Template talk:Infobox single/Archive 1

Reviews
what is the point in the "Professional Reviews" section for a single infobox. 99% of singles on Wiki do not have any - it just looks stupid! Deano 19:24, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Not 99%... Most singles do, in fact, have reviews. It's just that people do not expect so, and never bother to go to AMG to find one. Look at "Karma Police", or any other Radiohead singles I worked on. -- WB 06:27, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

What about standalone singles?
How do I remove the "From Album" line? I want to add the infobox to Rock Around the Clock and other singles from the 1950s that were originally issued as standalones. 23skidoo 04:53, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid you either need a separate template, or make a table out of this then remove the "from album" line. (you can do this by putting  in front of "Template: "." -- WB 05:28, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Both Recorded and From Album are now optional parameters. So just leave it empty. KittenKlub 15:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Reviews are optional as well. The argument above is not correct. I've tried looking for reviews and there are none in many cases. And AllMusic is oriented to the US. In general old singles and non-US singles do not have an online review anymore. KittenKlub 15:25, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I couldn't figure a nice way to hide the extra column without going into extremely difficult coding, a parameter NoReviews has been added to hide the "Professional Review" column. KittenKlub 16:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I've removed that "NoReviews" requirement, while retaining Reviews as optional. If "Reviews" is blank or not defined, the header and the cell won't appear. -- Netoholic @ 00:42, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * But you can never put Reviews in the hiddenstructure. That is the issue. I saw the bug myself and if it is in there and there are reviews, they'll show three times two of which in the main document, because excess HTML is generated. So Reviews can never be used as a parameter, because it simply breaks pages with its HTML content. So if you don't want to use boolnot, I'll put in the code from boolnot. Nevertheless the only alternative is the #if define, but that's very complex and I don't like to experiment with that given the fact that there are 100s of pages using this template. KittenKlub 00:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Revised usage instructions
I have revised the usage instructions, but the change is very subtle: if you put in too many pipe "|" symbols, thus creating an empty parameter, you get an unsightly pair of quotes ("") appearing in the article, usually right at the top just above the introductory paragraph. I am busy trying to get to all the client articles to fix them, but if you have a copy of the blank template stashed away for quick cut/pasting, fix it now. HTH HAND Phil | Talk 15:15, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Noinclude in the template??
Was attempted to transclude the doc on this template like I did on Template:Infobox musical artist and it doesn't work quite right as the tags in the template itself mess up the formatting. It looks like an attempt to make the template generate an example when the page is viewed, which seems wasteful in a template that's transcluded in so many places. Is there another purpose? If there's no objections I'm going to removing those tags within the template. *Spark* 13:36, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Quotes around name
Is there any reason a single's name is put in quotes as opposed to the Template:Infobox Album where it is not? And if this detail is up for discussion, I'd suggest to drop the quotes for the singles template. - Cyrus XIII 20:42, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
 * According to this, album titles are to be italiced, while single and song titles should be quoted. Both WikiProject Albums and WikiProject Songs "inherit" these recommendations. -- ReyBrujo 21:24, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. Thanks for the heads-up. - Cyrus XIII 08:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Cover display problem
Could somebody take a look at Don't Give Up (Chicane song) and see why the filename I provided as the infobox's "Cover" argument doesn't display, but works when used in ? This is entirely beyond me, I'm afraid. –Unint 03:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Fixed now. It appears that (at least for that infobox section) you have to use the code for apostrophe, %27, for it to read correctly.  Thus, "Chicane featuring Bryan Adams Don%27t Give Up single cover.jpg" works, where as "Chicane featuring Bryan Adams Don't Give Up single cover.jpg" doesn't.  Not sure why.  I've removed the second album cover from the bottom. --  Huntster  T • @ • C 13:16, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

colour
can the background color be changed?? that yellow is really horrible A r m a n d o ( talk 17:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What would you suggest changing it to? Bearing in mind it cannot clash with any of the colours used by Infobox Album.   DJR  ( T ) 18:53, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I have changed it to "khaki", remember that the colors of Infobox Album is about to change, so we might have to change it to something else later. → A z a  Toth 19:32, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Khaki looks much better than the previous bright yellow. The JPS talk to me  22:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah I agree - much better.  DJR  ( T ) 17:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Broken template
So, which was the last version before the template broke? -- ReyBrujo 18:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I have no idea, was trying to figure that out myself. Tons of articles screwed up now. -- eo 19:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I tried every revision back to may 21, and nothing worked... there must be an adational problem elsewhere--T-rex 20:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * appears to have now been fixed --T-rex 21:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
 * There should be a purge link in the article, and probably an inlined example so that modifications to the template can be checked immediately for backwards compatibility. -- ReyBrujo 21:47, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Smaller prev and next singles
I propose that the next and previous singles on the bottom of the template be reduced in size using the method in the Album template. I believe it looks a little more elegant. Tertiary7 01:12, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm with you on that one... Cheers, Ian Rose 00:07, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. I just doesn't look good the way it is. --Kristbg 04:59, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. --Mal 18:44, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

