User:AnatoleSerial/Music Categories Rework Proposal

The Problem

We want to make sure the information in the wiki is consistent and up-to-date. This includes information about *musical releases*. Whether it's a single, EP, LP, or even a song released only through MVs, we want a way for users to consult this information

The problem is that a lot of information about Songs in the wiki is *inconsistent* and/or *incomplete*.

As an example, let us look at one of the most prolific artists in hololive, Hoshimachi Suisei, and how her releases show that lack of consistency.

Release classification

In her page, she has three main categories for releases: Singles, Extended Plays, and Albums. However, a closer examination shows that all of the releases in Extended Plays have two songs -- or 4 songs, if you count the Karaoke version, which I personally don't because the music industry itself doesn't. For example, SMAP's best selling single ever, "Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana", follows the exact same format as all the "EPs" in Suisei's page and is definitely classified as a *Single*)

Other pages have them, correctly, as singles (i.e. Sora's). Few talents in hololive have released actual EPs (Calli being the most prominent in this regard).

The distinction is important when it comes to Categories, which can be used to generate listings that can properly classify all released music properly.

The Pages

Ideally, we want pages for classification of original song releases. However, this too is inconsistent, and makes it difficult to properly classify all releases.

Let's take Suisei's Bluerose single. Released on June 25, 2021, it includes two songs: Bluerose and comet, a song that had a prior release as an MV-only song. In Suisei's page, Bluerose is listed as "Bluerose / comet", which is its official title. However, there is no page for the "Bluerose / comet" single, only for each separate song. Worse yet, the "comet" page just says "work in progress" without any template, so it exists, literally, in the void: without the Under Construction or Stub templates, there is no way to know that this page is empty.

In short, as it currently stands, none of this can be used for Categorizing, which would save time in creating listings of releases.

Solution Proposal

The objective of this proposal is to create a framework that can be used to generate listings of musical releases. The best way to automate this is through Categories. However, we also need to make sure that the information in the wiki is as *consistent* and *up-to-date* as possible, so we need to do some work: creating blank templates (lowercase, not to be confused with MediaWiki's Templates) for different release types, and going through all musical releases to ensure that there exists, at least, a page with the right Categories for *each release and song* (including the Stub and Under Construction Categories, when necessary).

Categorization

We need a new system for categories. But first, we need to understand that there needs to be two types of pages: a Release Page, and a Song Page.

Song pages: Information about individual songs. Each page must contain a Song Infobox (No need to change, it already has everything we need for this purpose), a list of Milestones (including, if possible, live performances during Events), Lyrics in Japanese, Romaji and English (If no Official lyrics exist, unofficial lyrics are acceptable as long as they are marked as such and properly referenced), Media (A section that needs to be seriously reformatted), References and External Links (To the Digital Release page for the song, and the song's page in the hololive official website, if they exist)
Release Pages: Information about the actual releases. Will always cover 1+ songs, and will always contain an infobox with general information (such as Release Date, Performer names, etc.), Track List and External Links. *Do note that this category can also include Bluray releases*!!

Based on these two types of pages, we can have 3 types of categories: Song Categories, Release Categories, and General Categories.

Song Categories

Original Songs: General Category.
- Original Songs by <name>: Name can be talent, group, or project.
- Original Songs released in <year>: Important for classification.
- Original Songs with MV / Original Songs without MV / MV-only songs: important for classification.
Songs missing lyrics: Songs that are missing lyrics in the Lyrics section.

Song Categories

Original Releases: General Category
- Original Releases by <name>: Name can be talent, group, or project.
  - Original Singles by <name>
  - Original EPs by <name>
  - Original LPs by <name>
- Original Releases from <year>: important for classification
- Original <type> Releases: <type> can be:
  - Music: For singles, EPs, LPs released digitally and/or physically
  - Video: For video releases that can be purchased digitally or physically. Notice that this is for commercial releases, MVs don't belong here.
  - Other: Temporary category. Depends on how many other releases are there (i.e. Manga, Videogames, etc)

General Categories

Under Construction: If you started working on a page/section, use this Template to indicate that it is incomplete but actively worked on.
Stub: If you create a page without all the required information, use this Template to indicate that it needs more information by yourself or other editors.

Changes needed

This is a lot of work. That is why this proposal divides the work in phases, as follows:

1. New blank templates

We need new blank templates for:

1.1 Releases

1.2 Songs

We need to link these through pages that Editors can easily consult and access, copying the template into the new page.

2. New format for Media Section

The Media section on the songs page looks absolutely atrocious, mostly due to changes in how certain third-party plugins / templates work behind the scenes. We need a new format that is *resilient* to these changes. My best idea for this is a new Template that encapsulates the calls to these third-party plugins, while also providing some degree of formatting.

3. Release Pages

The first thing to complete would be the *Release Pages*. The main reason for this is simple: There are less releases than there are songs, and this can be done in parallel with the new Media Section format. We will track these on a talent-by-talent basis: if someone chooses to help, they choose a talent and add all their releases with, at least, a *Stub* format and a set of *Categories*

4. Song Pages

Similarly, the song pages can be done on a talent-by-talent basis, using the talent's page as reference.

5. The Discography Infobox

The Discography Infoboxes for individual talents are incredibly outdated. I am leaving this last for a single reason: We need to look into how these could be generated *automatically using Categories*. This is a job for those of us who work on the lower-level stuff, as it might require some tinkering with stuff that your average editor does not touch much upon. Same as the New format for Media Section, this can be done in parallel with the Release Pages and Song Pages rework/recategorization.