Template talk:Infobox single/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Code update from Album infobox?

Continuing from Template talk:Album infobox#Spinoff infoboxes, I was suggesting that the new code changes applied to that infobox should be instituted here. Some of the new features, as I've observed:

• almost all fields are optional
• nocover.gif is used in all infoboxes without a picture supplied
• alt text for the album cover automatically includes the album title
• the need for all the <nowiki></nowiki> business has been eliminated.

Since people have been saying in the edit history here that both infoboxes should match, I think this would be a good time to synchronize these changes. –Unint 03:04, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I have a work-in-progress available at User:Locke Cole/Template:Infobox Single. Two things though– 1) I've made the {{{name}}} parameter mandatory and 2) I've not finished making the other parameters optional (but I did get the image deal exactly as it is in the album infobox). Is the name parameter a problem though? Do many articles not have that filled in? —Locke Cole • t • c 03:38, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

{{{name}}} and {{{artist}}} fields should be mandatory. They should be filled in if omitted. Jogers (talk) 10:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions for new features

As long as things are under development, I have another issue I'd like to bring up. This is the problem of complicated chronology fields, for singles only. (Albums... occasionally, but not nearly as much.) Consider some cases:

• Different credits for the individual single and the entire chronology. Example: Silence (song). The single is credited to "Delerium featuring Sarah McLachlan", so I would like to put that in the Artist field without the same showing up in the chronology (since no other Delerium singles feature Sarah McLachlan).
• Multiple, possibly noteworthy, releases of the same single. Example: Brian Wilson (song). What we have here is an attempt to divide the chronology into two rows, using dashes. It doesn't really look good, though, since the rows are not aligned. "Silence" would have had the same problem, only I decided to use two consecutive infoboxes. I haven't been following that as a standard, though: see Blue Monday (New Order song), where I put three releases into one infobox, but only included the chronology for the first release.
• Multiple artists' chronologies converging on the same single, then diverging again. Examples: Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now), When You Believe. It's just... messy.

I know there have been examples where people have been neatly making additional rows with manual modifications, but the problem seems common enough that we could use a standarized solution that won't require many articles being updated by hand with every new change here. My suggestions:

• Mandatory Artist field, with optional "chronology artist" field that conditionally overrides it. This shouldn't be difficult, but would make things divergent from the Album infobox... unless we implement the same thing over there. I did just propose some similar, new fields for other purposes, though, and possibly this could be worked in. Also, see examples like Battleship Potemkin (album) where this would genuinely be useful.
• Optional, additional rows for the single chronology? This would really make things divergent and I'm not even sure how it would be done. Of course, we'd also have to pick an upper limit for the number of rows that can be generated. (For an extreme example of upper limit, see Energy 52's "Café del Mar". A new release for every calendar year, on different labels, for nearly seven consecutive years.)

However, if you're going to do that then you might very well think about automatically generating multiple header bars for multiple artist chronologies. At best this might only require two... but it feels like a messy enough solution as it is and I don't even know what weird cases are out there that I haven't come across. Comments, please, because I can't really figure this out anymore. –Unint 05:48, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Composer and Lyricist

I would like to request that Composer and Lyricist be added as variables in the box. --Bensin 20:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

... or perhaps an infobox for songs? --Bensin 02:56, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts

I've recorded some thoughts at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs#Infoboxes which are pertinent to this template. I'm (boldly) suggesting a rather different approach to the infobox. Please feel free to comment there. Flowerparty? 01:53, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Massive update

For details, see User talk:Locke Cole. For some history/examples, see User talk:Locke Cole/Template:Infobox Single (edit | user page | history | links | watch | logs). See also {{Chronology}}. If there's problems (and you can't work out a fix yourself), please revert the template, explain what was wrong and (most importantly) link to a page where I can see the problem myself. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 07:12, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I think we broke Without You by going against the earlier decision to make {{{Name}}} optional (see Name field now optional, above). I completely missed that and just went by what Jogers said later (in Code update from Album infobox?). I was going to consult the people who made the change, but then I read that they're both leaving, so... Honestly, I could see just leaving it as mandatory.

