This Might Be A Wiki talk:TMBW To-Do List

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Community Portal[edit]

I've noticed on other wikis there is a community portal. Why don't we have one and wouldn't this be a good start for one? --Droffats 13:21, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

He's right. You could make the list a quicklink in the menu to your left. Easy access = many views = more help. - Whirrrlwind (Woosh!) 13:26, 21 May 2006 (CDT)
I'm not an admin so I can't do it, but I think it would make this page seen by a lot more people if we linked to the to-do list on the main page (probably the "Getting Started" section). ~ magbatz 16:16, 22 May 2006 (CDT)
Great idea, going to do that now. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 16:24, 22 May 2006 (CDT)
Only Community Portal I know of is on a Lemony Snicket wiki, and I don't really know how that's much different from a Main Page Discussion Page. What's the difference? - Doug the Aquacell Guy 21:46, 24 May 2006 (CDT)

I'm surprised this idea died out so quickly. The difference between a community portal and the main page talk is well... community. You can talk about just about whatever on the community portal, if we started having discussions about other bands like tmbg on the main talk page, we would have to archive it every week. If not a community portal, why not just a forum like H*R wiki? That would be easy to set up. I'd make one on invisionfree right now, but most people prefer BBC and I don't know how to set those up.--Fasterthanyou 05:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Year [First] Performed[edit]

Here are two ideas I've been thinking about for a while now...Currently, on a song page (let's say Older), you see this:

Year: 2001

Now, anyone that semi-actively browses this wiki can determine what the field implies- that the song was first released in 2001, on the first album listed under the albums field on said song page (in this case Mink Car). There's no problem there, or really on pages of any studio recordings, but what about the dozens of live song pages, for instance, every live performance released via TMBG Unlimited? The Year field on every page reads 2001 (because the songs were released on Unlimited in 2001), despite the fact that some of the songs were performed as early as 1985. As a solution to this, I was thinking we could tweak the Year field a bit on pages for live performances that have been released, from what's above to this:

Year Released: 2001

Year Performed: 1985

Keep in mind that the Year Performed only applies to the one recording that the page is for, so there'd never be more than one date listed.

So there's my first idea. The other idea is in addition to the first, and is a much more time-consuming but super-rewarding in the end type of thing. Since we'd be expanding the Year field into two separate fields on live pages, I figure the same should be done on studio pages- but with a different second field, of course. (Note that I actually had this idea way before the first, so the two-field thing wasn't my original reasoning for this and still isn't my primary reasoning) Anyway, back to Older. This song, along with dozens of TMBG songs, was being performed live years and years before a studio version was released. So here's my second idea- expand the Year field like so on studio recording pages (and main song pages if there is no studio recording). This is Older's example:

Year Released: 2001

First Performed: 1996 (Shows/1996-03-14)

If the exact show is unknown but the year is known, we can just write something like "1985 (show unknown)" or, simply, "1985". If the year is questionable, "1985(?)". So, anyway, what does everyone else think of these ideas? I'm pretty excited about them. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 18:46, 18 May 2006 (CDT)

Great ideas, but what about a song like "Why Does The Sun Shine", the first version of which is, I believe, the dual demo with "Where Your Eyes Don't Go"? In this instance, would the "Year Performed" date be the demo or the first actual live performace? -Martorano
It would be the year the demo was performed, since that demo (1) came before any live performances and (2) was released to the public, and therefore is considered to be the first known performance. On the main WDtSS page it'd be written as
First Performed: 1987(?) (Where Your Eyes Don't Go - Why Does The Sun Shine Medley), and on the medley page it'd be written as
Year Performed: 1987(?). The reason I say 1987(?) is because I have no idea when their first appearance on the Frank O'Toole Show was (when the demo was recorded), but I'm assuming it wasn't much earlier than 1987. I know the Unlimited performance isn't from their March 1987 appearance on the Frank O'Toole show... -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 21:04, 18 May 2006 (CDT)
Oh, ok- I didn't know it was from a live performace, which clarifies things a bit. I think you've got some great ideas- it's ineresting to know which era songs are from, I think it adds some perspective to things. -Martorano
I'm not sure if it's actually directly from a performance or not, but I know they recorded it in the studios of the Frank O'Toole show. I guess we'll just do whatever comes earlier for each song, demos or live performances. Anyway, thanks for the compliment, and I totally agree about how great it is to see exactly when the songs were first crafted. :D -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 21:17, 18 May 2006 (CDT)
First, I completely agree about the change for live version pages. Yes, it is currently confusing and this would help that out a lot. Second, the other pages should say "Year Released" anyway just to keep the same look. I just think that the second field might be opening up a can of worms, or pandora's box, if you're feeling mythological. I suppose it's a good idea, but like you mentioned, our concert database isn't exactly complete. Maybe "First Known Performance" could be used for those that need it. Just throwing that out there. Good idea. --badqueso 23:11, 18 May 2006 (CDT)
I agree, "Year Released" and "First Known Performance" sound like good choices. ~Drew
I think it's a good idea, but i'm not so sure about the "performance" part of it. What about songs like Too Real which was heard on dial-a-song 5 or 6 years before it was released on a podcast? To my knowledge, it's never been performed at a show... --Duke33 07:43, 19 May 2006 (CDT)
Martorano asked about that above, we'd count demos as the first performance if they came before a live performance. I was thinking maybe it should be "First Heard" instead of "First Performance.." -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 09:04, 19 May 2006 (CDT)
I think this is a good idea. Clarification is always good. --Valerie 16:59, 19 May 2006 (CDT)

