Wikia

Please note that this is not a page for anyone who wishes to merely complain about the filing system of the site. The capitalization scheme has been set up the way it has for distinct and specific reasons, and these reasons are explained fully on the project page. If you don't care for the scheme and would like to suggest other solutions to the reasons that exist, then please do so. Otherwise, you are not likely to receive any reply to general complaints. If you have questions about how the pagenaming rules affect a certain item, then this is the appropriate forum for those questions.

Please also note that with the MediaWiki program having been updated, one can now place {{DISPLAYTITLE:the page name with the first letter uncapitalized}} at the top of the page, to display the first letter of the page name (usually the artist's name) uncapitalized. EX: t.A.T.u..

RequestEdit

Could we give to this page a better visibility. I couldn't find it inside the help menu (I mean... only after a few hours, I found a link in the FAQ) and I think it tells very interesting things for the beginners 82.66.8.62 05:44, 2 January 2008 (EST) Yota, a not yet registered user

Hi! What about a Move template to mark the pages? Also, it would be could to add where do you suggest the page should be move, i think just adding the category is not enough. What do you think?? --Unaiaia (talk) 08:40, 31 December 2006 (EST)

Well, i've just seen there's actually {{RequestMove|from=Mighty_Mighty_BossTones,_The|to=The Mighty Mighty BossTones}} :D --Unaiaia (talk) 08:42, 1 January 2007 (EST)

I thought about that, but I saw Teknomunk had already created one just recently: Template:Move. So apparently, we have two now. Which one are we going to use? --Mischko

10:15, 1 January 2007 (EST)

I didn't see that template (Template:RequestMove) when I made Template:Move. However, Template:Move was made to resemble Template:Deletion, has a 'reason' parameter and was specifically for batch moves. If you want, you are more than welcome to merge these two templates together.

- - teknomunk (talk,E) 14:10, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Done here, merged both with backwards compatability for RequestMove, please someone write something better for the use instructions... I suck at it :D --Unaiaia (talk) 14:40, 1 January 2007 (EST)

feat. and other annotations Edit

We should add this as policy. My suggestion is: everything in ( ) goes out of the link unless the lyrics are different to the song without the () (I mean, there are two versions of the lyrics...) --Unaiaia (please, reply here) 14:45, 24 January 2007 (EST)

Obviously I agree. ;-) The policy has always been to keep the title as official as possible, except (as you mentioned) for when a notation is necessary to differentiate between two versions of a song. The moves I just made had 2 or 3 different ways to abbreviated "featured", which shows how messed up things could get if unnecessary featured notations slip in. I'm sure Sean would love to try and program those search parameters! Anyhow, I guess it hasn't been spelled out here beyond the "as close as possible to the original name" bit. Plus, when the featured artists are separated from the song title, nice links to their artist page can be made, as I did on Basement Jaxx:Kish Kash (2003)! Linkage is goooooood! --Kiefer

15:10, 24 January 2007 (EST)

Capitalization Edit

Why always using capitalization ? It can suit with English or German but it's never done in French, or I guess a plenty of other languages. These "technical reasons" are only administrators' caprices, who cannot understand the diversity of the languages. There is no rule in no language saying "the artistic/musical titles must be capitalized", therefore deciding to create these rules is only being fashion submissive. "If the others do that, I will do the same, because not conforming to the majority is bad..." (Apologize my mistakes, English is not my mother tongue.) Best regards, lyricwiki.org is still a good idea. 82.240.207.81 09:27, 10 April 2007 (EDT)

I agree with previous user. In Finnish and several other languages the titles of books, songs etc. are not capitalized. Maybe we could have separate capitalization rules for different languages? --88.195.16.77 06:05, 3 January 2008 (EST)

In Polish language Capitalization is grammatical error. Please, think about that. -- Lorakesz

