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[edit] New {{Song}} template

I understand the purpose of the new edit to SONG, but this only works when the song has only one song template. See America:A Horse With No Name. We need to implement the multiple album Song template somehow. I'm thinking having a parameter "multiple = " where we could hard code the rest of the album links. For example:

{{Song|Album1 (Year)|Artist|multiple = [[Artist:Album2 (Year)|Album2 (Year)]], [[Artist:Album3 (Year)|Album3 (Year)]], and [[Artist:Album4 (Year)|Album4 (Year)]]

which produces:

This song is performed by Artist and appears on the album Artist:Album1 (Year), Album2 (Year), Album3 (Year), and Album4 (Year).

This might be a quick fix. Comments? --WillMak050389 17:47, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Something more is needed yes. There has already been some discussions about this here >>> Template_talk:Song. I'm still hoping that a change will also be made so that the the star doesn't appear in the middle of the sentence either.  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 18:32, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Red, where is it in the middle of a sentence? PS I changed the horse song because its appearance (both before and after the {{Song}} change) made me want to vomit. --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 19:14, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

On the {{Song}} template. I haven't encountered this problem as yet, but looking at the examples I am expecting that it will present a problem with long artist names/album titles/featured artists. (Horse page looks much better now btw.)  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 19:29, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

No problem with long song names? Bomb The Music Industry!:"FRRRREEEEE BIIIIIIIRRRRD!!!!!! FRRRRREEEEEEEEE BIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRDDDDD!!!!!!!" or try Pink Floyd:Several Species ;) ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) 19:40, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I thought of that already, Red. See my edit documentation here: User:Team a/Sandbox/Star On Song Page. As for multiple album integration, I'm totally for it. Keep in mind that there are going to be 2 necessary parameters for each additional album (|Artist2=|Album2=|Artist3=|Album3=), although for releases by the original artist, the first of these new parameters would be unnecessary, and the template could connect the dots. However, we have to think about re-releases of a song on compilations, soundtracks, etc. ♠team a ‹_talk•ctrb› 19:51, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

lol@Echo. Excellent team a! I hadn't seen that page before. I trust you can see why I was concerned about long album titles, artist names and multiple entries of featured artists though, looking at the placement of the star on the {{Song}} page. As for the multiple releases - like I told Will, that discussion has already commenced on the Template_talk:Song page, so if anyone wants to comment further on that subject it's probably best they do it there.  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 20:39, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Just as a note: keep in mind that we do create separate pages for the same song by different artists (covers have separate pages from originals). Therefore, a song page is specific to one artist. You would not need to enter "artist" parameter any more than once.

The "type" parameter, however, would need to be specific for each album, and obviously album needs to be specific each time. Therefore, the amount of parameters grows by N or worst-case 2N (N = number of albums). Whereas, the hard coded parameter that I suggested above only has the parameters grow by 1. Therefore, we can have an infinite number of albums with one more parameter, but we will need at worst 2N more parameters to be able to display N albums if we implement the "|album2 = " etc. --WillMak050389 22:21, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple Stars

This is what I meant about star >>>Alanis Morissette:Wunderkind  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 00:58, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

On my screen it looks the way it (presumably) should, with the line wrapping well before the star. Adding a black star by default has an unintended side effect if more than one song template is present, though. -- 6x9 (Talk) 01:14, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Meaning that, like me, you get 2 stars for the price of 1? Yes this was mentioned I think by Will. This is the problem I was trying to describe earlier >>>  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 01:30, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but you copied the star=Green parameter to both. However, 6x9's post made me realize what is really wrong here with multiple albums, something I never even considered. This will be fixed with adding multiple albums to the song template, but it looks like I need to help contribute to that to fix my error. Sorry! ♠team a ‹_talk•ctrb› 01:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Silly me! Yes I did. So I deleted it....and now I've got a nice black one! (hee hee)  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 02:07, 25 November 2008 (UTC) P.S. What about my star problem? (see screenshot above)

What *is* the problem, other than there being two stars? The screenshot looks fine to me. -- 6x9 (Talk) 02:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that the album name isn't The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Or is that not what you see?  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 13:49, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

