Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music Standards

Note - sections of MUSTARD were merged into Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music) on 21 June 2010. Some sections were not merged in and the page has been retained for historical reference. The sections left out of the merger are: Categorization, Disambiguation (and all of its subsections), External links, Formatting, Internal links, Neutrality, Notability, Punctuation, Record charts, Spoiler warnings, Sounds and other multimedia, Titles and section headings, Titles (bands), Titles (classical music and opera), and Trivia (including Collectibles). See below for the discussions surrounding this. The rest of the sections are now in the Music MoS. Thank you all for helping me with this mammoth task! --Jubilee♫clipman 22:28, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Re-join split source?

The source for the article is split across many subpages, most of which are quite small. While the page is somewhat large, it's not too big to edit. Does anyone besides me think the subpage text should be moved back into the article directly? — John Cardinal (talk) 15:00, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

When I responded to your question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music about MUSTARD, and I said a lot of work had been done in reorgainzing it in the last year, this is what I was referring to. I don't recall seeing any discussion about it before it was done, but I did see a lot happening. (I had nothing to do with it myself.) I don't know why the split was done, perhaps you could ask the editor who did most of it. We should find the reason before discussing whether to undo it all. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 15:15, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

The question on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music about MUSTARD was by PL290, not me. I asked the question because I wanted to make some edits to the page (clarify the links at the start of sections per WP:LAYOUT). Most sections have such links, but instead of one quick editing job to a single article, I've had to edit 18 separate pages (so far), which is aggravating and tedious.

The split was done in July 2006 by TUF-KAT. There was no reason given in the edit summary, and no discussion on the talk page as far as I can tell by searching the archives. — John Cardinal (talk) 15:09, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Another user reorganized the subpages last year; that's what I was recalling. But I see the actual splitting was done further back, as you say. I left a message on TUF-KAT's talk page, but I see he has not done any editing for a few months. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 02:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I would support putting it back in one article. The current scheme is hard to use and hard to watchlist. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Done — John Cardinal (talk) 14:21, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

John, thanks for doing this. Sorry if my support sounded vague, but I didn't want to second-guess the reasons for the split, and wanted to see if reasons for doing it were presented before I agreed to combining the page. I suspect the split was done for the wrong reasons, i.e. to discourage editing by new editors who may not be able to figure out where the content is located, or to discourage editing by everyone because of the complexity. We have to remember that there are better ways of dealing with problems, and "temporary" problems do not call for "permanent" solutions. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 04:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Remove redundant sections?

The following sections of the article do not provide any information that is specific to articles covered by MUSTARD, and they repeat guidelines and instructions that are defined elsewhere. I think they should be deleted.

1. Redirects
2. References
3. "See also" section

The following sections are similar, though the instructions have been customized a bit for articles related to music. I don't think the customizations are significant, and I think these sections should also be deleted.

4. Neutrality
5. Titles and section headings

Thoughts? — John Cardinal (talk) 21:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. While "Neutrality" does not say anything new, it does spell out a few problems we see frequently, so perhaps it should stay. Point #1 can go; it's very general and is covered in point #4. Point #2 seems to contradict itself; a rewrite (or rethink) may be in order. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 02:19, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, I deleted the first three; Redirects, References, and "See also" section. I left the other two. — John Cardinal (talk) 18:56, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Input requested regarding release dates of singles

Hello, I think you may be interested in joining the discussion HERE. Thank You.—Iknow23 (talk) 11:34, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

A conversation regarding capitalizations

Please see here —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:09, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Per that conversation, I have modified the standard accordingly. The previous standard seemed odd to say the least; why would the parenthetical be treated as a separate title? Anyway, revisions to improve the clarity of the text are, of course, welcome. Powers ^T 20:48, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Here's another suggestion, in item 3, link to Wikipedia:Proper names either instead or in addition to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks).riffic (talk) 07:31, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Done, since I also felt motivated to edit that section to wikilink song titles used as examples. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 14:49, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Eponymous categories

Is there any set of requirements for when an eponymous category for a musical artist can/should be started? Based on WP:Overcategorization#Eponymous, for artist Foo, having Category:Foo albums and Category:Foo songs, Template:Foo, and Foo discography is not enough, and I have attempted at times to clear those categories for deletion, or with opposition, CFD. For bands/groups who also have the Category:Foo members, I'm more uncertain about as the navigational aid becomes more convenient, yet links for them will still be on the artist's article, so it still may be not necessary. Some older CFDs have deleted these categories when all there is are these pages/templates/categories for the artist, but consensus may be changing. Maybe some kind of minimal requirements can be set up. I'd like to say anything more than the above should permit it, so having categories of image file or concert tours and a list of awards won article might do it. Would it be a good idea to come up with something to put in here or MUSTARD, then there's something to point to as reference in the future? Thanks. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 22:02, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I am not clear what advantage we gain from cat:eponymously named albums/singles/etc by Foo. The fact that The Beatles had The Beatles (aka The White Album) or that Fleetwood Mac had two albums entitled Fleetwood Mac (1968 and 1975) is just not that important unless there is confusion. In the later case, we have a disambiguator in popular usage: Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac redirects to that earlier album. The word eponymous is just horrible, IMO, anyway, but that's probably just me. Sophomore is similar, though, perhaps... --Jubilee♫clipman 18:59, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure understood correctly (or maybe I have not explained clearly). This has to do with eponymous categories not eponymous albums (e.g. Category:The Beatles, Category:R.E.M., Category:Justin Timberlake). Should there be such a category for every artist or should some kind of minimal requirements be set? --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 16:54, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry. Yes, I misunderstood you. Perhaps those categories have their place in that they can help to bring all of the works of those bands and individuals under one roof with articles on their major biographers and other articles related to their life, influence, technique etc? Classical composer categories sometimes follow the same pattern: Category:Richard Wagner, Category:Joseph Haydn. Then again, not all composers have eponymous categories (if many at all, indeed). Anyway, all those top level categories should probably only contain subcats, per the warning on Category:The Beatles. I am still considering this issue, however, so I'll get back to you. Also, have you thought of asking at the village pump? There will be editors there with far more experience of the ins and outs of categorisation than I (or others here) have --Jubilee♫clipman 17:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

