Template talk:Certification Table Entry

Right-justify for numbers

Can the template be adjusted so that number fields are right justified? (Hohum ^@) 14:00, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

@Hohum: I tested it in the sandbox, and to me, right justification looks worse than left justification due to the unnecessary whitespace. You can see for yourself at Template:Certification Table Entry/testcases until the sandbox edit is undone. You can also edit the sandbox version yourself if you think there is a better way to do it. Muhandes (talk) 13:56, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello, thank you for testing. Surely the whitespace within the column is the same, just on the other side? There is more whitespace between entries in the "Certification" column and numbers in the final column though. Perhaps center justify the "Certification column" to ease this? Either way, numbers really ought to be right justified (imo), it makes it far easier to see their relative sizes, and is pretty standard practice for number presentation in tabular format. (Hohum ^@) 15:56, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

@Hohum: This seems to come down to personal preference. I’m not bothered by whitespace on the right, but whitespace in the middle is an issue for me, outweighing the benefits of right justification. This might even be a cultural preference. The table has been formatted this way for over 13 years, and this is the first request to change it, suggesting it may not be a significant concern. However, if other editors think it’s important, I’m open to making the change. Also, while searching the logs for similar requests, I found this request, which makes sense to me. Muhandes (talk) 07:43, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. I appreciate that you considered it. I can't find any specific MOS advice on left/right justification of number in tables either. (Hohum ^@) 16:43, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

South Africa (RiSA)

As of 1 January 2024, the Recording Industry of South Africa had their certification levels changed. I was planning to tabulate the change in streams and units but I figured this would be enough. (special ping: Muhandes) dxneo (talk) 20:35, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

@Dxneo: The first thing to do would be to update the article. As for the template, I'm not sure what to do with this. Say an album/single was released on June 2023 and certified on March 2024. Most sales are still before January 2024 so they follow the old sales figure, but some follow the new figure. The only sure fact is that albums/singles released from 2024 are following the new figures. What do you think? Muhandes (talk) 07:04, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I honestly don't know. It would've been easier if they updated all recordings do this new figure (maybe they did and we don't know). I was thinking South Africa2, then we will try to update recent use South Africa looking the certification date and since there's not that much South African music on this site it won't take that long. Then maybe put a notice on both templates to alarm editors to check the dates before proceeding ( proceed with caution). I don't know if I make any sense at all, but what's your suggestion? dxneo (talk) 12:16, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

And another thing that has been bothering me for years is why United States and most other identifiers like United Kingdom, their template URL lead directly to the specified certification but South Africa doesn't. I mean why isn't it like this ? dxneo (talk) 12:23, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@Dxneo: This was never done because no one suggested it. I will look into it. One thing I am not looking into is verifying the 182+ articles using this citation, see Category:Certification Table Entry usages for South Africa (191). Follow up on Template talk:Cite certification, where this suggestion belongs. Muhandes (talk) 12:45, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@Dxneo: Actually, no follow-up needed—I just went ahead and quickly implemented it. Wadayanow, after 44 years of writing code, it worked on the first try, at least from the few checks I made. Let me know if you find any problems.  Done on this one. --Muhandes (talk) 17:59, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Great, it's working just fine. Thank you. dxneo (talk) 18:38, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Dxneo, I just realized that I already implemented this change in June. It seems like I didn't notice the discrepancy I mentioned above and I simply went by |certyear=. On retrospect, I suggest we correct the sales figure to follow |relyear=. For example, Come Closer (Wizkid song) was certified 4× Platinum in June 2024. However, as the album was released in 2017, most sales are probably before 2024. All we can say for sure is that at least 80,000 units were sold, so this is what we should list, instead of 160,000. Muhandes (talk) 12:36, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@Dxneo: What do you think? Muhandes (talk) 10:06, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello Muhandes, sorry for replying so late. I honestly don't know how to move about this. However, what I know is that the sales figures have to be updated to keep the encyclopedia up to date. I honestly think that RiSA took this into consideration before implementing this big change. What I mean is that I think they have updated the units on each and every recording on the website. Problem is that unlike RIAA, RiSA doesn't display units. Thoughts? dxneo (talk) 01:43, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Nigeria

Hello Muhandes, sorry for directly pinging, but you are usually the only one who helps with this kind of things. I think I finally found TurnTable Certification System of Nigeria's certification level (here). Let me know what you think. dxneo (talk) 09:53, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@Dxneo: I don't see a reason why it cannot be added. I suppose the certifications are on the tab which says "Display", not the one which says "Eligible Songs", am I correct? Muhandes (talk) 12:22, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes sir, you are correct. dxneo (talk) 12:32, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Not sure why they made "eligible songs" and "display" since they both literally show the same thing. dxneo (talk) 12:36, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@Dxneo: Indeed, a mystery. You will also notice certifications from 2025, so this seems a little amateurish. Nevertheless, no one objected to this request or the article, so I added |region=Nigeria as an option.  Done Muhandes (talk) 19:40, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

