Template talk:Certification Table Entry/Archive 7

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Sweden cert question (after 2011)

Hello. I was wondering why position is required for Swedish certifications after 2011 like at Cleanin' Out My Closet. I understand why type and certweek are needed but don't understand why position is also needed. Thanks! --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 01:40, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Same. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 16:19, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I added the two parameters to some mock entries as an experiment. The URL generated works, but when I preview the edits, I get warning messages about "unknown parameters", which is confusing. The "position" param appears to help the reader find the relevant entry to scroll to. Shuipzv3 (talk) 04:18, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Do you know a way that this could be fixed? --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 19:27, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

@MrLinkinPark333: I don't know why |position= was made mandatory, this is non-standard and makes little sense in the context of this template. Rather than removing it entirely, I made it non mandatory. As for Cleanin' Out My Closet, I could find no the certification week so I removed it entirely. Let me know if this is what you meant. --Muhandes (talk) 08:08, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: That's much better making position optional. In terms of Cleanin' Out My Closet, I'll dig around to see if indeed it was certified or not (could have been the wrong year). Thanks! --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 16:46, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Turns out it was. I corrected it. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 16:59, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

But not in 2018 as the certification claimed... Anyway,  Done. --Muhandes (talk) 06:28, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Norway streaming levels

I think the conversion for Norway singles Certifications may have been misunderstood from what I read understand here it is 1:100. Surely 1,000,00 streams cannot be 1,000,000 units when download/actual sales are weighted 100 times more? 100 streams = 1 unit sale (similar to other regions conversions). CoolMarc 14:38, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I started a new section for this since it seems unrelated to the previous section.

Looking at it now, I tend to agree. The source is confusing. Taking Gold certificate as an example, on one hand they say an album Gold is "10,000", which we assume means 10,000 units, with 1,000 streams per unit = 10,000,000 streams/10,000 units. On the other hand a single Gold is "3,000,000", but that can't be units, it must be streams, with 100 streams per unit = 3,000,000 streams/30,000 units. So the numbers for gold should be 10,000 on album, 30,000 on single. This is a bit WP:ORish, but I don't see any other way. Is that what everyone else thing ? Calling @MrLinkinPark333: and @Harout72: which were in on previous conversations. --Muhandes (talk) 08:38, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, for singles the 3,000,000/6,000,000 streams should be translated into 30,000/60,000 units based on their 1:1000 ratio.--Harout72 (talk) 13:01, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's how it's been done for French certifications, which results in some very odd-looking numbers, but it seems the only way to do it. Richard3120 (talk) 13:22, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

We all agree,  Done --Muhandes (talk) 08:30, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

salesamount variable left blank causes expression error at render

I've noticed on the Sing When You're Winning sales table, the UAE listing has no salesamount defined, and when rendered the table throws an inline error "Expression error: Missing operand for *." Defining any value, number or text, for salesamount prevents this, but I guess it would be preferable to not bodge it. Chris W. (talk) 13:16, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

@Christopherwoods: it doesn't work because the template for entering certifications by country doesn't have a parameter for the UAE – someone has tried to add the parameter for this country even though it doesn't exist. The only way around that is to add a manual entry, which is what I have done. However, I notice that the source for this certification is an advertisement for the album provided by the record company, so it's not an independently verifiable source – another editor may well decide to remove the UAE entry altogether, seeing as we know nothing about the UAE certifying body, or even if one exists, and we certainly don't know the sales levels for certifications in the country, so there's no manual sales amount that can be entered. Richard3120 (talk) 14:04, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Ah, understood, thanks for the fix. I'd suggest those sales figures came from either export sales figures or via an IFPI/BPI partner sales report. In early 2000s I don't think there was a central collections agency (similar to the UK's MCPS-PRS, now PRS for Music) for the UAE. Sales figures are likely either import from another MENA territory or Asia. I wouldn't necessarily consider them unreliable because they're sourced from label promo. They're in an industry publication so figures would be subject to scrutiny if believed to be faked. However I appreciate the usual requirements for sourcing stats. Up to another editor I guess. Thanks again for fixing the template. Chris W. (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:13, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Germany and France singles denotation update needed

Bundesverband Musikindustrie Certifications for singles in Germany include streams from June 1, 2014 as per their website. Therefore certifications from June 1, 2014 need to display as ‡sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. The same with France since January 2016.CoolMarc 05:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@Coolmarc:  Done --Muhandes (talk) 09:16, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Muhandes, thank you 🙏 If you have a moment the same denotation needs to be made for Australia, New Zealand and Denmark. Australia singles include streams from 1 July 2015 and albums from May 2017. The same for New Zealand both singles and albums since 17 June 2016 and same for Denmark albums and singles 1 April 2016. CoolMarc 09:41, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@Coolmarc: I did Australia for now. I'll do the rest when I find the time. --Muhandes (talk) 16:28, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Muhandes, Thanks a million! CoolMarc 21:46, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@Coolmarc: Sorry for the long delay, I took a Wikivacation. I did New Zealand, but note that although sales follow release date, judging from the source, the footnote follows certification date. --Muhandes (talk) 15:02, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done And now Denmark done. seems like the rest will be quicker, I got the hang of it. --Muhandes (talk) 15:08, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Some more that need their denotations changed are Spain who have included streaming since January 2015 and Brazil since 2017. Cool Marc ✉ 22:08, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@Coolmarc:  Done --Muhandes (talk) 15:15, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

UK Sales vs. Shipments

Hi all, Not sure when it changed, but in the UK certifications are now based on sales (inc. streams) and use the same methodology as the Official Charts Company. According to the BPI website here it says, "when the release in question has reached the appropriate level of sales as measured by the Official Charts Company, titles are now 'automatically certified' by the BPI. Streams now count towards both album and singles certifications and are measured as per the chart eligibility rules set out by the Official Charts Company.". Should the template be updated to reflect so? → Lil-℧niquԐ1 - (Talk) - 22:09, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

I suspect almost every country's certifications have been sales-based for the last few years, since streaming was included and promptly became the main source of "sales" figures... physical sales and downloads now only count for a small fraction of the figures, and all of them can be easily tracked online, so there's little point basing certifications on shipments these days. Richard3120 (talk) 22:57, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

@Lil-unique1: the change from shipments to sales appears to have taken place in July 2013 [1]. Richard3120 (talk) 23:27, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

@Lil-unique1 and Richard3120:  Done For singles, from July 2013 to the end of 2013 they based on sales and from January 2014 they are streams+sales. For albums and videos, from July 2013 they based on sales. I know for a fact that albums too are based on streams+sales, but I did not research when this started. If you provide a date, I will change the footnote for albums to reflect this.--Muhandes (talk) 11:40, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: thank you... for albums, sales + streams were included from 23 February 2015 onwards, resulting in the first sales + streams album chart being the chart dated 1 March 2015, see here. The OCC's website also confirms this, stating "February 2015". However, note that both sources state that streams were added to the singles chart from July 2014, not January 2014... maybe this needs to be altered in the template. Richard3120 (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Update: here's the original BBC article confirming the first sales + streams singles chart was 6 July 2014. Richard3120 (talk) 14:15, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120: According to BPI, "Inclusion of the streaming data is backdated to week one 2014 to ensure it remains consistent with the Official Charts database." Am I reading it wrong?

@Muhandes:, no I read it the same way as you do, but I don't understand it... what "database" are they talking about that they need to be consistent with? Where would they have got the data from for January to June 2014 in order to be able to backdate it? Richard3120 (talk) 17:52, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120:  Done for the albums, starting with |certyear=2015 and |certmonth=3 they will show the correct ^‡ footnote. I left the singles as they are. --Muhandes (talk) 08:54, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Japan

Good day!
1. Proposing changing of "Notes" section for Japan - it currently says "Automatic citations for albums only", but if parameter digital=true is added (for the digital singles), it actually generates correct cite
2. Would it be possible to activate streaming= parameter for Japan? As of April, RIAJ has implemented new certification for streaming (annotation would be very similar to the currently existing album/digi single).
Link to the new cert - https://www.riaj.or.jp/f/data/cert/st.html
Some translation - https://aramajapan.com/featured/the-recording-industry-association-of-japan-debuts-certifications-for-streaming/106754/
Thank you for your time! Kleool (talk) 05:40, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool:

1.  Done I corrected the documentation

2.  Done I added support for |streaming= for Japanese certifications per you references. I think you should also update Recording Industry Association of Japan.

