Talk:List of 2020 albums

Rufus Wainwright, Unfollow the Rules

I'm working on a draft article for Wainwright's upcoming album at Draft:Unfollow the Rules. Some media outlets have reported April 2020 as a release date, but I'm not sure this is confirmed enough to add to the April section. What about the scheduled/TBA section? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 20:48, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I looked over the citations in your draft article, and the only one I found that stated April 2020 was the Italian news source Corriere Romagna. It is also the second most current citation I saw. A web search did not turn up any other articles for me. The Italian website looks legitimate, not a blog, so I think you can use it. I would have liked to have seen more sources though. I feel some doubt. In the end, I would use it, but keep track of the article and correct if different information emerges. This far out, many things can happen, and a planned April release could be delayed or advanced. Six months is too much time for mastering and producing, so the recording should still be in the works, and any release date is speculative. Mburrell (talk) 03:01, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Mburrell, I agree not adding to the April section, but what about just the "Unscheduled and TBA" section with "TBA"? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:49, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think it is being aimed at a 2020 release, based on that one article. I would add it to the 2020 list in the unscheduled and TBA section. Mburrell (talk) 03:12, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Alphabetical order

In the list, albums are grouped by release date, and within release date they're in alphabetical order by artist. But where the artist is a person and not a band, should they not be ordered by the person's last name? For example, within April 17, there's an album by Fiona Apple. That's ordered by "F" for Fiona, but shouldn't it be ordered by "A" for Apple? — Mudwater ^(Talk) 08:57, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Albums can be listed alphabetically by first name or last name, and have been in the past. However, it created confusion where artists were listed sometimes by first name and sometimes by last name. It was finally settled to list artists alphabetically by first letter of group or first name, with definite and indefinite articles (the, a, an) ignored. We can certainly have another debate on sorting standards. What was settled in the past can be re-discussed and changed in the present or future. I will start off with the consensus poll.

Oppose. We have 17 years of album lists and it would take a major effort to update the lists for what is simply a preference. What we have works, and has been comfortably used by many editors, new and old. I also think there can be confusion when sorting bands that have artist names in the title, such as Kenny Wayne Shepherd would be sorted by "S" if sorting by last name, while The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band could be sorted by "K", except some editors would sort the band under "S". No confusion if first primary letter is used to sort. Mburrell (talk) 18:30, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

@Mburrell: Hello. I was half asking a question, and half making a suggestion. I'm more used to seeing alphabetical order by last name for a solo artist. Thanks for your explanation of the current system, those are all valid points. I'm still interested in what other editors have to say, but if most people prefer to keep things the way they are, I'm certainly willing to go along. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 21:30, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

New Information

You need to add Chris Young to your list of songs his latest album Raised on Country is set to be released on November 6 2020 that's what his Wikipedia page says Christopher 04:13, 19 August 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roberts chris92 (talk • contribs)

Go ahead. The page is not protected. Once you add one album, you will have the skills to add more. If you mess up, someone will help, but if you don't do it, it just might not get done. Mburrell (talk) 05:34, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

EPs and mixtapes

Do EPs and mixtapes belong on these lists? It does say “list of ____ ALBUMS”, not “releases”, seemingly implying that it’s supposed to be a list for just albums, and no other kind of releases. Can we get some clarification on this please? 2601:48:8100:9740:18F9:4F58:25D5:F134 (talk) 14:51, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes they do. Having lists saying "List of 2017 EPs" or "List of 2010 mixtapes" probably wouldn’t fit well, considering that there aren't that many notable EPs/mixtapes that are released. Plus - the "albums" part is a general umbrella term that includes EPs and mixtapes. Also, considering that there are more than ten of these "List of 20__ albums" articles, it would be pretty hellacious to go through all of them and look through each and every article seeing if it’s an EP or a mixtape, so it’s also time consuming. Hope this helps! D🐶ggy54321 ^{(let's chat!)} 17:17, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

By tradition, formed over more than ten years of album list development, studio albums, live albums, mixtapes, and EPs have been included. In my opinion, all these types of music releases are acceptable, but these lists can be held to different standards if it is the will of the various editors. As such, I vote Yes to keeping mixtapes and EPs in the list of albums. Mburrell (talk) 21:00, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Reducing size of article - Should we, and if so, how?

