Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musicians/Archive 4

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Band logos in infoboxes

Just wondering if a consensus was ever reached on whether the use of band logos in infoboxes is permissible or not. It's been popping up a lot lately, and in most cases not even a logo but just stylized lettering. I would argue that it's not permissible under fair use guidelines and should be discouraged, mostly because the logo is not being discussed at all in the infobox. Most on the other side will argue that the logo provided identification of the artist, but that's not really true. A free image of the artist provides ID, not a logo. If we can come to some consensus on this or make a declaration based on fair use guidelines, I think we should add that decision to the main project page so we have somewhere to point people when removing the images. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with IllaZilla. Especially with copyrighted material, free alternatives are easy to come by (ie: plaintext, opposed to copyrighted logo). In cases where it's less clear (using sylized typeface), I think we have to consider that most fonts or other sylized lettering are copyrighted by somebody. Given that, stylized lettering should be discouraged to further the goal of being as free as possible on Wikipedia. However, I don't believe it should be a hard and fast rule. If a logo or sylized band name can be shown to be under a free license or not copyrighted at all then I think it should be left up to editors of a particular article whether to use it. Note that I believe the burden of proof is on the inclusionist. Zytsef (talk) 05:21, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I think logos really do identify some bands, and ought to be included in those special cases (with an appropriate fair use rationale). Stylisation and special fonts are best avoided imho. --kingboyk (talk) 13:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree they can be included, but the infobox isn't the place (and certainly not the top banner of the infobox). A separate image box with a discussion of the logo would be perfectly appropriate. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:29, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

A possible solution to this might be to add hidden text into the infobox template telling editors not to use logos in the top banner of the infobox, but rather just the artist's name in plain text. Thoughts? --IllaZilla (talk) 19:43, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Setting the issue of whether logos help identify bands aside, since it's extremely contentious, I'm not sure anything about logos needs to be included in the template itself. Overall I don't think it's an extremely widespread practice. Probably worth mentioning in the template guidelines, though. Zytsef (talk) 00:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
This discussion continued at Template talk:Infobox Musical artist#Logos. The consensus is: No logos in infoboxes. Wwwhatsup (talk) 14:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Not quite, it's still on. These things can take a little longer than 28 hours, no need to hurry. - Cyrus XIII (talk) 22:51, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes the consensus is quite unanimous and has several admins who are already making mass logo purges across numerous Wiki articles. 156.34.213.216 (talk) 00:04, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Dear sir, there is no consensus, the discussion is ongoing. And the very fact that a call of consensus was disputed (right here) should have been a sign of that. Thank you. -- Pepve (talk) 00:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes the discussion is ongoing, and you are invited to participate in it at Template talk:Infobox Musical artist#Logos. However, the clear majority of editors involved in the discussion at present have made it clear that the overall consensus is in favor of plain text in the name field of the infobox, rather than an image. Therefore several editors and admins have been bold and begun removing images that are clearly in violation of fair use criteria or are strictly decorative. Feel free to participate in the discussion, but don't be alarmed at the "purges." As with most things on WP, nothing is ever final (not even consensus). --IllaZilla (talk) 01:00, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
It's hard for people to see the consensus when they disagree with it. There was a clear consensus among editors to use commas as standard delimeters in the musician infobox but a minority of editors chose to be blind at that consensus and a small group of them made a personal agenda to br as many articles as they could so that they could try and generate a false 'comma count' to weight the arguement in their favour. It just resulted in a lot of clutter and "white space". This debate sparked a much more philosophical discussion since it really boiled down to the most solid fundamental structure that Wiki was built on.... "Free-use whenever/wherever possible". There is nothing more "free-use" then plain text. And the clear consensus among most editors is that's how it should be. It's worded best on that template discussion talkpage by admin John. :D . 156.34.208.112 (talk) 01:51, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Let me assure you that I am not a hypocrite (nor a superhero, for that matter). I am not opposing the call of consensus because I'm against the decision (I generally agree). I'm opposing it because the discussion is ongoing (you should know that, you commented last). There's nothing wrong with calmly waiting a bit, then editing the new found consensus into the guides, and avoiding turning people into hypocrites. -- Pepve (talk) 12:55, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Artist - Colin Hay article needs some work...

If there's anyone in this Wikiproject that is a big 80's New Wave fanatic, could you take a look at the article on Colin Hay, lead singer from Men at Work? The article has been stale for a while, needing improvement. I've added an infobox, started paring down the trivia section, and corrected some info, but the sections need building. If anyone's interested, please msg me on my talk page. Thanks! Edit Centric (talk) 09:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Providing link for other lazy people: Colin Hay. -- Pepve (talk) 11:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Dethklok?

I just asked this question on the Biography Wikiproject, and they directed me here. Is a cartoon heavy metal band truly within the scope of the musician project? I notice the actual musician of the show, creator Brendon Small, is supported by the biography project but not the music one. Perhaps this should be rethought? Thanks. --Boradis (talk) 07:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Looks like they have actually released an album in the real world that charted and the article mentions the two guys who actually do the music. So, it's not entirely fictional, just more along the lines of a band with fictional stage personas taken to an extreme. I'd say it's within the scope. Zytsef (talk) 16:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I would say it's within the scope on the same level as Gorillaz or Josie and the Pussycats. Though all of those are fictitious animated bands whose recordings were actually made by real, behind-the-scenes people, the records are released under the band's and characters' names so it makes them "musicians" in a sense, though the articles should obviously discuss the nature of the fictitious group and the real persons responsible. The fictitious band should be within the scope of Musicians, while the real people should be within Biography (or both, if they're a notable musician in their own right ie. the guy from Blur who is behind Gorillaz). --IllaZilla (talk) 00:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. Thanks for explaining it for me. --Boradis (talk) 06:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Cristal Marie

I've been editing this article Cristal Marie and was re-directed here, I'd like to know if the article qualifies for the project or to be added on what projects. The references are mostly in spanish and I've been aided by several contributors in terms of advice for what sources to cite or not but it's still presenting warning problems. How can I get someone else to help me with the article? Or is this article ok to stay? I'm new, so patience please, since I'm trying to be as accurate as possible in the writing of that article so that i may work on other notable dominican musicians. I don't know if there's a page dedicated to musicians or artists per their country. Does it exist? Particularly for those of Dominican Republic? Or would it be possible to create one? Sorry if I'm asking a lot of questions, I'm just hoping to really help out in the articles concerning the most important and accomplished artists from Dominican Republic

Kcsilver (talk) 04:19, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, it looks pretty good so far. I think it's safe against someone trying to delete the article. If you're not sure about a topic just compare the article you're thinking of starting to the notability guidelines. In this case you would want to check the slightly more specific notability guidelines for music also. As for a page for musicians by country, check out Category:Musical groups by nationality. You can find Category:Dominican musical groups as a subcategory there. Similarly, for individuals instead of groups: Category:Musicians by nationality.
I've gone ahead and added the article to Category:Dominican Republic singers and an appropriate infobox, so go ahead and add more information to it as you see fit. Hope it all helps. Zytsef (talk) 06:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Article assessment

Two questions about article assessment, one general and one specific. (1) Is there a process for editors to request that an article about a musician or music group be assessed? If yes, can it be mentioned on the project page? If not, can one be created? See for example Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Assessment#Requests for assessment. (2) Not a huge deal, but Kingfish (band) was recently assessed as a Stub. Can someone take another look at it please? I'm really thinking that it should be Start. Besides having almost a screen's worth of solid narrative, it has a complete discography, 8 references, an infobox, and a category. It's also properly Wikified, with a fair number of links in both directions (to and from the article). I think it would be helpful to distinguish an article like this from what I think of as a "stub", which is a very short article that lacks some or all of these features. Thanks! — Mudwater 13:21, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that was me. I've been working on cutting down the total number of unassessed articles the past few days so I've been assigning assessments pretty quickly and based mostly on the total amount of content in an article and whether it has inline citations. If you feel it meets the criteria for a start class article please change it. Zytsef (talk) 20:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. In general, how to decide between Stub and Start assessments might be a very good topic of conversation. But for now, does anyone have an opinion on the idea of creating a place for editors to request an article assessment, similar to how WikiProject Films does it? — Mudwater 01:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
I think it's a great idea. I'll go ahead and take a look at WikiProject Films and see if I can manage something similar. Hopefully it can spur a little more activity in this project. Zytsef (talk) 02:17, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, that wasn't so hard. Check out Assessment#Requests for assessment. I have the page watched now, so at least I'll respond if something goes there. Zytsef (talk) 23:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Looks good. Thanks! — Mudwater 00:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Zytsef, I'm not sure if you looked at the history of what WikiProject Films had in their assessment area, but a while ago they were adding comments there to explain why they had given an particular assessment, sometimes with a few brief suggestions for improvement. They would then leave the article on the list for a while. I think they might have marked the title with a strike through also, to make it obvious that it had been assessed. Just a thought. — Mudwater 01:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Coordinating division of labour

I'd like to gauge the interest in actually getting editors coordinated to cooperatively get certain tasks within the project accomplished. Lately I've been working on the backlog of all the unassessed articles, a task that appears to have been neglected for a long time. I'm wondering if anyone is interested in helping me out, or maybe banding together with others to get some articles improved.

For instance, a group of editors could keep an eye on articles in need of attention and try to take care of the pressing issues there. Or maybe just focus on the articles that need infobox help. Another group could work on trying to get all the top- and high-priority rated articles up to good article status. There are just a couple of ideas I came up with off the top of my head. I'm not thinking of anything very formal, just a little support to make dealing with the huge number of articles we cover less daunting.