I understand the logic behind the rule, but this will just cause more confusion and mistakes among languages such as French and Polish in which it is grammatically incorrect to have a title with every word capitalized. For example, I just added about 50 songs to the Mes Aïeux artist page, and when I attempted to create a song page with the grammatically correct capitalization, I got the warning that it does not follow the guidelines. If I have to, I will go through the page and capitalize the first letter of every single word, but it is something I highly wish to avoid. I am sure that I am not the only one who has made and who will make this mistake. Are the administrators in any way ready for some sort of compromise? --ScarTissue 23:10, December 18, 2010 (UTC)

I agree for french. BTW it's the same in Vietnamese, no caps. And putting caps for CJK romanisations is nonsense too. Jesus2099 12:37, February 21, 2011 (UTC)

Have you read the discussions elsewhere on this page? As long as pagenames in MediaWiki are case-sensitive we need to have a system to make sure pages can be located and duplicates which differ only in case avoided as far as possible. And apart from making titles completely upper- or lowercase, our current system is the simplest solution. 6×9 (Talk) 13:48, February 21, 2011 (UTC)

"our current system is the simplest solution" only for English; for Italian, Finnish, French, Polish, Vietnamese ecc. ecc. is terrible. Please, change this anglocentric rule! --Dante81 (talk) 15:55, September 17, 2012 (UTC)

Lyrics have same problem, too. --Dante81 (talk) 16:20, September 17, 2012 (UTC)

I know this topic has been beaten half to death, but the point I'm trying to make is that the current system will cause more problems (such as duplicate songs) in languages where it is irrational to capitalize every word. In English, it's not that hard to do because most words are capitalized anyways. In some languages, it would be more logical not to capitalized any words at all. However, although I would greatly prefer a change, the rule does not take too long to get used to, and it has become almost second nature to me. ScarTissue 03:14, February 25, 2011 (UTC)

By the way, capitalization of anything other than nouns is not allowed in German just as well. --eugrus 14:46, April 10, 2012 (UTC)

In English, "title-style" capitalization requires distinction between adjectives (usually capitalized), nouns (always capitalized), prepositions (sometimes capitalized), and articles (NEVER capitalized, unless the title begins with an article, whether definite or indefinite). To capitalize everything is lazy, doltish, and unsightly. You'd be better off adopting "sentence-style" capitalization otherwise (cf. nearly every other language written in the Roman alphabet; I prefer sentence-style capitalization myself, but most native speakers of English are still stuck in the seventeenth century for some reason). Confused? Consult a style guide. Jarno82 03:50, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

First, as an apology: I only read this subsection, ie, just the discussion on capitalization, but I know in general about MediaWiki restrictions, so I am aware about case sensitivity and such. :-)

Second, I understand that naming conventions are necessary to avoid multiple entries for the same song/album/artist. So I agree that some convention has to be followed. And since some (guessed) 90% of this wiki are probably English a (new) convention probably shouldn't affect the English lemmae too much.

But I find it silly to stick to capitalization rules for "foreign" language titles. It just feels just wrong to read German capitalized verbs, adjectives, or even articles. Plus, this capitalization usually differs from the original title. I understand that English title capitalization rules are (either not very clearly defined or) ignored in general. So for English titles it makes sense to "invent" a convention and stick to.

But in languages where clear rules exist and are generally followed, why not use these rules as a convention?

Yes, that would mean different conventions for different language, and for each language its own convention, but for most languages it's the convention "follow general grammar rules", and for English it's "capitalize everything". (Sorry, Jarno, but do you really want to move every single page in this wiki to a new capitalization scheme, that even most native speakers don't understand?)

