Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Archive 34

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GA reviewers needed

The Good Article project has a bit of a backlog in popular music; out of the five oldest nominations on the project right now, for example, all five are popular music-related. Unfortunately, this is an area where WP:GAN always gets more editors interested in nominating than in reviewing. Would anyone be willing to review an article or two to help reduce the wait? It doesn't take long, helps out other editors, and is a fun way to learn about some off-beat material. Cheers and thanks, -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:32, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

The Luka State notability

I've just come across the band The Luka State. I don't believe that they yet meet WP:BAND but they appear to be getting some coverage in music blogs, newspapers &c, so thought best to check with editors more experienced in this area. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:30, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Errol Dixon

While new page patrolling (from the back of the backlog, like a good 'pedian) I came across Errol Dixon. According to Allmusic he's collaborated with legendary blues artists B.B. King and Muddy Waters, which sort of gives me the feeling he might be notable. But I can't for the life of me find any reliable sources outside of the Allmusic description. Anyone got any ideas for sourcing this, or do I need to just hold my nose and go to WP:AFD? —Tom Morris (talk) 08:41, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

WikiJam at Wikimania 2014

Hiya! I'm organising Wikimania 2014 in London, and I had this idea for a collaborative music project. I thought some people here might be interested in it, perhaps even tempted to take part: https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiJam EdSaperia (talk) 13:03, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Portal:U2 for peer review

Miss Bono and myself have requested a portal peer review for Portal:U2.
We would appreciate any helpful advice at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/U2/archive1.
Thanks in advance and happy editing! –pjoef (talk • contribs) 14:28, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Request for Assessment

Tooh (song), can this article be reviewed for quality? Sohambanerjee1998 09:07, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

AfC submission

A very specific and interesting submission has been dropped at AfC. Mind having a look? Thanks! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:59, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Penguin-on-Ice Records

Is this notable? I didn't want to be bitey and nominated it for AfD when the user seems to have such positive intent. --S.G.(GH) ping! 15:16, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

DJ Many

Soulja Boy's DJ requests assistance with an article about him, now a draft: Draft:DJ_Many_(Disc_Jockey) Ocaasi t | c 17:20, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Proposal of WikiProject Recording Artists, restructuring of WikiProject Musicians

I have created a proposal to create a WikiProject Recording Artists, which would be split off from the existing WikiProject Musicians with the intention of redefining it as a WikiProject Instrumentalists. Since this proposal would affect a large number of people, it will be very helpful to have as much input from Wikipedians as possible. Please stop by the nomination and leave some thoughts/suggestions. Thank you, WikiRedactor (talk) 22:05, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

The Inflated Sales of the K-POP Groups in the Best-Selling Boy/Girl Groups Pages

Most of the people know that the era of digital singles came in the 21st century with the invention of iTunes, and other audio programs. However, the K-POP groups that are listed in the BEST-SELLING BOY/GIRLS GROUPS pages are a total bogus, in that, their digital sales which cost about 30 cents are included as a part of their PHYSICAL SALES whereas groups like Backstreet Boys have truly sold their PHYSICAL SINGLES, AND ALBUMS (which does not include the cheap digital sales). I personally believe that there should be an another page for the digital sales. It is not fair for the artists that have actually earned their PHYSICAL SALES to be compared with the groups that are primarily supported by the DIGITAL SINGLE SALES. Not hating on the K-POP groups, but I believe their digital sales does not apply in the page where the other groups have their PHYSICAL SALES ONLY which cost A LOT more than the digital sales. I tried to edit out the K-POP groups, but a group of 2 people have constantly undone my edits with the article of proofs that show nothing about how them achieving these certain physical sales. Please fix them if you can by permanently deleting these groups. Theallpops (talk) 06:47, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission

I was hoping one of you fellows would take care of this submission. Kind regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 00:41, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Sequence of sections in music-related articles

Hi there, i was hoping to find something in MoS about the section sequence of band articles. Is it possible to not follow the conventional "Lead -> History" sequence in special cases? Thank you very much! Rka001 (talk) 21:37, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

AKB48 is not a special case. There are no "special cases".—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:32, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
I wasnt referring to that lemma alone actually. But i would like to improve myself as an editor and would like to know if the sequence of sections is set in stone or not. Or how to justify any unconventional treatment of topics. I could not find anything in the style manuals. Its kinda difficult to find that information. Thank you very much! Rka001 (talk) 23:51, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Anyone want to help out a new editor with a COI?

