Template talk:Infobox musical artist

Suggestion to create the subgenre parameter

Infobox musical artist
Genres	Pop soul hip hop dance Latin
Subgenres	Dance pop hip hop soul

2600:6C40:5400:DB7:39F3:AF98:FAB4:CC31 (talk) 15:05, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion to create the logo parameter above the image parameter

Some bands have logos, such as Kiss, Opeth, etc. This parameter should be made optional. Abhiramakella (talk) 23:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

The logo design is probably copyrighted, and therefore could be a legal problem if Wikipedia reproduces it. Richard3120 (talk) 05:38, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

What's really relevant here is how the logo itself looks. See {{PD-textlogo}}. If the logo consists of simple geometric shapes (read .svg), it is free to be uploaded and used on wikis. Wikicommons is full of such logo images, and we already publish logos in our articles (see Queen (band)#Logo or The Beatles#Please Please Me and With the Beatles. But if they are complex images with graphics, complex use of colors, etc. - they are copyrighted.

Generally I think it's a good idea to put logos in infoboxes. On Russian Wikipedia they did it a couple of years ago also with import from Wikidata and it looks nice, see ru:Led Zeppelin, ru:ABBA. Solidest (talk) 19:16, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion to discern between "Occupation" and "Occupations", not always using "Occupation(s)"

The "Infobox person" template has the ability to use the correct singular or plural label when flatlist or hlist is used instead of commas to separate multiple items. There is an added benefit, as "Occupation(s)" is often the longest label in the box, and making it shorter by 2 or 3 characters allows more room for all the text fields in the right portion of the box. Could the code from the Infobox person template be spliced into this one? Chris the speller ^yack 16:36, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems that this infobox just has not been updated since {{Pluralize from text}} was made back in 2022. In addition to Occupations, the labels for Genre, Label, Spinoff, Spouse, Partner, Member, Past member are also worth automating. Solidest (talk) 19:29, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Changing the Discography parameter to Works

Bringing this discussion back since no progress was made. I think the "Discography" parameter should be changed to "Works", as seen in Template:Infobox person. This will allow users to also include the links for a group's videography and live performances. GustavoCza (talk • contribs) 06:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

You only made the first request last month... please don't make repeated requests for comments as this could be seen as WP:BADGER. Anyway, I'd rather the Discography parameter was removed from the infobox altogether, as an artist's discography/filmography/list of live performances should already be in the article as navbox(es), and I don't think there should be both a navbox and an infobox link. Richard3120 (talk) 11:45, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I still agree with this as I commented previously. Miklogfeather (talk) 20:27, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to reduce the ambiguity of parameter origin

Proposal (and request for discussion, and hopefully consensus): Change label6 of the template from Origin to Launch location. (Perhaps a parameter alias---or whatever the term is---called launch_location could be added later.)

Rationale: The origin parameter presents an ambiguity when used for individual performers. To the casual Wikipedia reader, it incorrectly suggests that the label Origin represents the birthplace of the performer. The casual reader is not equipped to look up which infobox template is being used, let alone the meanings of the individual parameters. This even confuses Wikipedia editors from time to time. Talk page usage discussions have "kicked the can down the road", but we might as well fix the underlying ambiguity by selecting a clearer label.

Alternate ideas:

1. Change label6 from Origin to Debut location.
   • But this is likely to be interpreted as the first performance, however minor, when it should instead indicate when the person or band really took off.
2. Change label6 from Origin to Original performance location.
   • But this has the same drawback as the label Debut location---in fact, even wordier.
3. Split this template into two: Infobox_individual_musical_artist and Infobox_group_musical_artist.
   • But most people would likely find the effort worth not worth the improvement in clarity.

History of significant discussions of the origin parameter:

1. Talk Archive #1 (2007):
   • Origin and flags => Suggestion to use label Career origin.
   • Country? ==> Request to put all "turfs" (i.e., significant performance locations) into the origin parameter
2. Talk Archive #3 (2007):
   • Birth place ==> Confusion between origin and birth_place parameters
   • Raised ==> Confusion over the use of origin parameter
3. Talk Archive #6 (2008):
   • Origin and Hometown ==> Points out that the meaning of Origin parameter is unclear
4. Talk Archive #7 (2009):
   • Appropriate uses ==> Claims the current label is misleading, and proposes using Debut
5. Talk Archive #9 (2011):
   • Edit request from CWenger ==> Confusion over the use of the origin parameter
6. Talk Archive #10 (2011 to 2012):
   • Origin ==> Suggests adding based_in parameter for current primary location
7. Talk Archive #12 (2013 to 2014):
   • Origin ==> Clarification sought for meaning of parameter origin
8. Talk Archive #14 (2018):
   • Definition of origin ==> Discussion of use or origin parameter, including Grace VanderWaal, who gained fame through America's Got Talent, and the BeeGees article, which had edit wars(1)(2)(3) over the origin parameter.

Dotyoyo (talk) 14:44, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Sometimes life does not fall into clear-cut definitions. I suspect that no single attempted "definition" of Origin will satisfy all of the people all of the time.

The existing description of Origin is The town, city etc., from which the group or musician originated (that is, the place where the group was founded, or where the individual performer started their career, should it not match the location of their birth. Here in the UK, think Liverpool for The Beatles and Manchester for Oasis. This seems a clear use of "origin". But the archives also indicate that the origin field does not work for The Bee Gees and in this case the article itself has an inline comment to advise that "origin" is, for this band, inappropriate.

An Infobox is simply a brief, broad-brush, outline summary. The more subtle, intricate and nuanced details are often beyond the scope of an infobox.

So the existing "live and let live" use (or "most of the people most of the time") seems reasonable: "origin" works for a large majority of cases, and indeed for many (Beatles; Oasis) it is an important aspect. For a minority (e.g. Bee Gees) it won't work. And all that seems OK to me.

Feline Hymnic (talk) 11:29, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

The description you give for Origin is readily available to Wikipedia editors who are capable of peering into the help documentation for Wikipedia templates. But articles should be crafted with the needs of casual readers in mind. If those casual readers had a simple way (e.g., a tooltip) to view such descriptions, then I might agree.

But given the lack of easy label description lookup, I propose this guideline: Labels should be used that convey almost all the meaning of the label to almost all the users, almost all the time. With that in mind, I propose the label "Launch location", but I'm open to other suggestions that would be correctly interpreted by casual Wikipedia readers.

Dotyoyo (talk) 13:40, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

"Origin" and "launch" seem different concepts. "Origin" seems to be about where they seem rooted, whereas "launch" suggests a choreographed event. Suppose (hypothetically) that the Beatles, with their strong (and proudly owned and claimed) Liverpudlian roots, had achieved their rise to prominence somewhere different. I would suggest that "origin" more closely matches Liverpool, whereas "launch" would more closely match that 'somewhere different' location. Perhaps "origin" needs to stay as "origin" (or closely similar), but that an optional, supplementary "launch" (or similar) should be available. Feline Hymnic (talk) 13:52, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

The root problem might be that the description has two different meanings: one for groups, and another for individuals. Assuming it's technically feasible, perhaps there should be different labels for those two cases. Dotyoyo (talk) 14:01, 27 May 2024 (UTC)