Template talk:Infobox musical artist/Archive 9

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Tracking category for invalid or missing Background field

Would it be possible to add a hidden tracking category for transclusions of the template where the |Background= is either blank or not one of the 7 permitted values. With a database scan I found around 2000 pages with invalid values (even high notability pages like Aerosmith), and around 1000 pages with no value set. For comparison {{cite web}} has tracking categories for this kind of error. If agreed I'll stamp editprotected on this. Thanks Rjwilmsi 10:45, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

First we have to change the whole code to use {{Infobox}} the same way {{Infobox person}} does. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I started Template:Infobox_musical_artist/Sandbox but I still can't get Background| in the game. Someone has to help with that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:42, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I've tidied it all up a bit. Do you want to use the exiting image sizing code or did you want to use your new code in the sandbox? See testcases for differences. -- WOSlinker (talk) 17:50, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I've done some further work on it, so the /Sandbox version should work no differently from the current template. As for the tracking category, I've created {{Infobox musical artist/tracking}} which would add pages to Category:Infobox musical artist with missing or invalid Background field. This just requires {{Infobox musical artist/tracking|{{{Background|}}}}} to be added to the end of the infobox code. PC78 (talk) 19:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree the appearance has to be the same with before. Are we ready to make it live? -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:34, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I think so. I'm happy if you're happy. :) PC78 (talk) 07:05, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Before you go ahead with this, would you mind please summarizing the functional changes you want to implement, and their benefits to us all? It´s not very clear to me from the above. Thanks. – IbLeo^(talk) 11:13, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

• Infobox code was standarised using vcard i.e. it will be easier in the future to work with it, add/remove parameters, tracking categories, etv.
• Tracking category detecting pages with invalid values for |Background= was added.
• No parameters renamed.
• No changes to visual result. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good enough for me! Standardisation is always a good thing, especially if all functionality is preserved. Thanks. – IbLeo^(talk) 14:09, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I noticed that you implemented the sandbox version. Please have an urgent look at the template documentation; the infoboxes in the Examples section are full of errors: "expression error: unrecognised punctuation character "}". – IbLeo^(talk) 17:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not a problem with this template. It's an issue at {{URL}}. -- WOSlinker (talk) 17:52, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Removed url template. Please revert when problem is resolved. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:54, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed it is. Some people are playing around with the URL template. Sorry for the false alarm. – IbLeo^(talk) 17:57, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Found the issue at {{Str right}} and fixed with this. -- WOSlinker (talk) 17:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I cleaned up some random articles in the list, but was confused as to why 1964 the Tribute is on the list since it uses "cover_band" that is one of the seven accepted codes. If someone could look into this, I would appreciate it, since it will probably be something simple that I clearly missed. Aspects (talk) 00:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Apparently deprecated back in June 2009; see Template talk:Infobox musical artist/Archive 7#Cover bands. I'll remove it from the documentation. PC78 (talk) 06:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Another question is: Why does the category contain "only" 700 pages, when according to Rjwilmsi's very first entry in this section we should expect around 3000? I can't believe that someone cleaned up 2300 infoboxes that fast...? – IbLeo^(talk) 17:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Category is still updated. This has to do with the servers. Notw every change in the templates passes immediately in pages. And yes, Rjw is really fast on fixing that. Check his contributions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:38, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed he is! Thanks for the explanation. – IbLeo^(talk) 17:46, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Default background color

While browsing through Category:Infobox musical artist with missing or invalid Background field it strikes me that they all have a blue background, i.e. the same color as when Background = group_or_band. Why don't we change the default color to something different than the colors for the valid values? For example, it could be the same peach color as for {{Infobox album}} when the Type field has a wrong value. Then it would be immediately recognizable that the Background parameter is badly set just by looking at the article, and editors would probably be more prone to fix it. – IbLeo^(talk) 19:12, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Makes sense, but to be honest I would rather remove all colour from these infoboxes; it's completely arbitrary and meaningless. PC78 (talk) 21:41, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree. The coloured strips look fussy, tacky, and amateurish, frankly. They're no help to ordinary readers at all. They don't realize they're part of some arcane code. Also, the colours often clash horribly with and/or detract from the photo. I've seen articles where I'm pretty sure the editor deliberately chose the "wrong" background, beacause the "right" one looked awful with the particular photo being used. What's wrong with modelling them after the clean and elegant Infobox person?

Sometimes less really is more. Voceditenore (talk) 22:04, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

This is maybe a different topic, maybe not. The documentation seems to say that if the musician sang at all, background should be "solo_singer", but if they never sang it should be "non_vocal_instrumentalist". So Louis Armstrong is solo singer, which is o.k. because he sang some famous songs, although I tend to think of him more as a trumpeter. Clyde Lucas, band leader and trombonist also sang in his early years, but I just can't think of him as a solo singer. Should there be yet another pastel color for singer-instrumentalists? Or just make them all one neutral color (gray?) as suggested above, which I tend to prefer? Aymatth2 (talk) 19:14, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Category:Infobox musical artist with missing or invalid Background field to catch only mainspace

Can someone please modify the code to catch only mainspace? Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:55, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

 Done with this edit -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:12, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Now we ll find out how many pages need fixing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:44, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Conflicting styles regarding country of birth

Should the country of birth be linked? Template:Infobox musical artist#birth_place shows it linked, but the two example articles linked to, Elvis Presley and Madonna, both have the country unlinked. The Mariah Carey example displayed doesn't even have the country of birth in it. There seem to be three different styles in use, which one is correct? Markfury3000 (talk) 16:53, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I think we should avoid overlinking, especially for very common countries like United States, Australia, .... It is reasonable to expect that any reader of the English WP would know these places. Similarly, we don't link things like "English Language", etc. This is my opinion. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 15:45, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

My plan is:

• Put birth place in |birth_place=. This will enable bots to put more info in Persondata.
• Unlink countries

So, yes I agree. It's overlinking. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Spouse, partner and children

Could we add support for spouse, partner and children info? Or is there a particular reason we don't? --JN466 08:04, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

These have all been proposed and rejected numerous times. Do a search of the archives & you'll find a number of past discussions. Basically it boils down to the fact that for the vast majority of artists, the members of their family are not notable & have no relevance to their career as a musician. Relevant relationships can be mentioned in the article text but are not essential to a reader's understanding of a musical artist. These kinds of fields would be superfluous to the purpose of this infobox. See WP:IBX for advice regarding relevance of fields. --IllaZilla (talk) 14:10, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The generic Template:Infobox person has these fields, and musicians are if anything more likely than the average notable person to have notable spouses and/or children. Think Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Elvis Presley, Frank Zappa, David Bowie, Woody Guthrie, Loudon Wainwright III, Kate McGarrigle, Steven Tyler, Nat King Cole, Nick Cave, Frank Sinatra, Patti Smith, Cher, Bob Marley, Pat Boone, Harry Belafonte, Nina Hagen, Bing Crosby, Ozzy Osbourne, Bryan Ferry, Courtney Love, etc. --JN466 22:57, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

{{Infobox person}} has 50 fields (including things like height, weight, salary, and signature), so I don't see the comparison as all that relevant. The fact that infobox person is so generic is precisely why we have more occupation-specific infoboxes like musical artist, actor, etc., and we restrict the fields of these boxes to things that are relevant to those occupations. Yes, there are musicians who have notable spouses or children, but they represent a small percentage of the number of musician articles on Wikipedia. The percentage whose spouses or children are relevant to their career as a musician is even smaller. WP:IBX advises excluding unnecessary content and sticking to key facts, and leaving out fields that would be relevant to only a small percentage of articles using the infobox. This infobox intentionally sticks to fields that relate directly to a person's musical career, and that apply to most or all musicians. If a spouse or child is a musican as well, and their career is related to the artist in question (as with Sonny & Cher), they can be listed under "associated acts". --IllaZilla (talk) 23:52, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

About notable instruments

I have a question about using this field. Is it used to name the instruments that are most used by the musician? or Is it used to name custom instruments or used to name the instruments that he made famous?? 190.54.36.230 (talk) 18:15, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Like the description says, the entry is for "Particularly noteworthy models or custom musical instruments with which the artist is strongly associated." So it's for linking an instrument that is itself notable, like a Stradivarius, or when the individual instrument has an article, has a well-known longstanding association with the artist/is known enough to be named, or is their creation/was created for them. Compare Category:Instruments of musicians and Category:Individual musical instruments for some examples. I don't think it's enough if an artist just plays a certain kind of commercial model for a long time, this could be noted in the article body. Hekerui (talk) 18:45, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

This to me confused. Because most artists use it to name the musical instruments used, not exactly meeting this rule. For example Marcus Adoro or James Hetfield. As seen, in these articles are only used to name the musical instruments they use. I do not think the large whole list of instruments meet this rules, only the commonly used were appointed. 190.54.36.230 (talk) 19:19, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Signature

I believe an additional field for an image of a musical artist's signature should also be available, articles such as Marilyn Manson and Austin Carlile could really use the addition. -- GunMetal Angel 16:39, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

God, no. What does a person's signature have to do with their career as a musician? How would having it there possibly enhance a readers' at-a-glance understanding of who the musician is & why they're important? {{Infobox person}}'s "signature" field is a classic example of how useless fields turn an infobox into a Tiger Beat profile. --IllaZilla (talk) 10:05, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Alias parameter description for solo artist, "birth name" should be "legal name" & two grammatical changes

Three small changes:

1. Template:Infobox_musical_artist#Alias currently says "also for solo artists who change their birth name." It would be more clear to replace birth name with legal name, as the definition of birth name refers to the name given at birth, which a person cannot change. A legal name is the birth name or the name changed through a legal process.
2. Also I think "or the solo artist" should be added to the end of the first part of the first sentence i.e. "For listing official stage names for the act or the solo artist" because 'the act' is commonly used to refer to a group of performers.
3. Also the last word in the description should be "names" i.e. it currently says "This field is not for nicknames such as "The Godfather of Soul"(James Brown) or "Nippy" (Whitney Houston) which are not the artists' actual stage name." It should be the plural form because it is referring to the actual stage names of two different artists.

The changes will also have to be made here: Template:Infobox_musical_artist/doc#Alias

-Verapar (talk) 03:46, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with #1. For #2 we could just change it to "the artist" ("artist" being able to refer to either a solo performer or a group). For #3 I think "which are not the artists' actual stage name" might be better changed to "which are neither the artist's legal name or pseudonym". I also think we should change all instances of "stage name" to pseudonym.

By the way, you don't need to use {{editprotected}} for this: you're not requesting a change to the infobox coding (which is protected), you're requesting a change to the documentation text (which isn't protected). The change only has to be made at the documentation subpage, as that is merely transcluded to the template page: if it's changed on the documentation page, that change will show up on the template page as well. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for the info. I've updated the description:

"For listing official stage names for the act or solo artist; also for the solo artist's legal name(s), or other officially authorized names that differ from their birth name. This field is not for nicknames such as "The Godfather of Soul" (James Brown) or "Nippy" (Whitney Houston), which are not the artists' official names."

• I used " other officially authorized names" instead of "pseudonyms" to be more general, as there are different types of official alternate names besides "pseudonyms" e.g. Madonna (entertainer). I also use "official names" at the end of the description for the same reason.

-Verapar (talk) 09:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Associate acts

This is fairly minor, if a group has spun off from another but only has one member in common, can they still be listed as an associated act? If so, can this be clarified next to "Groups with only one member in common" that this only applies if not directly spun off from (and vice versa). I ask mainly for personal reference and also due to editors removing groups with only one member in common despite them being a direct spin off. I hope this makes some sense. Thanks HrZ (talk) 13:42, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "spin-off". How can it be a "spin-off" group if it only has 1 member in common with the original group? Could you give an example of where this is an issue? --IllaZilla (talk) 15:42, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Spin-off may may not have been the best words to use, but Im not always that great at explaining. An example of a group added can be found on Soundgarden's Revision history - I removed Pearl Jam previousy citing the template. It was recently re-added because there there was one member in common but again I reverted citing the template.

Examples of groups that have "spun off" from others (if I have interpreted that right) with one member in common include Velvet Revolver where Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland formed the band with the former Guns N' Roses members following STP's breaup; Audioslave - (then) former members of Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine, however only Chris Cornell was a member of Soundgarden. Also Foo Fighters, spun off from Nirvana while Them Crooked Vultures spun off from Foo Fighters with the only member in common being Dave Grohl (though Pat Smear was Nirvana's live guitarist).