If you like the sound of this or have some ideas for other coordinated efforts please leave a note here. Maybe we can get a few articles up to snuff. Zytsef (talk) 22:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I have been assessing articles from the unassessed category regularly for months, "helping you out". So: you are not alone ;) BNutzer (talk) 20:05, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I've been going around adding the project template to the talk pages of articles that weren't tagged yet, and also updating old tags (needs infobox, living, etc.). I've been doing this somewhat randomly, by going through category lists ie. "Category:British rock groups". It's not really a coordinated or organized effort. Is there an easier method or a way to make it more organized? --IllaZilla (talk) 20:23, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I think your method is probably best, IllaZilla. I've just been adding the project template randomly to articles as I happen across them. Maybe if anyone else is interested in adding articles you could divide up the categories, ie you would take "Category:British rock groups" and the next guy could take another category, so your efforts don't overlap. Since finishing up the backlog of unassessed articles I've (very slowly) started to add infoboxes to all the tagged articles, starting at the beginning. Thanks for your help assessing BNutzer, I didn't notice anyone else was on the job because my eyes tend to glaze over when I'm doing it en mass. Keep up the good work, all! Zytsef (talk) 20:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Comma's vs Linebreaks

Hey, I presume that this is the right place for this question. I was just wondering, as there have been a few arguments on the matter, whether the MoS for band infoboxes when it comes to the genre section is to list them as commas (like this) or as, what seems to be the vastly more popular line breaks (like this). Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Also if a link could be provided to the official MoS for this matter on Wikipedia would be great; I've looked around on WP:MOS but can find nothing - unless I'm not looking hard enough. ≈ The Haunted Angel 00:29, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

This has been discussed periodically, but I don't recall a consensus. I would say do whatever looks good, and try not to let a list get too long. I prefer to use commas, whether or not the list is with line breaks, since some items carry over between lines. -Freekee (talk) 02:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree, whatever looks good. If you look at the two examples near the bottom of the page at Template:Infobox Musical artist, one has commas and one has line breaks. — Mudwater 02:49, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Alright, thanks for the help, guys. ≈ The Haunted Angel 20:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with you. But I alluded to a guy who reverts my edits even if there is enough place under the infobox. Compare for example this infoboxes: this with this or this with this. There is mostly still enough place for expanding of the lenght of the infobox and the linebrakes make the single genres or associated acts much more transparent and clear. For me it is pretty confusing with commas. Genres or associated bands blend together and look as a text in sentences. For me as a reader of an article it looks better ordered and synoptic with linebreaks. And there is mostly some of space under the infobox, and if not, it is not such a problem if it helps the infobox. For me the infobox fulfils its purpose only if it is as tabular as possible; that is why we use infoboxes... I have nothing against commas when it really comes to such a lists of course, but I think I gave an explanation why should the linebreaks be allowed too.Lykantrop (Talk) 23:35, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Nonagaye.jpg

Thanks for uploading or contributing to Image:Nonagaye.jpg. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is not a suitable explanation or rationale as to why each specific use in Wikipedia constitutes fair use. Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale.

If you have uploaded other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on those pages too. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free media lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

It appears the uploader has been blocked.--Rockfang (talk) 19:01, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Confusion with David Briggs

There seems to be almost universal confusion between David Briggs (producer) who prodiced Neil Young, among others, and "David Paul Briggs" (a musician, who also produces) and, bizarrely, does not have his own Wikipedia entry.

See here http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:dzfyxqlkldae~T4 and http://www.alamhof.org/briggsd.htm

This page talks about the confusion; http://hyperrust.org/General/BriggsObit.html

"David Briggs was often confused by fans and journalists alike as being the same session musician
and producer who owns House Of David in Nashville. Since parts of the country album by Neil Young
called, Old Ways, was recorded at House Of David this only added to the confusion. The David Briggs
who played keyboards for people like Elvis Presley, J.J. Cale, Arthur Alexander, Bob Dylan and Joan
Baez was the other David Briggs and he lives in Nashville.
"They are both David Briggs, they both produced records, and they both always got miscredited," Bernstein
insisted. "If you look in the Record Producers File, that came out like twelve years ago in Scotland,
they put under David Briggs name all the albums they both produced. Our David Briggs (who lived in California)
always referred to him as the 'other' David Briggs."

This Alice Cooper album, Easy Action, is the Nashville Briggs and reference to it in David Briggs (producer) is obviously also the Nashville Briggs, so is incorrect. (Actually, this is the Neil Young Briggs so ignore that - Trephination (talk) 12:42, 25 March 2008 (UTC))

I'm sure there are more examples.

Where to start? Trephination (talk) 23:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like you could probably make a case for including the Briggs that doesn't have a page, especially if you have a few good sources. You could go ahead and write up a stub, maybe at David Briggs (American musician), then cross link with the disabiguation page. It would be nice to see Wikipedia be a source of reliable information when so many other sources get it wrong. Zytsef (talk) 06:32, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
OK, I've made a starton David Briggs (American musician); written a little bio, provided a few links etc. Can someone have a look to see if I'm on the right track, please? Trephination (talk) 00:42, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Good article or exemplars

Just checking out this page hoping to find some good article or exemplars to the project, to help me to better to understand editting styles. Just a suggestion to add to the project page, or if someone knows where I could look to find such things in this project. -66.109.248.114 (talk) 22:50, 14 February 2008 (UTC).

Check out Category:FA-Class biography (musicians) articles for the best examples of articles currently in the project. Zytsef (talk) 23:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Guideline proposal

I'd like to propose the style guidline per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music#Bands. Guideline proposal is on Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians/Style. It is an quick sollution (WP:ALBUM#Style modified for bands), so please fix errors if you find them. --Qsaw (talk) 17:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I like it so far. I fixed it up a little and generalized it to include individual musicians since they're in the scope of this project too. In the past there have been efforts to compile some guidelines but nothing got pushed through ever, and I think this is a better start than most of the suggestions that have been made before. Thanks for bringing it back up. Zytsef (talk) 18:43, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Looks good to me, though I think there are probably more things that could be added to it. Next question is where should it go? -Freekee (talk) 04:35, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
I've mentioned it at the (mostly inactive) discussion for article guidelines, just in case anyone's lurking there. Zytsef (talk) 22:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

CfD notice - 220 or so "(nationality) (instrument) by genre" categories nominated for upmerger

Following inconclusive discussions about categorisation of musicians at WP:MUSCAT last year, in particular as to whether this level of category was a good idea, a recent CfD initiated by someone coming fresh to the issue led to a consensus to upmerge. I have now nominated 220 or so similar categories for the same treatment - see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 February 25#Category:American bassoonists by genre and similar categories. Bencherlite Talk 01:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:BAND

I'm not sure whether you noticed the change, so here it is: WP:BAND now redirects to this project, since it deals with bands. It used to redirect to Wikipedia:Notability (music). The shortcuts for that page are WP:NMG, WP:MUSIC and WP:MUS. -Freekee (talk) 03:01, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted this change. Over 25,000 pages link to WP:BAND, and I'm assuming that most of them aren't trying to link to the WikiProject. I think there needs to be more discussion before this redirect is changed. --Onorem Dil 17:53, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for update of Template:Musician attn

The following Code box details a preliminary layout that I initially formatted on some of my articles in alpha for an updated Template:Musician attn based on Template:Ambox:

{{Ambox
| type = content
| image = none
| text = ''This article is in need of attention. For more information, see [[:Category:WikiProject Musicians needs attention]].
}}
<includeonly>[[Category:WikiProject Musicians needs attention]]</includeonly>
<noinclude>[[Category:WikiProject Musicians templates|{{PAGENAME}}]]</noinclude>

As I understand things, Article Message Boxes are now standardized to the WikiMedia Ambox specification. Do inform me on the go-no go of this update adoption. - B. C. Schmerker (talk) 09:04, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Does this duplicate the function of the attention flag in the WPBiography template or is this another annoying (and extremely unspecific) template to put at the top of an article? Zytsef (talk) 07:57, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, to my understanding Template:Musician attn is unrelated to the needs functions in Template:WPBiography, which assigns Booleans for items needed for Infoboxes in Articles on persons, musician and otherwise. Template:Musician attn and its talk-page companion, Template:Musician attn talk, are specific to this WikiProject for the purpose of standardizing Articles on musicians. - B. C. Schmerker (talk) 08:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Right, but you can set the "attention=yes" flag in the WPBiography template to make something show up in Category:Musicians work group articles needing attention, which seems to duplicate this template's purpose. Also, there are tons of cleanup templates that address specific concerns which I feel are better than a generic message saying "This article needs attention, but I'm not telling what it is specificly". Zytsef (talk) 20:49, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, I think I see what happened. This is an old template that appears to be depricated but never got deleted. I'm going to look into doing that now. Thanks for bringing it up. Zytsef (talk) 20:53, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Very well, recommend a procedures clarification this Project Page concerning the aforementioned Attention boolean in Template:WPBiography and commence Template for Deletion proceedings on the original Template:Musician attn per User:Zytsef. Do put up Template:Musician attn talk for discussion, too, as it too may need a Delete or Merge, depending on whether a talk Template:Subst equivalent to Template:Biography attn talk is available. B. C. Schmerker (talk) 07:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Vocal register

Hi. I just translated the article for Orange pekoe (band), a Japanese pop-jazz duo, from the Japanese Wikipedia. I'm afraid I have no expertise, however, in musical terminology, and stumbled on one particular term. The vocalist's register is described as 中低音, which literally translates to "middle low sound". Since 低音 (low sound) is the term used for "bass", I translated it in the article as "middle bass". But I have no idea if this is a valid term in English, or what would be best. Thanks. LordAmeth (talk) 03:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Alison Wheeler

Anyone want to shower some love on Alison Wheeler, an article that has come to my attention for various reason but someone I don't know much about. --Fredrick day (talk) 23:49, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Jason Mraz