UhM, anD tO givE thosE whO don'T havE cleaR capitalizatioN ruleS aN ideA hoW wronG capitalizatioN caN feeL, trY thiS sentencE. :-)

Tauriel 09:31, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

With the capitalisation examples, it lists ABBA as being the correct over Abba as it is closest to the original and how the Swedish and English wikipedia pages show it. However the Swedish page has been changed to Abba, so it isn't relevant anymore. I don't believe the example itself is a good one because ABBA is argued to be an acronym for the first names of the band members, putting it in a slightly different category to most band names that are marketed in all-caps. Wikipedia's MoS gives the example of the band KISS, whose wiki title is displayed as Kiss despite the all-caps trademark (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Trademarks). All other wikia help pages I could find all tended to lean towards this wikipedia-style 'Title caps' for headings policy. Would it be a good idea to change this ABBA example to something else to be more like the actual wikipedia guidelines for consistency? Keyboard76 (talk) 01:15, July 20, 2012 (UTC)

How do I delete a lyrics page and should I? Edit

I've seen a lot of songs listed under artists that they are not by. I can't move them because the real artists already have existing pages for the songs. Should I delete them and how do I go about it?--Drumac 23:05, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

Mark the songs with {{Deletion|put a link to the correct title here}} and an administrator will take care of it for you.

- teknomunk (talk,E) 23:15, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

thanks--Drumac 23:54, 15 April 2007 (EDT)

Same band with different names/Different bands with same names Edit

Have any policies or recommendations formed over these issues? A case in point, there are both an American and a British band named The Mission, The Charlatans, and The Beat. When the British bands were marketed in the US they had to alter their names to The Mission UK, The Charlatans UK, and The English Beat, respectively. For an international perspective I think it would be preferable to call the British bands what they called themselves (i.e. The Mission, The Charlatans, and The Beat) but this will cause problems if songs from the American bands of those names are ever uploaded. Any thoughts on how this should be handled? --McGhiever 15:32, 16 December 2007 (EST)

Yeah, got the same problem with Boris - apparently there are at least 4 different artists with that name. The currently linked is the Dutch singer - but I'd like to add the Japanese rock band. My suggestion would be to add the country in brackets, like Boris (Japan). Additionally a disambiguation page should be added. Firehawk 17:09, 16 December 2007 (EST)

Use whatever parenthetical add-on seems most appropriate to differentiate between the artists. As for The Mission and The Charlatans, I would personally use "The Mission (UK)" and "The Charlatans (UK)" as those kind of merge the two versions of their name. Along the same thought, perhaps "The Beat (The English Beat)"? That becomes a bit clunky for song page links, though, so perhaps a simple "The Beat (UK)" would work best as well, with a redirect from "The English Beat", of course. I think usually add-ons for similarly named artists tend to be their country of origin, but can also be their musical style. I think I had to differentiate between a rap group and a punk group once, for instance. As a horrible amount of overlapping isn't very common (4 Boris', eh? Whew!) I normally add a disambiguation note using the {{Info}} template on each page, linking to the other. Kiefer talk contribs admin 01:21, 17 December 2007 (EST)

I disapprove Edit

Capitalizing every word in titles is not correct English. I think we should change this. LilAlexthaRapper 21:18, 13 May 2008 (EDT)

There is a madness to the method. You have read the explanation at the top of the page, yes? Kiefer talk contribs admin 21:45, 13 May 2008 (EDT)

But it's not proper English, as I already said. LilAlexthaRapper 13:15, 14 May 2008 (EDT)

It is fine to use this for English, but to impose it for other languages is stupid (oh yeah, it is called “language”, not “nation”; the two are completely different things). For example, Scandinavian languages have very clear capitalization rules for titles: Only the first letter is to be capitalised, unless there is a proper noun in there. So Øystein Sunde’s album Som varmt hvetebrød i tørt gress should have that name; “Som Varmt Hvetebrød I Tørt Gress” not only looks stupid, it is outright wrong. For English, this policy makes sense (because it has illogical rules for capitalisation in the first place), but it should not be imposed for other languages. Jon Harald Søby 19:14, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

You are proving the point by what you say. If English has one set of rules (albeit very complicated) and other languages have others, then no one can guess what rules to apply for any one else. Therefore there should be some monolithic, simplistic rule across all languages. --Aquatiki - T - E 04:06, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but that makes no sense. If you know enough of a language to write lyrics in that language, you will normally also know the rules of capitalisation – and if you don’t, someone else can fix it for you. Jon Harald Søby 18:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

The reasons for the capitalization scheme are given on the main page. Essentially, the site needs a filing scheme that is for ALL languages, and doesn't change depending on the language so that the site can be easily implemented by various applications as a database and so that we don't have a handful of pages for the exact same song under a variety of capitalization schemes. With the MediaWiki program being updated, one can now place {{DISPLAYTITLE:the capitalization that should be displayed}} at the top of the page to display whatever correctly capitalized page title is necessary.