I just tested it on "Baddest Boy", and it works fine, but I had to use |salesamount= for units. dxneo (talk) 20:08, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

@Dxneo: You used |type=song instead of |type=single and |award=platinum instead of |award=Platinum. You also made a mistake at the bottom, |streamsonly=true instead of |streaming=true. Muhandes (talk) 20:14, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Just that I looked for the parameters on the template and I didn't find any. You the best. dxneo (talk) 20:31, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

New Zealand changes

There are links to the new site which is Aotearoa Music Charts regarding charts and singles instead of NZ Music Charts for certifications. https://aotearoamusiccharts.co.nz/charts/singles; https://aotearoamusiccharts.co.nz/charts/albums (Example: https://aotearoamusiccharts.co.nz/archive/singles/2024-11-01; https://aotearoamusiccharts.co.nz/archive/albums/2024-11-01FireDragonValo (talk) 20:24, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, all the citations we have are not working. In many cases an archived version is available, so we could use a bot going after them if I add support for |archive-url= and |archive-date=, but the Wayback Machine is having difficulties right now. We can support the new website by either introducing a new parameter (|chart-id=?) or introducing a new value for |source=. Pinging Ss112 who uses this often, and of course, welcoming any input. Muhandes (talk) 16:37, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Actually, this discussion belongs in Template talk:Cite certification, but since we started here I'll continue here. I quickly implemented one solution, which you can see in the sandbox version and testcases. Basically it adds the following:

• If |source= is not specified (or |source=oldchart), |archive-url= and |archive-date= can be specified to use Wayback Machine. For example: {{Cite certification/sandbox|region=New Zealand|type=album|id=3467|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240713231341/https://nztop40.co.nz/chart/albums?chart=3467|archive-date=2024-07-13}} creates "New Zealand album certifications". Recorded Music NZ. Archived from the original on 2024-07-13.. Supposedly a bot can be used to populate these fields.
• If |source= is not specified (or |source=oldchart) and |archive-url=/|archive-date= are not specified (which is where all older citations will end), the result is a warning message and the page is categorized for bot or human correction. For example: {{Cite certification/sandbox|region=New Zealand|type=album|id=3467}} creates "New Zealand album certifications". Recorded Music NZ.THE FIELD archive-url MUST BE PROVIDED for NEW ZEALAND CERTIFICATION from obsolete website.. Note that, conveniently, if you edit and preview this page, you get a link to this page which lets you see which archive is available.
• If |source=newchart, |id= can be specified in date format to reach the new charts. For example: {{Cite certification/sandbox|region=New Zealand|source=newchart|type=album|id=1991-08-11}} creates "New Zealand album certifications". Recorded Music NZ.

Let me know what you think. --Muhandes (talk) 18:38, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

There are also links to their New Zealand singles and albums. Let me know what you think? (Examples: https://aotearoamusiccharts.co.nz/charts/catalogue-singles; https://aotearoamusiccharts.co.nz/charts/catalogue-albums) FireDragonValo (talk) 20:32, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

@FireDragonValo: if you are planning to use the catalogue chart extensively, we can add it as |source=catalogchart, but this is something to do after we fix all the rest. I am still looking for input about that. Muhandes (talk) 21:34, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Great. Thank you. FireDragonValo (talk) 19:29, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Since no one bothered to comment on this, and I am naive enough to think over 3,500 dead links (Category:Cite certification used for New Zealand with missing archive (32)) bother someone, I went ahead and made the changes above. Pinging FireDragonValo and Ss112 FWIW. I will seek bot assistance in automatically fixing these citations.

Let me know if there any problems. Otherwise, this is  Done. Muhandes (talk) 13:39, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

@Muhandes Could you add support for |archive-url=/|archive-date= for the new website as well? For example: "Espresso" has an archived link to the new website, but the live link is rendered as https://nztop40.co.nz/chart/singles?chart=2024-11-22 since |source=newchart is not specified, which leads to the wrong chart archive. It might even be preferrable to make |archive-url=/|archive-date= required for the new website as currently certifications seem to get reverted to the previous one once a new chart is published (https://aotearoamusiccharts.co.nz/archive/singles/2024-11-22 now shows "Espresso" with a double platinum certification rather than triple platinum like the archived link and the current chart). ThedancingMOONpolice (talk) 03:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

@ThedancingMOONpolice: I still hope these are growing pains and the website will stop doing that. Did you try communicating with the Official Aotearoa Music Charts and asking them why they do that? Muhandes (talk) 15:47, 30 November 2024 (UTC)