That said, Category:The very latest Simon Cowell offering might be a little presumptive... --Jubilee♫clipman 17:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Capitalization

I saw a thread at WT:MOS about capitalization of song titles with parentheses, and I happened to notice that there seems to be an ambiguity elsewhere in the capitalization section.

The first letter in the first and last words in English song, album and other titles is capitalized. The first letter in the other words is also capitalized, except for coordinating conjunctions, prepositions, and articles, that are less than five letters long, as well as the word to in infinitives.

Does this mean that the word "to" as part of an English infinitive should be capitalized or not?? I think not, but the sentence is too ambiguous for me to change it without asking! I would suggest splitting the advice into two sentences, as

The first letter in the first and last words in English song, album and other titles is capitalized. The first letter in the other words is also capitalized, except for coordinating conjunctions, prepositions, and articles, that are less than five letters long. The word "to" in infinitives is not capitalized unless it is the first word in the title.

or

The first letter in the first and last words in English song, album and other titles is capitalized. The first letter in the other words is also capitalized, except for coordinating conjunctions, prepositions, and articles, that are less than five letters long. The word "to" is capitalized if it is part of an infinitive but not (unless it is the first word in the title) if it is acting as a preposition.

depending on what is meant! Physchim62 (talk) 13:44, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Examples of the two usages:

• To Know Him Is to Love Him
• (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)

Physchim62 (talk) 13:48, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

"...except for [x, y, and z], as well as the word to in infinitives." This means that "to " is not to be capitalised normally. It should read "...except for [x, y, z], and the word "to" in infinitives."

The two examples are different: the first uses "to" as part of a single title; the second uses "To" (ironically) as the first word in a secondary title (in brackets), therefore the First Word clause (as it were) applies --Jubilee♫clipman 18:27, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

On a side note, it is disputable if the word "to" is part of the infinitive or a seperate entity. See the lead of infinitive for more. A better way of explaining this needs to be found, therefore, even from this perspective! --Jubilee♫clipman 18:34, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Fragmentation of styleguides

The first thing that makes me uncomfortable is that this styleguide should be on a completely different page from the Music guideline. Nowadays, I don't think it's wise to draw a black line between genres in such a way; and there's a good deal that applies to both.

I support the audit that is underway of all music styleguides with a view to rationalisation and possible mergers. Tony (talk) 03:10, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Tony. We could do with some more input on this. IMO, this MoS should now be in mainspace; It should either be merged into the main MoS or be separate from the MoS on some suitably named page. The Music Project needs to be involved as do all the CM and pop/rock etc projects. I'll round them all up soon to see what they think --Jubilee♫clipman 18:00, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Examples ("The")

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

To prevent discussion from fragmenting, I have archived this section. Please participate in the continuing discussion over at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (music). Thank you --Jubilee♫clipman 02:53, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Please do not change examples without discussing first on the talk page. The article discusses the capitalization of the word "The", with "The Beatles" as an example, because it is one of the most constested examples, and needs to be in the article. This text:

For example, the Beatles is not correct, but the Pixies is.

was replaced with:

For example, "the Pixies" is correct, but "the Pink Floyd" is not, even though some people may say it: the correct name is simply "Pink Floyd".

...which, by the way, is nonsense; the group were officially credited as The Pink Floyd on early releases. The sentence not only looks like fancruft, but uninformed fancruft. (Not to mention that it wikilinks to the band's artice twice.) The editor went on to include an additional sentence:

The definite article should not be capitalised inside a sentence,...

...which completely contradicts the opening sentence which says, depending on the results of research of the band's official name, there are instances where the definite article should be capitalized inside a sentence. Changes have been reverted. If you feel there are problems with this paragraph, or that alternate examples are required, please discuss here first. Thanks. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 23:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, got carried away. Fancruft, eh? I still can't think of a suitable well-known band name offhand, though there must be plenty. Grateful Dead went in the opposite direction, I recall.

