Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 5

References

Should this template really include the references? I think it's a quite good idea but if the references are going to be in the template then an accessdate parameter needs to be included. AnemoneProjectors (talk) 17:09, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Another thought I had last night was that it may create duplicate references if there is a separate chart performance section in an article. AnemoneProjectors (talk) 14:28, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Adding an optional "accessdate" parameter is a good idea. Creating the reference is one of the major points. Once this really gets deployed (which is waiting on a supporting bot, so I don't get something put into a thousand articles and then have to fix it), problems with changes in the underlying sites will be able to be fixed by changing the template, not by editing thousands of articles. We're still years away from getting the last Billboard revision fixed, and they may break things again before we're done.—Kww(talk) 16:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
That's true. Good idea then to include the references. AnemoneProjectors (talk) 15:31, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Concerning duplicate references: if the references generated by this template are named, with a deterministic name derived from the parameters used to construct the reference (chart, artist, and song, usually), then those duplicate references will be combined into one again (without any error messages, as far as I know). Amalthea 22:33, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, you're right. Are the references in this template named? AnemoneProjectors (talk) 00:02, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Should be doable. I'll play with it.—Kww(talk) 00:46, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Any progress? Someone has removed this template from Parachute (song) saying that it creates duplicate references in that article, saying that there's no consensus, rule or guideline for this template being used. AnemoneProjectors (talk) 13:39, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
I've hit a snag due to my use of #tag ref. Working on it.—Kww(talk) 00:07, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I see you've added it now but I can't get it to work - User:AnemoneProjectors/test23. Am I doing something wrong? AnemoneProjectors (talk) 21:03, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, not every chart uses the "artist" field, will that cause problems in the references? AnemoneProjectors (talk) 21:08, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
No, I've screwed something up. Not sure what yet. As for the "artist" field, yes, you will always need to include it if you want to be able to build the reference. You'd also get reference name collisions if you had multiple charts for different artists performing the same song if you don't include the "artist" field.—Kww(talk) 22:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
On my test page if I hover over reference 3 to preview the url, I get #cite_note-sc_UKchartstats_Cheryl.2BCole-2 and refernce 2 says #cite_note-sc_UKchartstats_.7B.7Burlencode:Cheryl_Cole.7D.7D-1, but if I try it without the urlencode bit and just put Cheryl_Cole I get #cite_note-sc_UKchartstats_Cheryl_Cole-1, which is almost right, I think it's just the .2B messing it up. Does that help at all? Seems complicated! Would it be easier if we could just put in our own reference name? AnemoneProjectors (talk) 23:19, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
Fixed, and simplified. Format is now just <ref name="sc_Chartid_Artist>", with no need for urlencode. Your test case has been fixed up and extended at User talk:Kww/singlechart.
Thank you. I have updated the article in question! AnemoneProjectors (talk) 00:48, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Formatting Style

Hello. I just wanted to draw your attention to a possible format conflict. Just about a month ago the following was decided at WP:record charts for when different versions of the same song charts in different countries.

Chart (2009) Peak
position
German Singles Chart 41
UK Singles Chart 55

However this doesnt work now with the new template. is there any way of incorporating this differentiation? that way we can specify what has actually charted e.g. the remix, extended version, dance remix etc. (Lil-unique1 (talk) 16:09, 29 November 2009 (UTC))

I'm sure some sort of "note" parameter could be included, right? AnemoneProjectors (talk) 16:27, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Should be able to add that in. Give me a couple days.—Kww(talk) 05:11, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Billboard Pop Songs

Billboard pop songs comes up with a red link (page doesn't exist). The parameter should link to Pop Songs instead of Billboard Pop Songs. (Lil-unique1 (talk) 01:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC))

Citation format..

Within the template, the citations are not formatted correctly. There is no link to the chart compliers, even for Billboard, where the work is by the Nielsen company. Another example is Australia, where ARIA is written just as text, when it correctly should be written as the link Australian Recording Industry Association. This is the same for some other charts. The publisher and work is incorrect. • вяαdcяochat 04:55, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

1) Even before the macro, links took you to those pages. So your problem is with the entire chart format on Wiki, not the Macros.
2) ARIA is clickable and it tells you what it stands for on the page.

Next... Jayy008 (talk) 23:55, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Citation position

I believe putting the Citation on the chart position rather then on the chart name is sensible. The reference is suppose to show what position it is in not just which chart it is in. SunCreator (talk) 16:07, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

On purely moral and logical grounds, I agree. On technical grounds, that prevents the table from being sortable based on chart position (the table winds up being sortable alphabetically instead of numerically, so "19" goes before "2"). Technical grounds wound up winning the last time we went through this discussion.—Kww(talk) 23:57, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
I tested some tables but was unable to find the behaviour your described. It always sorted based on the data not the reference in the sortable tables I could locate. Is this a browser specific issue(I tested with Firefox 3.5). Should I test with another browser or version to get the problem you describe?SunCreator (talk) 02:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Chart (2009–2010) Peak
position
Australian Singles Chart[1] 13[2]
Canadian Hot 100[3] 08[4]
Czech Airplay Chart[5] 59[6]
Dutch Top 40[7] 20[8]
Hungarian Singles Chart[9] 03[10]
Irish Singles Chart[11] 26[12]
New Zealand Singles Chart[13] 21[14]
Slovak Airplay Chart[15] 19[16]
Swedish Singles Chart[17] 33[18]
UK Singles Chart[19] 30[20]
U.S. Billboard Hot 100[21] 16[22]
U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs[23] 01[24]

Test table above. SunCreator (talk) 02:19, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Try it again without those leading 0s.

Chart (2009–2010) Peak
position
Australian Singles Chart[25] 13[26]
Canadian Hot 100[27] 8[28]
Czech Airplay Chart[29] 59[30]
Dutch Top 40[31] 20[32]
Hungarian Singles Chart[33] 3[34]
Irish Singles Chart[35] 26[36]
New Zealand Singles Chart[37] 21[38]
Slovak Airplay Chart[39] 19[40]
Swedish Singles Chart[41] 33[42]
UK Singles Chart[43] 30[44]
U.S. Billboard Hot 100[45] 16[46]
U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs[47] 1[48]

Kww(talk) 02:39, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Yep, thought it would always do that....