So with there only being one member in common in these bands, would these associated acts be removed or would "Groups which have spun off from this group" and "A group from which this group has spun off" apply? Hope I explained myself well. If I have interpreted this section wrong then I apologize. HrZ (talk) 17:16, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

See, I don't see how those are "spin-off" groups. They are groups that were formed after the previous groups broke up: Velvet Revolver was formed after STP broke up, Audioslave after both RAtM and Soundgarden had broken up, and Foo Fighters after Nirvana had broken up. None of them were active simultaneously with their members' former groups, and they didn't have any relationship to the previous groups other than the 1 shared member. "Spin-off" to me implies that the group originated from an existing band and then grew into an entity in its own right. For example, D.I. spun off of The Adolescents and Social Distortion, Gone spun off of Black Flag, Infectious Grooves spun off of Suicidal Tendencies, Bad Astronaut spun off of Lagwagon, etc. I don't think of the associated acts instructions as Hard-&-fast rules; I generally only invoke them when a particular article's infobox is getting bloated with associated acts. Even then there are cases where acts with only 1 shared member should logically be included, like when it's a prominent act that exists simultaneously with the main act. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see. That makes a lot more sense than what I was originally thinking. I dont tend to invoke the template unless the infobox contains a large number of groups. Thanks for your help. HrZ (talk) 18:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Please Add list

relation,parents,children. Akuindo (talk) 08:15, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

No, for the many reasons previously discussed. See the notice at the top of the page and check the archives for past discussions on these. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Overlinked

{{editprotect}} per WP:Linking, the term 'musical instrument' is common and known to all, and needs not to be linked. Therefore, please remove the piped link to 'Instrument': in other words, amend the string

"| label9     = [[Musical instrument|Instruments]]" to "| label9     = Instruments"

Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:31, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:05, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Use as sub-infobox

Some time ago "Infobox person" was remodeled so that it can accommodate other infoboxes into its fold. You use this:

| module =

If you tack on “Infobox military person” (among others) you can make the whole infobox seem like one entry if you take on this:

|child=yes

However, this command doesn’t work with “Infobox musical artist”. Can we fix this? — Jimknut (talk) 01:25, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Jimknut, 28 January 2011

{{edit protected}} Please add in:

| child=yes

so that this infobox can be imbedded into others. Thanks. — Jimknut (talk) 01:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Nope. Please see the notice at the top of this page, and note that {{editprotected}} is to be placed after consensus for a change has been established. I'm not sure why any infobox would need to be embedded into another... --IllaZilla (talk) 01:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I could see having this as an option, but we certainly don't want to make this the default. I believe the reason for having it as an option would be if a musical artist is also an actor and/or a military person, etc. In this case, multiple subboxes could be embedded into a single {{infobox person}}. It would be interesting to see an example article where this would be put into use though, before changing the code to allow it. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

If a person is notable for multiple careers/fields, why wouldn't you just use infobox person? Isn't that kinda why it exists (& why it has a bazillion fields)? That's what I've done in the past. I don't see the use in combining multiple infoboxes into one...at that point you'll get infobox half as long as the article & it won't be servings its purpose as a summation of key facts anymore. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:00, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

You already can add "Infobox musical artist" into "Infobox person". However, it shows up as a box within a box. I'm only asking for a way to make it aesthetically better, so that it looks like one infobox. A good example of this can be found on the pages for Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and James Stewart where their military career info is imbedded into their main infoboxes. — Jimknut (talk) 05:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps I misinterpreted your request. I thought you were asking for the addition of support for "children" as a parameter, which is something we've repeatedly rejected. It appears you're asking for support for this infobox to act as a "child" of another...is that accurate? If so, I have no objection and apologize for the misunderstanding. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Dat's okay. Misunderstandings occur. Yes, I'm asking for a better way to imbed the musical artist infobox into "Infobox person". Think, for instance, Bing Crosby, who was a major film actor as well as a major recording artist. Same can be said for Elvis and Ol' Blue Eyes. — Jimknut (talk) 21:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Appears to be do-able, just following the code in Template:Infobox military person, however, it would be good to call it |embed=yes, rather than |child=yes. This is how it is done with {{Infobox NRHP}} (see here). I think "child" is confusing in the context of a person, as we have seen in this thread. What do you think? Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:04, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

That's fine with me. However, I tried it with the musical artist infobox embedded into the person infobox. The former still comes out as I box within a box. How do we fix this? — Jimknut (talk) 18:00, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Basically, someone (e.g., me) has to modify this box to recognize the new parameter, much in the same way that the "military person" box works. Since it is entirely optional, and won't change the existing uses, I will go ahead and do it in a bit. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:38, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, see if it works now, with |embed=yes, and let me know if you see any problems. Once it's working, drop a note here with an example, so we can update the documentation. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 22:15, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it works now. Thanks. — Jimknut (talk) 23:39, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Birth/death problem

If both a birth and a death date are included, the following sort of thing happens:

Born Month Day, Year (age [thisyear minus birthyear])

Died Month Day, Year (aged [deathyear minus birthyear])

The proper way to handle this is to hide the parenthetical statement under "Born", if but only if there is a death date specified. It's pretty useless to say how many years it's been since the person was born (e.g. someone born in the 1800s would read that they were 210-something years old). ironmagma (talk) 07:04, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Right, if the person is no longer alive, use {{birth date}} rather than {{birth date and age}}. Then use {{death date and age}} for the death date. Does this answer your question? Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 07:07, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I found the article you were editing and fixed it here. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 07:09, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit request 07March11

{{edit protected}} I was hoping to add lower case parameter options to this template, not only to be consistent with Template:Infobox person, but with others as well and ease of use. In the sandbox, at this edit, I've added a lower case option to every parameter, except three. The three are Landscape, Background and Img_size. I don't know which parser function would be best for those three, and would welcome help on that. But, at least, the template code could be updated with the lc options that are in the sandbox code. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:42, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I added the optional lower case, including image_size, background, and landscape. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 04:55, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Wonderful! I'll update the /doc pg to use all lower case parameters, so there is not the mixture of upper and lower case ones, which is very confusing (at least to this editor). --Funandtrvl (talk) 17:56, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Has this change been advertised more widely? We'll need minor changes to AWB to support the new parameter aliases, other bots/scripts/tools may also need updates to continue to have full support this widely used template. Thanks Rjwilmsi 18:19, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Associated Acts problem in Firefox

The associated acts all line up horizontally as of now and make the infobox take up most of the page if the artist has numerous associated acts. A good example of this problem can be found on the page for Bing Crosby. I tested this with Firefox and IE and it happens in Firefox but not in IE. - Kirbman101 (talk) 02:59, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm seeing the problem in both Firefox 3.6 and IE 8.0. For me this is happening on Windows XP, if that makes a difference. This started happening recently but I'm not sure exactly when. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 03:17, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any issue using Google Chrome. The text wraps as it's supposed to. --IllaZilla (talk) 04:15, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

There was an edit to MediaWiki:common.css today, which may have briefly caused a problem. Other than that, I have no idea what could have caused the problem. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 04:46, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if this was related to the .css change or not, but at the time, refreshing the display did not fix it. It seems fine now though. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 10:59, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Member Orders

The template says "members of the group, listed in order of joining". I'm assuming this means; the original members are at the top and then they descend to the newest members? Is this regardless of position (leader, guitar, drums)? Also nothing is mentioned about support members? What I'm saying is; I think this section needs to be more clearly stated and more thorough.

Also, since the current members section is above the past, I think it would make more sense if the past members are listed the opposite. Meaning; newest members descending to older members. As more recent members are "closer to being current" than older former members (I hope this reasoning isn't looked at as stupid). Xfansd (talk) 23:44, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the purpose is to be neutral based on an objective criteria, for which chronological order is quite logical, and having both be "oldest to newest" keeps things consistent. Having Current be oldest to newest and Former be the opposite would be totally confusing to readers. Positions don't matter, as we're not mentioning positions. Not sure what you mean by "support members"...again, we're not concerned with positions; if they're a member, they belong. If they're not (ie. a session or touring support musician that's not a full-fledged "member" of the group, such as Jason White and Jason Freese's involvement with Green Day), then they don't belong. Non-member supporting musicians can always be mentioned in a subsection of "Personnel" in the article body. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:13, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Wrong background

Could we make the template (and the equivalent Navbox, {{Navbox musical artist}}) throw an error message when an invalid |Background= is used? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:09, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I am assuming this is an issue for Template:Infobox musical artist/hCard class? You probably want to change the default in that template from '{{{1}}}' to blank or 'fn' or something valid, then perhaps add a tracking category? Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 00:53, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

We have one, don't we? -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:56, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, I had forgotten about that. You can find the articles/templates in Category:Infobox musical artist with missing or invalid Background field. Although, Andy may still want to make changes to the hcard template to handle invalid input. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:13, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Rjwilmsi fixes pages in this category daily. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:22, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

No; I wasn't referring to the hCard microformat, but instead suggesting that, if the value is invalid, a visible error message would appear on the page (similar to that seen when references are used without the "reflist" magic word). Though the category probably suffices, a warning would educate editors. Thanks for all the replies. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:33, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

[Afterthought] Could that be extended to cover the Navbox? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:26, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Why would you want an error? What's wrong with ignoring it? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 19:58, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

For the same reasons as for the Infobox. It breaks the microformat; it breaks the colour-coding; and it's contrary to the template's documentation, so means it can't be relied upon to work in future. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:49, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

This is HTML, right? Isn't graceful failure rather a core part of HTML? It's perhaps time to readdress the original decision to have a mandatory "background" field with no graceful failure. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 08:05, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not HTML, it's Wiki-markup. That may happen to render in HTML, validly, but that's not the issue. You're welcome to propose the change you imply, but things seem to work well at the moement and all I'm proposing here is that we apply the same check to the Navbox as works well currently for the infobox. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:25, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Add section for Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame inductees

This infobox should have a parameter for HOF inductees, such as Template:Infobox baseball biography does:

| hoflink       = National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
| hoftype       = National
| hofdate       = March 20, 2000
| hofvote       = 88% (first ballot)
| hofmethod     = Veteran's Committee

-64.85.214.39 (talk) 07:20, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

No thanks. This is exactly the kind of information that belongs in the prose & doesn't lend itself to the infobox. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:22, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Logo

Can we include a logo field for bands such as The Rolling Stonesor The Killers that have a distinctive logo? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.190.60 (talk) 09:10, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

No. This was discussed several years ago, you can find those discussions in the archive. Logos are non-free and their use must meet Wikipedia's non-free content criteria. If there is something encyclopedic to say about the logo (and that commentary can be sourced), then the logo can be displayed in the article body alongside such commentary. But putting it in the infobox would be strictly decorative, and we took steps years ago to end that usage specifically. (P.S. I don't see what's "distinctive" about the Killers' "logo"...it's not even a logo per se, just stylized lettering). --IllaZilla (talk) 09:29, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Voice Type Addition Request

I've seen people trying to add a 'voice type' parameter on several pages, but it does not appear to exist in the tag reference. Should this be included in the infobox? Niluop (talk) 01:57, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think so. It would only apply to a small percentage of articles using the template, and it lends itself to a certain amount of OR. This info is best left in the article body, IMO. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:29, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Colors do not meet accessibility guidelines

Hello everybody. I just thought I should let you know that the six colors used on the template do not meet the accessibility guideline for contrast when combined with the blue for an unclicked link (3366BB) as tested at this website. It's fine on the article about the individual artist (example: Beyoncé Knowles) where the lettering is black, but on a navbox with a clickable link (example: {{Beyoncé Knowles singles}}) the contrast level is not WCAG 2 AA compliant for any of the six colors. WP:COLOR. Regards, --Diannaa ^(Talk) 21:46, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Never mind, It looks like the unclicked link color is not 3366BB but 0645AD, which is compliant for all six backgrounds. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 22:21, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Discography

What about adding a link to the artist's discography page (if applicable)? It would make that a lot easier to find ONEder Boy (talk) 06:57, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

If there is one, it should be linked in a "discography" section (which should then list just the studio albums, per WP:SS), and via a navbox if one exists. The infobox is for summarizing basic information, not for inter-article navigation. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:15, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

But in the Template:Infobox television, they link to the episode list. The linking just makes it easier to find relevant information. ONEder Boy (talk) 20:47, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Again, that's not what infoboxes are for. In my opinion the TV infobox shouldn't link to episode lists. You're confusing the purpose of an infobox (summarizing basic details about the subject) with the purpose of a navigation template (linking between related articles on a topic). The artist's discography should be linked via a "discography" section in the article (which of course appears in the table of contents) and via a navbox, if there is one. How much easier do you need it to be? --IllaZilla (talk) 20:54, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Requesting edit

The parameters on date and place of birth and of death should allow the first letter of the parameter name to be capitalized, thus allowing {{{Birth_date}}} for example. -happy5214 07:55, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Why? Birth_date isn't used in any other template. The current trend is to have all parameters lowercase. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

For consistency. All other parameters in this template allow uppercase. I do agree that they should be lowercase, but if, for example, I wanted to replace Born with birth_date and birth_place, and all the other parameters use the uppercase form, I want it to be consistent. -happy5214 08:40, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Not done: Please get a consensus for this change. Generally it is better to keep things simple and have one form for each parameter. Otherwise we're on a slippery slope, e.g. what about birth date, birthdate, Birth date, etc. etc. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:50, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I just had a similar issue trying to update Tommy Brown (producer). I wanted to add a caption and since all the other parameters in the infobox were capitalized I just added "Caption =" and couln't figure out why it wasn't working until I tried "caption =". I tend to agree with Happy5214; I can see all or none, but why some? Station1 (talk) 22:20, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

The old uppercase parameter was called Img_capt and still works. Most infoboxes use lowercase parameters. -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:32, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

OK but that's even less intuitive and isn't documented as far as I can see. In any event, the reason I was editing the infobox there was because a new editor had added the photo a few days ago formatted as if it were an image file in the body of the article. At first I thought it was a simple newbie mistake, but since it took me a few minutes to figure out how to make the caption work, I can only guess they might have had the same problem and did what they did as a workaround. There's no problem with infoboxes using only lowercase, but this one apparently allows some but not all parameters to be uppercase, and that can be a little confusing. Station1 (talk) 23:11, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Signature