Anyway, the relevant discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (music). Rothorpe (talk) 00:02, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I have seen discussions of this in the past, and didn't realize the issue had been reopened. There should have been a pointer to that page, posted here earlier. Apologize if the "fancruft" crack offended, but it looked like the instructions were being interrupted (by a Pink Floyd fan) to tell off other Pink Floyd fans about the group's history. (And I see that a correction to your assertion was already posted on the other talk page!) Now that I see there is a discussion going on, I don't object to changes. BUT, as I stated, the paragraph (after your changes) contradicted itself. You need to decide whether we still want to have "The" capitalized depending on research into the band (as per the first sentence), or not. Also, specific examples should be proposed before insertion. "The Who" (as mentioned at the other talk page) is a better example and more widely known band than "The The". Post proposed new wording and examples, get agreement, then change the article to what was agreed upon. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 00:28, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Again, apologies for barging in. Good to have you in on the discussion. You say: "You need to decide whether we still want to have "The" capitalized depending on research into the band (as per the first sentence), or not..."The Who" (as mentioned at the other talk page) is a better example and more widely known band than "The The". - Indeed, theirs in perhaps the most controversial name and I have since found a couple of examples of 'the Who' (sic) on newspaper sites, which I have linked to on the other page. I suspect the Band would yield similar results. I'm still not convinced that The The isn't the sole example of suitable capital The. (For bands: it seems one must write "The Hague".) Rothorpe (talk) 01:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

To prevent this discussion from being split over 2 talk pages, I'll reply over there. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 01:13, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Appraisal of WP:Manual of Style (music) and MUSTARD

My appraisal of these two major documents (part of the general audit of Wikipedia's Manuals of Style) are linked here:

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music)/Appraisal
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD/Appraisal
• WT:Manual of Style (music)#Appraisal of Manual of Style (music) and WP:MUSTARD (contains a summary of my thoughts and recommendations)

Thoughts welcome. It might be better to keep general discussion centralised at WT:Manual of Style (music) to begin with. Specific issues surrounding MUSTARD should of course be raised here as usual. Thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 21:29, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

MoS naming style

There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 21:04, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

RFC which could affect this MOS

It has been proposed this MOS be moved to Wikipedia:Subject style guide . Please comment at the RFC GnevinAWB (talk) 20:53, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Inconsistency with Manual of Style

Just a minor point. In the opening paragraph the article explains where the Abbreviation 'MUSTARD' comes from in the following way: "MUSTARD (MUsic STAndaRDs)". This is inconsistent with the Manual of style on capital letters (Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#Acronyms_and_initialisms), the page of which is linked directly to this one. I'm not sure if this is intentional or not so have not changed it myself but if accidental it's probably worth fixing seeing as this is manual of style page. Gul e (talk) 15:32, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the Manual of Style's rules necessarily apply to the Manual of Style's pages. Rothorpe (talk) 15:40, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Gul e isn't objecting to the name or its appearance in caps, just the way it's explained, in the quotation marks shown above. He's right, but I'm not sure the manual's recommended replacement using italics is easy to deciper: "MUSTARD (music standards)". Is that easy to understand? It isn't to me. So I think we'll have to stay with an exception to the rule. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 16:28, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Ignore All Rules, my friends. Quinxorin (talk) 03:26, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Just a thought from an outsider, but I'd never think to look under this title for standards on music articles. The name isn't very intuitive to others. Imzadi 1979 → 04:02, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Archives have been moved

Recently this page was moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD to its current title, but somehow it's 5 archives were forgotten. I have moved them along, and you will see that that now reappear in the archives box at the top. However I noted that a few other sub-pages were not moved along, namely:

1. Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD/Appraisal
2. Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD/References

Should they also be moved along? – IbLeo^(talk) 11:30, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Let's keep everything together, for now. We can reassess all the subpages once we have reassessed the project page. Thanks for the heads up --Jubilee♫clipman 23:01, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Right. I have moved the above two pages to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (MUSTARD)/Appraisal and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (MUSTARD)/References. – IbLeo^(talk) 04:58, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Name

The name of this page obfuscates its meaning - it has nothing to do with a potent condiment. It should be, say Manual of Style (Music Standards) or some such. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 09:46, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

agree, it seems ever since it got moved to the manual of style, the title isn't as descriptive anymore. riffic (talk) 11:13, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Well... I feel that much of this should be merged to the main Music MoS, the most of the rest being Content advice rather then Style advice. Basically, we should have two clear advice pages: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music) and Wikipedia:Content Guide (music) with a few other specific advice pages such as Wikipedia:Manual of Style (record charts) (which will probably take in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (MUSTARD)#Record charts), Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music samples) (which will probably take in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (MUSTARD)#Sounds and other multimedia), etc all linked from both main advice pages. I have never got my head round the need for MUSTARD and splitting the page out not only makes sense but will resolve the weird-name issue --Jubilee♫clipman 22:55, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Agree with both points; it was already my understanding that it would become part of the main Music MoS as Jubilee had already proposed. I think it's just that it then meanwhile got caught up in a general rename of MoS pages that happened as a result of a separate discussion about making them all the same format. PL290 (talk) 11:41, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I am prepared to take care of the split/merge if/when we get clear consensus to go ahead with it. We will need to be very clear what we do with each section: most of MUSTARD probably will fit straight into the Music MoS, as is (IMO); however, some of it is too specific for the general Music MoS and some of it isn't actually Style advice but rather Content advice. Some of these sections will probably fit into one of the other guidelines I mentioned already while other sections might even fit into WP:Notability (music)—certainly, Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(MUSTARD)#Notability will—or a perhaps new Content-based music guideline, as suggested above and elsewhere. Essentially, then we will have three main guidelines with clear purpose—Notability, Content, and Style—and several specific guidelines for the rest of the stuff. Does that make sense? --Jubilee♫clipman 22:56, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