Completely off topic, as an alternate idea maybe: What about a "Played live: Yes/No" tag on each song's page? - Whirrrlwind (Woosh!) 13:17, 29 May 2006 (CDT)

That would just be the same as:
First Performed: N/A
-CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 13:24, 29 May 2006 (CDT)

I think that it's a great idea. but maybe too hard to perform. Maybe Q-Bot could do this with a simple script. Good luck with that.

Nope. :) I was planning to do it by hand with the help of a few other users...though I suppose Duke might be able to set up ThisMightBeABot to do it. I just hope at least one of the things get done eventually. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 06:53, 28 Jun 2006 (MDT)

Instrumentation listings for songs?[edit]

Today I thought how nice (however possibly unnecessairy) it would be if the song pages also had a seperate page for instrumentation listings, just like they have lyrics and discussion pages.

I jotted down the instruments used in a few songs tonight and thought it would be nice if they could be put somewhere, just for reference. The thought came to me as I was trying to think of all the songs that include saxophones, and how convienant it would be if I could do a search for "saxophone" and a list of songe would come up.

Just a thought!

Duke33 has actually had this idea for a while, and in a conversation we held a few weeks back, it sounded like, if this were implemented, we'd list instruments just like Song Themes are listed on each song page. There's an incredible amount of work required, but we do seek to have complete knowledge of all TMBG on the wiki, so it might just happen. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 06:02, 25 Apr 2006 (CDT)

--somewhat related, how about a credits subpage? (example from the ben folds wiki [1])

Unnecessary. Unless otherwise noted, the songs are written by the John who sings them. Produced, Mixed, Mastered and Edited by are often unknown. Maybe we should note on the album pages who produced them but that would be it, I'm afraid. - Whirrrlwind (Woosh!) 06:36, 25 Apr 2006 (CDT)
Not at all unnecessary...I think it's a great idea. The only problem is TMBG has hundreds of songs while Ben Folds only has *looks* 184, most of which were released on albums (and therefore have credits in the liner notes). I think we should start by creating a credits page for each song with the instrumentation (and who played each instrument), and perhaps we'll add other credits overtime. We're not starting right now, mind you, we have to fully plan this out first. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 09:15, 25 Apr 2006 (CDT)
You may be right. The idea looks better now over all. I didn't think of combining them. - Whirrrlwind (Woosh!) 13:03, 25 Apr 2006 (CDT)
So - i'm thinking we would add a new item to all song pages called "Instruments". Then we could list out the instruments played, and maybe in parentheses, we could add the person who played it, if known. So, this would be an example for Letter/Not A Letter, it would look like this:
Instruments: Piano, Drum, Tuba (Dan Levine), Trumpet (Mark Pender)
We could even get super fancy, and use templates for each one, so we could add small images next to each one. But, that might be too fancy, and make it difficult to edit. What do people think?--Duke33 16:13, 25 Apr 2006 (CDT)
You don't like the idea of a separate page ala the Ben Folds wiki? I think the song pages might be getting just a bit too cluttered..isn't that one of the reasons we made separate download pages for every song? -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 16:24, 25 Apr 2006 (CDT)
I'm not wild about it being a separate page...I think it kinda makes sense to keep it with the main details, along with who sang it, trivia, etc. --Duke33 21:43, 25 Apr 2006 (CDT)
I second that this information should appear on the main page of each song, but just keep it very simple and dont over do it with extra info. As for notating the performer of each instrument, I see that as becoming a bit of a failure, as the majority of songs purely feature John and John playing all the extra instruments and theres no way of knowing which John played what--AnklePants 04:44, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I definitely want an instruments page, because I never know who the drummer is!!! Anyway, I'm up for undertaking the project, all it means is listening to songs, so hey. --Vixus 10:16, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Napster Links[edit]

What about songs/albums (Mink Car) that only allow 30 second samples to be played? Should we leave up the Download templates for those? -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 17:50, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

