musician's page. As for the color-coding scheme, I think that you guys are right that the average person will not notice the color pattern. However, the average member of this project will notice, and that seems reason enough to me to have the different colors. Besides, it's better to have many different colors on different pages then to have one single color on every single artist page. - CorbinSimpson 02:41, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe that this information box violates the netural point of view policy in multiple ways. First, there is a field titled "occupation(s)". I think this could easily be removed and simply summarized in the first sentence of the lead section. Next, the "instrument(s)" also appears to be somewhat irrelevant, as it can be documented or chronicled in a section and/or portion of the article as it becomes more in-depth with detail and content. "Notable albums" and "Notable songs" are the most point of view. For example, the first two albums released by Goldfrapp received critical praise, however, only sold moderately, and their third album received mixed reviews, but went on to become their largest-selling LP. The same situation could be taken into effect with songs: it should not be our choice to decide what is "notable" and what is not. Finally, "related acts" is also very POV; an example could be retrieved from Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mariah Carey. I prefer the band infobox, which I believe to be less controversial. —Eternal Equinox | talk 13:28, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

First of all, "related acts" has been designated as other musical acts that have direct connections to the artist in question, such as frequent collaborations, group membership, or spinoffs. Perhaps this should be clearer.
"Notable albums" and "notable songs" have been in question regarding POV since day one. I think it's probably safe to say we should take those out.
With those out of the way, I suppose it's really just a visual overhaul and addition of biographical fields relevant to individual persons. –Unint 21:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Agree with User:Eternal Equinox. Also with regard to the related artists being former band members etc, the intention is not clear at all, and is being confused. (Beyonce/Destiny's Child was given as a good example at Talk:Kelly Clarkson where this issue is also being discussed in specific relation to Clarkson) So far I've noticed related artists being incorrectly added to Mariah Carey, Kelly Clarkson, Kylie Minogue and Madonna. I would rather see it removed completely. I would also remove "notable albums" and "notable songs" as inherently POV. Also the "also known as" is encouraging fancruft and people are using this to include obscure nicknames. Example (again) - Madonna. Rossrs 01:38, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
So that we can avoid any MORE comments about this, are we all agreed that notable album/song is gone? I haven't heard anybody arguing for them in a while.
My original wording for what I believe is currently called "related acts" was "Other projects", I don't know if that's any more clear. I agree that "Related acts" implies a similar meaning as "Similar artists" which was voted off in the original proposal.
As far as "instrument" and "occupation", I don't think the fact that they're in the article is really relevant, the whole point of an infobox is to summarize key information. Of course it's going to be somewhat redundant with the article, but I really don't think that should be a problem.
B.Mearns*, KSC 17:02, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Had to break my sabbatical and come back to check on a few things, such as this template. Agree with all the changes made so far; let's just make sure that the users are properly labeling and coloring these boxes. "Associated acts" definitely works better for its intended purpose than "related acts". --FuriousFreddy 05:57, 20 May 2006 (UTC)



So what's the final verdict on this??? been almost 2months since a post. Is there an example of what is to be used somewhere?? --Jaysscholar 20:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Notable albums/songs

According to people on Wikipedia, this is in violation of Wiki's neutrality policy - I feel that putting pop songs under the umbrella of neutrality codes (pop or politics?) is ludicrous but maybe it's better - my 'notable songs and additions to the Kylie Minogue page were deleted because, I was told, it violates the policy.

Maybe we should get rid of this - if people find it necessary to delete what many consider to be an artist's most 'notable song/album' then what's the point at all? PatrickJ83 02:51, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Three individual people have come here about this in the last 12 hours, with however much debate behind them. I spoke up about this half a month ago. The creator of the first infobox had doubts about it even before that. The idea was even shot down before this infobox was ever created. The consensus is clear.
Since User:FuriousFreddy, the creator of this template, seems to have gone on break, I'm removing the fields Notable_albums and Notable_songs right now. In addition, with that User:Eternal Equinox has said, I'm renaming Related_acts to Associated_acts in hopes that there will be less confusion over its purpose. If there is still confusion, I will... figure out something else to rename it to; if the situation seems utterly hopeless, it will be removed as well.
I was surprised by the number of early adapters, but this is turning out to be an interesting field test. –Unint 04:24, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
What do you think the difference between 'associated' and 'related' are exactly? I'm confused that there might be confusion. PatrickJ83 23:31, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi Patrick, just to clarify - it does seem kind of ludicrous to put pop songs under a POV umbrella, but the reason it should be avoided is that it offers an opinion. Whatever list you might come up with is not right or wrong necessarily but it would probably be different to a list I might come up with, or other editors might come up with. With Kylie as an example, you listed Let's Get to It, which was mediocre in terms of sales and importance to her career, but did not list Kylie (album) which was her first album and which set all kinds of sales records in the UK when it was released (youngest female to have a number one album, highest selling album of the year, 5th highest selling album of the decade). Likewise in the singles "I Should Be So Lucky" wasn't mentioned. It's really just that it's impossible to come up with a perfect list. If you look at the history, I deleted another version of the list a few days before you re-added it and it was quite different to yours - two editors, two different lists.
Also to User:Unint - I understand what is meant by "related" and "associated" but I think Patrick is quite right in saying it could be confused. If an editor sees that without going back and looking over all these discussions to find a definition, they could easily think that, for example, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion are either "associated" or "related" acts. I don't know what other wording could be used though. Perhaps it needs something hidden in the template itself, that people can see when they're editing it, but that is not visible in the article once the edit is saved. Rossrs 07:13, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Which infobox to use

Currently there's many infobox related to musicians: Template:Infobox musical artist 2, Template:Infobox musical artist and Template:Infobox Band (tell me if there's more). While {{Infobox musical artist}} is not used (I'll nominate it for deletion), could we agree on one infobox for bands between the two others templates in order to use just one type of infobox for all musicians articles? CG 17:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

There is also Template:Guitarist_infobox--Greyclair 02:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

The goal is to work towards standarization of 2 (see above), but there are still issues being discussed (and not getting very much discussion, hence the enormous delay). Even with that, there's still the issue of convincing the people who prefer the old Infobox band. –Unint 21:58, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I nominated Template:Infobox musical artist on WP:TFD. When it gets deleted, could we move the Template:Infobox musical artist 2 to its name without the number? CG 08:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

And I'm trying to restart a discussion in Template talk:Infobox Band#Which template to use. CG 08:34, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

"Musical Artist" text - necessary?