Can an administrator add 'signature' to this template? Most of the featured articles with infobox musician (elvis, madonna) have added signatures to the infobox, but it is not listed as a standard option... Please add! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scewing (talk • contribs) 03:24, 29 May 20115 (UTC)

No. This has been requested and rejected before. A signature adds nothing of informational value to an infobox, and is not necessary or even helpful to understanding who a musician is or what they have done. Please read the notice at the top of the page and check the archives to see if your proposed field has been proposed before. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:09, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I see nothing encyclopedic about adding a signature to an infobox, especially for a musician. Dayewalker (talk) 21:16, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from CWenger, 15 July 2011

Can somebody change the birth place to appear under the birth date in the "Born" label? Otherwise it is displayed separately in an "Origin" label, which is too general in my opinion. Grouping it with the birth date is concise and provides the clearest information. Thanks. –CWenger (^ • @) 16:34, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I fail to understand why we have birth_place and origin and if most people add "origin" and they mean "birth_place". -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:41, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Ahhh, sorry, I was confused. I was dealing with an infobox at Hans Zimmer that had uppercase infobox tags which was screwing everything up. I thought birth_place was going under "Origin". Forget my edit request. –CWenger (^ • @) 17:48, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

To answer Magioladitis' comment, the point is that a person's birth place and their "origin" as a musical artist are not necessarily the same. Jewel, for example, was born in Utah but her family moved to Alaska shortly after, which is where her musical experience began (though her performance career began even later, in Michigan & California). Josh Freese is another example (born in Florida, started his musical career in California). And of course bands, which this template is also used for, don't have a birthplace. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:14, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:21, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Oversized landscapes

Is there any reason why landscape = yes forces 300px wide images (and infoboxes) these days? It looks horrible, but there are those who fuss about correcting this with the size attribute, as that only applies to small images. 250px looks good and keeps a consistent look across the project... and those requiring a larger view can simply just click on the image.  -- WikHead (talk) 08:57, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the documentation, its states that landscape = yes limits the image height to 200px, although looking at the Wire page, it appears to be displayed at 300 x 169, and the documentation also states "Size for landscape images should be 250". It doesn't seem consistent and that last part is confusing. Whatever size we go for, it would surely be better for the infobox to handle sizing it automatically, to a maximum width and height? I don't have a major problem with 250px but we don't want different editors sizing these images to their own preferences in particular articles. This image doesn't look oversized on my screen by the way.--Michig (talk) 09:32, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

My understanding has always been that the image_size parameter has been there to specify actual image size if below 220px to prevent it being scaled up to 220 and looking ugly.--Michig (talk) 09:36, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

That's how I used it as well. Hekerui (talk) 09:52, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Though I've been aware of using the size attribute for scaling up tiny images for some time, it seems to me that changes must have been made to this [template] in recent months... and I've simply assumed that the old rule of not sizing down must now be deprecated. I've recently seen a few users sizing these large landscapes down to 250px, as I have myself, but have also seen such resizing rejected by others on the basis that the original images were not less than 220px. Personally, it's not the actual image size that alarms me, it's the abnormal size of the infobox that goes with it... and my belief that infoboxes should all maintain a uniform and consistent look regardless of the article being viewed. That extra 50px is basically just a margin of wasted space... which some users may feel compelled to "fill in" with unnecessary parenthesised comments, flag icons, or other decorations that are largely discouraged. My WP:BOLD side tells me to maintain 250px throughout, but my side of caution wants to make sure I'm contributing within the set guidlines. I agree that setting a 250px max on the template would illiminate such uncertainty.  -- WikHead (talk) 10:40, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I haven't noticed a recent change and don't see anything in the history to suggest that this has changed recently. It makes sense for the infobox to be wider with a lansdcape image as a landscape image of a band on stage can otherwise be too small to tell who the musicians are. landscape=yes has made the infobox wider for as long as I can remember. The trouble with people manually setting a size is that if we agree to adjust the standard size via the infobox, all those with 'custom' sizes become inconsistent.--Michig (talk) 10:47, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Throughout the months of April, May, and June, I had become somewhat inactive as a wiki-contributor. The larger infoboxes are something I've been noticing a lot since my return.  -- WikHead (talk) 11:04, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I think we can adjust the |image_size= to have the same behaviour with other infoboxes were landscape isn't used. Consider the fact that this infobox is now the only that still uses |landscape=. By removing all cases where landscape isn't used I noticed that this parameter is used by only a small percentage of pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:49, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

As I said above, I don't see using image_size to adjust appearance as desirable as there will be problems with inconsistency, a tendency for people to size images so they look right on their screen (but not necessarily everyone else's), and also likely edit-warring. As it stands, the infobox generally gives us consistent image sizes that the majority seem to be happy with. By the way, I noticed several articles where you removed 'landscape = no' where it should have been 'landscape = yes'.--Michig (talk) 17:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I fail to see how this could lead to a warring or stylistic problem, as the current structure does not allow very much play in size. I.E - even if one tries to push for +image sizes of 350px, 400px, whatever... they will still only achieve a maximum viewable image width of 300px, regardless of the numeric value provided. An end result of 300px is however a contradiction to the written documentation that tells us to aim for an ideal width of 250px. Landscape=yes + an image_size of 250 looks normal and keeps a consistent flow across the board... and is (or was yesterday) used in this exact way on several featured articles (without my doing) including; Nine Inch Nails, Rush, Pearl Jam, Slayer, U2, Radiohead, Motörhead, Godsmack, R.E.M., etc. I may not edit most of these articles, but often tend to use them as a guide when applying standardisation to other articles. Prior to starting this discussion thread, I hadn't realised that size attributes had been applied in these articles... and simply assumed their appearance must be a result of default formatting. This is probably why images of 300px in other articles suddenly appeared so weird looking to me. This would suggest that those who regularly edit the featured articles I've mentioned, got it wrong. However, now that I know the difference, I still would not remove the image_size=250 attribute in any of these articles... simply because it looks right, and still follows the documentation to a tee, depending on how one reads into it.  -- WikHead (talk) 20:21, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

We can just use the same system all other infoboxes use instead of adjusting the image's size by 2 parameters. I'll give it a try in sandbox later. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:39, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

influences

How about adding influences - by / to in the template? --Aleksd (talk) 11:23, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion the influences on a musical artist are generally not at all well defined, and are pretty much a matter of opinion, which I think makes them unsuitable for an infobox parameter. Obviously though musical influences are fair game for the text of an article, preferably with references. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 12:10, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

• I would be against this change. If there is is well documented information regarding an artist's influences it belongs in the text of the article not the infobox. J04n(talk page) 13:34, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Removal of 'website' parameter

I don't think an artist's website is crucial information to be displayed in the infobox (after all, that is what the external links section is for). I don't think it warrants inclusion anymore than the now-deprecated 'reviews' parameter for album and single infoboxes. Lachlanusername (talk) 07:48, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

On the contrary, it's an important piece of data, and including it in the infobox also ensures that it is available as metadata. Note also that most other biographical infoboxes include the subject's URL Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:25, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Consistency with other templates is a factor, and most of them include this parameter. It's not mandatory: leaving it blank is fine, especially when an artist has several Internet sites. --Lexein (talk) 22:42, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

'cover_band' background value

{{edit protected}} 'cover_band' is not listed in the list of possible background types and it causes articles to be added to Category:Infobox_musical_artist_with_missing_or_invalid_Background_field when used. However, it does appear in the usage template for bands, which can cause confusion. I think it should be removed from the usage template if it is no longer used. Gnu andrew (talk) 02:05, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed This wasn't a problem with the template itself, but with the documentation. --IllaZilla (talk) 02:24, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Sensible naming conventions

Let's name things as they are, and be unambiguous about it.

• The parameter "background" should be named "box_color" which is what it really does, and it's shorter.
• Name the color values as colors, which is really what they are: "solo_singer" should be singer_boxcolor for example.
• Changing all those articles? There is a team of eager tool-appliers over at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks champing at the bit to assist. --Lexein (talk) 03:06, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Label and associated acts ordering

This could possibly apply to other fields as well, but is there any consensus for how labels and associated acts should be ordered in the infobox? I just noticed I've been incredibly inconsistent with my edits lately, and I've been changing some artist infoboxes to reflect the information chronologically, and others alphabetically. I thought perhaps there should be some discussion to achieve a universal consistency among artist pages on Wikipedia. Thoughts? Fezmar9 (talk) 19:28, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

I've always ordered them chronologically. This makes the most sense to me as the members are also listed chronologically in order of joining. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:24, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with chronologically on the associated acts, except that if one associated act is by far the one that's most associated with the artist, I'd probably list that first. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:40, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Mudwater, my reasons for wanting to decide between alphabetical and chronological were to remain neutral and unbiased. I feel like selecting one artist that's "most associated" with another could in many cases be subjective and would completely undermine the goal I'm trying to achieve here. Fezmar9 (talk) 17:18, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation?

Kwamikagami (talk · contribs) appears to have just added a field for "pronunciation". Should that have been done? (A) What's its purpose? (B) It was undiscussed. (C) Isn't pronunciation supposed to go in the lead sentence? I'm not aware of such a field being used in other infoboxes. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:18, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Undiscussed and seems unnecessary. Why put additional emphasis on pronunciation? Ibanez100 (talk) 21:33, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. We will need an admin to revert it (Kwamikagami did the same thing to {{Infobox person}}). New fields should definitely be proposed and discussed on highly-used, permanently-protected templates. Adding a new field without any discussion doesn't seem like something an admin should be doing. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:35, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I also disagree with this addition and have reverted Kwamikagami's edits. I have urged him to start an actual discussion, since his idea goes against current practice. Prolog (talk) 21:41, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Former members

In the former members explanation section it is stated that "in some exceptional cases (e.g. The Beatles), and only with a clear consensus, members at the time of dissolution may be listed in the "current_members" field", but there is no definition of what constitutes an "exceptional case". On the contrary, all exceptional cases seem to be chosen by wikipedia editors purely because they prefer it that way. It is illogical to class members of a defunct band as "current members" if the band is non-existent, so why do the guidelines allow users to get away with labelling certain band members as such? I think this should be altered, and/or a different template should be created for defunct bands, so that rather having "current members" and "former members", members can be broken up into "classic lineup" and "other members". This would make far more sense and would be an accurate representation of the members of the band in question. Burbridge92 (talk) 17:49, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that defunct bands there should only be a former members section. I would be opposed to any article having a 'classic lineup' as there is always POV involved in deciding which lineup was 'classic'. Current and former is adequate enough. If any more detail is called for, this can be done elsewhere in the article rather than in the infobox.--Michig (talk) 18:01, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the general point, the Beatles have no current members, in this case the band was formally and legally dissolved in 1970. But I would rather have the guideline changed, rather than another infobox for defunct bands. The "classic" lineup of a band often just dates the editors.--SabreBD (talk) 18:06, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Agree w/ the idea that for defunct bands, all members should be in the "former" members field. However, disagree with the idea of a separate infobox or a "classic" (ugh) members field. This has been a longstanding issue at The Beatles and Nirvana (band). Yes, we all know that some members were more important to the history/notability of these acts than others (I doubt the average person, or even average music fan, could name anyone who was in Nirvana other than Cobain, Novoselic, and Grohl), but the infobox isn't for establishing notability. The most notable members can (and likely should) be mentioned in the lead. The presence of "members" and "former members" fields implies that the former are current members, when in fact these acts are long-defunct and several of the major players are dead. Simply listing all members under "former", in the order joined, is entirely neutral. It may not make a lot of editors happy, but it's a simple summation of fact. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:35, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I understand where the disagreement lies with regards to having a "classic lineup" and "other members" sections in the infobox of defunct bands, there definitely would be some disagreement, e.g. when Metallica dissolve there would be arguments as to whether Cliff Burton or Jason Newsted were the classic lineup's bass player. A way around this could be to use different words, e.g. "long-standing members" instead of "classic lineup", or, a more sensible idea would maybe be to have some sort of differentiation with the former members section...I'm open to ideas, I just think the way certain retired bands' infoboxes are handled is irrational on a source like wiki. I mean what are John Lennon and George Harrison spiritual current members of the Beatles, in the same way that Kim Il-sung is the spiritual president of North Korea? Burbridge92 (talk) 18:02, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

For defunct bands, the problem with putting everyone in "former members" is that it becomes impossible to determine at a glance who was a longstanding member and who was only briefly in the band at all. I understand the purpose of the "classic lineup" idea but I also think that which lineup is "classic" is too much a matter of debate.