--Muhandes (talk) 09:44, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Thank you very, very much! I updated the RIAJ page to include information about the emergance of streaming certification and it's levels. Have a good day ^^ Kleool (talk) 16:37, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Hungary Link Change

Hello! Direct linking (to specific year) doesn't work because the link has changed a bit - from zene.slagerlistak.hu to just slagerlistak.hu (everything else in link should stay the same)
+ Please set up sales thresholds (in Hungary cert description is written that thresholds are not known for certain periods), as they have been described here - https://slagerlistak.hu/arany-es-platinalemezek/a-dijak-tortenete
Thank you very much! Kleool (talk) 19:15, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

The URL is a component shared across multiple templates, so I've made the necessary edit request in the proper place: Template talk:Cite certification#Template-protected edit request on 25 June 2020. It should get more attention there. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 12:57, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

And its been fixed, courtesy of Jonesey95. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 03:18, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh! Thank you so much Y2kcrazyjoker4 for help. Kleool (talk) 16:41, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Misc

For |region=Japan - if |digital=true, then sales thresholds, unlike non-digital, should always be the same - regardless of certyear, as the threshold has always been the same (as described here at the bottom)

For |region=South Korea - would it be possible to implement |streaming=true for singles? The link would be very similar to downlaod certification - http://gaonchart.co.kr/main/section/certification/list.gaon?serviceGbn=S1040 (singles downloads is =S1020). Thresholds, like mentioned in the link, is Platinum (100,000,000) and Billion (1,000,000,000)

|region=Italy does not recognise |award=Diamond . I input Platinum, i got a number. As soon as Diamond - "Expression error: Missing operand for *." (example Cheap Thrills if |salesamount= is removed) Kleool (talk) 21:03, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: |region=Japan  Done. For |digital=true it will not require the year at all. --Muhandes (talk) 10:16, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: |region=South Korea  Done. Note that unlike Japan, you need to set both |streaming=true and |type=single. If you want me to change this behavior, please let me know. --Muhandes (talk) 10:52, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: |region=Italy  Done --Muhandes (talk) 16:12, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Thank you very much! Kleool (talk) 16:17, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Brazil

There seems to be a problem with certification levels for Brazil - the number is unusually high. E.g. I Fall Apart is Gold, but the template gives 50 thousand sps. It doesn't match any levels mentioned on List of music recording certifications either.
According to pro-musicabr.org.br , for foreign single certifications (and even domestic), Gold shouldn't be as high as 50 thousand.
Maybe misunderstanding of Pro-Música Brasil description about merging digital with physical singles (instead of using digital cert thresholds, need to use the "physical" one's)?
Would be really grateful for the help,thank you! Kleool (talk) 21:14, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: The reason for I Fall Apart was an incorrect |relyear=. According to what I see in the implementation, the Brazil levels go by release year, rather than certification year. Do you think this is incorrect? --Muhandes (talk) 12:10, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: I'm no expert, but in my opinion, based on stuff i've read on the previously mentioned wiki pages even if relyear was incorrect (2016), it still shouldn't have been 50k for Gold. The Gold=50k (for singles) was meant for digital only certification (think similarly of Canada digital vs physical cert before change of mid-2016), which has a seperate notation on brazil cert website (DAL (album)/DMS (single)) and should only be used if |digital=true. And for the rest should be same standard thresholds as said in Pro-Música Brasil, just starting 2017(?) would be sps instead of shipments. Kleool (talk) 13:19, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: I agree, you are very accurately describing the situation. However, if we require |digital=true, Brazil singles certified before 2017, which do not have |digital=true, will have no sales threshold at all, and will be added to Category:Pages using Certification Table Entry-Sales with missing information (1). is this acceptable? This category is already quite large (101 pages as we speak), and needs to be manually cleaned. Perhaps cleaning it first will be smarter? I am only here to assist, so whatever you decide is fine with me. --Muhandes (talk) 14:17, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Most of that category pages are there because of the Norway's "Unknown sales thresholds for singles before July 2002" with a sprinkling of Hungary's "Unknown sales thresholds for international albums before 23 April 2002 or between 23 February 2005 and 12 September 2006". I know wikipedia pages aren't a reliable source but norwegian wiki https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salgstrofeer_i_musikkbransjen mentions that albums were 25k (Gold) and 50k (Plat) between 1993 and July 2002 (which matches the current template numbers for albums), so possibly the information about singles being 20k for Gold and 40k for Plat is correct? Anyways, ran off topic a bit. As i was saying, most of that category is there mainly because of threshold problems for Norway, thus can't really "clean it". Unless we're willing to write in the kinda maybe possibly correct thresholds mentioned on norway wiki. So.. yeah.. . About the pre-2017 not having thresholds, i worry only about those possible singles which might have had a release as a "single cd" (likes of which are popular in Japan), but because i'm not sure if any actually exist, it shouldn't be a reason to not implement this "fix". So i guess we should go ahead with this, if you're amicable.Kleool (talk) 17:25, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: For all those Norway/Hungary ones, which we just don't know the number, the solution would be to set |nosales=true so at least it wont show a zero. For Brazil, I'll do the fix when I have more time to test it. --Muhandes (talk) 20:19, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Ok, i'll do that (set the |nosales=true), thank you for advice ^^ Kleool (talk) 20:25, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool:  Done for Brazil. It will now accept |digital=true for singles between 2008 and 2013, albums between 2008 and 2015, with 50,000 for gold. From 2017 it will also accept |digital=true, but with the correct thresholds. I suggest watching Category:Pages using Certification Table Entry-Sales with missing information (1). --Muhandes (talk) 07:47, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Thank you so much! You're the best!

Update - there is a problem with works released before 2008. E.g. Run It! was released in 2005, digital certified (DMS) in 2008. Even if i'd set |digital=true, it still shows 0* Kleool (talk) 09:03, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Update2 - similar problem to the digital certifications - for songs released before 2015, but certified after. e.g. 6 AM - released in 2014 but certified in 2019 and does not have the [DMS] notation (it's [SINGLE]) Kleool (talk) 09:46, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: See above, I already said it all goes by |relyear=, not |certyear=. Based on what you are saying, it should have all been based on |certyear= to begin with, since that's all we have in the database. Do you agree? --Muhandes (talk) 10:01, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Addendum: If you think it should go by |certyear= there are two implementation options:

Option 1: strict implementation. Go by |certyear=, return 0 if it does not exist.

Option 2: lenient implementation. Go by |certyear= if it exists, otherwise revert to |relyear=.

What do you think? --Muhandes (talk) 10:05, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: because the Brazil certifications (on the website) are noted only by certyear, so for me it does seem more logical to use |certyear= instead of |relyear=. strict implementation would cause quite a bit of chaos before fixes because |certyear= is mainly absent, but it would ensure that people actually use it in the future (would need to change Template description for Brazil). Personally, my vote would be on strict, unless you'd prefer the lenient. Kleool (talk) 10:17, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool:  Done - strict option implemented. Muhandes (talk) 10:28, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Thank you for your time. And i guess.. let the chaos commence xD . i'll try to fix up the pages as soon/fast as possible. Kleool (talk) 10:38, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: I created additional chaos, by accidentally invalidating many Australia certifications, but it is now fixed. Sorry about that one. Muhandes (talk) 10:55, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: it's ok! i didn't notice yet, as the tracking category is still updating (slowly) ^^ . But good job catching it right away! Kleool (talk) 11:05, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: could i kindly ask for the change in the Template description page for the Brazil "Sales require |relyear=" to "Sales require |certyear=" as the template got changed now? Thanks Kleool (talk) 18:18, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool:  Done. Muhandes (talk) 08:52, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Now there's another problem, albums are certified based in the year they're released, so if an album was released in 1998 it'll get platinum for 250,000 sold, not 125,000, it was correct in the previous cert table but now albums like Ray of Light by Madonna are listed as having platinum for 125,000 not 250,000, because it was certified after 2004.--88marcus (talk) 20:56, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: You can see here link in the old PMB website (which was called ABPD) that the albums/singles were certified by the date of its release, when it say "Produtos Digitais (internet / telefonia móvel) - Emitidos a partir de NOVEMBRO de 2008." it means (translation): Digital Products (internet / mobile phone) Issued as of NOVEMBER 2008. And "CD Produtos Nacionais - Lançamentos antes de 01 de jan/2004 Releases before Jan 1, 2004" which means "National Products CD - Releases before Jan 1, 2004".--88marcus (talk) 00:27, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes and 88marcus: after all of this, i'm lost on which would be best.. switch cert base back to relyear, set thresholds as they should be (pretend as if |digital=true does not exist at all), and then special case for |digital=true which would ignore need for relyear/certyear (static threshold values)?