Can the "musical artist" text be removed from the box? It should be obvious what the page is about from the opening sentence - I mean, you don't see "TV Show", "video game" or "FILM" appearing on those respective templates. Also it doesn't makes sense if you use it on a band page. (Though I'd argue separate Band and Artist infoboxes are better, anyway.) --SevereTireDamage 22:02, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the "musical artist" is a bit silly. Could we replace it with "solo singer", "band" "orchestra"... as defined by the "Background" field, or specify a new field for it. And I prefer we have one standarised infobox for all musical artists. CG 08:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree. I was trying to see if I could implement this earlier, but was scared of breaking the template. Do we just add it, or do we somehow try to tie it in with the color selector? Also, this infobox is designed to accomodate both bands and artists.--FuriousFreddy 08:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

RFC on Template:Infobox musical artist

I have requested comment on the template. User lividly disagrees with the "current" and "past members" formatting; he apparently wants the allowance of special designation for the "most important lineup" a band had by changing "current memebers" to just "members" (and therefore reverted my update at Nirvana (band), because he likes Template:Infobox Band better). However, changing this would create a serious issue of editors waring over which lineup of an act is the "most important" and which isn't (just imagine what would happen with, say, Menudo, or Destiny's Child, or New Edition, or The Spinners)?

We discussed earlier the problems of misuse of fields that could potentially cause edit wars in the template before, as when we removed the "notable songs" and "notable albums" sections. But, if it is believed that we could do okay with a change, then we can try it. Everyone should weigh in on the talk page with their opinion.--FuriousFreddy 08:35, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Page layout

Whole article proposal

  • Intro (according to WP:LEAD), infobox placed here
  • Early life (includes childhood and noteworthy events pre-fame)
  • Career (events relevant to their musical career and/or events that sprung from it - for example movie cameos, modelling)
    • Subheadings that divide the career by era, album, musical changes, etc.
  • Other endeavors Some artists have other major sub-careers (ie - also an author), projects (running a foundation) or hobbies (ie - taxidermy) . This shouldn't be for minor events (like appearance on Leno). This should be for major and/or habitual things.
  • Personal life - verifiable paparazzi fodder (marriage, children, illnesses, etc.)
  • "Significant event" Many artists have some huge, life-altering overshadowing event or events that need their own subheading. Examples: Michael Jackson and the child-molestation charges, Drew Lachey on "Dancing with the Stars," or Kylie Minogue and her breast cancer. Such a subheading could go here.
  • Selected events - miscellanea like arrests, participation in famous events, a one-time gig in another field (like a movie or sporting event), a one-time humanitarian effort, some newsworthy item
  • Discography - in the case of an individual artist this should be "Solo discography" with a note to see the discography of any other groups they performed with. In the case of musical groups, this should only include the group's discography if links exist to the individual musicians within the article. Efforts should be made to include thumbnails of the album/single covers.
    • Albums either by <gallery> or by a table (I would say no more than ten, then break the discography into a new page)
    • Singles either by <gallery> or by a table (I would say no more than 15, then break the discography into a new article)
    • Collaborations - only one-time collabs, usually credited as "featuring XYZ"
  • Awards
    • Award categorization (either by year, or by award - Grammy, MTV Music Award, Oscar)
  • See also
  • Notes - per WP:Inline Citations
  • References - per WP:CITE
  • External links - links to other wikiprojects should be added here
  • Categories - an artist should only have their own category if they have at least 15 directly relevant articles (this includes album and single pages), 10 images and 10 musical samples

Also note: There should be an effort to have at least 2 non-album pictures (although this is not mandatory) that are all properly tagged. The same goes for musical samples.

Anyway, I think this would be a workable system for starters.--Esprit15d 19:41, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Comments

Add comments and/or votes for support or rejection of the above proposal below:

OK, I'm gonna say what I've been saying elsewhere here too. I'm trying to come up with a good way to diagram rock family trees. Once I, or someone else, comes up with a decent way for the time being (and eventually the best way), then I think one should go into each artist and band article. I would suggest that its position in your layout be between Discography and Awards. OK? Thoughts? Thanks. --luckymustard 20:41, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
What is the educational purpose of a "rock family tree"? --FuriousFreddy 03:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
My main concern is that we should really encourage people to discuss the context of the subjects they're writing about. Perhaps there could be a specific place for discussion of musical style, contemporaries (and influences and followers), role in development of music genres, public image and reception by the mainstream (or smaller spheres), etc. –Unint 21:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
discussing style lends itself to NPOV issues. if u can do it without npov issues, then i love the idea. i def like the idea of trying to go beyond simply what they did. --Jaysscholar 00:35, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
You can discuss styles, influeces, comtemporaries, influences, followers, what was going on in the world at the time, etc. without violating NPOV. Not saying that everyone will do it instinctively (which is why set-in-stone guidelines are important), but that information is important to the value of each article. --FuriousFreddy 03:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the "career" should be retitled "music career" and "events that sprung from it" should be some where after it. acting and stuff are usually two completely different things.
That section is not going to be filled with acting roles, only if it relates to their musicality. For example, Sugar Ray has appeared in some movies as themselves. So have the White Stripes. But when Mariah Carey was in whatever that movie she was in, that should clearly have gone in selected events, or maybe it's own subheading. And now that I think of it, I forgot to add the other endeavors section. I meant to. Like John Mayer also does stand-up, for example.--Esprit15d 12:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I also think albums should be cutoff at 5 and singles at 5 too. the article should deal with aspects of the music and its impact, not a simple listing of it.
I love the idea of 2 pics. --Jaysscholar 00:35, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, I think using a "simple listing" is rather because asking people (viz. music enthusiasts) to choose these things usually leads to trouble somewhere down the line. We cut out the "notable albums" field from the current {{Infobox musical artist}} almost right away due to such concerns. –Unint 02:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Five and five are far too brief cutoffs for the lists of albums and singles. I ususally cut when the discography section takes up over one-forth of the page. Then, the discography gets its own article ,adn the main article includes a list of Top Whatever albums and singles (Whatever "Top" designation keeps the number of albums and singles in the article short -- Top 40 in the case of Gladys Knight & the Pips, Top 10 in the case of The Supremes, and number-ones in the case of Michael Jackson. --FuriousFreddy 03:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the ideas are good (maybe a few changes here and there). I would like to decide on the more specific parts to the layout now too. For example: specific ways to write up awards and a discography. Could someone put together a list of different styles (with sample pages)? -- Heaven's Wrath   Talk  03:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I always liked how Sly & the Family Stone discography came out. Compare with the shortened version in the main Sly & the Family Stone article. Awards will need some significant discussion (I've actually never doen a list of awards; I just mention them in the prose as necessary). --FuriousFreddy 03:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I like the simplistic layout of the discograpy on the Sly & the Family Stone article page. (Thanks for the example.) It is simple, yet imformative. The albums should be italized, and the dates should not be linked. Bulleting, not numbering. Example below. This style could also be used for singles. -- Heaven's Wrath   Talk  04:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Albums
Awards, awards... I did a bit of thinking about this at peer review for Alexander Coe; not too comprehensive, but that's the extent of my thoughts on this. (Hey, Espirit15d has looked at that article too.) Anyway, here's a diff for list format vs. prose format in the same article. –Unint 05:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I dabbled in that article last week - ha! Anyway, The prose looks good, and if it can smoothly include all notable awards (which sometimes is hard) I think prose is better than lists, especially if it worked into the whole article. But I don't think we should ban lists, but of course prose is preferable. If the person is an award machine, maybe the list should be split off, and the prose with the key awards be kept in the article.--Esprit15d 14:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