This is not a page for anyone who wishes to to just say that the capitalization scheme is "stupid", "wrong", "crazy", etc. It is how it is for distinct and specific reasons. If you don't care for the scheme and would like to suggest other solutions to the reasons that exist, then please do so. Otherwise, you are not likely to receive any reply to your comments. Kiefer talk contribs admin 00:49, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

JHS, the lyrics are gathered by programs that don't speak (or even identify) languages. We need one set of rules that is programmable and consistent. Since there is no overall unity, we must impose an arbitrary system that impinges upon everyone equally. --Aquatiki - T - E 02:55, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Then why don't we let all letters in lower case, like it is for any web page over the internet ? This way we let people abel to use any correct typography inside the page text itself, but the URL stays calm. Jesus2099 09:45, February 28, 2011 (UTC)

That’s not correct. It might well be correct for Norwegian, but it is only one of three equally valid capitalisation schemes in Danish (I don’t know how it works in Swedish). Had it been a Danish album, it would have been just as correct to write “Som varmt hvedebrød i tørt Græs” (capitalising first and last word) or “Som varmt Hvedebrød i tørt Græs” (capitalising only nouns).

As LilAlexthaRapper said, capitalising everything is no more correct for English than it is for any other language; linguistic correctitude is not the reason for the capitalisation scheme, automated processes are (as said above). Oisín 20:39, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

DISPLAYTITLE Edit

I can’t seem to get {{DISPLAYTITLE:correct capitalisation}} to work for album or song pages, only artist pages—is this intended? (And if it is, why? Correct capitalisation should be as important for albums and songs as for artists, no?) Oisín 20:34, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you give an example Oisin? ♫_♫Яєd_xx_♪♫♪_♫♪ ^Actions _Words 02:33, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Kíla:Ríl A HAon is a good example. It’s supposed to be Ríl a hAon, and I’ve added {{DISPLAYTITLE:Ríl a hAon}} at the top of the page, but it still appears as Ríl A HAon. To test, I tried adding the extra line at the top of a few song and album pages (just previewing, didn’t save them like that), and it worked on none of them; a similar test on any artist page, however, properly changed the displayed title. Oisín 02:48, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Oisin but I think DISPLAYTITLE only works on the very first letter of page name. As such this is usually the artist name. See here. ♫_♫Яєd_xx_♪♫♪_♫♪ ^Actions _Words 04:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, bugger. Well, I’m definitely for the creation of a more flexible version, then, if anyone has the access, skills, and time to do one. :) Oisín 05:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

See here. The more flexible version is only available from MediaWiki 1.14 onward, and we're on 1.13.something. (And since that upgrade was relatively recently, and it took quite some time for Sean to fix everything that broke in the process, the next one won't happen for quite a while, I'd guess.) — 6x9 (Talk) 05:45, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we have to wait for 1.14 but we wont have to wait forever. Rumors are that Sean will do it when he has time ♫ LYRIC-Humbug^words♪_deeds ☘ 04:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Mmmmm..thought this might work now but :( ♫_♫Яєd_xx_♪♫♪_♫♪ ^Actions _Words 01:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

No blank spaces around colon separator Edit

Hello, It is a pity there are no blank spaces around colons separating artist names and albums / songs.

