Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Discographies/style/Archive 2

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Certifications

For multi-platinum certifications, should the certification for example be written as "5x Multi-Platinum", or just "5x Platinum"?-5- (talk) 00:25, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

From what I see and use, it should be "5× Platinum". — Σxplicit 05:20, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree. When the the number ("5") is explicitly stated, "multi" is automatically implied and thus redundant. – IbLeo (talk) 05:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

New singles table template

I have been attempting to construct a template to handle the major tables in discography articles and sections. Due to the complexity of these tables I have divided them into two separate tasks; albums and singles. I have already created a working singles template, although it is still under development. You can see it working in my sandbox; it renders the sample table from The Prodigy discography perfectly, as well as a few others that I have tested. To demonstrate this I will include the sample table as rendered by my template below. I would appreciate any comments, suggestions or opinions relating to the template. Hopefully this new template will make developing and standardising discographies slightly easier. All the best – Ikara talk → 01:14, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Example table
See my sandbox for a comparison of this template with the wikitable equivalent.
Year Title Peak chart positions Certifications
(sales thresholds) 		Album
UK
[1] 		AUS
[2] 		IRL
[3] 		FIN
[4] 		GER
[5] 		NOR
[6] 		US
[7]
1993 "One Love" 8 — 3 — — — — Music for the Jilted Generation
1994 "No Good (Start the Dance)" 4 45 3 — 4 7 —
"Voodoo People" 13 24 7 — — — —
1995 "Poison" 15 — 3 — — 5 —
1996 "Firestarter" 1 22 2 1 6 1 30 UK: Gold[8]
US: Gold[9] 		The Fat of the Land
"Breathe" 1 2 1 1 8 1 — UK: Platinum[10]
AUS: 2× Platinum[11]
"—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory.
I have added template documentation to help explain how to use the template. It is nearly complete now, I just need to modify it to handle low numbers of charts more efficiently. Once that is working I believe it will be ready for implementation – Ikara talk → 02:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

A few questions regarding album sales

  1. How necessary is it to include them?
  2. Does a good source that has a database of album sales exist?

I have to ask because it is such a pain is the arse trying to find ANY sources for album sales, other than the odd article about an artist that might happen to mention an album's sales. When I look at some FA discographies to find some sources, I find that they either have no mention of album sales, or if they do, it is sourced from an article specifically about that particular artist.Pasta of Muppets (talk) 06:33, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

If there's already a verifiable certification listed, what's the point of adding the sales when a reader can easily click to the list of recording sales certifications article? And Nielsen SoundScan is a "good database" but the problem is that its numbers are often posted on forums or blogs, not exactly reliable sources right there. Finally, who really cares? If an album sold less than 500,000 (RIAA Gold) why bother hunting for a number? --Andrewlp1991 (talk) 20:36, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Discography order

When the discography is broken up into different sections what should the order be? Like if it was albums and singles, should it be listed in that order or just whatever comes first chronologically? AngelFire3423 (talk) 14:17, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Generally it is listed (first to last): Studio albums, Compilation albums, Live albums, Video albums, Extended plays, Singles, Music videos and then Other appearances. k.i.a.c (talktome - contribs) 14:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. So essentially the same order that's on {{Infobox Artist Discography}} right? AngelFire3423 (talk) 04:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, sorry for asking this again. I just noticed that there were archives for the dicussion page. AngelFire3423 (talk) 20:19, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Singles and albums by multiple artists

What does one call this section? If it's like a single that features one song from one artists, and one song from another artist, in where in the discographies should the single be listed? If there is "Appearances on compilations" or something similar for when tracks appear original to that compilation from several different artists, then should there be similar section for single and albums? Or should appearances on singles, albums, compilations, etc. all be listed under one section? AngelFire3423 (talk) 20:36, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Singles and featured singles in one section

I'm beginning to notice a trend of merging separate sections (specifically, singles, soundtrack singles, featured singles, etc.) into one giant section like here. Though style guideline mentions to separate types of releases with albums, it doesn't say anything about singles. Personally, I don't like this new format and feel this is a bad trend. Not only does this clunk up a single section, it makes referencing a bit messier. For example, I'm working currently working on on Aaliyah discography and had singles divided like this. Another editor then changed the format to look like this, while removing some references in progress. Adding the references back would bulk up the table and, in the end, make the table look distorted. I think the sections dealing with singles should follow the same format the albums section uses, not only for consistency, but neatness. Thoughts? — Σxplicit 07:18, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

It is a struggle to organize the huge gigantic table that squeezes together all the singles; see the edit history of Nas discography. Thus, I think that they should be separated: "As lead artist; as featured performer; soundtracks". And featured singles should be the only guest appearances songs listed on a discography page; to avoid the "indiscriminate collection of information"/verifiability/crowding issues. --Andrewlp1991 (talk) 20:32, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

B-Sides

The dictionary definition of discography is: "a selective or complete list of phonograph recordings, typically of one composer, performer, or conductor." B-sides are phonograph recordings and are part of a complete list. I think it is censorship to not allow this factual information if it is known and contributed. I bet if poled, most people would favor having access to this information. There is no down side to complete knowledge on this subject.(Cindy10000 (talk) 06:47, 22 July 2009 (UTC)).

It is generally considered superfluous to include B-sides, when they are already linked to in other releases (the actual releases are the main focus). Specifically, read Wikipedia:WikiProject Discographies/style#What should not be included, including b-sides could draw upon large lists of useless doubled up information. Wikipedia's project guidelines are not decided by polls and majority votes, it's consensus, the argument wins not the size of the argument. And finally, censorship? Lol. k.i.a.c (talktome - contribs) 06:57, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Additionally, a b-side is only part of a phonographic recording, the single title represents the whole recording in the same way that an album title represents the whole album without having to list each track. --JD554 (talk) 07:17, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
And excluding B-sides is in no way censorship. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. — Σxplicit 07:35, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
1. Consensus is an agreement of opinion reached by a group as a whole. So, how is the final determination of consensus reached here? (Just asking because I don't know) 2. Yes, the B-side is only part of a phonographic recording, just as the A-side is. 3. Yes, "censorship" was the wrong word since it implies dictation of morality... Sorry... But, the exclusion of pertinent information from an information source such as an encyclopedia limits knowledge, which is never good. 4. Thinking in terms of the purpose of Wikipedia; When someone looks up a subject, they are not looking for partial or filtered information. They are seeking complete information from which to either educate themselves or answer a specific question.(Cindy10000 (talk) 17:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)).
I disagree, and WP:INDISCRIMINATE does as well: when a user visits Wikipedia they are looking for partial and filtered information. Partial information in that no one wants an avalanche of useless information just for the sake of information. When we look at a biography, we probably don't want to know the person's shoe size, the name of their first pet, or their favorite color. Someone may want to know that for some reason, but they'll just need to look elsewhere. We shouldn't water down the content with less important information on that off chance. Further, the information is filtered, in that we expect what information is provided to be based on a logical system. In this case our system is WP:NOTABILITY. Drewcifer (talk) 22:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Drewcifer3000 is right. B-sides are generally not notable unless they themselves chart, and those that don't chart sometimes have a hard time meeting verifiability requirements as well. Looking at the records themselves to determine the B-side tracks is original research, which is not an acceptable source of support for assertions on Wikipedia. consensus and coöperation is the name of the game here—not competition—and while consensus in many cases shifts over time, it does not require unanimity and is not determined by voting. Please assume the good faith of those with whom you disagree—most all of us here have the primary goal of improving this encyclopædia. Disagreeing with the consensus doesn't necessarily make you wrong, but it's a good indicator that you should pause and think about why the community's consensus is what it is. I am sure with time and experience your understanding of how Wikipedia works will surely improve if you let it. —Scheinwerfermann T·C00:31, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
Please keep in mind that notability explicitly does not limit article content, it merely sets standards for determining which topics merit separate articles. Also keep in mind that not every musical artist is the same, nor are their discographies, and there are situations in which the standards that we apply generally can be ignored in the interest of providing thorough and accurate information. One of my favorite bands, for example, released 22 singles during their career that were exclusive to the vinyl format, and were not songs from albums nor were they released to radio (each consisted of songs exclusive to that particular single). Obviously we would list each of these in a section within the discography. However, none of these are really notable enough for separate articles according to WP:MUSIC (and I happen to agree with the criteria). But this presents a conundrum: If the releases are not notable enough for stand-alone articles, and if one is also not allowed to list tracks at all within a discography, then there is nowhere on Wikipedia where the tracks could possibly be listed. Obviously this would be omitting verifiable and useful information from a reader interested in the band's catalogue, merely because the discography project's guidelines say "no listing tracks. period." This is just silly, so obviously it was best to ignore that guideline in that instance.
Similarly, there may be instances where there is nowhere else to include information about an artist's b-sides, since the releases they are on lack the notability for separate articles. Yet the existence of these b-sides is totally verifiable (not just from the releases themselves but from online sources that catalogue those releases ie. the label's website, the artist's site, and possibly even secondary sources that catalogue recordings). Surely if there's nowhere else to list them, then the most appropriate place is within a discography (as very few artists have enough notability to merit a separate songography list). To exclude verifiable and pertinent information from our readers merely for the sake of guidelines would be counterintuitive to the goal of building a comprehensive encyclopedia, and thus sometimes it is appropriate to ignore all rules. Comparing a musical artist's b-side recordings to a notable person's shoe size is not an appropriate analogy—musical artists are of course primarily notable for their recorded output, so we should include as much verifiable information about that output as we can. As both a music fan and a Wikipedian, you can bet that I often browse through music-related articles looking for information about an artist's b-sides. I'm quite confident that there are many more of our readers who do the same. --IllaZilla (talk) 01:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