There's still concerns that using the album-cover thumbnails violates fair-use guidelines. On top of that, it's not an entierly professional solution, especially for artists with long discographies. I never saw any problems with the uses of image-less lists and/or tables, with maybe one or two album covers included (not in the table). Such lists and tables should also be as non-annotated as possible. Save any details for the prose or for an article on the song/album itself (if it warrants its own article).

I don't know how the thumbnails violate fair use, since the template says album images can be used "solely to illustrate the album or single in question," which is the exact use. Also I don't think it is realistic to say that statistics about an album can always be worked into prose, nor is that necesarily preferable. Purely statistical data is much more digestible in charts. Prose made up of statistics is usually stilted and more difficult to process. If I want to compare the performance of a few albums, I don't want to read five paragraphs to do that. I want to quickly glance at a chart to see, "oh, that had for number one hits and was triple platinum, but the next album had 1 hit and only went single platinum." Also, it was mentioned to save the statistics for the single's/album's page, but what if it doesn't or shouldn't have it's own page? Then we just delete the info? I think that is counter-productive. I think there is definitely a place for the charts, although I am absolutly open to the preferred style, legnth, cut-off for a new article, and basically any of the aesthetic details.--Esprit15d 13:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, I ususally try to put most of the prose bio/history info (in your example, "early life" through "significant" events) into one level 2 heading (mostly because the large font and rule line for the heading when viewed in Monobook break the reading flow of the page). I do usually break out things like "Musical style", "legacy", and of course all of the various appendixes ("discography", "notes", "references", etc.) --FuriousFreddy 03:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's a quote from above from FuriousFreddy (I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, please feel free to format it for a quote, and then I'll learn): "What is the educational purpose of a "rock family tree"? "
So, my answer to that would be that it's a diagrammatic and simple, uncluttered version of what's in the history section of a band or artist that's been in multiple bands. So if the information that is in the history type section of most bands is "educational" then so would this, but in a different kind of format so that people that learn differently would be able to learn this information. Check out Amazon.com's reader reviews of Pete Frame's books/collections of rock family trees. They talk about how useful these rock family trees are in finding information that they need. To put it another way let me ask you a question - What use would a family tree be? --luckymustard 12:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

For bands, there is usually a 'Members' heading. Where would this go? - kollision 06:52, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I've seen members headings, but they aren't a good thing. (1) The member list is already in the band infobox (2) it's usually redundant, since the band memebers are usually in the lead section and (3) featured articles favor prose over lists, so it is better to integrate the list into text.--137.198.61.65 13:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Discography section

Put Support or Reject under the methods you prefer along with your comments. You can support or reject more than one (although try to limit your support), as the community may decide that more than one method is acceptable, but that some are absolutely unacceptable:

Method 1

Comments:

+Support - Clean and concise,any additional information can be found on the albums' page. Stephenjh (talk) 09:38, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Method 2

Method 3

Year Album US UK
1999 The White Stripes - -
2000 De Stijl - -
2001 White Blood Cells 61 55
2003 Elephant 6 1
2005 Get Behind Me Satan 3 3

Comments:

  • Support. Informative and simple.--Esprit15d 14:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Just get rid of the piped "year in music" links. –Unint 15:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support I like the piped "year in music" links, I actually use them. Is there a reason why they're a bad idea? --geekyßroad. meow? 02:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Hey, great to see you again. It seems to mostly derive from WP:PIPE, which is, well, still only a proposal. However, my personal opinions:
      1. A great deal of the time the "year in music" article won't be relevant to the item being discussed. This is, of course, context dependent (and I don't know what you've been using them for); but, if on the other hand something is so significant to the music of a particular year as to be included in the "year in music" article, then I'm of the opinion that we can take the time to spell out the whole link.
      2. Wikipedia as a whole actively discourages people from linking date fragments like "2003". With piped year in music links still around, however, new editors who see blue links for years without actually checking what they are might assume they're just year links, and start implementing those. This is my personal theory; don't know of actual cases, but then you wouldn't know unless you asked.
    • This is the first time I've actually discussed these ideas, BTW. Feel free to poke holes where applicable. –Unint 04:12, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak Support Chart information not neccessarily needed, but could be used for comparison purposes. -- Heaven's Wrath   Talk  03:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, attractive and informative. --musicpvm 06:37, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment, would support if the album covers were included (for reasoning see method 5) and at a medium size (size of method 5) and not as small as the Genesis discography or any bigger than the method 5 size because then the chart organisation would look disproportionate altogether. - Patman2648 01:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
That would easily work for me and thanks for finding an example of it Heaven's Wrath. Thanks -Patman2648 04:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Method 4

Method 5

Method 6

Method 7

Method 8

Not sure if these deserve their own sections:

  • Small table with images: e.g. Genesis discography (refers to the edit linked, not the current page).
  • Comment. I would say not, since this is soley discography page. We aren't really forming a policy for such pages. And that chart is extremely detailed.--Esprit15d 16:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support I like it because it's informative and easy to compare. It's also easy to figure out what the popular songs are and what album they're on. If the discography section is small, this format can be used on the band's page. If it's large, these things usually get pushed to their own pages anyways. If there is a column that doesn't end up getting used, it should automatically not be added in (just like infoboxes). --geekyßroad. meow? 02:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support I think that a table with small images would be a good idea (per geekyßroad). Another example of this (without singles) would be the In Flames Discography (refers to the edit linked, not the current page).--UD490 (talk?) 20:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Reject because of images. WP:Album#Discography states "Note that fair-use images are not permitted in any form of gallery or list article, such as discographies," based on WP:NFCC 3a and 8. ~ BigrTex 15:29, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Reject. Guess why we're looking at a diff and not the current page. Fair use images can't be used this way on Wikipedia. That's why they were removed from the Genesis discog. --Butseriouslyfolks 05:37, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Other comments