How about having two fields: "members at time of dissolution" (or something to that effect) and "other former members"? The first field would effectively be "current members" but for defunct bands, and would represent something like a snapshot of the band's final lineup just before they became defunct. Of course the problem then becomes what to do about the common situation where one member leaves and the band then breaks up immediately after, so some kind of standard might have to be established, such as "members at time of dissolution" representing the band's lineup during their last activity as a band prior to their announced breakup (be it a release, an interview, a public appearance, whatever). Does that make sense? Ibanez100 (talk) 18:56, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Too complicated. We really don't want to create more parameters here. If your need is "to determine at a glance who was a longstanding member and who was only briefly in the band at all", then a "Members" or "Personnel" section of the article should give you that information in the form of names accompanied by dates. The infobox is simply meant to list names. Also "members at time of dissolution" or whatever isn't always the most pertinent info, as many bands' final lineups weren't the most notable ones. Too many shades of grey here. The infobox should be kept simple; readers can refer to the article for more detailed breakdowns of lineups. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:10, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

It is admittedly complicated. Then in the interest of simplicity, another thought: is it necessary for defunct bands to have a list of former members in their infoboxes at all? If there's no one in the band due to it being defunct, why not handle the whole situation in the body of the article? I still hold that giving all former members of a defunct band equal weight in an infobox is not ideal in many situations, and eliminating that field entirely would at least fix that. Ibanez100 (talk) 19:46, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Meh. The infobox is about simple facts, not notability. I don't see how this gives any kind of "equal weight", because the only thing it conveys is "these people are in the band", "these people were in the band in the past", which is a simple matter of fact. Who were the most significant members is matter of context and is best left to the article prose to convey. Any suggestion that the infobox conveys, or is meant to convey, some sort of notability of particular lineups or members is pure projection on the part of editors, and seems to continually get in the way of us presenting simply summary facts. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:21, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Any convention that leaves John, Paul, George, and Ringo on equal footing with Stu and Pete from an infobox perspective is fatally flawed. Powers ^T 12:52, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

And there's a perfect summation of the problem right there^. Editors who think that simply listing people's names in the chronological order by which they joined the group somehow gives certain members "footing" over others. The infobox does not—in any way, shape, or form—tell which individuals were more important. All it says is who is in the group now, who was in it in the past, and the order in which they joined. It's entirely neutral. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:32, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and my point is that complete neutrality is undesirable in certain cases, such as with The Beatles. If the infobox gives the impression, by its silence on the issue, that the members were of relatively equal standing, that does a grave disservice to our readers. Powers ^T 16:15, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I completely disagree that it gives any impression other than what it states: that these were the people who were in the band, in chronological order. The infobox makes no "issue" at all of "standing" (aka notability) of the persons listed. You are seeing a characteristic of the list that simply isn't there. It's nonsense to call this a disservice to our readers. Rather, I would argue that it's a disservice to our readers to list some persons as "members" and others as "past members" (which gives the impression that the former are current members) when the act is defunct and some of the individuals aren't even alive anymore. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:15, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Wow, by calling my argument "nonsense", you've really convinced me. Powers ^T 19:25, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I never called your argument nonsense. I said it's nonsense to call this "a grave disservice to our readers". I argued against your assertion that complete neutrality is undesirable, and that the infobox gives an impression of standing. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:06, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Powers. Yes, the "former members" section of a defunct band's infobox states only that these were the people who were in the band, in chronological order - but is that the most useful information to have there? Does a casual reader benefit from having no guidance as to which of a list of members were notable, or even how many of those people were in the band at one time? For a non-Beatles example, X Japan is a five piece band which supposedly has thirteen former members, only two of whom were notable. If this band were to break up, there would be a list of eighteen names in "former members", eleven of which are basically unknown to anyone but the most hardcore fans. Who was notable? Was this a trio, a five piece, a twelve man rock orchestra? A neutral list with everyone given equal weight simply for having been in the band isn't a help there. Rather than providing information at a glance, that would be a good way to provide confusion at a glance.

"Current members" of a defunct band doesn't make sense, but surely we can come up with something else. If not "final lineup", how about "classic lineups" in the plural, with "classic" defined as "most notable"? If two lineups are equally notable, they could both be included. Using notability guidelines to determine a "classic" lineup and including the possibility for more than one of them could cut down on lineup disagreements. Ibanez100 (talk) 21:38, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

One would hope that the most notable members of a group would be mentioned in the lead section, and the at-a-glance summary info should be in a "Personnel" or "Members" section within the article, conveniently linked via the Table of Contents. I am staunchly opposed to any type of adjectival fields ("classic", "most notable") being added, as this is an open invitation for POV battles (I could easily name a dozen acts for which this would be the case). I see absolutely no need to further sub-divide members in the infobox beyond current and former. The infobox is for simple summary data; the article prose is the place for context and description, such as who was in the band the longest or who were the most significant members. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:59, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

You might as well not list former members in the infobox at all, then, because listing them without any clarifying comment is misleading. Powers ^T 17:12, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not misleading in any way. The "clarifying comment" is the word "Former" in the title bar, clearly declaring that these are people who were in the band at one time but are not in the band any longer. How you could interpret this is "misleading" is beyond me. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:33, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Clearly, it is indeed. I've tried to explain it several times but apparently I'm not doing a good job. Powers ^T 19:07, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The infobox is the place for key facts (MOS:INFOBOX), not indiscriminate lists; in many cases former members are more on the level of trivia quiz answers than key facts. I too would rather see former members eliminated from the infobox entirely than defunct band infoboxes with everyone who was ever in the band lumped together. Defunct bands could in that case list either lineup at time of dissolution, classic lineup(s), or no members at all. To me listing all the notable and non-notable members together is as misleading as indiscriminately listing all the instruments ever used in the band's music. If the band uses predominately vocals, guitar, bass, and drums, it's WP:UNDUE to list kazoo, hand claps, and triangle as equals alongside them, even if there was that one intro song on that one demo tape where they played those. Ibanez100 (talk) 19:14, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the at-a-glance summary info is supposed to be in the infobox. MOS:INFOBOX: "When considering any aspect of infobox design, keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize key facts about the article in which it appears." It also says that its purpose is "allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance". It comes down to what one thinks is more important to understanding the subject: the fact that John Doe, Jane Doe, and Joe Schmoe were in the band at some point (actually, they were in the band for two months each several years before the band released anything, but you wouldn't know that until you read the body of the article) or the fact that the band is famously known throughout popular culture as Guy 1, Guy 2, Guy 3 and Guy 4. Which of those two facts would you tell the average person if you were telling them about the band for the first time? As for adjectival fields and POV battles, the infobox as it stands already has one in the form of the "associated acts" field (for "musicians or bands that are significant and notable to this artist's career"), so that type of field would be nothing new. Ibanez100 (talk) 19:14, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Ibanez100, again you're trying to force notability as a criteria for infobox inclusion, which simply isn't appropriate. The at-a-glance summary information is "this is who is in the band currently / this is who was in the band in the past". Which members are most notable or widely known is irrelevant to this summary. Mentions/implications of importance/notability/etc belong in the prose, not the infobox. The suggestion of eliminating former members entirely, would, for example, remove mention of Slash from the Guns N' Roses infobox, and Glenn Danzig from the Misfits infobox. This seems entirely contrary to your insistence that only the most notable members need be mentioned. Your comment about kazoo/handclaps/etc is a straw man argument; I can't think of a single example where that would actually be an issue.

As for deciding what facts are most important to readers, it's not our place to pick and choose which members are the ones readers need to know or not know about. Readers come to our articles for many different types of information. Purporting to present a list of individuals who are or were members of a musical acts, while in reality only presenting a few select members of such, is a disservice to readers. If all a reader cares about is a list of who is/was in an act, they can get exactly that from the infobox. If they only want to know the most notable members, those are usually named in the lead. If they want a little more info (what each person's role was, when they were in the band) they can get that from a Personnel section. If they want the whole story (who were major vs. minor contributors, when and why did they join/leave the group, etc.), they can (gasp) read the article. We do expect readers to actually read our articles beyond just the colorful box in the upper corner. That's why the infobox just lists names and not also positions, dates, most notable albums, etc. It is silly to treat the infobox as a place for context and nuance when it is really just an unbulleted list of data, and even sillier to treat it as the most important place for readers to get contextual information such as "which was the most notable lineup of this group". --IllaZilla (talk) 22:01, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Notability is already appropriate criteria for infobox inclusion. If it weren't, why would the description of the "associated acts" field say that it is for "professional relationships with other musicians or bands that are significant and notable to this artist's career", and then proceed to give a list of types of associated acts that are not notable enough for inclusion? If notability is not appropriate, shouldn't we be listing every single act that is even mildly associated, including one-time collaborations and groups with only one member in common? (Those are both explicitly disallowed, by the way.) This is the same thing I was getting at with the kazoo comparison.

To quote WP:UNDUE (emphasis mine): "an article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject", and "note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements." Prominently placing the "other" Beatles alongside the likes of John, Paul, George and Ringo in a "former members" box, with no differentiation, is not treating the band members with a weight appropriate to their significance to the subject.

As for eliminating former members from infoboxes entirely, I specifically said that idea was for defunct bands - i.e., for defunct bands, no one is listed in the infobox. While I don't believe this solution would be ideal (I would prefer either "classic lineup(s)" or "lineup at time of dissolution") I find it vastly preferable to ignoring notability and due weight by dumping all former members of defunct bands into a single field. We already do decide which facts are most important to our readers (WP:INDISCRIMINATE) every time we edit in the interest of notability and delete unimportant facts like a musician's birth weight (yes, I have seen this). Ibanez100 (talk) 23:21, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Your arguments are out-of-context. The quote "an article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject" clearly states that undue weight should not be given to aspects in the article, not the infobox, and the quote "note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements." supports the argument that all members should be listed as former members' of the band, because with regards to former members, all of the members of defunct bands are in the same boat. In that respect they are all the same, regardless of position in the band as important members. The infobox is intended to be a summation of the facts, detailed accounts of which would be represented in the article (which will provide information as to who are the long-standing members of the band and who are not), and if that summation of the facts does differentiate former members from current members then the correct summation is to only label members accurately as such (i.e. current members should only be members currently active within a band). Instruments aren't allowed, years of activity aren't allowed, and a mention of their being deceased if that is the case is not allowed, so the infobox isn't supposed to provide exact details other than those it asks for, and it doesn't ask for important versus unimportant members, just official members labeled as either currently active or unactive.

What's more, there's only a few bands for which the fallacious labeling of members is an issue. I only know of two: The Beatles and Nirvana. Most other bands I know have the members correctly labeled, and the editors who commonly work on their pages understand this. Look at the Grateful Dead's page for example. The only other problem is band's on hiatus (as these guidelines suggest inactive bands should have all members listed as former, and bands on hiatus aren't completely defunct, but on a break so-to-speak).

If the few cases where the editors dislike the correct labeling of the members of the band based on current or former presence cannot be resolved rationally, then the only thing I could really suggest is removing the members section, removing all names from the former members section, and linking to a members section on the page which lists all members, with years of activity, and instrumentation. This does occur on other pages and is a serious option which wouldn't result in an edit war between those who believe members should be mislabled due to notability and those who want correct labeling. Burbridge92 (talk) 10:15, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

But an infobox is part of an article. If WP:UNDUE applied only to the main bodies of articles and not to their infoboxes, wouldn't that be noted somewhere? For that matter, why would it be desirable for an infobox to run contrary to that notion and treat each aspect with a weight inappropriate to its significance to the subject? That wouldn't make sense, especially considering that notability is specifically stated to be a factor in another infobox field: associated acts.

Just because something is factual (i.e., John Doe was once a member of Band Z for two weeks) does not mean it is key to a layman's basic understanding of the subject - again, MOS:INFOBOX says that the purpose of an infobox is "to summarize key facts about the article in which it appears" and "allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance". Giving equal weight to each former member of a defunct band simply because they once were a member is basically an indiscriminate collection of information (WP:INDISCRIMINATE) in an infobox. Just as tenuously associated acts are not "key facts" (and not allowed in infoboxes), obscure former members are also not "key facts" that would be present in any normal summary, but details which can be explained in the body of the article.

Also, I think you may have misunderstood what I'm getting at. I agree with your previous posts: I think having a "current members" section for a defunct band is not appropriate, making special exceptions for some defunct bands but not others is not appropriate, and that there must be a better way to handle defunct bands' infoboxes - whether that means a different template for defunct bands, a "classic lineup" or "most recent lineup" section, or simply eliminating the "members" section entirely for defunct bands. I don't like the idea of all former members of a defunct band being presented in an undifferentiated list in the infobox. Ibanez100 (talk) 05:40, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I do not have a solution to this issue, but I think the thrust of Ibanez's arguments is surely correct: information in an infobox is supposed to be selective since infoboxes are for "key facts", and editorial judgment applies, just as it does to the rest of the article. In a similar manner to the question "what facts contained in an article are so important, that they deserve summarizing in the lede", one can ask "which facts are so important they deserve inclusion in a tabular, at-a-glance summary" (i.e. in Wikipedian terms, an "infobox"). In some sense it doesn't really matter if people can't pre-agree a standard set of rules to apply to all articles - editorial judgment is something we expect to be formed on a case-by-case basis, and there are mechanisms that mean this doesn't end in chaos, such as WP:BRD, consensus, and talk page discussions (which will often cross-refer to comparable articles in an attempt to maintain consistency). "Editorial discretion", in the Wikipedian context, is not unilateral, and not something to be scared of! Different bands have very different situations, and it is clear in some situations that presenting an undifferentiated list of former members is not helpful to the reader. The point of a "key facts" box is to summarize for readers the most vital information, with the utmost (at-a-glance) clarity. Therefore editors need to have the facility to prevent confusion where appropriate, and the means that Ibanez all sound arguable options (with the exception of removal of the "members" section, which IMHO removes far too much key information from the infobox). TheGrappler (talk) 00:08, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Short description parameter

apparently expected on all infoboxythings. Schissel | Sound the Note! 10:02, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Never heard of it. What leads you to believe it's expected? --IllaZilla (talk) 10:04, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Eliminate image_size?