Back in July 2007, Jason Mraz called on his fans to edit his Wikipedia article to make up as much info about him as possible. To quote Mraz: "Reality is Malleable. It's constantly changing and shifting and becoming something different each day. Because of this amazing quality of life, I am challenging each of you to help me create an exciting new life courtesy of the loopholes at Wikipedia.com, basically I'm encouraging everyone to visit the Jason Mraz page at Wikipedia and make minor amendments until the entry sounds as absurd as humanly possible. Keep in mind you'll likely be notified at least once by the Wiki-Police for vandalizing Internet real estate, so be careful. Feel free to add that I'm settling down in Sweden with my beautiful blond wife with our blond dog and cat in our blond house. Mention my Pulitzer Prize for online journalism as well as my many awards for philanthropy and breakthroughs in stem cell research. And don't forget about the New Gregory Page Ep, Knife in my Chest, produced by Jason Mraz & G. Page that is now available thru GregoryPage.com as well as Myspace.com/GregoryPage." Since then, a lot of nonsense has been added. I've removed a lot, but I'm not sure I've removed all. Please help review the article. A ecisBrievenbus 11:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Brok'n Arrow

Family jamband/rock/improv act made up of the Smith Family. Founded in 1995. Brok'n Arrow's members are

Jeffrey Smith..guitar/vocals Jeremiah Smith..guitar/vocals Joe Smith..Bass Cinnamon Smith..Vocals Billy Robinson...Drums/Monster From the Fox Valley area of Wisconsin. They are composer/musicians.Jeffrey7 (talk) 18:45, 18 March 2008 (UTC)Jeffrey Smith,03-18-2008

Did you have a question or something, or were you trying to start an article about this group? --IllaZilla (talk) 01:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Band Nationality in Introduction

I should like to suggest an effort to modify the introductions of each band from the United States of America. Most of them start off saying something like: "(band name) is an American (genre) band from (town, state), formed in (a year)". The problem is American is too ambiguous of a term. It does not simply suggest being from the United States of America, rather it suggests from being anywhere in the American continent(s). Saying "AFI is an American rock band", does not explicitly suggest AFI is from the United States of America, rather it is from the American continent(s). Therefore, I suggest an effort be made to change introductions to something more along the lines of: "(band name) is a (genre) band from (town, state), United States of America, formed in (year)". Or something else if someone suggests something better. Bands should not be referred to American though. Rather as from the United States of America. Dale-DCX (talk) 23:39, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I can see how it might be confusing, but your assumption about the meaning of "American" is incorrect. "American" is the demonym for inhabitants of the United States. See the infobox of the United States article and also these sections of the "American (word)" article:

The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an American. Though United States is the formal adjective, American and U.S. are the most common adjectives used to refer to the country ("American values," "U.S. forces"). American is rarely used in American English to refer to people not connected to the United States.

-and-

The word can be used as both a noun and an adjective. In adjectival use, it is generally understood to mean "of or relating to the United States of America"; for example, "Elvis Presley was an American singer" or "the American president gave a speech today;" in noun form, it generally means U.S. citizen or national.

Each country/nation in North and South America has a different demonym, ie. "Canadian", "Mexican", "Brazilian", "Panamanian"...so there really is no confusing the meaning. If you were referring to something or someone from the continent as a whole, you would say "North American" or "South American", ie. "Argentina is a South American nation. People from Argentina are called Argentines or Argentinians". --IllaZilla (talk) 23:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
I am well aware the United States of America does not have its own unique denonym. American is both a denonym for a person (or thing) from the United States of America, and for anything from the Americas. As outlined in the page you highlighted.
Each nation in the Americas does indeed have a different denonym, with the exception of the United States of America. If I were to refer to an Argentinian, I would do so as such, but it would also be correct to refer to them as American. Just as it would be correct to refer to a German as a European. The usage of North or South is irrelevant as simply American refers to both. The American denonym may be in use, yet it being so results in a sometimes confusing and non-specific outcome.
I should suggest that regardless of what citizens and things from the United States of America are called, it would be clearer to refer to them in the way which I have outlined. Also, I see no negative impact of this change. It will still be clear the groups are from the United States of America, and there will never be any question of what exactly is meant by American.Dale-DCX (talk) 05:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I disagree that the usage of North or South is irrelevant, because North America and South America are almost always classified as 2 different continents. But I digress...in almost every case I've come across where the lead sentence describes the act as "...an American ____ band", "American" has been piped to the article on the United States. Also in almost every case this is followed by some form of "from <city>, <state>", so it makes it quite clear where the artist in question is from. I don't have any objection at all to the format you're suggesting, but I think either way is fine and communicates the same information so I wouldn't think it necessary to go through numerous articles changing the lead sentences to all be the same format. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
The reason North and South are used is to differentiate between the two continents which comprise America (or the Americas) and does not necessarily suggest that North Americans are different, from South Americans, only in as much as they live in different parts of America. Stating a Pole to be an Eastern European can be used, but it is also (and possibly more) correct to refer to them simply as European. As is also the case with Americans.
I definitely understand the current phrasing presents very few problems. However, I think it best to move everything over, to avoid any possible issue whatsoever. Besides, many may have no clue if the city and state are in the United States of America. Perhaps I do not need to suggest a mass and immediate change. Perhaps just whenever you come across an article, modify it so there is no possible issue. Dale-DCX (talk) 07:41, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
The only people who seem to have a problem with this use of the word "American", which I promise you is used quite regularly, every day, by people all around the world, are people from Latin America, who seem to have difficulty understanding that the usage and nuance and meaning of the word "American" in English doesn't have to correspond to their own conceptions of the Spanish meaning of the word "Americano". Anyone who isn't of that persuasion will read "so-and-so is an American band" as meaning that they come from the US. I'm sorry if language doesn't always make sense, doesn't always follow the most logical course, but there is no word such as "US-ian" in common usage; this is what is used, and so you just have to deal with it. Wikipedia doesn't deal in what we want to be correct, it only reflects what is actually the case. LordAmeth (talk) 12:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree, this is not about what we want to be correct. The fact is that people DO have issues with the term American and it best to completely remove any possible issue. No doubt language is quite ridiculous and we can do our part to make it easier to deal with. Thus, it would be best to list bands as from the United States of America, rather than American. Dale-DCX (talk) 04:32, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I disagree entirely. What you're talking about is political correctness, changing what we say and how we say it in order to conform to some people's impressions of what is less offensive. Changing what we call something, how we talk about it, is really little different from changing the way we represent the facts themselves, and that is right out. If you want a Wikipedia that conforms to what a segment of the population thinks is appropriate, you can go use the CCP-controlled Baidu Baike. Meanwhile, the English Wikipedia is not censored, it is not a place to represent original ideas such as what you think things should be called; it is not a soapbox for your "we're all Americans and you need to invent a new word" agenda. Meanwhile, the most common demonym in English, regardless of what some native Spanish speakers may think of it, is "American", and people throughout the world, outside of Latin America, are perfectly fine with this. That's the true situation on the ground, and that's what Wikipedia is here to represent - the verifiable, the true version, not the artificially concocted politically correct version. LordAmeth (talk) 11:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Whoa buddy, settle down. I am not attempting to propose any sort of mass censorship or political correctness dictatorship. Chill out. This has nothing to do with what I think things should be called, rather with what things indeed are actually called. Things from America are called American, so are things from the United States of America call American. Making a more specific reference, has nothing to do with being less offensive or politically correct, and only to do with being less ambiguous.
The "true situation" (as you put it) is that American does not only reffer to the United States of America and we should take care to represent this. There is no grand fabricated politically correct conspiracy behind my suggestion. Only one of disambiguation. Also, since you seem to have some sort of anger towards Spanish speakers, I will point out I am not Latin American, nor do I speak Spanish. However, I am an American, but am not from the United States of America. See, if I were to say I was simply American, it would not follow that you would be able to determine which nation I am from. Again, chill out. Dale-DCX (talk) 19:48, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Influences in infoboxes

Looking thru artists and bands, I think there's definitely scope to add "influences" and "influenced" to the Infobox, as in Template:Infobox Philosopher. I dont really have the musical knowledge to start adding them, but I'm sure there'd be many who would. William Quill (talk) 22:58, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. There is so much edit-warring and POV arguments already over the "genre" field in most articles, adding fields like "influences" and "influenced" would simply compound the problem. Plus, most musical acts have many influences, too many to list in the infobox. Conversely, a majority of acts likely have very few other acts that they have influenced. This is information that would require detailed sourcing and is best left in the article body; it would be extraneous in an infobox which is meant only to provide information about the act which is the subject of the article, not other acts that they may have influenced or been influenced by. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
That would be an "invitation for pov and original research". It should not be added. As mentioned... if referenced it can go in the article. The box already has enough cruft magnets. 156.34.222.121 (talk) 06:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Since this discussion is concerned with the Musical Artist infobox, I'm moving it to Template talk:Infobox Musical artist#"Influences" field. Please continue the discussion there. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:19, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Infoboxes order

Do the genres, labels an associated acts have to be separated only by a comma, or can they be written on a single line each? I think it is much more transparent when every e.g. genre is on one line rather than everything put together. That is why we use infobox - to be tabular, well arranged.--Lykantrop (Talk) 13:16, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

There is ongoing debate over the genre field. The other fields should all be comma delimited. For the Wikipedia album project the genre field is separated by commas. This can be found in their wp:album guidelines. It was a consensus decision in that project to use comma spacing and not the <br /> break code in order to keep the box length short. The musician project has yet to reach this decision as there is a very vocal minority who prefer breaks instead of commas. Their reasoning for this has never been properly explained. If there are only a couple of items in any of the fields then using breaks does not extend the box length by very much. If there are 3 or 4 or 5 items (or more) in the box then using breaks extends the box too much and breaks up the flow of the remainder of the article by putting a large gap between the article lead paragraph(s) and the main body content. Line breaks also impede any visually impaired Wikipedia readers who are using third party reading software. It if for this reasoning that the majority of editors use the comma spacing pver the line breaks. My own personal opinion on the subject is that the musician project should try to match the consensus view of the album project since the two project have so many shared pages within the scope of their project mandates. Peter Fleet (talk) 16:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the answerLykantrop (Talk) 23:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Adding a Band where another Band exists

I recently came across an article which claimed that people use Wikipedia to search for information on their favourite bands / artists. With this in mind I decided to add a biography for my husband's band Ulysses. Only to discover that another band called Ulysses is also listed (although they are American). While the American Ulysses entry is very valid - where can I then add the English Ulysses? I love how useful Wikipedia is and I don't want to contravene any regulations. Some help/advice would be much appreciated.