  • There's a difference between supporting the format versus supporting the amount/types of info included. We also have to decide upon order of data. Method 3 and 8 are actually pretty similiar. Ideally like to see the style of the Genesis discography, but with the columns listed in order: "Year, Album (pic then name), Singles, Charts (singles), Charts (album), Worldwide Sales". --geekyßroad. meow? 02:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  • We also have to consider who we are targeting the discography for. Who is visiting the page and why? Are we targeting the page for people who nothing about the band and album? Are we targeting it for people who know the band but want to keep up to date on everything? Are we targeting it for people who are looking for a list of popular songs to find? Are we targeting it for people who are filling in details in their computer's music collection? Who our target is is going to greatly affect how we should format the thing. I'm warning you now, I'm probably going to be biased towards the last two types of people... but I think our target is probably people who want to know when albums were made and what their popular songs are (and which album they're on). Users don't want have to go searching for their data too much. --geekyßroad. meow? 02:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Every page on Wikipedia, from what I can gather, is targeting the same audience - someone who wants an encyclopedic quality article. And the rule of thumb is comprehensive, not exhaustive. I think that means discography should be well representated and informative, without becoming a whole new article unto itself. If it does, it needs to be split off into a new article. Most of the discussion here seems to be rooting for major statistics and maybe modest pictures (if there are only a few albums) and that's it. Also, keep in mind this is the discussion of a muisican page, not a discography page. It is one in about 10 major elements the article has to cover (in less than 32K). For fans and collectors, this page is probably not where they would find the most benefit.--Esprit15d 17:56, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I think certain formats should be used depending on the amount a=of albums there are. Not a lot of albums should be small and have little info while if it has it's own disocraphy page, pictures and chart info should be used.--Jaysscholar 12:51, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Has a decision been made regarding images in discographies?

I have been removing images (album covers) from several discography pages, and meeting with a bit of resistance to some, such as Prince's discography. I don't want to take the time to remove and revert things if it turns out the covers can be used after all. Do album covers in discography lists violate image guidelines or not? What are some of you other editors doing? Should I stop removing? - eo 21:18, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Here's another revert for Pet Shop Boys' discography. Do I remove these again? - eo 12:27, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that they have the overwhelming majority of popular usage on their side. We don't really have any authoritative policy statements here to the contrary. (However, I believe User:Jogers and User:Mel Etitis will speak for these as fair-use violation.) –Unint 19:54, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Basically, I think there will have to be a mass purge of images throughout Category:Discographies before anybody will take this seriously. –Unint 19:59, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Doing that is going to lead to the biggest revolt ever. Seems like people want to get those images included at any cost yet not contribute to any kind of discussion about it first. Blah. - eo 20:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
WP:Album#Discography is pretty clear, "Note that fair-use images are not permitted in any form of gallery or list article, such as discographies."
Some users thought that removing images from Lists of Episodes would lead to the biggest revolt ever, but this discussion and the subsequent removals have not led to a huge revolt, and I hope that the removal of images from discographies will be either. ~ BigrTex 15:47, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The fair use discussion

I'm starting a subsection on fair use of record covers because, frankly, there is unresolved contention on this issue. (I don't purport to be a copyright man, just an aggregator of the discussion.) Some places where this has come up:

Granted, the latter two deal more with full-fledged discography articles, but I think the principle is the same. –Unint 15:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Albums: Studio vs. Live vs. Compilation

To go along with this discussion, we should probably come to a consensus about dividing the discography into sections, or deciding how or if we want to distinguish them from each other.

  1. Divided
  2. No distinguishment
  3. Provide text after title

Comments:

Rock family tree

Thoughts? Questions? --luckymustard 21:37, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

It would be best if you included an example with your proposal. -- Heaven's Wrath   Talk  12:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Below is method 1 that I obtained from Wikipedia:Family trees. However, an actual example (and the best in my opinion) would be rock family trees by the rock critic and rock family tree artist Pete Frame. Should I upload an image of one of his trees and post it here? Or you guys can simply google him and find some images. Thoughts? Thanks. --luckymustard 14:08, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. I have a few major issues with rock family trees. (A) they seem to be almost exclusively generated by this gentleman Pete Frame. That means we have to depend on his opinion, the notion of which makes me break out in a cold sweat. (B) They are graphically very dominant. They could easily add 10KB to an article or more, making articles long. They probably better belong on there own pages, or on a discography page (maybe?), if anywhere. (C)Except where maybe a musician has explicitly said "I was influenced by XYZ musician" or broke off from a band, a rock family tree is highly subjective, and thus inherently POV to the point of really almost being a bad idea.--Esprit15d 18:18, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Is this OK to comment on your comment here? If so, then I'd like to point out that your issue (C) is not true. The rock family tree would not have anything to do with influences. It would merely be a way to diagram the career of a musician concerning what bands he/she was in and when. For instance, I see that Eric Clapton was in, according to the infobox (it says "Affiliations"), eight bands. I would like to be able to see when he was in what band, and at the times that he was in each of those bands who else was in them with him. Some of this information is probably in the prose, but that is not how some of us looking at these articles would best take in this info. Also, look at The Beatles line-ups. In my opinion, this is more like a rock family tree than one list of affiliations and a bunch of prose, but it still isn't a diagram with lines going from one band member to a band and to another member. Which brings me to your issue (A). It's seems true to me too that Pete Frame has been the exclusive generator of published rock family trees, however the idea of a family tree has got to be hundreds or thousands of years old or more. I don't see how there could be a copyright on the tree look. And the information that is contained there he got from many other sources. That would be the same way it would be done here in Wikipedia. We would be doing research from many different sources to create the ultimate linked rock family tree. Your issue (B) depends on how it's done and that's what I'm investing time in now to try and figure out, and why I've come here before I start doing tons of these line-ups that are not as diagrammatical as they could be, or whatever method of creating these family trees that I would come up with on my own. I'd like to get feedback on the multiple methods, and any others out there that anyone might know of or can think of, that are found in the template/article Wikipedia:Family trees. The method I'd least like to do is using an image because then the bands and band members wouldn't be linkable. OK? Any more thoughts? I'm going to add more of the methods from the above template to this page now. OK? Thanks. --luckymustard 12:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment As I asked before..."what is the educational value of including a (apparently large and cumbersome) 'rock family tree' in Wikipedia music articles?" Seems just like more fan rhetoric to me: anything included in such a "family tree" would be more clearly displayed/presented in either prose or a simple table. On top of that, I know better than to think that there will actually be one of these for every major recording act; just some for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and other "Wikipedia favorite" (white) rock bands. We should be focusing on fixinf, reparing, and cleaning up the problems we already have instead of introducing new ones. --FuriousFreddy 20:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Since you asked the question again, I'll answer the question again: "Here's a quote from above from FuriousFreddy (I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, please feel free to format it for a quote, and then I'll learn): "What is the educational purpose of a "rock family tree"? "
So, my answer to that would be that it's a diagrammatic and simple, uncluttered version of what's in the history section of a band or artist that's been in multiple bands. So if the information that is in the history type section of most bands is "educational" then so would this, but in a different kind of format so that people that learn differently would be able to learn this information. Check out Amazon.com's reader reviews of Pete Frame's books/collections of rock family trees. They talk about how useful these rock family trees are in finding information that they need. To put it another way let me ask you a question - What use would a family tree be? --luckymustard 12:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)" Do you just disagree with the idea that some readers of Wikipedia would prefer the information displayed this way? Would you please answer my questions? Thanks. --luckymustard 21:38, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Put Support or Reject under the methods you prefer along with your comments. You can support or reject more than one (although try to limit your support), as the community may decide that more than one method is acceptable, but that some are absolutely unacceptable:

Method 1

If you know how to do the coding for this, or if you know where to find it, then please let the rest of us know. Thanks.

The Beatles
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr		Grandpa
MomDadAunt Daisy
My brother JoeMe!My little sister


Does anyone know the code for a straight line down?

It is "!" (exclamation point). The template's talk page has all the information. --HW 00:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
The Beatles (1961 – August 1962)
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best
The Beatles (August 1962 - 1970)
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr


I like this method, but if it were on a musicians' page, it should not list the other band members. So it would only show the bands (or recording solo, et al) a musician was connected with through the years (months or days). Now, if it were on a band page, it could be used to show the changing lineups. Jimcripps 02:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree that band articles would/could also have rock family trees, see The Beatles line-ups, which is linked to from The Beatles main article. I'll try a Method 5 in a minute to show how what you're proposing for musicians would look. Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Eric Jack Nash (talk • contribs) .

Method 2

                   The Beatles==+==? Eastermont
                            |
                   +--------+------------------+
                   |        |                  |
     Cersei==+===Robert  Stannis==+==Selyse  Renly
   Lannister |     |              | Florent 
             |     |              |
   +----+----+     +------+       |
   |    |    |     |      |       |  
Joffrey | Tommen  Mya   Edric  Shireen
     Myrcella    Stone  Storm

Method 3

This idea might be better suited to use a timeline. I fiddled around with the extension meta:EasyTimeline. I began to create a timeline for Eric Clapton.

Example Timeline

The green is before he joined a band (childhood), the red is his group-oriented career, and the yellow is his solo career. This method does slow down the page and still is not amazingly easy-to-read. I tried linking to the bands, but it messes the formatting up. To fix it, I would have to make a new entry for when a new band was formed and when a band was broke up. (But it is possible.) -- Heaven's Wrath   Talk  22:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Comments:

I don't know how I can explain the 'need' anymore or better than I already have. I hope you have read all of my above comments. If you have a specific question, then please ask. --luckymustard 22:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Neutral This is more visually what I'm trying to propose, but it doesn't contain the other personnel of the bands that he was in like a tree would. Thanks for trying, though. --luckymustard 22:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Method 4

The Beatles
(1961 – August 1962)		Pete Best
The Beatles
(August 1962 - 1970)
Paul McCartney
Denny LaineDenny Seiwell

Method 5

The Beatles (1961 – August 1962)
The Beatles (August 1962 - 1970)

Comments:

  • Neutral I do not really see the need for this type of method, since it is pretty complex for the little bit of info that is being diplayed. This info is almost already in the infobox, or should be, except for the dates. --luckymustard 12:08, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Method 6

This method to be used in band article or sub-article.

The Beatles (1961 – August 1962)
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best
The Beatles (August 1962 - 1970)
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr
Plastic Ono Band (1969 - 1972)
John Lennon, Klaus Voormann, Eric Clapton

Comments:

  • Neutral I see/envision that using this method will get too big for even it's own article with all the band members of the offshoot bands. So it would make more sense to not have any members listed in the boxes containing the offshoot bands. So I'll try Method 7. --luckymustard 12:39, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Method 7

This method to be used in band article or sub-article.

The Silver Beetles (June 1960 - August 1960)
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Norman Chapman, Stuart Sutcliffe
The Beatles (August 1960 – August 1961)
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best, Stuart Sutcliffe
The Beatles (1961 – August 1962)
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best
The Beatles (August 1962 - 1970)
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr
Plastic Ono Band (1969 - 1972)
The Beatles (informally known as "The Threetles") (1994 - 1996)
John Lennon (Recordings Only), Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr

Comments:

  • Support. I sure am liking this one the best. --luckymustard 20:24, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. I'm mild on this idead, but I did have an epiphany last night: Perhaps there should be a line at the bottom of the page, or after the lead-in, that would say where the subject is in the 'Tree,' with the surrounding musicians listed. This could be linked to a whole article showing the tree. And, I propose that a group be formed to create said tree and maintain it. It'll be one tough job, but it will be better than relying on an outside source, unless it's part of a sister project. Jimcripps 02:26, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Jim, you said that maybe there should be something that says "where the subject is in the 'Tree'". Are you talking about the band's name or the band member's name? So for the above tree, method 7, it would say "The Beatles", or for method 1 it would say "Paul McCartney"? That's sounds like a title, which of course these would have, they would be the article's name that they're in. Then when you talk about "a group be formed to create said tree and maintain it" it seems to me like you're thinking that there would be one master tree containing all bands and band members ever and they would all be linked. That is not my intention, essentially because that would be too big. Please let me know if I am understanding you correctly. Thanks. --luckymustard 14:40, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
My thought was there would be a large tree, maybe two, one defining every band/artist, and the other for just artists (a solo career could be considered band-like). Then, the article could be of a person or group, and would say, "In the 'Rock Tree,' their position is HERE, or next to so-and-so and so-and-so." And this could be linked to, and yes it would be large, and thus would need a group to take care of it. At present, I'm not sure if it would be viewable on the whole, considering bandwidth and the common PCs used for browsing the Internet (would they all be capable of viewing such a large file? Perhaps a 'panning' Flash file - well, that's just a thought). The creation of a large, all-encompassing tree, seems to be the only option here so that an article posting about the Tree could be justified; it would be the proof. Jimcripps 17:51, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your support. Please go to User:Eric Jack Nash/Sandbox/BeatlesTree to check out an almost completed version of this tree using this method. My thoughts are to replace The Beatles line-ups with this. --luckymustard 22:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Boy, it got really quiet here over the last few days. Well, as you may have already seen, I updated The Beatles line-ups with the tree that I started here and continued to create in my sandbox. Hope it's OK. Thank you all for all your help. I'll continue to create these trees in other articles as I have time. Again, thanks. --luckymustard 18:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Gosh. Should have kept WP:BEATLES in touch with this development really - this ought to have gone out in the newsletter as a "funky" project development :). I like it, but it gets a bit confusing post-62. Also, if other bands are to be mentioned (Wings and Plastic Ono are on then) then you've got a major ommission - Traveling Wilburys. --kingboyk 01:02, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Band logos in the infobox

