Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums/Archive 19

Category weirdness
Abominog, for example, has the code ‬. Clicking on it brings you to Category:Uriah_Heep_albums%E2%80%AC (see the URL). On the other hand, Category:Uriah_Heep_albums has not yet been created but contains two albums by the same band. So what's with the "%E2%80%AC", why does the above code point to this and how should this get fixed?--Fisherjs 12:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It's an invisible character. I removed this from the above-mentioned album, but this should be changed for the other albums by this artist as well, Category:Uriah_Heep_albums should be created, and Category:Uriah_Heep_albums%E2%80%AC should be deleted. (In certain web browsers both URLs confusingly look the same.) --PEJL 13:35, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Album covers
They're coming so be prepared to defend. An album article without a scan of the cover is near worthless as far as I'm concerned, I don't know about the rest of you. --kingboyk 23:10, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * In Large Friendly Letters: All you need to do is add a fairuse justification on the image page which says something like "This image of an album cover is uploaded so it can be shown in the article on that album." Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You mean "all we need to do..." See Category:Images with no fair use rationale :-) -Freekee 04:42, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * One quick easy tool: album cover article rationale. Just click on the link so you know how to use it, and I'm sure you could clear a bunch in a jiffy. I'll help as much as I can. All the power to you eh? -- Reaper  X  05:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Have you noticed the list of album covers with disputed fair use claim and the list of album covers without fair use rationale? Jogers (talk) 08:45, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, funnily enough, The KLF is a featured article, and the images there already have rationales, but even that isn't enough. I'm now having to trawl through a category of 50 images adding rationales. In what way is this a good use of my time? Hmm...
 * I'm well aware that adding rationales is all it takes, but imho - and in the opinions of many ordinary editors - there is no reason at all why album covers should require individual rationales because their use is so blatantly obviously "fair". Indeed, if we look at the Board resolution I see nothing there to prevent the adoption of a boilerplate fair use rationale for these images. We already have the machine-readable templates the policy requires. The policy allows exemptions for articles on "copyrighted contemporary works" except "where we can reasonably expect someone to upload a freely licensed file for the same purpose". Album covers are irreplaceable, period. "Media used under EDPs are subject to deletion if they lack an applicable rationale." Nowhere, that I can see, does it say that every image used under an EDP must have an individual rationale.
 * This crusade is doing way more harm than good for our project imho. Missing fair use rationales ought to be the least of our worries when one considers that we have approximately 1 million crap articles! --kingboyk 22:41, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I love the argument against templates and boilerplate. Like anyone really does sit down and write a FUR off the top of their head. And even if they did, who's reading it? Either it's a fair rationale or it's not. Grrr. -Freekee 03:16, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Right. So why the hell can't we include the rationale in the non-free-album-cover template then?! Sigh. I've just had to rescue a load of images and will now waste more time copying/pasting/tweaking rationales, time I could be using far more productively (writing stuff, working on AWB, doing adminy things, whatever). Sometimes I wonder why popular music fans bother contributing here when there is an army who seem to take a perverse pleasure in deleting the images. Fair use isn't bad; in this case it's unavoidable and in the interests of our readers to make full use of our rights of fair use under US law. Too many folks round here put the enyclopedia a distant second to their hippy idea that copyright is somehow bad and that we must rely on crappy free images or complete 10 forms in triplicate before using a cover scan of Sgt. Pepper! --kingboyk 22:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * ...in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three years and recycled as firelighters... My sympathies, I go through the same thing myself more often than I care to consider - it's a good way to increase your edit count but no way to build an encyclopedia that people will want to read and look at. Cheers, Ian Rose 15:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Infobox edit proposal
Just a heads-up for those not watching Template talk:Infobox Album; there is an edit proposal at Template talk:Infobox Album. --PEJL 14:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, this change was made, including making the field labels occupy less width, which means there is now more space available for actual content. I think that is a noticeable improvement. --PEJL 22:12, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed new infobox to replace 4 others
Hello, I am new to this project, and I have worked on a super-infobox to replace Infobox Album, Infobox music DVD, Infobox Single, and Infobox Song, located here: User:FMAFan1990/Infobox music release and the related User:FMAFan1990/Infobox music release/link and User:FMAFan1990/Infobox music release/color. I have some examples listed at User:FMAFan1990/Infobox music release/examples. Tell me what you think of them. FMAFan1990 08:50, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * PS, if anyone can tell me what to use instead of whitespace on my examples page, please tell me what I can use. FMAFan1990 09:16, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Can you explain why you feel that merging these infoboxes is preferable? --PEJL 09:36, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It saves the hassle of using multiple infoboxes. FMAFan1990 09:59, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Saves who that hassle, when? I'm not trying to be difficult, and I'm not saying I'm opposed to the idea of merging them, I just think we need figure out the advantages and disadvantages of doing so. --PEJL 10:10, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * One of the disadvantages that I think of is that it would make tagging album articles and updating the list of articles categorized as albums which don't transclude the Infobox Album more difficult. Jogers (talk) 12:16, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As PEJL is saying, I think it needs to be shown that something is broke. Otherwise, don't fix it.  I've never thought there was a problem having these as separate infoboxes.--Fisherjs 12:26, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * From a user perspective, I can understand this: Uniformity makes sense, in that, for instance, currently only Single and Song have "chart certifications" while albums, which is possibly as notable for charts, does not. I understand taht the existing one's not broken, but I'm certainly not against this, however there's a shitload of work to be done behind botting the conversion. Another pro for this would be if we currently have any gripes about the existing one, we can fix those issues before implementing this one. (such as chronology issues, as have been mentioned in the past). An omission I'll bring up straight off the bat is videos, though it's generally the same as DVD. Another thing that could be cool, since we'er brainstorming now, is a boxset infobox in which you have at the bottom a listing of all of the works of the boxset. This would be for box-sets of existing works (such as entire artist catalogues sold as a box or, in some cases, a tin). I'm for this proposal IF it can be proven to work (i.e. use full UAT before implementation and then run regular PVT to make sure it still goes). -- linca linca  13:08, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Note that none of that requires merging. I believe the reasons the album infoboxes don't include chart certifications is because there hasn't been consensus to include that. If we merge we either end up with an infobox where we are forced to include support for such things we don't want for certain classes (chart certifications and region coding for albums for example), or have to code the infobox such that they are actively unsupported for those classes. I note that User:FMAFan1990/Infobox music release currently does the former. The problems with the chronology could also be solved without merging infoboxes (although if we are going to merge them in such a way that we require bots to update them (not a given, not required for current version of User:FMAFan1990/Infobox music release), we should certainly consider revamping the chronologies at the same time). What is UAT/PVT BTW?--PEJL 14:14, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * UAT = User acceptance testing; PVT = Post-verification testing. It's basically after you go through your bug checking in a QA side of things (which I'm assuming would happen, otherwise we wouldn't gain a consensus to go ahead with this) where you basically check "does this fulfill all the criteria that users would want and therefore accept?" If the answer is yes on all marks, and it can seamlessly (or almost seamlessly) be implemented, then you've completed your UAT. PVT is pretty much an ongoing process once you have completed the change, but in particular initially once it's done, you PVT to make sure you haven't royally screwed things up, basically. It's through UAT that you perform regression testing to make sure it won't happen, but PVT is essential because without it, you face things happening to the user end that you didn't foresee because UAT is nefer broad enough to cover all aspects. -- linca linca  14:21, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I see. Testing is good, I guess. We aren't doing any of that now though, are we? --PEJL 14:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * No, I'm just saying, if it's gone about in the right way, including thorough testing, considering the volume of articles we're talking about here, then I'm behind it. Oh, and if it can be justified. A few bits and pieces here or there trouble me with the existing ones that could be resolved with this, but I'm still not 100% sure combining the 4 is the right way to go. I can see it's merit, but I'm not totally sold. -- linca linca  14:43, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see the merit in merging them, as I don't believe any advantage (that holds up) to doing so has yet been presented. --PEJL 15:26, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


