Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musicians/Article guidelines

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Archives Infobox discussion March 23, 2006 – July 2, 2006

Contents 1 Page layout 1.1 Comments 2 Discography section 2.1 Method 1 2.2 Method 2 2.3 Method 3 2.4 Method 4 2.5 Method 5 2.6 Method 6 2.7 Method 7 2.8 Method 8 2.9 Other comments 2.10 The fair use discussion 2.11 Albums: Studio vs. Live vs. Compilation 3 Rock family tree 3.1 Method 1 3.2 Method 2 3.3 Method 3 3.4 Method 4 3.5 Method 5 3.6 Method 6 3.7 Method 7 4 Band logos in the infobox 5 Discography update 6 Naming artist 7 Old business

[edit] Page layout

Whole article proposal in one fell swoop

• Intro (according to WP:LEAD), infobox placed here
• Early life (includes childhood and noteworthy events pre-fame)
• Career (events relevant to there musical career and/or events that sprung from it - for example movie cameos, modelling)
  • Subheadings that divide the career by era, album, musical changes, etc..
• Other endeavors Some other artists have other major sub-careers (ie - also an author), projects (running a foundation) or hobbies (ie - taxidermy) . This shouldn't be for minor events (like appearance on Leno). This should be for something(s) major and/or habitual.
• Personal life - verifiable paparazzi fodder (marriage, children, illnesses, etc...)
• "Significant event" Many artists have some huge, life-altering overshadowing event or events that need there —own subheading. Examples: Michael Jackson and the child-molestation charges, Drew Lachey on "Dancing with the Stars," or Kylie Minogue and her breast cancer. Such a subheading could go here.
• Selected events - miscellanea like arrests, participation in famous events, a one-time gig in another field (like a movie or sporting event), a one-time humanitarian effort, some newsworthy item
• Discography - in the case of an idividual artist this should be "Solo discrograhy" with a note to see the discography of any other groups they performed with. In the case of musical groups, this should only include the groups discography. No doubt numerous links will already exist to the individual musicians within the article. Efforts should be made to include thumbnails of the album/single covers.
  • Albums either by <gallery> or by a table (I would say no more than ten, then break the discography into a new page)
  • Singles either by <gallery> or by a table (I would say no more than 15, then break the discography into a new article
  • Collaborations - only one-time collabs, usually credited as "featuring XYZ"
• Awards
  • Award caterigorization (either by year, or by award - Grammy, MTV Music Award, Oscar)
• Notes - per WP:Inline Citations
• References - per WP:CITE
• See also
• External links - links to other wikiprojects should be added here
• Categories - an artist should only have their own category if they have at least 15 directly relevant articles (this includes album and single pages), 10 images and 10 musical samples

Also note: There should be an effort to have at least 2 non-album pictures (although this is not mandatory) that are all properly tagged. The same goes for musical samples.

Anyway, I think this would be a workable system for starters.--Esprit15d 19:41, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

Add comments and/or votes for support or rejection of the above proposal below:

OK, I'm gonna say what I've been saying elsewhere here too. I'm trying to come up with a good way to diagram rock family trees. Once I, or someone else, comes up with a decent way for the time being (and eventually the best way), then I think one should go into each artist and band article. I would suggest that its position in your layout be between Discography and Awards. OK? Thoughts? Thanks. --luckymustard 20:41, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

What is the educational purpose of a "rock family tree"? --FuriousFreddy 03:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

My main concern is that we should really encourage people to discuss the context of the subjects they're writing about. Perhaps there could be a specific place for discussion of musical style, contemporaries (and influences and followers), role in development of music genres, public image and reception by the mainstream (or smaller spheres), etc. –Unint 21:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

discussing style lends itself to NPOV issues. if u can do it without npov issues, then i love the idea. i def like the idea of trying to go beyond simply what they did. --Jaysscholar 00:35, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

You can discuss styles, influeces, comtemporaries, influences, followers, what was going on in the world at the time, etc. without violating NPOV. Not saying that everyone will do it instinctively (which is why set-in-stone guidelines are important), but that information is important to the value of each article. --FuriousFreddy 03:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the "career" should be retitled "music career" and "events that sprung from it" should be some where after it. acting and stuff are usually two completely different things.