Since we seem to be hammering out several multi-page items right now, I thought I might bring up something smaller.

You might have seen various band articles where the band's logo (or sometimes even just the particular design used on one album cover) gets used in place of the band's name in the infobox. (Usually the old Infobox band; presumably there's been copy-and-paste going on.)

Even notwithstanding the upcoming hurdle of getting Infobox musical artist accepted, do everyone think this is something that should be discouraged? –Unint 23:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Example at Arctic Monkeys. I like it, but I think it should be neither encouraged nor discouraged. It isn't a must. - kollision 15:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm returning to this topic, because it just keeps getting more and more out of line. Example: David Gilmour. People are doing this for musicians that don't even have logos; they'll just extract the typeface from the cover of their latest album and stick it in the name field. What's more, edits to the infobox have now been made with logo usage specifically in mind.
Basically:
  • At the very least, we should discourage the use of non-logos — images that have not been repeatedly associated with the act — in the infobox.
  • What I would like to get across, futhermore, is that this is an encyclopedia and not a commercial website. Our purpose is not to parade around images designed for marketing and promotion across the top of every page. Even Nike, Inc., for example, has the company's name in text above the logo. We also want readibility and consistency, which means not arbitrarily putting images where text should go. If everyone simply must have their logos, maybe there should be an extra field for it instead. –Unint 19:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Just as another logo comment, I like seeing the band logo. And logos for individuals when such logos are often associated and often used by or for such individuals. But, I have noticed, on articles that I've seen, that IE handles the logo images differently that Firefox, which I've just recently started to use. Around the logo, or as background in IE, the area is white, creating a block. In FireFox, this same area is not there, it's tranparent. It's just a quirk, I suppose.
And, of course, the logo might clash with the respective background. Perhaps there could be a 'line' underneath, to seperate this area in lieu of a colored background? It's tricky, I know, 'cause it could ruin the overall style of the box. Jimcripps 21:02, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I understand what you're saying about the logos and such. Personally, I like seeing the logo in the infobox and I admit, I have placed the bands logo in the name field when converting to Infobox musical artist. My personal opinion is that the bands logo should only be used if it is readable and is accepted by both the band and its fans.--UD490 (talk?) 21:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Update on the situation: now city articles are getting into the act. Cities don't even have logos. See Zagreb. –Unint 02:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I am surprised that has not been removed. How is that in any way encyclopedic? Maybe a WP:MOS article might be appropriate for logos. – Heaven's Wrath   Talk  04:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - two more: Evanescence and Nine Inch Nails. Personally I think this is not good. Lately I've seen this kind of thing popping up in album and song infoboxes - using the particular font shown in the cover art (I reverted this today... errrr, I don't think so). I don't have anything against the logos per se, but if we're going to have templates in Wikipedia, why should certain articles/bands/musicians get their own special logo placed into it? I'd discourage it. And ignore my idiocy futher down the page where I brought this topic up again not realizing people were already discussing it. - eo 15:57, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to bring this discussion up again becasue I see cases of this happening more & more (see Rancid, Papa Roach, NOFX, and Korn for examples). I think the basic question here is, what value is there in having the logo in the infobox? I would say very little. Most would argue that it creates visual recognition of the subject, just like a company logo does for that company. But by and large that is not the case. A photograph, which is what is intended to go in the infobox, establishes this recognition using free (non-copyrighted) material. It would be hard, for example, to represent with a photo exactly what the Nike corporation is, because they produce so many products. But with a musical artist like a band, the photograph of the band itself is what gives recognition, not a logo. This is compounded by the fact that most musical acts do not have logos, and what we are seeing in infoboxes is just a stylization of the band's name taken off of one of their albums.
The guiding principles here should be WP:NONFREE and WP:LOGO. The non-free content guidelines say that team and coporate logos may be used for identification, with no provision for critical commentary like there is for album covers. The guidelines for logos say that we should presume that logos are trademarked or copyrighted and we should "avoid using a logo in any way that creates an impression that the purpose of its inclusion is to promote something. Generally, logos should be used only when the logo is reasonably familiar (or when the logo itself is of interest for design or artistic reasons)." I think that in 90% of the musical artist articles in which this occurs, it is failing these criteria. Most do give the impression that they are being used in a promotional way, are not reasonably familiar, and do not discuss how the logo is interesting for any design or artistic reason. The top bar of the infobox should include the artist's name in plain text. Some would say that the article title does this, but this fluctuates often due to disambiguations in titles. The appropriate place for logos is within the body of the article, and I think we should treat it as we do album covers: only include them if they are reasonably familiar, are actually a logo and not just stylized lettering, and if the article discusses the logo in some way (who created it, what it symbolizes, some interesting aspect of its design or artistic merit, etc.). Simply putting it in the infobox for identification or because it "looks cool" is not reason enough. --IllaZilla 18:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Discography update

At some point sombody made {{Infobox Discography}}, which is just silly what with us having had this whole discussion already. It hasn't really caught on (I imagine people notice that it's a considerable waste of space), but I'm leaving a note here for future reference. –Unint 06:02, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I personally disagree with this template.--Tasco 0 20:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Naming artist

Hi I am still new here so I would like to see what the feeling is on this topic. I have an artist with a common name and to disambiguate him should I add the title (musician) or (singer)? I am asking because I have seen artists named with either of the titles (or other specific titles like (guitarist)) on many pages. I believe the feeling is to label him as (musician) but is that a solid rule or just up to each persons discretion? My apologies if this is a well known rule and I just missed it somewhere. ThanksSolonyc 21:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

