Template talk:Infobox album

Removing links

I noticed that this album infobox seems to be the only one to have some parameters be linked, compared to the person infobox, film infobox, TV infobox, or even something like ship career infobox. The links are:

• "Genre" linking to music genre
• "Label" linking to record label
• "Producer" linking to record producer

Looking at the article Nirvana (band), the above links never appear in the article body, so I wonder if the linked parameters are vestigial and a little unnecessary if they aren't used in articles. I would like to suggest that we do not need to have these links for the parameters since they are instances of too much generalistic linking. The other infoboxes do not have such links for their parameters. Any objection to removal? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 21:18, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Weak keep I think they're all valid and could be informative to readers. If the text is going to appear anyway, why not give a link to what exactly a record producer is? I think a lot of us don't have very good personal definitions of a term like that. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:07, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

• I also think that the links are useful, since the terms are specific to the business. I see them as similar to the area-specific links in {{Infobox train}}. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:06, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Album article titles not italicizing

Re: the Ed Sheeran albums named for math symbols (+, ×, ÷, =, and −), the article titles are not auto-italicizing. Some technical limitation, perhaps? Just thought I should bring it to your attention.   — TARDIS builder^✉     ★       20:21, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the first example, I see (among a lot of other code) when I look at the source:

style="font-style: italic; color: inherit; background-color: lightsteelblue; font-size: 125%;">+</th>

to make the title italicized in the infobox and:

<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading mw-first-heading"><i>+</i> (album)</h1>

to make the title of the page itself italicized. Seems like it's italicized where it should be. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:27, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Okay, hard to argue with the code being there, but the titles just very much do not appear italicized when I compare them visually to the album titles as italicized in the first word of the first paragraph. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯   — TARDIS builder^✉     ★       10:36, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, but two short lines may not look all slanty. When I look at multiplication's title, it seems slanty to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:31, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

The only reason Multiply's title looks slanty is because it's actually a lowercase X. That article's name is contentious, and there has been discussion about renaming it multiple times over the years, according to the history. I only discovered that because I thought it was weird that that was the only title out of the 5 I highlighted that was italicizing properly.   — TARDIS builder^✉     ★       16:38, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Remove all content and leave just {{Italic title}} and preview the page. Open another tab and remove all content and preview the page. You will see the very small difference. It's probably a font issue. Gonnym (talk) 18:40, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

😱 Holy! That was helpful, thank you.   — TARDIS builder^✉     ★       08:41, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Artwork parameter

The cover artist would be appreciated Lettres (talk) 00:40, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

This is a tricky thing about infoboxes: they can really spiral out of control quickly (e.g. look at most cricket players that have wildly detailed statistics). If we include the cover artist, what about conductors, arrangers, engineers, mixers, masterers? Slippery slope arguments are generally weak, so I won't rely just on that, but rest assured that lots of pretty tertiary parameters would be added. Ultimately, I think that if you're looking for an overview of the most basic facts about an album, the cover artist is rarely one of them and is something that would be covered in the text of the article. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:46, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

The cover artist is probably the most missed parameter, see "search archive" on top. It is equal to that of the director and also groundbreaking for an era. Lettres (talk) 13:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

The caption field seems to handle this fine. See Atomic Playboys. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 19:30, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 3 August 2024

In the chronology header parameter, header13, please replace {{#invoke:String2 | ucfirst |{{{artist|}}}}} with {{{artist|}}} as none of the other instances of the artist name being displayed force an uppercase letter, causing artists with lower-case initial letters such as t.A.T.u. to be rendered correctly in all of the template except in the chronology header. UltrasonicMadness (talk) 11:59, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

 Completed – see an example at Dangerous and Moving. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 16:39, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Chronology parameter not properly capitalizing first letter of artist name

The documentation states that when the |chronology= parameter is left blank, the first letter of the artist name is automatically capitalized in the chronology header, so that artists whose names start with the word "the" have proper capitalization throughout the infobox. However, this does not appear to be working properly. I've added the parameter with no value, and in my edit preview, I still see the chronology header using the exact same value as the |artist= parameter, without the first letter being capitalized. Does anyone know why this is occurring? Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 17:44, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Came here to report the same problem. Popcornfud (talk) 16:57, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I see the problem at Cutouts (an album) but not Bitter Sweet Symphony (a single). I guess it doesn't appear to be affecting the song infobox? Popcornfud (talk) 22:17, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I think this is due to the above good-faith edit by Paine Ellsworth. It appears that UltrasonicMadness may have missed the bit in the documentation about using the |chronology= parameter for unusual artist names. I think that the above edit should be reverted; I could be wrong. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:26, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

You are correct Jonesey, so I've self-reverted. To editor UltrasonicMadness: to lc the first letter of an artist's or group's name, see the "chronology" subsection in the Advanced usage section of the documentation. Also, you can see the difference in the infobox at Dangerous and Moving, which now uses that |chronology= parameter. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 03:25, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry I missed that - I was sure I had a good look through the documentation and the source code before requesting that edit. I will be more thorough about this in the future. UltrasonicMadness (talk) 16:42, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Multiple chronology usage

A long time ago I remember the guideline being that only studio albums should be included in the default chronology field. Should that, then, give rise to a separate chronology for all albums? It looks a bit crowded to me. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 17:57, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

This 2020 discussion yielded a consensus to "use a single chronology encompassing all album types" (my emphasis). It allowed for an exception in the case of collaborative albums, where "a single chronology is applied for each [of the] artists involved".

Separate chronologies are also sometime used for releases from decades ago, when they were different across markets (see Sgt. Pepper). I do not see any reason to change from that way of doing it. Tkbrett (✉) 19:25, 18 October 2024 (UTC)