Okay users, the wolf is at the door. This article is now the 2nd largest article in Wikipedia, and one of the proponents of reducing articles, User:Onetwothreeip has made the first move in reducing article size by removing references for albums which have articles, under the assumption that albums with articles are inherently notable. For now, I have reverted that change, but it is time to have the discussion about article size. I imagine that once the discussion begins, it will be posted in various project pages to bring in other participants, but I will let others send out those invites for now.

Now is the time to discuss the various topics:

1) Is this article too large? 2nd largest article in Wikipedia would indicate that, but maybe there are other metrics, such as can this be edited on a smartphone, or in a locale with low bandwidth. Maybe this is article is still within an acceptable size, and we should not reduce size until we get closer to 500,000 characters. Let's discuss.

2) If we reduce the size of the article, how would we want to do it? For the List of 2017 albums, after a long discussion (Talk:List of 2017 albums/Archive 2), two things were done. Citations were removed from album listings that had articles, and every album was reviewed for notability, and several were purged. However, I have kept an eye on albums being added to this list, and I do not believe that any non-notable albums have been added to the list. I am no longer favor removing citations from albums. Other options include splitting the list into two halves, or splitting out the mixtapes and EPs. Some of this has started being discussed on Talk:List of 2021 albums#Early discussion on splitting the list due to rapid growth, and users on that list preferred splitting by date over category, and I favor that myself. Let's discuss.

--- Mburrell (talk) 01:29, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

@Mburrell: Are you saying that you're not in favor of removing refs? If so, why? Personally, I can't think of any reasons why User:Onetwothreeip's edit was a bad move, aside from it being undiscussed for which I can't blame you for undoing it. That −15,764‎ is admittedly tempting, and the logic seems sound to me, but if you have an objection to it then I'd be very curious to hear your counter-argument.

Anyway, as I said in the 2021 discussion, if it comes down to a split then I don't see any good options aside from date. Personally I'd much rather keep the article all together as one if possible, but if it really comes down to it then I can live with a split. QuietHere (talk) 03:51, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Having users locate citations tends to make people review albums and determine if the album truly is notable. It is true that if someone created an album article, it should be supported by multiple citations, but I have seen some album articles that have no citations or are supported by social media sources and YouTube videos. If you feel comfortable reviewing album articles to determine whether the article is notable enough to support a listing on the albums list, then I could back off on my dislike of removing citations. However, that is for past years. For the current year, which for now is the List of 2021 albums, I am unhappy with a possible two-tier listing where we expect new users to understand that albums cannot just be added, that they must be shown to be notable through a citation, or a link to an album article that is properly built, while at the same time removing album listings from linked album listings where the articles are poorly built.

You and User:Tete40i are currently doing the most building and editing of the current years list, so if you are willing to tackle edits by new users or determined fanatics and talk them down, then it would be very desirable to keep the articles whole. I just dreaded explaining why some album listings did not have references and others did, or why an album listing with an article had to be deleted for being non-notable because of a bad article build. I also dislike the idea of tearing the articles in half, so one way or the other, we will have to reduce the articles in a way that leaves me unhappy. I am not wedded to either of those two methods.

I am still resistant to reducing the article just because it is large, even the 2nd largest in Wikipedia. I think the rationale for reducing the articles is over-blown. But, if we must reduce the article size, we can either remove the unnecessary citations or rip the articles in half. Those are my two preferred options. That said, we need a consensus from interested users before we start on the surgery. Mburrell (talk) 04:59, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

For what it's worth, removing references from albums which already have Wikipedia articles was discussed, but not on this talk page. I believe it was discussed in the talk page for the 2017 list.

