The result of the discussion was wrong venue, MFD isn't for changing/deleting/removing parts of a WikiProject's guidance (or whatever you want to call it). Bencherlite Talk 11:15, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia has four million articles, but not one of them as far as I am aware is a standalone article on a cover song. Zero. None. And here's why:
Different musical groups often record a cover version of a previously recorded song. Under WikiProject Songs, the song is treated as a topic and the cover song is treated as a subtopic of the song topic. For example, Black Magic Woman (Santana cover song) is a widely popular 1970 version of Peter Green's 1968 song
Black Magic Woman and WikiProject Songs treats Peter Green's 1968 song
Black Magic Woman as "the song" and treats Black Magic Woman (Santana cover song) as a version/rendition subtopic of "the song." Under "
Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs#Cover-versions/multiple-renditions", WikiProject Songs has been enforcing a rule that all
cover song subjects must be treated only in the song topic article and "
never in a separate article."
[1] This goes against how
Wikipedia:Notability and
Wikipedia:Notability (music) guidelines treat topics and goes against how Wikipedia generally treats subtopics. For example,
Wikipedia:Summary style supports fuller treatment of any major subtopic in a separate article of its own. Yet, WikiProject Song prohibits covering a cover song in a separate article of its own through that WikiProject's cover-versions/multiple-renditions subsection. The reliable source do not write about cover songs in the artificial way WikiProject Song envisions. Rather, the reliable source write about cover songs as topics/subjects in their own right with little, if any, connection to the original song itself. The WikiProject's enforcement of its absolute ban on giving fuller treatment of any major cover song subject in a separate article of its own has created a serious disincentive to Wikipedian writers to write about cover songs. To see this, you need only look at Wikipedia's coverage of
Top 10 Cover Songs More Famous than the Original:
The amount of reliable source material available on each of the above ten cover songs topics likely is enough to bring each cover song to GA or FA status. Yet, because WikiProject Songs uses its project status to force each of these major cover song subjects to be only written about in a song topic article, Wikipedian writers have largely chosen not to write about these and other cover songs. Under WikiProject Songs enforcement, the only way any of the above top ten cover songs can receive a higher rating on the quality class is if the written song topic article itself is improve. For example, the only way Hurt (Johnny Cash cover song) can receive the Wikipedia higher level writer interest that comes with a GA on the quality class is if the poorly written
Hurt (Nine Inch Nails song) is improved from its "C" rating. Since it is unlikely that an editor is interested in all versions of Hurt and since the reliable sources only loosely relate the cover songs to one another, the Hurt (Nine Inch Nails song) article will continue to develop unevenly and the cover song subjects will not receive the richer, fuller contextual treatment that comes from being in a standalone article. Wikipedian writers should be free to write standalone articles on
notable cover song topics without being met with a merge demand that they instead add their writing only to the underlying song topic article per the WikiProject Song's
WP:SONGCOVER. I became aware of this no-standalone-song-cover-article issue through a request to merge an article I recently wrote,
Heart and Soul (The Cleftones) (you may have heard it from the film
American Graffiti). From that merge discussion on the talk pages of the two merge articles, apparently cover songs are not "songs," there is only one song, all the rest are renditions/versions, etc., and all the information about "the song" is to be in one place in Wikipedia (all of which apparently is supported by precedent). In other words, "An article about a song is about THAT song (And certainly not about a recording of that song!)," and "there is no benefit to separating except under
WP:SIZE" (which I don't believe has ever happened for a song article). As for the merge of Heart and Soul (The Cleftones) into Heart and Soul (1938 song), apparently I would need to remove some of the context from the Heart and Soul (The Cleftones) information because that reliably sourced context would not make sense in the Heart and Soul (1938 song) article.
The responses I received in discussing the merge and those posted on WikiProject Song's talk page made me realize that I definitely am not the first one to be discouraged from exercising my editorial judgment in how I choose to writing about a cover song and that this was a more significant problem than my one article. There is no reasonable basis to claim that a cover recording of a song cannot be a subject treated in a standalone article any more that saying a
remake of a film or other work of art cannot be a subject treated in a standalone article. When a WikiProject's efforts retard article content development and exceeds guidelines and policies, that effort needs to be terminate and the basis for it deleted. As such, "
Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs#Cover-versions/multiple-renditions" should be deleted and/or enforcement of "Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs#Cover-versions/multiple-renditions" be terminated. An iVote to delete in this discussion will result in "
Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs#Cover-versions/multiple-renditions" being deleted and/or enforcement of "Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs#Cover-versions/multiple-renditions" being terminated. --
Uzma Gamal (
talk)
02:25, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
The result of the discussion was wrong venue, MFD isn't for changing/deleting/removing parts of a WikiProject's guidance (or whatever you want to call it). Bencherlite Talk 11:15, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia has four million articles, but not one of them as far as I am aware is a standalone article on a cover song. Zero. None. And here's why:
Different musical groups often record a cover version of a previously recorded song. Under WikiProject Songs, the song is treated as a topic and the cover song is treated as a subtopic of the song topic. For example, Black Magic Woman (Santana cover song) is a widely popular 1970 version of Peter Green's 1968 song
Black Magic Woman and WikiProject Songs treats Peter Green's 1968 song
Black Magic Woman as "the song" and treats Black Magic Woman (Santana cover song) as a version/rendition subtopic of "the song." Under "
Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs#Cover-versions/multiple-renditions", WikiProject Songs has been enforcing a rule that all
cover song subjects must be treated only in the song topic article and "
never in a separate article."