It certainly does to me. I already expressed my agreement that MUSTARD should be merged into the general MOS when you first brought this up over at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (music)#Appraisal of Manual of Style (music) and WP:MUSTARD and I maintain this standpoint. I suggest that we discuss what should be done with each section separately; that breaks the work nicely down into smaller pieces that can be done more or less independently. We certainly need someone to drive the whole thing and I wholeheartedly support your candidature. – IbLeo^(talk) 05:13, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Everything IbLeo said. Obviously Jubilee will have other demands on his time too (both on and off WP), and I'm sure no one would want to put any pressure on him about this particular one; equally, if Jubilee feels anything is holding him up that others can do something about, we would want to know that. Regarding "if/when we get clear consensus to go ahead with it", what needs to happen next to achieve that consensus? I'm not aware of any opposition, and the 7-week period since Jubilee posted his audit report above seems more than ample time for any issues to arise if they were going to. PL290 (talk) 06:49, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all (and thanks for understanding my situation, also). I think you are both right that anyone that was going to object would have done so by now and there seems to be general agreement that split/merge is the way to deal with this page. No RfC, then? If not, I'll make a start this week --Jubilee♫clipman 21:23, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Page Split

Following on from the above discussions, I will shortly start splitting this page out into the other Music MoS Guides, the Music Notability Guide and a new Music Content Guide. I suggest that rather than losing MUSTARD altogether we mark it as Historical. After all, it has been a major force in WP for a long time.

If any one has objections to this process, please state them now! So far, most comments have been favourable towards a split but there may be factors that have been overlooked.

For those new to this discussion, the rationale for splitting MUSTARD out is rather complex. First, the page was audited a while back by me during the general audit of the MoS. During my audit, I found several issues not least of which was that the page is either redundant to other Guidelines or actually contradicts other Guidelines. Second, the page was recently moved over from WikiProject space to Wikipedia space and renamed according to the new standards decided upon at WT:MOS; the name MUSTARD now stands in relief against the other MoS names (e.g. MOS (music), MOS (biographies) etc) and is now less useful than it was. Third, the page itself is something of an artefact of the times when the guidelines were all being drawn up for the first time and we now need to rationalise the guidance as much as possible.

Each section needs to be discussed in turn as each will need to be first compared against advice found in other Guidelines (to check they are not contradicting each other etc) and second moved (or copied) into a specific guideline. Not all sections will sit happily in the same guideline, hence multiple destinations are proposed; there many be other destinations. Some sections may even be abandoned altogether.

I hope this summary explains what is proposed. If I have left anything out, please don't hesitate to add it below! Thanks all --Jubilee♫clipman 19:53, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

• I've only looked at this page briefly during the discussion of renaming all the MoS pages to be standardized, so I'm unfamiliar with the details, but from what I have seen I think it's a great idea to split it out into style/notability/content guidelines. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:42, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
• Question. It is not clear to me what is supposed to go into the proposed content guide, as opposed to the style guide. Are the other areas of MOS that already has a content guide to go with it? If not, what made you think we need a content guide? Please don't take this as an opposition in any way, I would just like to understand better what we are talking about. – IbLeo^(talk) 17:05, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Just in case folks didn't see Jubilee's reports of his appraisal, which give some information about that question, see the section above. PL290 (talk) 18:56, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Content vs Style is a grey area actually and when I raised the issue over at WT:MOS there was some confusion and a great deal of discussion (buried in the archives now, of course, but I can dig it out). As I see it, "Content" is the information included in an article while "Style" is the presentation of that information. There is a great deal of overlap in these concepts and advice about information often explains both what should be included (content) and how it should be presented (style). I am happy just to ditch the Content Guide idea for now if it make the process over-complex. Most MOSes actually mix the two up horribly IMO, anyway, so we wouldn't be doing anything unusual by moving (or copying if we keep this page as Historical) all Style/Content material over to the Music MOSes. In fact, it would be far easier, from my point of view! --Jubilee♫clipman 20:03, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
    • Thanks for your explanation, I appreciate it. While I appreciate the idea, I have the impression that it could be quite hard to separate the one from the other. I suggest that we start the work with an open mind, and decide the best approach as we go along. – IbLeo^(talk) 20:27, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