Chart (2009–2010) Peak
position
Australian Singles Chart 13
Canadian Hot 100 8
Czech Airplay Chart 59
Dutch Top 40 20
Hungarian Singles Chart 3
Irish Singles Chart 26
New Zealand Singles Chart 21
Slovak Airplay Chart 19
Swedish Singles Chart 33
UK Singles Chart 30
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 16
U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs 1

Ah, I see the issue now. SunCreator (talk) 02:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I can see that once you add a reference it no longer sorts as a number but instead sorts as a string. Have raise the issue Help_talk:Table#Sorting_numerics_with_references here. SunCreator (talk) 02:59, 14 February 2010 (UTC)


We have a solution using {{sort}} and given this is a template, adding to code once would seem a good idea. SunCreator (talk) 17:47, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
Chart (2009–2010) Peak
position
Australian Singles Chart[49] 13[50]
Canadian Hot 100[51] 8[52]
Czech Airplay Chart[53] 59[54]
Dutch Top 40[55] 20[56]
Hungarian Singles Chart[57] 3[58]
Irish Singles Chart[59] 26[60]
New Zealand Singles Chart[61] 21[62]
Slovak Airplay Chart[63] 19[64]
Swedish Singles Chart[65] 33[66]
UK Singles Chart[67] 30[68]
U.S. Billboard Hot 100[69] 16[70]
U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs[71] 1[72]
That would cause problems with mixing entries generated by macros and manually generated entries in the same table.—Kww(talk) 21:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
It would. Do we really require the sort option on charts, would it be a way forward to drop the sort part? What are your thoughts. SunCreator (talk) 00:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I think that it isn't worth the fight. That's what I decided after I tried to fix it before.—Kww(talk) 00:17, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Other edit points for discussion

Uncharted singles

In describing the second parameter (peak, whether we name it that or not), the documentation currently says,

If the song has not appeared on the chart (due to low popularity or lack of release in a country), you can enter a dash (–, not a hyphen -). Usually, it's better to omit the template completely.

What do you think about this wording (esp. my "usually")? I know the template is meant to generate references for claims of chart achievements, and if a song hasn't achieved any chart position, it seems pointless. But I'm thinking that there may be situations where a song is expected to chart, but hasn't been released yet, or something, and it could be interesting in certain articles to see that, e.g., "American Idiot" hit #2 in Canada and #1 in Mexico, but failed to chart in the US.

There's also the possibility that some editor will want to assert something like, "...but despite the publicity the single failed to chart anywhere in continental Europe." They'd need to show some refs for that, and a referenced table with dashes for Germany, France, etc. would do that. So "usually" omit, or "sometimes" omit? Omit the sentence entirely?

It seems that the dash doesn't cause the template any indigestion. My Sandbox tests suggest I could write a letter to my mother in that space, and it'd appear in the right cell of the expansion. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 18:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The field isn't validated. As long as you don't pass a character that winds up confusing the parser, pretty much anything goes. I wanted to allow — for pretty much the reason you outline. I've considered specifically exploding when "TBA" is entered.—Kww(talk) 19:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Use on articles about albums and discographies

In the prefacing remarks intended to tell the reader whether they might even be interested in reading further and of what use this template might be, I wrote, "Tables of such information are commonly used in Wikipedia articles on singles, albums, discographies and artists."

Is it correct to have all these things listed? Would this template ever be useful on pages besides singles pages? I can only see that working for one-hit wonders, so the article on Bruce Willis could show how "Respect Yourself" did. Articles like Michael Jackson or Rated R (Rihanna album) couldn't really use it (although the later article might use an albumchart template, if it existed). Thoughts? — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 19:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Something besides tables?

The text under Usage includes, "It can be used as a part of a larger table, or a series of calls can be used to create a chart."

I don't get this; aren't these two things the same thing? Or is there some other usage besides making a two-column table that I'm not aware of? (Sorry if I'm just being dense, which I suspect I am.) — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 19:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Chart (2009) Peak
position
Certification Sales
songid field is MANDATORY FOR GERMAN CHARTS
"Loba" (Spanish version)
3 Aluminum 17
Italy (FIMI)[73]
"She Wolf" (English version)
11 Pewter 3

Kww(talk) 19:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. Sometimes my imagination is feeble. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 21:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

What about the 53-week year?

The notes for week say that numbers between 01 and 52 are allowed. My Sandbox tests indicate that the template doesn't actually test these entries, but merely passes them along in the ref URL or Note about what to search for. But on the archive side, is it possible to use 53 for years which land that way? I am thinking that since some years (like 2009) end up with 53 weeks, it might be useful (or necessary!) to use week=53.

Of course, maybe you've already tested this, and know for a fact that 53 is never used (or allowed) on the websites. Is that the case? — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 19:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It isn't validated. I use the field to either create an instructional comment or to generate the link to an individual chart page. I agree that the "52" should be changed to "53", but the details of use will depend on the particular website designer.—Kww(talk) 19:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Week 53 - TOP 40 SINGLES ARCHIVE :: WEEK 53 : 27/12/2009 - 02/01/2010 SunCreator (talk) 20:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

  Done Changed 52 to 53 everywhere. Also in light of Chart Track generated by {{singlechart|Ireland|2|year=2009|week=53}}. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 21:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Test results, bug reports, comments about recent changes

As threatened, I have done some testing and poking, and now I'm about to do some reporting and complaining. Please don't despair at the length; it's long in an attempt to make changes easier to make, or at least to fully explain the topic. I am in fact quite happy with the template after the changes from the last couple of days. So, praise to Kww for his work (and to whom these notes are primarily addressed), and an invitiation to analysis/discussion for everyone else. Some arbitrary numbering added for reference, in case it helps.

1.

The template that begins with while
   {{singlechart|UK ...    {{singlechart|UKchartstats...
expands to expands to
   UK Singles (Official Charts Company)[29]    United Kingdom (Official Charts Company)[33]
which points to which points to
   "Archive Chart" UK Singles Chart. Official Charts Company.    "Chart Stats - Alicia Keys - Doesn't Mean Anything" UK Singles Chart. Chart Stats.

Shouldn't they both expand to "UK Singles"? (All of the other UK charts use the abbreviation, so one "United Kingdom" looks funny.)

More especially, shouldn't UKchartstats expand to UK Singles (Chart Stats)[33], since it's the archive which differentiates the two? Or does the OCC actually produce the chart in both cases, and it's just a difference of archive?

1a. By the way, who the hell runs Chart Stats? Why do we like them so much? It bugs me that they can't be bothered to provide an identifying name, company, affiliation, zodiac sign, or even a notice that the data is for UK charts. (On the other hand, I can look up a dozen chart positions there in the time it takes me to get one or two positions from Billboard. But fast ≠ WP:RS.)

2. The Hung Medien sites are all pretty much the same, obviously working out of the same database. The titles are pretty much identical across all the country sites, with a few little differences. So the respective titles on the browser windows (from <title> in HTML) are

  • danishcharts.com - Alicia Keys - Doesn't Mean Anything     for Denmark
  • swedishcharts.com - Alicia Keys - Doesn't Mean Anything   for Sweden
  • dutchcharts.nl - Alicia Keys - Doesn't Mean Anything          for the Netherlands
  • danishcharts.com - Alicia Keys - Doesn't Mean Anything     for New Zealand, etc.