It makes the whole line not very clear :

   Joe Artist:Sad Song

(Looks like Artist and Sad are related)

   Joe Artist : Sad Song

(Looks cool, clearly separating both entities) Jesus2099 14:43, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

It depends how you look at it. It doesn't to me. Anyways I'm sure you'll get used to it ...if you stick around long enough ;) ♫_♫Яєd_xx_♪♫♪_♫♪ ^Actions _Words 01:35, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

This is the naming convention used with most wikis around. It's almost always in the form of NAMESPACE:PAGENAME. Though I think if it really bothers you that much, it might be possible to edit your personal CSS stylesheet (in your case, at User:Jesus2099/monobook.css) to always add those spaces displaywise. (I haven't tried it though, and it might be too technical to figure out...) If it succeeds, then you'll get your way, without interfering how the site looks to everyone else. --Geopgeop 20:03, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

ALL CAPS Song Example Edit

If the official release is in ALL CAPS: Abingdon Boys School:STRENGTH. (there are many more examples on lw) Can we have LW:PN updated with a clear example of ALL CAPS song page and how it should be filed please? cheers ∃cho⚡ierr∀ ( ☏ • ⎋ • ⌫) 18:07, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I got this wrong when I first came here too. An ALL-CAPS SONG example right below ABBA should be sufficient, I think. — 6x9 (Talk) 18:27, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I've asked Kiefer to update page. ♫_♫Яєd_xx_♪♫♪_♫♪ ^Actions _Words 11:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Full list of restrictionsEdit

# should be "Number " and replace it by a suitable equivalent kind-of contradict each other, don't they? While "#1" should indeed be "Number 1", the suitable equivalent for "C#" is "C Sharp", not "CNumber " (notice the space at the end). And I don't even know what a suitable equivalent for "!$&#@*" would look like, but I'm sure "!$&Number @*" is not suitable. So I vote that the list be amended. — 6x9 (Talk) 13:58, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure you know what you're going on about so I'll vote it be changed too (lol) ♫_♫Яєd_xx_♪♫♪_♫♪ ^Actions _Words 14:03, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

If Red agrees with me, even though she don't like me no more, I must have a point, right? — 6x9 (Talk) 14:06, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there anything that can be done, stringextensions or otherwise about the whole And/& situation? I have repeatedly come across multiple redirect wars. This user wants to see "Gotta Go & The Wiggles" while that user wants it to read "Gotta Go And The Wiggles". One will cite album covers as their point of reference while the other one will say they've seen it their way on wikipedia/allmusic/musicbrainz... Is there some wiki magic that if a song as And or & in the title it will go to the correct one? Perhaps not because there might be versions titled both ways *sigh* -- RainbowDragon talk contribs 14:36, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Nothing that can be done, other than redirects. And reminding users that albumcovers are the ultimate reference, no matter what WP etc. say. And that, if the albumcovers are undecided too, we go with "And" since it's less likely to cause trouble. — 6x9 (Talk) 14:44, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict) Lol...and then he answers his own question ;)

I have often found that if it is two independent artists an ampersand is used. If however it's the name of a group "and" is used instead. OK it's not hard and fast but check it out..Also ampersand can sometimes cause pages to break if there are other symbols such as slashes in the page name. I hope that helps. ♫_♫Яєd_xx_♪♫♪_♫♪ ^Actions _Words 14:46, 24 April 2009 (UTC) P.S. And yes, album covers trump wikipedia ;)

I think the underscore _ must be added to the list, as it will always be displayed as whitespace. I stumbled over Gustav:Soldat_in oder Veteran today. --Hfs·☏·✎ 13:21, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

You can display underscores instead of spaces, using DISPLAYTITLE. Unfortunately its use is very restricted, the only other thing it can do is change the very first letter to lowercase.