• Agree wholeheartedly! Occam's Razor (I keep quoting that and find it damn useful...) Let's concentrate on one section at a time then. First, though, do we save MUSTARD it self or just move everything out and delete the page when finished? I would not favour the latter course since not only is MUSTARD a venerable guideline that has been quoted many times in the past (and therefore is quoted in archives) but also the Page History is extremely important. I would therefore strongly recommend marking MUSTARD as Historical rather than deleting it--Jubilee♫clipman 20:55, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

• As you say, the content vs. style distinction does have grey areas and overlaps, but having said that, there are usually certain things that are clearly best categorized as one or the other; I think you've identified some already. But it's not as if a once-and-for-all decision is needed, either now at any time. Case by case, as we go, improvements as and when we identify them: business as usual! On the historical/deletion question, I suggest the goal should be to (a) preserve the possibility of looking at MUSTARD history, and (b) prevent the possibility of old info hanging around looking current. So I assume the thing to do is simply remove pieces as they find a new home elsewhere, ending up with a MUSTARD page that is actually empty but for some notice about it being historical. Its history will then still be there to look at if and when required. PL290 (talk) 18:41, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• I second that strategy. By moving to elsewhere section by section we know exactly what remains to be done at any point in time. I think it would be the best way to progress, as the whole thing is probably going to take a while. – IbLeo^(talk) 19:49, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• One thing: marking a blank page as Historical is a little odd! I would favour using my userspace copy of this page (after I have copied the present version of MUSTARD over there) to keep us right (deleting the sections from that page) and simply mark the actual Guideline as Historical immediately after we have finished our task. Template:Historical is pretty clear that the page thus marked is deprecated, IMO --Jubilee♫clipman 21:56, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• Good point, and a good compromise. Fine with me. – IbLeo^(talk) 04:23, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

• Fine by me too. On a side note, I think in this case it would be helpful to also place links to the replacement pages beneath {{tl|Historical}. PL290 (talk) 18:21, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

• Good idea. I see no objections yet, BTW, and I have posted links to this discussion in tons of places. Looks like we have the all clear to start this tomorrow or Sunday --Jubilee♫clipman 20:32, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

• This seems like a good idea in principle. One question though: which sections are you considering abandoning altogether? Alzarian16 (talk) 13:36, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• Some parts of this are already in other guidelines. Compare the advice on Capitalisation with that found in Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#Composition_titles, for example. Do we need this advice twice in two different guidelines? The advice on each page has actually drifted apart subtly, if you look carefully. Also, do we need the advice on Spoiler Warnings? These are dealt with under the advice found in WP:SW, now, which acomes close to actually contradicting the advice here! If fact, AFAICT, half the advice (at least) found on this page is found in other Guidelines and is either redundant or contradictory. We need to look at each section against other Guidelines—after identifying which they are, though I have already done that in most cases in my appraisal: see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (MUSTARD)/Appraisal for my initial thoughts on each section --Jubilee♫clipman 21:54, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• Those seem like sensible points, so I'm happy to support removing the duplicated info. Alzarian16 (talk) 21:56, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• Good. I'll leave this for a while longer to see if any one else from WP:VPP, WP:VPR, and the various WikiProjects and other places that I have left notes about this has any objections or advice. The weekend seems like a good time to get going --Jubilee♫clipman 22:03, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• I think we had better wait until the capitals v lower case issue over at MOS:MUSIC is dealt with. It would be unhelpful to start adding stuff to that page while there are live issues to resolve --Jubilee♫clipman 22:04, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Starting split/merge

I think we are now in a position to start this. I posted messages in various places a while back: no clear objections have been raised and all the above comments are favourable.

• Can we first consider the subpage: Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD/References? Is this useful, relevant, up-to-date? Where should it go?
• I think we can also consider:
  1. Abbreviations
  2. Capitalization
  3. Formatting
  4. Images and notation
• Each of the above seems to fit straight into MOS:MUSIC, though we will need to compare the advice given there and here carefully to make sure they do not conflict either with each other or with other Guidelines, WP:MOS, in particular.

No need to do all of this at once: we just need to start thinking about the issues we will face, for now --Jubilee♫clipman 16:09, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Note: User:Jubileeclipman/MUSTARD now contains the latest version of MUSTARD. We can use that as suggested to keep tabs on what we have done by striking or deleting sections from that page rather than from the project page. Any other business to attend to that I might have forgotten? --Jubilee♫clipman 16:22, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I just looked at the first subpage you mentioned, Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD/References, and as far as I can see, everything it concerns itself with is covered in the main MoS, so the page looks to be redundant. Perhaps just mark as historical. PL290 (talk) 21:10, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

 Done Makes sense. (The page is at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (MUSTARD)/References, now, of course: I copied the wrong link!)