I don't think there's any reason to put on the "listen" template if you can't listen to the full song (for free). As for leaving up the "download" template, maybe we should just get rid of that template for those ones. We have the iTunes links since iTunes seems very popular, but if Napster isn't (I really don't know, though), the "download" link for Napster maybe should go. ~ magbatz 19:32, 21 May 2006 (CDT)
It's nice to have the three-row setup for consistency, though. Anyway, there's definitely some Napster users out there who prefer it to iTunes...and we care about them. Deeply. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 19:35, 21 May 2006 (CDT)

Yahoo! Links[edit]

Ok, so again the time of day (being night) played a factor into this one. Only after I finished linking the Here Come The ABCs songs did I notice that they're not for sale on Yahoo!, only available for streaming. So I guess those need to change to N/A templates. --badqueso 00:11, 22 May 2006 (CDT)

Done, Q-Bot finished making those NA. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 17:16, 22 May 2006 (CDT)
Which pages do we have left to do?
They seem to all be done except for Dr. Evil, which can be downloaded, but the page we would link to doesn't show the "buy" button. I guess the final step is to get a bot to put the N/A template on all download pages that don't have Yahoo! now. --badqueso 05:41, 26 May 2006 (CDT)

Rhapsody Links?[edit]

I am often looking for download links of tmbg, and I have recently wondered, why rhapsody.com is not included on the downloads pages. They offer a large selection of high quality downloads, so I think that we should add Rhapsody to the song downloads pages DarkSideOfTheSchwartz

I could add it (with some work obviously). What's the demand for it...do a lot of people here use Rhapsody? --Duke33 00:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Song Template[edit]

I've noticed that the album field is used for things other than albums. Wikipedia defines Album as "a collection of related audio tracks, released together commercially in an audio format to the public." This isn't really how we are using the term. We're placing any collection medium in there. Now I'm not saying we should not do this. I'm saying, for technicality's sake, we rename the field name to Appearances: or something to that affect. --Droffats 19:59, 22 May 2006 (CDT)

Of course it shouldn't technically be "Albums", but it looks a lot better than Appearances and makes sense 80%+ of the time. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 20:44, 22 May 2006 (CDT)
Well it doesn't have to be Appearances("something to that affect"). I'm sure there's a more fitting word out there. But even if it was Appearances, how does it not "look better"? What's your definition of pretty words? --Droffats 14:27, 23 May 2006 (CDT)
"Album" and "Artist" are both short words that are usually paired together, and look good as such. I'm not TOTALLY against this idea, but I'm not digging 'Appearances' at all. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 18:48, 23 May 2006 (CDT)
Personally, I think "album" would be best. The word has come to have a connotation that no, it's not necessarily a record, but some sort of vehicle for the songs to come into our ears. ~ magbatz

Punctuation marks[edit]

Right now, all songs with those are redirect pages to a page without one: To The Bubblecraft! brings you on to To The Bubblecraft, not to speak of virtually every song on the Questions page. The MediaWiki version we have here wouldn't mind if we'd swap them so everything's correct. Bot job? Or no job at all? - Whirrrlwind (Woosh!) 12:57, 28 May 2006 (CDT)

Hmmm...not sure how easy that would be for a bot...I honestly haven't looked, are there that many, if we do them manually? --Duke33 21:37, 28 May 2006 (CDT)
I'm pretty sure there is a question mark in the URL/whatever for Why Did You Grow A Beard? so I don't know how the rest are, but I'll check it out. ~ magbatz

Genre Jumping[edit]

I think one of the most obvious merits to TMBG is that they dont tie themselves down with some specific music genre like most bands that take their image so seriously to classify themselves as punk or emo or metal or folk etc. and yet instead they are among the minority of good bands that are genre-jumping, exploring all characteristics of many genres. Ive been thinking about how this could possibly be expressed on TMBW and I wonder if I could somehow categorized the various songs that fall under some predetermined set of characteristics of different genres They have covered, ie folk (Alienation's For The Rich / James K. Polk), funk (S-E-X-X-Y / Pet Name), metal (Destination Moon / Stomp Box), jazz (Lie Still, Little Bottle / Birds Fly), techno (Man, It's So Loud In Here / Mr Xcitement) etc. The number one failure would obviously be the different interpretations and opinions of musical styles. Maybe rely on wikipedia definitions of given genres. What does everybody think? Too much? --AnklePants 07:24, 31 May 2006 (CDT)

I think the best way for people to figure out each song's unique musical style is to hear and experience themselves. Plus, I can see in the future people arguing over every single song's style, especially since in most cases, TMBG transcend writing any song to a specific genre and rather make songs in their own style. ~ Magbatz
Well, I figured that songs with multiple genres would just have each of the genres listed; no one said there had to be only one per song. :) I actually like the idea of categorizing the songs under genres. For one, it'd be a breeze to incorporate; just add Category:Genre:Rock, Category:Genre:Techno, etc to the bottom of a song page, and then a list of songs per genres would be viewable under Category:Genres. The only problem that I could see developing is people arguing over whether or not a song is really part of a genre...But that's a minor thing. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 14:21, 31 May 2006 (CDT)