Now, I've noticed two things: (1) you've made an effort to use this title in the references (usually with first letter capitalized), and some of the titles the template generates are backwards from the actual Web sites' titles; and (2) Hung Medien itself isn't always consistent with putting the country/chart first. The boring particulars look like this:

Title, language, and publisher for Hung Medien pages. Reflects Singles pages only, May 2010
Country <title> in page Language Publisher Notes
Australia australian-charts.com - Artist – Song English Hung Medien
Austria Artist – Song - austriancharts.at German Hung Medien
Belgium EN ultratop.be - Artist – Song English ULTRATOP & Hung Medien / hitparade.ch
Belgium FL ultratop.be - Artist – Song Dutch ULTRATOP & Hung Medien / hitparade.ch
Belgium WA ultratop.be - Artist – Song French ULTRATOP & Hung Medien / hitparade.ch
Denmark danishcharts.com - Artist – Song English Hung Medien
Finland finnishcharts.com - Artist – Song English Hung Medien
France lescharts.com - Artist – Song French Hung Medien
Germany germancharts.com - Artist – Song German Hung Medien not used; no positions
Greece greekcharts.com - Artist – Song English Hung Medien
Italy italiancharts.com - Artist – Song English Hung Medien
Mexico mexicancharts.com - Artist – Song English Hung Medien albums only
Netherlands dutchcharts.nl - Artist – Song Dutch Hung Medien / hitparade.ch
New Zealand charts.org.nz - Artist – Song English Hung Medien
Norway norwegiancharts.com - Artist – Song English Hung Medien
Portugal portuguesecharts.com - Artist – Song English Hung Medien albums only
Spain spanishcharts.com - Artist – Song English Hung Medien
Sweden swedishcharts.com - Artist – Song English Hung Medien
Switzerland EN Artist – Song - swisscharts.com English Hung Medien
Ireland not up yet
UK not up yet

2a. First, I've listed three versions of the Belgian sites. The ultratop.be site actually has three versions for display: one in Dutch (the one {{singlechart}} uses for Flanders), one in French (the one you use for Wallonia), and one in English (which you don't use [yet!] but which I always use because, well, we're on WP-EN here). I've never seen a difference among the pages apart from ads and (some of) the labels for the fields. It's all pretty clear anyway, but I'm suggesting you use EN. Even if you use the same URL for both BE-F and BE-W (namely, the English one), the refs will still be different because they are two separate charts. And FYI, only the Belgian sites require the "www." in the URL; none of the others do.

2b. Now then: Only the Swiss and Austrian sites put the site name at the end of the title. {{singlechart}} currently puts them all at the end of the clickable ref title, except for New Zealand's and the French digital one, which it puts at the beginning. Assuming you want to fiddle with such trivialities, I think we should have them either all match their respective sites, or be all first or all last (I'd prefer the matching, but then, that'd be the most work, and until now I haven't done any of the reworking).

2c. All the sites show simply "Hung Medien" as the publisher, including the Swiss site (Hung Medien is based in Switzerland), except for those wacky Benelux countries; they've got slightly different publisher listings. Currently, {{singlechart}} shows "Ultratop and Hung Medien" for Belgium, and just "Hung Medien" for NL. (I've always figured that it's probably a mistake that hitparade.ch appears at the bottom of the BE and NL sites, but not on the Swiss or other ones, but I've still always used what's down there. Even hitparade.ch itself, the German-language version of swisscharts.com, doesn't mention hitparade.ch.)

2d. I think that whatever charts you use above should say "(in German)" or whatever right after the title (as {{cite web}} does. It seems that none of the Hung site references currently do this. I do see that the expansion for Dutch40 uses what I take to be a template, producing (Dutch) after the chart name. This way is cool, too, but it needs a space in front of it, to separate it from Dutch Top 40.

3. Beyond the Hung charts, other charts should show their non-Englishness: Czech Republic (Czech), Denmark 2007 (Danish), Germany (German), Hungary (Hungarian), Slovakia (Slovak). The Bulgarian site is Bulgarian, but the charty part is all English, so I'd say leave it.

4. Billboardadultcontemporary is missing the space before its (Billboard).

5. Should Billboardeuropeanhot100 also have the (Billboard) indicator? Isn't it a Billboard chart, too? Or maybe not; I see that thing's apparently just for the US generic-sounding charts. Canadian Hot 100 is the name of itself and so doesn't need the Billboard either. Nevermind, I guess.

6. That's quite an error for the Bulgarian URL:

INVALID BULGARIAN CHART ENTERED! Only the charts at www.bamp-bg.org are acceptable. Please link to an individual chart, and remember that the charts published at acharts.us are not acceptable

That's more characters than the entire Bulgarian chart for a week! ;-) Seriously, should WP:GOODCHARTS be tweaked to mention the Top 5 archives there at bamp? And is it OK that Bulgarian Association of Music Producers in the ref is a redlink?

7. That Pandora thing for Australia is nasty. I'd never tried using it before. In the end, I found some useful stuff, but it's a tedious path. Hmm, that's got nothing to do with changing {{singlechart}}, though. What the template does with the info I eventually find is lovely.

Good work! And good luck! — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 11:00, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Replies:

1) It's the same chart. The Official Charts company recently started an archive, but up until then, ChartStats was the best of a bad lot. I'll make things consistent. Ultimately, everything in Category:Singlechart usages for UKchartstats should be edited so it goes in Category:Singlechart usages for UK. Unfortunately, it's a manual process, as Chart Stats doesn't provide the week that the peak occurred.

2)I hadn't noticed that the titles were inconsistent. I'll fix the ordering. I might gloss over some the space counting issues.

2a) I'll look into the Belgium EN listings. I hadn't noticed an English version. The Dutch version doesn't bother me, and I rarely care about the French.

2b)Matching the site is my goal. As I said above, I might gloss over some spacing issues, but I'll certainly make the ordering match.

2c)Again, I should match the site. I had noticed some of the inconsistencies, but it looks like some of these have changed.

2d)language template: Yes, I should add these.

3)As above.

4) Easily fixed.

5)I'll do whatever people agree is best.

6)WP:GOODCHARTS points right at the archive list. The error message is so large because people kept using the macro to reference acharts.us.

7)Yep, Pandora was a nasty case.

Kww(talk) 23:35, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I missed your response in all the other traffic last night, but I'm glad you understood what I was getting at. I'm still totally befuddled by the categories. They sometimes appear as redlinks at the bottom of the page (yes, on the very page where I've just used them), but when I click the redlink, there are one or more pages listed.

4. Yes, indeed.

5. Agreed; wait and see, and get it nailed down (with as as many people as possible).

6.again: It's true. I didn't check the link behind "Nielsen" in the table; I was reading the stuff in the Comments column, which I took to mean "forget it". The coolest thing about that link, though, is that it points to an English version of the bamp page. I had followed the template's ref. So here's a new suggestion: tweak the Bulgarian URL to go English. I think you can just slip "en/" after the base "bamp-bg.org/" and before the date-y sequence.