However, I'm changing the link to RIAA single certification to Music recording sales certification, for globalization purposes. –Unint 07:43, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd leave it mandatory. There should not be pages with multiple instances of this template on them (with rare exceptions anyways). If there's enough info at Without You, I'd suggest splitting them off into their own articles (each with their own infobox), if not, I'd remove the boxes which clearly do not belong (very little actual content about them) and fill in the name fields for the ones that remain (if any). Agree with your other change, seems reasonable. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 13:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Hang on, is that wise? See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs#ONE article per composition. We don't need to create loads of duplicate articles for the sake of an infobox. Flowerparty☀ 14:00, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

So I tried something new at Without You. Please pass judgment on how insane it may or may not be. –Unint 02:05, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Insane. =) I think the only way to keep it from looking like a mess would be to split them off into their own separate stubs. If there's some commonality between them, you could have the main Without You article be some special form of disambiguation page (where it talks about the song itself in relation to the various artists who have performed it). IMO of course, if it looks good to you I have no objections. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 14:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

It's.. different. Flowerparty☀ 01:24, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I think the bottom line is that not all cover versions (even those released as singles) have enough information available regarding them to be feasible as a proper article, and in the case where some versions are article-worthy and others aren't, it's just going to be a mess trying to decide which ones are.

You know, I think we may be at a turning point as far as single article coverage and chronology use goes. Now that we have the option to exclude the chronology entirely or include multiple ones, I think it's time for some new guidelines as to when to do what. Some questions:

• With regard to the creation of the singles chronology in the same way as the albums chronology, I can only imagine that the idea was to have some "complete" singles chronologies, as we're getting all the time these days. (See Erasure discography for a brand-new string of singles articles from just last week.) However, not everyone believes this is the way to go. (See The KLF discography for a non-completionist approach.)
• If not a complete chronology — if we exclude non-notable singles, whichever they may be — then is the chronology "broken", as it were? We don't want red links for articles that we never plan to write, so we may replace them with plain black text — but does that undermine the "continuous series of pages connected by links" concept? It would be annoying if just one single were skipped in a series and the one after that couldn't be reached by chronology. In which case, should we create stub articles as bridges?
• These "chronology stacks" that I'm advocating — do people start yelling when they get to be three, four rows high? (I suppose I should be implementing them to get actual feedback... Time constraints, etc.) If they are okay, then when should we merge multiple infoboxes on one article into one? Always, so as to avoid debate? And then, where do the other single covers go?

I have plans to start this discussion on multiple fronts. Someone else has already started one at Category talk:The KLF#Singles chronology (Three covers in one infobox? It's one solution...), which prompted me to get thinking... I should probably get over there about now. As for other fronts, stay tuned. –Unint 21:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Brackets in usage

I think the brackets should have been left in. Observe what happens when someone pastes it in with brackets and all:

"Infobox single/Archive 2"
Song

Now observe what happens when you remove the brackets and fill in some fields:

"Infobox single/Archive 2"
Song

If people are trying to fill them in and leaving the brackets, we should update the instructions with a bolded warning to remove the brackets if you use an optional field. But this appears to be a clean way of making it possible to (at the time someone is viewing the usage) see which fields are optional and still have it work when pasted into an article (instead of putting a * next to them for example, which would have to be removed). Just my thoughts. —Locke Cole • t • c 14:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, in my experience most infoboxes work fine in practice without visual cues for optional fields inserted into the code. (Pick one of many at Cat:Infobox templates.) Certainly the album infobox seems to be working (although usually all of its fields are applicable, unlike b-side and certification here). Anyway, it's not like people are racking their brains to fill out every single field that they think is required; I just ran across Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm today, for example.

I also came up with this, which it turns out some infoboxes already use in their usage examples:

{{Infobox Single |
| Name           = 
| Cover          = <!-- optional -->
| Artist         = 
| from Album     = <!-- optional -->
...

Or, as some people are doing it:

{{Infobox Single |
| Name           = 
| Cover          = <!-- optional -->
| Artist         = 
| from Album     = <!-- optional, remove line if not applicable -->
...

I guess I like my white space. These things can get cluttered enough as it is. –Unint 21:37, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, I find the extra square brackets confusing. And infobox syntax is confusing enough as it is unless you know how it works. Flowerparty☀ 01:24, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

"No cover available"?

If there's no cover, shouldn't we just omit it instead of putting a big image there? æle ✆ 2006-04-27t00:12z

We do the same thing with {{Album infobox}} if no image is provided. I don't know what the actual original thinking was, but I think the idea is to encourage people to find the covers and upload them. —Locke Cole • t • c 19:50, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Extra Albums?

Would it be possible/viable to impliment an 'extra albums' field? IE: From the album Album 1 Also appears on Album 2

For example; So that songs which are originally on one album but are re-recorded for another album, re-released on another album (or live album, etc.) don't just make a really long 'from the album' box (and it can't be altered to say 'from the albums' so that's another reason for it)

Questions

1. On the song table it has a category called B-side, what would this be used for?
2. I got told that if the song i was putting a table in for was a song from a soundtrack, it had to be the colour purple. How do I change the colour yellow to purple? Or doesn't this need to be used anymore? Lillygirl 16:05, 30 April 2006

1. For B-sides, see the B-side article; in practice we use it to refer to previously unreleased songs found on a single release, even though CD singles nowadays don't have B sides per se.
2. There is no way to change the colour of this infobox (that's why I removed the relevant information from WP:SONG). Nobody seems interested in elaborating on this or implementing colour changes, so I think we're leaving it at that. –Unint 18:02, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

single chronology by country?