It is what I see, but I don't see it as a problem. I actually prefer it to the previous version, where the star took up too much space. -- 6x9 (Talk) 18:11, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I ain't never gonna talk to you again 6x9!  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 13:47, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Each page should have only one star, and it's only been bundled with {{Song}} for convenience. Man, I can't believe I didn't think this through - it was put through because I only made very basic changes, and the change in calling the Star template is exactly the same as what works for {{Album}} and {{ArtistHeader}}. There are two options to fix this: make the Song template not set a Black star automatically, or add a |star=None option, and use a bot to add it to every song template on a page except the first one with a bot (a pretty easy regex). Of course, whatever comes of the talk page discussion will also fix it. ♠team a ‹_talk•ctrb› 02:49, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The third choice is to eliminate all instances of 2+ {{Song}}'s... ;-) --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 09:57, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that would certainly seem to be the best solution Aqua. Because if I understand you correctly, what you are saying is wait until the new multiple album template comes into force, since this will replace any instances of 2+ {{Song}}'s... and in the doing resolve the problem...  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 14:02, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Yup, that's what I'm saying. Alternately, do we want to modify Song to have multiple albums, or do we want to have some new template, perhaps {{Additional Albums}}? --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 03:27, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] {{Additional Albums}}

Personally, I think separate (hideable) template would be best, than a long line of "...and appears on this album, etc.">  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 13:40, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Me too. Something like "This song also appears on...", below the lyrics. Everything above the lyrics should be kept to the bare necessary minimum. Now waiting to see how long "never" is for Red... ;-) -- 6x9 (Talk) 22:41, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, I made this mess so let me get my facts straight and I'll help fix it. I am going to make a template {{Additional Albums}} which will make a pop-open row, and takes {{{1}}} as the artist and then album2= thru album99=. album3 and onward will be optional, and there will be an extra parameter (2type, 3 type, 4type...) where we can optionally detail single, compilation or soundtrack. 'Sound 'bout right? --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 03:21, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Artist parameter should be optional as well; in 99% of all cases it will be the same as for the song anyway. -- 6x9 (Talk) 03:45, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but this is a separate temple from {{Song}}, so artist will have to be respecified. It would be just once for all albums, not for each single album. --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 05:37, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I've created {{Additional Albums}} and tested it out on the ultimate: America:A Horse With No Name. --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 18:47, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I like it, except for the "on on" bit ;-) 6x9 (Talk) 19:04, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that was dorky looking.  ;-( --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 19:09, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The additional albums may not always be "albums". They may be "singles" , "soundtracks" or "compilations" (or EP's). By the same token the additional albums may not always have been released by the song's artist. They may various artists, or included on another artist's album. As such these parameters do need to be added to the {{Additional Albums}} template. It would also be good if some wording (like Kiefer suggested on the Song template talk page) was to be added to {{Song}} to indicate that further albums are in fact listed below lyrics.  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 21:55, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Wait a minute. If the album is by another artist, why would it include this song by this artist? Wouldn't that mean it's a compilation/soundtrack album? --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 23:02, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

There are a few instances where the same song (or at least different mixes thereof) appears on different albums by different (though usually related) artists (like band project/solo album). This would be a lot more convincing if I could think of an example... I don't think that really matters, though, because in those cases, there will be separate song pages anyway (artist1:song and artist2:song). Sorry, Red. Hope you'll still talk to me, or at least that "never" doesn't last too long :-) 6x9 (Talk) 23:12, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Two albums in {{Song}} anyway?

Is it possible to still allow a second (no more, though) album parameter in {{Song}}? There are rare cases where a song appears on two "regular" albums, like Little Feat:Willin' or Egg:Boilk (both in different versions on the artist's first two albums). It would be sort of "unfair" to relocate the second appearance to the new template, as though it were on a compilation or live album. -- 6x9 (Talk) 22:10, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes I think this is a good proposal for the reasons you've stated.  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 01:03, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm in favor of this, providing we document on both templates that two albums on {{Song}} is OK, but when you move to three, you've got to take the second album off of Song and put #2 and #3 on {{Additional Albums}}. Sound right? --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 05:45, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Mostly, yes – though I think that should be decided on a case-by-case basis. For the Little Feat song I mentioned I'd prefer to have both regular albums appear in Song and put live albums and compilations in Add. Albums, for the reason I mentioned above. -- 6x9 (Talk) 16:49, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes I agree with 6 x9, the optional one more album parameter to be added to {{Song}} might sometimes need to remain there even if further albums are listed below the lyrics. I think it might also be good idea to add an optional parameter in {{Song}} for secondary artist (which corresponds to secondary album), in case the song appears on another artist's album.  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 21:26, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Optional 'Type' Parameters