IAR is indeed part of Wikipedia policy, but it's wise to be cautious and thoughtful in brandishing it, particularly in front of new editors who often mistake it for carte blanche to go merrily on editing according to their own point of view without heed for consensus. I don't believe anybody's proposing to exclude pertinent information for the sake of guidelines; rather, people are trying to educate Cindy10000 as to the workings of consensus here on Wikipedia, and explain how come B-sides are generally frowned upon — and we're using various Wikipedia policy, protocol, and community standards as appropriate illustrative points in that educational effort. Policies like IAR and Common sense are certainly very important, but they are not golden tickets to exemption from the need to develop and abide by consensus. Right now it looks like the prevailing consensus is "no B-sides except those that themselves chart". Perhaps a new consensus will grow out of this or another discussion; unless/until that happens, it will not be appropriate to go through systematically inserting B-sides. Get consensus first — that's really important. —Scheinwerfermann T·C02:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Responding to Cindy1000's point: "Yes, the B-side is only part of a phonographic recording, just as the A-side is." This is indeed correct, but we name the a-side because that is how singles are named. Responding to Scheinwerfermann's point about getting consensus first: I would disagree and so does WP:BOLD, I think the bold, revert, discuss cycle is more important. But I think Cindy1000 has already begun that process and we're now at the discuss stage. --JD554 (talk) 07:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
We agree. To clarify, my "get consensus first" advice was meant within the present context, not to suggest that one mustn't make any change without first discussing it. —Scheinwerfermann T·C13:25, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
I see, sorry for misunderstanding. --JD554 (talk) 14:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
Not at all; my fault for not stating myself clearly in the first place. —Scheinwerfermann T·C19:29, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, I have to say, I really love this discussion. Many good points as well as education, which I appreciate...... I still didn't get an answer about how concensus is determined and then implemented here though. Can someone answer that for me?.......... My position on the value of b-sides remains un-changed and I think the points made by IllaZilla were very well put. I know that b-side info is sought by many. Yes, Wikipedia info is somewhat filtered as stated above, but surely no one thinks that b-side info falls into the silly catagory. It's hard for me to understand the outrage that seemed to have been directed at me over my addition of complete B-side information to the Wayne Massey and Charly McClain pages. Sheeesh! You would have thought that I had listed foul language or something. It was promptly deleted like it was garbage. What possible harm could the addition of this information have caused? (Cindy10000 (talk) 01:21, 24 July 2009 (UTC)).

Please read WP:CONSENSUS for the info you're after regarding that subject, and please read WP:NOHARM for an explanation of why "It does no harm, so it ought to stay" is generally not considered a valid argument (and you may want to scroll up on that latter page for info responsive to your other questions) —Scheinwerfermann T·C02:38, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Flatly deleting valid b-side information makes for an inferior article and serves no useful purpose. What makes more sense; strict adherance to a standard set of "rules", or creating the best, most comprehensive article that can be appreciated and educational for all readers? Also, how can consensus be reached if the deletors do not participate in the discussion? Gee, in reference to the analogy above, maybe we should consider adding a person's shoe size, the name of their first pet, or their favorite color to the list of things to ban. LOL (Cdmass (talk) 10:30, 26 July 2009 (UTC))
The point is, B-sides are a part of other releases already listed in the article. It's therefore already comprehensive. k.i.a.c (talktome - contribs) 13:29, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree. The b-side detail is hidden(lost) and can not be comprehended. I, for one, (and I know I'm not alone), relish this complete knowledge which is difficult to come by. If it is known and contributed to Wikipedia by an editor, it should be retained as valuable information, making Wikipedia a stand-out source of complete and relevant knowledge on the subject of an artist. After all, isn't that the reason a reader looks up a subject? Or, is it to monitor and enforce one-size-fits-all rules? (Cdmass (talk) 16:54, 26 July 2009 (UTC))
I'm honestly not seeing any arguments for B-side inclusion other than various versions of "it doesn't do any harm." Just because it is contributed, doesn't mean it should stay on Wikipedia: we work just as hard to limit the content of Wikipedia to relevant information as we do to add it. Our intent here isn't to be complete or exhaustive, but to be relevant, useful, and concise. However, that's not to say that B-sides have absolutely no place here in Wikipedia; no one is arguing that point. Instead, we're saying that discographies are not be the best place for them. The individual articles for the "A-sides" are the more relevant place for such information. A discography lists physical releases, hence the "disc" in "discography". For most acts of reasonable notability, this system works quite well, especially since many modern singles have multiple "B-sides", since they're released on CD (these extra tracks are not technically a B-sides, but they serve the same purpose). If a musical act is not notable enough to have articles for their "A-sides", then it stands to reason that their B-sides are even less-notable, and therefore I see no reason to make them an exception. Adding additional un-notable information to an already relatively non-notable topic does do harm.
And to address Cdmass' last point, our goal isn't to enforce rules, but to establish guidelines that work in most cases and stick to them. There are very few "rules" here on Wikipedia (see WP:POLICY). If a special case arises (perhaps a case where the B-sides themselves are notable enough for a page of their own, a la The Beatles), then an exception may be necessary. Otherwise, saying "it can't hurt!" isn't a very solid argument. Drewcifer (talk)
Your explanation only works well for highly notable artists, for whom all of their singles will merit separate articles. For artists of lesser levels of success, their singles may not merit separate articles by the criteria of WP:MUSIC. However, the existence of and basic details of these singles (including b-sides) may be verifiable, and it is in these situations that a discography becomes the best place to list that info. According to your criteria, the b-sides shouldn't be listed because they're not notable, however notability explicitly does not limit article content, and therefore there is no reason to exclude information that is both verifiable and pertinent (pertinent as a discography is in practice a comprehensive list of an artist's catalog). To exclude verifiable and pertinent info simply because this is a discography seems counterintuitive to the purpose of having a paperless encyclopedia in the first place, which is to provide comprehensive coverage of topics. Simply put, saying "b-sides aren't notable" is a non-argument, as notability is not a factor in limiting article content. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:06, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
I agree completely. The point I am trying to make is that the b-side information can be "relevant, useful, and concise", especially to the many readers seeking this information. My point is not that "it doesn't do any harm" (although I'm convinced it doesn't). It must be obvious that there are also arguments above stating that this information is completely pertinent to anyone looking up an artist's work. I'm also not arguing that just because something is contributed, it should be retained. I'm saying that Wikipedia is enhanced by someone with this particular hard to come by knowledge contributing it. If it wasn't for people out there having access to rare (and yes, sometimes obscure) information, Wikipedia wouldn't be the respected encyclopedia that it is today. I would also like to make a point regarding being "concise". Separating the individual b-side information to another page that may be created for the a-side single makes it very cumbersome to find, and complete b-side info would never be available to an interested reader. Also, notability is subjective to the eyes of the beholder.(Cdmass (talk) 19:35, 26 July 2009 (UTC))

Well, this actually brings the discussion here in an interesting direction. I think the real question that we're asking isn't just "are b-sides important to a complete discography", but something a little larger and beyond the scope of just discographies. What me may be getting at is: "for topics of limited WP:NOTABILITY (ie, artists whose singles don't have their own pages) should a list covering that topic include information that would be on those pages if they existed?" Does this seem like a reasonable direction to bring the discussion? Granted, this is more of a meta-question, but I think it's healthy to think of these things outside of the narrow-scope of the specific type of article we're talking about (discographies), and to think about it in a larger sense that could also apply to other types of situations. I think this may be what IllaZilla is getting at. Whereas, I think that Cdmass may be arguing that every discography should include B-sides. Just wanted to clarify and focus the discussion.

(And by the way, perhaps I may have been a little cavalier with my use of the word "notability". In my previous posts, I didn't necessarily mean WP:NOTABILITY, but more like notability in the layman-sense. Sorry to be confusing. Rest assured, in this particular post, I meant WP:NOTABILITY in the WP-sense, and I'll try and be clearer in my language in the future.) Drewcifer (talk) 19:55, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Your insight is right on! Yes, your suggestion is a very reasonable direction for discussion. No, I'm not arguing that every discography should include B-sides, although it would be OK with me because I really like the idea of all pertinent song data being concisely listed in one easy to find location. But, aside from that opinion, when it comes to artists whose singles don't merit their own pages, discographies are the most logical location to list b-sides. If not listed there, then the information would be unavailable at all, which would be a shame. (Cdmass (talk) 20:19, 26 July 2009 (UTC))
I think I agree with you about the direction we're going in this discussion. I think it's pertinent, in cases where a release may not have the WP:Notability for its own article, to put the information about that release in the artist's discography. Where a release has the WP:Notability for a separate article, where the b-sides would be listed in the track listing, then I don't think it's worth re-listing those b-sides in the discography. I don't think that every discography needs a complete listing of b-sides. However, what I do find useful is a listing of "other appearances" or somesuch where one lists things like soundtrack contributions, compilation appearances, etc. that are not included on the artist's own releases. This seems pertinent to a comprehensive listing of the artist's catalog. Under "What should not be included" it says "Non-original or previously-released material used on soundtracks, trailers, commercials, or any other compilation releases." I read that as saying that original, previously unreleased tracks are OK to list, and I usually do so (sometimes an artist will later release a compilation album of such tracks, in which case I usually note this). For example: the Metallica discography includes a section on "Other appearances". A while back that section was removed on the basis of this guideline's "do not include a listing of tracks". When that happened the discography provided no information on several tracks which are not on any Metallica releases, and I felt that was inappropriate. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:28, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
Ok, well there's alot there, so I'll try and address it all. First, I think limiting one article's content on the existence of another article (or articles) is a bit of a slippery slope. What if only one single is WP:N? What if the singles are not WP:N at one point, but then become WP:N (a local indie band got famous, for instance)? I don't think it's possible for something to loose WP:N (the band becomes local and indie again), but Wikipedia has a way of surprising you with these things. And of course there's situations where perhaps a single is WP:N, but the corresponding article just hasn't been created yet, for whatever reason. So what we have here is one article's content fluctuating based on the fluctuation of something else in the encyclopedia.
As for the Metallica analogy, I'm not sure if the "other appearances" sections(s) offer much of a parallel. These sections are encouraged since the group released something (usually a single track) on some other physical release. So we are still concerned with the release here. We provide the track name in most cases simply because the band in question only contributed to a very small portion of the release, ie "Track #5". So don't think of this as a track-listing, but more of a specification of which part of the release the musical act had something to do with. B-sides, however, are tracks put on a release that is already 100% the musical act's release, no different than a non-single track on an album.
Lastly, I think we can use part of the "Other appearances" guideline to apply to B-sides. Presumably, many B-sides are un-released material, but that's not always the case. One example of this would be Into the Void (Nine Inch Nails song). All of the "B-sides" (tracks that aren't the "A-side"), were previously released on other NIN releases. So, it begs the question, "if we limit "other appearances" entries to previously unreleased materials, why would we include previously released tracks as B-sides?" Granted, this would not apply to most B-sides, but it would apply to enough that it would need to be taken into account, and therefore create differing inclusion-criteria for B-sides, and thus I think would be a mess. Drewcifer (talk) 21:29, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
Drewcifer3000, I agree that using the "otherwise-unreleased-inclusion-criterium" on b-sides can create a mess. What if a certain b-side used to be unavailable elsewhere and then an compilation or even regular album is released which also contains the b-side track? Do you have to delete the b-side entry in that case? To avoid this kind of mess I would strongly prefer to include all b-sides for every single release, even if that b-side was also available on other releases. To me the b-side is one of the identifying properties of an single. What to do with singles which have been released in different versions (or rereleased), with the b-sides being different? If we are concerned with the physical releases as has been stated quite often in this discussion, then we should /can include all of those versions, and mention the b-sides as well to identify them. In reply to your point that "for topics of limited WP:NOTABILITY should a list covering that topic include information that would be on those pages if they existed?": in my view this is already common practice on wikipedia. When a subject is not notable enough to "deserve" a separate article one of the options is to merge that information into another (often more general) article. I must add that some (maybe even a lot) of those articles devoted to one single don't seem to meet the notability criteria at all (if I were a deletionist I could have a field day ;-), so the need to allow b-sides in a discography page might be a little bigger than you would think. Lumdeloo (talk) 20:14, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Just in case anybody missed this bit on the project page:

{{proposal|MOS:DISCOG|MOS:DISCOGS}} [template was untranscluded later]

I might be missing something here (and if I am, please point me to any previous discussions on the subject to enable me to catch up), but it appears to me that consensus on this issue is still under construction. I don't know where Scheinwerfermann's above assertion came from (back in July) that "Right now it looks like the prevailing consensus is "no B-sides except those that themselves chart"." came from. As far as I understand based on my reading of this page, the archive talk page and the project page, there was no prevailing consensus at that time but discussions were leaning towards acceptance of inclusion of B-side information, and this is still the case: I don't think we're ever all going to agree. I am not aware of any evidence of general consensus to support the exclusion of B-side information, which is a proposal not a policy. The omission of certain information from certain articles does not necessarily imply consensus to exclude it. Ignore All Rules is a very important policy but it's not directly relevant here because there is no rule on the inclusion or exclusion of B-sides to ignore or enforce. It is worth noting that notablity guidlines evidently accept that it is sometimes appropriate to include tracklistings in discographies:

Album articles with little more than a track listing may be more appropriately merged into the artist's main article or discography article, space permitting.

To contribute to the semantic nit-picking: a discography with tracklistings is not synonymous with a songography, since the latter could also include unreleased songs. I'm also unclear as to the purpose of the distinction as an argument to exclude B-sides from discographies: is the point simply that information should be excluded purely on the grounds of a semantic technicality, or is it that a "songography" should be a separate article or section? "Phonograph recordings" referred to in the dictionary definition of discography could arguably describe either records ("discs" or their equivalent in other formats) or their individual tracks: I would contend that a B-side track is a phonograph recording. It is certainly the convention to include B-sides in discographies in other resources, e.g. books and websites (even if you do have to click through to a different page to access the full tracklisting of a particular item).
Notability guidelines are for article topics rather than content: one would not expect every single item mentioned in an article to be sufficiently notable to warrant its own article. It seems to be the accepted convention on Wikipedia that albums by notable artists are suitable subjects for separate articles whereas singles are often not. If we were to exclude B-sides from discographies this would inevitably lead to the creation of many individual articles about singles of questionable individual notability, created solely or chiefly for the purpose of linking to tracklistings which were banished from discographies. I have no objection to tracklistings being excluded for releases which have their own article (including tracklisting) to which the discography links, but this isn't necessarily the appropriate solution in every case.
I would also add that B-side information sourced directly from the label or sleeve of a record in the editor's possession is NOT original research: it is appropriate use of a reliable primary source (in many cases the same source used for A-side listings). Reliable on-line secondary sources enabling verification by readers should be added whenever possible, but if this is not possible it does not mean that using a primary source is original research. Any information not directly stated (e.g. genre classification) could constitute original research, but typing a song title as stated on the label and sleeve of the record itself does not.
A musician's recorded work is normally the main reason for their notability: it is quite appropriate that details of it should be included in encyclopaedic coverage. I personally would argue that the actual content of each release is more important than the chart positions for multiple charts which are often included in Wikipedia discography tables. B-side information may be particularly sought after in the case of songs which did not feature on any other releases.
The problem is how to format the information in a way which does not (excessively) annoy those who do not seek those particular data. I'm not convinced there is a one-size-fits-all solution. In a table of singles each with one B-side track I think it's reasonable just to add an extra column to the table. It won't distort the page: Wikitables adjust their width as necessary. However, this might not be the best approach for coverage of EPs or modern singles which may have multiple B-side tracks. Additional collapsible tables may be useful for displaying such information. Where tracklistings of singles and albums are to be included, it might even make sense to link to a separate discography tracklisting page, or even a "songography". Contains Mild Peril (talk) 17:24, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Box Sets

Where do these fall? Are officially released box sets okay to include in their own section in a discography? There is currently no field for them in the infobox, should there be? k.i.a.c (talktome - contribs) 13:35, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I usually add them as compilation albums. --JD554 (talk) 13:56, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
I generally create a section for box sets, if there are any, and use the optional parameters in the infobox to create a link to the section. --IllaZilla (talk) 16:25, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Box sets usually are compilation albums. If there is a section for box sets, generally a sub-section of compilation albums, and we use one of the optional parameters in the infobox, the link will be listed in the wrong place in the infobox and rightly in the TOC. Why not add a Box sets field in the {{Infobox artist discography}} just below the Compilation albums?
Some examples are shown in the table below. –pjoef (talk • contribs) 08:44, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Code Result


Using the same colours used for compilations 

{{#if: {{{Box set|}}} | <nowiki />
{{!}}- style="background-color:darkseagreen;"
{{!}} style="padding:.1em .3em;" {{!}} <span style="float:right;">[[#{{{Box link|Box sets}}}|↙]]</span>'''Box sets'''
! style="background-color:#B2DEB2; width:33%;" {{!}} {{{Box set}}}
}}
↙Compilation albums 8
↙Box sets 2


As above but plus indentation 

{{#if: {{{Box set|}}} | <nowiki />
{{!}}- style="background-color:darkseagreen;"
{{!}} style="padding:.1em .3em;" {{!}} <span style="float:right;">[[#{{{Box link|Box sets}}}|↙]]</span>    '''Box sets'''
! style="background-color:#B2DEB2; width:33%;" {{!}}     {{{Box set}}}
}}
↙Compilation albums 8
↙    Box sets     2


Using different colours 

{{#if: {{{Box set|}}} | <nowiki />
{{!}}- style="background-color:lightgreen;"
{{!}} style="padding:.1em .3em;" {{!}} <span style="float:right;">[[#{{{Box link|Box sets}}}|↙]]</span>'''Box sets'''
! style="background-color:#b0ffb0; width:33%;" {{!}} {{{Box set}}}
}}
↙Compilation albums 8
↙Box sets 2


As above but plus indentation 

{{#if: {{{Box set|}}} | <nowiki />
{{!}}- style="background-color:lightgreen;"
{{!}} style="padding:.1em .3em;" {{!}} <span style="float:right;">[[#{{{Box link|Box sets}}}|↙]]</span>    '''Box sets'''
! style="background-color:#b0ffb0; width:33%;" {{!}}     {{{Box set}}}
}}
↙Compilation albums 8
↙    Box sets     2


Usage 

{{Infobox artist discography
 ...

| Compilation     = 
| Comp link       = 

| Box sets        = 
| Box link        = 

 ...
}}

Songs written for other artists

Can it be added to the section "What should not be included" that songs written for other artists shouldn't be included, as someone keeps adding it to Leona Lewis discography and it obviously shouldn't be there, but it's just not mentioned in the style guide. AnemoneProjectors (talk) 11:00, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

It should be covered by the repeated use of "unofficial releases", shouldn't it? There's a fair emphasis on the fact that things actually have to have been released by the artist for them to be in the artist's discography. A very brief mention in the lead would be the furthest you'd go, if it was extremely notable. k.i.a.c (talktome - contribs) 11:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
If you were to create a discography for a record producer or an audio mixer etc it would include these, so I think it's valid for a writer as it's still a part of their body of work. You can see how I've tackled this with the recently FL-promoted David Bowie discography by looking in the Guest appearances section. --JD554 (talk) 13:22, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
I did mean discographies for singers and not for producers etc, but I can see your point. I guess Bowie's contributions are more notable, but would you therefore say the one song that Leona Lewis has co-written for Tata Young should be included in a similar section in her discography? AnemoneProjectors (talk) 13:27, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I would guess so. Trying to be a bit clearer (I've just come back from a pub lunch, so please bear with me ;) ): If Leona Lewis was a multi-instrumentalist, you would include releases on which she either sang, played guitar, played keyboards, etc. So why would you exclude releases which she has written? --JD554 (talk) 13:33, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Okay, so if we're going to accept things like the Bowie entry (which obviously has consensus from the FLC), then we should work this into the guidelines. I also think that they may need a different name though, as Guest appearances may get mixed up with Other appearances - two entirely different and separate things. k.i.a.c (talktome - contribs) 13:48, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

←To say that we should include these might be WP:CREEPy and the current proposed guidelines don't say we shouldn't include them in the What should not be included section. --JD554 (talk) 14:11, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

