Wikipedia talk:Featured Music Project

Templates

Template:FMP2start, Template:FMP2 and Template:FMP2end are used on the status subpage.

Template:FMPsubpage is the artist subpage template.

Template:FMP/box is the project navbox.

Template:FMPparticipant is the boilerplate participant request.

Comment

I think that these guidelines should be just that: a relatively loose guide pointing out the patterns that you might see in each section. Rather than using prescriptive language (e.g., 'should'), I think they should be reworded along the lines of setting out possible elements of each section. Above all, the content, style, and form of an article needs to be tailored to its particular topic.

The text needs to be copy-edited.

Tony 15:07, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Why the focus on English-speaking countries? The length and complexity of the guidelines will put off a lot of potential users. It's like a national constitution at the moment; that is why I've tried to simplify it. Tony 00:46, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the natural focus is English-speaking countries, since that's the English Wikipedia's largest audience -- I guess that's as much a function of our coverage and systemic bias as anything, so I've reworded that one a bit to make it more flexible. I agree the whole thing is somewhat long and complex, I'll see what I can do. Tuf-Kat 05:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I've got all the sections down to four primary criteria. It might simplify grading to say that failing to meet one of the criteria drops the grade by one. (i.e. an article with a lead that's got everything but a free pic would be a B, if it also was six paragraphs long, it'd be a C, and if it also failed to mention notability, it'd be a D, and if it also failed to cover all the important points, it'd be an F.) Tuf-Kat 05:49, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I think your system would work well in situations where numerical quantification can be relied on as a central fact. But do you really want to reduce everything to ratings here? It might remove the personal component of evaluations, which is a key motivator. And it might reduce flexibility. Tony 11:30, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

See, by casting the guidelines in terms of 'an article typically ....', you can throw the onus back onto the contributors to justify why they've gone against the guideline, rather than prescribing that they should adhere to it. The latter approach, I suspect, will not result in closer adherence. A suggested model then stands even if someone doesn't follow it (for good or bad reasons); rules are weakened if people have to be disciplined to follow them. Tony 11:34, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• Are you going to import and adapt Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers#Guidelines for using sound excerpts? Tony 01:07, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • All that really ought to be part of a page specifically on sound samples, which I'm pretty sure exists but can't find. I've tweaked one of the audio guidelines to require explicit rationales, but it'd be best if there could be a link to a Wikipedia page on the subject with all appropriate guidelines.
  • Judging from your edit comment, you don't like the whole idea of evaluating articles? Is that right? Or just not the implementation? Tuf-Kat 07:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure I like the idea of evaluating articles; I just think it will be harder to get people to do it than you might think. The process should be as simple as possible; at the moment, it looks dauntingly long and complex. Tony 07:53, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• So why are there colours as well as A to F? I don't get it. And how exactly does someone indicate her/his evaluation of an article? (There are no instructions.) By giving a letter grade to each of the areas you list below? If so, why not give them a form that they can copy and paste? Make it as easy as possible for them. Now I come to think of it, why the letters? No one will ever remember what they stand for, so they'll have to keep cross checking as they evaluate. Why not just give them the descriptors for each area and ask them to put 'X' at the end of their choice. (Still too many wasted words in the descriptors, anyway.)

Here's part of what they might paste:

• Lead:

very poor or no lead

stubby and insufficient

gives a basic summary

reasonably good; summarizes the entire topic

excellent

Here's an evaluation:

• Lead:

very poor or no lead

stubby and insufficient

gives a basic summaryX

reasonably good; summarizes the entire topic

excellent

What is the aim? Is a C good enough? Is C, for example, consistent across all areas? Tony 08:07, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Not sure I understand the above -- was it an accident? Why is the only change the addition of the X? Maybe each section should be just evaluated as pass/fail? Tuf-Kat 16:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

PS The info on sound excerpts was non-existent, which is why I wrote the one in the composers' project. Having advice here or somewhere accessible will encourage people to use 30-second no-permission examples. Tony 08:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, there should be a page just about it, or maybe a Wikiproject. Tuf-Kat 16:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

To go really simple, how about just putting the following on FAC/PR pages (this is for Nightwish):

• Lead: Pass (needs free pic)
• Comprehensiveness: Pass
• Sales: Pass
• Pictures: Fail (none free)
• Audio: Fail (none)
• References: Fail (not clear if "References" are cited in "Notes", needs more scholarly works)
• Discography: Pass
• Style/Format: Pass