That section is not going to be filled with acting roles, only if it relates to their musicality. For example, Sugar Ray has appeared in some movies as themselves. So have the White Stripes. But when Mariah Carey was in whatever that movie she was in, that should clearly have gone in selected events, or maybe it's own subheading. And now that I think of it, I forgot to add the other endeavors section. I meant to. Like John Mayer also does stand-up, for example.--Esprit15d 12:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I also think albums should be cutoff at 5 and singles at 5 too. the article should deal with aspects of the music and its impact, not a simple listing of it.

I love the idea of 2 pics. --Jaysscholar 00:35, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I think using a "simple listing" is rather because asking people (viz. music enthusiasts) to choose these things usually leads to trouble somewhere down the line. We cut out the "notable albums" field from the current {{Infobox musical artist}} almost right away due to such concerns. –Unint 02:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Five and five are far too brief cutoffs for the lists of albums and singles. I ususally cut when the discography section takes up over one-forth of the page. Then, the discography gets its own article ,adn the main article includes a list of Top Whatever albums and singles (Whatever "Top" designation keeps the number of albums and singles in the article short -- Top 40 in the case of Gladys Knight & the Pips, Top 10 in the case of The Supremes, and number-ones in the case of Michael Jackson. --FuriousFreddy 03:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the ideas are good (maybe a few changes here and there). I would like to decide on the more specific parts to the layout now too. For example: specific ways to write up awards and a discography. Could someone put together a list of different styles (with sample pages)? -- Heaven's Wrath   ^Talk  03:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I always liked how Sly & the Family Stone discography came out. Compare with the shortened version in the main Sly & the Family Stone article. Awards will need some significant discussion (I've actually never doen a list of awards; I just mention them in the prose as necessary). --FuriousFreddy 03:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I like the simplistic layout of the discograpy on the Sly & the Family Stone article page. (Thanks for the example.) It is simple, yet imformative. The albums should be italized, and the dates should not be linked. Bulleting, not numbering. Example below. This style could also be used for singles. -- Heaven's Wrath   ^Talk  04:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Albums 1967: A Whole New Thing 1968: Dance to the Music 1968: Life 1969: Stand! 1970: Greatest Hits

Awards, awards... I did a bit of thinking about this at peer review for Alexander Coe; not too comprehensive, but that's the extent of my thoughts on this. (Hey, Espirit15d has looked at that article too.) Anyway, here's a diff for list format vs. prose format in the same article. –Unint 05:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I dabbled in that article last week - ha! Anyway, The prose looks good, and if it can smoothly include all notable awards (which sometimes is hard) I think prose is better than lists, especially if it worked into the whole article. But I don't think we should ban lists, but of course prose is preferable. If the person is an award machine, maybe the list should be split off, and the prose with the key awards be kept in the article.--Esprit15d 14:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

There's still concerns that using the album-cover thumbnails violates fair-use guidelines. On top of that, it's not an entierly professional solution, especially for artists with long discographies. I never saw any problems with the uses of image-less lists and/or tables, with maybe one or two album covers included (not in the table). Such lists and tables should also be as non-annotated as possible. Save any details for the prose or for an article on the song/album itself (if it warrants its own article).

I don't know how the thumbnails violate fair use, since the template says album images can be used "solely to illustrate the album or single in question," which is the exact use. Also I don't think it is realistic to say that statistics about an album can always be worked into prose, nor is that necesarily preferable. Purely statistical data is much more digestible in charts. Prose made up of statistics is usually stilted and more difficult to process. If I want to compare the performance of a few albums, I don't want to read five paragraphs to do that. I want to quickly glance at a chart to see, "oh, that had for number one hits and was triple platinum, but the next album had 1 hit and only went single platinum." Also, it was mentioned to save the statistics for the single's/album's page, but what if it doesn't or shouldn't have it's own page? Then we just delete the info? I think that is counter-productive. I think there is definitely a place for the charts, although I am absolutly open to the preferred style, legnth, cut-off for a new article, and basically any of the aesthetic details.--Esprit15d 13:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, I ususally try to put most of the prose bio/history info (in your example, "early life" through "significant" events) into one level 2 heading (mostly because the large font and rule line for the heading when viewed in Monobook break the reading flow of the page). I do usually break out things like "Musical style", "legacy", and of course all of the various appendixes ("discography", "notes", "references", etc.) --FuriousFreddy 03:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's a quote from above from FuriousFreddy (I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, please feel free to format it for a quote, and then I'll learn): "What is the educational purpose of a "rock family tree"? "