If there is not an article already created with that name, then do not preemptively disambiguate the article, just create the page with his/her name as the title. Otherwise, you should add the (musician) to the end of the title and add a "did you mean" template on the top of the article with just the person's name. (see WP:DAB) That was a little confusing, so just post the article if you need some more help. – Heaven's Wrath   Talk  22:25, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, that pretty much confirms that I should put (musician) after his name. I was not preemptively disambiguating, the artist goes by a first name on his releases and credits so I need to do something. It is just that I have seen many artists with (guitarist) or (drummer) or (singer) after their name. In my opinion that is a mistake as there should be another way to differentiate from artists with the same name like (British musician) etc... Maybe one day there will be a standardization. Thanks again Solonyc 23:08, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Old business

Should we make an effort to finish up some of the old discussions, especially pertaining to the discography? (Do we plan to convert everything to conform with whatever we decide on, afterwards? It seems like a boundless task.) –Unint 21:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I definitely feel like we should tie some of this business up, and no we won't be converting. These are strong guidelines, and provide needed direction, and many ga and fa articles already are like this. But this is a starting point for future articles, and for articles moving towards ga or fa status.
We should probably reconsider whether we want to address separate discography articles, as they are becoming more and more prevalent, particularly among featured articles on the front page (save for the smallest of topics, such as New Radicals). In fact, it's become more common to use something resembling proposal #1 in the main article (the bare minimum text), then expanding to a table with images in the discography page. If we limit ourselves to the main article, most of the guidelines will quickly become depreciated as the bulk of the data is moved out of the main article in the usual slimming-down process for FA noms. –Unint 20:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Something absolutely needs to be defined regarding discographies and discography pages. When I've done them I have stuck to one basic format (pretty much carrying over style guidelines in WP:CHARTS) but I am seeing more and more variations, some becoming very elaborate with colors, images, boldfacing and notations etc. - people are getting carried away. - eo 16:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I think these guidelines are a little creepy. Why not just stick with what works for a particular article? Eventually the format of a discography or whathaveyou is going to tend toward what works and presents information that people want. Whether that's in list form with album title and date or a table with fields for label, chart positions, and extensive notes. Therefore I feel the projects old business is probably best left unresolved. –Zytsef 01:29, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes and logos

I don't know why this bothers me — perhaps because I see it as yet another Wikipedia template that editors insist on altering to make their favorite musicians stand out — but should an artist or band's logo appear at the top of their infobox, replacing plain text? Examples: Evanescence, Nine Inch Nails. I'm seeing this more often, and now I am seeing it for albums and songs - logos using the particular, specialized font utilized on the product's cover art. Does this violate any kind of imaging copyright or am I being too particular about this? - eo 15:35, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Man oh man, I just noticed this exact coversation is happening above. You can all slap me later. It's been a busy day. Sheesh. - eo 15:52, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, that's a rather old discussion and I still have unfinished business with it, so this is quite welcome.
It seems that many are willing to accept usage of "logos" as fair use given their presence in infoboxes for companies, universities, and such. Given that, I would like to keep stricter enforcement: tighter definition of a "logo", so that not just any one-off design from a random album cover can be accepted as fair use. I also want a text field to be always present, not completely replaced by the graphic. Furthermore, I'm somewhat skeptical about the use of computer programs to extract logo typefaces from album covers as being fair use.
However, I am not a lawyer, so all I can really do is keep this list to keep track of all such articles that use logos in such a manner. Feel free to add to it; it's not even remotely close to completion.
And if some policy can finally be established, that'd be nice too. –Unint 16:03, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Style guidelines

I think conventions for how articles get named might be a good restart to this discussion. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians/Style for details. Zytsef (talk) 22:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Prolific Artist Under many Names

There is an artist, Ian Najdzionek, that has released many albums on multiple record labels. The only thing is he has released records under a number of different names, including "Sisters Freed From Bondage", "Khold Void", "Larvae Temple", "Horse Latitudes", and recently "Tezcatzontecatl". What should the title of the page be? -Violask81976 23:08, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest picking one name (maybe his birth name, or the name that's most famous) and using that, listing the other names in the "Alias" field. See Aphex Twin, for an example. Zytsef (talk) 23:22, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Discography question

I'm running into what might be the beginning of an edit war on a page I edit, Axl Rose. A new user is repeatedly removing the artist's upcoming album, Chinese Democracy, from the discography, claiming that it "doesn't exist" because it has not yet been released. While there is no release date for the album and it's become a bit of a running joke, it does have a label and ample citations to prove it exists and will be released in the future, and the article on the album is A-class and well-referenced.

I've cited WP:CRYSTAL (ie, future events can be discussed if they are cited) and from what I've seen on other pages, it's pretty standard to include an artist's upcoming release in the discography if it can be properly sourced and verified. SOme official insight from the Wikiprojectm or any help, would be appreciated, though. Thanks! DanielEng (talk) 20:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Equipment/Gear?

Hi, curious what people here think about including information about the equipment that a musician uses to get his or her "tone". I've seen this issue go both ways on articles and I think it would be good for there to be a more official policy. I, as an electric guitarist, an instrument with infinite tonal possibilities, find it very helpful to have this information available, especially if it specifies which recordings the gear in question was used on. Steve CarlsonTalk 23:46, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