My original post here points out that the guidelines currently exclude anything that is not officially "released" by the artist. Now we don't see Bowie "releasing" Anywhere I Lay My Head do we? It's only one line for clarification, I don't believe it's going over the top to clarify a small technicality. k.i.a.c (talktome - contribs) 14:28, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Sorry I can't see where it says to exclude anything not officially released by the artist. 'What not to include' has:
  • Tracklistings, B-sides, or any other description of the tracks on a release. Remember, this is a discography not a songography, so we're mostly concerned with the release, not every song on that release.
  • Bootlegs, unless officially released.
  • Unofficial releases of any kind. For example, The Grey Album would not be included in the The Beatles discography or Jay-Z discography.
  • Leaked material.
  • Non-original or previously-released material used on soundtracks, trailers, commercials, or any other compilation releases.
  • Un-released material unless notable enough to include.
  • Non-musical releases or works.
  • Releases by other artists as a tribute or cover.
--JD554 (talk) 14:50, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
"Unofficial releases of any kind." To me this alludes to more than just parodies and mashups - it's saying that they actually need to be released by the artist in some way. k.i.a.c (talktome - contribs) 07:46, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
But they are official releases, they aren't bootlegs. It doesn't mention having to be released by the artist, but obviously they must have worked on it, which would cover what your suggestion to add something anyway. --JD554 (talk) 19:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
this has come up in a number of discographies that i work on. FLC reviewers can never seem to agree with each other about whether they should be included or not. eg George Michael has written and produced songs for dozens of artists but i didn't have to include them in the George Michael discography, but with the Ne-Yo discography FLC a couple of reviewers are saying that writing and producing credits have to be included or the list is incomplete. which is correct? include writing and producing credits or not? we need to have clear consensus on this because it just makes things confusing :( Mister sparky (talk) 20:45, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't really have a strong opinion on whether such information should go in a discography or in the artist's main article when it's a separate article (I'd say discography probably makes more sense, so that stuff can easily be grouped in tables), but the information definitely ought to be included somewhere. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 20:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Consistent Title width throughout the list

Shouldn't the Title column width be consistent throughout the Table? For example being as wide as the widest Title?--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 11:48, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Requirements not expect for singles, music videos etc.

In the proposed guideline it says: requirements listed below with a † are not expected of singles, music videos, or any other releases featuring a single song. First question: what is meant by "not expected". It doesn't sound the same as "not allowed". Second question: if it means "not allowed" why would that be? Release date, record label and catalog number seems like the basic information to identify a physical single release, the same as for albums. Information that is only decorative should not be allowed in a discography (or anywhere else on wikipedia for that matter) but I see no reason why to treat singles differently than albums in this respect. Lumdeloo (talk) 20:25, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

if full release date, label and catalogue number were included for every single release in a table it would make it far too long and cluttered. especially for an artist with alot ie madonna, michael jackson etc. if you want to know a singles cat number it should be included in the singles own page not the discography. Mister sparky (talk) 04:07, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
But we include all of this information for the albums, and logically it should be in the album articles too. Singles are releases...why aren't we concerned about their release details? I don't think we should be discouraging comprehensiveness just because some people think it would be "far too long and cluttered" to include specific release details like catalog numbers, release dates, and record labels. Singles are releases just like albums, EPs, etc...we shouldn't be discouraged from giving them the same level of detail so long as editors are willing to look up and contribute this information. What you may see as "far too long and cluttered" another reader may see as essential information, and think us remiss for not including it. I know that, as a music collector (which I imagine is a significant demographic viewing our discography articles), I would certainly think a discography incomplete if listed singles but didn't give any release details about them, when it does so for all the other types of releases. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:22, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
I've often wondered why details aren't included for singles, and the only answers I've ever seen is that it would be indiscriminate or that albums are a band's primary releases which singles support. I think that latter is a dubious argument given that non-album singles are released very regularly. The indiscriminate argument falls down because we do include details for albums. As IllaZilla says, the lists are incomplete without this information. --JD554 (talk) 07:29, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
well that was just my opinion, everybody thinks differently about this sort of this. but i also think that even with the albums that sort of detailed info should be in the album/singles own page, not the discography. the discography is meant to be an overview of the releases not a detailed account because most of the info is already present in the individual articles. Mister sparky (talk) 11:19, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
This is where the scope of Wikipedia's discographies comes into question. We have to ask ourselves: 'Do we want a summarised list of releases, or do we want proper, comprehensive, concise, actual discographies?' Right now I think we head a long way into column one, and people are right in saying a normal discography in a book or print encyclopedia would usually be a lot more in depth in regards to b-sides, singles details and even bootlegs. The problem is, there really isn't any online discography websites following this trend, they're all broad in covering many artists and releases, but are rather minimal in their information depth. So what do we do? Expand or leave as is? k.i.a.c (talktome - contribs) 13:17, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
IMO there's not going to be a one-size-fits-all answer. For many mainstream artists whose releases are readily available, covered in many sources, and notable enough for their own articles, there's a stronger case for keeping the discography as a summarized list of releases (leaving out a lot of the details like format & catalog #s). I work primarily with independent or less mainstream acts, whose releases aren't readily available, covered in many sources, or notable enough for separate articles. Therefore it makes sense to include the release details in the discography. Rocket from the Crypt is a good example: they had 22 singles that were only on vinyl in limited #s and aren't really worthy of separate articles, so the discography is really the only place the release details can go. Their 6 album singles are a bit oddball in the dicog, though, as that's the only section that doesn't include release details. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:17, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

What to do now?

Following on from comments in the section above...

I think the MoS has to change to explicitly allow release details for all releases. As noted above, most printed discographies include a lot more information than WP discographies. Yes, print is different because you don't have links to navigate to more detailed articles, but we aren't recommending including all the information from the linked articles. I don't agree with the arguments that the discography page becomes too long or that a "discography is not a songography." I think the page has to be as long as necessary, and that "discography" and "songography" don't have precise enough definitions to allow the comparison to be useful.

Regarding the differences between mainstream artists with many articles versus less well-known artists with few articles: even when a mainstream artist has articles that cover most single releases, if we leave the release details out of the discography (A) there's no place to see a summary and (B) some releases may not have an article. If editors IAR and include release details, the articles will face difficulties when assessed. Hoping that IAR will win the day during an assessment review is typically not a good plan.

While I'd far prefer to see the guideline changed to allow release details and track listings, I don't have high hopes that this matter will be resolved soon and so the question is, What do editors recommend for now? Would anyone support/recommend creating separate "List of" articles that are linked from the discography and show the details? I think that's cumbersome for the reader and it requires duplication of data (and effort). Also, what response will that get in an assessment of the discography? — John Cardinal (talk) 14:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Credits as Songwriter Only

There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Lady Gaga discography#Other appearance concerning the appropriateness of including Lady Gaga's credits as songwriter on tracks performed by other vocalists. I would like to invite active participants of this project to weigh in. --Peter Farago (talk) 08:24, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I brought this up in a section above - "Songs written for other artists". AnemoneProjectors (talk) 15:01, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Bold text in album titles

I recently noticed that the album titles in the sample tables are in bold. Per MOS:BOLD, it states: The most common use of boldface is to highlight the article title, and often synonyms, in the lead section (first paragraph). Yes, there are other reasons to bold text, but I can't seem to find any reason to bold album titles in discographies. Considering this, shouldn't the bold text be removed and simply leave the album titles italicized? — ξxplicit 16:07, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd leave them bold. Bold text helps to visually separate the album title from the information listed beneath it in the same cell. MOS:BOLD is mostly concerned with the article text proper and there are many examples where bold text is used despite not being explicitly allowed by that guideline. For example, infoboxes use bold text to label the content (Released:, etc.). — John Cardinal (talk) 17:41, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I hardly see how having text without bold is easier to separate the title with the information beneath it from text with bold. Bold text here seems more distracting than anything. — ξxplicit 21:00, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Explicit; those bolded album titles have been a thorn in my eye for a while and I am happy that someone has brought it up. I don't see why album titles in a discography have to be in bold, while single titles are not bolded a little further down the same article (Explicit's example illustrates this aspect as well). – IbLeo (talk) 21:14, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
I feel like the bold helps. But really, it's not the big of a deal. We shouldn't try to regulate everything: this is one of those (very) minor things that we should leave up to editor, rather than writing in yet another rule for something so relatively insignificant. Drewcifer (talk) 21:33, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
The Alicia Keys albums all have articles, and thus are links, and so the title stands out because of the blue text. Still, the italic text is hard to read especially against the colored background and boldface helps with that.
With respect to singles, they aren't supposed to have release info or other details in the same box as the title. When they do, people often use small text to make the title stand out compared to the other text; see the Keys examples. Bold text is another way of doing something similar, though IMO it's more effective. — John Cardinal (talk) 22:09, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Oppose the use of excessive bold. Active Banana (talk) 19:58, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

other charted songs

hey guys, quite a few discographies have these sections of songs that haven't been released as official singles, but still chart due to high digital downloads, sometimes charting very highly. however, the guidelines state "Un-released material unless notable enough to include" shouldn't be included in discographies and quite a few editors have been going through them removing such sections. personally, i think these sections should definitely be included. in these days of digital downloads the term "single" doesn't really mean anything anymore, album tracks, b-sides and other such tracks are heard, liked, downloaded and subsequently chart. they should definitely not be given their own articles, but should be mentioned in the discography because their popularity and charting gives them notability. quite a few times these download releases chart higher than official singles, one eg is the current UK number-one single, "Killing in the Name of" by Rage Against the Machine, it hasn't been officially re-released but has sold over 500,000 copies in a single week due to digital downloads. sorry waffling now! what do other people think? Mister sparky (talk) 12:28, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't really care either way but I wanted to say that "Killing in the Name" was a single, so would never belong in an "other charted songs" section. Very few album tracks and B-sides actually do chart this high. AnemoneProjectors (talk) 14:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
my point was killing in the name wasn't an official re-release, not that it was an "other charted song". and album tracks charting highly happens more often than you think, especially in the uk. Mister sparky (talk) 15:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Discog should be reserved for pure singles. Other charted songs belong on the relevant album's page.... Thats IMO. Lil-unique1 (talk) 23:05, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Size of text for certifications in tables

hey guys, this has come across a few times in editing and in flc discussions. should the certifications in a table be normal sized text or small text? some editors say they must be small because of screen resolutions, some say they must be normal sized. and in flc discussions the reviewers seem to say both. which is the correct way? its really confusing! something concrete written at MOS:DISCOG would be helpful. thanks :) Mister sparky (talk) 16:14, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Album sections

Personally, I don't think that there should be sections for: studio albums, live albums, compilation albums, etc., without a list of all albums, so that you can see them all chronologically at one glance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Musdan77 (talk • contribs) 00:43, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Duets and featured singles

I think it is established that singles where someone is a featured artist (Artist A featuring Artist B) are included in a separate "Featured singles" section for the featured artist (Artist B), but I just wanted to clarify duets where both singers are lead vocalists. I noticed that on Shakira discography, "Beautiful Liar" is listed as a featured single even though it was a duet, and Shakira was a lead vocalist. But on all others I have seen, duets like this are listed with the regular solo singles (e.g. Whitney Houston discography). The only difference that I can see is that the song wasn't on a Shakira album. The reason I ask is because Leona Lewis is apparently releasing a duet (featured on the other person's album, not her own) and some people have been moving it to the featured singles section, and there's a discussion about it on the talk page where this page was mentioned, but I see nothing here specifically about duets. I believe that because Leona is a lead vocalist and not a guest one (same with Shakira) then it should be listed as a Leona Lewis single not a "featuring" one. AnemoneProjectors 12:15, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

IMO:

  • If it says X featuring Y then it appears in X's discography as X's 'single' but in Y's discography as 'featured artist'
  • If it says X & Y then it appears in both X and Y respective discographies in their main single section.
  • when it says 'with' im not sure.

Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 23:10, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

My opinion and what I've been doing is whose ever album it was released as a single for, they get it as their single on the discog, and on the on the other artist, it appears in the featured singles. But in the artist' column instead of ex. (featuring Justin Bieber), I put (with Justin Bieber). Candyo32 (talk) 02:17, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
I would consider "with" to be a duet, both artists equal billing. My question is why (and who decided) that "featuring" singles should be separated at all? That's always kinda bothered me. Does it really make an artist's discography more "organized" so to speak? I think that its more important to keep single releases in chronological order in the same table, as lead or featured artist. - eo (talk) 13:32, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Accessibility issues

A recent update to the accessibility guidelines at WP:ACCESS#Data tables requires the use of "scope="col"" and "scope="row"" for table column and row headers. This is so that screen readers will repeat the relevant column and row headers when moving from cell to cell in a table.

The current samples given don't include the scope for either columns or rows. For columns it is easily added (and the use of colspan etc doesn't cause problems). There is an issue over the row header however. Currently the first column of each row in the examples gives a year, which isn't of much use when moving from cell to cell. It was suggested at WT:ACCESS#How to make accessible tables that the release title is moved to the first column and we do away with a year column as the release date is already given in the second column.

Using the existing samples as a base these could be re-worked to be something like this:

Album Details Peak chart positions Sales Certificates
US
[12] 		AUS
[13] 		AUT
[14] 		FIN
[15] 		NLD
[16] 		NZ
[17] 		NOR
[18] 		SWE
[19] 		SWI
[20] 		UK
[21]
Bleach 89 34 26 24 — 30 — — — 33 1.7 million + (US)[22] Platinum (US)[23]
Nevermind
  • Released: September 24, 1991
  • Label: DGC (DGC #24425)
  • Format: CD, CS, LP
 1 2 2 1 5 2 2 1 2 7 10 million + (US)[24]
26 million + (worldwide)[25] 		Diamond (US)[26]
2× Platinum (UK)[27]

"—" denotes releases that did not chart.


Title Year Peak chart positions Certificates Album
UK
[28] 		AUS
[29] 		IRL
[30] 		FIN
[31] 		GER
[32] 		NOR
[33] 		US
[34]
"One Love" 1993 8 — 3 — — — — Music for the Jilted Generation
"No Good (Start the Dance)" 1994 4 45 3 — 4 7 —
"Voodoo People" 13 24 7 — — — —
"Poison" 1995 15 — 3 — — 5 —
"Firestarter" 1996 1 22 2 1 6 1 30

UK: Gold[35]
US: Gold[36]

The Fat of the Land
"Breathe" 1 2 1 1 8 1 —

UK: Platinum[37]
AUS: 2× Platinum[38]

"—" denotes releases that did not chart.

I think we're going to have to make these changes to the recommendations if we are to see any more FL-class discographies as one of the requirements of WP:FL? is to comply with WP:MOS, of which WP:ACCESS is a part.

Any thoughts? --JD554 (talk) 11:52, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Seems to be a bit more work, especially at the beginning (ah! but you've already made the new example), but I think folks generally just copy, paste, and edit so it wouldn't be a large increased burden. The albums table will take up more space this way, with a wider first column, but if it helps us provide more accessible Web pages then it's worth it. It'll be great to have headings which are actually marked up as such (I still occasionally see '''Year''' where we should have !Year). — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 02:38, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
I've made small change.... Album details → Details as this removes redundency. I really like how the album table comes out. It certianly solves the issue sometimes when the album table becomes too wide. I'm not sure about its affect on the single's table though. Is it required here? Do the song title's have to appear in bold and as a column? Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm assuming that the point of the new format it to enable users to navigate the table better? Yet the date/year is an equally important fact of navigating the discog. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 02:48, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Good change. I'm confused, however, by your remark about the albums table getting too wide before this change. It'd be wider now. Or have I reversed your meaning?
The titles are bold because they're logically headings. We forget this sometimes, because we so often use tables just for grid-formed layout, but a real table associates some kind of data in rows (songs or albums here) with some information in columns (Peak in Finland, year released, certs earned, etc.). Those things need labels, and labels on HTML tables are properly marked up as headings, and graphical browsers typically show headings in bold. Page-reading software knows to react a certain way to headings, and the proposed change improves accessibility of vision-impaired (and other) users by implenting a correct markup (which we haven't had before!).
I'm no regular user of page-reading software, but I believe if we saw a user trying to navigate the different forms off these tables, we'd see that the year as heading is less useful than the title. The user moves from cell to cell, left-right or up-down, and hears what's changed, either the column or row heading. You wouldn't want to arrow down and hear "2006" four times in a row as you move from song to song. See? — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 04:04, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree with JohnFromPinckney: The most important element of a release is it's name, not the year it was released. Therefore by having the album or song title as a row header the screen reader will read out the releases title rather than the year when moving from cell to cell. I also like Lil-unique1's change to the "Album details" column header, good call. --JD554 (talk) 09:55, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
I realise the album table is slightly wider this way, but I don't think it is overly so. The Nirvana example above is as about as wide a table as we should get if we enforce the 10 chart rule. I know that a few go above that, and some quite ridiculously so, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. --JD554 (talk) 10:11, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
On second thought I can now see this working well. After reading through what both of you have said I agree completely. What I mean by the Albums table getting to wide previously was because both the name of the album and the year of release had their own columns it did add signficantly to the width of album tables. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 21:06, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

These tables have a world of accessibility issues, as I commented at:

Sincerely, Jack Merridew 04:41, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Could you be more specific about what your concerns are here. There seems to be a few discussions going on at various places and it would help if we could discography related ones in a central location. Thanks, --JD554 (talk) 09:35, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
In short, we have a few users claiming that rowspans and colspans are evil. But without providing clear informations about it nor sources from accessibility experts. The sources I could find myself are inappropriate because they often use syntax that is not available in MediaWiki.
Now, about this particular use of rowspans and colspans : an accessibility expert on the french Wikipedia told me they are accessible. So the above example made by JD554 and me are accessible. You can start using those, and improve the articles accordingly.
I have no idea if the examples below by Lil-unique1 are accessible or not, because they use rowspans and colspans inside the table (as opposed to headers). I suggest to wait until we are absolutely sure of what we are doing before making changes.
@Jack Merridew: could stop making a fuss about things you are not yet sure of? First provide clear explanations and sources. Without that we won't be able to do a thing. Dodoïste (talk) 11:58, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I've also asked Jack Merridew to clarify an explanation of what the issue is because he's posted a list of links to various MOS pages telling me that they overule MOS:DISCOG but I'm still unsure of what the exact issue is. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 15:04, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
The concerns were expressed at the link I gave above:
The entire table scheme used in all WP:WikiProject Discographies pages is completely at odds with several sections of WP:Manual of Style (accessibility):
It seems to me that this discussion was occurring at WT:Manual of Style (accessibility) and was forked to here. This wikiproject needs to re-think its approach to formatting discographies, as there are a world of issues with the current approach. Cheers, Jack Merridew 00:58, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
The proposed new layout above doesn't use rowspans in the row header column. It does use a column span in the column headers, but the guidance doesn't say you cannot use them - it says that there could be problems and both columns would be described the same. This is not born out by the feed back received at WT:ACCESS#colspan and rowspan: issue or not?[1]. The issue of basic screen readers doesn't seem to be a problem either. Having installed one (FoxVox), I have found that they simply read from left to right and from top to bottom - header rows are not repeated from cell to cell. Also, I'm not sure how the proposed new table structure "flaunts" the guidance at WP:Deviations which says using wikimarkup and CSS over other methods is the "best practice". You have seen the suggested table structure I've used at User:JD554/Sandbox? Please let me know which markup there is incorrect per the guidance and I'll see if I can fix it. --JD554 (talk) 08:19, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
See my long post, below. All of the embedded markup is inappropriate. You are trying to control the presentation in manners different from the site-standard. You're missing the point of text-to-speech; the rows should have the heading repeated for each row, spoken and on-screen. This is required for sorting, too. I looked at your sandbox. I'd like to sort by things like 'album' , 'label', and Release date, please. But all these table formats pre-decide the look and order of things. Teh local experts have reached their local consensus, and the whole planet gets this content in the format and order they have determined. See Fight Club? Just let go. Jack Merridew 22:20, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
OK since we're having trouble understanding each other can you please mock up your own example of what a discography might look like using the example JD554 did? Do one as to how you would do it under your understanding of the new rules. Then we can compared and work out the best way of moving forward because so far we're going 1 step forward 2 steps back. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 22:34, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
I've never seen a guideline or policy that says markup is inappropriate. Indeed, the one you keep referring to, WP:Deviations specifically says to use it above HTML etc. You may not like markup, but it will continue to be used. You may like discographies to be sorted, but the tables do not easily lend themselves to that functionality, and as long it is is not a requirement to use sorting, I don't think we need to do so. --JD554 (talk) 07:36, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I luv markup, — when used appropriately ;) I'm a developer for fuck's sake, I breathe this stuff. See WP:Deviations, again
  • styles for tables and other block-level elements should be set using CSS classes, not with inline style attributes.
That means class="wikitable". See WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. too. You may not like what I'm telling you, but you're going to keep hearing it, and not just from me. What you are seeking to do is at odds with core project goals. See the example at User:Lil-unique1/Sandbox/8#E.g. 3; it's getting closer to the mark. Who are you to determine that discographies should be structured such that they're not sortable? Help:Table#Sorting says" Since this [sorting] can be very useful, it is wise to keep the possibilities and limitations of this feature in mind when designing a table. Time to re-design your tables. It's the right thing to do. Jack Merridew 08:17, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Quoting the full sentence for which you are only giving part: "In general, styles for tables and other block-level elements should be set using CSS classes, not with inline style attributes." Ie, not proscribed. Lil-unique1's examples, may work for singles tables, but they are missing too much useful information from albums. --JD554 (talk) 08:40, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Jack I'm sorry but you are imposing your opinion about what should be done instead of listening to the community. I agree with JD554. My examples were purely to see if it was possible NOT to advocate its use. (just so you know, it was Jack that created the sortable example in my sandbox). If there is not community support for sortable usuage in discographies it won't be added no matter how much Jack claims "its the right thing to do". You're trying to achieve to much in one wide-reaching mass changing swoop. If we truelly want to make things better we're gonna need to do things in stages. Right now the above format proposed by JD554 appears to be the best way forward. I echo his comments about block-level elements and missing information. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 16:12, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Sure, I left off the 'in general'. There's nothing 'special' about discographies or the views of a few editors on a wikiproject talk page. Much of what's occurring here is covered by WP:CONLIMITED; you can't override site-wide consensus, although you've demonstrated that you can evade it for a while. Small elements of 'the community' often get things *wrong*. And you folks may succeed in dragging this out to multiple stages, but the issue will not abate. You may see me as acting as if I'm descending from Mount Sinai, but what I'm saying is not merely my opinion; it is a reiteration of the the best practices of the whole field of web development. Jack Merridew 02:01, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I've made amendments to one of the smaller FL-class discographies I worked on to incorporate the relevant changes at WP:ACCESS, so other editors can see what a finished discog would look like. The old style current version is Bauhaus discography and the newer version is at User:JD554/Sandbox. Any more thoughts/objections/updates? --JD554 (talk) 14:49, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