 * First, there are the technnical isues that someone mentioned, that need to be resolved. Second, I'm worried about people using fields that are meant for other formats. Like chart position. We haven't agreed that it is important for album infoboxes, but there it is in the template. -Freekee 04:47, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm in favour in general because if we want to eg. add more fields, we only have to add them to one template instead of all 4.


 * But I've spotted a problem. Music release is a subset of song.  For example, the Star Spangled Banner (I'm an Australian, but I try to be relevant here), or "God save the Queen", or any other traditional song, is not a music release.  It's a song.  There are many instances of the song (ie. different people's recordings) that are music releases, but the song itself is not one.  An album page documents something particular.  A song page may not.  But maybe that's why we have "Infobox Standard".  I guess what I'm really saying is that we should do the following rename:
 * Infobox Song -> Infobox Song recording
 * Infobox Standard -> Infobox Song
 * Anyone?
 * -- TimNelson 02:46, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Another thing -- rather than having all those "previous", "next", etc, there should be a sub-template called "series", or something. That would mean that songs on an album could be listed as part of a series (ie. a series of songs on an album), but could also be used to refer to a series such as the Child Ballads.
 * -- TimNelson 07:38, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Adding fields is not a common occurrence. The work needed to merge the infoboxes vastly offsets the work needed to add fields to the separate infoboxes for the foreseeable future. Your proposed template renaming would likely cause confusion, and would require updating every single song article, as it repurposes Template:Infobox Song. I don't quite understand what you mean about the series sub-template. Are you talking about chronologies, succession boxes or something else? --PEJL 08:03, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I see your point about adding fields not being a common occurence. I can see the problems with a rename (ie. not worth doing unless we can get a bot to do it for us).
 * As for an example of what I mean about a series, I made a mockup at User:TimNelson/Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight. I basically copied the article, and then made a different infobox.  I've named my infobox User:TimNelson/Infobox folk song, but that's probably not a good name.  It's also not intended as a final version (the layout is ugly, and too tall), but more as a proof of concept.  You'll see the "series" bits mostly look like the chronologies mentioned, but you'll notice that the first one is not a chronology at all, but a reference to its place in a standard book of songs (my copy of the current "Infobox song" template, which I called "Infobox series", only required an additional two fields to cope with this situation).
 * Anyway, I hope this helps the situation become more obvious. Of course, there are some songs that have been recorded by 20+ people, so that's something we should keep in mind too.
 * -- TimNelson 11:46, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Album Project Summary
I've just updated a part of WikiProject Albums/Summary. I've written a script so it will be updated regularly by Jogersbot every time I run it but no more often that every day for small categories and maintenance lists and every week for big categories. This stuff may be useful again. Jogers (talk) 14:44, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Great! The names of some of the items under "Special lists" are less than obvious. May I suggest renaming the other items in the same vein as User:Jogers/List3, to something like "New articles", "Wonky articles" and "May need redirection". It might also be useful if your other lists were included. --PEJL 15:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I've added some comments but feel free to tweak it as you like. As long as you leave the comments before the values that get updated the bot should have no problems with parsing the summary. Jogers (talk) 15:28, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, this may be better. Jogers (talk) 15:31, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yep, that's what I had in mind too. Thanks! (Note that they're all at 0 now though.) --PEJL 15:33, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm working on it :-) Jogers (talk) 15:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Tracklist table guideline
Hello. I have been working on a lot of game/anime soundtracks. this pages usually have a tracklist in the table format (see Shadow of the Colossus: Roar of the Earth or Music of Final Fantasy VII. This is usually the best course of action due to these album's massive amount of tracks ( FFVII is about 120...). Sometimes, we also use collapsible tables when the article is not about the soundtrack only (see Secret_of_mana).

What I want to know is are there any guide lines to using these tables. Can we create one? I'm seeing a lot of inconsistency on these pages. I'm talking about things like: Should the column be titled "length", "time", "duration", or for another column: "#", "n°", "number" etc... this also holds for "title", "name" "track" etc.

What should the table title be called ? "album listing"? "album tracklisting"? "album track listing"? what if the album contains the word soundtrack, the will it look like this? "game soundtrack tracklisting"?

Should album time be added to the table title too?

Should table contents contain a "font-size:90%" (I don't think it should on a side note).

Or should the song titles be put between " (hyphens?), if it is in a table cell anyways?