I think it would be useful and it sounds like a great improvement for the site. - Herwwiyal 14:27, 31 May 2006 (CDT)

Well if we do do this, we have to make sure not to be too broad (for instance, rock or alternative would be 3/4 of They Might Be Giants songs), or be too precise (It's so Loud in Here is the only song I care to call "indietronica" and Boss of Me Is the only skapunk). Here a couple genres that would work. Not too broad, not too precise.
  • New Wave (ex. Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal; Mammal)
  • Electronica (ex. Man, It's So Loud in Here; Rhythm Section Want Ad)
  • Punk (ex. Stomp Box; Cyclops Rock)
  • R&B (ex. S-E-X-X-Y; Clap Your Hands)
  • Jazz (ex. Au Contraire)
  • 60's Pop (Narrow Your Eyes, I Enjoy Being A Boy)
  • Hiphop (ex. Mr. Xcitement)
  • Blues (ex. (She Was A) Hotel Detective
Then again some TMBG songs would have to be placed under an "Experimental" or TMBG style (such as Stormy Pinkness or Which Describes How You're Feeling) because, simply put, nothing else quite sounds like it. And remeber: just because a song has synths doesn't make it electronica.
Umm... I also got a problem when people classify songs wrong. For some reason it really pisses me off. For instance, calling Man It's So Loud In Here "techno" wouldn't work because techno is actually a rather popular style of electronica which is nothing like It's So Loud. or calling Stomp Box "metal" metal just because it's harder than most TMBG stuff. So I guess I'm trying to say I'll try to correct any mistakes within genres. Umm.. yeah I made it much more complicated than it should be. sorry if I made anyone feel bad. Ha. --liam 14:47, 31 May 2006 (CDT)
I guess I'm the only one not thrilled about this project (not that I have to by any means); my concern is that this in some way would confine and generalize TMBG's catalog and songs, and They might not agree about some of the stuff we choose to label as what. ~ magbatz 18:16, 31 May 2006 (CDT)
Despite proposing this idea originally, I agree with Magbatz, in that it would tie the songs down to a particular definition and just generalize Them and Their songs --AnklePants 05:06, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
This is more trouble as it's worth liam, as right off the bat you're calling Boss of Me skapunk (sic) when there's not a ska lick in it. Trust me, I've been a ska/punk fan for over 10yrs now, I know this stuff. It's more of a rev song with horns, or to simplify that more power pop. I really think this is a terrible idea that won't merrit the time or discussion that it will generate. --radJose 02:36, 19 August 2006 (PTC)
Uh, Boss of Me definitely is a ska song (and no one mentioned it, but so is Moving to the Sun, as well as Dr. Kildare by Mono Puff). After all, pretty much the entire lead guitar part is "ska licks." Regardless, this really does illustrate the point that this is a bad idea because even people who really think they know what they're talking about are liable to be wrong. — Miles 03:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
It takes more than a few guitar licks to make a ska song (which admittedly Boss of Me has in its verses only). Namely, a specific drum beat and a climbing bass pattern, not to mention the chords that are used to actually a ska song. Ska a beat, not a style (so Kildare IS a ska song, the others, aren't, dig?) I don't know why I felt the need to respond to this more than a year after getting called out. radJose 03:05, 18 October 2008 (PTC)

Album Reviews[edit]

Links to album reviews on the album pages?

i think it's a great idea. people will be able to review albums like live shows. i support this idea.
Ore4444

Yeah, linking to some of the more major reviewing sites or to maybe a good review in some newspaper might be a good idea, and I don't think it would hurt anything. Anybody else like this? ~ magbatz
I. --MetalDetector

run-time[edit]

With all these many new run times being found and put on to their pages, we'll have a lot of chronology pages that still have the run time left blank. I know it would be a long repetitive task, so I was wondering if a bot was able to carry that kind of thing out. And if not, then we've probably got ourselves a Run-Time, Part 2. ~ magbatz 20:32, 13 Jun 2006 (MDT)

Duke's got TMBaB doing that, I believe. At least it was doing it earlier. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 20:38, 13 Jun 2006 (MDT)
Looks like someone stole my idea then!