The main concern is verifiability. For the great majority of artists this information is not available or extremely difficult to get ahold of (and thus hard to verify or maybe even original research). For the artists with verifiable information is available, equipment should be included. Most articles probably won't and shouldn't have any equipment info, though. Therefore I don't think we need a guideline on it. Zytsef (talk) 23:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree about verifiability being important, but there are definitely some musicians that sources can be found for. The reason I want a specific policy is twofold: first, I want something to point to when the non-musicians decide its crap and just delete it, and second, I want to highlight the importance of mentioning which recordings gear was used on so it is relatively clear how the artist achieved their tone on any particular album/song. Look at David Gilmour for a classic example of lists and lists of gear without context - if he used all that gear at the same time, it would sound like mush! But it would be helpful to know whether he used his signature Strat on Dark Side of the Moon, for example. It would also be cool to standardize on a format for this, as prose can get a little dense, while a list doesn't adequately capture what gear was used on what recording. Steve CarlsonTalk 00:11, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like some of the information could be shifted to articles on specific albums and songs (if they exist). Some of these articles are pretty bare so I'm sure the extra content will be appreciated. As you can see the guidelines here haven't been actively developed in a few years and never really achieved a very well defined form so I'm not sure how much good a guideline here will do you in situations with equipment information getting deleted. The best I can say it make sure the information is well cited and if someone comes along to delete it get a third opinion. I'm available for this if you leave a note on my talk page. Most of the time deleting well cited information is considered bad form. If you're still set on turning this into a guideline I'd like to hear from a few other contributors to this project. Zytsef (talk) 02:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I've had a bit of back and forth with this issue myself in the Adam Willard article. A couple of editors have added long list sections of "gear used" without any references, and I reverted it as unverified and because it really cluttered up the article. I'd actually like to have a section in there about the instruments and equipment he has used over the years, as it would certainly be informative and add meaningful content to the article. However, I don't think it's a good idea to list every piece of equipment he's ever used, as it would be an incredibly long and cluttered list (and of course it must be referenced). I think the best way to include this information is in a section of referenced prose. That way you can discuss how the musician's equipment has changed over time to produce different sounds and meet different recording needs. You can focus on the most important stuff and touch on what equipment they are currently using, if they are active. A list doesn't really tell you why any of it is important, nor how the musician uses that equipment to produce a particular sound. A couple of paragraphs of prose, however, would be able to explain this very well. As for explaining what they used on each album, I agree with Zytsef that that kind of information is best summarized in the individual album articles. Otherwise with most musicians who release a lot of albums the list would be unnecessarily long. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Some history. The notable instrument field in the infobox was actually a field in the original Guitarist Project infobox.(now deleted, unfortunately) The discussions and consensus on that particular field was that the criteria should be kept strict and that any instrument listed had to be particularly notable. The reason being, as earlier stated for equipment sections in general, verifiability. And, of course, the full agreement from all preoject members that the field should never look like long and crufty grocery list of gear. It was decided that the notable field should be for just that and that a detailed gear section would be included in the main article to appease Wikipedia gear heads but, again, that gear section would have to be cited and verifiable. I can only speak for the pages tagged by the guitarist project but for us, keeping those rules in place is very difficult with editors dropping in and bombing either the infobox field or the added equipment sections with text that l;ooks legit, but contains no references for verifiability. I see many drummer pages that have extensive gear lists which are look legit, but lack citations to follow-up on. And the result is that many of them just look like an advertisement for the gear that drummer uses. Which I think Wikipedia should try to avoid. Cited content is perfect. But guess work should be avoided. What exists in the articles now should be tagged for refs required. And if it looks a bit extreme then perhaps the sections should be removed or hidden coded until references can be found. Anger22 (Talk 2 22) 15:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Interviews

This page hasn't been active for months, so I'm hoping someone will notice this & we can discuss it. I'd like to create a guideline for using links to interviews in articles. I'm sure we've all seen articles that have several to even a dozen or more links to interviews in the External links section. I tend to cut these wherever possible, because they fail WP:NOT#LINK and WP:EL. Essentially, if an interview has some kind of useful or crucial information that is relevant to the article, then it should be used as a reference and the interview should be linked via a citation. If it's not worth citing as a reference, then it really doesn't have any useful information beyond what the article has already. After all, most notable musical artists have given dozens of interviews over the course of their career, and there's almost no discernible value to listing them all as external links. Basically I envision a guidline like this:

Interviews, such as those published in magazines and online music journals, can be valuable sources of information on a musical artist. However, Wikipedia is not a collection of links, and linking numerous interviews in an "External links" section is not useful to a reader. Avoid adding links to interviews in External links sections, and instead find ways to incorporate information from the interview into the body of the article, linking the interview in an accompanying citation.

Thoughts? --IllaZilla (talk) 22:43, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Isn't the last sentence a little redundant? I like the idea behind it, but why aren't WP:NOT#LINK and WP:EL enough to take care of this issue? Kaldari (talk) 23:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
It might be a little redundant to NOT#LINK/EL, but since we have article guidelines for our specific are of focus (musicians), I thought it would be a good idea to explain specifically how this applies to those articles. I frequently get into discussions over the "External links section as a linkfarm for interviews" issue and have to explain repeatedly how NOT#LINK and EL apply to the issue. If we could summarize it here in our guidelines, then we could show that the project has a particular consensus with respect to this issue. I mean, we have WP:MUSICSTYLE even though it's more or less redundant to WP:DAB, WP:MOS, etc. Part of the point of a project is to streamline particular sets of articles under common style guidelines, applying Wikipedia's core policies & guidelines to those particular article sets. Our guidelines don't cover very much in the way of specifics at the moment. You're probably right about the redunancy...I've reworded it. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:59, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. I support the guideline with the updated wording. Anything that helps cut down EL lists is probably a good idea :) Kaldari (talk) 00:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Seeing as there's been no further comment in 8 months, I'm going to add this wording to the page. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:58, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Album; Discography and album cover image move

Question -- I wrote an article on a band, and an editor redlinked their debut (and so far only) CD (just released). So I created an album page. That editor then contacted another editor, who is now seeking to delete both the band page and the album page.

Question -- I'm fine with deleting the album page, if I am allowed to move the songs info and the album cover image to the band page. Am I allowed to reflect the album cover on the band page, and the song tracks under a discography section on the band page, if I do so? And also redirect album searches to that page?

Many thanks. (flustered and flabbergasted)--VMAsNYC (talk) 07:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Discography sections not pointing to discography articles

If an artist doesn't have a discography article, does the discography section of the artist's page still need to follow these guidelines? Or can it include other things such as singles released, compilation albums, etc? Thanks. Eugeniu B +1-contribs- 01:08, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

If there's no separate discography article, then the discography section of the artist article should contain as much verifiable information about the artist's releases as possible (including singles, EPs, etc.). If the artist's discography is large enough to merit a separate article, then the discography section of the artist article is typically reduced to just a list of studio albums, with a {{main}} link to the separate discography article (per WP:SS). --IllaZilla (talk) 01:21, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
If the artist doesn't have a separate discography article, feel free to follow MOS:DISCOG (rather than the guidelines here) within the section. Kaldari (talk) 01:22, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
What I want to know and what I believe Eugeniu B wants to know is if you are able to list the track listing of said releases in the artist article as was done in the One Ok Rock article. Because all of their releases (albums, singles and EPs ) are already listed there. Eugeniu B, however wants to include the track list for the singles and EPs. MS (Talk|Contributions) 01:45, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Precisely. But I was also interested in what guideline should be followed when there is no discography article. Thanks for answering my question Kaldari. Eugeniu B +1 02:37, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
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