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Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Moonriddengirl (talk | contribs) at 20:59, 2 March 2012 (→‎More style suggestions: this has become really, really hard to find!). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

WikiProject Albums
ShortcutsWP:ALBUM, WP:ALBUMS
CategoriesWikiProject Albums, Albums
Portal Music
Wikimedia CommonsCommons:Category:Music albums Music albums
Parent
project(s)
Music
Project banner template{{WikiProject Albums}}
Userbox{{User WikiProject Albums}}
AssessmentWikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Assessment

WikiProject Albums is an organization of Wikipedians dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of all kinds of musical albums. We seek ways of simplifying album pages so users can get the basic information fast, creating high-quality new pages, ensuring a standardized format and make articles as informative as possible.

Feel free to ask questions on the talk page. Below is a basic guide to writing an article on a specific album of music; this is only a guide and you should feel free to personalize an article as you see fit, though others may change it to fit our standards.

Departments

Project templates

Participate

Everyone is welcome to join the project and contribute. Lists of members can be found in Category:WikiProject Albums members and this list.

To join the project, please add this userbox by adding {{User WikiProject Albums}} to your user page. You will automatically be added to the members category.

Welcome new member

If you'd like to welcome new users with a message that is tailored to the project, please use the code {{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Welcome}} which will leave this message on their talk page.

Album articles

When you create or find a new album article, please use the {{WikiProject Albums}} template to include the article in the scope of this project by adding at the top of the talk page:

{{WikiProject Albums
| class = 
| importance = 
| attention = 
| needs-infobox = 
}}
{{WikiProject Albums |class= |importance= |attention= |needs-infobox= }}

Either form is acceptable.

The parameters are used as follows:

  • The parameter class adds the article to categories based on its quality assessment. Use ratings stub, start, C, B, GA or FA according to the quality scale. If you are unsure about which rating applies, please leave the parameter without a value.
  • For importance, refer to this scale. If you are unsure about which rating applies please leave the parameter without a value.
  • If the page does not have an infobox, set needs-infobox to yes. Otherwise remove this parameter.
  • If the page needs immediate attention, set it to yes. Otherwise remove this parameter.

Barnstar

To recognize a fellow editor for his or her work on album articles, feel free to use the Project's barnstar. Add the following code to his or her talk page. Type your own personal message in place of "message".

{{subst:WikiProject Albums Barnstar|message ~~~~}}

The WikiProject Albums Barnstar
{{{1}}}

Notability

While members of this project like to see new articles about albums, not all albums should have articles at Wikipedia. Many consider any original studio album by a notable artist to be important enough to deserve an article; other editors follow stricter guidelines. See the following policies and policy proposals:

Style

Naming

The article name should be the title of the album, disambiguated if necessary. Do not pre-emptively disambiguate! When there is no other encyclopedic use of the album title, the article should reside at the normal name, e.g. London Calling, not London Calling (album). In cases where disambiguation is needed, the term (EP) should be used for EPs, (video) for video albums and (album) for other albums, e.g. Insomniac (album) and Gas Food Lodging (EP). For multiple albums with the same title, use the artist name to distinguish the different albums, e.g. Down to Earth (Rainbow album) and Down to Earth (Ozzy Osbourne album); though if there is a primary album, such as Thriller (album), then that would get the primary (album) disambiguation, and only the secondary albums, Thriller (Eddie and the Hot Rods album), Thriller (Lambchop album) need be disambiguated by band. For artists who release multiple albums with the same name, disambiguate by year, e.g. Weezer (1994 album) and Weezer (2001 album) (unless the albums were released the same year, in which case they can be disambiguated by some commonly accepted convention).

For split albums of which there is no single official title, use the two artist names separated with two spaces and a forward slash, such as Isis / Pig Destroyer. The artist that is on the A-side (or whose tracks come first on a CD) should be placed first in the article name. If two bands release more than one split together and occupy the same sides on each release, disambiguate normally by year, adding, for example, (2000 album). If the split has two titles, one per side, use the same forward-slash formatting, such as Jihad / Freezing Moon.

If the album title uses the Latin alphabet, the article name should be at that title. Translations of titles in languages other than English should not be used as titles unless such a translation is commonly used as a title for the album in the English-speaking world. For example, Født til å Herske, not Born to Rule, Swanesang, not Swan Song, but Chant, not Canto (because the album was marketed as "Chant" in most English-speaking countries).