Next: Abbreviations seems to have no problems and can be moved to MOS:MUSIC as is, unless it is redundant of course --Jubilee♫clipman 21:21, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Have now copied Abbreviationsand Capitalization over. I'll leave this a while, now, for everyone to catch up and comment --Jubilee♫clipman 11:05, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

• No objections or other comments, so I will resume. I have now copied Images and notation over. Formatting seems to be covered already in MOS:MUSIC under Classical music titles. Is that correct? Do we need it, if so?
• Next:
  1. Do we really need Categorization? This appears to apply to all articles, anyway, according to WP:Categorisation but it might not be a bad idea to retain the simple advice found here!
  2. What about Disambiguation? Isn't is just a repeat of Wikipedia:Disambiguation or pure common sense? Again, retaining it does no harm as long as it is in harmony with the other Guidelines.
• Move both to MOS:MUSIC? --Jubilee♫clipman 22:36, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
• What about Notability (= WP:MUSIC) and Record charts (= WP:Record charts). The former is completely redundant, IMO. The latter could go into MOS:MUSIC#Popular music, perhaps, though it is really not necessary either, IMO --Jubilee♫clipman 23:01, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

• I hope the lack of comments so far means that everyone is behind me on this and the way I am doing it! There are some serious issues ahead of us, though:
  1. External links is garbled in the extreme and seems to insist on things no one else insists upon:
     1. Some of the bullet points are not complete sentences and many are ambiguous
     2. Point 3 appears to insist upon the cite template, which I personally use all the time but which no other guideline insists upon. Indeed, Wikipedia:CITE#Citation_templates_and_tools: "The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged. Templates may be used or removed at the discretion of individual editors, subject to agreement with other editors on the article. Because templates can be contentious, editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus. Where no agreement can be reached, defer to the style used by the first major contributor."
     3. Point 4: There is a ton of confusing info in this section alone that makes the mountainous amount of advice very difficult to follow and apply, assuming people don't just go tl;dr...
        • "External pages that [etc] should be linked to: 1. External pages... 2. Respected databases..." Pardon? External pages should link to external pages? Or to databases? What on earth is that supposed to mean?! How does one link a link to a link? Or is it saying we should link to "External pages that include significant information that could not be placed on Wikipedia" and that the following bullet points are examples of such links (though 4.1 seems to be an example of the opposite). Or does it just mean "don't link to stuff you are not legally allowed to link to; link instead to stuff you are legally allowed to link to"? If so, isn't it just blatantly obvious common sense?
        • "External pages containing information that could be incorporated into the Wikipedia article (posted on the talk page)" - Does this mean that the info is to be posted on the talk page for discussion before being incorporated into the article? Or that it should only be posted on the talkpage? Or that it has been posted on the talkpage and can now be moved over to the article? Or what?
        • "External pages that include significant information that could not be placed on Wikipedia... should be linked to: # External pages containing information that could be incorporated into the Wikipedia article..." - Does "linked to" thus mean "replaced with"? Or "backed up by"? Or "further sourced from"? Or "cited using"?
        • What issue is point 4 trying to deal with, anyway? I can't honestly make head nor tail of it!
     4. To be perfectly frank, I'd favour dropping the whole External links section altogether as pure Instruction Creep. Most of it is either common sense or the kind of thing we discuss on talkpages all the time.
  2. Internal links isn't much better, really. Each bullet point has a query against it:
     1. "In general, do not link to non-existent articles..." This goes against the advice in WP:REDLINK which states: "Sometimes it is useful in editing article text to create a red link to indicate that a page will be created soon or that an article should be created for the topic because it would be notable and verifiable. Furthermore, academic research conducted in 2008 has shown that red links help Wikipedia grow." Obviously, if the red linked topic is "unlikely ever to have an article" then we don't create the link... Again common sense!
     2. "Do not use piped links to years..." This is covered in MOS:UNLINKYEARS and is already recognised by all the regulars therefore I really can't see the point of repeating it.
     3. "...eponymic debut"? Do people honestly use that word?!? Surely better as "self-titled debut" or some other universal term so people not up with American-Pop-station-speak know what we are talking about. Better still, why no just follow WP:ENGVAR and drop this altogether?
     4. "Songs that appeared in an album should be redirected (or disambiguated) to point to the album on which they were first released, unless the song itself has an article. (This may not apply to artists from the pre-LP era.)" This appears to have nothing to do with the actual links and everything to do with the pages the links point to. WP:MUSIC already covers this, anyway: "Most songs do not rise to notability for an independent article and should redirect to another relevant article..."
     • Again, I would favour dropping Internal links altogether as redundant or even contrary to other more widely used and recognised Guidelines.

I am not rushing this split/merge so there is plenty time for us to sort out these issues. However, I see no point at all in copying section over to other Guidelines where these sections are either redundant or even contrary to those other Guidelines. Indeed, there are plenty of other sections that could/should be dropped, IMO. I mentioned Notability (?= WP:MUSIC) and Record charts (?= WP:Record charts), Categorization (?= WP:Categorisation) and Disambiguation(?= Wikipedia:Disambiguation), above as also apparently redundant. I need feedback before I can proceed and cross them of my list, though! --Jubilee♫clipman 22:19, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Just time for a quick post to say keep up the good work, and a comment re. internal and externa links: I tend to agree that what may once have been useful detail is probably now unnecessary given the coverage at WP:LINKS and WP:EL, so it would be better not to perpetuate the duplication by moving those to the Music MoS. PL290 (talk) 22:01, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly. I think I'll carry on merging in the necessary stuff and then post a list of all the stuff I have left out of the merge once I have finished. There will be a few questions regarding contradictions and subtle differences etc. I'll deal with those as best I can but also raise them here as I go along. Thanks for the encouragement: I thought I had been abandoned! --Jubilee♫clipman 22:23, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