Live Song Times[edit]

Some of the remaining song pages that don't have run times are live songs such as This Damn Band and don't really have any kind of 'official' run time. I think we should just leave these run times blank instead of giving an estimate or leaving that annoying template on them. This wouldn't apply to songs that appear on bootlegs such as Stumpbox because they are kind of like "the" version of the song that is circulating. What does everyone think? --badqueso 13:20, 22 Jun 2006 (MDT)

You're perfectly right. It's already been discussed here. - Whirrrlwind (Woosh!) 13:26, 22 Jun 2006 (MDT)
Oh yeah, but it looks like that discusses "unreleased" songs that have actually been recorded by the Johns. I think my suggestion was in response to this edit (sorry, I'm not blaming CapitalQ!). I'm specifically talking about songs that are played routinely (or non-routinely) live and don't have any kind of 'official' version going around on a bootleg. This would include this Sorry I Fucked Up The Show and, like I mentioned, This Damn Band along with The Future Of Sound and whatnot. It seems the end result of the discussion on Q-Bot's page was to put "Unknown" for songs like Don't Worry Kyoko. I may have just read it wrong though. --badqueso 13:51, 22 Jun 2006 (MDT)
Seems like I got it all wrong :(, although I suggested there that we should wait a bit. There may be a recording of This Damn Band on the compilation. Wouldn't be too much work to remove them though :) - Whirrrlwind (Woosh!) 13:57, 22 Jun 2006 (MDT)

Clock Radio Active vs Inactive[edit]

Somehow, I think we should denote on the Clock Radio page if a song is active or if it has been removed. And, for the songs that have been removed, we should remove the Clock Radio tag from that song's download page. What do people think about that? --Duke33 13:09, 5 Jul 2006 (MDT)

Yes, that's a good idea. We already do that for pages like eMusic with an asterisk and we could do the same here. I also agree that it should be taken off the download page, we didn't have the podcasts listed when they were unavailable. I don't really think that this is a "To-Do List" kind of job though. It seems like one guy (and a bot) could do this. --badqueso 14:57, 5 Jul 2006 (MDT)
I've thought we should do that for a while. I'm guessing this will just involve someone going through the .xml file and picking out which ones are still around and asterisking the songs that are absent from the list? Because that really doesn't sound too hard, assuming ABC order's good. I think I'll try to do (some of) the AM section right now. ~ magbatz 22:15, 5 Jul 2006 (MDT)
I can give you a pretty good list of most of the songs that are still on the AM channel of Clock Radio, because I've been keeping track of them as I've been listening. However, as far as which songs aren't still on the AM channel, how can you really tell? There are about 57 AM channel songs that I haven't heard yet, but how am I supposed to know if they're no longer on the band or if I just have never gotten them because of the radio's random nature? Does anyone out there really have the time to listen to Clock Radio nonstop until songs begin repeating, because that would be hours?! Or is there some other way to check that I don't know about? ~Drew
There is another way, but I think it's some wiki policy not to talk about it, because it would give away how to get the mp3 of every song on the clock radio. But yeah, there's a list of every existing file that would actually run through the clock radio. I did the AM earlier tonight, and the only ones that were on our list but not the actual Clock Radio were songs that were just in the wrong section. EBS is correct (easy enough to know since it's three songs), and it's just my guess that FM would be right for the most part (except I'm pretty sure there's no Dig My Grave (Live), because whenever it shows up on the radio, it's blank).
Check out the Sandbox...I've dummied up what the EBS band would look like, and made a couple of corresponding templates. I know the colors aren't great, and we could probably add some images to spruce things up. What do people think? Do you like it? Any suggestions?--Duke33 20:33, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Lyrics & Interpretations[edit]

TMBG.org has (or I should say had) an extensive selection for every album that shows the chords, lyrics and interpretations on every single song. But in recent years the website has declined due to poor updating and server corruption. And while many areas still work, the list is now incomplete and apparently died at about 2002. I think we should start that here. If there's any info left over there, grab what we can before it's long gone. Plus we can continue where they left off with the new releases and info not added. -- JohnQ.Public 14:22, 26 November 2006 (MDT)

We actually do have that, more or less, for all of the songs on the wiki. If you go to the bottom of any song page, you can see the lyrics, chords and tabs for guitar and bass, various interpretations, and also a link to all other known versions or demos of the song.

TMBW Commons[edit]

Compendium of TMBG images

TMBG history/bio[edit]

I don't know if this would really count enough as a "project" to put up on our to-do list thing, but the only thing that this wiki doesn't have which seems like a glaring omission is the fact that we have no page dedicated to the history of TMBG as a band. I mean, yes, we do have in-depth pages for Flans and Linnell, and sure we have a nice little year-by-year timeline, but I think it's kind of bad when Wikipedia's one page on the band tells more about TMBG than our whole wiki in that subject. Thoughts? Volunteers? ~ magbatz