This last description makes it sound similar to Japan's certs (only |digital=true should not change certurl in this case).. Maybe Japan model is more correct than the Canadian model we discussed before Muhandes? Kleool (talk) 08:57, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: The certification levels for albums in Brazil should be based on release years. This practice in Brazil seems to have been active until October 2017. It was stated on their site here Lançamentos antes de 01 de jan/2001 (releases before Jan. 2001) and the same for the rest of time periods. Also, the template shows 0 when {certyear} is removed for Ray of Light for example. However, it's worth pointing out that effective November 2017, they no longer list the older levels, this is when Pro-musica Brasil began counting streaming towards certifications. So it is possible that effective November 2017, any title that gets certified, is based on the certification levels listed after November 2017 (both singles and albums).--Harout72 (talk) 13:51, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72: You say "Possible", but this is not for granted, correct? It seems that otherwise, there is consensus to revert the template to use release year. Kleool, I agree with your last solution, for |digital=true we should ignore the release or certification date, at least until 2015, when it ended. --Muhandes (talk) 19:02, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes:, I'm not sure what I'm missing in this thread, but the template is programmed incorrectly as it stands right now, and brings up incorrect levels. There is a huge difference between 250,000 and 125,000 units, as it is the case with just one example Ray of Light. Also, the digital certification-levels for international singles were Gold=30,000, Platinum=60,000, Diamond=250,000 until November 2017. So the single I Fall Apart being discussed above, should have Gold=30,000 units as it was released just before the Pro-musica Brasil changed their certification-levels.--Harout72 (talk) 13:55, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72: Brasil's 'digital' single actually has a specific format - being [DMS] not [SINGLE] on the certification website. The thresholds you're describing isn't the same (as in , not applicable to [SINGLE]). The division can be seen here. But thank you for the IFPI link, as it gives insight on the correct [DMS] thresholds for international singles (as the ABPD website listed only domestic thresholds it seems) and are the one's you said. (Kleool (talk) 16:53, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: Single or Digital single are the same for Brazil, the same threshold. Brazil never issued certifications for physical certifications, they only started issuing certifications for Digital format in November 2008 as stated on their site. See this IFPI certification-levels for 2007, no certifications for singles. The certification-levels for digital format only started appearing on IFPI 2009 document. The archived version for ABPD shows that the digital levels for National Repertoire were still Gold=50,000, Platinum=100,000 until June 2015 when it was still being operated under the name ABPD. The name of the certifying body in Brazil was changed from ABPD to Pro-Musica Brasil sometime in 2016. Those digital levels, however, for national/international repertoire still were in use until October 2017. It was in November 2017 that Pro-Musica Brasil came up with a new set of certification-levels for both albums and singles, combining streaming/digital/physical. As I mentioned above, the template needs to be re-programmed, otherwise we're gonna keep getting inaccurate figures.--Harout72 (talk) 17:42, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72: When you go to pro-music website certification part, and choose for "Tipo de Produto:" the "digital (musica)" you will, in fact, get only DMS certification. Last one to be given was in 2013. First [SINGLE] certification was given only in 2017. Which means, that they did, in fact, have a seperate designation for [DMS] vs [SINGLE]. And that [SINGLE] does not appear under "digital (musica)" already is telling that it is not "pure" digital (ngl, my personal opinion is they forgot to update the thresholds during their rebranding). But, if you really want to go by the archives, then it is not still applicable to I Fall Apart. Last time "digital" thresholds appear as such in archives is 23rd September, and first time "Singles" appear is November 7th. Then the change could have happened in between those 2 dates. As such, if anything, we'd only be 100% sure about digitals being at the levels you want until September 23rd and no later.Kleool (talk) 18:13, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Arbitrary thread restart

@Harout72, Kleool, and 88marcus: It is obvious that the change of the template from release year to certification year was in error, or at the very least, not in consensus. Therefore, I reverted it. Three issues remain (at least as far as I am aware, and please correct me if I'm wrong):

• Issue 1, raised by Harout72: The template ignores the release month for the November 2017 change. Example: I Fall Apart. I will fix this when I have the time.
• Issue 2, raised by Kleool: For singles and albums released before 2008, but receiving digital certification, the template returns "0" instead of the 2008 threshold for digital certification. Example is Run It!. I will fix this when I have the time.
• Issue 3, raised by Harout72: Starting from November 2017, thresholds are based on certification date, not release date. Before I implement this, I want to be sure that I understand correctly and that there is consensus for this. Muhandes (talk) 18:22, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72 and Muhandes: My initial problem with Brazil was that singles had unreasonably high threshold (50k for Gold) for the initally mentioned I Fall Apart. It would/could be solved by information provided by Harout72 which is that based on IFPI here 2009 doc and here 2013 doc) the thresholds provided on ABPD for digitals (DMS/DAL and SINGLE?) were for domestic only, and were actually Gold=30,000 Platinum=60,000 Diamond=250,000 for the international digital products since it's inception until the change of November 2017 (if it is November, and not October.. as September 23 says old stuff, and November 7 said new stuff, and they could have changed anywhere inbetween). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kleool (talk • contribs) 18:59, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: As for the issue 3, I have e-mailed Pro-musica Brasil to clarify whether they apply their newer/recent certification-levels to all titles regardless of their release dates, at least since November 2017 when they started counting streaming towards certifications and which is when their site stopped listing older certification-levels. My personal opinion is that they most likely apply their presently listed levels to all titles regardless of release dates. Perhaps we can hold off on making that change unless others feel the same way as me, or maybe we can wait until we get a confirmation from Pro-musica Brasil.--Harout72 (talk) 19:09, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72: Good, we will hold off on issue 3 until we have confirmation. --Muhandes (talk) 19:25, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

• Issue 4: Threshold for international digital should be Gold=30,000 Platinum=60,000 Diamond=250,000. The Gold=50,000 is domestic only. @Harout72 and Kleool: Please approve that I got this one right. --Muhandes (talk) 19:27, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, those are the levels until at least September 23, 2017. After November 2017, the levels for International digitals are Gold=20,000, Platinum=40,000.--Harout72 (talk) 19:42, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72 and Kleool:  Done (I hope). Let me know if there are any errors, or when we get confirmaiton for Issue 3. Muhandes (talk) 11:48, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: I'll keep you posted if I get a late reply from them, so far I have nothing from them.--Harout72 (talk) 13:16, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72: I think any information listed here in these threads should be included in Pro-Música Brasil. Otherwise, it'd be confusing to not know this new information --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 17:19, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@MrLinkinPark333: I agree. I'll do it when I find some additional time, or maybe somebody else could add the levels we discussed here.--Harout72 (talk) 18:39, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Denmark - certifications

As some wikipedians have pointed out to me that certifications since 2012 are getting certified by date (the levels that were/are at the time), and I get that but what I am wondering happens to albums with previous sales? FIMI (Italy) collects sales since 2009 and counts from there, and previous sales before 2009 are not included. So is this something different, or what (I don't know). For an example Marshall Mathers LP was at 100,000 level in 2001 (two times platinum) and then it got updated to five times platinum level in 2020 but that is also at the of level 100,000. Certificeringer has a database that goes back to 2011, so does it start with that year? BPI has section of "released" and even tracking sales chart through years, so it is more clear there. Dhoffryn (talk) 19:05, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

@Dhoffryn: Denmark has been applying their most recent certification levels to both albums/singles since July 2012, regardless of the release dates. See this discussion. As for Italy, FIMI applies certification levels based on release date to albums only. The release dates are disregarded, however, for singles.--Harout72 (talk) 19:56, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Portuguese thresholds

I don't understand where the 10,000/20,000 threshold for Portugal comes from. A recent e-mail exchange I had with AFP cleared my doubts: it's still 5,000 for Gold and 10,000 for Platinum for singles. The streaming-to-single-unit ratio is 250:1. ×°˜`°×ηαη¢у×°˜`°× 08:46, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

@Merynancy: see the thread "Portuguese certifications" above. It's clear that in June 2013 the thresholds were 10,000/20,000... I think Muhandes hasn't changed the template because we don't know when the thresholds were halved to their current levels. Can AFP provide any information to confirm the date of the changes? Richard3120 (talk) 15:02, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

They were already 5k/10k back in 2016 when the portuguesecharts.com website first included them in their updates afaik. ×°˜`°×ηαη¢у×°˜`°× 15:22, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

So sometime between June 2013 and 2016... but we need a more accurate date. Richard3120 (talk) 15:24, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120 and Merynancy: Since the change was made at 2016 at the latest, I figured out changing it so it gives the correct level from 2016 is preferable, and made it so. You would probably want to edit Associação Fonográfica Portuguesa. Muhandes (talk) 08:56, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Australia ARIA accreditations

It looks as though ARIA have removed all accreditations/certifications from their website apart from the current year. This means that archived copies of the certifications from 2007 to 2019 will need to be located and added to every article which includes Australian certifications... Richard3120 (talk) 01:04, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120: Ugh really? I *think* most of them would have been have been archived at here. I can check later to see if some are missing. Please note that there were no 2018 dvd accrefiations so its not missing. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 05:07, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120: I just checked. All links are archived. See above link. MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 05:22, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Since these are individual URLs, using archived ones should not be much of a problem for past certifications. I'm not sure how we are going to take that into the future. --Muhandes (talk) 08:40, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120 and MrLinkinPark333: I implemented a quick solution where everything goes to the Wayback Machine. I don't have the time to test it for every year and type from this table, but it should work. The archive-date is identical for all years and types, which is incorrect, but correcting this will take much longer and I'm not sure how critical it is, let me know what you think, is it required and how critical it is. I can implement |recent=true to go https://www.aria.com.au/latest-accreditations but this may only work until the end of 2020. Let me know if you will find it useful. Alternatively, we can use the ARIA charts in the future, they seem to display the accreditations there. --Muhandes (talk) 09:24, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@MrLinkinPark333: I was fairly confident that all the accreditation pages had been archived previously... it was more a "heads up" post, and as it was the last thing I did before going to bed, I didn't have time to check for archives, so thank you for confirming they exist.