No, I've been watching too... Rothorpe (talk) 22:58, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I have copied several more sections over. The Music MOS will need to be restructured later, I guess, to find more sensible places for this advice. I have just plonked it at the bottom for now (MOS:MUSIC#Discographies through Nationality (biographies)). Also, I have to ask about Neutrality: "Opinions are desirable"? Whose opinions? Presumably not those of WP editors (except on talkpages)? Anway, most of the stuff there seems to be covered in WP:NPOV, WP:V, etc, and/or is common sense. Thoughts? --Jubilee♫clipman 00:05, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm still watching as well, but haven't felt the need to comment as you seemed to be sorting this out very well by yourself. The Neutrality section is probably necessary as music is an area where opinions are important: although much of it is common sense, the argument for it would be that not all new editors would view it as such. I do agree that the first point needs clarification, though. Perhaps something like "Opinions can be useful if and only if they can be attributed to a reliable source."? Alzarian16 (talk) 09:08, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. OK, I'll merge that in to the Music MoS but have a good look over it as I do so. I haven't been able to do anything today since other duties have take precedence over at WP:CTM and in RL. I'll get going again tomorrow --Jubilee♫clipman 23:50, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd leave it out. It doesn't seem to say anything not covered by WP:NPOV and WP:V. I think we need to be very clear about the principle, as this question seems to be coming up repeatedly: ignoring the merge, I believe we should recognize as the status quo that the main WP policies and guidelines are the starting-point for all editors, and any wikiproject guidance pertaining to the subject matter of those policies and guidelines ought really only to concern itself with specifics relevant to the wikiproject, and only when that's necessary to clarify how the central guidance should be applied to the wikiproject. There should be no duplication of detail from the main WP policies and guidelines, since that brings its own conflicts when things get out of step (which they inevitably do, as we keep seeing elsewhere). So, returning to the merge, I think anything we encounter that's made redundant by this principle ought to be omitted from the merge. PL290 (talk) 07:21, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this since I read you post this morning and I think that you have hit the nail on the head. I pretty much said the same above but got cold feet when I came to look at this stuff in the context of the actual split! I'll put this kind of stuff on ice for now and we can debate what to do with it, if anything, after the most important stuff has been merged in elsewhere. I'll post later with a list of sections that I think are redundant (some are listed above, of course) --Jubilee♫clipman 16:53, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

• Redundant sections identified above: Categorization (?= WP:Categorisation); Disambiguation (?= Wikipedia:Disambiguation); External links (? = WP:EL); Internal links (? = WP:LINKS); Neutrality (? = WP:NPOV and WP:V); Notability (?= WP:MUSIC); Record charts (?= WP:Record charts).
  • Please check!
• Other redundant sections: Spoiler warnings ?= Wikipedia:Spoiler (and actually contradicts it...); Sounds and other multimedia ?= Wikipedia:Music samples and Wikipedia:Fair use; Titles and section headings ?= Wikipedia:Article titles and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music); Trivia (including Collectibles) ?= Wikipedia:Trivia sections; Formatting ?= MOS:MUSIC (passim).
  • Ditto: don't take my personal word for it...

I think everything else can be merged into the Music MoS so I'll go ahead and do that and mark MUSTARD and historical tonight. Then I'll try to make better sense of the new and "improved" (ahem) MOS:MUSIC...! If I spot any other redundancies or inconsistencies, I'll post again; otherwise, I'll post once I have completed this stage of the merge and marked MUSTARD as Historical --Jubilee♫clipman 20:47, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

• Punctuation is almost patronising... "Sentences should end in periods." Well, d'uh... It is also explained fully in the main WP:MOS so we really don't need that—nor even a more friendly version of it—either, IMO --Jubilee♫clipman 21:16, 21 June 2010 (UTC) P.S.: It also has nothing specifically to do with music articles beyond asking editors to punctuate properly --Jubilee♫clipman 21:19, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
• I am just scratching my head over Titles (bands) and Titles (classical music and opera)... While I am pretty sure the advice in these is covered by other guidelines, I also note that a) the use of the ampersand is not recommended elsewhere and indeed the example Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers has actually redirected to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for at least 4 years, according to the history of that first page which has never once contained the article; b) the classical music section tells us to follow certain other (admittedly highly authoritative) books rather than creating our own consensus... I'll add these to the pages that I won't merge in... BTW, my connection keep dropping, so you'll see me vanish at times! Nothing to worry about, just darn annoying... --Jubilee♫clipman 21:57, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Merge complete

I have merged as much as I think necessary into MOS:MUSIC; I have listed the sections not merged in at the top of this talkpage and explained why I left them out in my posts above. If I have left anything unresolved or if any of the above sections should indeed be merged in, please do not hesitate to contact me or leave a post here. Thanks to everyone who has helped, encouraged and advised me through this long process --Jubilee♫clipman 22:46, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Disagreeing with marking Manual of Style (MUSTARD) as historical

I disagree with marking the whole of the Manual of Style (MUSTARD) as historical.