Anyway, it's a red herring that anybody would have to monitor the articles of albums to ensure this list could have references only for albums without Wikipedia articles about them. If an article for an album doesn't have sufficient notability, it shouldn't be an article, should be deleted, and then would require a reference on this article. I initially wanted the list to be split by date but we settled on removing the references for albums with articles. Article size is absolutely and self-evidently an issue here, and will be for the 2021 list as well. If we want to change from removing unnecessary references to splitting by date then we can, but this would be different to the default position of removing those unnecessary references. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:05, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I will say just for clarity's sake that I've never been clear on the "self-evident" nature of the need for article size reduction/limitation, I'm just not resisting it 'cause I know you're not gonna give up on your crusade just 'cause we don't care for it. QuietHere (talk) 12:40, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Disagree with the red herring description, as I was describing my experience, not throwing up false road blocks. I agree that some articles should not be articles, but it is not so easy to get articles deleted. Also, some poorly developed articles have enough sources to be properly developed, but the users who care about the article are unskilled, or don't have the time, or won't invest the time. Proposing articles to be deleted and following through with the research and the decision tree is time consuming, and not where I want to invest my limited time. I just choose to unlink from album articles that do not show notability. This is not monitoring an article, this is reviewing it and making a go/no go decision, same as we do when we ask for notable news sources for the album lists, and users post what are hoped to be appropriate citations. Sorry, this is a side issue, not appropriate to this discussion, but I wanted to defend a statement that I though was being too easily dismissed. Mburrell (talk) 04:27, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, I've only started editing on Wikipedia recently, so I don't really know the reason why a big article is a problem, I'd appreciate if any of you could explain it to me. I don't think we should do it, but if we have to, I do agree that the most effective thing to do would be splitting it into two halves. Removing citations for albums with their own articles makes a lot of sense to me (if we can use the pages as a reference for genre and label, for example, it makes sense to me that we can also use it to prove notability). The problem is, I don't think it would make a good job at reducing the article size. As albums get released the list will keep getting bigger cause most of the new releases will take some time to get their own pages (which means that we might only be able to reduce it after it gets too big, which I'm assuming is a problem). Another solution would be removing completely albums that don't have their own articles, but I really don't support that idea. It would make this article way smaller but it would also make it way less informative. Tete40i (talk) 08:38, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I only noticed now that this was the talk page of the 2020 list. Anyways, my point of view is still the same, and I'm willing to help in anything needed to reduce the page size. Tete40i (talk) 09:56, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

For the List of 2017 albums, by removing references, plus non-notable albums, the article size was reduced from 547,413 characters as seen on February 4, 2019, down to 176,161 characters as seen on May 22, 2019. Removing references from albums with articles can be a very powerful tool, but as you may have noted, the list was two years old by that point, and that gave many of the albums time to have articles created for them. Not so effective for the current year, but can be effective for the List of 2020 albums. As shown by the section size tool that has been added to the talk page, splitting the article in half can reduce each half-sized articles to about 220,000 characters, which would give the two halves room to grow. At the rate that List of 2021 albums is growing, the first half is already at 242,000 characters and will only get bigger, and may need to be broken up into quarters. Just giving options to allow discussion of how to reduce the article size, if we decide it needs to be reduced. I will allow OneTwoThreeIP to explain why a big article is a problem, as that user is more invested in the size of articles and is an advocate for smaller articles. I too would like to understand the issues. Mburrell (talk) 04:27, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

I would refer people generally to Wikipedia:Article size for the problems of larger articles. Articles of this size are harder for readers to read, harder for editors to edit, exceedingly complicated to view on mobile devices, can be difficult to load on certain computers or internet connections, and can discourage contributions to the topic.