Here's the link to the article for your information: http://mashable.com/2008/03/22/music-wikipedia-search/

Lilylimpet (talk) 20:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The best thing would be to add the English band to Ulysses (English band) and request to move the American one to Ulysses (American band) Mdebets (talk) 21:31, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
When there is a difficulty creating multiple articles about things with the same name, Wikipedia uses a diambiguating phrase in parenthesis in the article title (for example "_____ (band)" or "_____ (film)"). As Mdebets says, in this case it would mean creating "Ulysses (English band)" and "Ulysses (American band)", and making sure both are listed on the Ulysses disambiguation page. You can find out more about article disambiguation at WP:DAB. I also encourage you to take a look at Wikipedia's conflict of interest guidelines, since you are proposing creating an article about a subject to which you have a close personal relationship. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:39, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the help - I have looked at the conflict of interest guidelines which is why I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing. I will make sure that the article is factual and biographical and refers to the correct sources. Hopefully this article will help other bands who want to do the same thing.
I would also suggest that you look at the musician notability guidelines, so as to avoid being disappointed or annoyed when your pet band (have they released any nationwide or worldwide albums?) gets deleted. LordAmeth (talk) 23:07, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Now now Ameth, no need to bite. Lilylimpet, definitely take a look at those notability guidelines though, and let me know on my talk page if you need any help or clarification. I'll be happy to help point you in the right direction. I'm not an admin or anything, but I can direct you to some helpful resources and pertinent guidelines. --IllaZilla (talk) 23:25, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Categories for logo images

Just an FYI to all: There have been a couple of categories/subcats created for musical artist logo images. They are:

The parent category for both is Category:Musical artist logos. When categorizing images, however, [[Category:Musical artist logos]] should not be used unless neither of the above subcategories applies, per WP:SUBCAT. If you have uploaded logo images for musical artist articles, or if you come across any during your editing, please make sure that they are placed in one of these categories by adding [[Category:Non-free musical artist logos]] or [[Category:Musical artist logos ineligible for copyright]] to the image description pages as appropriate. This is purely for organizational and maintenance purposes. Thank you. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

SnowGhost Music?

Anybody care to take a stab at this ? Dudeschlep (talk) 20:36, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I couldn't manage it without damaging my monitor. -Freekee (talk) 00:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Hmm... not sure I follow you. Dudeschlep (talk) 03:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry. Bad joke. You asked me to "stab" it. -Freekee (talk) 00:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Associated Acts

There's a minor edit war brewing at Neil Young over whether to list Pearl Jam in the "associated acts" field of the infobox. On the one hand, Young has performed with them often and recorded an album with them. On the other, he's certainly never been a member, and pretty well every other act listed in the infobox is a band of which he's been a member. Is there any consensus as to under what circumstances an act is associated? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 21:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't recall the subject coming up before, but I would assume that the term is used for bands that actually share members. Not just someone that played with someone else, unless they really made a career of it. -Freekee (talk) 00:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey all. Whilst trawling through wikipedia i cam across the Featured sound page. I noticed that there was a significant lack of regular participation in this process. At the moment there are only 15 audio rerecording that have reached featured Status and I was wondering whether it would be possible to get more involvementfrom people interested in music and also generally audio recordings so that the best audio on wikipedia can be truly appreciated. I hope to you participating on the page more often and that a greater community consensus can be formed here. Seddon69 (talk) 18:37, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Janet Jackson

Janet Jackson has been nominated for Featured article. I'd like as many editors as possible to help review it to ensure passing. Thankyou. Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 08:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 April 27#Category:Bands with female lead singers. Badagnani (talk) 19:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Mark Dann is a redirect created earlier this month. Right now it's pointing at Marc Dann, the former Ohio Attorney General. All the incoming links, however, refer to the recording engineer/bass player[1]. Normally I would create a new article and disambiguate with hatnotes, but the musician doesn't seem to meet the notability guideline. His studio sounds like it could possibly be significant if references could be found. I was hoping people in the project would know/could find out if either the musician or his recording studios are notable enough for an article, or whether I should just remove the incoming links. Thanks! —Ashanda (talk) 17:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't get much on Google besides his studio and the services he offers, which is about as much most editors will do if you create a page for Mark and it goes up for deletion. I also get nothing on musicbrainz (which isn't indicative of anything except how incomplete it is), so it's pretty tough to tell if the recordings he's worked on qualify him with the notability requirements. Given the lack of immediately available information my first reaction would be not to add the recording engineer, but if you have some good sources and feel he meets the guidelines then go for it. Zytsef (talk) 18:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Rather than remove the incoming links (as more are likely to appear) how about turning this redirect page into a disambiguous page that links the politician and describes the musician, but does not link a new article. - Steve3849 talk 23:01, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I thought of that, but per MOS:DAB and WP:DAB, that's not what disambiguation pages are meant for. —Ashanda (talk) 23:06, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Does Mark Dann > Credits at AllMusic make anything easier? BNutzer (talk) 00:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Ryan Tedder

Can someone add a marital status thing on a musical artist's infobox or is it not possible? I think it would help a lot specially in the cases of frontmen whose female [and sometimes male] fans always wonder if they are married or not. Just asking a question :P UnkEdit (talk) 18:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Move/rename Vanness Wu

I'd like to move Vanness Wu to "Van Ness Wu," as this is how his name is written on all official sites. Any objections/discussion? Thanks! --Hamuhamu (talk) 05:05, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The Supremes

The Supremes has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.--— Realist2 (Come Speak To Me) 15:44, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Album Sales

A lot of people come onto Wikipedia just to check how much albums a certain Artist or Band has sold. I've noticed that a lot of articles don't emphasize Album Sales, they just simply put it in the first paragraph among the rest of the text. To make WikiPedia more successful, I personally believe that we should do one of the following:

1. Put Album Sales in Bold text, or

2. Add a section to the Infobox that tells how many albums the specific Musician has sold.

I began to do the first option with some Industrial Metal artists, (Rob Zombie, Rammstein and KMFDM), and the article seemed "better" in a way. Then someone undid my edit to Korn, so I decided to discuss this idea here. -Xaremathras (talk) 21:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The thing is this isn't very widely applicable. Comparatively few bands have album sales numbers available. Also, I do not believe bolding sales numbers seems "better" at all. It over-emphasizes what I feel is a relatively minor part of an article. I wouldn't be totally opposed to adding to to the infobox, though. You might try bringing it up at Template talk:Infobox Musical artist, but if past attempts at similar inclusions are an indicator expect heavy resistance. Zytsef (talk) 21:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
While I understand what you're getting at and appreciate the potential usefulness of easy-to-grab, soundbyte-style info to some Wikipedia users, I agree with Zytsef that this isn't very widely applicable or important, and such info isn't all that easily available. I have always found soundbyte statements that "such-and-such has sold X number of albums/singles/whatever" to be somewhat propaganda-ish, used to illustrate or justify an artist's success (or lack thereof). As the reader, I don't really know what that number represents. Is it just for the US? Does it include compilations and/or remix albums? Does it include what the US calls EPs? Does it include legal digital downloads? Is it based on real sales or estimates? Is it based all or partially on radio airplay? Etc. Thus, to a critical reader, it's not a very useful soundbyte statement, without the background information to flesh it out. Additionally, many/most(?) artists that operate primarily (or solely) outside the US aren't going to have this information. In fact, the definition of "album" varies outside the US. Lastly, sales of individual releases are often reported in discography tables, like in Ayumi Hamasaki or Utada Hikaru. I find these tables useful because they allow the reader to decide how they want to weigh the different types of sales the artist has attained, which I feel is more in line with the nature of an encyclopedic source :) -- Hamuhamu (talk) 16:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

musicians stubs talk

I just opened up the musicians stub sub-project talk page with a thread about the completeness of the stubs list. Please check it out. — eitc h 06:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

New proposal for Discography sections

Please take a look at this proposal and express your support or objections. Keep in mind we currently have no guidelines for Discography sections whatsoever, so this would at least be a start. Kaldari (talk) 18:15, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Snap!

I've been working on the entry for German dance act Snap! and would appreciate it if you'd take a look and improve its score and ad any suggestions to how it can be improved. AcerBen (talk) 13:24, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Peer review help requested

Please check out Wikipedia:Peer review/The Greencards/archive1. Thanks! rootology (T) 07:17, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

  • The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
  • The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
  • A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 22:15, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

C-class up and running?

Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Assessment does not yet list C-class, Category:C-Class biography (musicians) articles is already being filled. So I guess that we are using the new assessment class(es). BNutzer (talk) 11:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The updated quality scale is now in place. Regards. PC78 (talk) 19:08, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Template WPBeatles "vs." Template WPBiography

Please see Template talk:WPBeatles#WPBiography support. BNutzer (talk) 23:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Separating "genre" and "style"

Is it possible to add a new field to the infobox describing the artist's musical style? I've noticed that for many of the popular music artists out there, the infobox lists "pop" as their genre, even though pop isn't a genre. Additionally, while the idea is to list the artist's most general genre, infoboxes sometime contain upwards of five genres and subgenres, some of which are styles, and not genres per se. I propose that we add a field directly under "genre" called "style" that lists the musical style of the artists.