Whilst you're doing the multiple album template thingy Aqua..any possibility of making the compilation parameter behave the same as soundtrack parameter does on Song template (i.e. linking to the album name, not artist)?  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 14:17, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

That's why I mentioned it: it would behave just like {{Song}}. --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 14:53, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

No I didn't explain that very well. I am talking about the actual Song template. Compilation parameter doesn't work for linking to various artists compilation albums. As such songs from compilation albums are being incorrectly categorised as soundtracks.  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 16:57, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh. I didn't know about this behavior. You mean when type=compilation, that the {{{album}}} would just point to the plain album name, not [[{{{Artist}}}:{{{Album}}}]], right? --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 17:32, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Exactly right. That is why this parameter isn't used.  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 01:01, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I concur. Shall I just change it? --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 05:43, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Please. I don't know how many pages have actually used this parameter but yes I think it should be changed. Maybe this could be done at same time as adding the 1 more album parameter requested by 6x9 to Song template (see above comment).  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 21:14, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New template: Collaboration

I quickly threw together a new template, {{Collaboration}}, for some instances where the regular {{ArtistHeader}} wouldn't make much sense. Take Brian Eno & David Byrne for example: there are Wikipedia articles for both artists, but AH would only let us link to one. Similarly, Hometown could be where both artists met and/or recorded, but in the case of a far-distance collaboration that wouldn't make sense either, and we'd be doomed to forever look at "Hometown unknown" when opening the page. {{Collaboration}} is basically two simplified ArtistHeaders, with only wikipedia and hometown, but no myspace, officialSite and artist picture, and hometown doesn't add the page to Category:Hometown.
If you have any suggestions or criticisms, please head over to the template's talk page and leave a note. Thanks! -- 6x9 (Talk) 20:32, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:CatAZ

• copied from User talk:6 times 9

Hey, guys, I've set up a new Template:CatAZBySecondLetter, set Template:CatAZ to call it if it gets an argument, and set Category:Artists L to call it with one. What do you reckon? -- Dah31

I reckon it's a brilliant idea! I'd change one thing, though: if {{CatAZ}} is called with an argument ($), it still displays the regular 0-Z, with $0-$z in the next line; since this is to be used where 0-Z is unnecessary, I'd do away with it entirely and only have Top | $0 ... $z displayed. -- 6x9 (Talk) 05:35, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I adjusted both templates – hope you don't mind. {{CatAZ|L}} now looks like this:

Top | L0-L9 LA-LZ La Lb Lc Ld Le Lf Lg Lh Li Lj Lk Ll Lm Ln Lo Lp Lq Lr Ls Lt Lu Lv Lw Lx Ly Lz

...while {{CatAZ}} without argument still works as it did previously:

Top | 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The only downside is that {{CatAZBySecondLetter}}, if called directly, now looks distinctly odd. -- 6x9 (Talk) 20:27, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Changes to {{Song}}

OK, I have been away for about a week, and I came back and Song has been changed, and 'multiple albums' has apparently been implemented. Now, I always worry that I behave like an old fogey when it comes to changes to LW. So to combat that sit back, wait a while and most of the time I come around. However, this new method (as I have mentioned before) gives me the screaming willies. Things are horribly complicated now. Multiple albums, albums found in 2 different places above and below the lyrics, by default hidden from view.
I've read a lot about 'case by case' basis, for where the album goes, either in the upper or lower part. That is a horrible way to make things more automated.
I'd also like to pre-emotively smash the argument of 'just because something is, doesn't mean it can't be changed' with 'just because something is, doesn't mean that it isn't the best way to do things'.
I would say that at this point everybody knows what they think of this thing. I'd say the most diplomatic way would be to put this thing to vote. I'd like to see explicit consensus here, and if that happens, I will go away.
King_Nee1114 (talk page • contributions • deletions) 09:14, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I see your point, that poor beautifully simple template looks overly complicated now. Perhaps it is the best solution; however, if we ignore all the cases where a song is re-released on some compilation, live-in-concert, best-of, tribute-to album, etc then this option probably will not be useful for many songs. I assume that this change has been well thought about and discussed before somewhere, so I don't want to shoot it off right away. But at the moment I am leaning towards templates like featuring artist(s) ... and appears on compilation albums ..., leaving only a few cases to be handled manually (and even then one extra argument will probably do, rather than 6). So for now, pending further arguments from the editors, against. --Mischko (wishing happiness, health and heaps-of-fun for 2009 to all my friends here at LyricWiki!) 13:13, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

PS can you give me any examples where these options are actually used right now?