A while back {{Infobox album}} eliminated the need for an image_size parameter by setting the default image size to frameless (see discussions here and here). This set the default size to 220px width (the default value of "Thumbnail size" parameter in user preferences), while allowing users to adjust their preferences to display them up to 300px (the maximum value of the "Thumbnail size" parameter). The advantage is that images under 220px width are displayed at their original size by default, rather than being forcibly stretched to 220px which can significantly distort them. Currently, widths for small images have to be set manually via image_size in order to avoid this distortion. I think it would be good to change the default size in this infobox to frameless as well, which should eliminate the stretching of small images as well as eliminate the need for an image_size parameter altogether. I'm not sure how this would affect landscaped images, however. Thoughts? --IllaZilla (talk) 18:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Most of the other people infoboxes still support image_size as well, so would be good to keep the option. Could do it the way {{Infobox person}} does it, using the image_size if set otherwise it uses frameless as the size. Could eliminate the landscape param option and add a tracking category so that the articles could be looked at and an image_size could be set for those articles that needed a bigger image. -- WOSlinker (talk) 17:52, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Here's what led me to this, maybe it'll help explain what I'm getting at: File:Ginn.jpg is a low-res image of 160px width. When placed in the infobox of Greg Ginn it was automatically stretched to 220px, which made the resolution even worse (diff). I had to set image_size to 160 in order to eliminate the stretching. This is hardly the first time I've encountered this kind of thing, and it seems to me that the infobox shouldn't automatically stretch images that are smaller than 220px, as doing to affects the their resolution. Is there a way to stop it from doing that? Using frameless accomplished this for the album infobox. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:38, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Right, I've changed the template code to use frameless if landscape is not yes and image_size is not set. -- WOSlinker (talk) 21:31, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I've reverted your edit, as infoboxes using the landscape field ended up with something like this. — ξ^xplicit 21:43, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about that. Missed out the px. I've now done the edit again with the px included. -- WOSlinker (talk) 21:54, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the second change may have created the same problem. See Billie Holiday, where I had to set image_size to 220 to prevent an infobox picture that exceeds the size of the screen. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 05:22, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I removed the image_size from Billie Holiday & it looks fine to me. With 2 changes to the template in quick succession, it may have taken the transclusions time to catch up. If you see any others like that try making a null edit; that should straighten it out. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:23, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The html comment in the image_size on the Billie Holiday article wasn't a proper comment. -- WOSlinker (talk) 13:57, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

WOSlinker, I noticed the same thing yesterday with Pete Brown (jazz musician). I am guessing that it was part of an example (not the /doc page, apparently) that had been copy-pasted here and there. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 21:36, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Psubhashish, 14 September 2011

Please add a signature as autographs of the musical artists could be added below the details. ସୁଭପାSubha Pa^Utter2me! 18:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

 Declined Wikipedia is not an autograph book. This would add nothing of informational value. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:25, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

How do we describe spouses and children of musicians?

infobox person has spouse and children entries, but musicians don't? I was trying to add this info to Maynard Ferguson but the resulting entries don't show up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnuish (talk • contribs) 16:57, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

See the note at the top of this talk page. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:18, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Reviewing the archives, I see that adding a spouse field has been suggested many times, by many different editors (including myself, as I recall), and always opposed on this talk page by a relatively small number of regulars. A community-wide RfC was suggested in the past, but no one ever seems to have filed one. This would benefit from wider discussion. --JN466 11:09, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

No, since spouse has little to do with the business of being a musical artist. It gives undue weight prominence to a biographical concern better left to the article body. (Responding here instead of in the RfC because I have participated in previous discussion of this template.) / edg ☺ ☭ 11:33, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Well, spouse has as much and as little to do with being a musical artist as it has to do with being an actor, model, comedian, artist, writer, fashion designer or playwright. We have a spouse field for all of those. What's different about musicians? --JN466 11:39, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say it was different. Perhaps in many of those articles spouse should not be included in the infobox. Does the presence of this field in a template means it must always be filled in? / edg ☺ ☭ 12:21, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

No, it does not. It just means the field is available in those cases where it makes encyclopedic sense to note a spouse. Especially with the larger infoboxes, it is very rare in practice for all fields of the infobox to be filled in. --JN466 13:01, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

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.

---

Should Template:Infobox musical artist include a "spouse" field?

Should Template:Infobox musical artist include a "spouse" field, like Template:Infobox person, Template:Infobox writer, Template:Infobox artist, Template:Infobox comedian, Template:Infobox playwright, Template:Infobox fashion designer, Template:Infobox model and other people infobox templates? --JN466 11:09, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support adding a spouse field. Notable musicians' spouses are often of interest to the reader, and the present exclusion of the field in Infobox musical artist introduces asymmetry. For example, Infobox writer in Neil Gaiman states that he is married to Amanda Palmer, while infobox musical artist in Amanda Palmer is unable to state that Palmer is married to Gaiman. The same with Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett, David Bowie and Iman (model), Seal (musician) and Heidi Klum, Barbara Streisand and James Brolin, and many others. We are also presently unable to indicate notable musicians who are or were married to other notable musicians, as for example Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. --JN466 11:20, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, for the umpteenth time, and for god's sake stop suggesting it. We have discussed this many times, and the result is always the same. The consensus is clearly against it. Please see the following discussions:
  • 2007: January, February, July
  • 2008: April (twice), May, August, October
  • 2009: February, August
  • 2010: January (twice), March, April, November
  • 2011: March

I see nothing new in this newest round of arguments. Everything seems to be WP:WAX-style rationales: "other infoboxes do it"...so what? This is an infobox for musicians. It includes information that is directly pertinent to the person's career as a musician. For those musicians who are married, their partner (A) is rarely notable, and (B) even more rarely has any relation to their career as a musician (eg. nearly all of Jayen446's examples above). In the rare case where the spouse is also a musician and has pertinence to the subject's career (eg. Kurt Cobain/Courtney Love), they can be listed as an associated act. This infobox is not intended to contain all of a person't biographical details, merely those that are most pertinent to their career as a musician. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:28, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

To me it appears there is something wrong when all sorts of uninvolved editors keep suggesting the addition of the field on this talk page, and always the same small number of editors block implementation. It smacks of WP:OWN, especially as there seems to be no compelling argument given other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Unlike most scientists, say, musicians are celebrities; their spouses are a matter of public interest and media coverage. --JN466 00:50, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

And who exactly is OWNing it? There have been many compelling arguments against, made by many different members of WP:ALBUMS WP:MUSICIANS (the Wikiproject responsible for this infobox). I have not seen a single argument against that amounts to IDONTLIKEIT, while as I said all the arguments for it look to me like OTHERCRAP. Can you point to which part of my argument amounts to IDONTLIKEIT? Because I will be happy to rebut. --IllaZilla (talk) 00:56, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

You've answered your own question about ownership; no "Wikiproject [is] responsible for this infobox". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:58, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:MUSICIANS is the WikiProject most directly involved with this infobox, and most discussions regarding the infobox happen through the project. I was simply pointing out that the Musicians project has discussed this proposal many times in the past, as evidenced by the linked discussions, and that it is not just me, but many other editors (including many project members) who have opposed this proposal in the past. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:57, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• Perhaps the reason editors suggest it (and I could really do without the bold venting) is because they - including me - don't understand why it's not there, and, frankly, this discussion doesn't do much to illuminate the reasons.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:50, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose for the reasons given by IllaZilla above and by me in the previous dozen or so times this was proposed. J04n(talk page) 01:01, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose this information is easily integrated into the article, but as it does not automatically concern the musical career I don't see it needs to placed in the infobox (and if it does, the associated acts parameter is sufficient). Hekerui (talk) 08:19, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support Infoboxes are designed to be a quick summary of information regarding a person and I don't see how having the spouse there harms the article in any way. In my opinion, the infobox should be the same as Template:Infobox person but with some additional relevant fields. The spouse may not actually be a "muse" for the musician, but I'm unclear how that it is any less relevant than say, their birth place. IllaZilla has pointed out that this has been raised 15 times in the past few years, implying that there is a definite will from the community to at least discuss this properly. Worm^TT · (talk) 09:48, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

  The entire point of occupation-based infoboxes is to not be like {{Infobox person}}, which has 50 fields, many of which are entirely irrelevant to "a quick summary of information regarding a person" (monuments? salary? signature?). God help us if we become "the same as Infobox person but with some additional relevant fields"...we'd have something like 60 fields, most of which would have nothing to do with the fact that the person is a musician. Repeated requests for additional fields do not equate to consensus for those fields to be added (if we based everything on "will from the community" then Wikipedia would have no non-free content restrictions and this infobox would have so many useless fields it'd look like a Tiger Beat profile). It has been "discussed properly" on a number of occasions, and each time consensus has been to leave these fields out. The comparison to birth place doesn't hold up: every person was born somewhere, and most often that has some relevance to where they were raised and where their career began. In the vast majority of cases, the location has an article and can be linked to give the reader further context. Comparatively, not all notable musicians are married, and of those who are I would guess that fewer than 10% are married to someone else notable (who would have a Wikipedia article about them). Probably only 1%-2% are married to someone notable who has some relevance to their career as a musician (such as Sonny & Cher or John & Yoko). WP:IBX advises advises excluding unnecessary content and sticking to key facts, and leaving out fields that would be relevant to only a small percentage of articles using the infobox. This infobox intentionally sticks to fields that relate directly to a person's musical career, and that apply to most or all musicians. If a spouse or child is a musican as well, and their career is related to the artist in question, they can be listed under "associated acts". But then, these arguments have all been made before. --IllaZilla (talk) 17:26, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

  The artist is still a person though, and if their article is a biography then many of the biographical items are notable and indeed useful to be included. There is certainly a "will from the community" and this should not be implemented without discussion, it should also not be ignored. There may be a local consensus that spouse should not be included, but if there is a wider consensus that it should then that would be an important factor. Worm^TT · (talk) 11:49, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  So? Which biographical items are the most notable? Surely in a biography of a musician the most notable and useful details are those that pertain to their musical career. Every person has parents, a height, weight, eye color, a blood type, etc., and many have siblings and/or children, religious and political affiliations, favorite foods, etc...not all biographical details belong in an infobox, only those that have the most pertinence to the person's notability, as the purpose of an infobox is to give a reader an at-a-glance summation of key facts telling them who the person is and why they are significant. As mentioned, repeated requests ≠ consensus, as evidenced by the fact that this has been requested so many times, and discussed so many times, and consensus has always come out against it. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:06, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support I see no good reason to not have a spouse parameter available. The only reason to not have a parameter in an infobox is if it is irrelevant. If a person (musician or not) is married, then it does apply. I don't understand anyone spending so much time and effort to fight against this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Musdan77 (talk • contribs) 17:55, 15 August 2011

  Read IllaZilla's comment above. What's the point of putting that, say, Danny Elfman is married to Bridget Fonda? It's completely irrelevant to him as a composer and his notability wouldn't change at ALL if he weren't married to her. Mention it in his article, of course, but in such cases it seems like adding info for the sake of adding info. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 18:02, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

  Exactly. The good reason is that most musicians' spouses have no notability and/or strong connection to the subject's status as a musician. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:04, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

  The same goes for Bridget Fonda, whose infobox does state that she is married to Elfman. Where someone has a notable spouse, and there is considerable media coverage of them as a couple ([1]), it just makes sense to list the spouse in both spouses' infoboxes, rather than just the non-musician one. --JN466 19:59, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

  I don't see your point. Bridget Fonda uses {{Infobox person}}, which as mentioned earlier has a bazillion fields many of which have little to do with the person's notability. {{Infobox musical artist}} is a specialized infobox for musicians, and thus restricts itself to fields directly relevant to the majority of artists' careers as musicians (Fonda has zilch to do with Elfman's musical career, and likewise Elfman has zilch to do with Fonda's career as an actress). There is no requirement for general and specialized infoboxes to be the same, and in fact doing so would defeat the purpose of having specialized infoboxes in the first place. There is of course no prejudice against mentioning the spouses in the lead section and article body. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:33, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  The point is that someone at Fonda's article thought this was a reasonable thing to include, even though Elfman is "irrelevant", and that choice apparently has consensus, since it's not been removed. You're arguing that what's good and normal for non-musicians is somehow bad for musicians. The opposition is saying that what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: either no infoboxes should include "irrelevant" family members, or all infoboxes should at least have the option of including family members, especially since some family members are directly relevant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:27, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  I never said it was "good and normal" for non-musicians, in fact it would be my preference not to have this field in so many specialized infoboxes to begin with, but that's another discussion (or series of discussions). It's a simple matter of relevance: Of the thousands of notable musicians who are/were married, statistically few of the spouses are notable other than for being married to the musician. Fewer still are those who are directly relevant to the musician's career. For every spouse who is notable of their own right, there are many many more who are not. For every spouse who has been directly relevant to the musician's career, there are many many more who have not. Few and far between are the cases where a musician has a notable spouse who has played a relevant role in their career as a musician. Fields that are only relevant to some articles are not good ideas, especially in an infobox that is tailored to a specific career field and is used in over 65,000 articles. Sauce for the goose is not sauce for every entree. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:54, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support - For a variety of reasons: (1) Identifying the spouse of artists is a very common practice when the artists are summarized in books, etc; (2) Consistency with other WP InfoBoxes; (3) Spouses are often heavily involved in musical careers; (4) a field in an InfoBox is optional: it can simply be omitted for artists to which it does not apply; (5) artists have chosen to put themselves in the public eye, and as a consequence their family sometimes receives the limelight; and (6) As a compromise, we could adopt the guideline that the Spouse field should be employed only when the spouse is Notable in the WP sense. I'm a feminist myself, and don't like the potentially sexist ramifications of spouse fields, but information is information, and this is an encyclopedia. [from an uninvolved editor] --Noleander (talk) 22:42, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

  (1) Having done much reading about musicians and having worked on many articles about musicians, I have found that it is not very common for spouses of musical artists to be mentioned in a basic summary of their career except in cases where the spouse has direct relevance to the artist's career (eg. Sonny/Cher, John/Yoko), but these cases are few and far between when considering that there have been many thousands of notable musicians. Most musicians' spouses are not directly relevant to their career, to such extent that it is rare to find mention of a spouse in the lead section of musician's biography (excepting the aforementioned few & far between cases). Of course nothing prevents one from identifying spouses in the lead and/or article body, so the information can be included regardless, it's just not priority information for the infobox. The same applies to musical artist's parents, children, and siblings. I have very rarely encountered a musician's biography that mentioned all of their personal and familial relationships right up front in this manner, unless those persons had direct pertinence to a brief summation of the musician's musical career.