Here's another little thing I noticed (which I reckon I can safely number 8):

8. In the ref line it generates, Australiapandora should say "ARIA Top 100 Singles" instead of "ARIA Top 50 Singles" (linked to ARIA Charts). Um, right? — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 06:42, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Australia's easy to fix. I'll poke around the Bulgarian case and see what seems best. As for the categories, they are supposed to be hidden. If you see one poking up in red, there'll be an edit window when you click it. Type __HIDDENCAT__ into the window (note the double underscores) and save it. I got the ones you had exposed: most people type UKindie, you were the first to use UKindependent.—Kww(talk) 15:25, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I was recently invited into this discussion, sorry for coming in randomly. My problem with the work / publisher parameters is that first the publishers should have the actual chart provider. For example, the Australian one should have the Australian Recording Industry Association as publisher. Works are correct. The only thing is that the first letter should be capitalized. I think then, I wouldn't have a problem with this chart type. -- ipodnano05 * leave@message 14:27, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, US citations don't seem correct either. The work should be Billboard and the publisher Nielsen Business Media, Inc. -- ipodnano05 * leave@message 14:30, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Actually, the works are not correct either. I was looking at them wrong. The work should be the website like for example Charts.org.nz, Hitparade.ch, and so on. -- ipodnano05 * leave@message 14:33, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Citation Multiple Use

Hi Kww, I think the multiple use support for the singlechart is excellent. However I had some problems using it for Germany and Belgium. I tried all of the following but none seemed to work:

  • <ref name="sc_Belgium (Flanders)_Cheryl Cole"/>
  • <ref name="sc_Belgium (Wallonia)_Cheryl Cole"/>
  • <ref name="sc_Flanders_Cheryl Cole"/>
  • <ref name="sc_Wallonia_Cheryl Cole"/>
  • <ref name="sc_Germany_Cheryl Cole"/>
  • <ref name="sc_German_Cheryl Cole"/>

Have i done something wrong or is it an error? Also is this supported for Czec Republic and Slovakia? regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 15:31, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I believe it should work for all flavors. However, it needs to match the exact parameter you use. What article did you try this on? I'd like to look and see if I can get it to work (or prove that it fails reliably). — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 22:06, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
I tried it will "Fight for This Love" by Cheryl Cole. I presumed that using the 'Country' followed by 'Cheryl Cole' would generate the reference but for Czec Republic, Slovakia, Belgium and Germany it didnt. Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 22:29, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. I see what went wrong (and have fixed the page); it was three different things:
  1. There was a space after "Flanders" (and "Wallonia" and presumably the other forms you had in the template) so that the table contained {{singlechart|Flanders |13|artist=Cheryl Cole|song=Fight for This Love}}. The space disables the link creation (go back to the pre-fix version and click the ref link after either Belgium chart; they don't work). Without a working link, we can't reuse one. I didn't realize this was a problem, but the lesson is no extra spaces around the country/chart name.
  2. The German reuse didn't work because you were using "Cheryl Cole" for the artist name. But the German macro requires the artist in the format musicline.de uses, namely lastname,firstname, so we have {{singlechart|Germany|4|artist=Cole,Cheryl|song=Fight for This Love}} in the table, so the reused ref should be <ref name="sc_Germany_Cole,Cheryl"/>. The lesson here is the chart name (German or Germany or Billboardhot100) and artist in the ref have to exactly match what's in the template.
  3. The Czech and Slovakia templates were missing an artist parameter. We didn't see a problem before trying to reuse the refs, because the line generated for the reference doesn't mention Cherly Cole; it points to the site, title, publisher, and search entry code for week and year. But the ref generated includes the artist. Since that was missing (hover over the Czech ref link in the old version to see this), the link generated pointed to .../Fight_for_This_Love#cite_note-sc_Czech_Republic_.7B.7B.7Bartist.7D.7D.7D-78, where the encodings indicate sc_Czech_Republic_{{{artist}}}, the sign of a missing template parameter. Lesson: I need to add artist to the list of required parameters for (at least) those two macros in the documentation.
And here's one more thing: There is another feature in singlechart which lets you use the ref name of your choice, rather than the default sc_chartname_artist. Using the refname parameter, you can pick (most) any name you want, like "CCinSlovakia", or whatever. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 00:38, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for that. I've been tracking your changes as you did them and subsequently added the desired citations to the article. Just wondered does the Last Name, First Name thing apply to all billboard charts e.g. European Hot 100? It looks like it was a useful exercise for me to try and implement the use of the multiple citation function in this article then. Also wondering if it's possible to simplify the template's docummentation. i have actually found it quite complicated and managed to work things out my trial and error mostly. Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 00:45, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, the German chart (musicline.de) is the only one that wants lastname,firstname. I believe all of the Billboard charts are the same (or to be more precise, all the Billboard charts as referenced by {{singlechart}} are the same), in that none of them actually care too much about the name. I think what the Billboard site really looks at (for the URLs the template produces, anyway) is the artist id, the chart number (f= parameter), and (maybe) the "Singles" or "Albums" in the last (g=) parameter. The artist is used in the article's displayed reference, and it's part of the URL, but I think BB tends to ignore that detail (most days, at least).
I am sorry to hear you don't like the documentation, but I am glad you're actually mentioning it. I would be very grateful for any specific comments or suggestions you could make about it. Is it just too long? Has some detail or topic been left out? Do you have suggestions regarding the examples? I'm all ears. That's a lie; I'm actually going to bed. But I'll come back. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 02:06, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
It's not that I don't like the documentation I just find it difficult to understand. Part of the problem is that it is quite long the way its presented it can be difficult to understand. For example I had issues trying to work out the multiple citation use thing. I understand that was to do with the artist parameters being missing etc. but im not sure the section was explained well enough or clearly (a real example might work better). Additionally is the usuage section really necessary? (does it need to be so large). And in the billboard section are the 'website used as archive' and 'notes' sections not redundent? Is the dummy data required? It would probably be better to have a single usuage/example section demonstrating how each of the supported charts should be inputted (similar to example with realist data section but showing every supported chart). Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 02:26, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I've fiddled with it a little bit, trying to make it a little bit more clear. Still looking at the examples. Thanks for the feedback. Always ready to hear more. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 23:19, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Works and publishers

The work and publisher parameters are incorrect. For the work of Hung Medien sites, it should be the website's name and the publisher should be the actual chart owner, not Hung Medien. For example the Australian Singles Chart would have Australian Recording Industry Association as a publisher. It would overall look like this for a song:

"Artist - Title (Song)". Australian-charts.com. Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved June 22, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help) -- ipodnano05 * leave@message 00:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

As part of this i noticed for Czech Republic the work is listed as: Radio Top100 but for Slovakia it appears as: Radio Top100. Both should appear without italics right? Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 00:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

You read {{Cite web}} much differently than I do. Publisher is just that: the publisher. While Stefan Hung owns Hung Medien, Hung Medien is the publishing company. "Work" is debatable, and I'd like to hear a discussion on that. I don't think it's the website: is a chart a different work because it's published in a different place? Is the Billboard Hot 100 a work, a part of Billboard magazine, a part of a website? Is it still the same work if you get it from allmusic instead of directly from Billboard? I looked at that issue and decided that the chart itself was the work. If everyone else feels differently, I can fiddle with it.
I used to encode the original source of the chart as the "author", and still feel that is right. The ARIA charts are authored by ARIA as a corporate author, whether they are published by Pandora or by Hung Medien, for example. Legolas2186 really objected to that, so I took it out.
"Radio Top 100" shouldn't be italicized. I'll get that fixed soon.—Kww(talk) 00:53, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
One additional comment: the publisher field is different for the different Hung Medien sites. It's an exact copy of the copyright notice, which varies from site to site. Similarly, the "title" is a copy of what is actually returned by each site, which is subtly different on each site.—Kww(talk) 01:02, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Hitparada in the Czech source also shouldn't be in italics. Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 01:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
The way I see it, if the work is a published source like Billboard or RPM, it is left as italicized, else with the work=' '[[IRMA]]' ' tags. For me, I format the Hung Medien references as: "Taio Cruz feat. Ludacris – Break Your Heart (song)". Australian Recording Industry Association. Australian-charts.com at Hung Medien. Retrieved xxxx-xx-xx. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help). This is the format I have seen in FL and FAs also. The work parameter comes before the publisher always. --Legolas (talk2me) 04:40, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
That wasn't really the question: what do you consider to be the "work", and why?—Kww(talk) 04:42, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
I just realized I probably came off as snippy, and I didn't mean to. I'm just trying to derive a logical system that makes sense for all charts: those that are published in magazines, those that are published by one website but archived in another, and those that are archived and published by the same entity. I'm not finding one that would make the "work" equal to a recording association, or the publisher equal to a website.—Kww(talk) 04:46, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