Hi all! I'm asking for help on behalf of editor User:Goodtodie, who is the owner of Good to Die Records in Seattle. He wants to create articles for the bands currently on his label and began with the article Sandrider (Band). I did block him as the username is the same as his label, but I think his intentions are good. I'm not really a big editor of music related articles, so I thought it'd be nice if someone that is more active with music related articles were to help him out with all of the basics of editing, as this would also help with any WP:COI. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 09:38, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

"Heavy metal" shenanigans

I regularly disambiguate Heavy metal, and recently have been seeing lots of edits like this one, where anons merely rearrange genre topics, break already-disambiguated links, and remove citations. Is this some kind of pattern of vandalism? Please have a look. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:35, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

You must be new here. I have at least a dozen edits like this on my watchlist at any given time. I have long since determined it was a losing battle and stopped reverting. Fezmar9 (talk) 18:04, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps both users could take a look at the genre suggestion for infoboxes and what not as stated above to help reduce this type of arguements. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:51, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
There's no "argument" going on, just drive-by IP editors coming through and making a bunch of changes like this, then disappearing (or only coming back under a different IP address). bd2412 T 19:00, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

"Adult contemporary music"

I've just noticed that someone has replaced the description of The Blue Nile as "adult contemporary" with "alternative", on the grounds that "adult contemporary" is an ageist term and "excludes teenagers/children". This seems ridiculous puritanism to me, as "adult contemporary" is an established term for a particular type of music, and the Blue Nile are far from being an "alternative" band. However, I can't be bothered to change it, but is the person going to go round every article deleting references to adult contemporary music? Richard3120 (talk) 00:31, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Chordioid. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:49, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

AfD notice

There is a deletion discussion occurring here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jimi Hendrix: Canadian drug charges and trial. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 20:49, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Recording artists

FYI, there's a proposal to create a wikiproject on recording artists, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Recording Artists -- 70.24.244.161 (talk) 05:41, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Counting the sales of a music artist

Hi There,

I want to do some research and look whether some older artists can be added to the 'list best-selling music artists', on which a protected wiki excists. I Posted those questions also on the reference desk, but was advised to insert them in the talk session. What I need to know is the following:

How should I handle the following situations:

- If an artist has mostly an solo career but has an album as a member of a band, can I add the sales of both on account of the individual singer (such as Orbison and Dylan and their appearance in the Traveling Wilburys).

- Can I use the appearance of one song sung by an artist on a movie-soundtrack and ad them by his total number of sold records?

- how about songs written by an artist and sung by another (like Bridge over troubled Water sung by Elvis Presley and written by SIimon and Garfunkel. Can I count the sales of those by Simon and Garfunkel).

I don't now whether this is the right place to ask those questions, but I'm a newby here. If not, please don't take offence and let me know and show me the right way to get this information.

Atomiaan (talk) 10:48, 13 February 2014 (UTC)13th February 2014

Atomiaan, per WP:SYNTH, WP:OR, and WP:VERIFY, you shouldn't be counting and adding anything up. You need to find the sales figures in a reliable source, and edit pages based on what they have come up with. Hope this helps, cheers! GabeMc (talk|contribs) 20:58, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Gnarls Barkley

A lot of IPs changing the act's stated genres recently. I can't personally tell whether it's a legitimate disagreement or (at least partly) vandalism – could someone knowledgeable please check? It Is Me Here t / c 11:43, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

I have requested semi-protection and removed references to genre in the lead. I have posted a comment on the talk page asking that editors make the effort to provide sources when adding genres. If you are watching this article, I suggest you spare little tolerance for unsourced genres, as they are usually just original research. Adabow (talk) 11:52, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Genre in the infobox

I realize that this was discussed before[1], but I think it's time again to discuss the removal/change of genre from the music infoboxes.

  • Whenever I visit Wikipedia now, I find I am reverting the same IP hopping users making the same unsourced edits for months. I can never contribute useful information or try working on articles to promote them to good or featured articles. My proposal are the following:
  • Genre is subjective and is currently the only subjective information in the infobox. Even with sources, I think it's easier to explain something as complex as genre in prose. It's far less complicated than where a group formed or who produced a single/album.

I have expanded two articles that expand upon what the albums sound (Quique and Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You) where I have ignored the genre field and added descriptions with sources. That way, if you can't tell what the difference between complextro or witch house or Avant-garde jazz and free jazz or Snap music from crunk, you can at least get an idea with words describing a sound of an album.