Now I'm wondering… Since "in" isn't actually a word here (and not meant to be separated from "Soldat" by a space), it doesn't really have to be capitalised, does it? — 6×9 (Talk) 13:45, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, in this case I opt for DISPLAYTITLE. Regarding upper or lower case »i«, I’m not sure what the plugins do, so I’ll leave the decision to you. It’s like the French “j’aime” or “c’est”, where I’m never sure if the second word should be capitalized or not? --Hfs·☏·✎ 14:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I tend to capitalise them, since the rule states "word", not "string of letters separated by spaces"… like "O'Clock" instead of "O'clock". But adding an example (or two) for cases like these would certainly be a good idea. I'm going to nag Kiefer about it. — 6×9 (Talk) 15:00, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Nag, nag, nag. :-] Yeah, these examples have always been a bit of a situation. The nitty-gritty: c'est, l'amour, and o'clock and the like are essentially contractions such as don't, can't, doesn't, etc. Contractions are a single word formed by the merging of two other words with parts of one or more of those words removed and replaced with an apostrophe. So, since they are a single word, then their initial letter should be capitalized, not the one behind the apostrophe. Tah-dah! And the flowers are still standing! (If you want to have fun, we can always discuss song titles that runallofthewordstogetherlikethis. That could be fun. Or websites in the title or using symbols instead of spaces, or.... :-] ) Kiefer talk contribs admin 20:02, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes that is the approach I have always taken. Same as when the initial letter is missing and substituted with an apostrophe. And 6 is right, a few examples like this would be good on the Policy page. ♫_♫Яєd_xx_♪♫♪_♫♪ ^Actions _Words 20:26, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Despite WikipediaEdit

I went thru all the trouble of finding the relevant links, only to find LyricWiki talk:Page Names was protected. Please put the following bold parts there.

==Example Titles==

===Capitalization===

All words, regardless of whether the artist capitalize that letter or the language's grammar says it should be lower case, must have their initial letter capitalized. Yes, despite Wikipedia's [1] [2].

...

The artist's name in this example is kept all in capitals, because that is the closest to the original's format as per the Swedish and in English Wikipedias, which for this situation we will take as reference.

I'm not questioning your policy. I'm just saying you must be very clear about where you do, and don't, follow Wikipedia. Jidanni 01:04, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I think we're as clear as we can be. Wikipedia has pages to describe how they want things done, and we have pages such as this one to describe how we want things done. We do use Wikipedia as an encyclopedic reference, though, in order to gather information, as with the ABBA info. We also use Discogs, AllMusic, etc. So, Wikipedia's style - no, Wikipedia's information - yes. Kiefer talk contribs admin 01:40, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Apostrophe S Edit

I read somewhere that there is a problem upcasing titles but at the same time not causing "Today'S". Well, try this Perl: s/([^[:alpha:]'])([[:lower:]])/$1\u$2/g; Jidanni 05:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that is to do with Special:Wikify (which still needs fixing) ♫_♫Яєd_xx_♪♫♪_♫♪ ^Actions _Words 23:33, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

The apostrophe matter in the wikifyer has been fixed for a while now. — 6×9 (Talk) 06:44, November 13, 2009 (UTC)

The Percent Sign (%) Edit

Should % be added to the list of restricted characters? Attempting to use it in a page name apparently causes a "bad request" error, as I discovered while cleaning up the Matthew Sweet page (his album 100% Fun has the page name Matthew Sweet:100 Percent Fun (1995), and for good reason, it seems). Trainman 16:05, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

Not sure… I had no trouble creating the page 100% Proof (or deleting it, for that matter). I'll let Sean know. — 6×9 (Talk) 16:58, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

That is odd -- a little experimentation shows that it works using the index.php?title= version of the page names, but doesn't seem to work as a straight page name. Doesn't seem to be a problem with http://lyrics.wikia.com/index.php?title=Matthew_Sweet:100%_Fun_(1995), but attempting http://lyrics.wikia.com/Matthew_Sweet:100%_Fun_(1995) (as I did last night) gets the "bad request" error. Perhaps the problem lies with the % directly followed by an underscore -- % followed by numbers as a replacement for a special character seems to work okay. Trainman 18:41, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

The (second) full URL above doesn't work for me either – a regular wikilink does though. So I guess there's no reason to restrict percent signs. (Next time you want to create a page with a % you could just add a wikilink to the artist page and follow that; red links work as well.) — 6×9 (Talk) 18:58, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

Lovely, thanks. Trainman 20:21, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