  (2) As mentioned before, if consistency with other infoboxes were the goal then we might as well absorb all specialized infoboxes into {{Infobox person}}. The entire reason for specialized infoboxes is that different categories of people are notable for different reasons and thus have different types of information that are most directly pertinent to their notability.

  (3) Actually this is statistically pretty rare, considering how many thousands of musicians there are and have been. Most musicians' spouses are (A) not notable, and (B) not directly involved in the artist's career. Cases where they are both are statistically minimal (quick! Without leaving this page, name the spouses of anyone in the following bands: Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, U2, The Who. Bonus points: Describe how they are "heavily involved" with their spouse's musical career).

  (4) Experience shows that if a field is available, editors are likely going to use it. Either way this doesn't address why the field is relevant to a summation of a person's notability as a musician.

  (5) Again, these cases are few and far between.

  (6) Again, experience shows that such an instruction would be ignored almost wholesale. If a field is there, editors are going to fill it.

  I understand why so many editors want this field, because they see it in so many other infoboxes. But ask yourself: Does listing the name of a musician's spouse enhance one's understanding of the person's career in music? Will this be true in the majority of cases? It has been my experience that the answer to both questions is generally no. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:33, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, for example, is married to Adrienne Armstrong, and they jointly run Adeline Records. Flea (musician) of the Red Hot Chili Peppers is married to Frankie Rayder; her article is a GA, and states in the infobox that she is married to him, while his infobox does not state that he is married to her. Bono of U2 is married to Ali Hewson (whose infobox states that she is married to him), and he wrote The Sweetest Thing as an apology for forgetting her birthday. Etc. There is no good reason to make a special exception for musicians' infoboxes, as compared to those we use for other celebrities. People reading musicians' biographies are not just interested in their musical careers; that is why we have personal life sections, and there are musicians' biographies and newspaper articles covering aspects of their private lives. --JN466 12:02, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  As I've mentioned, these are the few and far between cases. For every musician you care to name who has a notable spouse, I could name ten whose spouses are not notable. Just because one infobox has a certain field does not mean that another infobox has to. Again, if that's the case we might as well just absorb this infobox into {{Infobox person}}, and every biography article should use the same infobox. This is not a "special exception", because there is and never has been a requirement that an infobox contain all biographical details. This infobox is intentionally not generic; it covers a specific type of career and is tailored to details most relevant to that career. Spouse and many other biographical details are among those that are less relevant to the career this infobox is designed to cover. It is a misconception that by leaving spouse/parents/children/etc. out of this infobox, we are somehow doing a disservice to readers; readers can find this information perfectly well within the article, as you yourself point out. I see no compelling reason why, out of the many biographical details excluded from specialized infoboxes, the absence of "spouse" should raise so much concern amongst editors. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I have informed WikiProject Music and WikiProject Musicians of this discussion and invited project members to contribute. --IllaZilla (talk) 05:52, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  I can't say I'm impressed with the neutrality of the invitations [2][3] - "yet another request"? "This time an RfC has been called"? Appears to be putting a slant on the invitation - a violation of WP:CANVASS. I've also neutrally informed WikiProject Biography of this discussion.[4] Worm^TT · (talk) 11:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  Me neither, IllaZilla. Could you please edit the notifications, so they have a neutral wording? --JN466 11:48, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  "Yet another" because there have been a dozen or more requests for this before, and longtime project members are aware of this. "This time an RfC has been called" because this is the first time we have had an actual RfC about it. The only part I could perceive as non-neutral is the "yet", but it seemed the proper language given the 12+ prior discussions. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:00, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  It's one thing to take that attitude in the RfC, but a notification should be as neutral as possible. Compare your request to mine. I understand that debating the same issue again is annoying for you, but it has been nearly a year since the last discussion and consensus can change, so please do try to assume good faith. I was brought here because an RfC was raised, I've no experience of the music wikiprojects, but if I happened across that note it would skew my opinion before reading the RfC, which is unacceptable. Please can you edit the notes to be as non-neutral as possible, for preference to match the one I've put on the Wikiproject Biography. Worm^TT · (talk) 15:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  I have removed the "yet", which is the only part of the notice I feel could be interpreted as non-neutral. The rest is simple statement of fact. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:24, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  I'd have prefered more, but thanks for doing that. Worm^TT · (talk) 15:27, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  • I've added pointers to this RfC to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Infoboxes and Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(infoboxes), and added an entry to Template:Cent. Given how often this point has been raised, it will probably be helpful to get broad participation from across the community, to ensure a stable consensus. --JN466 17:41, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I removed it from wp:CENT. This is a wp:BIKESHED dispute and has absolutely no place there. Please see wp:CENTNOT for more information. Yoenit (talk) 13:03, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
• Comment Surely this should be an encyclopedia for the reader and the infobox should be a quick summary of information regarding the artist. I am confident that many readers will glance at an article to check who a musician's spouse is, partly because it is consistently there across other infoboxes, and partly because human nature is to be interested in another person's life (how else would the tabloid's cope?). I understand that the spouse may not affect the music, but it does affect the person. Worm^TT · (talk) 06:36, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  How about parents? Kids? Siblings? All of these things affect the person (arguably equally or more than spouse), but may only affect the music in a statistically small number of cases. How about ethnicity, education, and religious and political affiliations? As far as stuff that affects the person (and probably the music), and stuff that human nature may lead us to be interested in, these seem pretty big. And yet we leave these out too. An infobox is not meant to contain every biographical detail about a person, only those that are most pertinent to their notability. Readers come to Wikipedia for many different types of information; not all of that information needs to be in infoboxes. It can always be in the article prose. "When considering any aspect of infobox design, keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize key facts about the article in which it appears. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance." Spouses, children, etc. etc. are hardly "key facts" as pertains to the majority of musicians. For an article about an individual, this infobox already contains 18 displayable fields, most of which are pertinent to nearly every musician. This is why proposals to add additional fields that would be most pertinent only to a statistically small portion of articles have historically been rejected. This kind of information—that will not apply to every article and will only have direct pertinence to the person's musical career in a statistically small number of articles—is best left in the prose. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:44, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  I don't see why not for the other people, but that's not what this discussion is about. The Manual of Style points out that an infobox is designed to summarise the prose. If you think that the spouse is important enough to be in the prose, why should it not be in the infobox? It is summary information, it is relevant to many articles and should be available. Worm^TT · (talk) 08:02, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  Sure it's what this discussion is about. Everyone's reasons seem to be "other infoboxes have these fields" and "people seem to want to know this info"...well, other infoboxes have fields for parents, kids, and siblings too, and those seem exactly as relevant as spouses and something readers would probably want to know. If you add/exclude one in the infobox you must surely add/exclude the others. The purpose of the infobox is to summarize key facts from the prose, but not to summarize every detail from the prose. The Manual of Style says this. The The Manual of Style also asks "How important is the field to the articles that will use the infobox?" When considering "spouse", for the large majority of musicians the answer is "not very, if at all". It also says "If the field is relevant to very few articles, it should probably not be included at all." A musician's spouse is a "key fact" in a very small percentage of musician biographies: The "key facts" are those that relate directly to the person's musical career (genres, instruments they play, acts they've played in, labels they've been signed to). If readers want to know more about the musician's family life, they can always read the article body. We do expect readers to actually read our articles, not to get all of their information from a little colored box in the corner. --IllaZilla (talk) 08:29, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose per prior consensus and the fact that being married is not relevant to being a musician. If someone is married to another musician, this person can be listed in the associated_acts field. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:49, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  You seem to assume that being married is somehow less relevant to being a musician than it is to being a fashion designer, actor, writer, etc. --JN466 12:07, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  And you seem to assume that being married is somehow as relevant to being a musician as the instruments a person plays, or the genre of music they work it, etc. I personally don't think that being married is very relevant to being a fashion designer, actor, writer, etc. in the vast majority of cases, and I wouldn't be surprised if Justin felt the same way. --IllaZilla (talk) 15:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  So are you going to start putting as much effort into trying to take it out of those infoboxes as you have in keeping it out of this one? There seems to be a double standard here. --Musdan77 (talk) 18:06, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  Of course not. That's a straw man argument. I'm a member of the Musicians project, so I'm concerned with the workings of this infobox. I'm not a member of any other biography-based projects, and I have no intention of crusading around the project trying to axe fields from other infoboxes. As a member of the Musicians project, I am knowledgeable of the many times this field has been proposed for this infobox and the many arguments against it made by myself and other project members. I have no knowledge of discussions relating to other infoboxes that I do not watchlist, nor do I care to involve myself in them. As mentioned several times, just because other infoboxes tend to have certain fields does not mean that this one must or even should. Different infoboxes are designed to serve different purposes; this one is specifically tailored to information about musicians' musical careers. Other infoboxes are tailored primarily to information about their subjects' personal lives. All infoboxes are not created equal. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:19, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. The musical artist infobox should only summarize key points about the subject as a musical artist. This would not include their spouse or domestic partner, or other details of their personal life. Of course those things can be discussed in the prose of the article. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 10:59, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per Justin (koavf) above. Wwwhatsup (talk) 11:01, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per the reasons given by IllaZilla. In most cases, it is not relevant to a musicians career so it shouldn't be included in the infobox. HrZ (talk) 11:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose There are already enough of these infoboxes around with 'spouse' and 'children' parameters. The real problem is that the spouse and children are rarely notable, yet the field is often slavishly filled in with full names –often linked– and dates of birth of children and date of marriage to spouse(s). Low encyclopaedic value is what I'm getting at. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:11, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support, as per this wonderful interview [5] with Colin Newman (yes, "that bloke from Wire"). Colin is married to bass player Malka Spigel; they run the swim ~ label, and record and perform together in Githead. Note: I am married to JN466, but I raised the issue of spouses and children independently in March 2010 when I created the article for Neil Cooper, the founder of ROIR. His sons Nick and Lucas took over the running of the label after their dad's death, so their inclusion in the infobox would definitely make sense. His widow runs a notable gallery in New York.--Draco^E 17:32, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, generally not relevant for musical artists, any more than offspring or education.  --Lambiam 18:50, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  Education is normally irrelevant to musical artists? We shouldn't care that Itzhak Perlman and Sarah Chang studied violin at Julliard, or that Jascha Heifetz attended Saint Petersburg Conservatory? Perhaps you meant to say that education is normally irrelevant for some genres of music, but it is extremely important for others. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:51, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  I did not say 'always', but 'generally'. Even though we should care for the offspring of Duke Ellington, I don't think it matters, artistically, for most artists. It is musically totally irrelevant that Yanni graduated from the University of Minnesota. For Perlman and Heifetz, it is more important with whom they studied, than at which institution. If we are expanding the fields, a field influences, as in Infobox economist, would be more important for musical artists than a spouse field.  --Lambiam 12:44, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support, but preferably a more general field such as "family". It's silly to make it so difficult to trace multi-generational musical families. Parents doubtless influence their children's music even if they never actually perform together as an "associated act". It would not be unreasonable, for example, to have the infobox at Loretta Lynn mention The Lynns (her daughers)—and as I see no evidence that their mother has ever performed with them, it's sort of silly to mention her in their article as an "associated act" rather than as a family member. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  That's way too vague. It shouldn't be difficult to trace multi-generational musical families; that info should be in the article. The infobox doesn't need to contain every detail from the article. --IllaZilla (talk) 21:01, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