So, my answer to that would be that it's a diagrammatic and simple, uncluttered version of what's in the history section of a band or artist that's been in multiple bands. So if the information that is in the history type section of most bands is "educational" then so would this, but in a different kind of format so that people that learn differently would be able to learn this information. Check out Amazon.com's reader reviews of Pete Frame's books/collections of rock family trees. They talk about how useful these rock family trees are in finding information that they need. To put it another way let me ask you a question - What use would a family tree be? --luckymustard 12:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

For bands, there is usually a 'Members' heading. Where would this go? - kollision 06:52, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I've seen members headings, but they aren't a good thing. (1) The member list is already in the band infobox (2) it's usually redundant, since the band memebers are usually in the lead section and (3) featured articles favor prose over lists, so it is better to integrate the list into text.--137.198.61.65 13:50, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discography section

Put Support or Reject under the methods you prefer along with your comments. You can support or reject more than one (although try to limit your support), as the community may decide that more than one method is acceptable, but that some are absolutely unacceptable:

[edit] Method 1

• 1990: Mariah Carey
• 1991: Emotions
• 1992: MTV Unplugged
• 1993: Music Box
• 1994: Merry Christmas

Comments:

• Support conditionally only in the case of artists who have there own discrography pages. Otherwise this is just too little info.--Esprit15d 14:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
• Comment A lot of articles use a variant with the years after the titles. I personally prefer years first, but there is good reasoning behind having the items being listed coming first. Anyone? –Unint 15:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
• Reject not enough info (unless there is no other info available). --geekyßroad^{. meow?} 02:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support Very simple, as usually there is no need to include other information that cannot be found on the actual album's page. -- Heaven's Wrath   ^Talk  03:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support per Esprit15d, for artists with separate discography articles. --musicpvm 06:36, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
• Reject Too little information. - kollision 15:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
• Reject In my opinion, there just isn't enough information. Also practically the same as Method 2. --UD490 (talk?) 20:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
• Suport Enough information, especially given the links to article on the albums. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:18, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Method 2

[edit] Method 3

Year	Album	US	UK
1999	The White Stripes	-	-
2000	De Stijl	-	-
2001	White Blood Cells	61	55
2003	Elephant	6	1
2005	Get Behind Me Satan	3	3

Comments:

• Support. Informative and simple.--Esprit15d 14:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support Just get rid of the piped "year in music" links. –Unint 15:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support I like the piped "year in music" links, I actually use them. Is there a reason why they're a bad idea? --geekyßroad^{. meow?} 02:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Hey, great to see you again. It seems to mostly derive from WP:PIPE, which is, well, still only a proposal. However, my personal opinions:
    1. A great deal of the time the "year in music" article won't be relevant to the item being discussed. This is, of course, context dependent (and I don't know what you've been using them for); but, if on the other hand something is so significant to the music of a particular year as to be included in the "year in music" article, then I'm of the opinion that we can take the time to spell out the whole link.
    2. Wikipedia as a whole actively discourages people from linking date fragments like "2003". With piped year in music links still around, however, new editors who see blue links for years without actually checking what they are might assume they're just year links, and start implementing those. This is my personal theory; don't know of actual cases, but then you wouldn't know unless you asked.
  • This is the first time I've actually discussed these ideas, BTW. Feel free to poke holes where applicable. –Unint 04:12, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree with Unint about piped links to "years in music". They are rarely relevant to the context. Jogers (talk) 15:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Support Chart information not neccessarily needed, but could be used for comparison purposes. -- Heaven's Wrath   ^Talk  03:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support, attractive and informative. --musicpvm 06:37, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
• Comment, would support if the album covers were included (for reasoning see method 5) and at a medium size (size of method 5) and not as small as the Genesis discography or any bigger than the method 5 size because then the chart organisation would look disproportionate altogether. - Patman2648 01:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment/Reply re: Patman2648's comment. Maybe similar to this edit of blink 182's discography section? -- Heaven's Wrath   ^Talk  15:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

That would easily work for me and thanks for finding an example of it Heaven's Wrath. Thanks -Patman2648 04:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

• Support/Comment Looks great, I reckon it need an album cover columm and a 'Highest chart position' header above the US/UK bit. - kollision 15:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - I would prefer method 5, but this is a close second. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 09:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment What if an album didn't chart? Jogers (talk) 15:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Method 4

[edit] Method 5

Franz Ferdinand 9 February 2004 #3 (UK); #32 (US);#16 (GER)

You Could Have It So Much Better 3 October 2005 #1 (UK); #8 (US); #2 (GER)

Comments:

• Support. My favorite for albums, but too cluttered for singles.--Esprit15d 14:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Used by some big names, such as Pink Floyd discography, Depeche Mode discography, and The Smiths. However, the gallery format just seems... arbitrary, and doesn't lend itself well to comparisons. Also, seriously consider getting rid of the bolded chart numbers. –Unint 15:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  • The bolded chart numbers are because if you don't bold them, they turn into automatic numbering.--Esprit15d 17:46, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Support I really like this look, but can't put a finger on why. I think the larger album sizes are nice, but as others have said, it's more difficult to compare albums. --geekyßroad^{. meow?} 02:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Support Might be better on discography pages, not actual musician pages. -- Heaven's Wrath   ^Talk  03:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Support, looks good, but a table (method 3) makes it much, much easier to compare chart positions. --musicpvm 06:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support along with User:Esprit15d this is by far my favorite; due to the album covers because often albums have very strong relationships and ties with their album covers, look at Dark Side of the Moon or Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, those album covers are very important to the album's history and its meaning. It's basic as well although the comparing chart positions isn't as easy as method 3 its still relatively easy and most of discographies I run across don't even have the album charts for instance look at The Beatles page, it uses this format but without the charts and looks perfectly fine. - Patman2648 01:05, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Definitely the most attractive, having the label there really adds something to the article. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 09:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support - I agree that it's the most attractive. Shows the cover art and basic album information. No further information but thats what individual album pages are for. Taskinlude 07:28, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Reject. Non-fair-use of fair-use images. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Wikipedia:Fair use#Images says that fair use covert art shouln't be used for identification without critical commentary. Jogers (talk) 15:12, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Method 6

[edit] Method 7

[edit] Method 8

Not sure if these deserve their own sections:

• Small table with images: e.g. Genesis discography (refers to the edit linked, not the current page).
• Comment. I would say not, since this is soley discography page. We aren't really forming a policy for such pages. And that chart is extremely detailed.--Esprit15d 16:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support I like it because it's informative and easy to compare. It's also easy to figure out what the popular songs are and what album they're on. If the discography section is small, this format can be used on the band's page. If it's large, these things usually get pushed to their own pages anyways. If there is a column that doesn't end up getting used, it should automatically not be added in (just like infoboxes). --geekyßroad^{. meow?} 02:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support I think that a table with small images would be a good idea (per geekyßroad). Another example of this (without singles) would be the In Flames Discography (refers to the edit linked, not the current page).--UD490 (talk?) 20:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other comments

• There's a difference between supporting the format versus supporting the amount/types of info included. We also have to decide upon order of data. Method 3 and 8 are actually pretty similiar. Ideally like to see the style of the Genesis discography, but with the columns listed in order: "Year, Album (pic then name), Singles, Charts (singles), Charts (album), Worldwide Sales". --geekyßroad^{. meow?} 02:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• We also have to consider who we are targeting the discography for. Who is visiting the page and why? Are we targeting the page for people who nothing about the band and album? Are we targeting it for people who know the band but want to keep up to date on everything? Are we targeting it for people who are looking for a list of popular songs to find? Are we targeting it for people who are filling in details in their computer's music collection? Who our target is is going to greatly affect how we should format the thing. I'm warning you now, I'm probably going to be biased towards the last two types of people... but I think our target is probably people who want to know when albums were made and what their popular songs are (and which album they're on). Users don't want have to go searching for their data too much. --geekyßroad^{. meow?} 02:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Every page on Wikipedia, from what I can gather, is targeting the same audience - someone who wants an encyclopedic quality article. And the rule of thumb is comprehensive, not exhaustive. I think that means discography should be well representated and informative, without becoming a whole new article unto itself. If it does, it needs to be split off into a new article. Most of the discussion here seems to be rooting for major statistics and maybe modest pictures (if there are only a few albums) and that's it. Also, keep in mind this is the discussion of a muisican page, not a discography page. It is one in about 10 major elements the article has to cover (in less than 32K). For fans and collectors, this page is probably not where they would find the most benefit.--Esprit15d 17:56, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
• I think certain formats should be used depending on the amount a=of albums there are. Not a lot of albums should be small and have little info while if it has it's own disocraphy page, pictures and chart info should be used.--Jaysscholar 12:51, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• Adding to that, I think the style should also depend on the artist's...notability. --Snaxe920 20:33, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The fair use discussion

I'm starting a subsection on fair use of record covers because, frankly, there is unresolved contention on this issue. (I don't purport to be a copyright man, just an aggregator of the discussion.) Some places where this has come up:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD. Proposed article guidelines for our parent WikiProject (and as a point of relevance, there are quite a few points on musician articles). See /Discography #2 for the only piece of developing policy available (AFAIK) on fair use images in discographies.
• Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/The KLF discography. This will set precedence for the criteria a discography must pass to become a featured list; currently it remains to be seen whether removal of all record covers will be one such requirement.
• Wikipedia talk:Fair use/Fair use images in lists. Another discussion brought up at the FL nomination.