Sorry to bother you on something that may not seem that important, but creating a guide line would really help the effort for table format album pages, which are all but consistent. Thankyou. Happypal 06:35, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The section heading should be called "Track listing", per WP:ALBUM. Track names should be between double quotes ("), per WP:ALBUM. I don't think the large number of tracks is actually an argument in favor of using a table rather than a list, as a list actually scales better than a table. It is true that how tables used for track listings should be formatting is currently undefined. I'd rather see us drop support for tables entirely though, so I'm not going to propose we standardize them. If you want consistency, use the list track listing format, which is both much more common in general, and clearly defined. --PEJL 08:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Not a bother, Happypal. Most of us at this project are quite happy to deal with the details. :-) We have answers to many of your questions, and you can find them if you read through the project page, particularly Track listing. Also note the mentioned feature article, Enta Da Stage. It shows a table for the track listing. The questions we don't have answers for are the ones dealing with the table specifically, since we've never really discussed its use. Check out the project page, and the infobox, and you can probably figure out what would go best. I would call the table "Track listing" only if the article is only about the record. In other, broader articles, you'll have to be more specific. "Album track listing" is fine. Btw, I like the use of hideable tables in those articles.


 * The only real advantage to tables that I can see, is when there is a lot of information to get across - more than the usual title, length and composer. A table is good for organization. The problem is that with more info and more columns, it's still hard to make it readable. It has to be formatted carefully. -Freekee 18:57, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, thanks for the answers. I guess we will have to go more on a per album basis. I had read Track listing several times, but it doesn't really have anything to say about the tables, except that they can be used for complicated titles.


 * Still, I feel I have to disagree with the "I'm not going to propose we standardize them. If you want consistency, use the list track listing format, which is both much more common in general, and clearly defined". It's not because something is more common and already defined we can't use something else. I'm not saying make an absolute rule about writing these tables, or creating a template or anything. I'm just saying agreeing to naming the columns "#", "title" and "length" would be a minimum. I mean, even both articles Enta Da Stage, and Before These Crowded Streets, one a feature article, and another, a guideline example, are inconsistent.
 * I'd like to change this:

''Particularly for hip hop albums, it is helpful to list which members of a group (or guests) rap on which verses as well as mentioning sampling sources. This can be done in a nested list, as in the example above. Using a table is recommended in more complicated situations (see Before These Crowded Streets for example). If a table is used, it should be formatted using class="wikitable".''
 * to:

''Particularly for complicated albums (soundtrack or hip hop albums), it is helpful to list which members of a group (or guests) rap/sing on which verses/songs as well as mentioning sampling sources. This can be done in a nested list, as in the example above. Using a table is recommended in more complicated situations (see Before These Crowded Streets for example). If a table is used, it should be formatted using class="wikitable". The column titles should be "#", "title" and "length" for the track number, the song title and the track length, respectively.''
 * Any thoughts/objections?
 * I mostly agree, though I don't like using "&hash;" to indicate track number. I prefer "track" as it's more straightforward. If you want to see a nightmarish track listing I worked on, you should have a look at this. I'm pretty sure it took me a good 20 minutes or more to get it all done. (the page isn't a great guide as to how an album article should be, but the track listing should give you an idea of a nightmare).-- linca linca  10:30, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If we are going to continue to recommend using tables for track listings, then I'm fine with this, but I'd rephrase the last two sentences as:
 * If a table is used, it should be formatted using class="wikitable", using column headings "#", "Title" and "Length" for the track number, the track title and the track length, respectively.
 * Changes include capitalizing the table column headings, using the phrase "column heading" instead of "column title" (for consistency with Help:Table), using the word "track" instead of "song", and adjusting the wording to sound less like we're suggesting using only those columns. (Oh, and I prefer "#" to "track" because the column is for the track number which the latter column heading doesn't make clear.) --PEJL 10:44, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That sounds good to me! I wouldn't actually know if "track" is better than "song" or anything, but since you seem to know what you are talking about, I'll take your word for it. So this would be it?

''Particularly for complicated albums (soundtrack or hip hop albums), it is helpful to list which members of a group (or guests) rap/sing on which verses/songs as well as mentioning sampling sources. This can be done in a nested list, as in the example above. Using a table is recommended in more complicated situations (see Before These Crowded Streets for example). If a table is used, it should be formatted using class="wikitable", using column headings "#", "Title" and "Length" for the track number, the track title and the track length, respectively.''
 * I'd also like to add that inside a table, song titles actually should NOT be between " (hyphens), and that should a table have a title, it should be: "Album Track list", or "Track list". But maybe I'm just pushing things here, or you have a different opinion on the matter...Happypal 11:06, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Firstly note that (") is a double quote, while (-) is a hyphen (technically a hyphen-minus, but close enough). I see no reason not to have track names in quotes in track listing tables, as we have them in quotes everywhere else (see WP:ALBUM), including in other tables. "Track" is a better term than "song" because it's the term we use consistently, and because not all tracks are songs (some are just instrumental, with no singing). I also see no reason to use a phrase such as "track list" for tables when we have standardized on "track listing" for everything else. I'm not sure what you refer to when you mention "table title", but if you're referring to a heading (==...==), WP:ALBUM already states that track listings should be in a section with a primary heading "Track listing". (If the article isn't a normal album article, it may be acceptable to use "Album track listing" in a sub-heading, as previously noted.) --PEJL 13:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, my bad on those. In that case, forget I said anything. Thanks for the "double quote" clarification. let's just add the details on the columns names then, and keep it at that.Happypal 14:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sure thing. (I like to wait a few days after proposing a change like this before actually making the change, to let others have a chance to comment.) --PEJL 14:39, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Dully noted. I just re-read myself. I typoed, and wanted to propose naming tables "Album Track listing", or "Track listing" (which I guess is what is written in the guidelines, albeit not explicitly). Not just "list". And I won't dispute you for the "double quote" thingy, but it's just that it seems redundant for me when the track title is placed in a cell all by itself. aren't the "double quotes" used to identify when a title starts and ends, making it useless in a table? Just a question really, don't want to push anything :) Happypal 14:47, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm, in what way is the fact that the heading should be called "Track listing" not explicit in the guideline? (The reason I asked if you were referring to a heading or something else, is that there are a number of other names that can be given to tables, such as captions, titles and summaries. Our convention is to use headings for this purpose, for consistency with non-table content.) As for the quotes, one of the primary reasons it is useful to always have track names in double quotes is that it is a convention, which makes it is easier to recognize that something is a track name if that particular track name is in double quotes, and if track names in general are in double quotes. --PEJL 15:49, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Double quote thing makes sense. As for the "the heading should be called "Track listing"", I think what you say later is true, and we are not referring to the same thing. The guideline says that the "heading" (which, if I am not mistake, is what you get when you write ==Track listing==), should be "Track listing". I'm talking about the first line in the Table. This may not be clear, but checking out Music of Final Fantasy VII might make things clear. In this example, "heading" is NOT "track listing", but the album title, and the "Table title" in this case IS "Track Listing". I'm just saying the guidelines don't look THAT clear to me that this is the way the article had to be written. Maybe I'm just being tacky though... Happypal 16:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Right, that is a column heading (with colspan), yet another way to give a table a name (besides normal headings, captions, titles and summaries). Our convention is to use normal headings for both "Track listing" and "Disc one/two", as stated at WP:ALBUM. (Note that that applies to table track listings as well.) The article you mentioned is a special case, for two reasons. Firstly, there are multiple albums listed in one article. As such, the heading levels should be adjusted down one step, making it "===Track listing===" rather than "==Track listing==". Secondly, the track listings are collapsible. Making that work with headings is a bit tricky. I converted the first album in that article to this format, see here. (In doing so I also fixed the problem that the "Show" link wasn't accessible for certain screen widths.) --PEJL 17:17, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, and having looked at this example article, I don't see why using "Album track listing" rather than "Track listing" would be necessary, as it is quite clear from context that the track listings refer to albums. --PEJL 17:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

