Talk:List of American Idol alumni single sales in the United States

A few notes about this page

Just to forestall some questions about this -

1) The American Idol alumni single sales page is intended to be a companion piece for American Idol alumni album sales. It is designed to show the very notable success of the show American Idol in creating recording stars (it is in fact the most successful in TV history in creating stars). Many interested in the show would also want a page where can find the information about previous contestants success in making hits in one place.

2) It is intentionally separate from the American Idol Hot 100 singles page - firstly to make it more manageable (they have the potential to become too bloated), and they illustrate different things - American Idol Hot 100 is purely about releases directly related to the show (studio/live recordings of performances from the shows, Idol Gives Back, songs from the show's compilation CD, etc.), the American Idol alumni singles sales is designed to demonstrate the success of the Idol alumni after they have left the show. It is the stated aim of the show to create stars, and this page illustrate the extraordinary success it has in doing precisely that (over 60 million units sold in the US just for those listed at time of the creation of this page).

3) It is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all singles released by Idol alumni - they are simply too many to list properly. So only those that charted on the Billboard Hot 100 (the main singles chart in the US) and some of the other more notable releases will be listed.

4) There are still a number of issues with regard to the design of the page, for example how they are listed - it can get cumbersome for further edits, so the way it lists may change. Currently the issue is the numbering - there is no automatic numbering for sortable table (unless someone knows of one).

5) I intend this list to be as flexible as possible for people to sort the list in the way they want - by release dates, by seasons, by sales, by artists, etc. However, there are problems in the way it sorts - for example the date may not sorted properly, only the date format I use appears to sort correctly (I also avoided format which can sort well like 04-05-2006 because it can cause confusion). If other people know of ways to get round this, then please contribute, as long as it doesn't mess up other aspects of the page that is. Also that the numbers are not sorted correctly once you put in references and notes. One way to get round this is to use this method -

<span style="display:none">123xyz</span>

The 123xyz will not be displayed. For example 4,800 would be <span style="display:none">0,00</span>4,800 if you want to sort the number in a list with other numbers with 7 digits, but would show up as just 4,800 instead of 0,004,800. For incomplete dates <span style="display:none">00</span>Feb 2009 would show up as just Feb 2009. This can ensure that the numbers and dates get sorted the way you wanted but are displayed as intended. Hzh (talk) 23:16, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Just to let you know this information used to be in American Idol Hot 100 singles but during its second AfD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/American Idol Hot 100 singles (2nd nomination), I removed this information in hopes of keeping the article, so I would not be surprised if this article was nominated for deletion.

I know, and I think the deletion was wrong. It wasn't properly defended and most of us only knew the excised part was deleted after the fact. It is notable if only for illustrating the simple fact that American Idol has been the most successful show in directly producing recording stars. The facts collectively are notable. If it is to be deleted, then there is a case for deleting the American Idol alumni album sales page as well, because it serves exactly the same function.

The date format should be in the American style per WP:STRONGNAT. I understand the problems with this not fitting in a sortable way. I think there are three possible solutions: 1) American date format while making the column unsortable, 2) Removing the information from the article or 3) Adding the information to another column in a smaller second line.

I think some of the columns are overkill. The season is really not needed or should be presented like the Artist column in American Idol Hot 100 singles. I do not know if the date column or the album columns are needed. They seem unnecessary information to me.

I have a problem with your unexplained reversion that changed back all of the information I changed that as I explained was not just about the dates. There was no reason to add back the overlinking, to change correct links to redirects or dab pages, to remove quotation marks, to remove italics, etc. If you had a problem with part of my edit, you need to change back only that part and not revert the whole edit itself. Aspects (talk) 00:08, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

I think if it must kept to the American date format, then using format like 05-20-2009 could work. I chose not to do that because it is confusing when there are international readers for dates like 01-02-2003. I'll experiment with that another time and see if it works well.

I included the season and dates because some people might like to sort it that way. It's useful for tracking information, say, if you want to know what charted singles were released by American Alumni in 2008. It's part of what makes having a page like this useful - it's easier to look at a mass of data and not having to go to many pages. Unless it can cause other problems that I'm not aware of, then I'm happy for those to stay. I didn't use the way it's presented in American Idol Hot 100 singles because it is not flexible, although I am considering listing it by dates of release if I can find a method for automatic numbering.

Apology for removing the quotation mark and a few other things, just a simple matter of forgetting to change those when reverting the date format using the undo option.Hzh (talk) 22:30, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, that's done. Apart from the problem of a couple of incomplete dates which I will leave as they are, all the rest are in the same format. They all sort correctly, even the incomplete ones. Not as easily readable as the earlier format I think, but it gets the job done. Hzh (talk) 23:32, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Phillip Phillips' Home

~"Home" by Phillip Phillips is not on the singles list, when it should be number 1. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.238.184.239 (talk) 00:50, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Phillip Phillips's "Home" is listed in List of American Idol Hot 100 singles. As explained in the lead section, this page does not include songs directly related to American Idol such as coronation songs, those are placed in the List of American Idol Hot 100 singles page. This page is only for songs released afterwards in their post-Idol career. Hzh (talk) 10:55, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

The decision to exclude songs "directly related to American Idol such as coronation songs," is a bizarre and arbitrary distinction that seems intended to skew this list and make it irrelevant and not helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.88.79.88 (talk) 23:30, 2 November 2016 (UTC)