Granted, the latter two deal more with full-fledged discography articles, but I think the principle is the same. –Unint 15:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Albums: Studio vs. Live vs. Compilation

To go along with this discussion, we should probably come to a consensus about dividing the discography into sections, or deciding how or if we want to distinguish them from each other.

1. Divided
   • Use sub-headers to differentiate between album types.
   • See: Dispatch, 3 Doors Down
2. No distinguishment
   • See: Counting Crows
3. Provide text after title
   • See: Sex Pistols

Comments:

• Support #1 Organized, easy to distinguish album types. -- Heaven's Wrath   ^Talk  15:34, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support #1 with comment - this is supposed to be a guideline; as experienced Wikipedians, we know what works and what doesn't, and also what to enforce encourage and maintain some consistency between articles. That said, we don't want to overdo this; Wikipedia is not an experiment in rule making, and let's try to avoid instruction creep (a rule for everything). That either creates battles where there were none, or causes policy to be ignored because its a pain in the tush to follow.--Esprit15d 18:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support/Comment As per Heaven's Wrath. It'd be too messy otherwise. Although I do think the different album type divisions should be done in bold under the 'Albums' Header (see Queens of the Stone Age. - kollision 15:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rock family tree

Thoughts? Questions? --luckymustard 21:37, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

It would be best if you included an example with your proposal. -- Heaven's Wrath   ^Talk  12:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Below is method 1 that I obtained from Wikipedia:Family trees. However, an actual example (and the best in my opinion) would be rock family trees by the rock critic and rock family tree artist Pete Frame. Should I upload an image of one of his trees and post it here? Or you guys can simply google him and find some images. Thoughts? Thanks. --luckymustard 14:08, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. I have a few major issues with rock family trees. (A) they seem to be almost exclusively generated by this gentleman Pete Frame. That means we have to depend on his opinion, the notion of which makes me break out in a cold sweat. (B) They are graphically very dominant. They could easily add 10KB to an article or more, making articles long. They probably better belong on there own pages, or on a discography page (maybe?), if anywhere. (C)Except where maybe a musician has explicitly said "I was influenced by XYZ musician" or broke off from a band, a rock family tree is highly subjective, and thus inherently POV to the point of really almost being a bad idea.--Esprit15d 18:18, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Is this OK to comment on your comment here? If so, then I'd like to point out that your issue (C) is not true. The rock family tree would not have anything to do with influences. It would merely be a way to diagram the career of a musician concerning what bands he/she was in and when. For instance, I see that Eric Clapton was in, according to the infobox (it says "Affiliations"), eight bands. I would like to be able to see when he was in what band, and at the times that he was in each of those bands who else was in them with him. Some of this information is probably in the prose, but that is not how some of us looking at these articles would best take in this info. Also, look at The Beatles line-ups. In my opinion, this is more like a rock family tree than one list of affiliations and a bunch of prose, but it still isn't a diagram with lines going from one band member to a band and to another member. Which brings me to your issue (A). It's seems true to me too that Pete Frame has been the exclusive generator of published rock family trees, however the idea of a family tree has got to be hundreds or thousands of years old or more. I don't see how there could be a copyright on the tree look. And the information that is contained there he got from many other sources. That would be the same way it would be done here in Wikipedia. We would be doing research from many different sources to create the ultimate linked rock family tree. Your issue (B) depends on how it's done and that's what I'm investing time in now to try and figure out, and why I've come here before I start doing tons of these line-ups that are not as diagrammatical as they could be, or whatever method of creating these family trees that I would come up with on my own. I'd like to get feedback on the multiple methods, and any others out there that anyone might know of or can think of, that are found in the template/article Wikipedia:Family trees. The method I'd least like to do is using an image because then the bands and band members wouldn't be linkable. OK? Any more thoughts? I'm going to add more of the methods from the above template to this page now. OK? Thanks. --luckymustard 12:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment As I asked before..."what is the educational value of including a (apparently large and cumbersome) 'rock family tree' in Wikipedia music articles?" Seems just like more fan rhetoric to me: anything included in such a "family tree" would be more clearly displayed/presented in either prose or a simple table. On top of that, I know better than to think that there will actually be one of these for every major recording act; just some for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and other "Wikipedia favorite" (white) rock bands. We should be focusing on fixinf, reparing, and cleaning up the problems we already have instead of introducing new ones. --FuriousFreddy 20:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Since you asked the question again, I'll answer the question again: "Here's a quote from above from FuriousFreddy (I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, please feel free to format it for a quote, and then I'll learn): "What is the educational purpose of a "rock family tree"? "

