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Help reference albums in the WikiProject Unreferenced Articles #NOV24 Backlog Drive

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Hi WikiProject Albums, I’d like to invite anyone interested to join the WikiProject Unreferenced Articles #NOV24 Backlog Drive. Many album articles are currently tagged as unreferenced, and this drive is a great chance to help improve them. You can see the list of unreferenced album articles here. The drive runs through November, and any help adding realiable sources is welcome—whether you add one source or tackle several articles. Thanks! Turtlecrown (talk) 13:07, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Additional writers" credits

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It's been a while since I've last done any editing for album articles, and upon my return I've noticed a curious trend. In the past few years, editors have been replacing track listings which look like this:

All tracks are written by Alan Smithee, except where noted.

No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."The Phony Song"  
2."I'm Not Even Real"  
3."Imposter"Smithee, John Doe 
4."He Made it All Up"  
5."Don't Give Me a Made-Up Song Title and Tell Me it's the Beatles"Smithee, Vic Stench 


with ones that look like this:

All tracks are written by Alan Smithee, with additional writers noted.

No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."The Phony Song"  
2."I'm Not Even Real"  
3."Imposter"John Doe 
4."He Made it All Up"  
5."Don't Give Me a Made-Up Song Title and Tell Me it's a Beatles Hit"Vic Stench 

This seems unnecessarily confusing and misleading at best (I think it's pretty obvious why, but if necessary I can elaborate), so at first I just reverted these "Additional writers" style credits without much ado. But I keep on bumping into them everywhere, which lead me to wonder if just possibly there could have been a consensus to convert track listings to this format en masse. Someone bring me up to date here. Martin IIIa (talk) 02:29, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unaware pf any past discussions on this matter, but I definitely agree that the latter style is worse. Mach61 02:34, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's that confusing myself, but maybe my eyes are sharper than others. While I'm okay with the latter, I wouldn't object to ditching this informal practice. mftp dan oops 02:37, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not just a matter of having sharp eyes; I don't see how someone could know that "additional writers" means "additional writers on a song" (i.e. co-writers with Alan Smithee) and not "additional writers on the album" (i.e. people other than Alan Smithee who wrote songs single-handedly) unless they already knew what the album writing credits are. Martin IIIa (talk) 04:08, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've used the latter a few times, but primarily in cases where there are far more than two writers per track. Wasteland (Brent Faiyaz album), for example, includes at least four writers on 3/4s of the tracklist, and none with just the one that's being removed, so the former style would be useless to that page. To my eyes, it's a lot more legible than just seeing the one name repeated ad nauseam for every track. And I think your "additional writers on a song" point assumes less of Wikipedia's readers than they deserve; so long as the writing credits are listed adjacent to the appropriate tracks, why shouldn't we expect people to reasonably assume those credits apply only to those tracks? Frankly, I don't see a problem with it. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 04:37, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You've misunderstood what I said. In the latter format, the same phrasing would apply whether John Doe was the co-writer or sole writer of "Imposter", so how is the reader supposed to tell which it is? Also, you don't explain how the tradition style could be "useless". All you do is add the one name to each of the tracks, and there you have it, perfectly useful writing credits. Am I missing something here? All you've accomplished by using the latter style is to make the credits more confusing to readers with no previous knowledge of the subject and place (arguably undue) emphasis on the one name. Martin IIIa (talk) 13:41, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There must be a disconnect, as I don't see anything particularly confusing in either of the scenarios you've presented. Sergecross73 msg me 14:03, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I already said, 'the same phrasing would apply whether John Doe was the co-writer or sole writer of "Imposter", so how is the reader supposed to tell which it is?' If you don't have an answer to that question (and neither you nor QuietHere have provided one), then there you have it. Martin IIIa (talk) 03:08, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The use of the word "all" by Smithee and "additional" in the note could only mean "co-writer" for Doe. Sergecross73 msg me 03:18, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I did explain that it was useless to Wasteland because it wouldn't remove any repetitive credits from that template. I didn't say it was useless generally, and I definitely strongly disagree with that; take Where I'm Meant to Be as an example of a time I've used the former effectively. And I think "except where noted" versus "with additional writers noted" makes a clear difference, as well as whether you see the name repeated in the credits or not. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 22:04, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is more or less my stance. I think there's a time and place for it. Sometimes, it can simplify the look by making it less repetitive. But at the same time, many editors don't really understand that context and try to force the approach into situations that make it look more convoluted instead. Sergecross73 msg me 13:58, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No one has yet pointed out any advantage to the latter format in any scenario beyond saving the editor from having to type out the same name a few times. That's a key point to me. Martin IIIa (talk) 03:10, 10 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see an advantage or disadvantage to either. Sergecross73 msg me 15:07, 11 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am working on a translation of this article and hope to have an FA before its 30th anniversary a year from today. I have been relying heavily on the Russian-language article's sources (c. 2020) for the work I have done so far, but I'm trying to get a little feedback on the issue of structure.