This goes the same for artists. Artists who have one off albums that are country albums like Bon Jovi's Lost Highway can be explained instead of saying something like "country" in the infobox. I've seen so many metal groups that toss in words like "Thrash (early), Black metal (later), Gothic metal (current)". This doesn't really state years or anything useful so most people would go towards reading about the paragraph on genre either way.

My suggestion is to do one of the following.

  1. Remove genre from the infoboxes.
  2. Have it so genre is kept simplified in a permanent way to avoid constant edits. I'd have it slimmed down so it would be a selection from a selection of genres. the Template:Video game reviews has a system so that only certain reviews can be added to their review box. Have it be very basic and non-controversial genres (I'm thinking to keeping it simple, ranging from Rock, Pop, Reggae, Classical, Hip hop, R&B, Comedy, etc. In other words, where would the artist/group/album/single be found in an average music store.) With a template like the video game reviews one, we could control what actually goes into the infobox so users can't randomly try to add genres like "atmospheric depressive black metal" which we do not (and probably will never have (but wouldn't it be awesome if we did???)).

If there were any more recent discussions about genre that I missed I apologize but the search mostly came up with the 2008 post. Regardless if you like my ideas or you'd like to keep it the way it is, please expand beyond a "i like it" or "i don't like it" response so I can actually understand where we are all at with this idea. :) Merci! Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:26, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi, I hardly do any editing in music-related articles so I may not be a good source of wisdom, but I would tend to agree with you, primarily for the problems I experience with Template:Infobox television. Same issues, people adding unsourced genre, usually to cater to their personal interpretation of a television series, etc. Template:Infobox film has no genre parameter. There are relevant discussions here, here, and here. I also agree that it makes more sense to explain such categorizations in prose. I do not know what the impact would be to the removal of genre, assuming there are thousands of articles using the parameter. Regards, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:27, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi Cyphoidbomb! It would impact several articles, but it's nothing a bot couldn't clean-up. I honestly think most of this genre post I made here could be applied to nearly all media or fiction based article topics (Television, novels, games, etc.). Judging from responses from the 2008 post I referenced above, it was removed and there was a huge backlash of users who were basically saying "no! I like it! Bring it back!". I think it's time to change it up. Andrzejbanas (talk) 19:47, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
Template: Infobox musical artist/doc already supports the use of generalized genres rather than obscure subgenres. Also see this discussion, where the consensus leaned toward minimizing genres used in the infobox. Of course unsourced subjective things should always be removed, but the genre is not more susceptible to original research then other areas of the article. I would of course agree with the idea to limit the genres to a very slim few, this seems to be a problem mostly in Rock, Metal, Electronic, Jazz band/album articles due to all the complex slightly different subgenres that have been invented over the years, while most Hip hop and R&B articles usually stick to generalization. However, genre of music is a very important factor of it, if you have somehow never heard of Eminem or Judas Priest, a generalized genre such as hip hop or heavy metal, will immediately give you a general idea of how there music sounds, which is all what is really needed to be done in the infobox. So I do not think it should be completely removed at all. But, all detailed subgenre information and such can be found in a musical style section in the article body. STATic message me! 21:10, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Oppose removal of genre field, support restrictions on genre field – I opened up a discussion [here] back in September 2013 where I proposed we force the template to only display a select few umbrella-term genres (which I now see STATic has linked just above me). The idea was to eliminate the ability to bicker over subgenres by not even allowing them to be entered and funnel that bickering into prose where genres and styles could actually be elaborated on and be properly sourced. There was enough support that it was recommend to try a test run on a limited number of pages, but when I opened a subsequent discussion asking how I can test this idea on my own, editors decided to argue other options -- which was rather off topic and frustrating, so I gave up. Fezmar9 (talk) 21:48, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Despite the hours I spend reverting changes to non-existent or obscure genres, I would not be in favour of getting rid of the parameter or even limiting to a few. The problem is that a particular act may have been the definitive band in a sub-genre and that probably needs noting.--SabreBD (talk) 21:54, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
If a particular act may have been the definitive band in a sub-genre, it might be better to discuss this in the body of the article where we can stretch out a little.
As the saying goes, writing about music is like dancing about architecture. "Genre" is a construct which can aid understanding but also has plenty of potential to obscure reality. The purpose of the infobox is to give a quick overview. It's useful for a person to see that an artist was active in the 1950s rather than the 2010s and so forth. Not so useful to try to differentiate between Thrash Metal, Death Metal, Robo-Metal, and Speed Metal, whatever those are (and I just made up the third one) in a place where it's not possible to expand on the reasons for using the term.