(Outdent) No worries. I think I will explain my POV. I believe the work is the governing body which actually compiles the chart, chart positions, certifications etc: like ARIA, RIANZ, Billboard, OCC etc. The publisher in this cases becomes the website or the source which publishes the material, like Hung Medien (australian-charts, swedishcharts, hitparade.ch), Nielsen Business Media (Billboard), and sometimes some other websites like ChartStats (OCC), or a website which archives it. For websites, whose work and publisher are same, we can have only one parameter, for eg Czech and Slovak, whcih are both published by IFPI. --Legolas (talk2me) 04:52, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that lines up with the definitions of the terms used by "cite web" at all. I used
  • Title: the text returned by the webpage in the "Title=" field of the HTML
  • Publisher: the entity that received the copyright credit for the website
  • Work (defined by "cite web" as If this item is part of a larger "work", such as a book, periodical or website, write the name of that work. Do not italicize; the software will do so automatically.). That can't be a "governing body". I used the chart itself as the "work", using the argument that each invidual link is to a position on a chart or a given week of a chart. The only common "larger entity" that there is for all of these various charts is the chart itself.
  • As I said earlier, I was using "author" to hold what you argue goes under "work". No matter who winds up as the final publisher, there is usually some corporate body that authored the chart. "The Official Charts Company" is a good example: it may be published by Charts Plus, Music Week, chartstats, or The Official Charts Company itself, but the UK Singles Chart is always authored by "The Official Charts Company". I have taken that out.
In summary, I think the fields I have make more logical sense than the method you propose. I'd like to put "Author" back, because I think ascribing the charts to a corporate authorship makes sense.
One thing to keep in mind is that if I follow your rules, the chart name won't appear anywhere in the reference for the Billboard charts, because they don't include the chart name in most of their URLs.—Kww(talk) 06:23, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
To me it makes more logical sense for the author to be used in the way Kww described. e.g. authors = ARIA, Official Charts Company etc. Although the format i've usually encountered is seen below (ref 1). Although the other example (ref 2) could quite easily work.
<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.theofficialcharts.com/singles-chart/ |title=UK Singles Week-ending 19 June 2010 |publisher=theofficialcharts.com |work=''[[UK Singles Chart]]'' |author= |date=2010-06-13 |accessdate=2010-06-16}}</ref> example ref separated from text and nowiki applied by JohnFromPinckney, 02:14, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
  1. ^ UK Singles Chart week ending 19 June 2010 theofficialcharts.com (The Official UK Charts Company). 2010-06-13. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  2. ^ The Official UK Charts Company (2010-06-13). UK Singles Chart week ending 19 June 2010 UK Singles Chart. (theofficialcharts.com). Retrieved 2010-06-16.

Does ref format number 2 not make more sense? what do others think? particularly legolas and kww? regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 13:48, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I think I'm close on it, but please break this down into the fields passed into {{cite web}}.—Kww(talk) 15:17, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


Ok so if used in {{cite web}} the suggestion is below. i've mocked some examples up below. Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 15:45, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

{{cite web |url=http://www.theofficialcharts.com/singles-chart/ |title=UK Singles Chart week ending 19 June 2010 |work=''[[UK Singles Chart]]'' |publisher=(theofficialcharts.com) |author=[[The Official Charts Company]] |date=2010-06-13 |accessdate=2010-06-16}}

Where:

  • Author=The company responsible for compiling the chart a.k.a ARIA, Nielson Soundscan, The Official Charts Company, Hung Medien etc.
  • Work=The actual chart a.k.a. UK Singles Chart, Japan Hot 100, European Hot 100 etc.
  • Publisher=Who/where is the information in this particular article published? a.k.a. theofficialcharts.com, billboard.com, swisscharts.com, chart-track.co.uk etc.
Examples
Disagree on publisher: Hung Medien is a publisher, the websites are publications.—Kww(talk) 15:49, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok does this make more sense then? Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 16:14, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Examples #2
I think you are working too hard to try to get the website name in there. The URL serves that purpose. A website is just a thing, like a single issue of Billboard magazine or an edition of a newspaper: it doesn't write or publish anything, it is the thing. The ARIA charts are authored by ARIA, not by "ariacharts.com". Similarly, the Swiss Singles Chart is authored by Media Control AG, not by "swisscharts.com". Where are you getting the titles from? They don't match what the website use for titles.—Kww(talk) 17:02, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Works and publishers arbitrary break

An interesting and necessary discussion, although possibly it will seep out of the limits of this Discussion page. Permit me to wax verbose (after which, I will wax your boat).

The documentation for {{cite web}} still has clear ideas about what the work and publisher are supposed to be, despite the fact that discussion about it continues like a ... well, like an oil leak on the bottom of the ocean. Examples: this from May 2010, this from December, this from January 2009, etc. I see that Kww has already quoted part of this from the {{cite web}} documentation, but I'll add it here again, a bit more fully:

  • work: If this item is part of a larger "work", such as a book, periodical or website, write the name of that work. Do not italicize; the software will do so automatically.
  • publisher: Publisher, if any—for example if the website is hosted by a government service, educational institution, or company. (The publisher is not usually the name of the website, that is usually the work).

It seems clear that the consensus around {{cite web}} usage is that the work is the website. (Murky bit #1: it remains unclear to me what consensus there is for using the domain name [wikipedia.org, boingboing.net, or billboard.com, with or without "www.'s"] rather than the site name [Wikipedia, BoingBoing, Billboard].)

{{Cite web}} puts the work after the link, so the above Examples #2 section from Lil-unique1 are clearly non-compliant with that.

Having mentioned {{cite web}}'s approach to the work parameter and pointed to all those discussions, I might as well mention right here the issue of italicization. {{Cite web}} italicizes the work, as though the work were a book, film, magazine, etc., all of which properly and through long tradition (is that redundant?) get italicized. (I think part of this stems from {{cite web}} using {{Citation}}, and maybe nobody got excited about the ugliness (IMHO) of an italicized domain name. The discussion from May led to a call for a website= parameter, to result in non-italicized sites, still unanswered.)