@Muhandes: thank you for implementing a quick solution. You are correct that the ARIA chart pages contain certifications, but ARIA only post the current week's chart, they don't archive previous weeks, so there is no possibility of searching previous charts. I know a script can be set up to automatically archive the chart each week, but this still leaves editors facing a week by week check of the archives to find the certifications, which is why having them gathered all in one place for the whole year was so convenient. Perhaps if someone remembers to archive the "current accreditations" page every 31 December...? Richard3120 (talk) 16:23, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120: Maybe this is new, but they added the capability to see old charts, starting from the week of 1 July 2019. For example, chart here you can click on the headline "week of XXXXX" and select an archived week. Muhandes (talk) 09:42, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: so you can... they didn't exactly make it obvious that you could search previous weeks! Richard3120 (talk) 14:14, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120: Alternativelly, I dont see any album accreidations in the current accreditations page, even though there was ones up to the end of August 2020. I sent an email to ARIA asking why this is the case. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 18:22, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Portuguese certifications

Hi! Currently the certifications used for Portugal are 10,000 for a Gold record and 20,000 for Platinum. However, according to this website the certifications in Portugal are as follow: Albums: 7,500 (Gold), 15,000 (Platinum) Singles: 5,000 (Gold), 10,000 (Platinum) Can the template be updated? Thank you! ManuelButera (talk) 11:50, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

@ManuelButera: You are correct, levels for albums released from 7 July 2011 should be fixed. I will fix it when I find the time. Muhandes (talk) 17:48, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

 Done It turned out it was easier than I thought, so I just went ahead and fixed it now. --Muhandes (talk) 18:38, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Thank you! What about the singles? ManuelButera (talk) 00:41, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

@ManuelButera: Indeed The source you provided has 5,000 for a Gold and 10,000 for Platinum on singles. I didn't notice it. Do you have any idea when this change occurred? Later than June 2013 for sure. --Muhandes (talk) 07:11, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: I'm not sure, but I think that it's been that way since they re-started the singles chart (on the first week of 2016). ManuelButera (talk) 11:55, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

@ManuelButera: OK. I'll probably get to that next weekend. Muhandes (talk) 22:14, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Hi again. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the 2016 date as the certification date instead of the release date of a song? For example, a 2015 song that was certified Gold in 2016 currently uses the 10,000 threshold, but isn't it based on the new 5,000 threshold? Thank you! ManuelButera (talk) 14:37, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@ManuelButera: I don't know, I'm far from being an expert on the subject. The best would be to find a source which clarifies it, one way or another. Muhandes (talk) 18:50, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Portugal template is having problems - 21 (Adele album) and Lioness: Hidden Treasures is showing 0 for Portugal, even if i tried adding certyear and recent=true Kleool (talk) 14:44, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: The updated code requires |relmonth= for releases on 2011, and |relday= on July 2011. I updated the documentation. Muhandes (talk) 22:13, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Parameter request

I request that there should be refgroup parameter. In references, adding a group= parameter in the <ref> function can help group up the references to differentiate from them. The refgroup parameter would act similar to the group= function. Both {{Single chart}} and {{Album chart}} have this parameter. Lazman321 (talk) 14:59, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

@Lazman321: Can you please give an example of an article using this with {{Single chart}} or {{Album chart}}? It is quite simple to implement, since all referencing for this class are done through {{Certification Cite Ref}}, which is a simple <ref></ref> wrapper for {{Cite certification}}. I would like to make sure that I have a reference to what it should do before implementing it. --Muhandes (talk) 15:48, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: I couldn't find an example of either template using the parameter, but I did find an example of a reference using the group= function. In PewDiePie, the references are put into two groups in the reference list, "Citations" and "Primary video and playlist sources". The citations are normal citations but the primary sources use group= functions. Because the double dagger was put in the group= functions, each primary source is indicated by the double dagger, separating them from the rest of the citations.

@Lazman321: The fact that there isn't a single use of this feature by {{Single chart}} or {{Album chart}} signifies something. PewDiePie also seems to be the exception, rather than the rule. As I said, implementing this feature is not difficult, but adding features that are rarely used, which later need to be maintained, is something we try to avoid. I would like to hear the opinion of other editors who use this template. Note that you can get the same effect by using {{Cite certification}} directly, enclosed by <ref group="" name=""></ref> and then reusing the source in the table using |certref=. If you need assistance with that I would be happy to show you how to do it.--Muhandes (talk) 10:20, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Finnish certifications

The websites of Universal Music Finland and Warner Music Finland regularly post articles about their artists' receipts in the country (Gold is at 2 million streams for a song and 10 million for an album, Platinum is the double). Even though the Musiikkituottajat (IFPI Finland) website hasn't updated its certifications since 2015 (around when streaming surpassed pure sales), the major labels' websites mention Gold and Platinum albums and singles a lot in their articles. I think they're reliable enough as they're official sources--on it.wiki, in fact, we've been using them for a while. Plus, it appears that certifications in Finland were always assigned automatically once the needed sales threshold was surpassed, quite like in Denmark. ×°˜`°×ηαη¢у×°˜`°× 18:11, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

My opinion is different. In my opinion "certification" implies a certifying body. If the certifying body is inactive, there are no certifications. At most, the label may be a reliable source for information about sales, but never about certifications. I would argue that they are not even a reliable source for sales numbers, since they have all the reasons in the world to bend the numbers, but that's something for another talk page. --Muhandes (talk) 15:30, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree – it may be the case now with streaming that certifications and "sales" are the same thing because streams can be tracked, but that wasn't the case before streaming... that's why in the days of physical product, almost every certifying body in the world used to base their certifications on shipments from the record company to the record stores (which could be tracked) and not actual sales in the record stores (which couldn't be tracked). In addition, for older records when certifying bodies didn't exist, many of them have no certifications. The official sales figures in the UK for the Beatles' "She Loves You" and Ken Dodd's "Tears" are each in excess of 1.5 million copies, yet neither of them has ever received a certification from the BPI. So unless a record has received an actual certification from the certifying body, you cannot say it's been certified. You can only get a source for its equivalent sales units from elsewhere... but if that source is the record company, then it's not independent. Richard3120 (talk) 17:26, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Well, @Richard3120 and Muhandes: someone reverted me based on the fact that "umg is a reliable source as they are affiliates with pro-musica brazil" (despite no certifications being found on the PMB website). The same thing applies to Musiikkituottajat (IFPI Finland) members such as Universal Music Finland and Warner Music Finland. Smells like a double standard to me - so, what is the truth? ×°˜`°×ηαη¢у×°˜`°× 15:16, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

@Merynancy: I think they are wrong, if the certification does not appear on pro-musica brazil's website, the certification is invalid.--Muhandes (talk) 23:08, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

I really don't like it when the source is a non-independent Instagram source from the record company, as in your example above. I am very sceptical of a whole bunch of Little Mix certifications in Brazil that have been added to various singles, based on this post from a Brazilian pop website, none of which are confirmed on Pro-Musica Brazil's website. "Black Magic" is supposedly a diamond-certified record despite peaking at no. 65... well, number-one records must be 50× platinum then or something. I suspect the plaque they are holding in the photo in that article is from the record company, not Pro-Musica Brazil, and the "200,000,000" figure refers to streams, not equivalent sales. Richard3120 (talk) 00:58, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Brazilian certification thresholds are laughably low (10 million streams are enough to get an international artist a Gold single... in a country where the #1 song on Spotify and YouTube pulled 22.3 million streams last week, and this is without counting their most popular streaming service, Deezer), but it's not up to us to discuss that. I agree that if the certification isn't posted on the PMB website, then it doesn't exist. ×°˜`°×ηαη¢у×°˜`°× 10:35, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

France

Is anyone aware that the certifications prior to 2014 are not working proprely on SNEP? There are only five certifications in 2014 1, four certifications in 2013 2 and no certifications at all in 2012 3. Is the website not working propraly or something in that vein?

Kind regards, MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 13:43, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Brazilian certifications

It needs to be made clear that certifications that aren't present on Pro-Música Brasil's website are not to be added. I often see Instagram posts from labels being used as sources when, in fact, the certification wasn't officially purchased as PMB's website does not list it. ×°˜`°×ηαη¢у×°˜`°× 14:34, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I completely agree. I've mentioned elsewhere that I find the certifications added for various Little Mix singles based on this article to be highly suspect... the "certification levels" are in the article, but nowhere does it say if these are official PMB certifications or simply a plaque awarded by the group's record label, or whether these are based on sales, streaming figures, whatever. Richard3120 (talk) 16:56, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Naturally, everyone here will agree on that, so discussing it here wont move think forward. I think you need a better outlet for achieving consensus on this, maybe WT:ALBUM and invite discussion at WT:SONG. --Muhandes (talk) 08:29, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Misc denotation

Hi, i'm very sorry that i'm adding this request after your footnote cleanup :(
Poland
According to information here ZPAV has included streaming for album certifications starting April 2nd, 2014 and here is said that streaming is included for certifications starting August 1st, 2015 (but for works released starting Jan 1, 2015?)

South Korea
May i ask a tiny change to South Korea's streaming denotation - it currently shows * , would it be possible to change it to ^ (to match denmark/japan streaming cert). Thank you!
Update:
Mexico
According to this (first notice) - streaming was to be added to Single Track certifications "as of this day" (no date, but this page is archived on Dec 26, 2016, and previous page archived in october did not have this info yet) regardless of release date (i'd say certyear=2017 (and up))

Update - According to this, streaming was included since November 2016. This notice makes me think that streaming was included for both albums and singles ("in 2016, 257 certifications were awarded..due to the inclusion of straming in digital certifications since November 2016"), but i'm not fully sure.. they don't mention streaming being applicable to only singles anymore. Kleool (talk) 16:46, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: The timing is indeed unfortunate. Let make sure this is all settled before implementing it, so at least we can clean it up in one go. Pinging Lil-unique1 and Richard3120 who were involved with prior footnote discussions.

• Poland: Since we go by release date, I believe single would be ‡ since January 2015 and albums since April 2014.
• South Korea: I think the error may actually be with Denmark and Japan. Streaming is a form of sales(*) not a form of shipments(^). On the other hand, maybe we even want a different footnote for "pure streaming" certification? ‡ is for "sales+streaming".
• Mexico: I believe since November 2016 all certifications are ‡.