Could I feasibly pass a Recording section into different subheadings? The Russian article is a treasure trove of fascinating information, but I would want the comfort of knowing that such a massive project would be acceptable, because I've no memory of seeing a recording section on enwiki so big that it needs that many subheadings, but I imagine without them the section would look far too bloated. (Note: the recording section is far from even being finished, and it's already looking real big in English.) mftp dan oops 02:42, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see no problem with breaking up a recording section into subsections so long as there's enough sourced content to call for it. I've even seen a few examples of this in FAs, such as The Dark Side of the Moon. Martin IIIa (talk) 04:14, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Good to know. mftp dan oops 19:28, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is Indie Vision Music reliable?

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Indie Vision Music has long been listed as a source at WP:CM/S, but its reliability is questioned. Please see the RS/N discussion. I'm soliciting input from this project because of past discussions here and I felt editors have some experience at evaluating music journalism sites.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 17:50, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source discussion: Pan African Music

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I'd love to be able to use Pan African Music (PAM) as a source for some African artist/album articles. However, their "About us" page says they were founded as part of IDOL, a music distributor/promotor. Clearly there is a conflict-of-interest: for example, Yemi Alade is listed on IDOL's homepage, so all the articles on her at PAM are presumably not unbiased.

Is there any hope of separating the biased from the un-, and using some of PAM's coverage? Or is it all unusable? GanzKnusper (talk) 09:57, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@GanzKnusper For establishing notability and making any statements independent of the subject, I don't think can be done at all with such a source. Because there's no way to tell if the artist is being promoted by IDOL, even if they aren't listed. They could be used for biographical statements about the artist themselves but they would still need independent sources for establishing notability.---3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 10:49, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's what I suspected. Thanks for the response! GanzKnusper (talk) 11:43, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. I'm sorry to disappoint.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 22:46, 18 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No Clean Singing, Teeth of the Divine, Metal Underground, The Metal Onslaught

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I've started a discussion at WP:RS/N regarding these sources and if they are reliable. Input at that discussion would be appreciated, please.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 00:34, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Website publishers/site-runners are self-published. Updating Sources page to reflect this.

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Per this talk comment, consensus is that if the publisher or site-runner of a website writes for their website, it's difficult to argue that this writing has gone through the same editorial rigor of the other writing, due to the conflict of interest. Thus, they should be presumed to be self-published and not reliable for statements regarding living persons. I'm going to update the sources list here and at WP Christian music to reflect this.-- 3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 20:18, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No idea how prevalent this is, but would a general note/reminder on the page suffice? There's...a lot of sources listed here. I wouldn't want to re-check every single one's setup when one general remark would do... Sergecross73 msg me 20:33, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's what I'm planning to do. And for some sites I'll note who the site runner is.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 20:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at RSN

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A music-related website, Rockpasta.com, is currently being discussed at RSN here. Feel free to comment on the source's reliability there. JeffSpaceman (talk) 00:32, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Chronicles of Chaos (redux)

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Back in 2013, I added Chronicles of Chaos to the reliable sources list, per this rationale. I can't find the Reno Gazette-Journal reference to it, the website was probably redesigned in the past 11 years and the article is lost to archives, as I didn't link to it. However, the site is passingly mentioned in Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge, and is discussed by Billboard in a 2009 obituary about the website co-founder Adrian Bromley. That obit notes the site as one of the first dedicated to extreme metal music, and also says that the print magazine Unrestrained! founded in 2002 by Bromley and CoC writer Adam Wasylyk gained widespread recognition in underground metal (not directly relevant, but indicated the impact and reputation of those two individuals. The history of the site is discussed in an academic book, Text Linguistics in Heavy Metal Magazines and Webzines, pp. 187–189. There's also a reference to Decibel Magazine a CoC review by Decibel. There's additional references to interviews in music journalism, academic books, and academic journal articles, but as those are interviews I'm treating those more as references to primary sources. When the site closed in 2015, Daniel Lake of Decibel wrote a piece about the site, noting "Chronicles of Chaos is a piece of metal scene history, and it was often a go-to source of information for which albums would most interest me." Now, Lake says that he wrote for CoC for the four years past, so this write-up is closely affiliated with the site. But, that Lake also writes for Decibel indicates the caliber of the writers for that publication. MetalSucks likewise published a write-up about the site when it closed. It explicitly states "The writers were well informed and well spoken, and the zine evolved into a reliable source of information about interesting albums." I think all of this confirms that the webzine is indeed reliable.-- 3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 15:11, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I don't use it a ton since it's been defunct for almost a decade, but they've been very helpful in sourcing some 90s/2000s rock/metal articles. They produced some really good, detailed, deep dive articles. Sergecross73 msg me 15:35, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Indie Vision Music RfC