Take Michael Jackson for example. Instead of listing a million genres, why don't we follow this guide? His genre=R&B, his musical style= Dance-Pop, Urban, Motown, Pop/Rock, Club/Dance, New Jack Swing, Funk, as per Allmusic. In addition to finally being precise (Celine Dion is Rock (genre); adult contemporary, pop/rock (style)), the added advantage of this is that we can use Allmusic as a guide, so mentions of genres will be sourced, and not based on the whims of fans, such as those who think that Hip-hop should be listed as a genre of the Pussycat Dolls, simply because they did a song with Timbaland. Orane (talk) 04:41, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it is not needed to distinguish this. If I have genre "alternative rock", "rock" is implied automatically. I think the current way served us well and I do see no reason to change it, especially not those you mention. Genre should be different for "Celine Dion" and for example "Led Zeppelin" although in your viewpoint both would be classified as "rock". There is no use for a genre-field anymore if it leads to a massive amount of artists being labeled alike although they share nothing in common in terms of the music they play. Also, it would be nice if you could use more informative edit summaries and I think this should be discussed with the rest of the associated WikiProjects first because such changes will have a huge impact on tens of thousands of articles. So#Why 21:56, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
This section was also posted on Musician infobox's talk page, where I have posted some suggestions for changes. I agree that the changes made so far seem to have gone in too soon, without discussion, as specified in the big box at the top of that page. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 22:09, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I'm here looking for Wikipedians who would be willing to help me with the article WarCry (band), to expand it (in sections like Musical style, discography, awards, etc.) and maybe in the future move it to simply WarCry, if they like that type of music [ heavy/power metal ] they would help even more (or if they speak Spanish, which is the language that the band uses). I've been working on that article for a while and found enough information to make it look the way it is right now, but it seems like it needs more work. I would greatly appreciate your help. Thanks in advance.-- Rockk3r Spit it Out! 04:57, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

As I'm in a habit of doing...

I left a note on a talk page that no one's ever gonna check. Hopefully there's at least a little traffic here. Anyhow, into how much detail should the "instruments" field on {{infobox musical artist}} go? Dealing particularly with Eva Amaral, her infobox just has "voice" there. While that's obviously what she's best known for and probably in 80 or 90% of Amaral's songs that is all she contributes, she has also played instruments, at the very least guitar and harmonica. So is that field meant to be exhaustive, such that instruments of perhaps less significance like Eva's guitar and harmonica (and she also played drums previously, before coming to prominence), or just for more general "overview" sorts of things like vocals in her case? Thanks. Tromboneguy0186 (talk) 12:20, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if this is the right answer for this particular artist, but if she is not "known" for playing instruments, I would say leave the infobox as is, and mention the instruments she occasionally plays in the body of the article. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 13:11, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
That box had other issues other than the instrument field. It's been standardised now. The typical setup for an instrument field in a singer box is [[Singer|Vocals]]. Libs (talk) 14:24, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Include whatever instruments the musician is known to play. I'd say all the instruments you mention are worth including. Use your good judgement. − Twas Now ( talkcontribse-mail ) 22:12, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

"Tour appearances" / "Notable Live Performances"

...A number of subsections have been appearing on articles involving "Tour appearances" and "notable live appearances" and related things like that, and i was wondering if you nice people here could aid me in doing anything about it. The style in which they are being added looks something like this:

On August 20, 1989, The View appeared...

On August 24, 1989, Radiohead played...

and so on, each with only one line or so before taking a new paragraph. Here are some examples:

Air Traffic#Live Appearances

The View (band)#Notable Tour appearances

Tail end of Razorlight#Band history

I think it tends to happen with bands where writers believe there should be a play-by-play review of what the band does, every Letterman, Later..., Johnathon Ross, gig tour, and appearance should be included in one big list format. As well as this, it happens with smaller bands, where not a lot else can be included in the article as they are not altogether that notable. The above Air Traffic article i think is the best example of this.

The reason i bring this up is that i think it actually ruins the article, real reviews or even band bio's do not have listcruft sections like this, they are all included in one section. I've tried to work against it as much as possible, as with what i did with the end of Bloc Party#Intimacy (2008–present) (see before and after this edit and others by me around it).

Does anyone else agree? If so please help any way possible. --SteelersFanUK06 ReplyOnMine! 17:57, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

This crap needs to go! For a start, the template {{ProseTimeline}} can be put at the top of those sections. However, I think this project should unequivocally state that these sections are a no-no. Few of these appearances are truly notable. A "notable tour" is a tour where something notable occurs, not merely an appearance on the late-night loop. Notable things include, but are not limited to, very strange incidents (e.g. biting the head off a bat), deaths occurring the concert (e.g. by stampede, by fire), a ceaseless crowd of constantly insane people. But these are things that should be put into the artist's history section, not in a separate "appearances" section. — Twas Now ( talkcontribse-mail ) 18:53, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Debate over List of awards and nominations received by Bloc Party - since this is the music project!

I've debated that the above article be merged into Bloc Party, but the reply comments are only coming from editors of the article who i feel are biased. One other editor has mentioned that they feel it is a fork from the main article, which i agree with. Can anyone help by taking a look over at the debate (Listed here)? --SteelersFanUK06 ReplyOnMine! 00:42, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

rename all List of "X" awards -> "List of awards won by "X"

Does anyone else find the naming convention used in Category:Lists of awards by musician somewhat strange? Shouldn't it be "List of awards won by Rihanna" rather than List of Rihanna awards ? The current naming convention makes it sound like a list of awards named Rihanna. –xeno (talk) 17:40, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I suggest changing the naming convention and making the necessary article moves. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:14, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Bump - did this go ahead at all? --SteelersFanUK06 ReplyOnMine! 23:17, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Too ambiguous. — Twas Now ( talkcontribse-mail ) 23:27, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Can we make some kind of official addition to a project page, so that we have something to reference to and it doesn't get passed off as vandalism? --SteelersFanUK06 ReplyOnMine! 23:36, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
My bot can do the work for this if you guys have made it a convention. –xeno (talk) 14:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I was about to come on and comment that i think that is a great idea, and that you should do it, but i've recently realised a problem. Obviously "List of Rihanna awards" sounds stupid, because it sounds like the awards are named afrer her. But "List of awards won by Rihanna" sort of has a problem as well - these articles included nominations as well, which themselves are not cases of winning awards. There are a number of ways of getting round this.
Firstly, you have the option of removing all the nominations from the article, which obviously would stand by the title at that point. I'm unsure if this would be the best action though as in some cases this would remove the majority of the article.
On the other hand, the extra "nominations" part can be included, as seen by the recent move of Bloc Party's "List of awards received by Bloc Party" to "List of awards and nominations received by Bloc Party". Personally I think this title is a bit of a mouthful and would like it to be changed to something else.
If anyone has any other suggestions.... --SteelersFanUK06 ReplyOnMine! 19:22, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Someone has an excellent idea at the parent project

Discussion here. It's long overdue. The Real Libs-speak politely 02:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Is genre officially gone or is it just being talked about? --SteelersFanUK06 ReplyOnMine! 00:37, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
The discussion is taking place at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music#Time to remove genre section on info box? Please contribute there. No changes to the template will be made until a consensus is reached there. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify, this is about possibly removing the "genre" field from this infobox and potentially also from the album and song infoboxes. Further opinions from members of this project would be appreciated. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music#Time to remove genre section on info box? Thank you. --IllaZilla (talk) 16:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

This discussion has been moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music#Time to remove genre section on info box? If you wish to comment, please do so there. --IllaZilla (talk) 01:29, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Biography (musicians)

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:16, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

There are only a few days left to identify versions of musician articles to be included in the Wikipedia 0.7 CD and download. By specifying a particular version for each of the articles that has been selected, we can make sure that the articles are free of vandalism, and do not contain unhelpful edits of the type that end up being reverted online. I've done this for a few articles, but perhaps members of this WikiProject will want to make sure that more of the articles selected for Wikipedia 0.7 have versions specified. This is happening at the page called User:SelectionBot/0.7/B-4. Mudwater (Talk) 01:02, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Genres in infoboxes

There's currently an important discussion going on about the removal of genre fields in band and album infoboxes. You can read the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music#Time to remove genre section on info box? and provide any opinions you may have. WesleyDodds (talk) 07:38, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Unsigned Artists

I have recently added myself to the contributers of this project, first of all because I would like to help out, but also second to get the attention of members.

I am personally a big fan of many unsigned internet-based artists, such as Tom Milsom (aka "hexachordal"), Alex Day (aka "nerimon"), Alex Day's band "Chameleon Circuit" (also featuring Charlie McDonnell (charlieissocoollike), Liam Dryden (littleradge), and Chris Beattie (cowinparachute)), and Blue Skies (aka "musicfromblueskies"), and I think these artists deserve their own articles. Through the internet, they have all received a fair amount of attention, each having audiences of multiple thousands, and have released (or are soon to release) albums and/or EPs over the medium of the internet, either for free download or through the iTunes store.

My main query though is how members of the project would generally respond to creation of these articles, as in the past I have viewed many articles of similarity deleted, and have even attempted a few times in the past, and I would like the support of the project if it is given, before attempting to create these articles.