Waiting for more feedback on this. --Muhandes (talk) 16:53, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes:

• Poland: i understand why we'd go by release date for singles, as the rules used to note down streaming being eligible for singles released 2015 and later, but why for album? for me it did not seem that streaming inclusion is based on when album is released (division by release date is in big table table (sales thresholds), while note about streaming inclusion is outside and text does not mention eligibility date like it has for singles).
• South Korea (+others?): seperate footnote type for streaming would be much appreciated. Richard3120 and I had similar going discussion in WT:SONG about it because of Sweden certifications (as of 2018 are streaming only but have ‡ which i thought is misleading unsuspecting wiki users) and arrived to conclusion that in theory none of current footnotes would be correct. Kleool (talk) 19:49, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Footnote for pure streaming certification (Spain, Sweden)

Here's the link to the conversation in question: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs#Swedish certifications since 2018. I'll have to have a closer look at the various certifications from each country before I can comment. Richard3120 (talk) 20:02, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

It'a interesting that you had the same discussion. Maybe it's time we went over all counties and saw what type of certifications they have now. I'll try to come up with a good setup for such a discussion. --Muhandes (talk) 08:09, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I created a summary table below, which I hope we can fill up together with knowledge about streaming certifications in all regions. Please discuss below and I will summarize it all up. --Muhandes (talk) 13:51, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I broke off this discussion to avoid confusion. The proposal is to add ^† footnote for pure streaming certification. We will need to research where this applies, but for sure it does for |streaming=true on South Korea, Japan and Denmark. I invite more comments and I ask for more information on counties where certification is streaming only, or where such certification is available as a separate certification which you would like to add. --Muhandes (talk) 08:31, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

• The Symbol: i wouldn't mind ^† being used, but then we'll have to fix template for RIAA singles. According to this, unlike albums which had streaming incorporated as of Jan 2016, singles had streaming counted since May 9, 2013, but it does not reflect in the template (seems that albums and singles have been set on same date at the moment). And because template did not reflect streams, the ^† and additional message had been used - as you can see here (old edit, but such are used in many wiki articles). If template were to be fixed for RIAA (preferably before we start new streaming symbol implementation), i could go through them and "fix" such places and thus "freeing up" the symbol (so there would be no misunderstandings).
• Streaming - South Korea and Japan currently have active dedicated streaming certifications. Sweden does not call it's certification "streaming" certification, but since start of 2018, only streaming data is used to assign certification level, thus i think we can label it(via denominator/footnote) as such.

Past dedicated streaming certifications for singles (as far as i know) were Denmark (as you mentioned, template has |streaming=true for this) and Spain (seems that streaming cert (which ran from 2013 week 46 until very end of 2014) was never implemented into the template, which is why users added it manually). Spain streaming certification data is still available (promusicae put it under 'Streaming Albumes' category for some reason) where Gold was 4m, and platinum was 8m streams (in case you have inspiration to add such to template). I don't think i have seen any others? Kleool (talk) 12:40, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: This, again, splits into several discussions.

• Regarding ad-hoc RIAA ^† usage: I don't think this ad-hoc usage should change our decision here, but if other editors think the ^† sign is verboten because of some ad-hoc usage, please suggest a different symbol.
• Regarding RIAA singles: I added the change request to the summary table below.
• Regarding Sweden: I added the request to the summary table below.
• Regarding inactive Spain streaming: I added a change request request to the summary table below.

I hope I caught them all. --Muhandes (talk) 13:41, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: I'm sorry for splitting it.. but seems that once we touch upon a topic, there are other things connected :(

• Regarding ad-hoc RIAA ^† usage: i aggree that it shouldn't impact our decision to use it. Just that it probably should be fixed (as you have noted in summary table)
• About Summary table: will you be adding Mexico request ^‡ to it?
• I found another thing, but i'll add it seperate sub-section below Kleool (talk) 14:15, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: No worries. The purpose is to collect all the data and do one big change. I added Mexico request to the table. As you can see, plenty of regions are still unknown :) --Muhandes (talk) 14:21, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool, Richard3120, and Lil-unique1: We seem to have consensus for implementing a ^† footnote when |streaming=true is set for {{Certification Table Entry}}. I have a problem with |footnote= and with {{Certification Table Bottom}}. Currently, setting |footnote=streaming actually gives the ^‡ footnote for mixed certification, which is also what {{Certification Table Bottom}} does for |streaming=true. I think this is confusing so I suggest the following (Option 1):

• Add the option mixed for |footnote= and {{Certification Table Bottom}}. This will use the ^‡ footnote.
• Run a bot to replace all |footnote=streaming with |footnote=mixed.
• Run a bot to replace all |streaming=true with |mixed=true in {{Certification Table Bottom}}.
• Only after the bots are finished, replace the option streaming for |footnote= and {{Certification Table Bottom}} so it will use the ^† footnote.

I need consensus before I can ask to run the bot, so please comment on this plan. --Muhandes (talk) 13:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: in theory it sounds nice, but we have to keep in mind human component - hundreds of users have been using |streaming= for ^‡ for 4 or so years, and i worry how parameter change would impact future cert adds. What are options for considering completely new parameter for the streaming certs, e.g. |streamsonly= or something along the line?Kleool (talk) 20:53, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: That's definitely an alternative (Option 2), using the code |streamsonly=true for the ^† footnote at {{Certification Table Bottom}}. I guess my main concern was that |streaming=true does different things in {{Certification Table Entry}} and {{Certification Table Bottom}}. This raises another option (Option 2a), which is to use |streamsonly=true at {{Certification Table Entry}} too, instead of |streaming=true. This seems to resolve all unclarities, with less impact on existing editors, localised at streaming certifications which are changing anyway. I'm inclining towards option 2a, but I would like to hear what the community things. I'll try to pull more attention to this discussion at WT:ALBUMS and WT:SONGS. --Muhandes (talk) 08:46, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: i, personally, would prefer option 2a, as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kleool (talk • contribs) 18:29, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I gave this a week to get some more feedback, and I even informed WT:ALBUMS and WT:SONGS, so I guess no one else wants to contribute to this discussion. We will go with option 2a. This will require some preparations, to replace the existing |streaming=true with |streamsonly=true, but I think this can be done quite fast. Muhandes (talk) 12:36, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes and Kleool: I think most editors are happy to just have the certification included in the table, they're not too worried about the notation in the footnotes, if it's streaming, shipments or whatever (if they had been worried about the incorrect notation, then this issue would have come up well before now). I'm happy to go with option 2a as well if you are both in agreement. Richard3120 (talk) 12:57, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: thank you for keeping me/us updated about all the stuff you've done. Please be assured i'm keeping track of your @'s and mentions. Also it seems like i have another request for Sweden - according to ifpi.se information here, Sweden has included digital and streaming in their certifications since January 1st, 2010. Currently it looks to me like all of Sweden certification denotation is shipments only (except singles since 2018). I tried searching archive here in talk page if something was mentioned about it, but seems like no? So my request ends up being - Albums to be sales+streaming since Jan 1, 2010; Singles sales+streaming from Jan 1, 2010 until Jan 1, 2018. And as of Jan 1, 2018 , like discussed above, streaming only. Thank you for your time and patience.Kleool (talk) 14:56, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: Sweden request added to the list. --Muhandes (talk) 16:25, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool, Richard3120, and Lil-unique1: streamsonly certification is  Done. I may do some background cleaning at some point to make the code clearer, but this should be not be visible. --Muhandes (talk) 11:33, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Absolutely wonderful. Thank you very much! Kleool (talk) 20:07, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: I tried using the new Spain streaming only certification, but there seems to be things which should be fixed:

• wrong thresholds (currently shows 20k/40k for Gold/Platinum, should be 4 and 8 million respectively)
• should allow only certyear 2013-2014 (this cert was discontinued by 2015)
• the description says to "Select Songs" under chart type, but the documents/proofs are under "Streaming Albumes" chart type. Kleool (talk) 21:35, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

  Kleool, I fixed the threshold and changed the citation instructions. I don't think the effort in introducing the validation is worth it. An editor should not use |atreamsonly=true if it does not apply. Muhandes (talk) 07:48, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: That's fair. Thank you a lot for the fixes! Already checked my yesterday's "test case" and everything is correct now. Kleool (talk) 07:51, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Implementing RIAA changes

@Kleool: I was implementing the change to RIAA you asked for above when I realized several more changes are required. I'd appreciate your comments.