Getting rid of genres in the infobox might be called for, but would be a big job and maybe not succeed. So I'd favor cutting down to (let's say) about 10-12 major genres -- Folk, Rock, Pop, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Classical, and that sort of thing. Broad genres like that are useful for a broad overview, I guess. Whether this is best down in the script or just putting a note in the infobox I don't know. Herostratus (talk) 23:56, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Support removing genres from infoboxes. As a reader, I find them useful, but readers will be better served if the time and effort wasted by editors on genre-warring and genre vandalism is diverted to more productive ends, and by retaining editors who might otherwise abandon ship over this crap. Any effort to enforce a more limited, structured set of genres will fail without a strong enforcement mechanism, and such a mechanism will not be implemented. Any effort to rein in the ability of IP editors to wreak havoc is also doomed. I suppose this sounds pessimistic and defeatist, but please do not treat it as such. Wherever the line is drawn on the permissive/restrictive divide, there will be gains and losses. The Wikimedia Foundation wants to grant IP's almost unlimited freedom, so that's the reality. Let's deal with it. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 01:59, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Stong Oppose - I too, find it irritating how much clean up is currently required due to genre warring, and generally poor genre choices, but eliminating them wholesale is not the answer either. It's often-times a defining feature of an album/band, and people are going to want to hunt down the info in the prose. Additionally, I think this would shift the problem to genre warriors just writing really crappy unsourced prose. It won't fix anything. Sergecross73 msg me 03:24, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Not to detract, but do you have more reasons beyond that? This isn't just genre warrioring but since we are giving such blanket statements with out much rules, the genre infobox will always be bad. It's not hard to see that gray bar that says "Style" about a band's music that should be in the article anyways. Genre warriors rarely go into huge detail with paragraphs and I find personally are much more akin to adding a genre they see fit. How do you feel about the second option of keeping genre to a select amount of possibilities (jazz, rock, pop, metal, blues, classical, etc.?) Andrzejbanas (talk) 03:58, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
No, they won't write huge detail paragraphs, but they'll just slip in their random unsourced, rambling nonsense sentences in the prose. It already happens in just about any band article that has a "musical styles" section. "Breaking Benjamin plays nu-metal and alternative metal and death metal and he screams sometimes but other times he just sings normal". It'll just increase that sort of garbage in the prose.
In theory, I wouldn't mind slimming down on some of the useable genre choices, but as mentioned below, in practice, I don't think we could all ever agree on which ones to include or not include. There's always going to be some people who can't let go of their post-grunge or nu prog being a legit genre. I do support @STATicVapor:'s approach of maybe limiting it to only one or two genre in the infobox. Have it be a rule akin to the "Only 10 reviews in an album review chart" type rule. At least that would cut down on some of the ludicrous fringe theories that occur when a band does a single song or two outside of their normal genre. Sergecross73 msg me 14:04, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I would support limiting the number of genres allowed in infoboxes. This would have to be done in the infobox code because it would be a nightmare to try and uphold this guideline with a plain |genre= field. Adabow (talk) 05:09, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Despite the annoyance of genre warriors, I don't think removing it would make a difference--they'd probably vandalize the sourced descriptions in the body of the article or the lead summarizing those parts. I've seen IPs and pesky editors like Madvillain2009 constantly add made-up recording dates to infoboxes. Like that "recorded" field, I don't think a "genre" field is universally applicable to articles (the info isn't always available), but most of the time there are concrete characterizations of an album by a critic such as "this is a [genre] album", so I wouldn't be in support of removing it. And those characterizations, which should ideally be from professional critiques, don't often fall in line with those superficial generalizations made by stores like iTunes. Isnt specificity preferable when it's available (like if a writer uses "hard bop" instead of "jazz", the latter offering nothing most readers couldn't assume on their own)? Dan56 (talk) 08:54, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Thank you all for your input! I just want to remind that this 'is not a debate about removing items from the infobox, but finding other ways to fix them. I have seen vandalism towards dates, but not nearly as often as genre (we don't call them genre-warriors for nothing), but I still am curious to what others think about the secondary idea of changing it to be something that's a lot less controversial. Yes I know saying "Miles Davis plays jazz" is obvious to some, but in all honesty I've seen people who don't really know the difference between blues or jazz. It couldn't hurt. :) Andrzejbanas (talk) 12:49, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