Rather nice

I quickly read through the criteria, and it's overall pretty great. What I particularly like is that, if an article scores high on ALL counts, and is reasonably well-organized, it has a good shot right there of being "well-written". So, in part, it can be used as a kind of paint-by-numbers (in a good way) for those with lots of energy but less of an eye for editorial balance... You should publicize it somewhere around WP:FAC (if you have, I didn't notice)...? --Tsavage 19:27, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I wanted to get some more public opinion before moving it out of my userspace and making a more formal proposal. I'd like to have a simple way to rate articles -- I came up with User:TUF-KAT/Featured Music Project/Status, but that may be too complicated. Any suggestions? What about a simple pass/fail for each category, and a page where any article that fails no more than three categories is listed. That would be a list of articles near FAC-ready, so a user could easily specialize in fixing leads, adding scholarly references or uploading audio samples. Tuf-Kat 04:54, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

simple way to rate articles The criteria require quite a rigorous review process; I don't think there's an easy way to simplify them without also watering them down. Table presentation is visually great (compelling :), a little tedious to fill in, but, oh well. I guess it depends on how this outline is used. For example, as interpretaion of the FA standard gets tougher, anyone wondering whether to nominate a music FA will want at least check these. Perhaps its most common use would be as more of an informal checklist, which wouldn't be bad, since it's the quality end result that we're after...

What about a simple pass/fail for each category As above... IMO, the strength is in the refined criteria. People can debate the definition of the grades and their interpretation against a particular article, but those debates will be more controlled than just arguing over, say, "comprehensiveness". Again, maybe this is primarily a "diagnostic" tool, as opposed to something every FAC would be formally rated against. Hope that helps. --Tsavage 21:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Evaluating articles

I put the below on the project page as a proposal, and reproduce it here for comment. Please ignore User:TUF-KAT/Featured Music Project/Status, as it is now outdated. Tuf-Kat

Each article on a musician or group of musical performers should be evaluated according to the above criteria on the article's talk page. Each section of criteria (e.g. "Sales", "Discography") should be evaluated on a pass/fail basis. If an article passes all but three or fewer categories, it should be added to the status page (which uses a transcluded subpage like Wikipedia:FMP/Bob Marley).

The FMP page documents the article's progression like an ongoing peer review. It might be wise to use subpages so that one can easily look at all the articles that are pretty good (because they fail no more than three categories) but need work on their lead, or on sound samples, or referencing, or whatever.

Once an article is declared passing under all the criteria, it enters the "polishing" phase, which is sort of like PR. The same subpage is used and more specific comments about individual issues are given, if needed. Once there's a consensus to do, it would be nominated for FAC through the normal process.

• No-one seems to of evaluated Vanilla Ninja lately. As I'm the only contributor to it, and as it was on FARC in August or so (just after it was on the main page), maybe it needs a review. I think it is still a worthy FA as of now. Hedley 21:05, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Shucks, no tunes?

I thought this would be about musical media :-) Off to Commons to look for same. +sj + 19:21, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

"Lead" suggestion

Tuf-Kat, can I make a suggestion for a possible change in the Lead requirements of the "Featured Music Project"? Both myself (with the Phil Collins article) and Dharmabum420 (with the Pink Floyd article) have votes going on for FAC (at [[1]] and [[2]], respectively). So far, the reviews have generally been positive, but it has been noted in both of our reviews by two different reviewers that the lead's were too long. Both articles originally had four paragraphs in the lead, as was suggested here, but we both have been referred to WP:LEAD with its recommendation of 3 paragraphs. As such, I believe it would be better to decrease the Music Project lead requirement, or L1, from 2-4 paragraphs to 2-3 paragraphs.

Let me know what you think!

--Ataricodfish 08:09, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Sure, they're only meant to reflect consensus, and that's apparently the consensus. Tuf-Kat 08:36, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm with Ataricodfish and yourself on the issue; consensus seems to run to 2-3 paragraphs, so that's what we'll give them. :) - dharmabum 09:29, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

rename the project

I suggest you call it Featured Artist Project-- I was at first under the impression that genre articles were included in this project.--Urthogie 16:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the name has bothered me a little, too; I'm concerned that it be delineated stylistically to exclude 'classical', 'non-popular' musical genres. Is that doable? Tony 23:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

"Featured Artist Project" can be vague too (Pablo Picasso is an artist). Changing it to indicate it's for popular Western music would probably make the name a bit unwieldy. And I don't really think it's necessary to exclude other performers -- some of the guidelines obviously won't apply in many cases, but I think it's reasonable to expect common sense, and substitute appropriately (Beethoven doesn't need a Discography section, but he does need a list of compositions, and all the guidelines for the discography can be basically applied to that list too, for example). Tuf-Kat 03:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