What happens if an FL reviewer asks you to add a source for a single which has been released but hasn't charted just like "Rose Colored Glasses" at Kelly Rowland discography (look for "Rose Colored Glasses" in the main singles table and you'll see what I mean). --Lil-unique1 (talk) 15:04, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
If I understand the issue correctly, you basically have an almost empty row. This is an editorial choice, and has no impact on accessibility.
Nay... the question was with regards to there needing to be a sourcing next to uncharted but released singles to prove that they were actually released. JD554 (like below) disapproves of the use of the citation in the cells which are marked as columns. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 16:48, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Accessibility-wise, it is slightly annoying to have references in the headings of rows or columns. At every cell, a screen reader will read aloud the corresponding headers plus "[1]" for the references. And the number of the reference carries no relevant information, so it may be slightly annoying. But it is not a priority because it's not a blocking problem. Accessibility-wise, we have far more important issues to fix.
Now, the decision to move the references (currently contained in headers) to the "date" cells or a dedicated "ref" column is an editorial choice. It's up to you to decide, and since I am not familiar with the habits of the community I have no advice to give in this regard. I hope I understood well this time. :p Dodoïste (talk) 20:39, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
@JD554: your draft is great, well done. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 02:02, 8 August 2010 (UTC) And Bauhaus is actually one of my favorite bands! O.Oy
@JD554 - yes the draft is brilliant and I think based on what information we have it does solve the accessibility issues. Per another discussion given in the section directly above I've removed the lesser importatn certification link as suggested. I think may have reached a solution (for the discographies anyway). --Lil-unique1 (talk) 20:52, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
regarding making the tables sortable, some of the tables in discographies are quite small, so making the whole table sortable is completely pointless. you can see the whole table on the screen in front of you. if you want to see all the same label, release date etc together, you can. you dont need to sort it. you just need to look at it. Mister sparky (talk) 17:58, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Other implications

Whilst we're on the subject I'd like to get your guys opinions on the following to. Basically JD is right about making it an FL requirement and so all new FL candidates would have to implement this too. Also it would also need to be done to release history tables too. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 21:19, 5 August 2010 (UTC) Therefore...

Looks OK to me. Although I'd put the references next to the dates as that is what is being verified. Also there may be issues regarding the rowspans. Currently WP:ACCESS#Data tables says colspan and rowspan may cause problems, but they aren't proscribed. However, there is a discussion at WT:ACCESS#Colspan and rowspan: issue or not? which may clarify (or not!). --JD554 (talk) 09:40, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
I generally don't care for reflinks-only columns. I'd rather have them on just the dates even if they're also supporting the format, than have them in a separate column. JD554 says put the refs on the dates, because that's what's being verified, but I think Lil-unique1 is aiming at verifying the whole shebang for each country. Maybe that'll change your viewpointses. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 01:37, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
John has hit the nail on the head. With the example above with merged cells the date for several releases is the same and therefore a seperate citation column allows for easier verification of individual releases as well as fixing the issue of bolding the citation tag. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 20:47, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
The headers are OK. :-) I'm not yet sure about the rowspans inside the table. I suggest to wait until we get the advice from an accessibility expert. Dodoïste (talk) 12:05, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
Ah! I see the potential issue. The main issue is that to remove redundency release history tables need to be able to merge cells. The use of colspans and rowspans in this way is quite widespread and its never been an issue before. I'm not sure I understand exactly what it is that causes the issue with web readers. I think the discussion needs to be simplified and centralised so we can get to a conclusion.--Lil-unique1 (talk) 14:42, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
We need input from experts or sources. The community cannot really help with that if it doesn't have actual expertise. Although input from Graham87 might be a good starting point. Dodoïste (talk) 01:02, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Hmm yes. We do need more input before we go changing everything. With regards to not having references in the colmn that can be resolved by adding a small ref column to the end. Hmmm should I go ahead and convert the album and single tables at Kelly Rowland discography to the examples above or should I leave alone? Jack Merridew has opened a can of worms since he critised that FL candidate for not following the MOS for Accessbility so I fear its progress will stall. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 01:12, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
I wouldn't change anything on a live article yet. That path leads to reversions and arguments. And Jack has big machines that open gangs of cans at the same time. But some of those worms are high quality wigglers. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 01:37, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
I for one don't have a problem with rowspans. However some people have mentioned that they cause problems for people using very basic screen readers. I don't think that they should be eliminated altogether from Wikipedia; good free screen readers that support tables are available for most platforms these days. Graham87 02:32, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

← Is it necessary (or automatic) for the text in the first column (album or song title) be centered? Left-aligned makes more sense to me. - eo (talk) 13:42, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Whilst I agree that the first column should be left-aligned the syntax for data tables appears to over-ride this and I've tried all of the usual input formatting to alter this but whenever you use the !scope="col" it automatically centre aligns this... --Lil-unique1 (talk) 16:52, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Darn. I dont mind it too much for album titles but it seems rather excessive to boldface and center-align a song title. - eo (talk) 17:28, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Agree completely. Especially when you begin to roll out these changes for Charts and release history tables it means that chart names will be centrilised and in bold as will country names as given in the example above. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 17:30, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, they're headings. Table headings (the <th> element in HTML, which is what the Wikimedia software used by WP generates from the wikitable "!" code) are typically displayed as centered bold by most browsers. (That's why the !align="left"|Title code that I occasionally find in tables is so pointless; the browser's already taken care of it.) And because they're logically headings, it's appropriate that they be displayed as headings, so centered bold doesn't bother me. It looks right to me, and I've already decided I like it better.
However, we do have options, in case consensus is that centered, at least, is too dramatic a change (or just "ugly") to implement. A CSS declaration will get passed by the Wikimedia software and respected by (at least) a Firefox 3 browser. Consider this example then (and the caveat that follows):
Country Date Format Label
Belgium[1] June 28, 2010 Digital download Universal Music
Norway[2]
Sweden[3]
Important caveat: This inline CSS declaration not only overrides the default display for table headings (and again, only in the 1 browser I've tested so far), but we would probably end up copying it into a bunch of tables site-wide, which is (if I understand correctly) the "hard-coded" styling that Jack Merridew so vociferously (and IMO properly) rails against.
An alternative to this would be to devise a CSS class which would somehow be applied to table row headings, whose rule would incite left-alignment rather than the default centering. Along that path are (at least) two obstacles: (1) we would have to get a centralized style accepted by the guardians of the WM or WP software (after getting it accepted by the WP community), an obstacle Jack Merridew has yet to overcome in his crusade among the Film folks; and (2) we'd still have to add the class name to the row headings, because I'm not sure the scope="row" is sufficient to help the site CSS recognize which <th> headings should be left-aligned, and which not.
My sincere apologies for tossing HTML and CSS terminology around. I hope it's not off-putting for those who don't care about that kind of stuff. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 20:09, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
The inline CSS will work fine on any reasonable browser ;) It is, however, the sort of hard-coding that WP:Deviations is all against. Simply put, tables should be standard and not have their presentation baked-in. All these embedded widths and styles (and row/col spans) are inappropriate. Part of this is for accessibility reasons, but another part is for your own sanity. beat. Meaning that all this goop repeated in thousands of articles is going to make your heads explode when you have to change them all, and change them, again, if you didn't make appropriate changes on the prior passes. Teh sea of markup also serves to deter participation by editors not skilled or comfortable with large walls of syntax they don't understand. Embedding extensive non-wikitext markup is anti-collaborative. Remember that 'wiki' means 'quick'? As in quick and easy to edit? Wikipedia articles are not the place to show off the fact that you've scaled the rowspan learning curve. And the HTML markup is worse than the inline CSS because it (width) uses pixels as units instead of the more appropriate 'em', which gets back to accessibility. Markup should never be copied to many places, it should be centralized for maintenance purposes, and to prevent brains from oozing out your ears when you try and fix them one-by-one.
Getting a CSS class into the site style sheets is fine, if you've a class-concept of wide applicability. class="discography" is implicitly of limited applicability. Neither is class="filmography" an appropriate class for the site stylesheets, and I've not proposed that such classes be created and would oppose them if someone else did; It is inappropriate to allow endless customizations for small blocs of articles.
Above you're seeking a mechanism to override the site-wide styling that is centering th-cells that are in wikitables. I expect that that rule
.wikitable th
{
 background: #f2f2f2;
 text-align: center;
}
was implemented with column headers in mind and may not be intent on centering row headers, which are far less common out there. It might be viewed as appropriate to style row-headers as left aligned for all wikitables site-wide. And row headers would be clearly defined as th-cells that have scope="row" ;) The CSS to do this would be
.wikitable th[scope=row]
{
 text-align: left;
}
See User:Jack Merridew/monobook.css.oldid With that in place, I'm seeing all of row-headers above as left-aligned, even the ones wo/inline-styling. It will work fine in all browsers that don't suck, and avoids teh endless style="text-align:left;" that would be so at odds with WP:Deviations.
Jack Merridew 22:05, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Having reviewed what John has come up with I scratch my earlier opinion. First of all its not worth the effort trying to uncentralize the first column and second of all it actually looks worse. I would rather stick to adding a ref column to the end so that references can be attributed directly to sources and so that the in-line citation tags (e.g. [1]) don'[t appear in bold. John I've also just realised that these changes will also affect record chart tables. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 20:42, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
How about:
.wikitable th sup
{
 font-weight: normal;
}
Jack Merridew 22:05, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Personally, I prefer the first column to be centralized anyway. But with regard to the above, should this discussion not be taking place at WT:CHARTS now? --JD554 (talk) 08:21, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
potentially but I didnt want to break-up the discussion as it stems from above. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 14:17, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure that it's a good idea that this wikiproject tries to decide how another should have their guidance. You can always link to this discussion for background. --JD554 (talk) 14:26, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Okies I'm moving the discussion there. On a side-note do you think we have an agreed standard for discographies in the discussion above? I think you're example is very good... --Lil-unique1 (talk) 14:31, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Cheers, I'll leave it a few more days to see if anyone else jumps in before making the changes to the proposed guidelines. --JD554 (talk) 14:37, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Chart (2010) Peak
position
UK Singles Chart [39] 5
Billboard Hot 100 [40] 1
(Very late reply) With regard to the refs in headers; Common.css already has a measure in place to prevent bold refs, so there is really no need for the font-weight override. I copied the above example with an actual reference. With regards the .wikitable th[scope=row]; Not all browsers support it, and every table on Wikipedia would have to contain the scope=row for every row. — Edokter • Talk • 09:47, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