<- Humm... I proffered how it looked before, but I guess I brought this on myself. I don't like the fact that there is a track listing subsection, with no other subsections in that album. I'll just have to stick with the guideline (which I now understand better, thank you). I guess it's not really possible for everyone to be happy with every article, and follow the guidelines to the letter too.

As for "I don't see why using "Album track listing" rather than "Track listing" would be necessary", I don't remember saying "necessary", but I do think that the tables look better if the album name is also there, rather than just being titled "Track listing", especially since there are 7 tables in he article. It makes the browsing of the article just that much easier and more streamlined, even if the info is redundant. But I guess this doesn't really matter anymore, since we are replacing table titles with headings.

I'll stop complaining now, I came here looking for guidelines, and got what I wanted, even if I don't like how it turns out for this article -_-'. Thank you for your time, help and consideration. I'll put the knowledge to good use.Happypal 19:18, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As for there not being any other sections, according to WP:ALBUM each album should have a personnel section. You may also want to consider splitting that article into separate articles for each album. We don't currently have a guideline about that, but that is the convention. If the article was split the track listings wouldn't have to be collapsed. (There are a number of other problems with a collapsed section, such as it not being accessible to readers using assistive technology, or when printing.) --PEJL 19:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Happypal, I sense disappointment, but I think the article looks pretty good, and the differences between it and the original version are minor. As PEJL suggested, I think they really need personnel sections. If you can get those done they surpass stub level, and I highly recommend switching them out to individual articles. If you do that, you can keep them all in the current article as is, but I would move the infobox and track listings, keeping only the text sections, and linking ineach section to the main articles.
 * Question for the group: I don't care for the hash as the column header. Can we use the abbreviation for number, "No."? -Freekee 03:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Not disappointment, but I liked the way it looked befor (albeit minor diffs). However, I'm good for following the guidelines, and I do believe the article will look even better in the end, so no worries there.
 * For now, I'll keep all albums in the same section (as WP:FF wants it), but treat each section as an article of it's own (ie, just shift the title headings etc...).
 * As for "#" Vs "No.", I really don't that much of an opinion. As long as we all agree on a standard, I'll gladly follow it.
 * personally, i like "#" a bit more because it has a bit of a broader reach. I think in other non-EN speaking cultures, "#" is more common than "No.". I realize this is the EN wikipedia, but it's also the biggest one, and a lot of non-EN people come here. But as I said, as long as we choose a standard, I'm fine either way.Happypal 04:37, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm, is there precedent for either "#" and "No."? I know both have been abolished from chart position sections recently. Does anyone remember any previous discussions about this, possibly in the context of chart positions? I couldn't find anything about this in WP:MOS. Also, shouldn't we use the proper symbol "№" rather than "No."? See also number sign and numero sign. I suspect "№" would be more easily understood than "No." for those not familiar with either. It's harder to type (on many keyboard layouts) though. --PEJL 10:00, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm for using "№". If I don't know a way to create something, I look it up or copy and paste it. I'm sure the same can be done in general. Alternatively, you could give instructions (or link to instructions). -- linca linca  10:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Why not just create   or something for №? Kariteh 10:37, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Or we just standardize on "#", which can be easily typed on all keyboards without templates or copy-and-pasting, is well understood by a large number (probably at least as many as "№"), is the default symbol in other parts of the English-speaking world, and isn't completely illegible when editing in certain fonts (both the monospaced font on my Mac and the one on my Windows box). --PEJL 11:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with PEJL. # the easiest and most widespread format. "№" looks nice and all, but it's just eye candy which will generate technical difficulties...Happypal 14:31, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ Done (using "#"). --PEJL 11:03, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

One album per article
As noted above, we currently don't have a guideline that articles on albums should cover only a single album per article. In the introduction we say: Below is a basic guide to writing an article on a specific album of music, which suggests it, but nothing else. I would assume that WikiProject Albums/Summary gets confused by articles covering more than one album. I propose we add the following to the top of WP:ALBUM.
 * Articles on albums should cover a single album, including possible reissues. Each article should begin with the album infobox (see above), followed by an introductory paragraph.

Any objections? --PEJL 19:54, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Compilations (including live albums?) may not merit individual articles but might be better presented collectively. Ricadus 21:18, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Is that something that occurs now? I can't recall ever seeing multiple compilations or live albums in a single article. --PEJL 21:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