There shouldn't be an issue to removing references from albums with articles, regardless of when the albums were released. As time goes on, more albums will have articles, which only means more references can be removed. Likewise, if one of those articles becomes deleted, it would appear as a red link and a reference can be added for it. If we aren't going to remove references, then the article would have to be split. If we aren't going to split any of the articles, we should take the default option and remove the unnecessary references as we have done before. The 2021 albums list may require both treatments. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:16, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

The project guide page that is mentioned, Wikipedia:Article size, does not require lists to be reduced, per the section Wikipedia:Article size#Lists, tables and summaries, which I will cut and paste into this discussion:

Lists, tables, and other material that is already in summary form may not be appropriate for reducing or summarizing further by the summary style method. If there is no "natural" way to split or reduce a long list or table, it may be best to leave it intact, and a decision made to either keep it embedded in the main article or split it off into a stand-alone page. Regardless, a list or table should be kept as short as is feasible for its purpose and scope. Too much statistical data is against policy.

The question is about short as feasible for its purpose and scope. I would argue that since we have 16 pages of similar lists, that the purpose and scope has been empirically defined, and that by nailing down the definition of what is suitable to be included in the list by posting the rules at the top of the list, the scope and purpose have been verbally defined.

The next section down, Wikipedia:Article size#Technical issues, states that total article size should be kept reasonably low, so this is the section that would suggest reducing the list size is desirable, although even a ceiling of half a million characters is well below the default article size limit of two million characters.

The reason or methodology this article will be determined that it needs to be reduced is probably the same way the List of 2017 albums was determined it needed to be reduced, by community consensus. An invite will be sent out to various project discussion pages for people to discuss the size of the article and whether it is too large and if it should be reduced, and a variety of users will speak up. My feeling, based on the last discussion, is that they will agree the list is too large and should be reduced, but we cannot know what they will agree upon until we go through that exercise. If it is decided that it should be reduced, we should have a method of reduction already agreed upon, the two most probable being removing references for notable album articles, and splitting the article, probably by chronology (First two quarters and then the next two quarters). Mburrell (talk) 04:23, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - It may make sense to split the article by other defining features like genre, geographic location, language, etc. "List of 2020 hip-hop albums", "List of 2020 albums by French artists", etc. would all make sense. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 01:50, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

There are already similar articles/lists for the various genres, such as 2020 in hip hop music, which has a section (2020 in hip hop music#Released albums) for specific album releases in that genre. The same is there for geographic location (2020 in South Korean music#Releases in 2020). Admittedly there is no list for French artists, just for European music. The fact that the List of 2020 albums exists indicates a community desire for a list of all albums of all genres. The purpose of this list is keeping the listings focused on all album releases for the day, the month, the quarter, and the year. Mburrell (talk) 04:23, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

@HumanBodyPiloter5: @Mburrell: On top of that, we have a hard enough time finding reliable data for genre listings for upcoming/recently released albums, so splitting by genre would be far too difficult to be reasonable. And other info like geography can also be inconsistent, especially in our more connected global society where a lot of new music groups are made up of people from several countries who connect online. And language/geography are also problematic because, given that this is English-language WP, most editors are going to favor English-language music/musicians in English-speaking countries, which probably won't reduce the English-language list enough while leaving others very short and a bit silly to even have them separate. I'm still not convinced that any method other than date will be good for a split. QuietHere (talk) 11:58, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Mburrell, there are some issues in your presentation of the article size guidelines. The guideline states that there may be no way to reduce the size of the article using summary style specifically, not that it can't be reduced or split at all. For the purposes of that guidelines, a natural way to split the article means if the article already is split into sections, which this article currently is. There is a natural way to split this article, and that is by month. This article is the second largest on Wikipedia, so nobody should think the size of the article is normal. The community has already decided and endorsed the size reductions in the 2017 article and we have no reason to breach that here. It would be highly disruptive to require a discussion for every new albums list. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:27, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

