Template talk:Discogs artist

Welcome
I welcome your thoughts. --The Archivist

"Discogs.com" -> "Discogs"
In the spirit of similar templates (Allmusicguide and MusicBrainz artist), I think that the display should read: This eliminates the .com at the end. I think it works better with the other templates and looks better. –  Heav  e  n's Wrath    Talk  22:36, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The Postal Service at Discogs


 * I added a bit of code that just throws in the artist name into the URL if someone fails to enter the "artist" parameter. So now, for example, in the article Squarepusher, one needs to merely have  instead of
 * And the name parameter - if what is now the artist string equals the name string, then it shouldn't be necessary to type both - Chsf 09:50, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done, added support for both numbered parameters to both the template and its documentation, maintaining support for the existing parameter names and not requiring the name string.  —  Jeff G.  ツ  16:49, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Is this template necessary?
Is the template of Discogs necessary? Discogs.com shouldn't necessarily be an external link (excluding the casual exception). The site adds no new information to articles. In biographies, external links to discographies should not be included, as musicians tend to have discography sections or articles all their own. Also, Discogs.com isn't necessarily a reliable source, as it's based on users submitting information, much like Wikipedia and IMDb. Considering these two factors, it's rare that Discogs.com should be linked, therefore, the existence of this template isn't justified. I looked over a few articles that use this template and those articles are tragically suffering from excessive external links, so they shouldn't necessarily be there either. Thoughts? —  Σ xplicit  23:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Disagree. We don't have exhaustive discographies like Discogs does.  Discogs has way more release-specific information that we shouldn't hope (or want!) to duplicate.  As for the reliability, I'd say it's about as reliable as IMDb, which you compare it to yourself.  And I certainly don't think we should be removing IMDb links.  Wickethewok (talk) 23:51, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Disagree too. Yes, Discogs has errors (Allmusic and IMDb too), but Discogs also has invaluable information about all original releases (such as vinyl and cassette, or Japan-only editions, etc.) and often full legible scans not just of the cover but also the liner notes or the vinyl etchings. Discogs was instrumental for me when I researched and sourced the article for the album Novus Magnificat (look for Discogs in its notes and references) despite its user-generated errors. And its content can be useful for readers of an article, beyond what Wikipedia can offer them. Sometimes, Discogs is like the Google Books of albums. &mdash; Ekans talk @ 04:56, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Disagree three. As a longterm user and contributor of Discogs (and average one here too), each release submitted is usually checked by other owners of the exact same version of the release, so receives checking multiple times. Yes, errors are there too (much like Wikipedia, in fact!), but the average album or single may have very many versions released across many territories; each of which gets listed on the site on its own page on Discogs and so gives distinctly different info to here. Info database-wise, I personally think MUSIC=Discogs, FILM/TV=IMdB, it's just BOOKS/MAGS=currently unsure if there is a central one, though Wikipedia has good background, most books are not notable for inclusion, so who knows? Jimthing (talk) 00:26, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

simplified version?
Could you simplify this template

to

- with the +'s automatically hidden? - and the name section only to add as the need  arises?

(E-Kartoffel (talk) 11:02, 6 March 2010 (UTC))
 * Yes check.svg Done, added support for both numbered parameters to both the template and its documentation, maintaining support for the existing parameter names.   —  Jeff G.  ツ  16:46, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit request
edit semi-protected By entering  this creates:

Please could someone change this so that it produces (so that it is not necessary to enter  )? Mhiji (talk) 15:28, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done, added support for both numbered parameters to both the template and its documentation, maintaining support for the existing parameter names.   —  Jeff G.  ツ  16:45, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

More precise please
Could you please change to display as:
 * Discogs artist discography at Discogs

This is much clearer text describing what is on the page being linked to (a "discography"), and furthermore is what many users are using when manually adding links not using this template, as it is what they understand the link description logically should say. Jimthing (talk) 05:32, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svg Done. Now makes more sense as link info. Jimthing (talk) 22:16, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

No plus signs needed anymore
I updated this template to behave more closely to last.fm. In particular, we no longer need to (or should) use plus signs "+" in the artist name. Very often, we can now just use the "no-parameter" version of the template and for simple page names, it will work OK.

I had add a hack the template and conver up to two plus signs out of the string so that the urlencode will work OK. If there are more than that, the link is broken until we update it. If the actual name has a plus sign in it, then those links will be broken until fix update all 1400 uses and can remove the plus-sign-to-spaces hack. If you simply have a fix a page and it is one of these odd cases, then stop using the template and provide a direct link for now. If the "artist" string has any URL encoding (of the form percent-hexnumber-hexnumber), then it will be broken until we fix it.--Lashuto (talk) 21:56, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Have replaced back the word 'discography' for obvious reasons as per my original explanation above (as that is what it links to!) for artist and label Discogs templates. I respect your other changes though may make adding them easier. Jimthing (talk) 10:26, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that. Bad judgement on my part.--Lashuto (talk) 11:25, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Apostrophe
There are problems. Qbli2mHd (talk) 00:03, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

instructions
Please rewrite the instructions, they are dreadfully confusing. Is the whole point that the pluses should be replaced with spaces? trespassers william (talk) 18:47, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata
Wikidata now has Property:P1953 for Discog artist IDs (note that it uses numerical IDs, not band names). This template should now be made to call them from there, and the data should be transferred across by a bot. It may be better to merge this template into Authority control. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:06, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Don't know much about this process personally, so has this been done? Sounds pretty logical, thought "labels", "master releases", and "releases" need the same. Jimthing (talk) 20:02, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata fail
On Collide (band) I tried expecting the same effect as for  (cf. diff): The 10661 can be derived from the WikiData item.

I'm not sure why that failed, Collide vs. Collide (band) could derail a lookup on Discogs, but the "Discogs artist ID is 10661" statement on Q164537 already goes to the relevant Discogs record. Whatever is wrong, I'm not tempted to look into any Scribunto here. –84.46.53.129 (talk) 19:55, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

discogslink=no
It would be good to add an option to disable linking of the Discogs article, per MOS:DL. —Hugh (talk) 00:23, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 26 August 2020
In the source code, please remove the space before, as this causes a double space to be indicated in transclusions (before the pencil symbol) when using the browser text search (at least in Firefox). Hildeoc (talk) 08:43, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Same on Safari/Chrome. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:30, 26 August 2020 (UTC)