1. According to this, singles had streaming counted since May 9, 2013. This is the request you made
2. According to this the crossover date for including streams for album is February 1, 2016, not January 1, 2016
3. According to this Latin singles had streams since December 20, 2013.
4. I'm not sure about Latin albums. They are not explicitly mentioned in #2 above.
5. See also my general comment below about |digital=true

--Muhandes (talk) 14:50, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: it is wonderful that you found information about Latin singles. then i guess my RIAA request was not fully precise, and should be done according to your found information. about #2 and latin albums - in the list of of "inaugural certifications for the newly expanded Album Award" is also Romeo Santos album (quote from the document "Romeo Santos “Fórmula Vol. 2” (Sony Latin) 11X Diamante/RIAA Latin G&P Program"), so it seems that both "traditional" and "latin" albums included streaming from same day. (P.S. i searched RIAA website, and only 1 album (Rihanna's 'Anti') was certified in January 2016, so in my opinion you could leave January 2016 as album SPS start if it is such).Kleool (talk) 19:19, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: Nice catch on that Latin album, I didn't notice that. Also a good catch on album SPS date. I was thinking we would need to give Anti special treatment, but it was certified again in 2018, so we don't even need to do that. I'll leave it as January 2016 and leave a note in the code to explain why. --Muhandes (talk) 08:22, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: i rechecked RIAA website one more time just in case i missed something, or wrote a filter i didn't notice, and i was right in my blunder. [Albums certified in January 2016] is longer than 1 album (not my brightest moment i'll admit). Decided to check recertifications as you mentioned about Rihanna's album being certified again later, i also checked that for the list, there still end up being 2 albums not being certified later - Carrie Underwood's Greatest Hits and Empire OST. So maybe leave sps from 2016, but so we wouldn't need to add certmonth to all the 2016 albums, maybe the january one's could be "the exception" to which we'd add certmonth and it'd show shipment/sales? I'm really sorry about the imprecise information i wrote yesterday Kleool (talk) 09:11, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Kleool, No problem. It still makes sense that if only two albums are the exception, we make sure they have certmonth and make it so if the month is missing, it will go with the majority. Muhandes (talk) 09:31, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Kleool  Done --Muhandes (talk) 11:57, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and I also checked Greatest Hits: Decade Number 1 and Empire: Original Soundtrack from Season 1 and neither uses the template so no worries there. --Muhandes (talk) 12:03, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Poland, New Zealand

Kleool, I agree, on Polish certifications we have a problem with streaming inclusion for albums. The thresholds for both album and single goes by release date. Streaming inclusion for singles also goes by release data. We have no information about streaming inclusion for albums. My bet would be that there is also a release date cutoff, since that's the way ZPAV operates. If we force streaming inclusion to go by certification date, we will have a ton of unknowns on our hands, since |certyear=/|certmonth=/|certday= was not required, and in most cases was not specified. If we cannot find the proper release date for streaming inclusion for albums I suggest the following (for albums): If release date is April 2014 or later, streaming is included. If release date is before April 2014, it is not included unless certification date is specified and is April 2014 or later. This will avoid the unknowns issue. What do you think? --Muhandes (talk) 08:31, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes:Your proposed alternative is very nice (using reldate if certdate is unavailable). I could (later/now) manually go through the 2014 certifications and add certdata to those releases which had had earlier release.

P.S. would it be possible to implement such a thing for New Zealand too (to look at reldate if no certdate is set)? currently, unless you set a certyear(+ certmonth if needed), even 2020 releases get * set as denomination instead of ^‡ (streams got implemented mid-june 2016).Kleool (talk) 12:10, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: The New Zealand request makes sense to me. I added both Poland and NZ requests to the summary table below. --Muhandes (talk) 13:29, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: both are  Done --Muhandes (talk) 08:50, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Austria, Belgium, Switzerland

Muhandes According to IFPI Austria document here - the point 10. - Premium streams were taken into account for Gold/Platinum award -for singles released as of January 1, 2015, and for albums released as of January 1, 2017. But the document is dated May 2017. So i'm unsure if that means that certifications posted after that date have streams implemented, or it implies that even before that streams had been counted, but they just hadn't updated the info until that moment.Kleool (talk) 14:33, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: I agree, I can't determine if this letter is saying they started it in May 2017 or it just a letter dated May 2017, and they started earlier. FWIW, there was no increase in the number of certifications in 2017 (~150) compared to 2016 (~175). We need someone with a better grasp of the language to tell, or maybe contact them and ask. --Muhandes (talk) 19:22, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes and Kleool: I speak German and I understand it to mean that the certifications included streams from 2015 onwards for singles and 2017 for albums, but I agree it's not 100% clear. It might be worth asking Harout72 about this and other certifications queries – he's usually up-to-date with the current certification situation in each country as he keeps tabs on the List of best-selling music artists article, and has contacted various awards bodies in the past. Richard3120 (talk) 20:04, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

For sure, pinging Harout72. --Muhandes (talk) 00:21, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes:I haven't contacted IFPI Austria after January 2013. But based on the rules stated on this document, it clearly says that Streaming is counted towards certification levels for all singles that are released on/after January 1, 2015, and Streaming is counted towards certification levels for all albums that are released on/after January 1, 2017. The document was last updated in May 2017, in other words, no further changes have been made to their rules after May 2017. So based on the section 10, the Streaming is not counted towards their singles certification levels for any of the singles released before January 1, 2015, and similarly the Streaming isn't counted towards their album certification levels for those albums released before January 1, 2017.--Harout72 (talk) 03:51, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72: Thanks, this is how it will be implemented. Feedback on any of the other matters discussed here is also much appreciated. Specifically, do we have any reason to believe streams are part of the certification in any of the other regions? --Muhandes (talk) 07:59, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: I don't think there is a music market at this moment amongst the developed nations that doesn't count Streaming towards their certification levels. I see the table below has question mark for Belgium. Well, Belgium clearly started counting Streaming towards their singles certifications starting July 1, 2018 when they raised their singles levels from previous 15,000/30,000 to 20,000/40,000, that's for their international repertoire. I'm not sure, however, if they include Streaming for albums certifications. I have contacted Ultratop via e-mail. I'll upload their response here as soon as I receive it.--Harout72 (talk) 13:53, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72: That's exactly the type of data we are missing. Some regions count sales+streams for single, some also for albums. Some count only streams for singles. Some (Honk Kong) still use physical sales. We also need to know the dates, which are unclear in some cases. I updated the table re: Belgium, and added some question marks. --Muhandes (talk) 14:35, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72: Do we know if Switzerland certification uses streaming? --Muhandes (talk) 12:27, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Based on what I can see here (click on the recent report on the top), the Streaming is a large part of Swiss market. And since they have a specific conversion rate of 175 Streams=1 Download, they should also be counting the Streaming towards their Gold/Platinum awards. Seems like they've been relying on Streaming for singles since July 2014, and for albums since January 2018.--Harout72 (talk) 14:28, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72: Unless someone objects, I am going to take your word for it. I made some assumptions below about other regions, which leaves only Uruguay. Uruguay did not issue certifications since 2018, so I am going to assume they are still on physical sales. This will sum everything up nicely, and I can think about implementing it, after we wait for a week or so for additional data or any objections. --Muhandes (talk) 18:01, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

They might be inactive at present, but if Uruguay certifications ever return, I'd be almost certain they include streaming in part or in total, and the same goes for all other South American countries. Living in South America, I can state that you can still get physical albums (but there are very few record shops left, most big stars sell the CD versions of their latest albums through marketing tie-ups with supermarkets), but I don't think any country in South America has released a single in physical format for many, many years. Richard3120 (talk) 20:19, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120: For sure, when they do return to have certifications, we can investigate further and find out whether they are based on streaming alone or as a component. For now, I see no way we can correctly state they do, although I am basing this solely on not knowing otherwise. --Muhandes (talk) 08:24, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72: Regarding Switzerland, I started implementing, when I realized that we don't actually have concrete knowledge about the month of certification, so we can't really implement July 2014. I am going to implement 2015 for singles and 2018 for albums, both as certification year and as release year. Does this sounds reasonable? --Muhandes (talk) 10:53, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: Well, the third paragraph here seems to support July 2014 for singles and January 2018 for albums. Basically, the July is the month they started gathering Streaming data for Singles charts. Similarly, July should be the month IFPI Switzerland must have begun counting Streaming towards their Singles Gold/Platinum threshold.--Harout72 (talk) 13:44, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72: I totally agree. The problem is that looking at the IFPI Switzerland website, I don't see a way to determine the month of certification. All the database includes is the year. Or am I missing something? --Muhandes (talk) 14:31, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, Hitparade.ch doesn't mention those details for Streaming that we're looking for. All it posts is when the certification-levels were changed. So for those details as to when Streaming was included in determining chart data and/or certifications, we should rely on IFPI Switzerland.--Harout72 (talk) 14:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Harout72: I'm sorry, I don't understand. Lets take an example, the album Exile. It was released in March 2013 and certified in 2014. How can we determine the month of certification to tell if it was certified before or after July 2014? --Muhandes (talk) 15:03, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Oh I see what you mean, sorry I thought you were trying to find information on Streaming details on Hitparade.ch. Yes in that case, to be on the safe side, the template for Streaming of singles should be implemented effective January 2015.--Harout72 (talk) 16:20, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

In that case, all three are  Done --Muhandes (talk) 11:58, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Netherlands, Finland, Hong Kong

According to information here certification for singles have included streaming as of July 1st, 2014 (no "released as of" criteria mentioned), and here that albums include streaming as of October 1st, 2015 (but for titles released starting Jan 1st, 2015). And i think that's it? Couldn't find confirmation about switzerland or belgium using streams, for example Kleool (talk) 15:03, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: This simply means that certifications from those certdates (July 2014 for singles, October 2015 for albums) may include streams. I will implement the same as on Poland, so reldate after those dates, even without certdate, will also show sales+streaming. --Muhandes (talk) 19:30, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: Regarding other regions, I think Finland is sales+streams since 2014, see here. --Muhandes (talk) 08:31, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: at first i thought of it too, but 1) if i'm not mistaken, Finland template always asks salesamount to be manually inserted, and certref is used as salesref and no denominator (it is/was assumed that sales column has pure sales, which still should be true as here record has platinum (20k threshold) while having <20k in sales column) and 2) there has been no cert assigned since 2015, so i'm unsure how important it is to change template for it now (especially as there no thresholds in the template at the moment, and all Finland entries in wikipedia are probably salesamount based) Kleool (talk) 08:55, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: You are correct, Finland always has amount so it is irrelevant, I forgot. Good thing that I asked. --Muhandes (talk) 08:59, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: about Honk Kong (because i saw your note in summary table) - i'm not sure if it can be labeled Inactive. HK assigned 2 Gold certifications last year - post - but they mention that it's still physical based cert only (that's why they have literally no cert's now) and they plan on new rules to include digitals in the future. Kleool (talk) 09:00, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: No problem, the outcome is the same. --Muhandes (talk) 10:03, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