  IllaZilla, could I ask you to please stop taking issue with each and every "support" voter here in this RfC? You asked earlier who owned the infobox. By your behaviour, including the non-neutral messages you left at two WikiProjects, and your vocal opposition to numerous similar proposals in the past, you are holding yourself out as a prime candidate. The fact is that musicians' biographies routinely include family information, not just information on their musical careers, and that hundreds of musicians have notable spouses who have their own articles in Wikipedia. Their infoboxes mention their musician spouses as a matter of course (unless they're musicians themselves!), and it is counterintuitive why we should mention the musician spouses of fashion designers, writers, playwrights, artists, models etc., in their infoboxes without being able to "return the compliment". Amanda Palmer's music has, if anything, had less obvious influence on Neil Gaiman's writing career than vice versa (he has actually appeared at some of her concerts), yet she is mentioned in his infobox, and he isn't in hers. It just doesn't make sense. Musicians are celebrities. Their spouses are frequently notable. That includes members of Green Day, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, U2 and The Who, the counterexamples you gave above (apart from those I mentioned above, singer-songwriter Rachel Fuller is the wife of Pete Townshend, and they have collaborated). I'll give you the Foo Fighters, as far as notable spouses are concerned, but even among the Foo Fighters, Chris Shiflett has a notable musician brother, Scott_Shiflett. So let people say their bit, and in 30 days' time we'll know how the community wants to handle this. Cheers, --JN466 21:50, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Comment At the same time as we're suggesting adding spouse to this infobox we're also proposing making it easier to remove material on sexual orientation from biographies.[6] I think that's contradictory. Either it's important who one is living with and sleeping with, or it isn't.   Will Beback  talk  21:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Same-gender spouses of musicians should be mentioned just the same as opposite-gender spouses. One has nothing to do with the other. Elton John for example is mentioned in David Furnish's infobox, but not vice versa (despite the fact that Furnish has made a film about his husband's musical career). It just doesn't make sense. --JN466 21:50, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• No. While some artists' spouses are notable figures, many are simply not well known and don't need to be listed. Because there are more low-profile spouses than there are famous ones, we should be consistent and leave it out of all articles' infoboxes, although a mention in the prose is likely warranted. The infobox serves to summarize the most important facts about a topic; more often than not, a spouse is not one of them. (Ideally, I would say "yes, include spouses for specific individuals whose spouses are the subject of public interest", but that would lead to inconsistency and edit wars between articles. Also, this is such a petty debate that I'm not sure why it even matters. Shouldn't we be working on improving articles about musical artists before worrying about their spouses in infoboxes?) /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 21:54, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support. All biographical infoboxes should use a common set of generic fields, modelled on those currently in {{Infobox person}}. discussion of whether a field like spouse is relevant for authors but not musicians, or vice versa, is bikeshedding. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:55, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. And I believe that {{Infobox person}} and other similar infoboxes should also remove the field. I was going to write a spiel about how the large majority of musical artists do not have notable spouses, but Fetchcomms has put it more succinctly than I ever could. So, I will content myself with saying 'per Fecthcomms'. Jenks24 (talk) 22:12, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per all reasons given above by Koavf and IllaZilla. MrMoustacheMM (talk) 00:35, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support per many of the arguments above. James Brolin has his wife listed, but he's not mentioned on her page Hot Stop talk-contribs 07:05, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

  Yes he is, just not in the infobox. As a side note, it might be worth considering whether the Barbara Streisand article should be using this infobox or the more generic {{Infobox person}}, as her notability extends well beyond the field of music (thinking of her film career as an actress/producer/director). Just a thought. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:19, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support - the strongest reason to oppose seems to be that a spouse is [mostly likely] irrelevant to musical career, particularly in the case where the spouse is "not notable" in the Wikipedian "articleworthy" sense. But Andy Mabbett is correct: the core available template fields for biographical infoboxes should be as consistent as possible between projects. That doesn't mean the field should always be filled in - information in the infobox should be an executive summary of the "most important" aspects of the article, but we want the technical facility for it to be there for those cases where we need it. Just as sometimes that includes education and sometimes not (there's a big difference between stating a musician went to a barely notable public school versus the Juilliard School - both should be mentioned in the article text if sourceable, but only the latter would be included in an executive summary of biographical data), sometimes spouse is highly relevant (particularly #1 well-known muses, #2 business partners, #3 celebrity power couples) but more often not.

Give editors the tools to include the detail when it's called for, and the editorial discretion and guidance to include or exclude based on relevance and encyclopedicity. Don't assume we're all sheeplike dolts who will blindly fill in irrelevant fields "just because it's there", or that nobody will oppose or revert this when a bad judgment call happens. The very act of writing an encyclopedia article, requires the application of critical and editorial judgment, following internal guidelines while summarising information from the available sources. This can (and often does) involve reasonable disagreement about how information should be presented: not just which facts to be included, but their ordering, relative importance and emphasis, lede-worthiness, image-worthiness, category-worthiness and infobox-worthiness. Such disagreements are resolved with reference to the sources, and Wikipedia's written guidelines and unwritten established practice (e.g. consistency between articles/projects); we have mechanisms including discussion pages, editorial consensus and the BRD cycle to achieve this on a case-by-case basis. Attempting to pre-empt the argument by removing the technical ability of editors to make a change (which is the effect of using the "musician" not "person" infobox) is a very blunt tool indeed, since some musician articles would clearly benefit from mentioning spouse in the infobox (that is, the name of their spouse is a key fact that would be part of any good biographical executive summary). Not everybody will be in 100% agreement about which articles these are, but such shades of gray and editorial discretion involved are fundamentally no different to deciding whether a fact is worth including in article at all, worth including in the lede, or worth including an image of. Trust editors to apply their editorial discretion, within the bounds of explicit and consensus-formed guidance if necessary, or get rid of all those "edit" buttons. TheGrappler (talk) 11:57, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support Information is relevant to the person, if not their musical career. The article is a biography and the field should be included. If the article was something like "Musical Career of such-and-such a musician", a spouse field would be out of place; however, articles are not written that way so it should be included. Ryan Vesey Review me! 21:07, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support adding a spouse field for consistency with other infoboxes. For god's sake, if the spouse is not notable, then just leave the field blank. The option should be there for the cases where the spouse is notable and to help changing between different types of infoboxes. FurrySings (talk) 06:57, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Musicians' spouses are often not notable or public figures. If who the musician is sleeping with is not directly relevant to the musician's musical career, including them in an infobox would seem more like fannish trivia than anything else and in my opinion degrades the seriousness of Wikipedia. In the event that the spouse is notable (either to the musician's career or in a general sense), that can easily be detailed in the body of the article. Ibanez100 (talk) 05:16, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand why this is an argument for removing the technical facility to include the spouse's name in the infobox. Spousal details should be detailed in the article body regardless, as a standard biographical detail. The importance of the spousal information will determine if e.g. that should be mentioned in the lede, or if a photo of the spouse is appropriate or not. In most cases the answer to those questions is "no", but we still give editors the technical facility to do so, if their consensus editorial judgment call is "it's important". We don't have a rule in the WP:MOS that states "under no circumstances should spouses be mentioned in the lede, or photographs of them included in an article; any such inclusion must be instantly reverted". (More to the point, we don't have a blanket rule for musicians, that doesn't apply to other biographies!) Similarly if it's not relevant to the subject's musical career, then the spouse's name shouldn't be included in the infobox (it's fancruft, as you point out). But what if it is an important or defining feature, that would be mentioned in any good tabular executive summary (which is exactly what an infobox is)? While you are correct that in most cases the judgment call will fall against inclusion, I can't see anything in your argument which explains why editors should be deprived of the technical facility to apply their discretion, if it is in line with guidelines and community consensus. TheGrappler (talk) 15:41, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

That's an excellent point, though I'm still not enthusiastic about the idea of a spouse field because I'm not sure there are enough musicians with spouses who are vitally important to a summary of the key facts of their career. For comparison, there are also cases of a notable musician having another notable musician for a parent or child (for example Sean Lennon, Jakob Dylan, and Wolfgang Van Halen), or a sibling (for example Eddie and Alex Van Halen and Oasis' Gallagher brothers), but none of these articles mention the notable relative(s) in their infoboxes. As with musicians having notable spouses, musicians having notable relatives is also not the norm.

Other considerations with the spouse field would be how to handle notable former spouses and notable significant others who are not legal spouses. A spouse field wouldn't account for either of these situations, and it seems arbitrary to use only current legal marital status as a basis for their inclusion or disinclusion.

However, I don't think I'd be opposed to something like an "other key facts" field. This way if someone has a significant other, parent, sibling, child, etc. who is vitally important to a summary of the key facts of their career, it could be noted in the infobox at the discretion of editors without making a bunch of overly specialized fields that would not be applicable to most musician profiles.

A question, though: is there any known situation where a musician's non-musician significant other has made such a notable impact on their career that one can't adequately summarize the musician's career without noting this? In other words, is there any situation where we can't just put the significant other in "associated acts"? Ibanez100 (talk) 20:25, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for such a good-spirited reply :) The existence of a Wikiproject-wide consensus that spouses are rarely sufficiently relevant to appear in a musician biography infobox means that in practice they rarely will. But having a look at the articles Jay-Z and Beyoncé Knowles, the way their spouses appear undifferentiated among the list of associated acts is incongruous as they are a noted musical power couple. Looking at Jay-Z's infobox in particular, it surely ought to be made clear to readers that his relationship with Beyoncé is different to his relationship with Rihanna? That's a fact so important it is included prominently in the lede - and since the infobox is to summarize the key facts, it ought to be there too. Similarly see Yoko Ono and John Lennon - if you were being asked to summarize for a reader the 10 most important or best-known facts about each of them, wouldn't their relationship rank somewhere in the top 3 (certainly for Ono)?

A lot of objections to this proposal (not necessarily yours!) have been of the form "if really is such an important fact, it will be in the article text/lede anyway". But that is the whole point of an infobox - it summarizes the most important facts! [At least, those that fit certain standardized fields.] Such a perspective naturally leads to strong argument against infoboxes: they tend to oversimplify, lack shades of gray, and since any fact in them should be in the article text anyway, we don't really need them. Many a Wikipedian would be delighted if all infoboxes, especially biographical ones, were deleted tomorrow, and they have a decent case. But "if it's important, it'll be prominent in the text and needn't be in the infobox" is at heart an anti-infobox argument, not one about what belongs in an infobox. More consistent with the purpose of an infobox would be: "if it's so unimportant that it's only mentioned in passing in the article text, or not even discussed at all, then it shouldn't be in the infobox". I think all participants in this discussion would agree with that statement, but the question in the RFC is whether the technical facility should be provided (as it is for other types of biographical infobox) to include this information in the cases where editorial consensus is that it is important.

To address some of your concerns: the "Spouse" field is pretty versatile and copes well with multiple (even simultaneous!) spouses, divorce, widowhood etc. Your point about "overspecialized fields" is interesting and relates to Andy Mabbett's excellent contribution to this debate, one that I fear is being overlooked due to its focus on technical details. The reason we have a template for musician biography infoboxes distinct from literary, political or general biography infoboxes, is that it would be unwieldy to have a single all-purpose infobox with irrelevant "label", "instruments" and "associated acts" fields left empty for the 90%+ of biographies that are not musicians. The flip side is that Bono's infobox doesn't include blank fields for the vicepresidency and term dates for his stint as President of the United States! But there are certain core biographical fields that should be available in all biographical infoboxes, and Andy Mabbett's point was that for consistency (and to avoid bikeshedding) these should simply be inherited from the generic Template:Infobox person. If you don't think a supposedly core field is core enough to deserve space on a particular article's infobox, then take it to the article talk page; if it's not core enough to ever deserve space in an infobox (or, like "instruments", it's only relevant for a specialized subset of biographies, and should be moved to their specialized infobox), the place to argue for its removal would be the talk page for the generic infobox.

Interestingly that generic infobox also includes space for parents and children, which as you suggest may be relevant more often for musical biographies than spouses. That doesn't mean all fields get used in all biographies - far from it. If it had been my editorial judgment call, I'd have included in the infobox of George W. Bush that his father is George H. W. Bush; a fact I'd rank as at least equally important to an "at-a-glance summary" as the names of his children. However, presently editorial consensus seems to be against this. On the other hand John F. Kennedy, Jr. includes his parents in the infobox, which seems sensible as it's a major source of his own notability. The problem with your suggestion of "Other key facts" is that it runs contrary to the spirit of infoboxes, where key information is broken down and presented in a structured table using neat, predictable fields. "Other key facts" is rather open-ended for that. (I've often thought that we'd benefit from having an unstructured and flexible "key info" summary shorter than the lede - somewhat similar to how Citizendium gives each article a sentence-long "definition or description" field that can then be referred to by transclusion on other pages. Perhaps unfortunately, our versions of "executive summaries" are highly structured, tabular and inflexible - the very reason this RFC was called, is simply to add a technical capacity to one type of biographical summary that would give editors the discretion to summarize, in the minority of articles where consensus that it is appropriate exists, one piece of information that they can already add on most other biographies. Imagine if the WP:MOS was so inflexible about which information was permitted to be summarized in the lede, and varied so strictly and capriciously by the profession of the subject!) TheGrappler (talk) 03:04, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Grappler, you seem to agree that the name of a spouse is not a "key fact" for the majority of musicians (from your initial reply to Ibanez above: "The importance of the spousal information will determine if e.g. that should be mentioned in the lede, or if a photo of the spouse is appropriate or not. In most cases the answer to those questions is 'no'", "Similarly if it's not relevant to the subject's musical career, then the spouse's name shouldn't be included in the infobox"). You posit that the field should be added in order to grant the technical ability to list spouses in the infobox, but that in practice they should only be listed in cases where the "consensus editorial judgment call is 'it's important'", and that "in most cases the judgment call will fall against inclusion". I think a big issue for those on the opposition, at least for myself, is that experience shows this isn't likely to be the reality: If a field is available, editors are inclined to fill it, regardless of whether it's a "key fact" or whether it has relevance to the subject's musical career. Discussions about whether or not to utilize available fields are few and far between in my experience; most times editors just fill them in and nobody even thinks to ask if it's something that really needs to be there. Cases where a spouse is "an important or defining feature" of the musician's career are far fewer than cases where they are not. Supporters of this field are quick to point out the Sonny/Chers, John/Yokos, Kurt/Courtneys, and Jay-Z/Beyonces, but what of the Krist/Darburys, Dave/Jordyns, Edge/Morleighs, and Joe/Lucindas? That is to say, what about the many, many notable musicians whose spouses aren't also celebrities with important ties to their spouse's music? These are going to end up listed in the infobox anyway, even though they're not something one would probably expect to find mentioned in a "tabular executive summary" of the musician in question.