As people seem to be leaning towards moving genre towards a list of acceptable terms, I's suggest following something like what [**I don't think people would follow rules of how many genres in an infobox should be there as much as they would. The infobox is supposed to give a general idea. I'd lean it towards just narrowing down genres to what you'd find in a music store. Which would make it to about 11 or 12 I'd assume. Allmusic has a list that I think we could somewhat base ours 

Allmusic] has listed for genre.
  • Avant-Garde
  • Blues
  • Children's
  • Classical
  • Comedy
  • Country
  • Easy Listening
  • Electronic
  • Folk
  • Gospel
  • Hip hop
  • Jazz
  • Latin
  • Metal
  • New Age
  • Pop
  • Rock
  • Reggae
  • Vocal

That limits down to about 19 kind of things and would probably stop edit wars. I think per WP:TECHNICAL, this will help us "Strive to make each part of every article as understandable as possible to the widest audience of readers who are likely to be interested in that material." Everyone likes music, but might not understand the difference between hardcore hip hop and gangsta rap or reggae and reggaeton, etc.Andrzejbanas (talk) 15:53, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

  • I strongly oppose both (1) limiting genre to a predefined list, and (2) relying on Allmusic for such a list. The proposed predefined list skews completely toward Western music, though the above list also excludes, for example, Bill Monroe. As I've explained in previous discussions (at Template talk:Infobox musical artist and its archive), this strategy is going to lead to a long tail category such as "world" or "other", containing such disparate musicians as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Tartit, Mercedes Sosa and Alemu Aga – or they can all just go under "folk" with Bill Monroe. I think we'd agree that in such circumstances, the genre field would be completely useless. As for relying on Allmusic, as I've previously said: I've found that AllMusic's genres/categorization is, to put it kindly, sometimes unhelpful (at least with regard to jazz styles). It has (in the past) led to articles and categories here on Wikipedia about genres/styles that do not exist outside of AllMusic's data sorting methods (for those further interested, see archived discussion, or an even older comment from 2007). I'd rather see the "genre" field deleted from the infobox rather than restrict it to a pre-defined list (but that's also like saying that I'd prefer going to Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve rather than sticking my hand in a fire). I agree that genre warring is a problem, but we do have tools to deal with it, namely WP:3RR and WP:V. Anything in the infobox ought to be mentioned within the article's text, which should be corroborated with a source in the first place. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:26, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Left notices about this discussion at Template talk:Infobox musical artist and WT:JAZZ. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:32, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
    • Hello Gyrofrog (talk · contribs), I was not saying to use Allmusic, I was just using it as an example. This was just a suggestion as I want to encourage conversation about it as I think genre needs to be dealt with. I think both my ideas are better than what we have now. So umm, maybe you could retract the thing about allmusic? It was just an example. The 3RR and V rules are great but it doesn't stop from me coming back to do real work on an article and finding myself most of the time reverting people adding genres to an infobox because "it's obvious, just listen" or "i know a lot about it". If you don't want to use "World" music, I understand you completely but using terms like "Qawwali" in the infobox doesn't help the average english speaking user. Khan is Qawwali! Don't get me wrong. :) But for someone totally unfamiliar with his music they would just say "huh?" and have to read about in prose anyways. In fact, on his page it's not even explained so listing a term like Qawwali doesn't really help anyone understand what his music is like. Andrzejbanas (talk) 16:48, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
I don't really want to retract my statement because it remains a concern. If we pre-define the genre list, on what will we base it? And, regardless of source, how do we deal with the long tail? What do all these musicians have in common other than "Genre: World," and how does labeling them as such help the reader? -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:53, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