So, my answer to that would be that it's a diagrammatic and simple, uncluttered version of what's in the history section of a band or artist that's been in multiple bands. So if the information that is in the history type section of most bands is "educational" then so would this, but in a different kind of format so that people that learn differently would be able to learn this information. Check out Amazon.com's reader reviews of Pete Frame's books/collections of rock family trees. They talk about how useful these rock family trees are in finding information that they need. To put it another way let me ask you a question - What use would a family tree be? --luckymustard 12:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)" Do you just disagree with the idea that some readers of Wikipedia would prefer the information displayed this way? Would you please answer my questions? Thanks. --luckymustard 21:38, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Put Support or Reject under the methods you prefer along with your comments. You can support or reject more than one (although try to limit your support), as the community may decide that more than one method is acceptable, but that some are absolutely unacceptable:

[edit] Method 1

If you know how to do the coding for this, or if you know where to find it, then please let the rest of us know. Thanks.

The Beatles John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr

Grandpa

Mom

Dad

Aunt Daisy

My brother Joe

Me!

My little sister

Does anyone know the code for a straight line down?

It is "!" (exclamation point). The template's talk page has all the information. --HW 00:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The Beatles (1961 – August 1962) John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best

The Beatles (August 1962 - 1970) John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr

Paul McCartney (1970) Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney

Wings (1971 - 1972) Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Denny Laine, Denny Seiwell

I like this method, but if it were on a musicians' page, it should not list the other band members. So it would only show the bands (or recording solo, et al) a musician was connected with through the years (months or days). Now, if it were on a band page, it could be used to show the changing lineups. Jimcripps 02:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that band articles would/could also have rock family trees, see The Beatles line-ups, which is linked to from The Beatles main article. I'll try a Method 5 in a minute to show how what you're proposing for musicians would look. Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Eric Jack Nash (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Method 2

                   The Beatles==+==? Eastermont
                            |
                   +--------+------------------+
                   |        |                  |
     Cersei==+===Robert  Stannis==+==Selyse  Renly
   Lannister |     |              | Florent 
             |     |              |
   +----+----+     +------+       |
   |    |    |     |      |       |  
Joffrey | Tommen  Mya   Edric  Shireen
     Myrcella    Stone  Storm

[edit] Method 3

This idea might be better suited to use a timeline. I fiddled around with the extension meta:EasyTimeline. I began to create a timeline for Eric Clapton.

Example Timeline

The green is before he joined a band (childhood), the red is his group-oriented career, and the yellow is his solo career. This method does slow down the page and still is not amazingly easy-to-read. I tried linking to the bands, but it messes the formatting up. To fix it, I would have to make a new entry for when a new band was formed and when a band was broke up. (But it is possible.) -- Heaven's Wrath ^Talk 22:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Comments:

• Neutral I do not really see the need for this type of method, since it is pretty complex. Still unsure about the 'need' to included this information on an artist's page. -- Heaven's Wrath ^Talk 22:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how I can explain the 'need' anymore or better than I already have. I hope you have read all of my above comments. If you have a specific question, then please ask. --luckymustard 22:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

• Neutral This is more visually what I'm trying to propose, but it doesn't contain the other personnel of the bands that he was in like a tree would. Thanks for trying, though. --luckymustard 22:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Method 4

The Beatles (1961 – August 1962)

Paul McCartney

John Lennon

George Harrison

Pete Best

The Beatles (August 1962 - 1970)

Paul McCartney

John Lennon

George Harrison

Ringo Starr

Paul McCartney (1970)

Paul McCartney

Linda McCartney

Wings (1971-1972)

Paul McCartney

Linda McCartney

Denny Laine

Denny Seiwell

[edit] Method 5

The Beatles (1961 – August 1962)

The Beatles (August 1962 - 1970)

Paul McCartney (1970)

Wings (1971 - 1972)

Comments:

• Neutral I do not really see the need for this type of method, since it is pretty complex for the little bit of info that is being diplayed. This info is almost already in the infobox, or should be, except for the dates. --luckymustard 12:08, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Method 6

This method to be used in band article or sub-article.