For the record, this section is  Done --Muhandes (talk) 07:54, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Ireland

I can't say for certain, but as the Irish charts are now compiled by the OCC, I would imagine that the number of certified units are calculated exactly the same way as for the UK charts? Not that it matters too much, as it doesn't seem like there has been any centralised database of certifications since 2013. Richard3120 (talk) 16:07, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120: Indeed, I put it down as "Inactive". In fact, I'm going I was just going to add a validation to make sure they are not used after 2013. --Muhandes (talk) 17:01, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

 Done some time ago. --Muhandes (talk) 17:09, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Portugal

I'm not sure if this counts as valid, but i've seen users add Portugal certifications from Audiodigest (they post weekly charts (which match portugal official music chart rankings) with certifications. Even for this years releases. Kleool (talk) 17:40, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

forgot to ping - @Muhandes:

@Kleool: They look official to me, do you have any doubts about them? It might be that AUDIOGEST replaced AFP since 2017, someone will need to dig deeper into this. If this is indeed official, we should probably add them as a source. Regarding streaming, they seem to have a separate streaming table and certifications, so we can add that as an option, but we need to find out the thresholds for streams. It would be great to hear from someone who knows about it anything official. --Muhandes (talk) 19:16, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: at first i wasn't sure but then i noticed that they have 1)Gfk logo (gfk is legit company so it gives credibility) and 2) they call the charts they publish TOP AFP/AUDIOGEST ..

Update - google search reveals that AFP and AUDIOGEST get mentioned together a lot in media - e.g. here about them "publishing report" and here "audiogest and afp create crisis office".

About streaming having seperate certification - I'm highly sceptical about it. I compared streaming and singles charts and the certifications between the two match (as far as i can see). i noticed one exception, Hawaii being gold in one, but platinum in other (w46 chart). but w45 chart it had both at gold, so it might be a typo, or a small mistake. Also the lack of any official information about there being such certification seeds more doubt. Kleool (talk) 20:01, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Audiogest are definitely official – they haven't replaced AFP, it seems to me that they work in tandem, with AFP still the recognised association for the record labels, and Audiogest collecting royalties and looking after the interests of the musicians themselves. You can see the current chart [2] lists both AFP and Audiogest, and is compiled by GfK, who compile various European charts. So I would think the certifications listed here for the Top 200 Streaming and Top 200 Singles (OU = ouro, gold and PL = platina, platinum) are real. Richard3120 (talk) 20:11, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Separately, a request has been made to use these Audiogest charts in the {{album chart}} and {{single chart}} templates – see Wikipedia talk:Record charts#Inclusion of new links with Portuguese charts. Richard3120 (talk) 20:23, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120: why though? {{album chart}} and {{single chart}} templates currently use the hung medien (if i'm not mistaken) https://portuguesecharts.com (which have long archive) , while audiogest has published weekly charts only since 2018. If for certifications it makes sense to use audiogest , then it does not for chart positons (except maybe airplay).Kleool (talk) 20:38, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: that's a valid point, but I was just making people aware of the post there. Richard3120 (talk) 20:42, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool and Richard3120: Back to the subject of streaming, I accept Kleool's analysis that while there are separate charts for streams and single sales, they certainly use the same certification, so we can safely say that the single certification is based on sales+streaming starting from some date. Would that be since May 2018 (when they started listing the certification on the streaming tables) or earlier? Also, what about albums? --Muhandes (talk) 08:36, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: streaming for singles certification has probably been implemented since 2016, when streaming chart was started (and it is explicitly mentioned that streaming is part of "top singles" chart here at the bottom), so in my opinion it's unlikely that they calculated certifications any different than their charts. About albums.. is tricky.. supposedly the album chart is still top sales - according to the footnote (in 2019) here, so it's possible that the certifications are sales based only, as well.Kleool (talk) 09:11, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

OK, singles are sales+streaming from 2016. Albums are still based on digital/physical sales. --Muhandes (talk) 10:00, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool and Richard3120: While trying to implement the citation through Audiogest, I was hoping to find uniformity in the URL, but this doesn't work - there are too many exceptions, like

• http://www.audiogest.pt/documents/files/top_vendas/Top%20AFP-AUDIOGEST_30_18_v2-imp.pdf
• http://www.audiogest.pt/documents/files/TopsSemanais/2019/Top%20AFP-AUDIOGEST_02_19_v2-imp.pdf
• http://www.audiogest.pt/documents/files/Top%20AFP-AUDIOGEST_31_18-imp.pdf
• http://www.audiogest.pt/documents/files/Top%20AFP-AUDIOGEST_51%20-%20imp.pdf
• http://www.audiogest.pt/documents/files/TopsSemanais/Top%20AFP-AUDIOGEST_34_18-imp(3).pdf

and so on. It seems that they upload the files manually, so they don't really use a standard file name. How would you prefer to have this implemented? What makes the most sense to me is to add a |url= for specifying the URL, but this may be abused. Another option is to use the existing |id= parameter for the text after http://www.audiogest.pt/documents/files/ so something like |id=top_vendas/Top%20AFP-AUDIOGEST_30_18_v2-imp.pdf. What do you think? --Muhandes (talk) 09:25, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: your preposition sounds like a good option actually, as it allows to link any necessary file (even yearly lists). i wouldn't have thught of it. What are plans for/if |id= is not filled? some main menu? cite error? Kleool (talk) 09:34, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: Citation is handled by {{cite certification}}, which has some rudimentary parameter checking. Since, for now, I do not want to change the existing certifications, which used the now defunct http://www.afp.org.pt/ and http://www.artistas-espectaculos.com websites, my plan was that if |certyear= exists, and certyear >= 2018 then |id= will be mandatory. If it is not stated, a red message appears in the references list and the article is added to Category:Cite certification used with missing parameters (12). We will need to think what to do with all certifications prior to 2018, which now do not have a live source. --Muhandes (talk) 05:55, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: i don't think there are many options, besides adding archives, but because they're not uniform, i guess manual work. it'd be more convenient if there was option to change only the url to archive one, without having to do a whole certref , but it is what it is.. Portugal currently has like 530 pages, and quite a few of them are probably recents (from audiogest) Kleool (talk) 07:32, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

That's a good idea, adding a generic way to add |archiveurl= to existing certification citation, I will look into it. Regarding Portugal, I'm not sure if anyone is interested in more work, but I think I will create a maintenance category with all pages which are not using audiogest, and then if someone is interested, they can start working on restoring those certifications. --Muhandes (talk) 08:06, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: a category would be nice. And not gonna lie, |archiveurl= sounds even better, if it ends up being possible. Overall sounds like a (good) plan :) Kleool (talk) 09:15, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: I implemented the citation changes discussed above. You can now use certyear >= 2018 with |id=. You can use |archiveurl= prior to 2018. It is not needed when |recent=true which takes care of the archive. I also added Category:Cite certification for Portugal without archiveurl (0). --Muhandes (talk) 17:17, 28 November 2020 (UTC) @Kleool: And now it really works, e.g. here --Muhandes (talk) 17:35, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: amazing! thank you so much! Kleool (talk) 18:36, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

update: seems like we'll have a hard time with some certification archives - someone tried to archive everything in 2010, but sometimes (how often i'm not sure, as i saw those which worked, and those which did not) it just did not work out :/.

@Kleool: Yes, we seem to have lost the 2003 certifications. The only one I found was Forty Licks, you can see there how I resolved it. I also ended up removing about a dozen certifications which ended up in Category:Cite certification used with missing parameters (12), because they were claiming certification in the years 2011-2017 and there is no source for those. --Muhandes (talk) 09:25, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: thanks a lot!Kleool (talk) 08:07, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: FYI, since we are done with it, I merged Category:Cite certification for Portugal without archiveurl (0) into Category:Cite certification used with missing parameters (12). I am watching the latter. --Muhandes (talk) 17:07, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool and Richard3120:  Done with Portugal changes. --Muhandes (talk) 17:08, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

South Korea

@Muhandes: could i kindly ask for denotation fix for South Korean albums - Gaon bases album certifications on shipments (similar to Japan). Thank you! Kleool (talk) 11:06, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: Why only albums? I see in the list that singles are also based on shipments, same as Japan. --Muhandes (talk) 12:44, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: are you sure? because i opened the page you linked, and it has "albums - shipments" and "digital download singles" aka sales. South Korea does not have an entry under "Singles" section. Only time when singles are certified as shipments, they are done so only for physically released units and are classified under "albums" on gaon certfication page. One such example is How You Like That Kleool (talk) 13:16, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: Well, when |digital=true, the template always marks it as sales, but I guess you have a point. It's more work to write code so that only albums are marked as shipments, but I will do so.--Muhandes (talk) 13:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool:  Done --Muhandes (talk) 09:48, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Digital certification

I would like some input on the issue of "digital certification". Currently, setting |digital=true unequivocally overrides all other parameters, and sets the footnote to be the the sales footnote (^*), even when streaming should be counted as well (^‡). I think this should be fixed, so that A. digital doesn't override the streaming footnote and B. digital is only applied when there is a way to tell that this is a digital certification, e.g. for RIAA or Japan. So I am asking:

1. Do you agree that both issues should be fixed? Issue A. seems obvious to me, issue B. a little less so.
2. If you agree that issue B. should also be fixed, what countries other than US and Japan, that usually use shipments (^{^}), have separate digital certification that should use sales (^*)? I believe the relevant candidates are Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Spain, Netherlands, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Uruguay. --Muhandes (talk) 14:47, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Pinging @Kleool, Harout72, and Richard3120: --Muhandes (talk) 14:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm not really sure how the UK certifications work in this respect, whether they separate out the shipments from the digital/streaming sales. For example, the original release of "Fairytale of New York" in 1987 by the Pogues on their Pogue Mahone label was certified silver [3]. Separately from this, the single has since been certified triple platinum on the Rhino/Warner Music distribution label [4], which took over the distribution of the Pogues' own label after the song's 1987 release. You can see here that the "release date" is now January 2005, which is presumably when they started counting digital sales (and later streaming units) for the single. But my assumption is that this latter certification already includes the silver certification from physical sales in 1987–1988, it's not a separate certification. This is the case of many other singles released in the 1970s and 1980s which had already obtained certifications back then, but have since increased their certification levels in the streaming era, and also display a release date in the 2000s on the BPI's website. Richard3120 (talk) 15:04, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Richard3120: I am proposing that unless we have a way to tell that a certification is "digital", the way RIAA and Japan certifications do, we cannot assume it is, and should ignore |digital=true. --Muhandes (talk) 18:27, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I would agree with that – I posted that example above to show that it's impossible to tell how much of "Fairytale of New York"'s certification is digital in the UK, because that's the country I'm most familiar with. If that's true for all the other countries on your list, then I agree that parameter should be ignored. Richard3120 (talk) 18:35, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes:

1.i aggree that for a clear sales+streaming (aka sps) ^‡ we should not allow |digital=true .

2. In terms of having sales vs shipments, to be completely clear, i'm saying only for |digital=true and not what template decides at the moment (e.g. your list of countries has Mexico, but before sps template already gave it (*)) - overall it would be better to limit to which countries it can be used, as you mentioned, RIAA (US), Japan,then Canada, Brazil, Spain. Can't think of others which would require seperate parameter atm?. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kleool (talk • contribs) 19:40, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: You certainly hit the nail here. Digital certifications URLs and sales thresholds are supported only for those regions, so that's where they should be supported for footnotes as well. I also note that all digital certifications are for singles only.

I am convinced this is the right move, so it is now  Done. --Muhandes (talk) 12:31, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Germany, Norway

@Muhandes: even though Germany counts as " Combined sales+streaming implemented ", i've noticed that the denotation seems to follow relyear (example being Radioactive which was released in 2012, certified in 2018, but still has ^ denotation), instead of certyear, like it had initially been requested back in April. could this also be implemented, thank you! Kleool (talk) 16:34, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: Sure, I'll have a look. --Muhandes (talk) 16:43, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: thank you! And as seems that ifpi.no is currently very actively adding new certifications, could you also look at Norway's denotation parameters when you have time? Because as i understand streaming is included at least since 2018, but when a song has even a |certyear=2020 , then denotation still shows up as "sales" even though, in theory, it should be sales+streams (example Break_Free_(song)). Kleool (talk) 21:03, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

I will. I am currently manually fixing a couple of hundred RIAA certifications without |certyear= which came out wrong, so this may take some time. --Muhandes (talk) 21:51, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: if you have a list/tracking category (or however you track them), i could help with the RIAA, if you wish Kleool (talk) 19:19, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: Thanks for the offer, but I wanted to do those myself to learn how the template is used. The main issue is a prevalent misuse of the template: in many cases |salesamount= was used instead of specifying the release or certification date. This means that when we now rely on release or certification date for the footnote, it is missing in many cases. However, the issue is much more severe than wrong footnotes. The purpose of |salesamount= was to provide an additional sales figure, which is unrelated to the certification, and which relies on |salesref=. Instead, we have a monster in our hands, which is, in my estimate, thousands of articles which have unsourced sales figures, without any way of differentiating between those which do and those which don't have a source. I was always tempted to add a when no source is provided, but it is too late for that. If you are looking for a project, I can create a category for these, maybe starting with regions which are easy to resolve such as US. --Muhandes (talk) 10:52, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: if it doesn't take up a lot of your time, i don't mind taking on such a project, as currently i'm working on RIAA cert's anyways (going through 2013 certifications to add certmonth) Kleool (talk) 11:50, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool: Germany and Norway are  Done. With Germany it was clear-cut. The sources clearly state this should have always been according to |certyear=. With Norway the code was for having streaming since 2015, and I ammended it so it now works with |certyear=, though I can't find where the source for that is. I'll just have to trust past editors (maybe past me?) that they had a good source for that.

With that, all the requests are  Done Done Done. I think we should put this mega-thread to sleep, and move our discussions to new threads. In a few days, if no one objects, I will archive the discussion so it wont grow even longer. --Muhandes (talk) 10:08, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks for all your hard work on this, Muhandes... I think you're right, this thread can now be archived. I don't think anybody wants to do much work on it over Christmas and New Year! Richard3120 (talk) 15:32, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes:thank you very much for your tireless work. I aggree that it's time to retire the mega-thread. Merry Christmas, Cheers! Kleool (talk) 20:44, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you both for the kind words, it certainly keeps me going. We don't really celebrate Christmas (or New Year) at my neck of the woods, but Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all who celebrate it. --Muhandes (talk) 08:47, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Australia

I think the sales+streaming notes have been implemented if I'm correct (as shown in Out of the Woods (song) as an example). I am however not sure since when this policy has been implemented (though the ARIA Charts accepted streaming in 2014, it's unsure when the ARIA accreditation was based on sales+streaming). I also think that digital certifications were based on sales (per this article), which makes sense for digital singles not released under physical formats. HĐ (talk) 13:38, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@HĐ: Australia footnotes were implemented in two steps. Albums were implemented following this discussion in August 2019. The source provided was for albums using streams since May 2017. Singles were added following this discussion in April 2020, which provided this authoritative source, showing that streams were used for in singles certification since July 2015.

As for "digital singles" (singles not released under physical formats), the question is, can they be distinguished from "physical singles"? --Muhandes (talk) 19:18, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Muhandes: i'll take this chance to write a request, as this section has been made - seems that album thresholds are not correct for some old certifications - e.g. album certified in 1982(which i don't remember name of) had a manual certref with a page scan from the cert books, and there said 50k, while template gave 70k. ARIA wiki page also mentions that before 1983 the album threshold should have been 50k. There used to be an old archived talk here about thresholds, but the ARIA archives mentioned only go as far as 1997, so in my opinion thresholds for albums should match what ARIA wiki page says about pre-1983 numbers. Could You take a look please? Much appreciated. Kleool (talk) 20:24, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

@Kleool:  Done Muhandes (talk) 08:16, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Summary of states and requests

Please don't edit this table directly. Discuss the requested changes above, either in reply or as a new subsection. The table is for summary purposes only. --Muhandes (talk) 13:43, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Regional parameters for the template

Region	Streaming state	Change request	Status
Argentina	Inactive
Australia	Combined sales+streaming implemented
Austria	Combined sales+streaming not implemented	Implement ‡ per discussion above	Done
Belgium	Combined sales+streaming for singles. Not implemented	Implement ‡ per discussion above, wait for data on Albums	Done
Brazil	Combined sales+streaming implemented
Canada	Combined sales+streaming implemented
Denmark	Inactive dedicated certification supported through |streamsonly=true	New symbol †	Done
Europe	Inactive
Finland	Combined sales+streaming not implemented, but uses exact amount without footnote
France	Combined sales+streaming implemented
GCC	Inactive
Germany	Combined sales+streaming implemented	Check correctness	Done
Greece	Inactive
Hong Kong	Physical/digital sales only
Hungary	Combined sales+streaming implemented
Ireland	Inactive
Italy	Combined sales+streaming implemented
Japan	Active dedicated certification supported through |streamsonly=true	New symbol †	Done
Mexico	Combined sales+streaming not implemented	Implement ‡ per discussion above	Done
Netherlands	Combined sales+streaming not implemented	Implement ‡ per discussion above	Done
New Zealand	Combined sales+streaming implemented	Change in functionality so certdate not always needed	Done
Norway	Combined sales+streaming implemented	Check correctness	Done
Philippines	Physical/digital sales, no awards since March 2016
Poland	Combined sales+streaming not implemented	Implement ‡ per discussion above	Done
Portugal	Combined sales+streaming for singles, not implemented	Implement ‡ per discussion above. Also implement citation.	Done
Russia	Inactive
South Korea	Active dedicated certification supported through |streamsonly=true	New symbol †, also fix album footnote	Done
Spain	Combined sales+streaming implemented. Inactive dedicated certification unsupported	Implement new threshold through |streamsonly=true and use symbol †	Done
Sweden	Combined sales+streaming implemented and then Streaming only certification.	Implement ‡ per discussion above and then New symbol †	Done
Switzerland	Combined sales+streaming not implemented	Implement ‡ per discussion above	Done
United Kingdom	Combined sales+streaming implemented
United States	Combined sales+streaming implemented	Change in functionality of singles footnote	Done
Uruguay	Inactive, probably physical/digital sales

All requests are  Done. --Muhandes (talk) 10:02, 24 December 2020 (UTC)