You must replace "%" with "%25" as the "%" sign is used in URL encoding. %25 decodes to the percent sign. So http://lyrics.wikia.com/Matthew_Sweet:100%25_Fun_(1995) works. ♫ LYRIC-Humbug^words♪_deeds ☘ 01:09, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

How do you include a colon in a song name? Or do you use some other substitution?Edit

As an example, look at http://lyrics.wikia.com/Joe_Henry#Blood_From_Stars_.282009.29 - There are two tracks in this album that have colons in the name of the song. Interestingly, the song works from the artist page and the album page, but if you actually open the song and see the lyrics (in this case an instrumental track), notice at the top you get broken links for the artist and the album - on the actual song page, the extra colon is parsed as being part of the artist. Rather than Joe Henry for the artist, it becomes Joe Henry:Prelude as the artist, which also breaks the "appears on" link. I looked around for an answer to this, but the restricted characters list doesn't seem to address a colon specifically! Thanks. Danitaz 03:40, December 2, 2009 (UTC)

It isn't a limitation of the wiki, just a problem with the program that automatically fills in some items in the templates when one first creates a page. There are two ways that a program could use to "discover" what is the song title and what is the artist in a pagename. One is to look from the back until it discovers a colon and use everything before that as the artist and everything after as the song title. The other is to look at the string from the front until it discovers a colon and use everything before it as the artist and everything after as the song title. Both ways would be deficient under certain instances, but one or the other had to be picked, so the first method was chosen. In these instances where the colon is in the song title, the page creator needs to edit the information to be correct, that's all. Hope this helps. Kiefer talk contribs admin 05:44, December 2, 2009 (UTC)

Ah! So that was simple enough. Thanks - and page corrected now as well too. Danitaz 05:53, December 2, 2009 (UTC)

Capitalization Within PagesEdit

From what I've gathered, the rule of "every letter capitalized" is just for the page name itself, and it's acceptable to make the name appear to have the artist's intended capitalization within the pages. I'm not sure if I'm approaching this the right way, though. I'm working on Les Yeux Noirs:TChorba (2004), which is supposed to be capitalized "tChorba". I've kept the page name with a capital "T", but listed it as "tChorba" in the album template. In the song pages, since I couldn't figure out how to get the capitalization of the album to look different from the page capitalization, I use the incorrect Les Yeux Noirs:tChorba (2004) but have it redirect to the correct page. Is there a better way to do this, or alternatively, should I just leave it with incorrect capitalization in those instances for consistency's sake? Skald 13:51, August 24, 2010 (UTC)

For consistency and so that pages don't lead to redirects, I believe the preferred way to do it on Song pages is to use LW:PN capitalization for the album names in the Song and AddAlb templates at the top of the page (so it would be "TChorba (2004)"). Then in the SongFooter template at the bottom of the page, you can add as a parameter "album = tChorba" so that the title displays with correct capitalization elsewhere on the page.

And while I'm at it, another couple notes: since you created these pages, they can have bronze stars instead of green (green basically means the page was created by a bot; bronze means a human touched the page). Also, you don't need to put "type = album" in the Song parameter, since that's the default. Trainman 16:31, August 28, 2010 (UTC)

A question about added notation to Song Page names Edit

There is a song by Halestorm called "It's Not You" that has two sets of lyrics: the original set on their first two albums and the set that is used for their latest album. The first was obviously the original, but the second is from their self-titled "debut" album and is the set that is used for the "official" version of the lyrics (via Gracenote) that Howard Benson helped tweak. If I follow the guidelines, I would need to have two pages, one of which has a special notation (Any ideas, btw? "New Version," maybe?)...but the "official" version, which is the new version of the song, would still be attached to the page without the special notation. The only way I can think of getting it to go to the proper version would be to move the page to that version. But that would leave the page name that I need for the original version as a redirect to the new version, correct? So, since the new version is the MUCH more widely known version and off of what many people consider their "debut" album anyway, should I instead create a new page with the original lyrics and use a special notation of "Original" (or something like that) in direct violation of the guidelines or allow the "official" version of the lyrics to be attached to the incorrect set of lyrics, leaving anyone who doesn't have direct knowledge of the situation thinking that the lyrics listed on the page are completely wrong (because there are some fairly significant differences)? Or is there some other solution to this problem that I'm not thinking of or not aware of? On the Amazon page for their EP (which has the original version) it lists all the tracks with "Live" appended to the end of the title. I would use that as a workaround, but I think saying "Live Version" now would be confusing if they come out with a live album in future years with the new version of the song. Suggestions?