Woah, Brad and I were talking about this last week, but I never got around to adding it to the To-Do List. We agreed that the TMBG page is currently one of the lamest on the wiki, and definitely needs a total rewrite (or write for that matter). In addition, I'd say the openings to Linnell and Flans's individual pages need definite rewrites, they're very point-of-viewy and start by giving the Johns titles they've never really previously been associated with, which is kinda misleadingish I think...or at least it's very odd that they're branded in the way they are right now. Ramble ramble ramble, I agree with you, this is a project we need to do. :o -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 19:23, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm a pretty apt writer, if someone can compile a list of information reharding either or both, or the TMBG page, or even just send me links pages with information that can help, I can get it all together in some objective prose that'll know yer socks off. Or just clip your toe-nails. So, this is my volunteering. I'll keep my eyes on this, just in case I get nominated. You never know... ==Luke 23:00, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
The main problem I see with each of the John's pages is that they're gigantic unordered lists of trivia. I think the information is good, but it's just impossible to find something you're looking for with that. The TMBG page could definitely use work, though. -J2
I'm thinking about the TMBG (the band) one, and I figure it can be easily written chronologically. Splitting into titled sections by important events (titled in witty ways):
  • Pre-TMBG, Post-Johns' Birth 50s-82 - Regarding the history of the John's relationship before they began TMBG
  • Then, Them, and no us 82-85ish - The band before any fanbase devloped (title up for grabs, and can probably be merged with third section)
  • Clubs, Pubs, and Run Down Apartments 85-86ish - The Johns begin performing, yay. This section covers everything (including the demo tapes) up until...
  • I wanna hear them, but the clubs are a drag! 86-89 - Title also up for grabs, but this covers their first album, and maybe even Lincoln.
  • And the course will see you through... 90-94 - Regarding the time with Flood and Apollo 18. The 92 tour (and the fall of the tape concerts) would be a great segway to...
  • But the band plays on 94-96ish - Another full band venture: John Henry! and the turmoil all this created.
  • I don't know why you say Hello... 90-99 - (A Beatles quote was gonna happen) This section covers the 90's (poosible back tracking to cover it all), the solo-projects, Hello Club, Albums, etc.
  • Post-Cambrian Explosion 00-06 - Mink Car to now, cover all the juicy, free stuff they've been doing too...


Titles are rough, dates are rougher and the whole plan is as rough as my poor calused foot. But it's a start. Once we can get sections laid out and titled, we can add them to the article and have people choose which section of TMBG history their most comfortably working with. So, feed me back with some feedback! --Luke 01:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like a promising layout, it's nice to have some groundwork set. :] -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 01:35, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I think that's a good organization of stuff: pre-TMBG, then pre-record deal obscurity and live playing and then early recording TMBG up to Flood, then their big break with Flood and then Apollo 18, the full band thing up to the end of their deal with Elektra, and a non-album-oriented Hello/Mono Puff/Linnell solo section for random history in the 90s. But maybe then move your "juicy free stuff" to more around 2001/2002-to-present and before that have a section for TMBG after 1996 when they had no record deal and used eMusic instead, and possibly a section about their history as a children's-music artist. And then of course we have to actually write stuff to put in our subsections of the history... ~ magbatz 01:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh yeah, the children's stuff should probably be it's own section..."It's the little ones that I'm worried about". The emusic stuff might make it's own too, Long Tall Weekend and TMBG Unlimited, and such. Q also had the idea that we could use tmbg lyrics for titles too, which I think is an awesome idea! --Luke 01:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, that is a great idea!~ magbatz 01:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm bored, so I might start listing off ideas for titles. So far, I've just thought of, for the first section: "When there was nothing to know or to think about" or "When TMBG Was Only A Zygote"
How about, to preserve the integrity of the page we have now, we work on the new one in the Sandbox, until we have a solid version of it? What does everyone think about that? Who wants to be a hero, and take the first stab? --Duke33 03:48, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Whadaya think? Sandbox It's just a rough layout, but it's a start! --Luke 04:48, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Would it be possible for me to write some or one of the sections, then see how everybody likes it? I dunno how to code it exactly... --Lemita 02:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes yes. Any work done on it is progress, so be not afear'd!

Seriously, let's do this[edit]

I half-in-hand got started this whole mess a loooong while back. Anyone want to go for some more? We're aiming for really encyclopedic here, really classy. We need to get this done! :o --16:13, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

RSS feeds[edit]

Many people use RSS as their "inbox for the web". TMBW could benefit by adding an RSS feed for at least the news given on their frontpage, if not also for additional items that have time-stamped occasionally-updated content. --129.186.157.77 15:27, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, it's a smart idea that's been suggested numerous times before, and would be very useful. I'll try looking into some ways to parse an RSS feed from our Main Page and have it hosted locally. Until then, here's a temporary solution: http://tmbw.net/rss (free RSS feed by Feed43, updates every 6 hours) -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 15:38, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I'll take it...It'll have to be behind a few other things i'm working on right now though. It's #3 on my list. --Duke33 19:59, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Instrumentation Listing - Cont'd. (July 2007)[edit]

Ok, so I've been talking to Jon tonight, and I'm thinking that we should revive this, and actually get started on it. More than likely, this will be the largest undertaking that this site has ever seen, but i think it will add a ton of great new information and content, if we do it. So, here's my proposal:

  • We add an "Instruments" section in the lower half of each song page. We can use QBot to add the skeleton to all pages. I would propose that this goes between the "song themes" and the "trivia".
  • We create a bunch of templates for instruments, such as {{Trumpet}}.
    • The person who plays the instrument should be able to be passed as a parameter to the template, as such: {{Trumpet|Frank London}}. This would output something such as "Trumpet (played by Frank London)".
    • The templates should populate a category on the page, such as [[Category:Songs With Trumpet]]
    • If we want to get really fancy, we could add a small (like 16x16) image to accompany the text on the template.
  • I propose templates for the following instruments: drums, bass guitar, guitar, keyboard, trumpet, tuba, and accordion. In addition, we'll probably create a generic "instrument" template for instruments like Bass Harmonica that are only in one or two songs. So, you would be able to pass it in like this: {{Instrument|Bass Harmonica}}
  • The whole "instruments" section would be a template itself, so that we could use it to dynamically categorize song pages that we haven't filled in instruments yet.
  • Once Q-Bot is done, then we can just get started, adding the instruments to the pages.

What does everyone think? I'm sure it will take a long time, but should be fun! --Duke33 23:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

A large project that will definitely pay off big-time! :] -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 23:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I like the consideration that's finally gone into this idea! I say that we should get to it... once Q or you or someone skilled with template-ry gets it all made up, and we got a Bot to add the skeletons, it seems like with enough wikians and time to do the work, there's no reason it wouldn't be successful. I'd even go as far as saying it wouldn't be too hard for us to put in the instrumentations for every song that appears on each of the 12 official albums within a day. And then we'd go off at the EPs and then get to the miscellaneous songs and even to the demos in no time (well, maybe not no time...).
If we make this idea a full-fledged project and get a kind of "task force" to go through it, we can get through the major releases quickly enough, and we can even start a "Pages that need to be cleaned up" page for ones that the editors are confused about instrument-wise (either manually put on the page or template-run). It's not all that daunting, I don't think-- I say let's do it! ~ magbatz 23:19, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm in! As much as I can, at least. I don't know how many instruments I can actually identify, but I think it would be a fun project to try. Also, are the trumpet and tuba really that prevalent in TMBG works? If so, maybe the saxophone should belong in the main instruments? And the trombone? Also, I don't know how many songs include it, but maybe there could be a template for the violin as well. I can think of two songs off the top of my head that include it (Kiss Me, Son Of God and Violin of course). Easy songs like those are probably the songs I could identify in the first place. Anyway, those are my two cents. I like the idea. --WhatIsThatThing 01:55, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

You're right...we do need to add sax and trombone. Probably stylophone as well...perhaps flute. --Duke33 17:38, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Here's another conundrum (I'm just full of 'em!): What about songs from TMBG's early history (e.g. pre-John Henry) that use a drum machine of some sort? Would that be a separate template? Or would it just be "drums" without a specific "played by" person? With this idea we can get rid of the unnecessary "<instrument> played by <person>" trivia! That always annoyed me for some reason. --WhatIsThatThing 03:33, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Never Played Live[edit]

How about a category that lists the TMBG songs that have never been played live, and then categories for those not played live in 15+ years, 10_ years, etc.? just a thought. 06:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)~

Having a category for TMBG songs that have never been played (as far as the wiki's knowledge goes) is a good idea in my opinion, and it is quite doable. It just takes an "ifexist"-type thing added onto the song info template. I'm not sure about the other idea though. ~ magbatz 16:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
That info is all dynamic, so i don't know how doable that is. That's probably best answered by CapitalQ. --Duke33 17:38, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, I don't now how that sort of thing works in a technical aspect, but if you can create some sort of code that draws the fact a song has never been played live and creates a category, can't there also be a code that picks up the last year a song was played and creates a category for that, like Last Played in 1989, etc.? Perspixx 17:53, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
It's all totally doable (though the "Song Last Played in XXXX" category would require some additional PHP tweakings on my part). The idea for the Last Played categories is interesting, but probably wouldn't be worth the large, large amounts of coding needed; especially considering the fact that our database is missing hundreds of setlists, and the categories could easily be inaccurate. The former idea (never been played) would be an easy implementation, but the category would be gigantic. Perhaps if I added a rule so that it wouldn't add songs with parenthesis at the end to the category (stuff like "Damn Good Times (Demo)"), it'd be pretty efficient. How much is this wanted? -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 21:40, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Album Ratings[edit]

Is there a way to average the song ratings for each album to create a rating that way? Kinda curious what the results would be... Perspixx 17:53, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I like this idea as well! Except instead of average ratings, I was thinking overall album ratings. An entire song rankings type dealie, but with albums instead. Maybe a favorite guest singer page would be in order too? --WhatIsThatThing 03:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Videos heading on show page[edit]

I just had an idea for a show page addition. To minimize things like in this show where all the videos are crammed up there in the links, maybe there could be a "Videos" heading, like on the song pages. It would definitely clean up the links section...and we get to use the awesome YouTube/Google Video/whatever templates too! Anyway, what do you think? --WhatIsThatThing 03:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the video to show ratio is large enough to warrant an additional heading... we hardly ever actually have video links on show pages. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 03:37, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Another potential idea -- the Recaps and Comments Show Lister[edit]