I gave an example base list on people who werent' genre experts could generally agree upon and find easy sources. The MOS:INFOBOX states that infoxes are "to summarize key facts in the article in which it appears. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance". It is basically there for a quick summary of what to expect what you are getting into. So along with WP:TECHNICAL,("Strive to make each part of every article as understandable as possible to the widest audience of readers who are likely to be interested in that material.") it should be as bare-bones as possible. Which currently it is not and even in quality articles, this not being applied and would be very hard to enforce. That's why I made a suggestion of the above genres, Yes, Miles Davis sounds different than Kenny G. Those genres were just suggestions, not a set in stone thing. I'm not planning on using Allmusic as a base, it was just something sort of what they have. Anyways, if you do not like my idea, do you have an idea on how to fix it so it matches up to the rules we should be following above? Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:06, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
In this discussion and the previous one, I used the term "umbrella genres" and advocated for solely their use in infobox and implementing a way to force only these genres, but I don't think I ever elaborated on what I meant by this because I don't feel that it's too "Western" of a view at all. What I had in mind for selecting which genres should be allowed (at least as an initial jumping-off point) was looking for genres that have their own template that list many subgenres, like Template:Heavy metal music or Template:Jazz. You seem to have some opposition because this would lump Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan into some "other" category, however I notice that two of the genres listed on that artist's page can be found on Template:Hindustani Classical Music page end. Would you still oppose limiting the genre field if it allowed "Hindustani Classical Music" as one of the pre-determined umbrella genres in the infobox field? Fezmar9 (talk) 17:35, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
That's just one genre, from one example. It does raise the issue of how, when and why is such a list modified, and by whom? Wouldn't this simply migrate the edit warring to the template itself? This brings us back to the WP:3RR policy already in place, though it would centralize any edit warring to the template. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:15, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi Gyrofrog (talk · contribs). I don't think edit warring on the genre for infobox would be a problem if there was a set list. I imagine it would be locked (like most infobox items are) and it can be brought to a talk page to see when we add/remove things. Just like we do what we are doing now.Andrzejbanas (talk) 20:50, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
I was picturing consensus being used to determine what a set list of genres would be, and as I said above, this could at least initially be based on genres with their own currently existing template, which shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to compile. As Andrzejbanas said, the template should be locked from editing (or at least could be if it's not already and problems arise) so this really shouldn't be an issue. If a list is implemented and an editor raises an objection or wants an addition to the set list of genres, this could be done through achieving consensus. Fezmar9 (talk) 03:34, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Strongly support removing genres from infoboxes. The issue is so subjective that it cannot be stated plainly in many (most) cases. The genre warrior argument is not the main point of my reasoning here: though they are annoying, some of them also target the article body, so taking this out of the infobox will not stop all of them. What will happen, though, is that the genre(s) of the song/album/band/artist can be discussed in all their complexity using prose instead of a plain list devoid of context. Binksternet (talk) 16:43, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
    • Hey guys! This isn't a vote yet! It's just to get opinions options to take before we actually make a formal poll. :S Andrzejbanas (talk) 16:48, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Left notice about this discussion at WT:MUSICIAN. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:03, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
  • And at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs.--Richhoncho (talk) 17:10, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