I'm not even sure what we're voting on. Or we saying we are for or against changes of any kind to the wiki? Everything works as before, only there are more choices. You don't have to give an album a star if you don't want to. If you define a page multiple times using {{Song}}, then yeah, it looks bad, but are we not in agreement that it is stupid to use {{Song}} more than once on a page?
So far, with Kingnee, Echo and Mischko voting against without any clear definition of what they're voting against, it seems just like knee-jerk conservativism. In every organization, there are phases of growth where the whole thing changes style.
I honestly don't know what are we voting on. To make songs more cluttered on the inside ('edit' mode) so they're less cluttered on the outside (plain appearance)? To try to make things more machine readable, even if it's different than how this site was initially laid out? Are you just mad that I created {{Additional Albums}}? Or that {{Song}} has an automatic star? What are you proposing to do or undo? --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 15:13, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I haven't registered a vote because to be honest like Aqua (who posted whilst I was composing my post), I really don't know what we are voting for/against. I really don't. Although {{Song}} was changed on the 24th [1] I can't actually see in what way. It certainly doesn't look to be anything significant.

With regards to multiple releases it was my understanding that Aqua just put together a test template which he implemented on that awful America:Horse With No Name page because it was making us all feel a bit ill. The discussions about this are above for anyone to comment on. It certainly hasn't been implemented.

The real problem would seem to me to be that when people don't comment on changes, you can never be sure if they are simply not interested, they are happy with the progress, or they haven't seen the discussion.  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 15:36, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

P.S.@Mischko in answer to your question: Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Additional_Albums

Someone sent me a link to Illuminate:Leuchtfeuer and was confused about the multiple listings of albums, each with its own star. I agree with his point that the page deserves a star not the song/album pairing (so maybe there is a way to make a template other than {{Song}} which is just "additional album" or something so that the page would say "This song by ARTIST appears on ALBUM & ALBUM & ALBUM ... <some-star-here>". But it is interesting that some repeatedly-published songs such as America:A Horse With No Name look much better with the Additional_Albums template below.

I think the specific changes Kingnee is referring to are the new options on Template:Song which add options for fa, type, and albumartist. I don't think those are particularly necessary, and whenever possible I prefer to keep the templates (and all of our custom markup) as simple as possible. On the other hand, they are much more semantic than just putting "feat. [[Someone]]" on the page. When/if we convert to Semantic MediaWiki, having that data structured will be nice. So I have no strong opinion either way.

So to sum up my thoughts: one star per page seems best. While the new options seems a little unnecessary for normal usage, they do make our data much more interesting and would make the conversion to SMW more straightforward - so I don't really have a problem with them.

-Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 18:42, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Sean, we are currently in a bastard, half-ass state between two worlds. All these "semantic-ifications" that we are doing are completely inane from a the viewpoint of old-school, regular MediaWiki. And yet, they are unborn, precursors to what we will be with Semantic MediaWiki. I think there are some upset admin who can't see what we will become. Our steps towards Web 3.0 are like pushing a baby into the birth canal without giving birth -- extremely painful and neither here nor there! The tensions are running high and we need to either do it or quit, because the in-between is tearing us apart. Some of us are running the imagined software of the future already and some of us are living in the present (a little self-deprecation there). Please install SMW and let growth continue. --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 19:25, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I will clarify, sorry about the confusion. The thing that I am disputing is not extra type stuff but doing away with multiple song templates at the top. I want each album with it's own song template, at the top, just like we have done it before. However, I will make a concession, and say that unless you cannot see the start of the lyrics because there are too many albums listed (Ex, America:A Horse With No Name).

King_Nee1114 (talk page • contributions • deletions) 20:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

EDIT: You say this is a test phase, and very well it is. However changing the song template to force a black star for each one forces the 'plan' that we are moving from having multiple song templates, to only one for any artist page.