Personally, I think italicized Web sites look dopey, and I don't go out of my way to italicize them when I enter refs manually, unless it's obviously different from neighboring refs aleardy in the article. And I absolutely never add counteracting apostrophes to the work parameter when I use {{cite web}}, although some do, because (1) it's just wrong to hack the template that way, as the template should be changed, not usages of it; and (2) SmackBOT deletes apostrophes in the work parameter, undoing what we think we did anyway. In any case, I'd just as soon we decided here not to add any italics to the ref, even though it'd differ from {{cite web}}.

And while I'm ranting, I'll just mention that I disagree with using {{cite news}} for a Web site, even if the site is operated by a newspaper. The reference is then slightly misleading; the info didn't come from The New York Times (for which ref we ought to have a page number), but from a Web site named http://www.nytimes.com, operated by people affiliated with the famous paper (publisher = The New York Times Company, as shown at the bottom of the Web pages). If our source is a Web page, use {{Cite web}}, and let the work be the Web site, not the newspaper name, with no italics.

To me, the publisher is the person/body/agency/company making the information available right here and right now. That means Hung Medien for data at www.australian-charts.com, even if the data came from ARIA. (Funny/scary interjection: as I type this, all Hung Medien sites are unreachable. Brrr!)

I'm uneasy about the dates shown in some of those examples above. Hung Medien, for example, doesn't really show dates clearly; we'd have to sort of reason out what the date might be based on the "last appeared on chart" date, which in any case is inaccessible programmatically (the template can't guess it, users would have to do the guessing/inventing themselves).

The extra information about which chart we mean currently provided in the reference line by the singlechart template is different from {{cite web}}'s output, and doesn't fit its model, but I like it because it gives a bit of extra info about what the refer is. Further, for the Hungary, UK and Billboard charts, they are the only bits which let us differentiate between identical-looking references. (This is where I criticize the Webmasters who make whole sites with identical titles on the pages. I'm talking to you, Billboard.)

Adding ARIA as the author is OK (if it's true), but there's still no place for the chart name or identifier. (Murky bit #2: I don't believe Hung Medien says anywhere where it gets its info, and only the Belgian one mentions Ultratop in the Copyright © line. So saying ARIA is the author is a bit of a technical jump.)

My approach when I have done this manually (as I recall) has been to squeeze some form of the chart name from the provider's page into the title. About the title: Kww says he uses the <title> from the Web page, and that's a good approach, but (I think we've all noticed cases where) some pages are sub-optimally designed, and either the <title> in the HTML header (providing the text in the browser's title bar) or the text on the page (theoretically marked up as heading <h1>or <h2>) are not so helpful. Let me see if I can find some examples.

Well, here's a case where I glued my own title together using a colon, based more on the headings in the page than the <title> in the HTML:

That page (all such pages on that site) has the <title> "Archive Chart". How dynamic and informative.

And in this next case, I made the Belgian refs for "Rude Boy" in Flanders and Wallonia differentiable by bringing the chart name into the clickable link (colon again).

I don't particularly like the CAPS for the Belgian refs, but I'm sure I used them because that's what the pages had. I can't check right now because the site's down again. (No, I'm not worried. I'm not.)

Enough for the moment. (Too much wax.} Does this approach strike anybody as usable/desirable? I can't say it'd be equally satisfying for all charts from all suppliers (I haven't checked). I'm not insisting we invent new titles for pages. For the ones I've done this way (concatenated with a colon), I had the basics on the page to work with. Some charts/archives might not be so generous, though. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 02:14, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The problem I have is that a reference should not be an exercise in creative writing. Taking elements of the page and blending them into something that seems to be a usable title may be soul satisfying, and may result in a prettier reference page, but it doesn't accurately reflect the contents of the source. I think one of the objections people have is that the references singlechart generates aren't as aesthetic, but I don't think that's the point of a reference: a reference should be an example of blind literalism. The "title" is the title on the referenced page, and I have a hard time feeling comfortable massaging it.
As for authorship, Hung Medien does acknowledge the sources for each chart. I'd have to dig a bit to find each of them, but I've gone through the effort to verify that before.
The "work" field sticks in my craw. I can understand why that's true for 99% of of web references, but think for a moment: if I had called this "cite chart" instead of "singlechart", wouldn't the natural flow have been to replace "work" with "chart"? This is one point where I think people are using the precedent from existing articles a little bit too strictly when we have a chance shift gears.—Kww(talk) 03:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
I disagree with the whole author parameter being added to sources, which doesnot have any author name at all. That's just ridiculous. --Legolas (talk2me) 03:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
That view still surprises me, although I knew you have it. If ARIA creates a chart which is published by Pandora and Hung Medien, why don't you think ARIA is the author of the chart?—Kww(talk) 04:06, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Because for the above example, ARIA will remain in the work parameter, while Pandora and Hung Medien is for the publisher. The author parameter is strictly for the name of a person, or sometimes for abstract things like "BBC REporter", "Press Release". Here, for the chart links, it doesnot make any sense. --Legolas (talk2me) 04:10, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Corporations legally are people, and are just as capable of authorship as any flesh-and-blood person. You are still presupposing that the issuing body is the work, and there isn't a strong consensus for that: I'm arguing the work is the chart, John's arguing it's the website, Lil-unique seems to be on the fence. Leave the chart parameters out of the argument for a bit, and just think on this question: does ARIA write the Australian Singles Chart? If not, who does?—Kww(talk) 04:24, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Sorry that I haven't been involved in the conversation but I stand by what I said, which is backed up by Template:cite web. -- ipodnano05 * leave@message 21:27, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
That's an interesting assertion: what part of "cite web" supports your statement that we should show the website as a work, and that that work is published by a company that does not own, host, or have editorial control over that website?—Kww(talk) 21:32, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
The template says: "work: If this item is part of a larger "work", such as a book, periodical or website, write the name of that work. Do not italicize; the software will do so automatically.

publisher: Publisher, if any—for example if the website is hosted by a government service, educational institution, or company. (The publisher is not usually the name of the website, that is usually the work)." Billboard is a rare exception, I think, because of the fact that the company that owns the magazine does not write the chart (which AKA is the company that hosts that part of the magazine, I guess). Feel free to correct me since this is majorly opinion based. -- ipodnano05 * leave@message 21:38, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

If we agreed that the website was the work, then that rule would make Hung Medien the publisher for most of the sites, not the chart provider.—Kww(talk) 21:47, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

