User talk:Bmearns/musical artists wikiproject

Model page proposals

Please list and discuss proposals for pages to use as a model or near-model for this project.

Tracking articles

We are currently using Category:WikiProject Musical Artists as a category that all articles fully or partially maintained by this project should belong to. But is it appropriate to have such a category? I've never seen it in other projects, but it would make it easier to track articles (as opposed to a user-maintained list a la the Albums project). But I don't know if it's neccessary or not. Also, does a user maintained list exit, similar to the List of albums? bmearns, KSC_(talk) 14:42, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Focused efforts

I envision a daily/weekly/monthly focus on a particular article that contributors to the project can focus on improving, for lack of something else to do. There would be a single article in the project's space (e.g., /Focus page) which could redirect to the current focus article. bmearns, KSC_(talk) 16:02, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Color coding scheme

Please discuss the infobox color scheme and any additional types/genres that need to be accounted for in this scheme.

Where does Pop or Adult Contemporary fit in? *Dan T.* 04:05, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You tell me. I originally had a "pop" category, but isn't that a little vague? I don't really consider pop a musical genre, since it basically just means whatever is currently popular. I feel the same about adult contemporary. Any songs in these categories should be able to fit into another musical grouping, but if you disagree, please discuss it further, this project is wide open to suggestions. bmearns, KSC_(talk) 18:43, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Collaborations

Need a standard format for listing collaborative performances/recordings. bmearns, KSC_(talk) 19:22, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some thoughts

This looks like an intriguing acorn of a project, but I feel I should offer some criticism which will hopefully be constructive. You seem to have got a bit carried away in adding new templates and other gizmos. Why create {{infobox musical artist}}, for example, when there's already a perfectly good {{infobox band}} for groups and {{infobox biography}} for individuals. There should also be no need to put the discography in a table format (see WP:TABLE#When tables are inappropriate), and listing band members with {{Musical group individual bio}} looks incredibly complicated when the information could easily be covered using plain text. Simplicity is your friend. :-) Flower party■ 00:45, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback, I think it's crucial at a time like this in the "project". You're right, I do get carried away sometimes with "gizmos", I think it comes from my computer science background; reuse, encapsulation, &c. I actually had no idea that infobox band existed, and I probably could've guessed that infobox biography already existed if it had ever occured to me. I'll definitely take a look at these now that they've been pointed out, and decide how they fit into the project.

As for the discography being in a table, I'm going to have to disagree, I think a table suits it. I've read the WP:Table bit before and don't particularly care for some of it; a table does have a definite purpose in life, and part of that purpose is to keep things properly aligned, which is at least as difficult and takes as much HTML as a forcibly-aligned list does.

Using {{Musical group individual bio}}; this conversation is very reminicent of one I recently had about {{Track listing item}}. I understand that it's more complicated than neccessary, and I don't remember how I worded it on the project page, but if it isn't already, I'll make it clear that it's not neccessary to use this template but it is available for those who want to. My reasons for wanting to use it personally go back to all that computer garbage about encapsulation. The text they produce is quite simple and any user could replicate it, but it's also quite simple to mess up the format, and one of the goals of a project like this, in my opinion, is to introduce commonality to the format of similar pages, and since it's subst'ed, I don't see anything wrong with it. However, like I said, I wouldn't try to force that on anyone and will make that clear on the project page. On a side issue, how do you feel about having the inidividual bios at the top of the article? At first I liked it, now I'm not sure. You can see a sample at the Monkey Gone Mad article. Thoughts and comments much appreciated.

bmearns, KSC_(talk) 17:47, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just a bit concerned that you're adding all this specification that doesn't have any precedent in the encyclopedia. The most important part of an article is the text, I would think; it's not just a collection of lists and boxes. It would be nice if this project could make articles that feed into the featured music project, which you're already aware of. Your best bet might be to look at how things are done in the better articles we already have - if you didn't even know infobox band existed that kind of suggests you haven't really looked at many existing articles. There are plenty of good articles you could look at, see the Pink Floyd article for one that recently reached featured status. Also bear in mind that not everyone has a computer science background, and it's nice if articles are fairly easy to edit for those that don't. Flower party■ 14:35, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Understood and appreciated. Thanks again for the comments, and you're right, I haven't really looked around a lot at other articles, which was a mistake on my part. This is one of the main reasons I'm hoping to get more people involved in this project so people more experienced than myself can provide valuable insights like the ones you're providing. I've also been fairly liberal with laying out "hard and fast" quidelines at this point because it's not a real project so nothing is really hard and fast, but that may be a mistake as well. It may be better to turn this project over more to discussion than to actually creating guidelines at this point. bmearns, KSC_(talk) 17:55, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox and the inclusion of "Similar Artists"

Hey Bmearns, just a quick thought on the infoboxes for musical artists. There is a listing for "Similar Artists" has there been any criteria for inclusion here? Otherwise isn't this an inherently point of view topic? I posted this over at the Carrie Underwood page, initially it said that the Similar Artists were Bo Bice and Kelly Clarkson (as they were all on american idol), but then it was changed to Tanya Tucker and Faith Hill (presumably because they're all country artists). But where does it stop? Hair color, eye color, dance moves, genre, record label, what hand they hold a microphone in. I think with the categories that bring together like topics, such as singers, that to include it in the infobox is just too much of a POV debate waiting to happen. Thoughts? Batman2005 20:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the pointing that out. It never occured to me, but I think you're right. I do think it's a pretty useful field to have, and I think if we work a little at defining ground rules, we can avoid a lot of POV issues. My original intent was artists with a similar sound, i.e., musically similar. But I understand this can still be somewhat subjective and think the topic deserves more discussion. Perhaps some folks with slightly more technical expertise in music can help with this. bmearns, KSC_(talk) 20:52, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusions

Would there be any objections or disadvantages of including the artist's salary, the number of records sold, and/or RIAA certification of albums? Once again, it will be optional. Unionbay 17:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]