Many bands release different singles in various countries. Is there a way, for example to list the UK single chronology as well as the US? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MistaTee (talk • contribs) 21:38, 11 July 2006 (UTC).

I'd say use additional instances of {{Extra chronology}}. –Unint 21:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Length

Should the length field refer to the length of all the songs on the CD, or the length of the song? Waseem7

It should refer only to the length of the A-side. --Oagersnap 22:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Album chronology

I think it would be good to show a single's chronology relating to the album it's on. For example, you can get to Pennyroyal Tea from Milk It and Radio Friendly Unit Shifter, but you can't get to either of those from Pennyroyal Tea. It's handy to be able to browse through an album's contents without having to go back to the album article, but the single infobox prevents this.--Teiladnam 18:36, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I've just made Template:Extra tracklisting to get round this very problem. I've got to sort it so that it's not alway the same colour but it seems to work pretty well. (I was reading OK Computer when I realised that it was a bit irritating that I couldn't do this but now you can through singles as well as album tracks on that one). --Thetriangleguy 19:48, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Could someone possibly go over to the {{Extra tracklisting}} template and add a Type field similar to the {{Extra chronology}} and {{Album infobox}} template? To distinguish track listings of EPs, compilations etc.. Thanks. -- Reaper X 19:30, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

More chronology stuff

Does anyone think it would be better to allow for the chronology to go from album->single->EP->Album->single->single instead of having it say "singles chronology?" I think it would make for an easier chronology. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:30, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

"from Album" line

I think the "from Album" line, when filled and viewed as a infobox and viewed on a page, should not be bolded. Makes it look clunky. Either all of it should be standard text or atleast "From the album" doesn't need to be bolded. Who needs to bring extra attention to that? Also, perhaps change "from Album" to "from" or "from record" or something, just in case it's not been released off an "Album", maybe it was off an EP... what if it was radio-only or promotional? Gohst 02:57, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Different issue, same general topic: I just used the template in the "Summer Babe" article. It's great, extremely user-friendly, my only issue is this: is there some way to make it say "albums" instead of "album?" That song shows up on two different albums, and there is a valid case for each of them as far as primacy goes (IMHO). Any way to work around this? Augustus Chip (talk) 00:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Music video director

There should be a "Music video director" field, don't you guys agree? Funk Junkie 17:12, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so; I mean, the infobox is very large as it is. Extraordinary Machine 15:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Audio sample

Could we add audio sample in the infobox? I think it's better if it's included--HW-Barnstar PLS 16:17, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

This would need to be discussed before adding it. Not certain where I stand on it, could see arguments both ways. --*Spark* 12:22, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I would agree with having such a section and hence have created a prototype which can be found here and in use here--Ashadeofgrey^Talk 16:05, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I kinda liked that template you made but did doesn't have a link to audio sample's information (fair use, summary and the user who uploads it) could anyone add the audio sample pls.--HW-Barnstar PLS 21:14, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added {{Audiosample}}--Ashadeofgrey^Talk 21:25, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks that helps a lot--HW-Barnstar PLS 21:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Chart positions

Maybe someone can put a link in the syntax or on the template page itself for people to find more chart positions. Most people do not kow where they can get the other chart positions that are really reliable, so I have made a list of official record charts and links to their websites. I think this way people are able to put more peak positions on the single articles. -- Luigi-ish 19:13, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Composer entry

I think that the infobox should have a "composer" entry in addition to the "writer" entry similar to {{Song infobox}}. Song composers and song writers are different – composers write the music and writers write the music. Therefore there should be a line for both. –Crashintome4196 05:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I would rather see that the "writer"-entry was removed from the single infobox. A single doesn't have a writer or a composer, a song does. A single consists of songs. Consider a song infobox that is called to make up content of both the single infobox and the album infobox. --Bensin 12:39, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Either would satisfy me - "writer" seems odd. ¦ Reisio 12:45, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Review

How should I go about adding a review, while keeping it as the single infobox? Above the latest discussion dates back over a year. In most cases, it is not needed, but if it was the only release by a band, and the review (amg) has worthwhile information. Wikipedia tells me to be bold, and if I came upon a single (or anything similar) that I'd like to know more about, I'd be interested in checking out an external url. The rating alone I understand as not being necessary. Baseballfan Talk 03:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

That should go in the main text of the article in a section about critical reception. ShadowHalo 05:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Title quotes