The Beatles (1961 – August 1962) John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best

The Beatles (August 1962 - 1970) John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr

Plastic Ono Band (1969 - 1972) John Lennon, Klaus Voormann, Eric Clapton

George Harrison (December 1967 - 1968) George Harrison, John Barham, Colin Manley, Tony Ashton

Paul McCartney (1970) Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney

Wings (1971 - 1972) Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Denny Laine, Denny Seiwell

Comments:

• Neutral I see/envision that using this method will get too big for even it's own article with all the band members of the offshoot bands. So it would make more sense to not have any members listed in the boxes containing the offshoot bands. So I'll try Method 7. --luckymustard 12:39, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Method 7

This method to be used in band article or sub-article.

The Silver Beetles (June 1960 - August 1960) John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Norman Chapman, Stuart Sutcliffe

The Beatles (August 1960 – August 1961) John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best, Stuart Sutcliffe

The Beatles (1961 – August 1962) John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best

The Beatles (August 1962 - 1970) John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr

Plastic Ono Band (1969 - 1972)

George Harrison (December 1967 - 1968)

Paul McCartney (1970)

Ringo Starr (1970 - 1993)

Wings (1971 - 1981)

Paul McCartney (1981 - 1994)

The Beatles (informally known as "The Threetles") (1994 - 1996) John Lennon (Recordings Only), Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr

Paul McCartney (1995 - present)

Ringo Starr (1995 - present)

Comments:

• Support. I sure am liking this one the best. --luckymustard 20:24, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support. I'm mild on this idead, but I did have an epiphany last night: Perhaps there should be a line at the bottom of the page, or after the lead-in, that would say where the subject is in the 'Tree,' with the surrounding musicians listed. This could be linked to a whole article showing the tree. And, I propose that a group be formed to create said tree and maintain it. It'll be one tough job, but it will be better than relying on an outside source, unless it's part of a sister project. Jimcripps 02:26, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Jim, you said that maybe there should be something that says "where the subject is in the 'Tree'". Are you talking about the band's name or the band member's name? So for the above tree, method 7, it would say "The Beatles", or for method 1 it would say "Paul McCartney"? That's sounds like a title, which of course these would have, they would be the article's name that they're in. Then when you talk about "a group be formed to create said tree and maintain it" it seems to me like you're thinking that there would be one master tree containing all bands and band members ever and they would all be linked. That is not my intention, essentially because that would be too big. Please let me know if I am understanding you correctly. Thanks. --luckymustard 14:40, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

My thought was there would be a large tree, maybe two, one defining every band/artist, and the other for just artists (a solo career could be considered band-like). Then, the article could be of a person or group, and would say, "In the 'Rock Tree,' their position is HERE, or next to so-and-so and so-and-so." And this could be linked to, and yes it would be large, and thus would need a group to take care of it. At present, I'm not sure if it would be viewable on the whole, considering bandwidth and the common PCs used for browsing the Internet (would they all be capable of viewing such a large file? Perhaps a 'panning' Flash file - well, that's just a thought). The creation of a large, all-encompassing tree, seems to be the only option here so that an article posting about the Tree could be justified; it would be the proof. Jimcripps 17:51, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Concise and Well thought out, I really like this one. - Patman2648 04:39, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your support. Please go to User:Eric Jack Nash/Sandbox/BeatlesTree to check out an almost completed version of this tree using this method. My thoughts are to replace The Beatles line-ups with this. --luckymustard 22:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Boy, it got really quiet here over the last few days. Well, as you may have already seen, I updated The Beatles line-ups with the tree that I started here and continued to create in my sandbox. Hope it's OK. Thank you all for all your help. I'll continue to create these trees in other articles as I have time. Again, thanks. --luckymustard 18:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Gosh. Should have kept WP:BEATLES in touch with this development really - this ought to have gone out in the newsletter as a "funky" project development :). I like it, but it gets a bit confusing post-62. Also, if other bands are to be mentioned (Wings and Plastic Ono are on then) then you've got a major ommission - Traveling Wilburys. --kingboyk 01:02, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Band logos in the infobox

Since we seem to be hammering out several multi-page items right now, I thought I might bring up something smaller.

You might have seen various band articles where the band's logo (or sometimes even just the particular design used on one album cover) gets used in place of the band's name in the infobox. (Usually the old Infobox band; presumably there's been copy-and-paste going on.)