(artist or song page? I'm confused again..easy done I know). Anyway thanks KingNee for clarifying that. So just so we are all 100% clear on this, a vote "Against" means a vote against finding an alternative solution to multiple song templates at the top? And a vote "For" means would prefer an alternative solution? And if it's not a silly question, can I ask why you don't think an alternative solution is a good idea? Don't you think it is unnecessary to keep repeating all that wording, that it also looks a bit messy? I'm just trying to understand this is all. If I understood what the problem was...  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 20:35, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Correct. And, no, it's not a silly question. I will give the the short version: With one song template per album infinite lists could be supported, for one. All of the information was unhidden, for another. I like the way that our long-held method worked, I don't think it was messy at all. The phrase 'case-by-case basis' also worries me. That template is way to pervasive to be so complicated. Things should be simple.

King_Nee1114 (talk page • contributions • deletions) 21:24, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you KingNee.  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 21:47, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, things are a bit clearer now. Turns out we're not voting about the current implementation of Song, but about finding alternatives to multiple {{Song}}s. That, of course, I support... even having the same text twice ("This song is performed by ... and appears on .... This song is performed by ... and appears on ...") is very ugly and we should find an alternative. Now I better understand the motives and I must of course agree that the song with the screen-long listing (which is gone, now; it doesn't show any albums at all except the first one -- is that in error?) should be changed. I am still not convinced though, that adding a bunch of album and featuring parameters to the Song template is the solution, so on that matter I am still slightly opposed (slightly, because I don't want to completely burn down something I don't have an alternative to :)). As an aside, I prefer not to be called a "knee-jerk conservatist" (is that even a word? :)) because I am not against any change and I clearly indicated that my vote was with reserve. Hope that clears up things a bit --Mischko (wishing happiness, health and heaps-of-fun for 2009 to all my friends here at LyricWiki!) 09:18, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

PS I doubt that this new statement will raise much opposition; still I hope that KingNee didn't mean that part about going away...

PPS In fact I was not entirely honest, I did propose (a sketchy beginning to) an alternative in my earlier post.

No the horsey page isn't an error Mischko. As I said up there ^^, it was making a lot of us feel a bit ill as it was. If you look underneath the lyrics you will find that all the albums are in fact still listed. It is simply the test page for the scrollable template idea.  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 11:23, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The Horse of many albums looks much healthier than it did before, So King what is the disadvantage in moving away from multiple Song headers as was before? Kiefer's idea sounds pretty good. Can someone please explain how SMW will improve this situation, may be that's something to vote on first? Sorry about my knee jerk reaction earlier, I was just mad at Toyah.. ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) 12:06, 1 December 2008 (UTC) crashed my week long bot run

Ah, I see it now. It is a little hidden now (lol, first is too visible, now it is too invisible -- am I ever happy?). The idea is nice, but I suggest either having the list expanded anyway, or putting the collapsed list right below {{Song}}. In basis, it's a nice idea though! --Mischko (wishing happiness, health and heaps-of-fun for 2009 to all my friends here at LyricWiki!) 16:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I added grey - is that better? --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 16:51, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of such a template being down the bottom either Mischko, because just like you didn't see it first time around, I think other users would miss it too. It is for reasons such as this of course that discussions need to continue.  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 17:21, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

/me Raises White Flag. I concede. I really wanted to make sure that everyone was on the same page, and that there really was consensus. I'll continue to keep an eye on this whole thing (I'd have to, it's a pervasive change :P), but I'll be relatively hands off. I wasn't planning on boycotting LW BTW, I'll still be here, with that I meant "stop impeding progress on this subject". There are plenty of other projects for me to still impede progress :D Also, thank you to SandBot, for the company...

King_Nee1114 (talk page • contributions • deletions) 17:09, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

X << from SandBot (you are her hero)

Let me be sure to not come across as change-for-change's-sake. I want whatever is clear, concise and simple. I am well aware that much of what some of us are doing appears obtuse and convoluted, but I have clear vision and goal in the future that lights all my steps in the meantime: Semantic MediaWiki. I don't want to make a mess, nor make anyone mad in the meantime, however! Things are always darkest before the dawn and always hurt the most just before they are over. --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 18:36, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Semantic! Okay, here's what I think on the current situation, as I've been very busy with the Album Restructuring: I think the list of other appearances should be right below {{Song}}, never at the bottom of the page. I think it'll blend in better at the top with a 1px nearly black border instead of gray background. I think it should only be as wide as {{Song}} is now (putting a margin on the right equal to the actual width that star takes up.) I also think that it's a good idea and a good solution to this problem. ♠team a ‹_talk•ctrb› 18:47, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