For those tracking these discussions the chart tables part of the discussion now exists at Charts and the release tables at Talk:WikiProject Songs#Accessibility Issues --Lil-unique1 (talk) 14:55, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I see you've copied the whole discussion over to WT:SONGS. Perhaps just a summary and a link back here would be better? --JD554 (talk) 15:01, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 Done. =) --Lil-unique1 (talk) 15:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Do music videos and other charted songs belong?

I pose the question of whether a long list of music videos of the artist for each of their singles with their producers is redundent information. Correct me if I'm wrong but I see discographies as an overview of an artist's musical achievements. A list of their singles and albums. Then of course EPs and other releases come along. But music videos are in my opinion ambiguous. I dont see the information adding value to a discography because well... because an artist VERY RARILY releases a music video for a song which is not a single. Additionally that information is already located on the song's page and seems to be of trivial/fan value. Additionally I've yet to come across a Discog that mentions videos in the lead section. I've been editing them quite a bit recently and feel that the guidelines for producing them could be refined. Music videos in essence are not really a form of release, they are promotion for a song and therefore why they are found in the discography is something I'm not sure of. Additionally its been increasingly noted that 'Other charting songs' are added to discogs. Again these are not released they chart out of digitals sales or promotional use, so what serves their purpose here? --Lil-unique1 (talk) 00:59, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Per Discography- "Discography is the study and listing of the details concerning sound recordings, often by specified artists or within identified musical genres." I think 'Other Charted Songs' fits under this. I also think it is nice to have a list of an artists' music videos in the discography, because not every single has a music video and not every song article has information about that songs' music video. I think they are both fine to include. Nowyouseemetalk2me 01:51, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
If i read this correctly (im not sure i have, as im not 100% sure what you are asking so i will explain in detail). Regarding Music Videos and Other charted songs in the discography sections im going to say it belongs. If you actually look up the meaning of the work Discography its described as "A list of sound recordings giving details of composer, title, performers, etc." The music video and other charted songs would fall under recordings so they would be notable if they charted (which i image if its under other songs :P ). I agree that music videos arnt in the lead but i believe this is because the discography is mainly (i use that loosely) about singles and albums themselves. (CK)Lakeshade✽talk2me 01:55, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
Ok, I really dont care about music videos. But they really don't have value on the page since most singles have videos and most videos are singles. However, they do come in handy if other artists make cameos in other artists music videos, because they aren't filmography and the discography is the only way you would know. But I STRONGLY SUPPORT other charted songs being included. This information is of value to know that the songs have charted. Because they don't warrant their own page, how else would you know that they charted, because they can't be included in the singles section of album pages because they aren't singles. And having them in the discography is easily accessible.Candyo32 (talk) 02:06, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

So perhaps regarding other charted songs... the guideline should be ammended to say they're approved? Im not sure of the current standing but I don't think the guideline says either way? --Lil-unique1 (talk) 02:19, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm more inclined to think that music video information in Discographies are usually temporary until the artist has accumulated enough music videos for a standalone Videography. So, perhaps if they are listed in Videographies from the start, this problem can be circumvented? Regarding other charted songs, I think they can be listed in Discographies, if not, it would make most sense to include them in their respective album articles in a new section. Fixer23 (talk) 03:16, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Thats a fair point but generally videographies are only created when they have significant coverage and only when the discography page is getting extremely long. (CK)Lakeshade✽talk2me 03:34, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
In my opinon, there is no way that other charted songs could warrant a section in an album page, so I support it in discographies even more. I now have a change of heart regarding the music videos, being reminded that the music video sections turn into Videographies, it should be in discography. Like in my opinon, a featured list like Rihanna discography, the if someone gathered enough information, could move the music videos section into a page such as Beyoncé Knowles videography, but maybe not as much information, considering Beyonce has more history. Candyo32 (talk) 04:57, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
I was under the impression that "Other charted songs" weren't approved as they were removed from Leona Lewis discography years ago, because they're not songs that were released, just album tracks that happened to enter a chart. But if they're going to be officially allowed I suppose I can't argue with their addition. I thought that a discography was for releases. AnemoneProjectors 11:20, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
I think Discographies should be albums, ep's, compilation albums, singles, other charted songs. I don't think music video's should be included. Jayy008 (talk) 11:43, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
  1. When in doubt run in circles check our featured content for relevant examples: The ones I checked all had a "music videos" section: e.g. Lily Allen discography, Goldfrapp discography, The White Stripes discography, etc
  2. See {{Infobox Artist Discography}} which specifically includes an entry line for Music videos. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 16:58, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
i don't really have an opinion on the inclusion of music videos, it's just a pain sometimes when you're trying to get a discog promoted to FL and some reviewers fail it cuz you cant find a couple of directors, stupid really. but other charted songs should definitely be included. in the age we're in of the digital download, it doesnt matter if a song is a "single" or not, people can buy whatever they like and due to this album tracks chart, sometimes very highly. eg in the uk there have been quite a few songs which have reached #1 with never being physically released. it also shows an artists popularity. Mister sparky (talk) 22:51, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I think some people have misunderstood the point of this conversation. My question about music videos is simple... because they are NOT a form of release should they not be omitted all together from discographies? Like Mister Sparky has pointed out it can be difficult to find the information and really the information is specific to the single/song in the discography. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 23:19, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

If you go by that definition, then the answer is simple as well: Music videos and other charted songs would in no way be presented in discographies. The problem would be if they are encyclopedic information at all and if they should be chronicled at all, if so, where? Currently discographies seem to make the most sense, a provision should probably be made on the definition of discographies then. And after thinking about it again, I would think that music video information shouldn't even appear except on their respective single pages. Fixer23 (talk) 03:35, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposal

Based on the information provided above I would like to propose two seperate things for which you can voice your opinions for.

  1. The removal of music videos from discographies (or at least removing it as a requirement from MOS:DISCOG).
    • Rational for doing so: The information can be notoriously difficult to find for disocgraphies spanning a long period of time. Per the definitions given about a discography is about released and charted music not about released music videos (we don't provide info. of video charts) thus information on music videos is redundent and more appropriate on specific single's page.
  2. The approval of 'other' charted songs.
    • Rational for doing so: Quite rightly so its been noted that many more songs are charting from album's following their digital release. Though users have said that the information should be contained at the relevant albums page perhaps this is true but in some cases the achievements are extensive and should be noted alongside a singer's officially released singles. In some cases it can be contentious e.g. "Woohoo", this would solve that problem.

Please use the space below to voice support or disapproval of the proposals. When deciding please provide reasons for do so.