This single
The "this single" field has vanished and been replaced by arrows (unconditionally). Not sure I approve of this style – it looks very odd having the current one missing in the sequence. It seems to be a commonly accepted convention in many parts of Wikipedia to show a sequence with the current item named in the middle. Anyway, regardless of the style argument, the display doesn't currently match the instructions. I'd put the field back in to match the instructions, but I'm not confident enough to implement the conditionality. --KJBracey 20:27, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've put it back to the version before the arrow change and added the arrows and 3 changes since then by hand. There is so chance that a slight change has been reverted as well in the process, but you can easily put it back. KittenKlub 20:42, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Am I missing something... doesn't the entire infobox feature "this single". The redundancy of having "this single" in the chronology section is escaping me.  I think it actually detracts, because with it in there, the entire infobox needs to be wider to accommodate it, which encroaches on the article space. -- Netoholic @ 23:01, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I think it just serves as a cue as to what the bottom of the info box represents. If you have a table showing "Last", "This", "Next", then it looks like a small window onto a full chronology list (and that's what the section title implies). But if "This" is missing, it just doesn't look right. I think "This" needs to be represented in a more concrete way between "Last" and "Next" than just a couple of arrows. Maybe if it could be combined in some way with the cover as the "This" representation?


 * I agree it can be a layout problem for an infobox. I've seen the "Last", "This", "Next" convention used in quite a lot of standard article footers and headers (for things like the previous/next holders of a political office). But there you've got more space to do it, as they can be full-width. --KJBracey 16:26, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've only ever seen the "This" item on the Single and Album infoboxs.  It's not "standard" any more than not having it is "standard".  What is important to figure is whether it is desirable on this infobox.  I think it is not desirable, and the small arrows fulfill the purpose just fine without the ugly redundancy of re-stating the title, release year, and cover image of the current Single. If readers need a visual clue as to the purpose of the Chronology (they dont, since you include the release year), then add headings which state "came before/came after" or similar. -- Netoholic @ 17:27, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * ...so, what if you have a single/album that's released at the same time as another single/album by the same artist? --FuriousFreddy 14:02, 27 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The purpose of having the "this single" field is to make it look like Album infobox. Besides, as a quick chronology, it's nice to have it all right there. —Locke Cole 14:12, 27 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Then let's change the Album box as well. My above comments apply equally. -- Netoholic @ 17:47, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Syntax


or the empty version: 


 * -Revised copy & paste syntax. Dread Lord C y b e r S k u l l ✎☠ 00:32, 2005 September 3 (UTC)

All fields except Name and Artist are optional.

This is how it would look like:

Articles using syntax instead of the infobox
A lot of them can be found at Special:Whatlinkshere/Songwriters and Special:Whatlinkshere/Single Certifications. Extraordinary Machine 19:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Reviews sections
KitteKlub tried to make the Reviews section work using template:boolnot, but that template is being deprecated due to WP:AUM. Shortly, that template is going away, so we need to make this work. I am going to remove the "Reviews" rows for the time being until a complete solution can be tested and so that the pages can be updated. Once they are, we can restore the Reviews to the template and they will automagically appear on the articles.

The syntax being used in the articles is just ugly. We can't expect users to know how to use HTML tags, and we can't expect the html to work within a template parameter. A better way to handle this is needed. -- Netoholic @ 00:59, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The Review bug is fixed without boolnot now. I still can't see an easy alternative to test whether Reviews is empty because of the HTML in the parameter. Every time you use the parameter it is evalutated and will get printed. I think that a version with Review as no HTML parameter will make it a lot easier (also for the user) and doesn't require any bug work around like boolnot or the horrible expression I had to put in as a replacement. KittenKlub 01:03, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Please don't throw it out before there is some consensus about this. I am not happy with the Review section either, since it is mainly blank. There are nevertheless many pages with reviews, so don't delete a valid option until the creators had their say. I mean they haven't even had the change to say their piece. KittenKlub 01:11, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * We can live with it for a short while, but ideally not too long. Is there a way to put nofollow in the URL? - David Gerard 10:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't think so, because it's an HTML parameter, so you can't use any expression on the parameter because it'll break the pages where it is referenced. And that is one more reason why it's not a great parameter. I think we'll soon reach some sort of consensus. But I like to hear the reasoning behind the singles review. KittenKlub 10:45, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

AllMusic ratings
Do reviews even belong in an encyclopedia article, let alone this template? Who is going to continue in the long term to keep all these external links up-to-date?