EDIT: I also wanted to point out that templates can be used as parameter values, so you can create a template called {{Song2}} that's exactly the same as song but with no star, and use {{Additional Albums}} as a container object with only one parameter, avoiding all the work of renaming all the existing {{Song}}s on a page except changing one letter:

{{Song|America (1972)|America|star=Bronze}}
{{Additional Albums|
{{Song2|Greatest Hits: Best of America (Taiwanese Import) (1975)|America}}<br/>
{{Song2|History: America's Greatest Hits (1975)|America}}<br/>
{{Song2|America Live (1977)|America}}<br/>
{{Song2|America's Gold (1981)|America}}<br/>
{{Song2|Live In Central Park (1981)|America}}<br/>
{{Song2|You Can Do Magic (1998)|America}}<br/>
{{Song2|America In Concert (1985)|America}}
}}

♠team a ‹_talk•ctrb› 18:54, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] For continuing to seek an alternative to multiple song templates

• Redxx
• Aquatiki
• Kiefer (See here for what I had envisioned, which is somewhere between the two.)
• Mischko
• EchoSierra
• - teknomunk (talk,E,歌,A)

[edit] Against

• Kingnee1114lyrics
• SandBot

[edit] The Notorious Album Edit

For those of you who didn't know, I've spent the last 27 days working on a near total redesign of the {{Album}} template. It includes the contributions of Kingnee1114lyrics and 6x9, and the suggestions and comments of many of LW's admins (especially Redxx and 6x9). That process is coming to a close, and I'm going to spend the next week finishing the process. If you have any comments or suggestions (like more edit ideas), now would be a good time.

• For a description of the changes, see the Demonstration page
• To discuss the edit, see Album talk
• Because this edit will affect all types of album page, please give it a try by replacing the name of the template (like "{{Artist" or "{{VariousArtistAlbum") with "{{User:Team a/Album". Leave the parameters, and preview the page. Try it on your favorite albums, or on the strangest albums you've seen.

Thanks to everyone who has helped with this project. As always, suggestions, ideas and criticism are welcome. ♠team a ‹_talk•ctrb› 22:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow! This looks amazing. Well done.

The only problem I've found so far is that it appears that the |star= parameter does not work. I tried the template on Kotoko:Short Circuit II (2007), where |star=Bronze, but it just displays a black star.

- teknomunk (talk,E,歌,A) 22:55, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. I've been going through the template line by line to decrease its impact on page load times and simplify it for other template editors. Can't believe I missed that - I thought I checked for that specificially. ♠team a ‹_talk•ctrb› 01:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Just the problem previously reported with text running under the album art box (see album pages listed in this category).  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 02:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Cover-songs

What should I do with cover-versions? As example: Primal Fear:Out In The Fields is a cover of Gary Moore:Out In The Fields. Should I redirect the Primal-Fear-Version to the Gary-Moore-Version? Acccept 22:45, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't redirect! Put the {{Cover}} template on the Primal Fear page and the {{Cover2}} template on the Gary Moore page. -- 6x9 (Talk) 22:51, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Similar Project for tabs?

Is there a similar project like LyricWiki for Guitar tabs? I'm searching for a non-profit database without massive Ads, but with a nice API, that i can query. That would be just like a LyricWiki-Clone for Tabs. Does anybody know such a thing? Thanks! --84.57.236.215 20:49, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hometown

Something that has been long overdue: what, exactly, is the hometown of an artist supposed to be? Is it where they were born (even if they moved to a different country at the age of 2), where they live currently (but what about those who have several homes in different parts of the world?), where they spent most of their time (again, what if they moved around constantly?), or where they started their musical career? Similarly for bands: where they were formed (which has its own subset of problems), where their members hail from, where they currently reside…
It's probably impossible to come up with some rules that apply (and make sense) in every single case, but at least some general guidelines should be agreed upon. Thoughts? -- 6x9 (Talk) 00:10, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

copied from my talk page:

For hip hop artists, this definitely has to be the place they are representing, not place of birth. It's usually the place where they first developed as an artist. ♠team a ‹_talk•ctrb› 23:33, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Place of birth for single artists. Or in other words same as Wikipedia.  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 02:51, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Star previewing

I'm someone who has been using the star ranking system on the pages I create and have been thinking of ways to make it seem like a better idea. I mean convincing more people use the system (there are about 2,500 songs that have a star other then green, and about 501,000 that are green (and more that are black)). The ranking system is only viable if it's possible to rank/perfect pages at least as quickly as pages are being created.
My idea is to have a display of the ranking of a page on any links to that page. I think a star before/after every link would be much to distracting but a mouse over could yield a star where the mouse is or after the link indicating the ranking. In my opinion, this will encourage people to perfect, and get gold stars, for music they like (especially if they see a few silver stars and a few green, they might want to bring them all to silver).
For me atm, it's quite hard to keep track of the song's I'm ranking and trying to perfect, and takes to long navigating to all the pages to check their star etc.
I'm assuming all that is needed is adding an "onmouseover" thing to the stylesheet for the links although the API may be needed to retrieve the star of the target page but I'm sure it's possible. What do you think? ♫ Humbug ^{(Talk ♪ Contribs)} 02:38, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm someone who doesn't use the stars, but that's because I don't really understand when I'm "allowed" to change the rating to something higher, what exactly needs to be done (I know there is a page somewhere, but I don't want to check that page every time I edit a song), and if it's just me thinking this one could get a higher rating or not. So your idea might help, but the whole star system needs an update too. --MetalSnake 02:47, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Asides from the mouse-over idea, what do you think we could do to improve the page ranking system guys?  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 03:43, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, I do think it's a drag going to the talk page and putting in the templates (although it is good info that goes into those pages). Once you get used to the star system it becomes pretty easy and I can't/haven't thought of any changes that would improve it imo. Another crazy motivation idea of mine is having a "Showcase" link to a song, artist and album on the front page that are gold star ratings. Updated daily (by UberBot) looping through the gold songs, artist and album's ("Your favourite artist will get on the front page if you sharpen up the pages"). Other then that I'm interested in hearing suggestions too. ♫Humbug^{(Talk ♪ Ctrb)} 13:07, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your input Humbug. I do agree with you about it being a drag applying the template to the talk page, but like everything here there is a good reason why this is so. If you apply a virgin template (one with no boxes marked "done", etc.) to a song's talk page and save it you will note that at the bottom of the page it then categorises the page as "Songs needing GoEar help", "Songs needing iTunes help", etc. etc. etc. etc. That is why.  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 13:44, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Let me leave my last (this year) 2p$ here too:). If we really want to enliven starring process, firstly we should designate main factors, burdening this process. Here are three of them:

• creating of a new talk page for song requires tiresome and causeless manual editing. But after all - LW knows all required information for filling SongInfo! Isn't it possible to make special autonew template for song talk page, automatically filling all required fields on talk page creating?
• we surely need some more intelligent mechanism of synchronization between song metadata and SongInfo. Let's dream a little, and you'll see you how it may look - just a little scripted additional button "Synch" in song talk page edit window toolbar. Forgive me, if dream is too crazy ;)
• and finally - protocol, or PR policy. MetalSnake is not the first pointing out this problem (2Red: remember Redrkr's 'violet story'?). Truth to tell, me is one more, who thinks that this policy might be slightly 'tempered'. I know (and edited) a lot of songs, which are worth to be bronze, silver or even gold. But making all necessary manual editing?... Obligatory watching? - keep in mind that declaring yourself as page watcher obligates you constantly to 'keep your eye' on all future edits of this song. Don't forget about #2 of this list. And then fairly calculate, how many starred songs can you watch just physically, even without doing anything else ;)

Happy NY & editing, --Senvaikis ^(talk) 18:04, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys. I appreciate the time you have taken to respond. Happy New Year to you all!  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 19:10, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

(De-indenting? Outdenting? Exdenting? Or simply denting, as in infinite <-> finite?)

@Senvaikis: The first two points *can* be automated… if we install Semantic. </Aquatiki voice> One of my main problems with the current system is that a song can be certified, but still not process beyond green because no-one is watching, while on the other hand a song with all necessary info filled out can progress to silver, even if the lyrics are horribly wrong.