  • Support p1 and Support p2 for the rationals provided. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 23:24, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Support both per rationals above. EnDaLeCoMpLeX (talk) 01:50, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose P1 and Support P2 Nowyouseemetalk2me 05:49, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Strongly Oppose P1 in that cameo appearances in videos are documented this way, and Strongly Support P2 Candyo32 18:24, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose P1: The fact that information is hard to find is not a reason to exclude it. Music videos are verifiable and an important part of an album's/song's promotion & notability, and a discography is the logical place to include them. If a particular artist has a very large library of music videos then a separate article can be split off using the summary style. "Discography" does not have a narrow, restrictive definition, and video is a format of release. I have seen no convincing argument for the exclusion of such pertinent, verifiable information. Strongly support P2: Again, there is no strong argument for the exclusion of pertinent, verifiable chart positions, even if the song in question was not technically released as a single. We should be inclusive in our scope, not exclusive. The more we narrow the scope, the less value separate discography articles have. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:33, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose P1 per Illazilla, and per Featured List precedents that contains music videos. No opinion on P2. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:55, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose P1 and strongly support P2 as per IllaZilla (well said!). --Yvesnimmo (talk) 14:18, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose P1 and strongly support P2 per IllaZilla. Videos are definitely a form (or format) of release and are sometimes even sold separately from their 'audio only' counterparts. Some albums are released with a video component (CD/DVD).—Iknow23 (talk) 21:20, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Certifications column heading links

In a lengthy discussion a few months ago at WT:Manual of Style (record charts), several of us considered the problem posed by the tendency to conflate sales with shipments, as some recording industry associations use a survey of actual sales for their certifications, while others use quantities shipped by the record companies. Further, which criterion is used is not always made clear even (or especially) by the organizations themselves, as they'd surely like everyone to believe they're talking about exact sales counts in every case, even if it's not true.

That being the case, it's no wonder that magazines and breathless tabloids, blogs, PR sites, etc. conflate the numbers even further, before they land at the Wikipedia editor's fingertips. The reader of Wikipedia, finally, may see a column marked Sales, or possibly Sales/Shipments, although there is invariably no indication as to which is indicated by the numbers shown. I'd like to see that topic addressed, but I'll start a different thread for it later.

What I want to ask here is if there is any consensus for (or against) the following proposal: That the Certifications column to be recommended in Discographies (and also in articles for individual songs or albums) be changed to remove the phrase "sales thresholds", as below.

Change FROM:

Chart (or rest of discog table) Certifications
(sales thresholds)

Change TO:

Chart (or rest of discog table) Certification

The idea is that it might not be a sales thresholds, but a shipments thresholds, so better not to say anything. Further, we're not actually showing any thresholds, so needn't mention them in the column heading; interested readers can still click through on the "Certifications" link to go to the page where all the thresholds are anyway. This proposal would remove the link to Music recording sales certification, which in my view isn't a big problem, as the List page links to it in the first ten words anyway.

This was the conclusion we came to previously, although we were perhaps too few to represent genuine WP consensus. The discussion is archived at Alternative Proposal regarding Sales/Shipments/Certs (sorry, it's a bit long and dribbles on right to the end of that section). I'd be grateful for a active discussion here, followed potentially by a change to the examples shown on the project page, and a re-writing of list item #8 in the Per-release section. Thanks, — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 07:28, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

How about instead of "(sales thresholds)", we just say "(thresholds)"? Related to this, I've made a suggestion on the talk page at Talk:Music recording sales certification that the article be renamed to take into account the fact it isn't just sales. --JD554 (talk) 12:01, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes we talked about just "thresholds" earlier, and also tried out the word "basis" (linked the same in any case). But again: do we need any mention there? Why two links in the column head? — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 01:41, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure why there are two links, it just seems to have always been that way. I wouldn't be too concerned if "(sales thresholds)" was removed completely. --JD554 (talk) 10:07, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Sorry I over complicated that. So im writing over my response to instead say clear agree! --Lil-unique1 (talk) 21:20, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Since one of the target articles has been renamed, I'll use it as an excuse to bump this discussion. The new proposed linkage would be:

Change TO:

Chart (or rest of discog table) Certification

Anybody else out there with comments about going to a single-linked heading? — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 09:44, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Support --Lil-unique1 (talk) 16:13, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Support, support, support — certifications can easily be sourced. "sales" and "sales thresholds" are nothing but trouble and complete bullshit. Too easy to inflate and vandalize and too much time has been spent by honest editors correcting all of that garbage. Get rid of "sales" once and for all. - eo (talk) 14:03, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Studying your comment (for which, my thanks, BTW), it occurs to me that you would be glad to see the entire Sales column removed from the examples here and Item 7 removed from the list, which is farther than this particular proposal was meant for. Is that included in your "Support" above?
What I could do, at least, is boldly but sneakily amend Item 7 to say something more detailed about sales figures than just the word "Sales" that's there now. I could say the figures aren't always required for every market, are typically poorly sourced and should be included with restraint, or similar. I might try to sneak something like that in there while I'm changing the other items I've actually proposed. Maybe nobody will notice, or complain too much if they do. Or maybe we should start another thread to remove the Sales column? What do you think? — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 09:38, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Support Jayy008 (talk) 17:14, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Support the time spent trying to tell people that certifications are rarely for actual sales is tedious and annoying, the page renaming and the new link will help with that. Mister sparky (talk) 20:16, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Support AnemoneProjectors 21:15, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Support As experienced with GA and FA music articles, I do support this move. However, I have one concern regarding the heading of the first column. Can we change it to something like Country or Provider? Because, at the end of the day the certifications vary country and region wise, and the provider wise too. Just my two cents. — Legolas (talk2me) 03:33, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Well, the discography tables discussed here on MOS:DISCOG don't suggest a separate column for the country (e.g.: UK) or supplier (e.g.: BPI), but offer two examples of using colons or parentheses to indicate the region covered. So I don't know what (if anything) you're suggesting be changed in them.
For the ubiquitous table of record charts and peaks, which sometimes have a certs column, as well as for tables of just certs alone, the other column can be whatever we currently use. Or not? First of all, I'm not aware of any guidelines prescribing headings (or anything) regarding certifying bodies. It seems that neither WP:SONGS nor WP:ALBUMS point anywhere more exotic than WP:CHARTS. Second, even WP:CHARTS (WP:Manual of Style (record charts) if we're being formal) doesn't offer any guidance about certs providers. It merely shows examples of peaks tables, with a column labeled Chart (2009) or similar.
So are you wanting something new added to the guidelines or examples here at MOS:DISCOG? Or something more comprehensive (expanding into certs) over at the Record charts page?
One more thing: Did you mean we need to indicate the provider (as opposed to chart or country) because there are more than one within a country/chart area? I'm not aware of any of these (unless you mean Europe, or IFPI's GCC region), so maybe I've misunderstood.
Thanks for your feedback. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 09:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Adjustment It occurs to me that the column heading for certifications should really be singular, parallel to the "Year", "Title", "Chart" (in Record charts), "Provider", etc. used for the other columns. I've made this minor change in the proposed target forms above. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 09:48, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all who have commented thus far. I have changed the column heading and its link target as discussed. I also changed the wording of item 8 in the "Per-release" list to (1) link only to List of music recording certifications; (2) no longer include the note about two links "to avoid confusion"; (3) mention that the certifications may be for "shipments or sales by recording industry associations" rather than being strictly "sales certifications".

Please don't hesitate to discuss these changes further (as if I could stop you if I wanted to), even though I have gone ahead and implemented them. It's not my intention at all to curtail discussion. The topic of the Sales column and description have gone unanswered, but I'll be starting a new thread below.

I see, meanwhile, that the shortcuts I used for convenience above to MOS:DISCOG and MOS:DISCOGS have been deactivated. I meant of course this very project page, WP:WikiProject Discographies/style. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 12:40, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

John it has been replaced by WP:DISCOGSTYLE -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 21:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Support I may be a bit late but ... Yes, Yes! Most certainly, as (sales thresholds) may not be the criterion used in every instance. It might be shipments instead as mentioned above, thus to ONLY say (sales thresholds) is UNTRUE. If we want to specify the certification methods within the table, then we have to ADD a column titled 'Method' specifying in EACH instance if it is Sales, Shipments or Unknown. This goes a little too far IMO, as I'm sure most readers don't really care (or even know) there are differences in how the certification is compiled. That is up to the certification 'authority' for each region or country. We cannot dictate to them how they will do it. It is our job to report their 'outcome'. More detail on their methods used (if known) is appropriate at the linked page "Certification", which if one is desiring more info about are certainly welcome to click over there.-Iknow23 (talk) 21:10, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Can I bring up another issue? I would like to outlaw piping country to chart provider. For example linking British Phonographic Industry to the UK is misleading. When providing certificates three things are important: 1. who provides it (BPI), 2. what country (UK), 3. what level (Gold). (we also have to consider reader's who use screen-reading software in the equation) -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 21:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I support John's expansion of eo's comment (way above): "it occurs to me that you would be glad to see the entire Sales column removed from the examples here and Item 7 removed from the list,..." Since Sales figures are so dubious, they have no place on Wiki that requires "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable".—Iknow23 (talk) 21:57, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Re Lil Unique's piping country to chart provider. IMO where the MAIN chart provider for a country is generally recognized, then it should be understood that Billboard is the provider for the US, for example. Thus US is sufficient. US (Billboard) is not necessary. Where instances exist of multiple chart providers for a country with NO general wiki consensus of which to use, then I would support showing the further detail of which provider is being shown.—Iknow23 (talk) 22:09, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Re: IKNow23... I think you've misunderstood... With Certificates in the US for example... RIAA provides them but billboard does the chart. Therefore the chart is listed as number one on US Billboard Hot 100 but the certificate should be US (RIAA) Gold or United States, RIAA, Gold in the table. Would a visual example help? -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 22:13, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
This example is what I oppose but this second example is what I would suggest is better practise. Certainly for song articles (whereas discographies might perhaps be better as countries) -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 22:19, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I did misunderstand. When you said 'country to chart provider' I thought you meant the Record charts Peak positions listed. Yes, RIAA is the 'Certifying body' for the United States. This can be seen if one clicks the column header link to Certificates. The 'Certifying body' for each country is shown there. IMHO, I believe that is sufficient.—Iknow23 (talk) 22:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
No offense, but I prefer This example. The 'certifying body' for each country is linked at the country name and in no way is being withheld. In the this second example an additional column is utilized to show this same information. The explicit listing of the 'Provider' seems excessive (unecessary) to me as it is accomplished (sufficiently IMO) at the first example. I believe most readers do not care that much as to what acronym is the source. We should emphasize instead to obtain a verifiable source for the cert.—Iknow23 (talk) 22:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
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