Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Tables for charts

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Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music

View the Archive of older discussion. Last archived 01:23, 13 September 2006 (UTC).

Contents 1 Order 2 Request 3 Not a guideline 4 Table bonita 5 Weeks 6 Subscript numbers in charts 7 Component charts

[edit] Order

Are there any guidelines/preferences for the order in which the charts should be listed? Alphabetically? By posiition? --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 15:18, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

My assumption was that the charts would be listed alphabetically. If not that, then at least listing the home country of the artist first. Anyone else have a preference/opinion on this? -- eo 12:25, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request

Shouldn't we be able to see chart trajectories for US, UK, Australia, and World on songs that charted there. It would be nice. I mean, if we are able to site sources for the trajectory. For example: (note the next examples are not real singers, chart position, or songs)

Chart (2006)	Peak position
US Billboard Hot 100	2
UK Singles Top 75	7
Australia Singles Top 50	1
World Singles Top 40	1
Swiss Singles Top 100	34
France Singles Top 100	11
Austria Singles Top 75	12
New Zealand Singles Top 40	1

U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart trajectory
Week	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26
Chart position	100	76	31	10	10	8	11	8	9	4	5	2	2	2	3	6	7	11	12	18	23	29	32	33	47	43

UK Singles Top 75 chart trajectory
Week	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
Chart position	9	7	8	10	14	19	24	26	29	34	33	47	58	50	67	66	56	75

Australia Singles Top 50 chart trajectory
Week	01	02
Chart position	1	etc

World Singles Top 40 chart trajectory
Week	01	02
Chart position	40	etc

I mean, it's just a thought. Also, "My Humps" already has this done. There's a good example. Tcatron565 21:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Aren't there already about a billion song articles with trajectories already? I see them all over the place. -- eo 21:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

There was some talk about putting this kind of thing in a project called "Wikidata", but I've heard nothing about that project for more than six months now. Jkelly 21:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll say what others (some on this very page) said months ago: this level of detail is more appropriate for a fansite or dedicated music wiki than an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Extraordinary Machine 18:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not a guideline

Why does the main page have no history as a proposal? Someone just made a guideline and labeled it as such? That doesn't seem proper to me. Wikipedia's gradually gaining the problem of having too many policies and guidelines to follow. However, if theres consensual support that this page is very useful - then so be it. Anyone want to verify that they support this page as a guideline? Fresheneesz 01:26, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Before I address your queston, perhaps I ought to ask you why you felt it necessary to archive (i.e. hide) the several days' worth of discussion (actually a few weeks, all told) — which included a straw poll of its own — that led to this guideline's having been created. If you'd actually read it, or even checked the page history, you'd have seen that this page was initially created as a talk page by a group of editors variously involved with WikiProject Music, of conflicting opinion on how certain information was best displayed; those editors were then able to hash out their differences before eventually, and with consensus, arriving at a solution. Only then was the "guideline" page created.

Your zeal to eliminate instructon creep is commendable; however, please don't lump legitimately agreed-upon solutions to editor conflicts that actually make a large number of articles better in with the needless red tape we're trying to cut through. --keepsleeping slack off! 03:28, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I won't. And your comment convinces me that this definately has consensus. I archived the content because it was old, stagnant, and this discussion page was pretty huge. Given that the discussions are over, I think most people won't be interested in reading them when first coming to this discussion page - of course if they are, theres a neat little archive link. I did glance at the history, but i was mostly looking at dates. If you feel that the content shouldn't be archived, feel free to put it back. Fresheneesz 06:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table bonita

I've seen table bonita being used in some articles, is this allowed? Or is it supposed to be the normal table? ~ EmeZxX 11:39, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

It is supposed to be "wikitable". I don't know why the bonita template is being used, but whenever I see it, I correct it... don't know what other editors are doing. -- eo 12:05, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weeks

Why aren't the charts allowed to show how many weeks a song was at number one? It's easier to measure a songs success with the amount of weeks included, a song which spent 14 weeks at number one on any given chart is more successful than one that spent one week. I think that's notable. --Thankyoubaby 21:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I think its more appropriate to mention number of weeks within an article. Once people start adding comments and # of weeks, etc. within a table it starts to look extremely sloppy. It also looks inconsistent when the amount of weeks is shown for some charts, but not others. It seems that some articles go overboard with non-#1 chart positions as well, I've cleaned up some tables that have shown, for example, # of weeks at number six. That's a liitle ridiculous in my opinion. - eo 22:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It should be detailed within the article only, however, perhaps the weeks could be listed next to the chart position if it's written as "(x)" instead of "(x week[s])". Velten 01:21, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subscript numbers in charts

The relevant discussion is here. The current guideline states that subscript numbers should have a space between the chart name and itself. I find this questionable; why create unnecessary space and widen the table when they could simply be beside each other? This makes them look untidy too. My proposition is the following (taken from Cool (song)):

Chart (2005)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play1	1

instead of

Chart (2005)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play 1	1

Thoughts? Velten 21:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Personally I like to have a space before the superscript number, but I find that to be a minor thing... I don't think the omission of the space is going to destroy the layout. Not sure what others are doing, but I think the space looks better. Probably can be done either way without many people noticing. - eo 22:53, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Which would also be fine. Velten 01:28, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

As I already said at Talk:Cool (song), I think it's easier to see the superscript when there is a space before it, though it's not terribly important. I'd advise Velten not to revise a guideline page after only one day's worth of discussion. Extraordinary Machine 13:36, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I suppose I jumped to a conclusion too quickly. Any other comments? Velten 20:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Component charts

It says that Billboard component charts shouldn't be used. Does this apply just to Billboard component charts or to all component charts? — ShadowHalo 08:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

It should apply to all component charts, but very few other countries apply component charts to determine a chart position. I can't think of another country other than the U.S. that does this. Velten 02:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I was looking at the article ¿Quién Me Iba A Decir?, which has airplay charts for Spain and Argentina. I'm also a little confused about the meaning of component chart. Are Modern Rock Tracks/Mainstream Rock Tracks considered component charts? — ShadowHalo 06:21, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Airplay charts should only be included if a song did not enter the singles chart. However, if an artist is not American, it would be all right to include both the singles and airplay chart for their heartland since many Billboard charts already occupy six fields in the "Charts" section of most articles. The Modern Rock Tracks and Mainstream Rock Tracks are not component charts. Velten 14:19, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

If a country's official singles chart is available, there's no need to include an airplay chart because one chart is enough to give the reader an indication of the song's popularity in a certain country, regardless of whether the artist is from that country. If there was a significant discrepancy between airplay and sales, it should be discussed in the article. Genre-specific charts (e.g. the Billboard charts) tell the reader with which audiences the song was popular, and there are far fewer countries with genre-specific charts (much less easily available and/or verifiable ones) than airplay charts. Extraordinary Machine 16:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

That's right, unless an airplay chart is genre-specific, such as Latin rock airplay, technopop airplay, etc. Velten 03:33, 19 November 2006 (UTC)