OneTwoThreeIP, I am sure I did not state things as neutrally as was possible, but then I am an advocate for leaving the lists alone, so I am not partial. I am actually opposed to your mission of article size reduction for it's own sake. I agree that being the second largest article in Wikipedia is abnormal, even it if is a list so that readability is not an issue, and it should be reviewed. However, I am comfortable with the list size as long as it is under 500,000 characters. I do believe that the List of 2021 albums will cross that barrier and will need to be split or have references removed. The list of 2020 albums may eventually grow to over that size limit, in which case splitting it or removing citations would be reasonable choices. Splitting the list by month is, in my opinion, just crazy talk. Splitting in half years is reasonable when required, and even splitting by quarters (I am looking at you, List of 2021 albums) is possible, but by month is not even a need. I am not looking for a discussion for every new albums list. I am looking for a discussion for what the size barrier should be. When the List of 2017 albums was discussed, it was over 500,000 characters. There was a period in the last few months when there were multiple articles over 500,000 characters. Now there are none. Okay. Still want to see a discussion, a debate, a poll for consensus, for what size a list should be before it is disruptive. The fact that it is the second largest or even the largest article in Wikipedia should not be the reason, there will always be a largest or second largest article. Let's see if we can decide if lists need to be split or reduced at 500,000 characters, at 450k, at 425k, at 400k. I vote for 500k as the defining limit. Let's see what others decide. Maybe it is a sliding scale based on the current largest article, maybe it is a fixed size, maybe even smaller than I have mentioned. Maybe all list articles should be broken up at 250k. No way to know until a discussion is initiated. Mburrell (talk) 22:07, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

First of all I don't mean that this article should be split into every month. The article is already split by month, in the sense that each month is its own section. The easiest way to split an article is to move a section or a group of sections into another article. The other way is to address what causes the article to be too long, which in this case would be the unnecessary use of references. I would be against mandating any size as too big to be allowed, but it is very hard for an article to become a featured article when it is larger than 300,000 bytes. It shouldn't be considered that an article is necessarily too big to exist, it is simply an improvement to reduce its size or split the content across multiple articles. Onetwothreeip (talk) 09:38, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Fair enough. Let's have a debate on whether references are unnecessary if the album article is properly constructed. I like references in these list (kind of obvious), but they are the major bulking ingredient in the list, and it is not unreasonable to ask for them to be removed. How about a simple yes or no debate for the next few days, say until March 12, next Friday? If yes, lets remove them from the lists and re-evaluate the list sizes. I am currently on a project to make the lists more accessible, so I won't jump in on removing the citations if voted that way, but I would support whomever did so. If the vote for removing citations from albums with articles goes to keep the references, we can initiate a full blown call in the clowns debate about splitting the articles, at least for those under 500,000 characters. I want a larger debate for this discussion because it is structurally altering to the tables on album lists. I state my acceptance right now for splitting an article once it grows over 500k, but maybe if we remove what may be termed unnecessary references, none of the articles will reach that size. If you agree with this, you or I, or another party can initiate a new section which is exclusively for the question of whether the citations for albums which have articles are unnecessary and should be removed, although I have been known to remove album listings for albums which have poorly supported articles, so sometimes citations are needed for albums that do have articles, in my opinion. Mburrell (talk) 20:05, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

With all due respect, the debate has already taken place. It concluded that references should be removed for entries with articles. Talk:List of 2017 albums/Archive 2. Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:40, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. First, the debate ended in a decision of No Consensus. I did agree to remove the citations to reduce the article size, but no decision was reached. Second, that was then, this is now, and there are different users who might have different opinions. I saw that stated elsewhere about other articles, that yesterday's opinion of such and such is only good for yesterday, and today's opinion is what is good for today. I think that was about which articles were the primary source of a name versus disambiguation usage, but it applies just as much to this discussion.