This shouldn't be used to dictate decisions among individual WikiProjects. WikiProject Final Fantasy has consolidated album articles into general articles on the music of each game (like Music of Final Fantasy VIII); several have reached GA, and almost all of them have potential to reach that level. &mdash; Deckiller 03:41, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Seeing that was in fact the motivation for this change, see the section above. A cursory review shows that the article you linked to doesn't adhere to many (any?) of the WP:ALBUM guidelines, notably not including any album infoboxes. While those articles are also within scope of WikiProject Final Fantasy, I would argue that it would still be appropriate to consider the general album guidelines from WikiProject Albums. --PEJL 03:55, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't believe it is appropriate to follow the guidelines for every single case, no matter what. It should be individually decided. I can guarantee you that the album coverage in Music of Final Fantasy VIII is essentially complete. There is no missing information - we've scraped the bottom of the barrel, and gotten wood in our fingernails. There is no reason to branch out to separate articles when they can be comprehensively covered in one. On the other hand, joint coverage strengthens the article by grouping related content. Perhaps the article can be given infoboxes, but the lack of them definitely does not warrant separate articles. The drop-down box can modified to adhere to WP:ALBUM guidelines too, although the current one is much better for accessibility. --Teggles 04:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I think those Final Fantasy pages, while thorough, need some work, and they certainly need infoboxes. The purpose of infoboxes (and they're not exclusive to this wikiproject, I might add) is to consolidate the basic info. Strip it down and display easily and uniformly. That said, with respect to PEJL's suggestion, I suggest we be implicit and make this recommendation for all albums that are released sperately with a unique track listing (one case where this is not the case is Jars of Clay and Jars of Clay Platinum, both of which indicate the same album but with different cover art and a modified name (which I think is superfluous, when this could easily be rendered into a single page using the extra album cover 2 template.) though sometimes it may be appropriate to break them apart (such as I've been considering for the Recurring Dream: Special Edition Live Album by Crowded House). I don't know, but I do know that that whole page is too much information in parts. sure you've scrapned your nails, but you only needed to take a spoon and cleave out the necessary info and leave the dreggs. -- linca linca  05:23, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yep, they need polishing. However, there's no reason to separate Music of Final Fantasy VIII and others, which is what I was arguing against. It's an illogical decision to split. --Teggles 05:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * First let me say that using a drop-down box is never good for accessibility. Secondly, with regards to Jars of Clay and Jars of Clay Platinum, such variants of essentially the same album share a single page in almost all cases. See for example all of the "Deluxe Edition" albums, all of the "Xth Anniversary Edition" albums and so on. We have provisions for including different covers (as noted) and different track listings (in sub-sections, per WP:ALBUM, see example). I proposed standardizing this because since it is what we do in a vast majority of cases, it appears to be largely uncontroversial. I'd also be interested to know to what extent the automatic processing tools are tripped up by articles with multiple albums. Jogers, do you know? --PEJL 10:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see a problem here. Jogers (talk) 10:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, good to know. But what exactly is being counted? (If the number of articles, then I would think a multi-album article would trip it up. If the number of infoboxes, then a non-infobox article would trip it up. Is it using some other logic?) --PEJL 10:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You mean WikiProject Albums/Summary? It simply counts articles in relevant categories and lists. "WP:ALBUM articles" section counts articles in the Category:WikiProject Albums articles. Jogers (talk) 10:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I guess this is not a concern then. (I incorrectly assumed we were counting albums, but I realize now we're counting album articles.) Based on feedback, let me propose a softer wording (which also avoids ambiguous words such as "cover" and "single"). I propose we replace the existing first paragraph:
 * The basics should be in the first paragraph: title, artist, release date, record label, and a word or two about genre and critical reception.

with these two paragraphs:
 * Articles on albums should normally be about only one album, including possible reissues. These guidelines assume an article about one album is being written, and will need adjusting for articles about multiple albums, for example by shifting the heading nesting levels down one step.


 * Each article should begin with the album infobox (see above), followed by the lead section which should include basics such as title, artist, release date, record label, and a word or two about genre and critical reception.

--PEJL 11:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the main difference is that the Final Fantasy music articles (of which FF8's is the only complete one) are discussing the topic of a work of fiction, so it takes more of a typical fiction subarticle format. Adding concise infoboxes for each section would probably be a good compromise. &mdash; Deckiller 11:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I like the implication that reissues could be included in the same article as the original. I'd prefer the direction that they should be included in the same article. -Freekee 03:21, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

So, what's the consensus? Kariteh 11:53, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, no-one has objected to the softer wording ("should normally be about only one album") so I assume that is acceptable to all. I'd like to wait a few more days to let others weigh in. --PEJL 16:21, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ Done (using "should normally" rather than "should"). --PEJL 11:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

No references in infobox
Infoboxes sometimes contain references, most often for release dates and genres. As User:Unint said recently about the musical artist infobox, "[...] I would hope that we wouldn't need footnotes at all in the infobox, since the purpose of the infobox and lead is to summarize more detailed information found later on [...]". As such I propose we add the following at WP:ALBUM:
 * It is not necessary to include references for facts in the infobox, as these should be referenced where the corresponding fact is mentioned in the body of the article. (In some cases a reference for a professional review is appropriate, as noted at .)

--PEJL 13:10, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * You left "But I do see a serious need for these on heavily disputed articles." out of Unint's quote; an important statement I agree on. Emmaneul (Talk) 13:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes I left that out, because it referred to musical artist infoboxes, and because it wasn't clear to what extent it applies to album infoboxes. --PEJL 13:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Given that external links are only supposed to appear in the External Links section, I would prefer to have links to album reviews in the external links section, and not in the infobox. The review text line in the infobox should have the footnote link. There's really no reason to link it there anyway, since infoboxes are supposed to be concise, and you can see the rating there already. -Freekee 03:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think that would be an improvement for readers. We don't really save much space in the infobox ("[1]" instead of "link"), in fact in some web browsers the infobox would be made taller (because the superscripts increase line height, in varying degrees depending on browser). Readers would have to click twice to get to a review (or thrice if they wanted to get back to where they were) rather than once. If we were to do this we'd probably want to have the review links in the "External links" formatted in some consistent way to make them easy to find separately, possibly in a "Professional reviews" sub-section. We'd also have to repeat the review source name for each review link. We'd either not have any ratings in that section (which would make it less useful to browse separately) or have them repeated (more redundancy). --PEJL 10:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * That sounds fair. As long as we understand we're breaking the rules, it's fine with me. And I like the text as suggested. Specifically, I like the reminder not to claim that text is not necessary because everything is in the infobox. -Freekee 04:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose: Refs are the only way to prevent genre edit-warring that I am aware of. Skomorokh  incite  02:28, 29 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Limited support for this, so I won't make this change. --PEJL 11:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Skomorokh, for genre edit wars, the policy does actually say that we're supposed to use general terms rather than specific terms (i.e. you'd have "heavy rock" instead of "industrial acid gothic screamo metal" or "hip hop" instead of "psychadelic trip-hop" etc). Another thing of note relating to your comment is that it suggests that a reference solves the issue of subjectivity. Even "authorities" on the subject matter don't always agree on type or all sorts of things, really. Anyway, all of that aside, I'd be for this, though I'm not that sold on the wording of it. I don't know what I want, but not quite this. Needs tweaking. -- linca linca  13:41, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Granted, the problem of subjectivity remains, but there is usually no opposition to general terms - hard rock - only to specific ones such as those you mentioned. After months of edit-warring, introducing refs with a warning note has practically stopped all problems with the Queens of the Stone Age and Rage Against the Machine articles, both of which are pretty major bands. So, while acknowledging the theoretical problems you mention, I have found references in the infobox very useful in practice.