Even notwithstanding the upcoming hurdle of getting Infobox musical artist accepted, do everyone think this is something that should be discouraged? –Unint 23:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Example at Arctic Monkeys. I like it, but I think it should be neither encouraged nor discouraged. It isn't a must. - kollision 15:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm returning to this topic, because it just keeps getting more and more out of line. Example: David Gilmour. People are doing this for musicians that don't even have logos; they'll just extract the typeface from the cover of their latest album and stick it in the name field. What's more, edits to the infobox have now been made with logo usage specifically in mind.

Basically:

• At the very least, we should discourage the use of non-logos — images that have not been repeatedly associated with the act — in the infobox.
• What I would like to get across, futhermore, is that this is an encyclopedia and not a commercial website. Our purpose is not to parade around images designed for marketing and promotion across the top of every page. Even Nike, Inc., for example, has the company's name in text above the logo. We also want readibility and consistency, which means not arbitrarily putting images where text should go. If everyone simply must have their logos, maybe there should be an extra field for it instead. –Unint 19:39, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Just as another logo comment, I like seeing the band logo. And logos for individuals when such logos are often associated and often used by or for such individuals. But, I have noticed, on articles that I've seen, that IE handles the logo images differently that Firefox, which I've just recently started to use. Around the logo, or as background in IE, the area is white, creating a block. In FireFox, this same area is not there, it's tranparent. It's just a quirk, I suppose.

And, of course, the logo might clash with the respective background. Perhaps there could be a 'line' underneath, to seperate this area in lieu of a colored background? It's tricky, I know, 'cause it could ruin the overall style of the box. Jimcripps 21:02, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying about the logos and such. Personally, I like seeing the logo in the infobox and I admit, I have placed the bands logo in the name field when converting to Infobox musical artist. My personal opinion is that the bands logo should only be used if it is readable and is accepted by both the band and its fans.--UD490 (talk?) 21:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Update on the situation: now city articles are getting into the act. Cities don't even have logos. See Zagreb. –Unint 02:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I am surprised that has not been removed. How is that in any way encyclopedic? Maybe a WP:MOS article might be appropriate for logos. – Heaven's Wrath ^Talk 04:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discography update

At some point sombody made {{Infobox Discography}}, which is just silly what with us having had this whole discussion already. It hasn't really caught on (I imagine people notice that it's a considerable waste of space), but I'm leaving a note here for future reference. –Unint 06:02, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming artist

Hi I am still new here so I would like to see what the feeling is on this topic. I have an artist with a common name and to disambiguate him should I add the title (musician) or (singer)? I am asking because I have seen artists named with either of the titles (or other specific titles like (guitarist)) on many pages. I believe the feeling is to label him as (musician) but is that a solid rule or just up to each persons discretion? My apologies if this is a well known rule and I just missed it somewhere. ThanksSolonyc 21:55, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

If there is not an article already created with that name, then do not preemptively disambiguate the article, just create the page with his/her name as the title. Otherwise, you should add the (musician) to the end of the title and add a "did you mean" template on the top of the article with just the person's name. (see WP:DAB) That was a little confusing, so just post the article if you need some more help. – Heaven's Wrath ^Talk 22:25, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that pretty much confirms that I should put (musician) after his name. I was not preemptively disambiguating, the artist goes by a first name on his releases and credits so I need to do something. It is just that I have seen many artists with (guitarist) or (drummer) or (singer) after their name. In my opinion that is a mistake as there should be another way to differentiate from artists with the same name like (British musician) etc... Maybe one day there will be a standardization. Thanks again Solonyc 23:08, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Old business

Should we make an effort to finish up some of the old discussions, especially pertaining to the discography? (Do we plan to convert everything to conform with whatever we decide on, afterwards? It seems like a boundless task.) –Unint 21:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I definitely feel like we should tie some of this business up, and no we won't be converting. These are strong guidelines, and provide needed direction, and many ga and fa articles already are like this. But this is a starting point for future articles, and for articles moving towards ga or fa status.

We should probably reconsider whether we want to address separate discography articles, as they are becoming more and more prevalent, particularly among featured articles on the front page (save for the smallest of topics, such as New Radicals). In fact, it's become more common to use something resembling proposal #1 in the main article (the bare minimum text), then expanding to a table with images in the discography page. If we limit ourselves to the main article, most of the guidelines will quickly become depreciated as the bulk of the data is moved out of the main article in the usual slimming-down process for FA noms. –Unint 20:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)