My 'titles' were based on what I use for the charts when {{singlechart}} is not in use. It was purely for example purposes! So because I've misunderstand the situation myself I stepped back and allowed the conversation to continue. I think the crux of the argument surrounds the use of {{citeweb}} and what we're actually sourcing. Lets break it down... We're sourcing charts from WEBSITES. Therefore one of the fields in the reference must give information about the website which is providing the chart. Perhaps this should be the work field? The major debate then come downs to who is the 'publisher'. Is it the the organisation who publish the chart? or is it the organisation who actually publish the work? One thing I'm certain of is that the author field should be used. Guidance at the citeweb's documentation even states that this field can be used for corporate authors. Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 21:49, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Today, the URL identifies the website and the publisher documents the publisher of the website. Is more identification and documentation of the website required?—Kww(talk) 21:53, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Why would the Hung Medien be the publisher? -- ipodnano05 * leave@message 21:57, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Because Hung Medien is the company that owns the website and has editorial control over its contents. Using australian-charts.com as an example, Hung Medien owns or leases the servers, runs the forums, controls the database, controls the appearance of the site, holds the copyrights over the site's contents, and is licensed by ARIA to include the ARIA charts. If we call the website the work, then Hung Medien is clearly the publisher of that work.—Kww(talk) 22:29, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Lil-unique1: You wrote, "Guidance at the citeweb's documentation even states that this field can be used for corporate authors." If I saw this, I could be a lot less nervous about the idea of using ARIA as the author of the Australian chart info. Please, where did you see this? — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 23:01, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I think there's been some oversight here. This is what Template:cite web says:

  • work = If this item is part of a larger "work", such as a book, periodical or website, write the name of that work.
  • publisher = Publisher, if any—for example if the website is hosted by a government service, educational institution, or company. (The publisher is not usually the name of the website, that is usually the work).

So based on that: This what an ARIA charts template looks like...

This is what it should look like per Template:citeweb

This what an ARIA charts template could look like...

or

Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 22:03, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

That's at least reasonably consistent. I don't think the language in cite web requires the website to be the work, but it certainly is one of the choices. Now show me how to adapt that format into a Billboard chart and actually show the chart name in the reference. That's the issue that keeps making me want to make use the chart as the work: it lets me provide the chart name even when the website provider was too stupid to put it in the title.—Kww(talk) 22:29, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
What's reasonably consistent? He gave you four different formats, all using {{cite web}}. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 23:07, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Lil-unique1, I don't understand what you're trying to communicate here. All four of these examples use {{cite web}}. None of them use templates.
Also, You've misspelled Steffen Hung, but it doesn't matter; there is no way he is the author of anything here. Let's leave his name right out of further discussions (unless and until, you know, he starts putting reviews or or articles on his pages, with his byline). — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 23:01, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


Well it might appear something like:

or if you wanted the single chart's name in there too... (using the 'at' field)

"Ke$ha Album & Song Chart History". Billboard Hot 100. Nielsen SoundScan. Billboard.com. Retrieved 2010-06-03. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)

Could this work? Lil-unique1 (talk) 22:43, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The last one is very close to what we have today, with the exception that I use "Nielsen Business Media" as the publisher. You wound up making the same choice I did: to get the chart name in there, you treated the chart as the work. That's fundamentally the problem we have here: if you believe (as I do) that the "title" isn't really under our control, you can't get the chart name into the reference without treating it as the work.—Kww(talk) 22:47, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Well you see the trouble is that by trying out all of the different alternatives i come to the conclusion that the chart might as well be the 'work' field. the template's docummentation advises that if a page is part of a bigger body of work then the 'work' field should be included. in this case each reference is one snapshot of the chart making the chart the 'bigger body of work'. In that case i think the Author should be reinstated.

Unless we had:


p.s. why do we use Nielsen Business Media instead of Nielsen SoundScan? I though it was soundscan who provided billboard with their data? Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 23:06, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Because Nielsen Business Media is the actual publishing company. Nielsen Soundscan is the data collection subsidiary. It's nice to see that once someone tried all the various alternatives they came to nearly the same conclusion I did.—Kww(talk) 23:33, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
Fair play... that much i understand. Did we get anywhere with the chart formats thing? (in a previous discussion we tried to alter the formats of the charts so that all the single charts look similar).? Regards Lil-unique1 (talk) 23:37, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
That discussion stalled. I wouldn't mind if someone pushed for a conclusion. The hard parts of the template are trying to figure out how to map information to URLs, and when I should link to what source, so I haven't stopped working on it. Fiddling with output formats is easy once you get used to it, so I don't let a lack of consensus on output formats stop me. If everyone comes to a conclusion on how the references should actually look and how the chart lines should actually look, I can probably rework the template in two or three days. I just don't want to do it three or four times.—Kww(talk) 23:52, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


Correct me if im wrong (i cant remember whhere the chart lines were discussed) but was there not universal support for Chart format proposals #2c provided that there was some tweaking? Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 00:00, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Looks to me nearly evenly split between 2A, 2B, and 2C, with JohnFromPinckney and I both still having a preference for the current output, but willing to compromise.—Kww(talk) 00:05, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
That's how I see it as well. (See, Kww? I can agree with you!) — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 00:15, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
Ah yes, i found the discussion and seen what was said. fair play. John what's your taken on the recent discussion for works/publishers above? Regards, Lil-unique1 (talk) 00:36, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Documentation: Discussion here or at Template talk:Singlechart/doc?

I just made some rather grandios expansions[1] to the documentation, and I want to let folks know what I did, what needs doing, and heh, that I'm not a vandal trying to destroy the existing documentation. In particular, I made some bold claims which may range from not-exactly-true all the way to bald-faced-lying. In any case, my claims need checking (and I'd be keen to get feedback on what's wrong with my sweeping edits). I'll be glad to make any necessary corrections if nobody else here makes them first.

But I'm not sure on whether I should be writing here or over at Template talk:Singlechart/doc. This transclusion thing is a bit weird for me. What's best? — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 05:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I think this is appropriate. I read over your changes, and haven't found any bald-faced lies. Some spin-doctoring, perhaps, such as describing the ridiculous magic-number thing from Billboard as an "opportunity", but no lies, yet.—Kww(talk) 13:29, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Ha! And here I thought my humor was dry. I actually went back to see where I used the word opportunity, but of course... I don't spin, Doctor. Still, do see the next few sections re: my edits. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 18:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Billboard vs All Music for US charts

Hi Kww, First of all can i say thank you for all you work on the chart Macro. It is an excellent piece of innovation. I remember when you first activated the macro you said one of the reasons for doing so was to prevent the loss of references when websites like billboard are revamped. Well since Billboard's revamp the website is no longer stable. on a number of occassions i've had to actually remove the singlechart template for U.S. charts and replace with Allmusic reference because the billboard no longer show a song's chart position. e.g. Angels Cry (song). I was wondering if you could replace the US chart macro's source with Allmusic instead or at least add a 'usallmusic' macro as an alternative US chart? Also is there plans for an album chart macro? Lil-unique1 (talk) 23:50, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I've been looking at it. It's not easy. Here's your challenge: take two pieces of data: "Katy Perry" and "I Kissed a Girl", and teach me how to make a URL that links to a page that shows a chart position. I can't figure it out, but I may just be missing something.—Kww(talk) 00:03, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

the issue with AllMusic is that it will only produce a page for the artist's whole discography which means when verifying you have to scroll down manually. Also it has no ID system like billboard. Example: if i search Katy Perry her discography page comes up at: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:g9fexz95ldae~T51. How could you distinguish that this is katy perry in the macro? Lil-unique1 (talk) 00:17, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
I may just wind up allowing people to override the URL and title for the Billboard charts. That way the cases where you need to use Allmusic and the places where you need to link to an oddball page on Billboard are both covered.—Kww(talk) 00:23, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
can we just not have a general All music macro where you specify the name of the chart and then also the position and song but the source is the same (Allmusic discog page)? I personally do like the macro but i think there is some resistance to it and its been slow to be adopted accross the community. Lil-unique1 (talk) 00:39, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Chartstats