 * If there is consensus for removing references, can I suggest a warning note to the effect of "" ? Skomorokh incite  15:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Edit warring over genres is a problem, not just for band articles, but for album articles as well. I guess this boils down to to what extent referencing the genres in the infobox (as opposed to just in the article) would avoid edit wars. Lacking clear data, we can only speculate. I'd assume that a comment in the infobox referring to the referenced genres in the article body would at least work better than having unreferenced genres in both places and no comment. An alternative solution would be to have some formal process for deciding genres and/or an ability to lock genres (see WP:MN) which would likely be much more effective at avoiding these edit wars, but more complex. --PEJL 16:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Certifications
I notice that this page has no mention of certifications. I am in the midst of creating a list for the multiple country organizations who certify albums (i.e. RIAA, CRIA, IFPI), and a list of links to their databases, or how to get there in some cases, especially on foreign language sites. I would like to share this list with the WIkiProject if we can fit it in somewhere. I was also thinking of adding what # of sales/shipments are required for a old, or platinum certification, but that might be making it too long. So when I finish, should I include it on the project page, or make a subpage? -- Reaper  X  19:10, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Check out my progress: User:Reaper_X/Rockbox. Will anyone give me a response here? -- Reaper  X  06:52, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * That is an excellent resource that you are creating! I would think it best to have it on a subpage—linked from the Project page of course—but only because the Project page is fairly long already. --Paul Erik 12:01, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. WikiProject Albums/Certifications seems like a good place for it. --PEJL 11:25, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. It has been created. I plan to make a similar table for singles at WP:SONGS. Please help me complete this table, and offer any suggestions to improve it. Cheers. -- Reaper  X  06:44, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Songwriting credit
I am late coming into this discussion, but I would suggest an additional change. The usual style guideline for a sentence fragment is not to include a period at the end. (This is the case with entries on disambiguation pages, or any lists whose entries do not consist of complete sentences.) So in the Track listing section, I would move the period outside of the quotation marks: ... ''can be stated at the top as "All songs written by Gordon Gano". If the majority of the songs were written by the same person, this can be stated as "All songs written by Gordon Gano, except where noted".'' Thoughts? --Paul Erik 01:54, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I proposed what I did because it was and is more common for the period to be included. If we are to adhere to the sentence fragment rule, I'd rather see us convert it into a proper sentence, for example by recommending: "All songs are written by Gordon Gano." --PEJL 07:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I've done that particular songwriting credit style with several of the album entries that I've done since I started here. -- CJ Marsicano 15:04, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this would be a change from the most common practice. So if a change is to be made I would prefer to have it be a less drastic change, simply removing a period in most cases. Also, since the Track listing section is already essentially a list, it does not appear to be so out-of-place to have a sentence fragment there. And finally, let's keep things more brief where possible ...I say this despite my usual distaste for sentence fragments. :) --Paul Erik 16:08, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * We hardly ever have sentence fragments in normal paragraph context (not in tables, lists, infoboxes and so on). I guess I never realized this wasn't a complete sentence. Omitting the period just looks strange to me, because of the paragraph context. --PEJL 19:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * While rules of sentence structure dictate that the period be inside the quotes, it would be more appropriate to move the period outside the quotes, since the example text will appear as a sentence fragment. However, speaking as someone who's detail oriented, I must question why we're discussing this detail. I can't imagine anyone going out of their way to remove an improperly placed period in an article (but if they do, that's their prerogative) and I find it less likely that an edit war would begin over it - but the album project says there must be a period! (again, that's their problem). In short (too late!), Paul, this isn't really policy, so change it if you want. I'm sorry if I sound like a jerk here - I'm just trying to remind people to focus their efforts where they'll do the most good. Besides, notice I weighed in on the issue myself. :-D -Freekee 04:03, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not think that you sound like a jerk; I do need the reminding sometimes not to get too caught up in small details. And yes, I did notice that you weighed in with an opinion, Freekee. :-) --Paul Erik 11:51, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Exhaustive list of awards (gold, silver etc)
An anonymous user has added a lengthy and unsourced list of awards for 10cc albums at the 10cc page which are presumably for British sales, though this isn't stated specifically. It's a long list and probably less indicative of the sales and popularity of the albums than the chart placements, which are also on the 10cc page. The WikiProject Albums page contains no provision for such lists. I'm inclined to delete it, though the gold/platinum status etc could be added as a brief reference on the Wiki page for each album. Any opinions? Grimhim 11:55, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd say ask the anon about it, about their source and what these certifications are for. Then I would integrate it into the discography tables you already have there; just make a new column called "Certification ( Country )". If you really want to get rid of it until what country the sales are for and a source is indicated (I would), I'd stick it somewhere temporarily, like a personal sandbox or something. That's my opinion. -- Reaper  X  17:50, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think a better place for charting info is the album article. The band article could use a summary. I don't think the awards are necessarily notable enough to devote a whole section to. At the very least, the awards should be listed in the discography tables, since the current list is a bit confusing. -Freekee 03:49, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: The figures indicated for what is silver, gold etc aren't what they are (or have ever been) in the UK, so i don't think that they're either right or for the UK. Now, I think that certifications are important, but here they're find of strewn about, when they should be centralised into the discography (which should be split out, in this case, to allow the page to be shorter).-- linca linca  09:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Love.Angel.Music.Baby
The article is up for FAC. So i request everyone to kindly review the article and do post your comments. Thanks a ton! Luxurious.gaurav 15:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The article is now Featured. Thank You! Luxurious.gaurav 08:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Anyone know where I can find information about album sales?
I need figures :) Kamryn · Talk 06:13, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know for exact figures, but you can always use certifications if the albums are popular enough for rough figures. See WikiProject Albums/Certifications. -- Reaper  X  00:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Nice work, Reaper X! Jogers (talk) 14:41, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Missing articles
Anybody knows what happened to over 2000 WikiProject Album articles? Here the count decreased that much after only one week. Jogers (talk) 10:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Article naming
I realize that when there are multiple albums by the same name (e.g., there are albums by the name Necessary Evil by Deborah Harry, Pat LaBarbera and George Marinelli), the artist name should appear in parentheses (e.g., "Necessary Evil (Deborah Harry album)") in the article title. However, what if (as in the example I've been using), the there is only one article on Wikipedia on an album by the particular name--should that article then occupy the "(album)" space? (In this case, I am considering moving Necessary Evil (Deborah Harry album) to Necessary Evil (album) if it would be appropriate.) --Evil1987 14:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think that would be appropriate. You can always move the page back when further disambiguation is necessary. Perhaps the guideline could be clarified in respect to this? Jogers (talk) 14:40, 8 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. It would indeed be helpful if the guideline were clarified. --Evil1987 16:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I thought WP:ALBUM was pretty clear about this. Is it the "For multiple albums with the same title" part that is unclear? Do you have a specific suggestion for improvement? --PEJL 20:38, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Cfd:Albums without cover art
If it's not on your watchlist you may not have seen that this cat is up for discussion. (repurposing to talk pages, primarily, but a name change could happen too) See the Cfd for more.--Fisherjs 17:14, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * As I noted there, I believe repurposing will mean this category can no longer be automatically populated, which will make it much less useful. Coincidentally, I've been considering proposing we add more such infobox cleanup categories, albeit more transient ones. Specifically, I would find the following categories useful:
 * Album articles with infobox field compiled by: The field "Compiled by" has recently been changed to generate "Compiler" instead of "Compiled by". I want to rename the field to "Compiler" as well, for clarity and consistency. If we update all existing uses we don't have to support both variants, but having a list of existing uses is a prerequisite for being able to do so.
 * Album articles with infobox field language: There is an undocumented field "Language" in the infobox. I've been meaning to propose this be deleted, but seeing how it is currently used first would be helpful. --PEJL 02:46, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Album articles with infobox field extra cover: "extra cover1" and "extra cover2" are two other undocumented fields, alternatives to Extra album cover 2. I think we should update all existing uses of the former to the latter and remove support for the former, for consistency.
 * Can anyone think of a good way to get the corresponding information without using categories? Perhaps this can be done by parsing database dumps? --PEJL 02:46, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds feasible. I could create lists from the database dump. Jogers (talk) 10:02, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I fail to see why categorising's an issue? Is it because wiki maintenance is being promoted in the article space? If so, is that really an issue? Every page has an "edit" button and people will become savvy evebntually, if that's your issue. -- linca linca  10:34, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Linca, I can't tell if you don't see the issue with the current practice of having a category such as Category:Albums without cover art be automatically populated, or if you don't see the issue with the proposed repurposing of the same. Assuming you're referring to the proposed repurposing, categorizing is an issue because it has to be done manually. In this case it requires everyone to always remember to either add or remove  to the talk page when they remove or add a cover image to the article (unlikely in practice), or someone else to do so afterwards (which means the category will be constantly out of date). If we have to update the category manually, I think we'd need either a bot to update the talk pages regularly or to drop the category and create lists from database dumps.
 * Jogers, thanks for the offer! I'll might take you up on it depending on the outcome of the CfD. --PEJL 12:31, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe it should be repurposed if we can find a way to do it automatically. Jogers, is that a "yes, I can do that"? -Freekee 22:43, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I only said that I can create lists of certain articles from the database dump so PEJL can look into them. I don't see any easy way to keep the Category:Albums without cover art constantly up to date if repurposed. Jogers (talk) 09:40, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks for the clarification...