Most of the Reviews links so far added have been to allmusic.com, a commercial website. Also, the links used often include session or token data in the URL. For example, one entry uses http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=ADFEAEE47D1BDD4CA97420CA932D42E9B972FB05D74DFB9A11320456D3B82D6CAC5C4CD669FBBF81B0FA6AB67BB0FD2EA45E43DAC0EC51F6D96E2D5DF0&sql=10:53rc28oc058a. The token= portion may be some sort of affiliate tag or personal session information (someone logged in when the copied the url). To demonstrate, this shorter url minus the token= part - http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:53rc28oc058a - takes you to the same page.

I think this feature is bad for Wikipedia because it at a minimum is unencyclopedic, and at worst, could be used as a link-spamming tactic for someone else's gain. -- Netoholic @ 01:15, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The proliferation of AMG links has been bothering me a bit, too&mdash;the reviews section also appears in &#123;{Album infobox}}, which my bot has been converting old cut-and-pasted tables into. Some statistics that may or may not be useful, culled from its logs:
 * 468 total articles with 307 total reviews
 * 239 articles with no reviews
 * 177 articles with 1 review
 * 33 articles with 2 reviews
 * 14 articles with 3 reviews
 * 4 articles with 4 reviews
 * 1 article with 6 reviews
 * Number of reviews by source:
 * 194 - All Music Guide
 * 33 - Rolling Stone
 * 14 - Robert Christgau
 * 11 - Q
 * 8 - Billboard Magazine
 * 5 each - Jim Gordon, NME
 * 4 - Progressiveworld.net
 * 2 each - Alternative Press, Entertainment Weekly, Melody Maker, NOW, Spin magazine, The Guardian, Toph Morris
 * 1 each - Amazon.com, Clay Marshall, Crewzine, Dprp.net, Jesus Freak Hideout, Kiran Dass, metroweekly.com, Montreal Mirror, musicOMH.com, Muzik, New Internationalist, Paste Magazine, Punknews, Rate Your Music, Rootnode.org, Smash Hits, The Dartmouth, The Independent, The Washington Post
 * 290 of the review lines have external links, leading to:
 * 185 - allmusic.com/www.allmusic.com
 * 32 - rollingstone.com/www.rollingstone.com
 * 14 - www.robertchristgau.com
 * 12 - www.buy.com (!)
 * 8 each - www.q4music.com, www.savatage.com
 * 4 each - www.nme.com, progressiveworld.net/www.progressiveworld.net
 * 2 each - www.nowtoronto.com, www.phisharchive.com
 * 1 each - enjoyment.independent.co.uk, jesusfreakhideout.com, pastemagazine.com, rateyourmusic.com, shopping.guardian.co.uk, www.amazon.com, www.dprp.net, www.findarticles.com, www.guardian.co.uk, www.mazontheweb.5u.com, www.metroweekly.com, www.montrealmirror.com, www.mp3.com, www.musicomh.com, www.nme.co.uk, www.punknews.org, www.rootnode.org, www.stuff.co.nz, www.xmtp.de
 * &mdash;Cryptic (talk) 08:56, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks, those stats are in fact very useful. -- Netoholic @ 14:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I write some music articles and haven't yet added reviews, but would only add them if I needed to back up a description of the music (which is, of course, subjective). Though that would require notable critics and probably a printed source by preference &mdash; I'd be loath to add any old review just because it exists unless there really wasn't anything better. It's A Tricky One requiring Editorial Judgement - David Gerard 10:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

See also the proposed guideline at Biographies of living persons/temp &mdash; that would certainly cover current bands. Note the stress on solid references - David Gerard 10:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The problem I see is that these allmusic ratings (and others) "have no face". They are just numbers with no information on how they were derived or in what context.  I don't think there's anything wrong including a summary of a review that the song/album received in the form of "So-and-So, a noted expert in slam-dancing, calls this song "wicked"" in the main article body, but I dislike reducing things down to the numbers just to cram it in a will-be-outdated infobox. -- Netoholic @ 14:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I have a hard time seeing that as very useful. Of course, others presumably consider it an improvement on nothing - David Gerard 14:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Here is an interesting statement from AllMusic - "we rate albums only within the scope of an artist’s own work -- we only compare a release to other releases by the same artist."  I think we should just remove the ratings field from both Template:Infobox Single and Template:Infobox Album. -- Netoholic @ 19:06, 26 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Since nobody made a case to keep them and it's been a week, I think it is fine to delete it from the singles. If possible try to move the information on the existing singles, because it'll prevent people getting upset. It may look quite a long list, but overall most don't have any reviews so you'd probably spend most time opening and closing. As far as the album box goes, it is different because most have reviews and there are a lots of other reviews as well including Rolling Stones, Billboard Magazine which are pretty much unbiased, so maybe you can better start a discussion there first. KittenKlub 22:07, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Reviews belong in the article, surely
If I recall correctly, WP:MUSIC recommends the All Music Guide as "[A] good online resource [which can be used to] give a level of indication as to what a band or musician has done", so it makes sense that reviews thereon should be mentioned somewhere.