Sorry if I'm missing something, but is it currently possible to use this template to link to URLs in the format http://www.chartstats.com/release.php?release=49819? Some recent songs don't seem to have a song ID. If not, is there any chance the template could be updated please to allow referring to these URLs too? Thanks Mhiji (talk) 17:35, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

But all songs do have a song ID. Can you give an example of one that doesn't? Yves (talk) 19:31, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
So how do I find the song ID for this song, http://www.chartstats.com/release.php?release=49819? Mhiji (talk) 21:04, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Look at what you just typed: 49819. Or you could have read the documentation for this template. :P Yves (talk) 21:08, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
No. That doesn't work that produces:
Chart (2010) Peak
position
UK Singles (OCC)[74] 68
  1. ^ noref
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  73. ^ "Shakira – She Wolf". Top Digital Download.
  74. ^ "Joe McElderry: Artist Chart History". Official Charts Company.
It doesn't work... Mhiji (talk) 21:18, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
That's because you have the wrong song ID; it's 35302. Yves (talk) 21:23, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
You just told me it was 49819?! OK, how did you find that? Mhiji (talk) 21:26, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
OK, you just used the search box. I'm sure there's been others I've come across where searching for them has not come up with the ID... Or maybe I'm just going mad. I'll see if I can find any others. If not, just ignore me! Mhiji (talk) 21:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
That's downright peculiar. You provided the link http://www.chartstats.com/release.php?release=49819 and it works, but it has a "release" id in it. {{singlechart}} wants to produce http://www.chartstats.com/songinfo.php?id=35302 , which just has "id", not "release". I've never seen a "release" link before. To get to the song page from the release page, just click on one of the chart links (like the one labeled "18/12/2010"), and then click on the song from the chart page.—Kww(talk) 21:34, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
By the look of things, it's because of an update to the site on 2 December 2010. So, from now on the default format will be "http://www.chartstats.com/release.php?release=xxxx" (although it can be disabled). Although, currently all songs now seem to have a release ID and song ID (e.g. this or this and this or this). Since the default now seems to be the "release" version, I was thinking it might be an idea to allow the use of that too (adding a |release= parameter or something)? Or if not (or in the meanwhile) adding something to the doc to describe how to find the song ID if the user is on the release page? Mhiji (talk) 21:59, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I'll add a parameter. Give me a few days.—Kww(talk) 23:12, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
That's excellent thank you. Mhiji (talk) 23:29, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

So, is someone gonna fix this or what?--z33k (talk) 20:45, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Adding Singlechart for India

I wish to add a Singlechart for India. India is a growing market for English music, and hence, should be mentioned in the chart listing of various songs.

The link to the charts: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/musicchart/6692253.cms?chartid=3&periodtype=4

Wikilink: Radio Mirchi.

The wikilink has all the information on the charts, and the archives are available in the website link provided above. (Likeicare1986 (talk) 18:00, 20 October 2011 (UTC))

Do I understand correctly that you want {{singlechart}} to emit references for both the Mirchi Top 20 and the Angrezi Top 20 (or just the Angrezi Top 20)? Is it okay with you to ignore the Indipop 10?
Also, it looks like these are both airplay charts, and that the song's "popularity" is determined by how much play they get on the radio stations owned by this one company (Radio Mirchi). Is that correct?
Most of the Radio Mirchi article looks like the info they give their prospective advertisers (okay, maybe not), but at least it gives me more info than I've found on The Times of India site. I don't see any methodology info anywhere.
It seems that only the song and album titles are shown (along with current and peak numbers), but no artist names. I guess that wouldn't be a problem as long as we can tell similarly-named songs apart. We'd really be looking up specific weekly charts, much as we currently do for Hungary or Ireland. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 02:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Yeah John. Radio Mirchi chart is a single network chart. There's no service to monitor the airplay in India, like Nielsen. The chart is determined by the number of plays on the Mirchi station. Novice7 (talk) 12:44, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

References for Australiapandora and Australiaurban

I believe the output reference is incorrect for Australiapandora and Australiaurban chart ids. Currently, the output reference for Australiapandora is (just an example):

"ARIA Top 100 Singles – Week Commencing 21st May 2001". ARIA Top 100 Singles. National Library of Australia. May 21, 2001.

However, the ARIA Report is a periodical, and archived by Pandora, the template should follow something more like this:

"ARIA Top 100 Singles – Week Commencing 21st May 2001". ARIA Report (Sydney, AUS: Australian Recording Industry Association) (586): 3. May 21, 2001. OCLC 222025672. Archived from the original on February 22, 2002.

What do you all think?
Michael Jester (talk · contribs) 06:11, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

The revised citation looks nice, Michael. I like its form. But:
  • You seem to have the "current" example a bit wrong, based on my comparisons table. To the best of my knowledge, it's currently like:
"The ARIA Report, Week Commencing ~ 21 May 2001 ~ Issue #586. See p. 4" ARIA Top 100 Singles. National Library of Australia.
Where did you get your "before" format?
The parameters for Australiapandora are url and urltitle, so users can use whatever title they want.
  • The ARIA Top 100 Singles link in the current citation is like the one the template uses for the basic Australia macro (and other countries/charts). If we remove that, this citation won't be exactly parallel to the others. (It also removes the only differention we currently have between Australiapandora and Australiaurban.) I don't have a problem with that, personally, but I mention it for others to consider.
  • The new format uses a document title which isn't quite right. I guess you're trying to sneak the "ARIA Top 100 Singles" or "ARIA Top 40 Urban Singles" differentiation in here, just as we've snuck it into the citations of the current template. My problem is that it mis-identifies the work a bit too drastically. Are you trying to use the table name as the name of the work? If so, it's weird to use the page number within that "work". But without the page number within the Report PDF, it's harder to locate the info we're supposed to be pointing to. See what I mean?
  • I don't know anything about OCLC numbers (except what I've read following the links in the citation). Do I understand correctly that the ARIA Report will always have this same number for all editions?
  • Do we know for certain that the ARIA Report is printed in Sydney? And: does the publishing city matter if we're using a purely electronic/online archive of it?
  • The new citation shows ARIA as the publisher. While it's true they're generating the report in the first place, we're getting it from the National Library of Australia. My understanding is that we're supposed to say where we got it, which is the NLA.
Awaiting other comments. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 09:38, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm uncomfortable. The proposal seems to treat the source as a hardcopy which has been electronically archived, but, to my knowledge, the document is only distributed electronically. What evidence is there of a hardcopy distribution?—Kww(talk) 19:09, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Electronic or not, it is still a magazine/journal/periodical imo, so the citation should represent that. Of course we can remove unnecessary details (maybe such as the location or oclc number), but the generated reference should look like {{cite journal}}.
Michael Jester (talk · contribs) 02:39, 17 January 2012 (UTC)