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The discussion over Indie Vision Music as a reliable source has not reached a consensus, so I opened up an RfC which can be seen and contributed to here.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 18:53, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:A Family Christmas#Requested move 3 December 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Raladic (talk) 06:18, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

AnyDecentMusic? reliability

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ADM's article was recently deleted via this AfD, and now the link is being mass-removed from album articles. That's fine by me, I see nothing wrong with the AfD, and it's not my concern. What does concern me is the follow-through by Nyxaros on My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross where that user has apparently decided that not having an article/being notable (and also not being mentioned in prose, though that's an easy fix if it's really necessary) negates the source's reliability, and has removed it. So I suppose I should bring this concern up here; does not having an article negate a source's reliability? Should it be removed from Template:Music ratings? There was a brief discussion there the other day asking the same in which I and one other editor said no, but another editor wasn't convinced. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 10:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I stand by the source and think requiring an article is nonsensical. Notability and reliability are two different and totally separate principles with no apparent value in conflating the two. We've had an established consensus for nearly a decade and I can't remember ever seeing any active music Wikipedia editors dissenting from it. Seems pretty much cut-and-dry to me.
And for what it may be worth, the same edit with the same logic was made by the same user at Crash (Charli XCX album) and 143 (Katy Perry album), and neither has been undone. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 10:42, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I fully agree with you. There are several sources at WP:A/S without articles. The fact that other publications/authors don't write about them (so we can't write articles about these sources) doesn't mean they are less reliable. Should we start removing any mentions of journalists who don't have Wikipedia articles about them? That's absurd. AstonishingTunesAdmirer 連絡 12:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not having its own article is a non-factor. That's flat out not a valid reason. Nyxaros is free to start up a new discussion on a completely separate thing - reliability/usability - but until there's a new consensus that supports it, he should not be removing it on those grounds. Sergecross73 msg me 13:44, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:RSMUSIC, the last discussion on it was here in 2016, where a widely participated in RFC gained a consensus in its use. A (poorly participated) AFD on its notability has no bearing on that, let alone overturn it. Sergecross73 msg me 17:02, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment: QuietHere, reading comprehension is very important but you clearly have not understood what I wrote. I have written nothing about not having an article and not being noteworthy negates reliability and I find it funny that the discussion continued with this mentality. ภץאคгöร 22:05, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Could you explain why you removed it from the article if not for it being an unreliable source? You stated twice that it should be removed because of notability concerns, which would imply the ADM article failing GNG. You also stated that it was not exactly "reliable" (I'm not certain what the quotes implied). What does "not being noteworthy negates reliability" mean? Thank you. Οἶδα (talk) 22:19, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Twice in edit summaries you mentioned not being notable as part of your reason on removing it. I'm at a loss for alternative explanations here. You literally wrote "Yeah, being notable is a requirement". This is a complete failure on your part to communicate clearly. You only have yourself to blame for this. Sergecross73 msg me 22:21, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You can ask simply instead of jumping to conclusions if it's too vague right? Also you should know better as an admin when to revert. Check before reverting to avoid reverting other non-related changes. Apart from the notability and reliability arguments, you keep adding back numbers to the tables that are not mentioned in the prose, which should not be done. ภץאคгöร 22:30, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
adding back numbers to the tables that are not mentioned in the prose, which should not be done
Would you mind showing a guideline that mentions this? Thanks in advance! AstonishingTunesAdmirer 連絡 22:33, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Are you going to answer the question or not? You literally wrote, as linked above Yeah, being notable is a requirement. What did you mean by that? You accused another editor of lacking reading comprehension, so you better have a good explanation. What was the intended take away from that? What are you citing when you say having an article is required? The rest can be easily addressed - a source is already present so a mention in the prose can easily be done. And your concern about reliability is overridden by the current Wikiproject consensus. So what's the hold up? Sergecross73 msg me 22:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And of course now Nyxaros redid the edit again. At least this time the edit summary was clearer, though that is their third attempt at the same edit in a row so I left an edit-war warning on their talk page. Nyx, it would be a lot more helpful if you had left that summary as a comment here since it's clearly relevant to the discussion and also contains things you haven't already said anywhere else.
And since we're discussing that summary, here's my response: In practice, I've seen very few (if any) album articles include ADM information in prose. As for why I don't, that's mainly because you'd mostly be restating the same information which already exists in the table anyway. ADM doesn't offer any sort of additional ranking like Metacritic's "Universal Acclaim"/"Generally Favorable"/etc. scale, nor the critics consensus writeups of Rotten Tomatoes, so the only thing that one could include is the average rating and the number of reviews. One of those numbers is already in the template, and perhaps the other could be included as well but I'm not too worried about it either way. But the clause you're referring to is regarding album reviews full of prose which also have star ratings, and how a star rating alone does not explain well to readers what the critic's opinion on a given album is, so quotations from prose or some other excerpted information from that review is preferred. I don't think whoever wrote that clause had aggregate scores in mind, and I don't think you're gonna find a consensus for changing practice so that they should; honestly, you might have an easier time finding agreement in suggesting we get rid of Template:Metacritic album prose and have no prose from aggregate raters at all (I can vaguely remember at least one inconclusive discussion on that or a similar subject from the last few years). QuietHere (talk | contributions) 23:25, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And of course, Quiet, you felt compelled to send the generic template due to your grievances against me 😒. Anyways, this may come as a surprise, but we don't just use optional templates and write nothing in prose. If we did, this wouldn't be an encyclopedia to begin with. We also don't follow a practice that the table comes first and then the text, because the table is optional. You have inadvertently introduced another argument: the redundancy of ADM. As you mentioned, ADM is only used for its review scores and is extremely similar to Metacritic but has fewer features. The aggregates and their contents are not general information known by everyone, so you should not expect the average reader to understand the context just from the numbers in the table. ภץאคгöร 11:22, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion of Gold Derby Music Awards

