Angelina Jordan Wiki talk:Articles about songs
Preperation to mass-create song articles for Cargo database rollout
As the Performance database prototype now uses the PerformancesDevel and VideosDevel Cargo tables, the data of which is currently still defined in a big single page, we should prepare to distribute these as planned to the indivdual songs articles. As the current form, where the songs information can be edited per song title section and in wikitext instead of JSON format, still has the downside of costing huge storage space for any small edit being done, we only get the benefit of less storage waste by distributing this into smaller pages. We could consider an intermediate step, i.e. to split these lists by the starting letters of the song titles, but the plan was and still is that they eventually should be part of the songs articles. The following subsections cover points which I think should be considered before we start to massively create new song articles to achieve that. --Most2dot0 (talk) 14:04, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
Where to store song infos
There is currently the Songs article, and derived from that the Data:Songs.json page, which could serve as a template for the Cargo version. It currently has these fields: Title (mandatory), type (cover, original, redirect), disambiguation, wpext, info, comment. If type is not provided, it's assumed to be cover. If wpext is not provided, it is assumed that the Wikipedia title is formed as "title", or "title (disambiguation)", otherwise as "title (wpext)". Info contains additonal information that was displayed behind the title and disambiguation, comment contains information that was part of references. The main questions about the songs information is, whether it should also be stored in the individual song articles, or in the Songs overview. If it is stored in the songs articles, which of these fields need to be added of the infobox song template, and which could we possibly drop (e.g. the comments could become part of the articles body). --Most2dot0 (talk) 14:04, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
- The wpext is not needed, as it is already used to create the w-title and served no other purpose. I propose to add the disambiguation as a parameter to the infobox call, it could also be displayed with the title which present. As the the info and comments are used very infrequently, I'd now think the decision if and how they could go into the infobox could be postponed than then done manually. I'd recommend to add them as a html comment though, so they are really available in the articles created or updated. --Most2dot0 (talk) 08:24, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
How to display the performances
We should decide what the default display of performances should be in the articles, and if that is provided by the storage template itself (currently, is displays nothing, but that could be a configurable option), or possibly a Cargo query. I assume the first is option is the better one, as it is more flexible and wil allow for easier addtional comments for the performance. --Most2dot0 (talk) 14:04, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
- Agreed. As for the default display, I don't know. I'm not really sure what's possible. When I was adding information on individual performances to, e.g., "Million Miles" and "What a Difference a Day Makes", I never settled on a standard way of doing it. - dcljr (talk) 02:01, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
- in the meantime, the Performance template displays "<event> - <date> - <type>". Event should likely be replaced by a nicely furnished context extract ("<occasion> <occurrence>, <segment>", what other information should be added (like comment)? --Most2dot0 (talk) 08:06, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
Final form of song article templates (for original and cover songs)
We should decide what we will for example use as the preload templates for the mass creation of missing articles. --Most2dot0 (talk) 14:04, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
- The current template for cover songs looks quite ok to me to go forward with. Possibly we should reduce the amount of detailed section instructions in the html comments though, and instead link to a page that keeps it, which has the advantage that information would be current, but the advantage of an extra step needed by editors to see them? --Most2dot0 (talk) 08:13, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
- Do you mean the HTML comments I typed up or the ones you added, or both? I'd prefer to keep "my" comments in the preload text, since that makes it obvious to future editors what still has to be done. I get your point about the comments not keeping up to date with current practice if we decide certain things need to be done differently, but, well, that's true of almost everything on the wiki.[grin] Also, I'm confused as to the relationship between Preload-links with performances listings per song and Template:Boilerplate new cover song (and its counterpart for original songs, when created). It looks like the first page is only for the initial "sprint" to create all the currently missing articles, and then the plan is to use the boilerplate method as the "permanent" solution for creating song articles going forward. Right? - dcljr (talk) 02:01, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
- I refered to both your and my comments; so I will leave them in. You're right with the preload-links and boilerplates being intended for transient vs permanent use, respectively. The latter can eventually also be augmented with input help by support of mw:Extension/PageForms as discussed elsewhere. --Most2dot0 (talk) 08:23, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
- Do you mean the HTML comments I typed up or the ones you added, or both? I'd prefer to keep "my" comments in the preload text, since that makes it obvious to future editors what still has to be done. I get your point about the comments not keeping up to date with current practice if we decide certain things need to be done differently, but, well, that's true of almost everything on the wiki.[grin] Also, I'm confused as to the relationship between Preload-links with performances listings per song and Template:Boilerplate new cover song (and its counterpart for original songs, when created). It looks like the first page is only for the initial "sprint" to create all the currently missing articles, and then the plan is to use the boilerplate method as the "permanent" solution for creating song articles going forward. Right? - dcljr (talk) 02:01, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
How to handle existing articles
We should decide how we handle these. For exampel, do we append the complete (partially filled in) new song template at the end, or only the performances? --Most2dot0 (talk) 14:04, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
- From my experiance of appending the first few song articles for prototyping purposes, I now think it make sense to append only the performances, and gain knowledge about the existing article structures when incorporating them along the way. I also created a category Category:Song articles with unsorted performances that will track articles that have been appended with a preloaded "Unsorted performances section", that has not yet been dissolved. So it is not necessary to clean up all appended articles immediatly, but aim fr a faster preloading pace, so that the conversion to the Cargo based databased can be concluded as quickly as possible. Because any delay will lead to some double work during the transition phase, when e.g. new performances are to be added, or older should be editet. --Most2dot0 (talk) 15:09, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