Strictbusiness14 05:29, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

Not familiar with the band and song at all, but based on what you've said here, I think the best option is to call the first version "It's Not You (Original)," with the second version as "It's Not You." Putting myself in the mind of someone visiting this site looking for lyrics, it sounds like they'd be much more likely to be looking for the second version, so it seems to make sense to have the second version be the "primary" listing here. Guidelines sometimes have to be broken if there's a good reason, and this seems to be a good reason.

I don't think I would ever use Amazon.com's track listings as the determination of what to call a page here. Song titles there often appear with weird punctuation and spacing, and sometimes they're just plain wrong. (One thing they love is using "(Album Version)" as a modifier, even with songs for which that's the only version.)

Also, I haven't noticed much of a problem with confusion between the Gracenote "official" lyrics and the wiki-edited lyrics. Hopefully people realize this is a wiki, and that our crowd-sourced lyric versions are usually better than the Gracenote versions. The only issue I've had with a page I was watching was a complaint from someone about some changes I'd made to the formatting of the lyrics, rather than the actual lyrics themselves. Trainman 18:06, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

Use of forward slash Edit

~~Page: Team StarKid:Not Alone/Goin' Back to Hogwarts (Reprise)~~

~~For obvious reasons, this page has been flagged as not following the naming policy, because in the standard wiki structure, it is a subpage of Team StarKid:Not Alone.~~

~~However, the forward slash is actually part of the song title. So my question is, what should be used instead? ǝsʞpɐןǝ (talk page) 08:38, 27/05/2011~~

Ooops. Guess that wasn't the cause of the error. Ignore what I have written. ǝsʞpɐןǝ (talk page) 13:51, 27/05/2011

Just for the benefit of people reading this in the future: the problem was the lowercase "t" in "to." Forward slashes are fine in page names here. Trainman 17:25, May 27, 2011 (UTC)

'N' in song titles Edit

It might be helpful to place a note on the help page about songs with 'N or 'N' in the title like The Rolling Stones:It's Only Rock 'N Roll (But I Like It). I think the current policy would say to use 'N rather than 'n, but it would be nice to have it confirmed. twomeanings talk contribs 16:15, June 29, 2011 (UTC)

Collaboration by several artists Edit

Hi, I found LyricWiki only few weeks ago, but I stumbled upon a problem several times: Collaboration by several artists. It's easy when an artist contributes to only a single song of another artist (or group): use the featured artist field.

But what if two artists collaborate for a whole album or even more and by equal parts? Create a new artist page "Artist 1 And Artist 2"? Or put everything on Artist 1's page and add Artist 2 as featured artist for every single song? Both seems wrong for me but I can't think of any better solution. (Especially none that doesn't require lots of coding. :-)

Any ideas? A policy I didn't find so far? – Tauriel 22:54, July 17, 2012 (UTC)

You can create a regular artist page for the collaboration, but use the {{Collaboration}} template instead of {{ArtistHeader}}.

The real problem is one-song collaborations, where it seems silly to create an artist page. So far there's no better solution for these cases though. — 6×9 (Talk) 12:42, July 20, 2012 (UTC)

A Serious Discussion on the Conversion of Colons to Slashes Edit

With LyricWiki's move to Wikia, I would like to again bring up the proposed policy of Colons to Slashes. There is no legitimate reason to continue the usage of colons over the built-in functionality of subpages. By serious discussion, I mean that this is not immediately struck down by a single admin, though that is a hypothetical extremity for the purpose of providing an example of what is meant by serious discussion. –PatPeter 02:25, August 17, 2012 (UTC)