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Requesting more opinions here on the inclusion of this award, per UNDUE. In 2020, GoldDerby.com, an Oscars prediction website that gives out the Gold Derby Film Awards, started a music award. It's a fan vote on the site with at or under 2,000 fans involved. In their own comments, they nod to the fact that this has just been a Swiftie vote for four years now. There is no independent reliable coverage of this award...at all (Yahoo and MSN are reposts of GD website posts). Discussion is ongoing at Talk:Chappell_Roan#Awards with @Medxvo, but I'm starting a discussion that may get more eyes since I removed the award from the <100 pages that included it yesterday. In many of those articles, the GMDAs was the only award that didn't have it's own coverage on WP. To flag other discussions where editors discussed the site, "Gold Derby Awards" was deleted at AfD, the larger website was redirected, and one year of the GDMAs was deleted at AfD. I also asked about the site at RSN, which wasn't about DUE, although that came up. Alyo (chat·edits) 16:23, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for starting the discussion, @Alyo. I'm also noting that the editorial team behind the Film Awards and the Music Awards are almost the same, and that the Film Awards has been mentioned by Awards Daily in 2024 and the Los Angeles Times blog in 2011. The Film Awards are used in List of awards and nominations received by Peter Capaldi which was promoted to FL status six months ago with zero concerns at its FLC regarding the inclusion of the Gold Derby Awards. Medxvo (talk) 22:00, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll only say here that I have less objection to the film awards since this website + team at least claims expertise in film. It's an Oscars site, etc. No such factors apply to the music side. And again, what little coverage there is, is about the film awards, not the music awards. Alyo (chat·edits) 22:20, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the website and the editorial team claim expertise in music as well. For example, Daniel Montgomery, one of the editorial team behind both of the music and film awards, has published several music-related articles in the past couple of days. Medxvo (talk) 22:31, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you've made a very convincing case against inclusion. We don't include user reviews from sites like AllMusic, AOTY, or Rate Your Music, so I don't think a fan-voted award should get automatic inclusion without independent coverage either. And besides, Taylor Swift already has plenty of awards; there are probably already more listed on that page than necessary, and adding more just because they exist would just further crowd it. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 23:34, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]