However, this kind of information should surely be shown in the == References == section of the article rather than stuffed into a template.

I note that the reviews on AMG can be focused on individual songs as well as on albums, and we should really use the more specific URL where available.

For instance I note that the URL in the example above (Smells Like Teen Spirit) does not lead to an actual review of the "single": it leads to an overview page from which it is possible to select a song for which a review is available (Aneurysm).

This suggests that in some cases "review" URLs are being added for the sake of it to suggest that the "single" as a whole has been reviewed and rated, whereas the rating is really for a song which appears not only on that but several other singles and albums: this might well be construed as misleading.

It would be much more sensible if the reviews for the individual songs were explicitly referenced.

I agree thoroughly with Netoholic's comment about URLs: more care should be taken to ensure that the shortest URL that actually works is used. To this end, I commend to you amg and its buddies AMG Artist, AMG Song and AMG name which make it rather less easy to bog up the URL (because if you get it wrong it simply won't work when you test it, as you obviously will because everybody tests their URLs :-) HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 14:32, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I have removed the Reviews from the template. The review links are still on the articles, but not being displayed. They can be moved as needed as future editors work on them. -- Netoholic @ 09:43, 27 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It's an optional field. If you don't feel the need ot use it, disinclude it. We've had album reviews in the infobox for quite some time, and I personally feel that single reviews in the infobox don't cause any problems, especially since they can easily be left out at will. --FuriousFreddy 14:05, 27 December 2005 (UTC)


 * My feeling is that we should actively discontinue use of it. This isn't about "personal" feelings - I think that the infobox is not the right place for Reviews and that the presentation of them in the infobox leaves a lot to be desired.  I ask again... why should Wikipedia have to keep in sync with another website's rating is? What if they change their rating?  To properly WP:CITE that review, one needs to document the source/author, and date.  Putting this in the References section, or separate Review section in the article is the more preferable method.  -- Netoholic @ 17:52, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Certification field
I removed the certification field from the infobox. We already have a chart positions section to indicate the popularity of a song, and I think another field dedicated to the commercial aspects of a song is overdoing it somewhat. Also, not all singles have certifications, and the template is long enough with the current fields as it is. Extraordinary Machine 17:17, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with a portion of your reasoning; while it is true that chart positions indicate a song's popularity, there are a handful that receive a certification from the RIAA, OCC, CRIA, etc. I do disagree with the part of your comment concerning the template being "long enough". Adding one additional field is not going to inflict any harm. If you do not find "certification" notable enough to include in the single information box, is it possible to display it in limited articles about a music-single? For example, if one has the knowledge of its certification and would like to place it in the information box, then they should be allowed to follow through. I propose that the "certification" field become optional. &mdash;Eternal Equinox | talk 21:00, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


 * For now, I have replaced "certification" in the information box as optional; it can be omitted if desired. Since certification plays a moderately important role in a song's success, I think it appropriate to include it in the box. If a song was not certified, then the field can be removed. Does anyone oppose this action? &mdash;Eternal Equinox | talk 23:50, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The infoboxes are supposed to provide basic summaries about a song. Having one field dedicated to certifications and another to chart positions is, in my opinion, unnecessary. Surely we do not need to have two fields providing information on essentially the same thing, it just takes up space. The template is bigger than the display as it is (see, for example, Check on It), and we need to condense it as much as we can. I won't remove the field again for now, but I do believe that the template is now somewhat unwieldy for no good reason, and I'd like other users to weigh in on the matter as well. Extraordinary Machine 18:51, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Name field now optional
I have made the "Name" field optional, so that the infoboxes on articles about songs that contain more than one of them (such as Without You) don't end up reminding the reader of the song's title over and over. Extraordinary Machine 19:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Had I not already made it optional as noted above? Well, perhaps not. Thanks for the clarification. &mdash;Eternal Equinox | talk 16:02, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, I understand. You made the "name" field optional, which I did not catch prior to this post. All right, I understand now. Sorry for the misunderstanding. &mdash;Eternal Equinox | talk 16:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)