I oppose (all strengthening qualifiers being redundant) the removal of genres from infoboxes. We don't do such disservice to our readers, just to make life easier for us as editors. I also oppose suggestion to limit genre to a pre-defined list, particularly one with such an Anglo-centric bias. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:43, 22 January 2014 (UTC) Plese note that this is not a poll. So we are not voting for approval or disapproval. I would like views on why we do or do not like these suggested changes and what we can do to improve it.

Currently, This issue has been brought up:

  • Per [MOS:INFOBOX]], infoboxes are "to summarize key facts in the article in which it appears. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance".
  • Per WP:TECHNICAL, "Strive to make each part of every article as understandable as possible to the widest audience of readers who are likely to be interested in that material."

Both of these are not standard in the infobox. The average user who is trying to read about Skrillex might not know what "Dubstep" and "electro house" is in comparison to other forms of electronic music.

Please note that list of genres I made was an example, and not anything set in stone. I am welcome to other suggestions, as the current standard we have I believe is not acceptable. Andrzejbanas (talk) 20:50, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

I'd understand your concerns if we had genre without wiki-links in there, but in my experience the genre are almost always linked. So, using your example above, it seems like if anyone, who didn't know what "dubstep" was, they would just go click on "dub step" and find out there. That's always how I've done it, even well before I was any sort of experienced editor. Sergecross73 msg me 21:42, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Hello. I understand that but as the infobox is supposed to summarize information that is already in the article, all artits/groups/albums/singles should have an explanation of the groups/sound. You shouldn't have to leave a musicians article to figure out what their kind of music is about and have to thumb through information about the genre's history, reception, etc. Andrzejbanas (talk) 11:29, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
I don't see why this is a problem. By comparison, I would not expect to read about the history and development of the guitar in an article about Jimi Hendrix. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:14, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Support removing genre from infobox: It is often difficult to find reliable sources that simply identify the genre. I have edited and researched many song articles and it is not typical to find references that conclusively nail down a genre (at least the ones I work with). Some writers and critics use phrases such as "soulful vocals", "country-flavored steel guitar", "bluesy riff", etc. without actually saying "this is a hard rock song that has bluesy guitar riffs", etc. In the absence of something definitive, some editors have gone to great lengths to argue that descriptions such as these support that the song's genre is soul, country, blues, etc. when it is clearly not the case. Since the bottom line is verifiability, i.e., in print somewhere, without that magic bullet, you may be stuck in the awkward position of having nothing else to use. Genre(s) should be discussed in the body of the article, with appropriate references. For classification purposes, identifying a song with an artist is a more useful indicator of its overall style. —Ojorojo (talk) 18:49, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Strong support for removing genre from the infobox. If for no other reason than its hands-down the most efficient time-waster I have ever encountered in four years of editing Wikipedia. It leads to content disputes about the quality of sources, semantical arguments about what the source really means, and some very subjective choices that end up at !votes. Its not enough that Unapologetic won three Billboard awards in R&B to add R&B to the infobox; you need to find a source that explicitly says "this album is XXX genre", which can take a lot of time, since writers do not typically categorize everything they write about in a neat little genres. Some users have taken it as a personal crusade to dominate and control additions and/or removals. This is the single biggest waste of time there is regarding music articles. Leave this for the article body, and remove it from the infobox so that hard-working editors can spend more time actually improving articles, versus splitting hairs about what a source is saying regarding genres. Really, is there a WP:RS that explicitly says that all four Beatles were male? Because I'm not aware of proper sourcing in the McCartney article for his gender. That's about how ridiculous this mess has gotten. Its not worth the effort, because the readers gain little from the tag anyway, IMO. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 18:44, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose removing: Genres are helpful, useful, and merit inclusion to the infobox as a basic element to a song or album. However, I have noticed that a lot music these days is labeled "alternative." It is true that music tends to build off of its predecessors, but what exactly is "alternative"? If we remove the genre from the infobox, then it will just move the edit wars to the category pages. And once that happens, then we will be having this same discussion over the categories. So, what you are debating, really...? Omitting genre information entirely? I do not support Wikipedia censoring material. (Tigerghost (talk) 15:10, 10 February 2014 (UTC))
I'm not sure where you got the idea that we are censoring it. I'm saying that this material is objective (which it is) and that objective material is better explained in prose than in vague point form in the infobox. Do you agree with that? Andrzejbanas (talk) 15:12, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose removing genre from infobox. It's very helpful for the reader to be able to see at a glance a few key points about the subject of an article -- that's what infoboxes are for -- and genre is a key point. As far as the idea of the music infoboxes being set to display only a limited number of genres, whether that's 19 or somewhat more than that, I'd be open to further discussion myself. — Mudwater (Talk) 17:15, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposed compromise

Perhaps a compromise, that would satisfy the "must be understandable" concerns, could be that the genre must be the subject of a linked Wikipedia article (allowing or not, to be determined, named subsections of articles)? After all, if the named genre is notable enough to have an article, it should be notable enough for use in an infobox; and we have a robust AfD process for neologisms or invented terms. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:53, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

This is a very good proposal, although I would have hoped that not using a red link went without saying. I'm not sure if there's a technical way to enforce blue links (if not then I sincerely hope this would go in the template documentation). -- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:13, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
It's possible, I'm sure, to use Lua to throw a very visible warning, and tracking category, if the contents of the parameter are either not linked or are red linked. Less so to detect links like [[valid genre|made up genre]]. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:24, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't support complete removal. Limiting the genre field to a fixed set of values would help in some cases, but to be comprehensive we would still need the list of allowed values to be significantly longer than the Allmusic list above (e.g. Highlife and dozens more African genres, Calypso, Chutney, Ska, Rocksteady, Klezmer), and I wonder whether we would just get the same edit-warring within the allowed genres. If we could come up with a sensible limited list that covers all forms of music it might be worth giving it a try. --Michig (talk) 07:21, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
So, how vague are these "pre-set" genres going to be? (Rock --> Alternative --> Post-grunge), and how will this affect fusion genres or crossovers? Also, how this might just move the edit wars to the category pages has not been brought up. I'm liking the idea of a set amount of genres, but where do we cap the genre list? (Tigerghost (talk) 09:49, 17 February 2014 (UTC))
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