Talk:Eco-Song

Notability template?

An editor, User:Richard3120, added the {{notability}} tag, which basically says "this article needs more/better refs, and these not forthcoming should probably (not definitely) be deleted for lack of notability". It's a reasonable point but I don't agree, so I reverted the edit per WP:BRD and let's talk about it. User:Richard3120 added a note on my talk page which I'll move here for greater visibiity:

Hi – I see you reverted the redirect on this album with the edit summary "it's s Donovan album, which is sufficient for the article to exist". Actually, according to WP:NALBUMS, it's not: "That an album is an officially released recording by a notable musician or ensemble is not by itself reason for a standalone article". I still don't believe this album passes WP:NALBUMS – I can only find two promotional interviews with Donovan in The Guardian/The Irish Times (it's the same interview) and in Clash, in which the album is barely mentioned and says nothing more than the couple of sentences in the lead. There don't seem to be any reviews of the record anywhere, and nothing else to add to the prose. Richard3120 (talk) 23:47, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

The editor is correct about the album not meeting WP:NALBUMS and therefore not meeting the WP:GNG, which is widely (and often appropriately) used as guideline for deleting articles. Furthermore, I couldn't find any further very useful refs (I found a couple trivial ones) and I'm pretty confident that none exist, or are likely to ever exist (altho you never know). Furthermore, WP:NALBUMS, unlike some special-subject notability rules (such as WP:NBASEBALL and so on doesn't provided a less stringent rubric than the GNG, if anything it's more stringent. It's a reasonable point, but I have a number of counter-points that are even more telling, I think:

1. While the WP:GNG is commonly (and appropriately) used in arguments about stand-alone articles (this musician, that artwork, whatever), it's not much used against articles on individual members of a set of entities where articles exist for other members of the set. The set of major league baseball players, or species, or chemical compounds, or populated places, or buildings on the American National Register of Historic Places, or secondary schools, etc... this sets contain many articles that meet the GNG, and many that don't; nevertheless, the set is kept together for the quite good reason of not wanting random holes in the set determined largely by chance (some get noticed and nominated and lose the deletion argument, some don't).
2. For albums this is particularly important as the album infobox includes a previous-next structure for browsing, and it's jarring and frustrating to come to to a blacklinked dead end in the middle of browsing an artist's discography.
3. For major artists, it's a de facto standard that all of their studio albums have articles. Donovan is a major artist (many hits, very famous) and indeed all of his studio albums but one have articles, even those that are slimmer than this article (The Sensual Donovan, Shadows of Blue). Only a few of his compilation albums have articles (this is typical), but after all this album is not another K-Tel greatest-hits album but a theme album with tracks hand-picked by the artist himself and intended to deliver a specific message and to serve as the soundtrack for a musical (which to be fair will probably never be produced). So if there are going to be any Donovan compilation albums you'd think this would be included
4. A lot of album articles meet don't meet the GNG and are worse in that respect than this one, being just bare vital stats and a track list. People like to write articles about albums and readers like to look at them, and nothing is likely to change that. People vote with their feet that they want these articles, and you can't stop the river from flowing. You can try if it's a real problem; music album articles aren't a problem. If you want to make a general effort with community-wide participation to delete these many thousands of articles; do that (and good luck with that), but picking out occasional rando articles... not good.
5. And I mean WP:GNG is a guideline and an important and useful one, but it's not a policy. WP:IAR ("If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it"; see also WP:1Q) is a policy as is WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY ("Although some rules may be enforced, the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice. Rather, they document already existing community consensus...") The last point is important: rules are mostly supposed to just describe and codify what people already do, not to create a new rubric based on a discussion among seven people or whatever. NALBUMS doesn't do this.
6. Besides which, I don't know when WP:NALBUMS was written, but in 2008 at any rate it said

   In general, if the musician or ensemble that recorded an album is considered notable, then officially released albums may have sufficient notability to have individual articles on Wikipedia. Demos, mixtapes, bootlegs, promo-only, and unreleased albums are in general not notable; however, they may be notable if they have significant independent coverage in reliable sources. Album articles with little more than a track listing may be more appropriately merged into the artist's main article or discography article, space permitting.