Many Thanks, Daniel Teagle

BadWolfTV (talk) 00:08, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

There is a criteria an article must meet: Wikipedia:Notability (music)#Criteria for musicians and ensembles. The article only needs to meet one criteria to merit an article, but should also include coverage of third-party reliable sources as it will probably be put up for deletion. DiverseMentality (Boo!) 00:14, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Tina Turner has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Articles are typically reviewed for one week. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. Wildhartlivie (talk) 07:19, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Discography sections

As it is well known, musician's have discography sections, having a short list of albums, and then full discography with extensive information of albums, singles, charts, and so on. Sometimes I see a problem with this section (note: the discography section on a musician's article is what I'm going at here, not the actual main discography) as editors put what they think belongs under this section at their own discretion. Sometimes they just put albums, sometimes they put albums and top ten singles, sometimes albums, compilations, DVDs, and what may have you. Here's my proposition: we need to specifically, on this WikiProject page, state what should go under the discography section. I for one, think it should solely be studio albums and nothing more. Lists of compilations, DVDs, singles and so on should remain on the main discography of the musician. Any thoughts? DiverseMentality (Discuss it) 05:03, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary. Many artists' discographies are not large, and fit quite well in the main article. If the discography section starts to grow large, then split it into its own article per WP:SS. There's no reason, though, to automatically say "you can only list xx in the main article; you must start a separate discography article for everything else." New Years Day, for example, has only 1 album and 1 EP in their entire discography, yet by your standards we should make a separate discography article merely because you don't like having anything other than studio albums listed in the main article. Pretty silly. No, I think discography splitting/forking should be done on a case-by-case basis. Certainly if the discography is larger than most of the other sections in the article, or contains numerous subsections and/or tables, then by all means go for it. But don't go imposing some hard-and-fast rule. I think we as editors have the common sense to recognize when these need to be split and when they don't. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood my proposition. I'm well aware that small discographies, as the example you gave, don't deserve a whole main discography. I think for instance Aaliyah#Discography, there's a list of her albums, DVDs, compilations, soundtracks, and number one singles. What I was proposing was having a limit of what should be put under the discography section, and limit down to only the studio albums, and placing everything else in the main discography. Sorry if my proposition wasn't so clear. DiverseMentality (Discuss it) 06:19, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm still a bit confused, because you've just said "small discographies don't deserve a main discography" but also "having alimit of what should be put under the dicography seciton, and limit down to the studio albums". What I think you mean is that if a separate discography article exists, then the Discography section of the main artist article should contain only a list of studio albums and a link to the discography article (ie. Ramones#Discography). If that's then intent, then I support it. However, if a separate discography article doesn't exist then we shouldn't cut content from the artist article's Dicscography section, though we should encourage splitting/forking if the section grows too large (again, common sense being the barometer of "too large" here). --IllaZilla (talk) 06:32, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm so sorry for the confusion, I should reword things more carefully. But yes, I meant "if a separate discography article exists, then the Discography section of the main artist article should contain only a list of studio albums and a link to the discography article." My proposal is saying that this should be added to this WikiProject page so all articles that have this section will be more neat and concise. DiverseMentality (Discuss it) 06:39, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I support this idea. A written explicit guideline would be good. In my personal opinion it is redundant to list any album at all in the main artist article if a separate discography exists, but I am willing to go along your proposal to list only studio albums if this is what the project prefer. – IbLeo (talk) 09:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
I personally don't like having empty sections in an article, where the only thing under a section header is "See main article: xx". If that's all it's going to have, why have a section? Just put the link under "See also". There's certainly value to listing an artist's main releases in the article, and it's much better than having an empty section. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:37, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
That is indeed a valid point. I think the discography is too important to "get lost" in the "See also" section, so let's go for the studio albums. That avoid us having to define what a "main release" is. – IbLeo (talk) 16:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, seems the discussion died out. I think we need a little more approval on this to add this to the WikiProject. DiverseMentality (Boo!) 04:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Is the general consensus this:
If the artist has a separate discography article, include only the studio full-length albums on the artist's main page; otherwise, include any pertinent releases in the discography section of the artist's article.
This is just a guideline, and valid exceptions will likely come up. Please offer your opinions. — Twas Now ( talkcontribse-mail ) 08:05, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
It is clear and concise, I support it. – IbLeo (talk) 16:34, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
I too like that wording. Go with it. --IllaZilla (talk) 16:39, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
I support it as well. If exceptions arise, a discussion on the musician's talk page can be made for a consensus. DiverseMentality (Boo!) 16:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Support Twas Now. This very much seems like the best policy to go with on this and i think it should become a matter of official policy. --SteelersFanUK06 ReplyOnMine! 14:01, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
As an example of exceptions to the rule, consider an artist whose singles are more important than their albums. For example, a discography of an artist who recorded in the days of 78 rpm records should probably list singles, even if that artist also released some original albums later. For that matter, artists who were prominent in the days when pop charts and singles were considered more important than albums, should allow a singles-based discography, and this could include artists from the 60s. Rather than specify that a summary discography should always be limited to studio albums, it may be better to emphasize the need to keep a summary short, and recommend showing only non-compilation studio albums for a typical artist. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 08:42, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of what people think about whether or not singles and other releases should be included, it should probably be noted (if there's a consensus) that listing number-one singles or top-x singles is a Bad Thing. It's rather POV since it gives more importance to higher-charting releases. PiracyFundsTerrorism (talk) 18:14, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking more of a complete list of all single releases, which may be more appropriate than albums for certain artists. But since you bring it up... If, for example, someone wanted to put a list of Frank Sinatra's most popular songs in his article, and used "top 10" status as criteria for which to include, how would that be POV? It seems to me that it would be the opposite of POV, since inclusion is driven by a statistic, and is not the editor's choices. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 13:08, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
How do you determine the top 10 single? The ten best-sellers? The ten highest-rated by critics? — Twas Now ( talkcontribse-mail ) 14:15, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I believe he means it in the Billboard charts sense, which is an objective third-party source. --IllaZilla (talk) 16:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Well at that point I would say that this should only really be done if the artist really didn't release any real albums, only singles. I haven't ever really heard of something like this but that's probably because i wasn't alive in the '60s. Other than this, i think that just the albums should be listed (studio albums that is), top 10 has the possibility of being massive for the chart-slayers. --SteelersFanUK06 ReplyOnMine! 19:22, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Using the Billboard charts makes this highly US-centric (and "sales-centric", I guess), which is where the POV comes in. — Twas Now ( talkcontribse-mail ) 23:26, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Also (apologies for the rampaging arguement) but doesn't Billboard deal with different chart rankings from the UK Singles Chart? Doesn't Billboard include radio play as well, whereas the UK doesn't? This goes in the "sales-centric" bit.... --SteelersFanUK06 ReplyOnMine! 11:38, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
I just realized that this line of argument isn't going anywhere. Do you agree? We should deal with exceptions as they come up, rather than try to prescribe a solution for all future examples. First, this would only apply for artists who either were from the singles-era, or from more recent times who didn't release any albums. Second, the way we determine what shows up on these artists' main article should be determined on a case-by-case basis. In many cases, including all singles is probably a viable option. — Twas Now ( talkcontribse-mail ) 04:41, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, exceptions should be dealt on the musician's respect talk page. Back to matters; I support Twas Now's description as stated above. If the artist has a separate discography article, include only the studio full-length albums on the artist's main page; otherwise, include any pertinent releases in the discography section of the artist's article. DiverseMentality (Boo!) 04:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Should/could we make this a part of the MOS for music? --SteelersFanUK06 ReplyOnMine! 10:53, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it looks like there is good support behind it and no opposition. — Twas Now ( talkcontribse-mail ) 10:56, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I see no opposition. Since you came up with the description, would you like to do the honors of adding it to the guideline, Twas Now? DiverseMentality (Boo!) 16:57, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Isn't it funny how after I pointed out that the proposed new rule should be worded in such a way as to make it clear that it's just a general rule, and there could be exceptions where a list of albums is not the best form of summary (thereby opposing the wording as proposed so far), and others seem to agree, the last 2 comments above this one both say "(I see) no opposition". No wonder there are complaints about the way the genre removal was done. :( How about this:
If the artist has a separate discography article, include only the studio full-length albums on the artist's main page; otherwise, include any pertinent releases in the discography section of the artist's article. In some cases, an alternate summary may be more appropriate, such as a list of singles for a musician from before the 1950s, or for an artist whose contemporary releases were mainly in the form of singles.
You may want to change the wording, but the point is the rule should state that the discography in the main article should be a brief summary, and to suggest a restriction, rather than state that one restriction rule is mandatory for all articles. I believe there is support for this request. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 20:03, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

You're asking for clarification/extension of the guideline, which I don't see as an opposition. But nevertheless, the line before the 1950's seems unreasonable to place in the description. I'd go more along the lines of: If the musician has a separate discography article, include only the studio full-length albums on the artist's main page; otherwise, include any pertinent releases in the discography section of the artist's article. In some cases, an alternate summary may be more appropriate, such as a musician whose contemporary releases were mainly in the form of singles. Maybe it should mention when it is and isn't appropriate for a separate discography article and how long a discography should be before creating a main discography. DiverseMentality (Boo!) 21:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I suggest anyone who has more discography than 1 album really. Thinking about it, that allows a number of circumstances to be dealt with. Flash in the pan bands who make maybe one album/single and then never play/tour again, but still themselves have a wikipedia article (El Presidente springs to mind), shouldn't have a page wasted on discography. This could be included in the main article - which is probably why it is and it doesn't have one but that was just an example - as well as this it could cover two artists who make an album together, both have wikipedia pages BUT there is no wiki page for a collective discography (eg. Robert Plant - Alison Krauss - Raising Sand - but no Robert Plant and Alison Krauss discography). This is just examples and could be worked on... as well as this its probably all been said before. But it came into my head so i think this should be the general core of criteria for a seperate discography article. --SteelersFanUK06 ReplyOnMine! 01:36, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems like this discussion just died out. Any consensus on this? DiverseMentality (Boo!) 01:51, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