{{editprotected}} I'm requesting a slight change of code at the top of the template:
"{{{Name}}}"
to
{{#switch: {{{Quotes|}}}|off={{{Name}}}|on="{{{Name}}}"|="{{{Name}}}"}}

This request is due to several single articles using some kind of graphic as the title, and the quotes somewhat interfere with the display of this. The switch should allow the use of either "off", "on" or nothing at all, yielding valid results. I admit I'm not fantastic with parserfunctions, but my tests haven't shown any errors. Once changed, the /doc page should be updated as well, but I can take care of this if the editing admin desires. -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 01:47, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Why would there ever be a need to use a graphic as the title? –Unint 01:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Unknown, but it happens. As far as I can tell, there's nothing wrong with using one, and this simple code change will keep them from looking odd. -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 02:57, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm making inquiries about the copyright status of "recreated" logos. Also, I'm personally dubious about placing the exact same text design from the cover right above it a second time. (Yes, this is something I really want to cut down; it just feels like spillover enthusiasm from all the Infobox musical artist logos.) –Unint 03:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why this is necessary; the title should always be text, and the copyright status of the images is not clear. I'm disabling the editprotected tag for now. CMummert · talk 12:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Composer / Lyrics / Music Video

I do think a line for the composer should be added to the template, as in Template:Song infobox. Also, is there an extra template for lyrics, possibly an expanding one, or even one for a link to official lyrics from the group's website? And for music videos.. whats going on with that? Is there a template? 67.188.73.242 21:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Chart Positions

I think it should mention in the title for Chart positions that they are peak positions. Somethingvacant 01:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Y Done Harryboyles 12:33, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Link to lyrics

I'm wondering if it would be beneficial to put a lyric link into the infobox to the relevant page. I would personally use the wiki website LyricWiki], a wikipedia style wiki but only for song lyrics. For example, the template would automatically place the "http://lyricwiki.org/" in by default so all that needs to be entered is the "Pink:Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)" name. It would end up being like this: [1].

What do others think? It's a good reliable source for lyrics (unlike other lyric websites out there with viruses and intrusive ads). I personally believe that majority of people visit song articles on Wikipedia hoping to find lyrics but to no avail. --Lakeyboy 11:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Except that such a website constitutes a copyright violation, since permission was not received to reprint them. It would be like linking to copyvio material on YouTube...just isn't done for our protection and yours. I'm sure someone else can explain the intricacies if need be. -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 12:36, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I guess I don't understand the copyright jist of it. I'm abit confused. It's not re-printing the lyrics, just linking to the page like an external link. There is external links to YouTube as well in many articles. Can someone please clarify. Thanks. --Lakeyboy 10:16, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there are many links to videos on YouTube, but that doesn't make it right. In the majority of cases, the person who uploaded the video to YouTube does not own the video, thus, it is a copyright violation. It is the same thing with song lyrics. These external websites may post the words, but they do not have the legal right to do so. Take a look at the second paragraph here: Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking to copyrighted works; this is where it states that we cannot link to copyvio sites. -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 19:17, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Request to hide instructions

Can someone add comment-tags around "Please note: This is not necessarily the same as "Artist""? That information only need to be visible to someone editing the article. --Bensin 12:45, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

You can actually edit Template:Infobox Single/doc to make that happen, if I understand your request correctly. – Luna Santin (talk) 21:58, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure how I would go about to do this. Can someone please execute my requested edit and post a link to the diff of the edit here to demonstrate how I should do it in the future? --Bensin 23:29, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Y Done. Here's the diff. --PEJL 18:28, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Cover size?

What is the "Cover size" line in this infobox template for? It doesn't appear in the example on the template page and I can't find any references to it in this talk page or its archive. InnocuousPseudonym 04:32, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Cover size can be used to specify the size of the cover image if you want it smaller than the default 200px. The only reason this should be used is if the image that was uploaded is smaller than 200px, in which case it will expand to 200px resulting in distortion. Type in the original width of the image (say, "150", not "150px") and it will display correctly. -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 05:30, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Port changes from album infobox

{{editprotected}}

We should port som recent changes to Template:Infobox Album (and Template:Extra chronology 2) to this infobox. Please apply this diff. --PEJL 16:25, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 16:32, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Quotes Around Name

{{editprotected}} Could somebody please edit the code for me so there are no quotes around the song title? I would really appreciate it. I'm trying to use images as substitute for words because I don't want the whole infobox to just be Arial. I try to use the logo of the single itself and put it as the title. If others wish to use quotes, they can manually input it. Thank you. Karen Carpenter's Biggest Fan 04:42, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

If you'll look several sections above, you'll see where this exact thing was proposed (along with potential code) to be implemented, and quickly shot down. Removing tag per above. -- Huntster ^{T • @ • C} 11:56, 25 June 2007 (UTC)