If the album title does not use the Latin alphabet, the article name should be the transliterated form of the title using Latin characters. For example, Vrisko To Logo Na Zo, not Βρίσκω Το Λόγο Να Ζω (the name written in the Greek alphabet) or I Find the Reason to Live (the name translated from Greek into English), and Boku no Miteiru Fūkei, not 僕の見ている風景 or The Scenery I'm Looking At, but Common Jasmin Orange, not Qi li xiang, 七里香, or Seven Mile Fragrance (because the English name "Common Jasmin Orange" appears on the album cover along with the Chinese name). The original language title should appear in parentheses (brackets) in the opening line of the article following the transliteration.

See also: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English).

Formatting

Songs and singles are placed in "quotation marks", album titles are italicized and artists are left alone, with punctuation outside quotation marks, for example,

The Beatles' songs "Taxman", "Eleanor Rigby" and "Love You To" are from their album Revolver.

Links should only be created to song articles that don't exist if you believe that the song most certainly deserves an article.

Capitalization

For fuller information on this topic, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capitalization#Composition titles. See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music)#Capitalization.

In titles of songs, albums, and band names in the English language, the Wikipedia standard is to capitalize:

  1. The first word and last word in the title.
  2. All other words except for:

Note that short verbs (Is, Are, Be, Do) and pronouns (Me, It, His) are capitalized.

In titles of songs or albums in a language other than English, the project standard is to use the capitalization utilized by that language, not the English capitalization. If you are unsure about the capitalization standards of other languages, check with a reliable third-party source, foreign-language Wikipedias or the appropriate WikiProject and language Manual of Style.

Dating

Please try to add the year in parentheses after mentioning an album for the first time in an article or paragraph (unless the year is contained within the sentence) as in: "Nirvana's next album was the breakthrough classic Nevermind (1991)". Do not use piped links to "years in music" e.g. [[1991 in music|1991]], instead add 1991 in music to the "See also" section if you feel it is appropriate.

Do not describe uncertain dates by using the season name, e.g. "released in winter, 1995". This can be ambiguous as northern and southern-hemisphere seasons occur at opposite times of the year. Instead, use the most accurate date possible, such as "February 1995" or "early 1995", if a more precise date cannot be verified.

The date an album was leaked onto the Internet is not notable unless it results in some other action that is notable, such as being directly responded to by the musical artist or their management, or the leak itself receiving broad media coverage. Do not add leak dates to articles unless a notable consequence of the leak can be properly sourced to the same regular, reliable media sources that would be expected for any other content in the album's article. A website which announces album leaks but contains no other content, such as diditleak.co.uk, is not an appropriate source under the requirements of WP:RS.

When linking genres and other terms in the article, be sure it points to the appropriate music-related article and not a disambiguation page. For example, rock should point to rock music and not rock; alternative should point to alternative rock and not alternative, a disambiguation page. Use piped links if necessary. Other terms to look out for are: pop music, band (musical ensemble), LP (gramophone record) and several more.

Linking to source material

Albums streamed on a licensed website (such as Radio3Net) or hosted on an official website, such as an official Myspace page or a band's or record company's own website, may have a link placed in the External links section according to Wikipedia guidelines. There should be a note regarding the media used ("Adobe Flash"), and that it may not be available in all regions ("streamed copy where licensed"). Care should be taken that the site is hosting the music legally; that it does not meet any of the criteria for links to be avoided; that, as a minimum, the site is accessible by the main English regions North America, UK and Australia; and that the link is formatted appropriately. Suggested formats are:

It is recommended that "<!-- This is a licensed stream for the album, which is allowed under Wikipedia polices -->" is placed beside the link, and that a comment is made in the edit summary such as "External links: [[WP:ELYES]]#2; [[WP:MUSICSTREAM]]"

More style suggestions

Discography

There are no explicit guidelines on how to incorporate an album article in a discography. Of course, there are several ways how it can be done. In all cases, please keep the following hints in mind:

  • sort the albums, e.g. ascending by date (since a discography is in some sense a chronology),
  • if you use tables, use wikicode, to make the list easier to maintain.

A simple way to list albums could be:

  • first album (year of release)
  • second album (year of release)

Note that album titles should be in italics and only albums, not release years, should be linked.

A different way using a table could be:

Title Release date Notes Label
Firstname 1999-01-01 first studio album Label name
Secondname 2000-01-01 another note Label name

Most album covers are non-free images, and are not permitted in discographies (or any other gallery or list). See Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria #8 and Wikipedia:Non-free content#Acceptable_images for clarification of this policy.

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Are you looking for Project-related work to do? Here is a list of work that may need to be done:

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  • 22 Sep 2024Fire (Kittie album) (talk · edit · hist) nominated for GA reassessment by Chchcheckit (t · c) was closed; see discussion

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External watchlist