Talk:War Live (album)

Album cover
All these scources (including the record company) use the cover I have uploaded: Amazon, Rhino Records, blogcritics.org Crowz  RSA  01:28, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Furthermore the "Cover art" section is unreferenced, and is the depiction of an editor, but is not backed up by any reliable sources. Crowz  RSA  01:32, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Greetings fellow WAR-rior! In response: Those sources are an online seller of the current CD edition, the label putting out the current CD edition, and a site posting a review written in 2005, probably by someone who has the CD edition.  According to the instructions on how to use infobox fields, found at Template:Infobox album: "An image of the official front cover of the original version of the album (or a reissue, if no original cover can be found) should be included at Cover".  Therefore, an image of the LP version from the 1970s is preferable to a CD edition from the 1990s or 2000s with a different cover.


 * Going by that rule, a first edition LP without the yellow box may be even more preferable. However (aside from the fact that I don't have a copy), a case for an exception can be made, because the section about the cover mentions that the version with the yellow box shows an exclamation mark after the title, but since this punctuation was nowhere to be found on early pressings, it should not be regarded as part of the title.  I thought that was important to mention, because someone else who has a copy like mine may think the article is mistitled, and try to rename it.  (Actually, it was my first impulse to do just that, until I thought about it!)


 * Another point, and this is important, as not everyone seems to know it: An infobox is supposed to summarize the contents of an article, and therefore everything in the infobox should also be in the body of the article. There are so many cases where someone codes information such as release date and label name in the infobox, and then neglects to put it in the article body, probably thinking it's not necessary because it's in the infobox.  This is a mistaken understanding of the purpose of the box.  That being the case, the question has often been raised as to why we put cover images in the infobox when there is often no discussion of the cover in the body of articles.  Some feel that not every album article should have a cover image, and images should be removed if there is no cited information about the cover within the article to justify it.  Others feel that the image helps the reader to identify the article's subject, and this justifies the inclusion of cover art in every album article.  My feeling is sort of an agreement with both opinions: I do feel every album article is justified in having cover art, BUT I also agree it's more proper to have a written description to go with it.  Therefore, in most album articles I work on, I add a section about the cover, and throw in any info worth mentioning, such as the artwork artist, significance of the cover art (trying not to do original research, but it's acceptable to point out the obvious, and to give a non-controversial description), and mention any changes to the cover art from one edition to another.  The fact that the inner gatefold artwork (right side) of the LP edition became the outer cover of the CD edition is certainly worth mentioning, and it's not the sort of thing that requires citation because it's obvious when comparing pictures of the two covers.  I have a suspicion that when Rhino acquired the original cover art layout from UA, they only got the cover with the yellow banner, and decided that the real original front cover art was "lost", and an inner spread would have to be used as a substitute.  This is just a guess, so I can't put it in the article, but perhaps the reader could figure that out for himself.  Anyway, I do feel every album article should have a section like this, and if you think something about this particular article's section is debatable, let me know.


 * Getting back to infobox usage, the infobox instructions also say: "Only the earliest known date that the album was released should be specified; later release dates (incl. re-issues) can be mentioned in a Release history section", and "Only the record label that the album was originally released on should be specified". I also think that in the body of an article, the original edition should be mentioned first, i.e. "released in 1974, and also reissued on CD by Rhino", not "released by Rhino, and oh by the way originally released by United Artists" which is backward and awkward.  In War album articles in particular, I have been fixing infoboxes that are using these fields incorrectly.  Have a look at this article before I edited it where the infobox claimed the label name was "Rhino" (a company which did not even exist in 1974), and at the bottom of the box, in the chronology section, shows it as a 2005 release.  This isn't even accurate for the Rhino CD edition.  I have a copy of War's Peace Sign CD (original edition from 1994), and on the back page of the CD booklet it shows pictures of other War CDs available from Avenue/Rhino: all the early War albums including this one.  (And with the later cover art, too.)  So it was available on CD at least as far back as 1994.


 * Getting back to the cover art, I would be agreeable to showing both covers, since the fact that two covers exist, is mentioned in the article. However, I am afraid that if we did that, someone would come along and delete the later cover.  This is not just a random fear.  Right now there is a team of editors who have been going through all articles that use the "second image" feature of the infobox, and deleting second images where there is not a significant difference.  Even when there is a write-up within the article about the two covers, these editors have been deciding that the written description removes the need for the second image.  A second image will only be kept if it does not resemble the first image in any way.  They claim this is necessary for copyright reasons.  I have objected to this, finding no rule stating this is necessary, but the image removal project is proceeding anyway.  And I can tell you from experience that this kind of alternate cover would not be allowed to stay.


 * If you can explain why you feel a CD reissue cover would be preferable to the original cover, let me know. But when using the CD cover, the article looks like an advertisement for companies like Rhino and Amazon that sell the current edition.  An encyclopedia article should be about the album's history, not about its current availability.  I suspect that 99% of all copies sold were the LP edition, most selling back in the mid 1970s, and that's what the article should be about.  If you can't explain why the CD cover is preferable, I'll have to insist on restoration of the LP cover. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 13:13, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Note discrepancy: article shows 1973, sidebar shows 1974. Recording date was 1972 making 1973 more plausible, but someone should set this straight.2600:6C56:6600:1EA7:2DFF:7113:94DC:D7CC (talk) 05:11, 26 January 2019 (UTC)