The fields that we have are ones that apply, and are key information, for 90%+ of musicians. It doesn't make a lot of sense (to me, anyway) to add a field that is only going to be a "key fact" for maybe 20%-. And not to use the slippery slope argument, but if spouses are included then I can't think of a decent argument against also including parents, siblings, and children, as each of these relationships has the same likelihood as spouse of being a key fact with relevance to the musician's career (e.g. Jason/John, Chris/Scott, and Max/Jay...but then what of James/Jimi, Kurt/Kimberly, and Roger/Simon?). And the more fields we add, the further we stretch the infobox until it's no longer a summary of key facts, but basically the entire article in list form (whoops, guess I did use the slippery slope argument). {{Infobox person}} is a perfect example: It seeks to be One Size Fits All by including so many fields that it could be used for almost any person, but it ends up being One Size Fits None because it's so bloated with optional parameters that are only relevant to a small handful of topic areas (for whom is a signature a "key fact" of their biography? Even for heads of state this is by and large purely decorative, though it certainly could serve a purely illustrative purpose elsewhere in the article...but I digress). A truly one-size-fits-all person infobox would be intentionally generic, including only fields that apply to 90%+ of persons (basically those listed here, though perhaps even fewer). Similarly, we try to stick to fields that would be considered key information for the vast majority of musician articles, not ones that would only be key for a statistical (albeit quite famous) minority. I tend to think of an infobox like a baseball card: A baseball card is small and you're unlikely to find any details on one that aren't directly pertinent to the sport of baseball. Similarly, an infobox for a musician should be short and stick to details that are directly pertinent to the field of music. --IllaZilla (talk) 07:41, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if the issue essentially comes down to this: is an infobox (a) an orderly summary of all key facts about its subject, or is it (b) more like a questionnaire, in which several set fields that are directly applicable to a majority of members of the subject's profession are filled out in regard to the subject (as IllaZilla said, the baseball card approach), regardless of whether or not the result includes every key fact?

If an infobox is (a), then we need the ability to account for not only spouses but also everything else that has ever been a key fact in any musician's career. For example, a key fact in the musical career of drummer Rick Allen is that he lost his left arm but continued playing. That's arguably the best-known fact about him, yet it doesn't appear in the text of his infobox. I absolutely agree that a summary of either John or (perhaps even moreso) Yoko is incomplete without mention of the other, but by the same token, is a summary of their son complete without mention of his parents? Is a summary of Kiss complete without mention of their makeup, Lady Gaga without mention of the outrageous costumes, Ozzy Osbourne without the bat biting incident, Ted Nugent without hunting, Michael Jackson without the Moonwalk, and every of countless one hit wonders without mention of their one hit? To account for these and others we'd have to add not only "spouse", but (at least!) "injuries", "parents", "children", "makeup", "apparel", "decapitations", "hobbies", "signature dance moves", and "only notable song".

If an infobox is (b) - which I believe, for better or worse, it currently is - then the only fields that should be present are fields which are applicable to the majority of musicians' careers, and we are left with accepting the fact that in some cases, extremely important facts will be left out and therefore present only in the text of the article. Many notable musicians and other celebrities became notable precisely because their careers, pardon the pun, are "outside the box". Much like you implied, I don't think a structured, strictly questionnaire-style infobox can ever account for everything.

I'm glad to see that the "spouse" field can be used for former and simultaneous spouses, but I still think it's arbitrary to choose marriage as a qualifier: even assuming a "spouse" field were to be used in the musician infobox, how is for example a musician's long-term live-in girlfriend (assuming she has had a notable impact on his career) less noteworthy simply because they aren't married? For this reason and others I mentioned above, while not a perfect solution and I am not at all married to the idea, I would rather see a multi-use free-text field ("other key facts" or something to that effect) added to the infobox - which should of course be used for spouses when appropriate - than a specialized field which shouldn't even be used in most cases. Either that, or if (and this is a big "if") an infobox is really intended to be a complete summary, perhaps the entire infobox format should be reconsidered.

But that's a lot of text just to say: I agree with IllaZilla's comment above and I don't think we should include a specialized field that is not a key fact to the majority of articles the infobox appears in. Just because the field graces other similar infoboxes (where it also is rarely a key fact) isn't a good reason to add the same field to this infobox. Ibanez100 (talk) 23:55, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Ibanez100 above summarized it quite nicely. Leaving the field blank if the spouse is not notable to a musician's career? Good luck maintaining a music biography ever again. — ξ^xplicit 06:25, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose Per User:Ibanez100 et User:IllaZilla. If the spouse is notable xe can be placed in the lead, personal life section of the bio and/or associated acts section of the infobox (if xe is a musician too). --Guerillero | My Talk 21:40, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support. As has been stated many times by others, the spouse field for a musical artist is as notable as the spouse field for any other professional artist and should be included.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:19, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. I've removed the notice warning at the top of this page added on February 22, 2010. Given the current proposal, it is inappropriate and is being cited in other forums in support of not including the field.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:21, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Infoboxes should only contain information that is relevant to the notability of the subject. that other infoboxes contain this irrelevant field is no reason to do it here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  Since when does content in an article have to be relevant to notability? It just has to be relevant and not prohibited by some other policy or guideline. What if the spouse was notable but not relevant to the notability of the subject? Would we include it then? If we can include the spouse in the body prose of the article, why can't we include it in the infobox as a summary of that point? I understand the issue of WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS with respect to other infoboxes, but in this instance, it's not really crap, it's just that editors disagree on how this should be handled. In that kind of circumstance, consistency across people's infoboxes should not be rejected out of hand.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:47, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  Notability doesn't limit article content, but we're not talking about content of the article as a whole, we're talking about the infobox. Not every detail is relevant to an infobox. I don't understand why so many editors think that spouses are so relevant, in comparison to the many other details that are left out of this infobox (parents, siblings, children, schooling, religion, etc.). I haven't seen a compelling argument that spouses are directly relevant to the musical careers of most musicians. Granted, they are relevant to some, but a statistical minority. To some musicians their religion, parents, etc. are as or more relevant to their musical career than their spouse, but the tradition in this infobox is to only include fields that are directly relevant to the careers of all musicains, or at least the vast majority. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:29, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  Seems to me your point goes more to whether one fills in the field rather than whether the field is available to be used. Even you concede that the field, if it were available, could be used in some instances. The way to tackle that issue is to include comments about the use of the field in the template documentation.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:36, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  Experience shows that if a field exists, editors are inclined to fill it regardless of relevance. That's been one of the main arguments against inclusion in the past discussions. If it were a case of making field available but only using the ones that are most relevant on an article-by-article basis, then we might as well just add a few music-specific fields to {{Infobox person}} and retire this infobox. For whatever reason, editors often seem far more interested in infoboxes than any other part of articles (some seem to obsess over them), and will fill every field regardless of what guidance we try to put in the documentation. --IllaZilla (talk) 20:56, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  I agree with you, and I've often fought battles with other editors who want to include infobox fields in articles where the information may be true but it just isn't relevant. However, IF the template documentation clearly states when the field should be used, then undoing another editor's work becomes much easier. I don't think we should shy away from including infobox fields that are relevant to some article subjects just because they are abused. We just have to be clearer about the criteria for using them.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:03, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  But are some instances enough to warrant a specialized field that does not apply to the majority of musicians? I'd say absolutely not. Facts that are key to the vast majority of musicians should have infobox fields; facts that are key to some specific individuals but are not universal should be detailed in the body of the article. To repeat an example I used above, a summary of Rick Allen (drummer) is not complete without mention of his missing arm, but adding a "missing limbs" field to the infobox would be ridiculous. Ibanez100 (talk) 22:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  An extreme example. How many instances is enough? (Mind you, I'm not conceding that your test to use the spouse field if it existed is the appropriate one. I'm just focusing on this subissue.)--Bbb23 (talk) 22:55, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  Yes, definitely an extreme example, but an example of the same issue nonetheless. I would say that for a field to be included in the infobox, it should (1) apply to the vast majority of musicians, and (2) represent something which is a key fact in summarizing those musicians' notability as musicians. There's no way that "spouse" is a key fact in anywhere near even a simple majority (50%+1) of musicians' careers. How many instances of something do you think is enough to warrant an infobox field, and how many instances of musicians with infobox-worthy spouses do you estimate there to be? Ibanez100 (talk) 23:21, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  Ah, but I'm of a completely different view, which is why I support inclusion of the field. I don't think a spouse must be related to the notability of the subject to be used in an infobox. I find it odd (interesting?) that there's such a strong vocal (no pun intended) opposition for this particular infobox.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:34, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  I'm not sure I understand your view then - if something isn't related to the notability of the subject, why would it belong in the subject's infobox? Ibanez100 (talk) 23:48, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  Article content does not require notability. An infobox is a summary of key information that is in the article body. Spouse is key personal information. See Help:Infobox.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:53, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  But infobox content is not the exact same thing as article content.There are many biographical details that are not included in infoboxes. I don't think anyone here is arguing that information be excluded from articles, merely what should/should not be included in the musician infobox. Whether the name of a spouse is "key information" as pertains to an infobox tailored to musicians is essentially the heart of this debate. See WP:IBX, specifically "Purpose of an infobox" and "General considerations". --IllaZilla (talk) 11:11, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

  Now we're talking in circles, so I'll stop.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:46, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

  But the problem is that infoboxes are tailored to profession and spouses are not key information in the careers of most musicians. Sure, many musicians have a spouse - but all musicians have a height and weight, both of which it could be similarly argued are key personal information. But height and weight are not listed in musician infoboxes because they are not relevant to a musical career. They are listed in the infoboxes of mixed martial artists, for example, because height and weight are directly relevant to the careers of mixed martial artists. Likewise, there isn't an "instruments" field in the MMA guys' infoboxes. Ibanez100 (talk) 05:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment And just to give another example of why some of us think spouse seems silly when there's no inclusion for children -- how about, say, Dave Brubeck? His wife isn't notable, but yet his son Chris Brubeck certainly is, and is closely associated with his father, not to mention a couple of the other sons also performed and recorded with him. Why should there be room in the infobox with a spouse (which clearly should be left blank in this case) but not the child? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 22:13, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

But you're not really arguing against including the spouse field but rather to also include the children field. In terms of diminishing returns, though, the children field is rarely relevant. Mostly, in infoboxes that have them, I see it for small children who haven't even had an opportunity to become notable. I like your sig, by the way.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:17, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

But since children are 'rarely relevant', how is spouse so much more relevant that it deserves a field? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 00:14, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

This gets into different editors' views on what belongs in an article. For example, I think a spouse (or partner or long-term relationshiip) always belongs in an article as key personal data (just like parents and siblings). Some editors think that spouse belongs in an article only if the spouse is notable on their own. Children are more difficult because I think you have to separate children when they're young from children as adults. For reasons that I can't explain I think children are different from spouses and only belong in an article if they're notable. However, I don't remove the inclusion of children because I don't think my view is necessarily a principled one, and, in any event, I don't feel that strongly about it. Back to your question. My argument was based on the notability of the spouse or the child, not on your view, which is that the spouse or child has to be related to the subject's notability. My statement was connected to my view, not yours, and children, as I said, are less frequently notable than spouses because most of 'em are too young to be notable. Boy, this is getting tiring.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Some more thoughts on including infobox fields that are not widely applicable. I just realized that MOS:INFOBOX explicitly states that "if the field is relevant to very few articles, it should probably not be included at all" and that "a field that is usually empty may not be particularly useful or relevant". Ibanez100 (talk) 23:48, 10 September 2011 (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.

Post-RfC discussion

Since the 30-day period for the RfC has passed and the RfC tag has been automatically removed, I have closed the RfC portion and added this section break for continued discussion. This is not intended to imply closing of the topic, this is merely procedural. From the RfC we appear to have 12 editors supporting the addition of a "spouse" field, and 18 opposing (including Edgarde's comment prior to the RfC), broken down as follows:

Support

1. Jayen466
2. Worm That Turned
3. Musdan77
4. Noleander
5. DracoEssentialis
6. WhatamIdoing
7. Pigsonthewing
8. Hot Stop
9. TheGrappler
10. Ryan Vesey
11. FurrySings
12. Bbb23

Oppose

1. IllaZilla
2. edgarde
3. J04n
4. Hekerui
5. Melodia (didn't give an explicit !vote, but comments indicate opposition)
6. Koavf
7. Mudwater
8. Wwwhatsup
9. HrZ
10. Ohconfucius
11. Lambiam
12. Fetchcomms
13. Jenks24
14. MrMoustacheMM
15. Ibanez100
16. Explicit
17. Guerillero
18. AndyTheGrump

Additional comments and discussion are welcome below. --IllaZilla (talk) 18:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Who knew that this simple request (to have a place to list the notable spouse of a notable musician) would trigger such a torrent of hatred. Yes, I mean you, User:IllaZilla. No wonder people hesitate to contribute to Wikipedia. Gnuish (talk) 01:16, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Such snarkiness isn't at all constructive. --IllaZilla (talk) 06:47, 29 September 2011 (UTC)