How's about Featured Musical Artists Project?--Urthogie 10:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Still seems more unwieldy than necessary, but I won't argue too much. Tuf-Kat 17:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Featured Musicians Project. I'm moving it.--Urthogie 17:59, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but please move the whole thing, including the subpages, the artist subpages, and update the template on the status page. Tuf-Kat 04:38, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I've moved it back. If you'd like to change the name, please change everything at once. Tuf-Kat 05:44, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

sound samples

I don't understand requiring sound samples. It's a likely copyvio, IMO. An image is inline, and mixed with the article, forming a small part of larger work. The sound is not. It's a separate link, independent of the article. It's awfully unlikely there will be signficant discussion of the clip in the article. Since the user has to follow a link to play the sound, why not just send them to an external link, where they can hear an authorized sample (such as a link to part of the artist's web site). If there's no authorized sample, we probably souldn't provide a sample. This page should only be recommending things that are clearly desireable. This is questionable. We should strive to make as many 100%-free articles as possible. The current wording is actually suggesting a 100% free is almost never good enough. --Rob 17:25, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

• I think there's been a pretty broad consensus for a long time that sound samples are legally appropriate, and I think they're a valuable part of articles. Tuf-Kat 17:51, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Well, there's a difference between telling people they can't use them, and stopping saying they should use them. Our *ideal* should to produce free content. I don't expect them to banned, I just think they shouldn't be actively, and strongly encouraged. And of course, sound samples make for better articles. Heck, video clips would make for great articles. But, we shouldn't encourage use of intellectual proper that the copyright holder hasn't released freely. --Rob 19:15, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, the guidelines are supposed to reflect FAC patterns, and I'm pretty sure sound samples have been required or very strongly encouraged for quite some time. In any case, we're trying to make ideal articles, and sound samples definitely add something, and aren't hard to make and upload. Tuf-Kat 01:03, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
      • See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers#Guidelines for using sound excerpts.
        • I read that, and the person there was very misinformed. They suggested "permission" would mean we could you could use longer sound tracks. Of course such, "use with permission" material, if uploaded, is deleted. This is problem we have. In theory, fairuse is clearly possible. But, in practice, most fairuse attempts, will be invalid for different reasons. Also, a distinct problem exists with sound, in that we can't compromise in quality. That is, a low-quality recording does not illustrate it's topic the way a low-resolution image does. In many cases, music is released only under a copy protection scheme. We'ld be actively encouraging people to break that, and provide an easy-to-duplicate high quality version on wiki's server (albeit short). Also, can somebody address what's wrong with directing them to an official site, that has sound samples? --Rob 03:13, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

• By 'permission', it means that you have an email or letter from the owner saying that you can use a specific track. The tag is then both 'fair use' and 'permission' (or it was last time I checked - may have changed). Please inform me if you think the Composer Project advice is faulty, and I'll do something about it. Tony 04:07, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I was mainly referring to the suggestion that one could use longer recordings, beyond normal fairuse, if there was permission. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers#Permission to use longer excerpts seems to say it's ok to use something to big to be fairuse, as long as you have permission. By analogy, we often have permission to use high resolution promotional head shots for actors, but policy is to use only low-resolution images. --Rob 05:48, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

• AFAIK, "by permission" is allowed, as long as it's not the only justification. If a company gives permission, that can be noted and may or may not strengthen a claim of fair use. Permission alone does not indicate that fair use is valid, nor can we use a recording with permission unless it's either free or its use is further justified under "fair use". (that's my understanding -- it's possible that permission is entirely irrelevant, but it seems likely that if the copyright holder gives permission for a fair use clip to be used, that's relevant; certainly that's an indication that copyright's not likely an issue). Tuf-Kat 04:19, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

• • OK, so I presume that that means the full-track recordings I've used, with written permission from the copyright owners, are OK. Otherwise, of course, we're limited to about 30 seconds max for 'fair use' excerpts (without permision), as long as the other criteria for fair use are satisfied. (I'm a little concerned that the situation seems to change from month to month.) Tony 07:47, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Pete Doherty?

I've been working on the Pete Doherty article for a while now and have been trying to shape it into something that resembles a good article. At first it seemed to have a lot of POV statements and a fairly horribly put together section on his arrests. I've tidied the article up, referenced etc. Would this article be suitable to be taken under the wing of this project? The reason I ask is because much of the article is not related to his music, and I feel this area could definately due with some expansion. I'm doing what I can but I'd appreciate any assistance. Super Ted 19:36, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Musicians

WP:MUSICIAN has been started which is a bit more general than this project (it has a lot to do with organization instead of just content), but I think it can benefit a great deal from the work that's gone into this project, especially in defining article guidelines. I hope some of the folks involved in this project would be interested in spending some time to help get that project underway, and to help the two projects co-exist. B.Mearns^*, KSC 21:11, 30 March 2006 (UTC)