How about what i said in my last reply? --SteelersFanUK06 ReplyOnMine! 11:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I had missed it (and this reply; replies to talk pages should be put in bright red or something so I could notice it…). But anyways, as for El Presidente, the discography is far too small for a separate discography article; there's no problem there of course, because small discographies don't need a separate article for themselves. Just like Tyga's discography is too small (but has potential to grow), and should only have a section until splitting it to a separate article improves the article. As for Raising Sand, there is not and should never be a collective discography for any musicians that do a compilations; if there is a separate discography article for each artist, then the album should be there, not in the discography section of their articles. If there is no separate discography article and simply a section, then that album should be listed under that section. (Ten bucks someone finds my explanation confusing!) Diverse Mentality 04:16, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Beefs

As many hip hop fans know (maybe other genres, not too sure), a handful or rappers have "beef" (rivalry, I suppose) with other rappers and people. Many of these beefs are under sections titled "controversies" and only serve the purpose to acknowledge the beef between the rapper(s) and the verbal attacks towards each other, if any. Is adding these types of controversies encyclopedic? And if not, should it be noted somewhere on the project page to avoid these types of sections? DiverseMentality (Boo!) 06:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Notability (or in this case "encyclopedicness", which I'd like to codify as a word) does not limit article content. So long as the information can be reliably sourced and is presented in prose which flows well with the rest of the article, I don't really see a problem with this. It's certainly worth noting, for example, the feuds/beefs/controversies between Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G., or between Eminem and Christina Aguilera, as long as these things can be suitably verified. Whether such things merit a separate section probably depends on how significant they are to the artist's career, and whether the information does or doesn't fit well in other article sections. For example see Lindsay Lohan#Romantic relationships, which mentions her "feud" with Hilary Duff. Certainly if there's a section that reads like a trivia list and isn't sourced, then it needs to be cleaned out and the sourced bits worked into the rest of the article. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

"Weird Al"

I have opened a discussion at WP:WEIRDAL to determine whether or not there is sufficient interest in maintaining WikiProject "Weird Al" Yankovic either (a) at all, (b) as the current WikiProject, or (c) a taskforce under the umbrella of WPP:MUSIC. If you have any input or interest in contributing, please join the discussion at WT:WEIRDAL#the future!. Thank you! — pd_THOR | =/\= | 17:15, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

task forces

Based on the discussion linked above, the consensus seems to be to make WikiProject "Weird Al" Yankovic a task force of WikiProject Musicians. However, does WikiProject Musicians even have task forces? All I can find are subordinate Projects for artists, not task forces. Could anybody active with WP:Musicians please comment and input at WT:WEIRDAL#the future!? Thanks again! — pd_THOR | =/\= | 19:19, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Buckethead task force? (Or even project?)

I'm trying to install a task force under the Guitarists Project. Would you like to join? --HexaChord (talk) 22:11, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Associated Acts field in Musicians infobox

There is a discussion at Template talk:Infobox Musical artist#Associated acts, including a proposed change to the instructions for using this field. So far only 2 people are discussing it (since the proposal, not counting older discussions). More input is needed. Please come over and join in! --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 19:15, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Get on the Members list

I have copied the project userboxes into project workspace and fixed them up so that when they are copied to a user page, they put the user's name on a category page. The category is new; I'm the only one on it right now. Previously the userboxes were in the personal spaces of the users who created them, and I've given the creators credit. If you have an old userbox on your page, please replace it with one of the two offered on the project page, and your name will appear on the project members page. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 07:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Japanese/Okinawan folk music

Some time ago I created the category Category:Japanese folk musicians and a subcategory Category:Okinawan folk musicians after writing an article on Yukito Ara and needing an appropriate category to put him in. He is currently the only one in either of these categories.

If you are aware of any other already existing articles that could belong in these categories (min'yō 民謡 singers, etc.), please add them and help populate these lonely categories. Thank you. LordAmeth (talk) 15:10, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Discussion on what is a "notable instrument"

Well, actually more a discussion on the purpose, use and wording of the "Notable instrument" field on the Musical Artist Infobox. The discussion is here: Template talk:Infobox Musical artist#Notable instruments. The field is slightly problematic. Should it be removed or reworded? And if reworded, what should the focus be? How does this field differ from the "Instrument" field? Clearly there is intended to be a difference, but it is not clear what that difference is. SilkTork *YES! 18:58, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Matt Lee(musician)

I have edited and added some stuff on this page and feel it to comply with Wiki policy now for notability. Please examine the article for approval.Thank you,Dan Schneider76.94.31.7 (talk) 06:27, 25 December 2008 (UTC) This page is listed under:

user:spartaz/musician

Buckethead task force

WP:BH wants to expand into a real WikiProject and maybe include additional related artists in the future. See WT:BH for discussion. Any input welcomed!


Happy new Headcheese!-hexaChord2 01:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Muslimgauze task force

There is some interest in starting a workgroup for Muslimgauze. Currently likely participants are mostly inexperienced Wikipedians, and I am not yet a member of WikiProject Musicians/Archive 4. We could use:

  1. Experienced editors to join the new project so we can raise this kid right.
  2. Someone from this WikiProject to add [[Category:WikiProject Musicians/Archive 4]] to Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians/Muslimgauze task force.

Hopeful thanks in advance. / edg 22:29, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Linda Brava

Could someone from this project have a look at the Linda Brava article. It seems to be growing at quite a large rate due mostly to just a couple editors. The article is still either unrated or rated as just a start class article by the WikiProjects mentioned on the talk page. Thank you, Dismas|(talk) 19:02, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Sebastian Plewinski

Can we get some eyes on Sebastian Plewinski?? I don't have the knowledge to assess his "awards" but something smells funny to me... --Cameron Scott (talk) 01:28, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Michel Delville; or, Canterbury fuses with Belgium

Anyone here have any knowledge of or interest in Michel Delville? I can't say I'd ever heard of him till an hour or so ago, but my ignorance probably means nothing as I know next to nothing about the genres of music ("fusion", "Canterbury") of which he's claimed to be an exponent. Or rather, of which he claims he's an exponent, for it's clear that he's the author of his article, and also of The Wrong Object (previously AfD'd, speedily deleted as a copyvio, restored as a fawning press release), and perhaps of more besides. My gut feeling is that the whole lot should be (re)AfD'd, but it's conceivable that Delville, his band, and his chums do merit articles, despite their efforts. You know better than me. -- Hoary (talk) 01:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

My initial reaction would be that The Wrong Object are a notable band. They're reasonably well-known in the scene and would seem to meet WP:MUSIC. Michel Delville, I'm less certain about, but I think the claims on his page are factually correct, although clearly both articles need wikifying. I'll try and find some time to do clean-up on both. Bondegezou (talk) 08:34, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
And a quick look in Copac confirms that yes, Delville did write those books. -- Hoary (talk) 16:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
I've done some clean-up on both articles (more The Wrong Object). I think they're both notable. Bondegezou (talk) 16:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I believe you. But both articles are very sparsely sourced; although of course this is despite your good work on other aspects of both. -- Hoary (talk) 02:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Featured portal consideration

Portal:The Beatles is being considered for Featured portal status. Comments are appreciated, here: Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:The Beatles. Cirt (talk) 02:41, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Naming of musician's award lists

See this discussion. Dabomb87 (talk) 05:10, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

"lotte ohm"

Lotte ohm. (yes, with dot) purports to be about some electronic popster. It's had an "unreferenced" tag on it since April '07. There is a de-WP page on this person, but it's unreferenced too. Time for AfD? -- Hoary (talk) 03:21, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Wilkie worked with several notable (at least in Germany) musicians and had several small hits. There's lots of sources around the net, but mostly in German. Could add a few. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord2 04:02, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Rhianna

I tried to fix Rhianna which seems a little vandal magnet and there seems some confusion with Rihanna. Could some more knowledgeable eyes take a closer look tat the article. Agathoclea (talk) 18:58, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The confusion is obvious, as I wondered myself why this article is that short. ;-) Maybe it should be semi-protected or put on some regulars' watchlists.--Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord2 19:09, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I now semi-protected it for 2 weeks. This should give this project enough time to get a good version together. Agathoclea (talk) 19:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, fine.--Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord2 19:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Jack Hazebroek

Could someone take a look at Jack Hazebroek - the article gives me eye-cancer so I can't even work out if there is a assertion of notability in there. Agathoclea (talk) 21:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

It's a mess, but maybe you (or anyone else) could do the original editor a big favour and fix it to standards. It's not terrible; the information is there, it's mainly a formatting problem. As for notability, it there is plenty of assertion of it, but the article is lacking references, and links provided appear to be the artist's own website(s). Even so, if the information is true (ignoring unsupportable superlatives like "hardest working band in Europe"), the subject is sufficiently notable.
I would also like to see more dates of events. We get into several paragraphs (or rather they will be paragraphs once the article is formatted) before the first date is mentioned. Maybe you could contact the original writer for more information.
The best cure for your "eye cancer" is to gain satisfaction from fixing the article. That'll kill that nasty old cancer. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 14:07, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

There is currently a Request for Comments regarding the wording of the lead sentence of Misfits (band). Comments from project members would be appreciated. See the discussion here. Thank you. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Musician attn talk

Template:Musician attn talk has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. JPG-GR (talk) 21:47, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi there

I was wondering if anyone from this project might be interested in checking out this current FAC....?