This article is not going anywhere, we can wait one week while editors chime in on their opinion. I don't own this article, as much as I push my opinion around on these lists. I am not the list owner, no-one is. Anything I agree to is just my opinion and your opinion. Let's see what the current crop of users/editors feel about removing citations for albums which have properly supported album articles. I like consensus building on articles. It builds community and reduces friction. I will state that I am neutral on removing citations, and will not vote to keep or remove citations, but I would like to see what others want to see for this list. Mburrell (talk) 04:20, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

I see you went ahead and removed the citations for January without consensus, for the second time. I won't revert your changes for January at this time, as it will allow an example for the discussion we should have. Let's see how others feel about removing citations for various albums which have links to album articles. (talk) 04:26, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Poll - Should references be removed for album listings that have appropriate album articles?

This is a poll to determine if the albums lists needs citations for albums listings when the albums have album articles that adequately show the album notability. The purpose of the citations in the list are to show albums are notable, as a screen to prevent non-notable albums from being added to the list. However, the multiple citations add up to a substantial size, so that many of the album lists are in the largest 1000 articles in Wikipedia (Wikipedia:Database reports/Articles by size), and some of the articles have now or in the past been the largest or second largest articles in Wikipedia. For the List of 2017 albums, citations were removed from many of the album listings, which dramatically reduced the size of the article, so that it is known that removing citations did not damage the article, although for now it did alter the list so that it presents differently from the other lists. With this poll, a vote to remove citations from albums that are adequately supported by properly built articles will allow citations to be removed from any of the album lists for those proven notable albums, or not require a citation for new album listings that already have properly built album articles. A vote to keep the citations will cause the citations to be kept. For now, the January citations have been removed for the List of 2020 albums, and this poll will determine whether we continue with the rest of list or restore the citations to the January listings.

Note: I mention articles that are properly built a couple of times. Here is an example of an article that exists for an album which is poorly supported, which would be inadequate to list without a citation added to the article or kept on the list: Obviously by Lake Street Dive. Linked to a moment in time rather than the current album article because the article may be improved, and I want to show an example of a badly built article, as it is as of March 8. Mburrell (talk) 04:54, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Shall citations be removed from album listings with properly supported album articles? Please say yes or no, and if you want, expand on why. Thank you. Let's run this poll for 1 week, from March 6 to March 12. Mburrell (talk) 04:44, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

The removal of references for entries which have their own articles was supported by the discussion in 2019 on the talk page of the 2017 albums list, so I have simply carried that out for the January section here. My preference in that discussion was to split the article. I don't mind if there is a consensus for splitting the article, reducing references, or both, but there can't be a consensus not to do anything. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:22, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Different discussion. There can be a consensus to do nothing until the article reaches 500,000 characters, but I wanted to keep this section to a yes/no choice on removing references. We can start another section to poll on doing nothing, splitting the article, or some yet undiscussed option, but for this poll, just want to know how people feel about removing references from album listings with properly built album articles. Mburrell (talk) 06:00, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Remove citations: If that's what it takes to reduce article size and finally settle this matter, then I'm all for it. The logic of independent album articles justifying their presence on this list makes sense to me, I say go for it. It's far better than splitting the articles if you ask me. I'd also consider adding invisible notes to the page specifying which entries need refs so future editors know what's up. QuietHere (talk) 06:07, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support removal of citations for albums that have articles and see where that lands us (if the article is still too big, we can consider splitting/having more exclusive inclusion criteria). References are usually 300-500 bytes, so removing them from all the "List of albums" pages would significantly reduce the size of all of them. Some of the earlier pages have articles for almost every entry in the list, so for a page like that, it would probably cut the page size in half. D🐶ggy54321 ^{(let's chat!)} 00:35, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Summation: After a week of polling, there has been three votes to support removing citations, and no votes for keeping citations, for albums that have articles that are adequately supported. Therefore, it has been decided that the album lists can be reduced in size by removing citations from album listings that have adequately supported articles, and that future listings of albums which already have adequately supported article listings do not require a citation to be included. As a side note, please review the album articles for proper support from reliable sources, or risk the album listing being removed from the albums list for lack of notability. The requirement for notability is still in effect, whether by a citation included on the list, or within the album article. This option to remove or not include citations for the album listings applies across all the List of XXXX albums lists, and does not apply other series, which would require discussions in their own talk pages. Mburrell (talk) 20:23, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Splitting this article