Which is different than what it says now (and this album is more than a track listing, and isn't a demo or mixtape etc.). Somebody changed it since, but so? Herostratus (talk) 22:53, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi Herostratus, thanks for trying to improve the article. I'm certainly not trying to start an argument here (I'm sure we both have had enough of those to contend with during our time here as editors). But you raise some points which are worthy of wider discussion – do you think it is worth moving or copying your arguments to the talk age at WP:ALBUMS to get other editors' opinions? I think one of the objections against points 3 and 4 would be WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS and that if an article is little more than a track listing, it's not worth having as it doesn't really tell you anything more than what you could learn by looking at a copy of the album itself, and Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a database of every album in existence. But as I say, perhaps others would like to give their thoughts on this. Richard3120 (talk) 23:49, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

No, right, not argument. It's largely a matter of personal opinion really. I just like to be prolix and go on at length about stuff that isn't really all that important sometimes; it doesn't mean I'm upset or anything. Sure let's copy it there. Herostratus (talk) 01:40, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

So... I mean, how do you handle artists like Donovan? I'll posit that basically we have three types of artists.

1. Really notable artists who are remain notable throughout their career. If U2 or Madonna or Eminem puts out a new album, it's going to have an article. (With virtual certainly, there will be enough material to meet the GNG anyway).
2. Artists who aren't very notable, or groundbreaking. They might have album articles, if any, only for a few albums. Their only really good album, or only reasonably-big seller, or like that. (Unless, as is common enough I guess, an enthusiast goes to work on on their catalog.)
3. Donovans. Artists who were very notable but kept putting out albums after people stopped caring -- nobody cares about them anymore, their shows if any are nostagia acts, nobody buys or listens to or reviews their new albums. Articles about these albums probably aren't going to have a whole lot to say.

So what do you do with the Donovans? Sunshine Superman was album where a lot of people cared about every detail. Shadows of Blue, not so much. How much does the glow of his fame illuminate even his lesser works? I mean, Thomas Wolfe is going to get articles about all his books, including the sucky nothingburgers that nobody reads or cares about or even much reviewed, because he's Thomas Wolfe. He's somebody that tweed-jacketed professors are going to teach you about in college. Donovan's not. Does it matter? It might.

Let's see...

• Donovan has articles for all his albums but one, and some of his compilation and live albums.
• The Hollies have over a score of albums, and kept cranking them out... but the last four don't have articles.
• Alice Cooper is till cranking 'em out. All his albums have articles.
• Steppenwolf put out albums til 1990. They all have articles.
• Mungo Jerry was real big in the UK and beyond (not in America tho). There last album was in 2012; only the first two of their many albums have articles.
• Little Feat put albums thru 2012. All their albums have articles (the last one actually has a review, but the ones before that are barebones).
• Focus is still making albums. They all have articles.
• Peter, Paul, & Mary's last couple-few albums do not have articles.
• The Kinks released until 1993. All of their albums have articles.
• The Pretty Things are still releasing albums. All have articles. (You could make a case that they were never very popular and so had nothing to fall off from; I dunno. They didn't sell, but everyone knew who they were.)

So, I don't know. Some observations, looking at a sample of album articles:

1. Which albums have articles seems a bit random. No editor(s) cared to do the Mungo Jerry discography; doesn't mean that they're any more or less notable/popular than Focus or whatever. It's just chance, or the fact the Mungo Jerry is pretty lightweight. Somebody eventually might come along and fill out their discography.
2. A lot of albums are barebones, as barebones as Eco-Song or even moreso -- track listings, infobox, couple-few bland sentences about what number it is in their catalog, when/where it was recorded, maybe a tiny bit else ("first album after Pinckney Pruddle quit the band" or whatever). I mean, this is common. If it's a problem (I don't think it it, but I'm wrong often enough), it's a largescale problem.
3. Small sample, but it seems like in a lot of the album articles that are juicy -- several paragraphs with background info and all that -- the refs for a lot this extensive material are just missing, mostly. Herostratus (talk) 02:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)