[1] This goes against how
Wikipedia:Notability and
Wikipedia:Notability (music) guidelines treat topics and goes against how Wikipedia generally treats subtopics. For example,
Wikipedia:Summary style supports fuller treatment of any major subtopic in a separate article of its own. Yet, WikiProject Song prohibits covering a cover song in a separate article of its own through that WikiProject's cover-versions/multiple-renditions subsection. The reliable source do not write about cover songs in the artificial way WikiProject Song envisions. Rather, the reliable source write about cover songs as topics/subjects in their own right with little, if any, connection to the original song itself. The WikiProject's enforcement of its absolute ban on giving fuller treatment of any major cover song subject in a separate article of its own has created a serious disincentive to Wikipedian writers to write about cover songs. To see this, you need only look at Wikipedia's coverage of
Top 10 Cover Songs More Famous than the Original:
The amount of reliable source material available on each of the above ten cover songs topics likely is enough to bring each cover song to GA or FA status. Yet, because WikiProject Songs uses its project status to force each of these major cover song subjects to be only written about in a song topic article, Wikipedian writers have largely chosen not to write about these and other cover songs. Under WikiProject Songs enforcement, the only way any of the above top ten cover songs can receive a higher rating on the quality class is if the written song topic article itself is improve. For example, the only way Hurt (Johnny Cash cover song) can receive the Wikipedia higher level writer interest that comes with a GA on the quality class is if the poorly written
Hurt (Nine Inch Nails song) is improved from its "C" rating. Since it is unlikely that an editor is interested in all versions of Hurt and since the reliable sources only loosely relate the cover songs to one another, the Hurt (Nine Inch Nails song) article will continue to develop unevenly and the cover song subjects will not receive the richer, fuller contextual treatment that comes from being in a standalone article. Wikipedian writers should be free to write standalone articles on
notable cover song topics without being met with a merge demand that they instead add their writing only to the underlying song topic article per the WikiProject Song's
WP:SONGCOVER. I became aware of this no-standalone-song-cover-article issue through a request to merge an article I recently wrote,
Heart and Soul (The Cleftones) (you may have heard it from the film
American Graffiti). From that merge discussion on the talk pages of the two merge articles, apparently cover songs are not "songs," there is only one song, all the rest are renditions/versions, etc., and all the information about "the song" is to be in one place in Wikipedia (all of which apparently is supported by precedent). In other words, "An article about a song is about THAT song (And certainly not about a recording of that song!)," and "there is no benefit to separating except under
WP:SIZE" (which I don't believe has ever happened for a song article). As for the merge of Heart and Soul (The Cleftones) into Heart and Soul (1938 song), apparently I would need to remove some of the context from the Heart and Soul (The Cleftones) information because that reliably sourced context would not make sense in the Heart and Soul (1938 song) article.
The responses I received in discussing the merge and those posted on WikiProject Song's talk page made me realize that I definitely am not the first one to be discouraged from exercising my editorial judgment in how I choose to writing about a cover song and that this was a more significant problem than my one article. There is no reasonable basis to claim that a cover recording of a song cannot be a subject treated in a standalone article any more that saying a
remake of a film or other work of art cannot be a subject treated in a standalone article. When a WikiProject's efforts retard article content development and exceeds guidelines and policies, that effort needs to be terminate and the basis for it deleted. As such, "
Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs#Cover-versions/multiple-renditions" should be deleted and/or enforcement of "Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs#Cover-versions/multiple-renditions" be terminated. An iVote to delete in this discussion will result in "
Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs#Cover-versions/multiple-renditions" being deleted and/or enforcement of "Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs#Cover-versions/multiple-renditions" being terminated. --
Uzma Gamal (
talk)
02:25, 11 February 2013 (UTC)