What if we add a field to the album template on the talk page for "needs image." It's not as good as the current way, but it's a lot better than a user-maintained list. We already use such fields for article maintenance. -Freekee 02:47, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Anything maintained by a bot would be much better than manually maintained information, as it will be much more up-to-date. Agree that if we are to have the category on the talk page, setting this via Album seems better than setting the category directly. But if we are going to use a bot to recognize missing covers and tag these in some way, wouldn't it be better to just have the bot generate the list directly (like Jogers' other lists) rather than having the bot set the category on each and every article to end up with a category containing basically the same thing? We'd save a lot of edits by using a list rather than a category. --PEJL 03:50, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, the outcome of the CfD was just rename, not repurpose to talk page, so we don't need any bots for Category:Album articles without cover art (the new name). --PEJL 16:30, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

ImageRemovalBot and Discography
I thought it apropos to alert this WikiProject of a problem ImageRemovalBot is creating for band pages with discographies in gallery format. I have requested feedback here. Chubbles 09:05, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

General fixes with Jogersbot
I've just unleashed Jogersbot to make some of the most straightforward fixes to album articles. Please let me know if you find any problems. Jogers (talk) 20:24, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Track listing credit fraction
At WP:ALBUM I propose we change:
 * If all songs were written by the same person/team, this can be stated at the top as "All songs written by Gordon Gano." If the majority of the songs were written by the same person, this can be stated as "All songs written by Gordon Gano, except where noted."

to:
 * If all songs were written by the same person/team, this can be stated at the top as "All songs written by Gordon Gano." If more than a third of the songs were written by the same person/team, this can be stated as "All songs written by Gordon Gano, except where noted."

to make changes like this more in line with our guidelines. The current phrase using "a majority" was just something I chose without much thought (see discussion). I've since seen editors interpret this very literally, and remove "All songs..." lines in favor of credits on each track when only applicable to about 40% of the tracks. I think having albums use "All songs..." lines in such cases is preferable, because it avoids some repetition, decreases the inconsistency of using full names on some tracks and last names on others, and decreases the number of links next to track names (which some find visually distracting). --PEJL 12:18, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm opposed to this on the grounds of instruction creep. Hyperspecified and arbitrary rules should be avoided when possible, to avoid the impression that Wikipedia is some sort of bureacracy. Leave the guidelines vague and let users use their best judgement. Skomorokh  incite  14:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Note that the proposed wording isn't more specific or arbitrary than the existing one, it just changes the fraction from one in two to one in three. So if the proposed text is too specific, the existing one is as well. We might change it to just say "If many songs..." :
 * If all songs were written by the same person/team, this can be stated at the top as "All songs written by Gordon Gano." If many songs were written by the same person/team, this can be stated as "All songs written by Gordon Gano, except where noted."