Not to mention that things like YouTube are somewhat problematic: what if I check for a song, find it's not there, put "video = not applicable" on the talk page and give it a Gold rating, and a couple minutes later someone somewhere uploads that video? Am I supposed to check periodically?

I'd personally prefer to allow Silver ratings that still lack some non-vital information (video, audio, asin) but are certified, while songs that aren't certified shouldn't proceed beyond Bronze. After all, the lyrics are the most important thing, aren't they?

To end this rambling on a positive note: Happy new year, everyone! May you listen to lots and lots of good music! — 6x9 (Talk) 05:58, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Arthur Dent ;)  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 05:34, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Picking The Admin's brains

I originally posted this on Sean's talk page but in hindsight decided it was too trivial of a subject to pester the "big guy" with, so I figured I would ask this of the other admins - Do any of you know if there is a plugin or an applet of some kind that could be used so we could know when people were on the server? If so, I think it would be a cool idea. I would also want there to be a way for a user to mark their status so if they were busy they could tag themselves as "busy, so don't bug me" or "I'm online and available". Does what I said make sense? Good idea... bad idea? RainbowDragon 18:23, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Makes complete sense RainbowDragon. I am not personally aware of any such plug in. (I think Sean has responded to your post on his talk page.)  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 17:49, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at what Sean gorter uses on his userpage. It basically requires your to change a few letters every time you go on or offline. ♠team a ‹_talk•ctrb› 02:10, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Non-ASCII problems

Non-ASCII problems

[edit] Artist Images

Is there any template for artist images yet? Looking at one of those fancy artist boxes (official website, wikipedia article, hometown) I missed some nice fotography. -- Chillvie 03:02, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

{{ArtistHeader}} (which is fairly new, and not used on most artist pages yet) has a pic parameter (and even a caption parameter, if you need it). — 6x9 (Talk) 03:16, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Very nice. :) -- Chillvie 10:33, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

But avoid using the caption parameter. It's a great idea, but I got a right telling off once (rfl). I think it went "What do we need the caption for when band line up hasn't changed?". I gotta say though that on reflection I could see his point ;)  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 02:56, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't say avoid, just don't use it to state the bleedingly obvious :-) — 6x9 (Talk) 03:13, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Haa haa  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 05:33, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] New Search Server :)

Since updating our search index was taking so much time that the site would occasionally crash, we've now upgraded from the default search for MediaWiki to use the same LuceneSearch that Wikipedia and the other WikiMedia sites use. It's supposed to be better, and it's definitely faster (it has its own server, so it'd better be faster!).

It's hard to tell whether a search engine will work well for lyrics, but Lucene is supposed to be much better in general. If you have some time, please check it out and let me know if you think it's better than the default search or not. To access our search engine (as opposed to the Google Search) you can either use one of the Search Plugins listed on the side of the page or go to Special:Search.

If it works well enough (better than Google Search), we can swap it into the sidebar and the mainpage and make it our only search, so if you get a chance to try it, please give your impressions versus not only our old search, but against the Google Custom Search.

Thank you!
-Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 14:19, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Sean..how do we go about accessing this though?  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 14:32, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

WOW! Fantastique ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) 19:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Sean: I take my userbox down in gleeful triumph!

Red: Special:Search. --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 01:16, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Aqua. I wasn't entirely sure. :-)  _♫Яєd_{xx ♪}♫♪_♫♪^Talk 01:32, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Way quicker, thanks, Sean. Would dropping the Google search hurt our index there? ♠team a ‹_talk•ctrb› 05:19, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Spammers and Vandals

I've noticed that the spammers and vandals that I've seen blocked appear mostly as IP addresses. Do you think we could possibly curtail both by requiring registration for editors and allowing anyone and everyone else to have read access only? I understand that not all unregistered users are bad, I just think adding this extra step might avoid some problems. Thanks,    RainbowDragon    talk    contribs   18:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

While I admit I occasionally daydream about this, I don't think it would really help our cause. Most unregistered users are actually helpful (or at least try to be), and so far we have the spammers and vandals well in hand. — 6x9 (Talk) 20:23, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The schmucks who vandalize and spam are usually automated and almost never humans directly. Banning them, but not preventing them from creating accounts, ensures that the zombie-fied computers can still do good when they want to. In all other respects, 6x9 is totally right. --Åqüã†ìкí ƒ_Δ^Σ ¶ 05:35, 8 January 2009 (UTC)