Cheers! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:41, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Queen AfD's

The Queen WikiProject seems to be entirely inactive, so I thought it would be appropriate to inform this WikiProject of the following AfDs related to the band Queen:

DHowell (talk) 07:12, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be an editor who believes that Eddie Van Halen should not be on this list, citing the criteria at the head of the list. The cited source for EvH is less then overwhelming, and the editor has had no response to a proposal on the Talk page posted a week ago, although he is constantly reverted. I invite any interested editors to review this. Thanks. Rodhull andemu 22:21, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I was going to say the user shouldn't be asking for his changes to not be reverted before there is a discussion, because the rule is that the article should stay as it was originally until the change is discussed, and it appears Van Halen was on the list for a while. BUT, since the user DID try to start a discussion, and has repeatedly referred to it in his edit summaries, I think he is in the right.
As for the reverts of his changes without explanation, I'm getting tired of seeing so many reverts these days without using the edit summary. Every edit should have an edit summary according to WP:FIES. And when there is a request for adminship, one of the things they look for is to see that the user is filling in the field properly. I think some of us are getting lazy about this! --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 01:01, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
I think there's an element of WP:OWN here, on the basis that editors, although well-meaning, see no reason to remove EvH; however, a quick look at the cited source justifying his inclusion is less than overwhelming in performing that function; that is why I have brought it here, for interested parties to investigate whether in fact EvH's inclusion can be justified. Rodhull andemu 01:10, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

External link opinions

Hi. I've been discussing external links to a site offering samples of an artists music and offering his albums for sale. I feel the links should go away. I'd like to hear your opinions. Please weigh in: Talk:Yaakov Shwekey#Mostly Music links Joe407 (talk) 05:10, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Singular or plural verb form?

I know that in American English a band name usually takes the singular form of a verb ("Nirvana was an American rock band...") and that in British English the band name usually takes the plural form of a verb ("The Cure are an English rock band..."). I also thought that in American English a band name that was plural in form would take the plural form of a verb ("Pixies are an American rock band..."). However, an anonymous IP is changing plural American band names to use "is" instead of "are". I reverted these changes, but the IP has changed them back stating it is correct and that it is policy. The American and British English differences article backs up my assertion in the Formal and notional agreement section where it says: "Proper nouns that are plural in form take a plural verb in both AmE and BrE". I pointed this out to the IP[2], who has disagreed[3]. Pixies, an FA-class article, uses the plural verb form but Nine Inch Nails uses the singular.

I am trying to find any Wikipedia guidelines or reliable source which would clarify which of us is taking the correct stance, but WP:ENGVAR doesn't seem to help. --JD554 (talk) 12:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I think both sides are making a point. The IP is correct in stating that a band name that appears to be plural is not necessarily intended to mean each member of the band should be considered a singular form of the name, i.e. (the example he gives), members of The White Stripes are not necessarily each considered to be a white stripe. On the other hand, that is just convention as it applies to this particular band. I am sure there are many articles and reviews that have whimsically referred to a member of that band as a "white stripe" or "former white stripe". It could be a matter of opinion as to how common this is. I think the IP is saying that since this is the case, he feels we should have a standard that covers all bands, regardless of the plural-like appearance of the band name.
But the example quoted on the article page, "The Beatles", correctly points out that the name is generally followed by "are" rather than "is", even in American English. The members of the Beatles have often referred to themselves as being "a Beatle". The IP is wrong to say "it is the established practice", because there is no stated rule. I've looked for one in the past, and only found the article you referenced, which is a general article about grammar and is not specific to Wikipedia editing practices.
In conclusion, I don't see how either side can say their way is the rule. I suggest you post examples about specific articles if you want an opinion as to how they are more commonly referenced in the USA. But with no rule in place, we may not be able to come up with an opinion in every case. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 00:29, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

For those interested, please see the talk page. Someone is trying to delete portions of the article.--Rubikonchik (talk) 22:02, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but for anyone interested I've nominated this article for deletion.

Cheers, This flag once was redpropagandadeeds 17:33, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Help w/ COI issue

I'm having a conflict of interest issue over at the Nekromantix article. Comments & help would be appreciated. Discussion can be viewed on the article's talk page, and a similar past discussion in the archive. Basically the band's frontman Kim Nekroman (or at least someone claiming to be him) has been editing the article and leaving me some pretty upset messages. He objects because I've reverted several of his changes, which I've done because they remove referenced info without any explanation. He insists that the best and most reliable source for information on his band is the band's Myspace profile, even though it doesn't have nearly enough info to support an encyclopedia article (and we really want secondary sources per WP:V anyway). He's found fault with pretty much every secondary source I've been able to find that gives details on the band's history, and blames Wikipedia (and sometimes me) for those sources getting things wrong (claiming that they're getting their bad info from WP to begin with). I've tried explaining that the threshold for inclusion is verifiability, not truth, and also pointed out WP:COI, but I'm not having much luck. I don't think there's anything in there that violates WP:BLP, but I could still use some help. --IllaZilla (talk) 09:05, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Deceased musicians

Jay Bennett, formerly of Wilco, passed away this week unexpectedly. Since then, people have been adding "(deceased)" to the Wilco infobox following Bennett's name. I haven't seen this in musician articles before, so I'm wondering if I should go ahead an keep it out of the infobox. Note that Bennett had not been a member of the band for seven years. Teemu08 (talk) 15:27, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

That is like putting "(deceased)" next to Lennon's name in the The Beatles article. It shouldn't be there. — Twas Now ( talkcontribse-mail ) 16:04, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Template:Infobox Musical artist#Past members specifically asks for "no other notation than names". It's merely supposed to be a list of names, not of additional info like dates, instruments, disclaimers, etc. Remove as you see fit, and maybe add a hidden text message to that effect (that's what the Metallica article does for Cliff Burton's name). --IllaZilla (talk) 19:28, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Featured sounds needs YOU!

Interested in listening to some beautiful music? Want to close your eyes and travel history and time? Wikipedia:Featured sound candidates is for you! Whether you want to simply review the proposals of others, or to search Commons' extensive collection of music to find something by your favourite (public domain) composers, featured sounds can use your help.

Come and join us today!

Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:42, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Could This Be A Separate Project?

This "project" is currently a sub-project of WP biography. Because of the sensitive nature of blp the living parameter is required in the WP Biog banner. The folks at blp who have expressed an opinion seem to agree that a biography is the history of a person and the history of a group is not a biography. If this "project" could become a separate project, with its own banner, codewords and secret handshakes then WP Biog could consist of only people and this new Project could have the people who play notes, the groups who play notes (from duets to symphony orchestras and monster choruses) as well as the other groups that are associated with musicians such as musicians' unions for example.

This would simplify matters significantly. A standard has been declared that a musical group is living so long as any member of the group is alive. For a group such as U2 this will probably be simple to control. For a group such as Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra and Æter things may be a little more difficult. If groups of musicians were not in WP Biog but were here, the blp hassle would not exist.

Does any of that make sense? Is it feasible? If both, could it be done quickly, say in the next month or so?

JimCubb (talk) 22:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
It used to be a seperate project that was not really successful AFAIK. Being a sub-project of WPBio has integrated it into some working processes within WBio and Wikipedia and has several advantages IMHO. I think the advantages make it worth dealing with difficulties with one banner parameter for some groups. P.S.: If in doubt in case of a group, I would simply use "living=yes". The tag does IMHO not affect readers anyway but is more of an editors / jurisdiction issue I wouldn't worry too much about. BNutzer (talk) 17:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The blp banners are intentionally blatant and intrusive. At the blp group and at WPBio there is no real consensus as to whether a group is a person and if it is a person when it is dead. A unilateral decision was made that a band is living when any of its members is still alive. For bands whose members do not have their own articles that could be impossible to track.

Individual musicians would still be in WPBio and if the banner for the "new" group were constructed correctly (there are a few banner experts who would see to it that it was) all the added functionality would be maintained. In addition, by being a separate project you would not be limited to persons and bands but could also cover Guilds, Union, Publishing house, and much more.

If the blp tag is to be applied so cavalierly, "When in doubt, say yes!" what assurance is there for the reader that other matters are not handled in a like manner. What does that do for the reputation of WP as a whole?

JimCubb (talk) 22:07, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
About the project banner and the "living" parameter, how about changing Template:WPBiography to allow, in addition to "yes" or "no", a third value of "N/A" or something like that, for articles about bands? It could also be used for any other articles that might fall under WikiProject Biography but that are not about a person. Mudwater (Talk) 00:36, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

The Game (rapper) GA Sweeps: On Hold

I have reviewed The Game (rapper) for GA Sweeps to determine if it still qualifies as a Good Article. In reviewing the article I have found several issues, which I have detailed here. Since the article falls under the scope of this project, I figured you would be interested in contributing to further improve the article. Please comment there to help the article maintain its GA status. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talkcontrib) 22:38, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Adding article

Hey, I added |musician-work-group=yes on the talk page of the Don Nix article. It needs to be brought into conformity with some standards. Can ya'll help? Thanks in advance. • Q ^ # o • 16:56, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

US/UK disambiguations

Lately I've been coming across a lot of articles disambiguated as "xxxx (U.S. band)" or "xxxx (UK band)" (where xxxx is the band name). I've been moving them to "xxxx (American band)" or "xxxx (British band)" as appropriate. However, before I go on some kind of crusade about it I thought it'd be worth bringing up here. Do others feel that these moves are correct? My feeling per WP:DAB is that, if you have to disambiguate by nationality, then you use the adjectival form rather than just the country name. For example you'd disambiguate a band from Canada as "xxxx (Canadian band)", not "xxxx (Canada band)", or a band from China as "xxxx (Chinese band)", not "xxxx (China band)". Am I correct on this? If so, it might be worth employing a bot to make the appropriate moves, since there seem to be a lot of them. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the google news archive for UK nationality vs British nationality and US nationality vs American nationality it looks like it's gradually becoming accaptable to use UK/US as an adjective. I guess it's not the job of an encyclopedia to be at the bleeding edge of language evolution though, so I wouldn't object to a mass move. Flowerparty 02:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Juliana Hatfield reassessment request

I recently tried to clean up the link rot in this page and noticed numerous instances of POV, OR and weasel words. I didn't look at the history to see when it was assessed as B class, but I don't think it qualifies in its current state. Thanks, momoricks 06:58, 18 June 2009 (UTC)