Moving sections to the MoS and deleting them from MUSTARD to avoid duplication is fine, but IMO sections not moved should be left in MUSTARD and not marked as historical. They can be left here for further editing and improvement as necessary. MUSTARD has fulfilled a useful purpose as an all-music project brain-storming forum, so there is no reason to close it down. --Kleinzach 00:40, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

That can be done: it's just that all of the advice that has not been merged in is either redundant or contradicts the other Guidelines. None of it is salvageable as far as I can tell. I can't really see any need for improving Notability when we have WP:MUSIC or Record charts when we have WP:Record charts. Indeed, Spoiler warnings goes against WP:Spoiler and Internal links goes against WP:REDLINK and have done so for years. I don't see how they help anyone much, these days. However, if you can improve the page and make it useful again that would be great! It would have to be an all-Wikipedia project brainstorming forum, though, now that it is no longer in WikiProject space... Thanks for your thoughts, Kleinzach --Jubilee♫clipman 01:39, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the 'historical' and added a note about the MoS. Items migrated to the MoS should obviously be removed from MUSTARD. The others should be left for development etc. --Kleinzach 02:52, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

OK. I have replaced the sections moved to MOS:MUSIC with links to that guideline and have also replaced Notability with a link to WP:MUSIC and Record Charts with a link to WP:Record charts. I still don't see how this page is particularly useful, though: everything that is left is n other guidelines as I pointed out above and much of it actually goes against some of those other guidelines. Also, brainstorming takes place in WikiProject space and specific concerns about specific MoSes take plce on their talk pages. Since this page is redundant, we could almost MfD it... I won't but I still vote that we mark it as historical as was agreed above by several editors --Jubilee♫clipman 10:56, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, I do wish that you had taken part in the discussions: we could have talked about this before I merged... --Jubilee♫clipman 11:00, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

We can't just leave it like this. Page should become historical unless those conflicts and redundancies are resolved and any useful content remains. PL290 (talk) 07:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The 'historical' tag is really for projects, not pages like this one. If MUSTARD is going to be removed/mothballed (or whatever) - and I see PL290 has just marked it as 'historical' again - then that means one of the major reasons for having a Music Project has gone. Hence I am referring this discussion to the main project talk page where it can be seen by more people. --Kleinzach 08:36, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

What do we do with this page now?

Following Kleinzach's suggestion that the page be unmarked as Historical and made available for brainstorming, I have attempted to clarify a few sections and make them conform to Policies and the rest of the MoS. I feel it is a futile exercise as I still can't make head nor tail of External Links and other sections just seem to repeat what the other Guidelines and Policies say. Could we just send this back over to WikiProject space and leave it to them to decide how best to deal with it? Is it even a Manual of Style, in fact, given that its sole purpose, now, is to act as a brainstorming tool? It also still has an unhelful name. Another possibility is to rename it as Wikipedia:Music standards and mark it as an essay. Thoughts? --Jubilee♫clipman 01:59, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Duplicated MoS/MUSTARD sections should be removed

This should be obvious, but all sections that have been moved to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music) should be removed from MUSTARD and replaced with links to their new location. (I've done one of these already.) PL290 should remove the 'historical' tag to facilitate this work, rather than obstruct it. --Kleinzach 10:01, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

What should be obvious looking at the reams of discussion above, on the talkpage of MOSMUSIC and in the archives of WT:MOS, is that MUSTARD is redundant, lacks any clear purpose, should be marked as historical and forgotten about. I did wonder for a brief moment whether there might be some usefulness if it were to be used as a brainstorming tool but having read all of the discussion, my appraisals and the actual page itself again I see that I was wrong. PL290 did the right thing therefore and has consensus behind him. If you had taken part in discussions from the start (almost three months ago), you would have known all of this --Jubilee♫clipman 10:36, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit summary: "please read the reams of discussion you failed to take part in Kleinzach'. Excuse me. I don't participate in abusive exchanges. --Kleinzach 11:25, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I apologise for that. See your talkpage --Jubilee♫clipman 13:04, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

No spaces in band/artist names

What is the relation of the following guideline to the stylization of band or artist names without spaces, such as 65daysofstatic, Sleepmakeswaves, Alexisonfire, etc.

"Standard English text formatting and capitalization rules apply to the names of bands and individual artists" (Wikipedia:MUSTARD#Capitalization)

It seems to me that these should then be 65 Days of Static, Sleep Makes Waves, and Alexis on Fire.

To write these without spaces feels to me to be simply reproducing stylizations and trademarks (MOS:TM).

But, if so, why should bands such as Coldplay, Slowdive or Deerhunter not be Cold Play, Slow Dive and Deer Hunter?

Is there a distinction to be made on the grounds that the former bands have names that are more grammatical? Wetdogmeat (talk) 02:06, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

From overleaf: "This Wikipedia page has been superseded by Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music), and it is retained primarily for historical interest."

I suggest to raise your question at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Music or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music or at the talk pages of those articles. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:21, 29 October 2012 (UTC)