This article is currently at 428,000+ bytes, which is far too long. I suggest we split this article like we split the list of 2021 albums and split this article into List of 2020 albums (January–June) and List of 2020 albums (July–December) for a split in half. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 18:34, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Disagree: I disagree that 428kB is far too long, that is subjective, not objective. When this article approaches 500kB, I would support discussing ways to reduce the size of the article, including splitting the article. There are other means of reducing the size of the article, such as removing references for albums whose articles are notable enough themselves. I do not believe that every album article is by itself notable enough, but many are. Back in March, OneTwoThreeIP purged 17kB of data. Per the discussion in the section above in this talk page, Talk:List of 2020 albums#Poll - Should references be removed for album listings that have appropriate album articles?, there is support for purging references that are no longer necessary. As the months and years pass, many album gain Wikipedia articles, and many bare articles get expanded into adequately supported articles. User:QuietHere is one who is has done that once informed an article is only stub-quality, and there are others. For these reasons (not far too long yet, could be stripped of unnecessary references), I do not agree that we are at the stage of splitting the article. In my opinion, splitting the article is the last thing that we should do, and should be reversed as soon as the split articles have been reduced in size enough to support rejoining. It is only that new album or yet to be released albums need references more frequently that long established album with properly supported articles, but that is something that only happens over time. 2020 is now in the past, and the opportunities to shrink the article will only increase. Mburrell (talk) 20:29, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

The article does appear to steadily be growing, however. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 00:28, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Disagree: As Mburrell put it, we have options for reducing article size before it becomes necessary to make a split, and we should explore those first. The split should be a last-resort option because it's inconvenient for editors. And personally, even if the article weren't at risk of getting oversized, I think a reference-removal would be a good idea anyway because we've established a consensus that albums with articles that already display notability don't really need references on these lists anyway, and it would help us avoid having to ask these questions in the first place. QuietHere (talk) 01:16, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Mostly agree: I believe that 428kB is far too long and see that as an objective opinion, as I perceive 400kB to be the size limit for articles. However, if there are other options to reduce article size before the last resort split, what are they? zsteve21 (talk) 11:07, 24 September 2021 (BST)

@Zsteve21: As stated above, our best bet is removing refs from entries where the album has its own article with enough sources to show reliable coverage. Those refs are consistently the majority of any given entry, removing even a handful of them will take a massive load off the list. There have also been thoughts about removing the Genres and Record Labels columns (Already removed the Producers column from every table in the series), though I think the ref-removal should be plenty enough to get the job done. QuietHere (talk) 14:32, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

There has been no motion on this discussion for a couple of weeks now. The discussion does not have a clear agreement one way or the other, although there does seem to be agreement that the article should be reduced in size, although no volunteer has stepped up yet to review the article to determine which reference can be removed. Unless anyone objects, I will remove the banner on the article suggesting splitting the article this weekend, which should be enough time to allow for further input. Mburrell (talk) 03:17, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Since the splitting discussion has been stagnant, and since I stated I would remove the banner unless there was further discussion, which did not occur, I am removing the split banner from the top of the 2020 album list article. Mburrell (talk) 06:38, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

@Mburrel: it seems as though there is consensus for removing references for pages that have articles, so I would recommend doing that.

Mostly agree. There is agreement to remove references for articles that themselves manage to show album notability. Say articles that have three news citations specifically referencing the article, which would indicate significant notable coverage of the album. With this criteria, I encourage any editor to go ahead and purge unneeded references and reduce the size of this list of 2020 albums. Mburrell (talk) 00:06, 14 October 2021 (UTC)