That leaves it quite vague where the cut-off point should be, but will hopefully in practice lead to a cut-off point somewhere below 50%, to achieve the previously mentioned benefits. --PEJL 17:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Cool, where do you stand on "most/several/than one" for the cut-off? Skomorokh  incite  17:41, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Note that those are technically just as specific as the current text and the first proposal, with "most" being more or less the same as "a majority". They sound less specific though, which might be enough. I actually considered something like "multiple" but it seemed less appropriate, because it could be interpreted as a suggestion to use "except where noted" for two or more, which might make the cut-off too low (for example two out of twenty). "Several" is better in that aspect (three or more) but might imply it shouldn't be used for almost all. I'd prefer "several or more" which sounds less specific than "three or more" while technically meaning the same. --PEJL 18:21, 12 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I know that I might get a reputation for being detail-oriented, but since you are proposing a change anyway, I would like to make another plea for removing the period at the sentence fragment. Many album articles include it, but it looks strange to me, sitting at the end of a sentence fragment, and in particular when there is a list immediately below it, which, appropriately by rules of punctuation, has no period at the end of each entry. Another minor style quibble is that the MoS discourages the use of slashes, so I suggest "person or team" rather than "person/team". Oh, and (while I'm here...) I do think that this is a good idea to change "the majority" to "several" or something similar. :) --Paul Erik 04:57, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Details are nice. ;-) As I mentioned before, having something that is more obviously a sentence fragment in a paragraph context looks strange to me, as all other text in album articles at normal paragraph size and position are proper sentences. Can we possibly compromise and change it to a sentence (with "All songs are..." or similar)? That would also work better for cases like "All songs written by Foo. All music written by Bar." Definitely "person or team". Anyone mind "several or more"? --PEJL 05:14, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah! Now I understand what you mean by "in a paragraph context"—sorry I was slow to clue in to that. I do see your point and I would be fine with "All songs were..." or similar. I guess that the downside to making any sort of change here is that it may be bothersome for editors (and readers) to adjust to a new format for the songwriting credit when it has been stable for a long time. Given the absence of anyone else commenting, I will leave it to your judgment, PEJL, whether or not that sort of change is worth the effort and incoveniences of changing. As for the other issue, I do like "several or more". --Paul Erik 22:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * While changing articles and habits will take some work, I do think the change is worth it, because we want this guideline to be in line with WP:MOS. I'll change this to "All songs were..." when I make the change proposed above, unless objections to either change are raised over the next few days. --PEJL 12:41, 15 August 2007 (UTC)


 * ✅ Done. --PEJL 13:59, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Article quality
I just had a look at the statistics for the project. At the moment, we are looking after over 60,000 articles and we have assessed the quality of almost half. Of the assessed articles,


 * 92% are stubs (24951 articles)
 * 6.7% are start class (1824)
 * 1.2% are B class (322)
 * 0.12% are GA class (33)
 * 0.07% are FA class (18)

In summary, I think we're doing OK with regular maintenance tasks as we have a lot of nicely formatted start class articles. We could probably do more to help people get their articles further up the quality scale however. It may be worthwhile adding cleanup tags to the B class articles to help guide their editors to GA class. I'll start work on it soon. Anyone else interested? - Papa November 10:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Musical cast recordings
We've recently had a question raised over at WikiProject Musical Theatre regarding the naming conventions of the cast recordings of musicals. Someone came across Hairspray (2002 soundtrack), which is horribly misnamed as, strictly speaking, it's not a soundtrack. Should it be Hairspray (2002 album) or Hairspray (cast recording) or something completely different? If anyone has some wisdom to impart, the discussion just started here, and we would love some insight. &mdash;  Music  Maker  5376  21:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)


 * As an album, the normal album naming conventions (see WP:ALBUM) should apply, which means it should indeed be Hairspray (2002 album) (as there is a different album by the same name by this "artist" from a different year). If for some reason that naming scheme is unacceptable for these types of albums, we should update WP:ALBUM. --PEJL 01:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. An article is named for the title of the subject, and disambiguated by the medium (film, album, etc.) and year, if necessary. -Freekee 02:41, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, though there's always a chance of duplicity when doing this, but I suppose in those cases, we'd just disambiguate further (i.e. Hairspray (2002 American album) vs Hairspray (2002 English album)). -- linca linca  03:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Nope, WP:ALBUM already covers this duplicity: For artists who release multiple albums with the same name, disambiguate by year, e.g. Weezer (1994 album) and Weezer (2001 album) (unless the albums were released the same year, in which case they can be disambiguated by some commonly accepted convention). So Hairspray (American album) and Hairspray (English album). --PEJL 03:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * But what if there were more than one American album and more than one English album? Never rule out the need for further disambiguation. :-) -Freekee 03:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Right, my point was just that the convention dab (CONV album) replaces the year dab (YEAR album), it doesn't add to it (YEAR CONV album), just like the year dab replaces the artist dab in the simpler case. --PEJL 05:18, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I was actually referring to the fact that many musicals, particularly, have multiple productions in the same year (Fame was on in 98 in UK, US and Australia, from memory). -- linca linca  10:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Ahh, OK. In such case the year might be part of the "convention" part. --PEJL 10:50, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I decided to take a look at an album for a film that would have had an important soundtrack to see what it was named. I chose Ray (film), and its associated soundtrack is at Ray (soundtrack). Is this the accepted convention for movie soundtracks or did I choose the wrong film to take a look at? Should that be at Ray (album) or do soundtracks have special naming conventions (and, should, therefore, musicals)? If I'm understanding the conversation correctly, they should be Wikipedia! the musical (album), unless there were international recordings, in which case Wikipedia! the musical (Ugandan album), unless there were several in a given locale, in which case, Wikipedia! the musical (2007 Ugandan album)? How about for something where the title of the article of the musical has the dab "(musical)"? Like Chess (musical) -- there are something like 30 recordings of this show, should they be titled Chess (musical) (2002 Swedish album) or Chess (2002 Swedish album)? &mdash;  Music  Maker  5376  17:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The naming conventions are at WP:ALBUM. From them follows that Ray should be at Ray (Craig Armstrong album), as there is another album named Ray, but no other album named Ray by that artist. Chess should be at Chess (2002 album) if multiple Chess albums were released by the same artist but only one in 2002. If multiple Chess albums were released by the same artist in 2002, it should be at Chess (SOMETHING album), where SOMETHING is something that sufficiently disambiguates the album, possibly including year and/or country and/or something else, but only the minimum needed to disambiguate. There should never be two sets of disambiguation, only disambiguation using (album). --PEJL 17:59, 14 August 2007 (UTC)