My mind has just thought up a new potential feature. Since I love reading the recaps of shows to pass the time when I'm bored, I'd like to know which shows have recaps (if that's even possible...). Maybe there could be a new category for shows with recaps? Or some fancy code that does...stuff. I don't know. I don't think up the implementation, I just think up the ideas. Sorry I can't be more helpful. So what do you think of the idea? --WhatIsThatThing 02:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I like that idea. I check out recaps for fun, too, and whenever I find a show without a recap, I have to click the back button and choose another one. Now, I don't know much about coding, but I think that a "Shows With Recaps" category would be pretty easy to set up. Akagi 10:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
You think WRONG! Horribly, horribly wrong!!! Though I could probably think of something. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 11:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Hahaha, wouldn't it be just like coding those "Songs With Free Downloads" and "Song Without A Singer Specified" categories? Akagi 11:34, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
No, because the Fan Comments section of show pages isn't in a template. I could maybe get the Show Page template to look down there, though. -CapitalQ ♫ talk ♪ 11:40, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Well, I only know basic HTML myself, so I'm not one to judge. :D Akagi 11:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


Band Lineups[edit]

One idea I had that I always thought would be cool to have on here would be a history of the band lineups... for the most part we would have to go by listening to bootlegs to figure out who was playing when, but I don't think it changed TOO much over the years... especially in the last 8 or 9 years where there was only one change.

For example: 1998-2003 Dan Miller- Guitar Danny Weinkauf- Bass Dan Hickey- Drums

2004-present Dan Miller- Guitar Danny Weinkauf- Bass Marty Beller- Drums

Thoughts? --Oddjob 14:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm a fan of this. Perhaps, though, this can be incorporated into the much-anticipated TMBG BIO PAGE! Of course, until then, we can try to figure out the timeline of band members here, on the sandbox page, or wherever. Either way, this is very relevant. ~ magbatz 16:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Links to Alternate Versions on Song Pages[edit]

I always thought song pages should have a link to any alternate versions it may have. Like a link to Metal Detector (Live) on Metal Detector as one of those "For other uses..." links. Bacon warrior 08:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

We used to, but it got cumbersome...That's the point of the Chronology pages now, which are linked to from the main page.

Download store live show free samples on Song Download pages??[edit]

Now that we've got the free show samples on theymightbegiants.com indexed, perhaps a Free Live Samples section could be added under the Official TMBG Downloads heading on Song Download pages. I know Phone Calls From The Dead and Graveyard are available for free (the latter in two different versions) and are available nowhere else unless you buy a show. Thoughts? --The Almighty Doer of Stuff 03:32, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think adding all the downloadable samples or full songs from the live shows to the Song Download pages would be a good idea because 1) there are samples of songs everywhere on the internet, and these samples don't add much, 2) a live version of the song is not the same as the song whose download page is at hand-- for instance, it doesn't make sense put a download of Metal Detector for "Metal Detector (Live)" or vice versa, and 3) while we are kind of doing it anyway, it's never good to overstep the purpose for these MP3s in the spirit they were given by the band. That said, though, full samples of Phone Calls and Graveyard pass my first two arguments... ~ magbatz 18:22, 1 January 2008 (UTC)


UltraStar Songfiles[edit]

UltraStar Deluxe is this fun Karoake game, similar to SingStar for the Playstation, that lets you sing along with songs from your music collection and it scores how well you keep the timing and tune of your song. The program is available for Mac and PC. You simply need a .txt file with the song mp3 file name, and some codes to specify the timing and tune of the syllables of song. My family and I stayed up for several hours on Xmas eve playing and it was a ton of fun - but less fun than it would have been with some TMBG in the mix.

So i did some research and have started making some .txt files to share with other users - but it is a big undertaking. getting the timing and tuning of the songs right is a difficult task and since it is textbased, it is something that we can use wiki technology to help track improvements on.

The first song (chosen by order of popularity) is UltraStar:Birdhouse_In_Your_Soul. I calculated the BPM using this beat timing website. I have broken up the lyrics into syllables and groups and I have tapped out the timing of the syllables, all using the SongTapper tool. Next is to tweak the timing of the syllables and adjust the tuning of each syllable to match the song.

I would propose that we work in order of popularity. --66.31.214.96 23:47, 3 January 2008

I haven't formulated a view on doing this, but sorry for deleting that page-- I thought it was just spam or something. ~ magbatz 13:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I like the idea, I play Ultrastar myself, and if the OP is interested, I could rapidshare a program that someone made to edit songs for Ultrastar more easily. 201.29.164.213 01:10, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Accordion Tabs[edit]

Since the accordion is more or less one of TMBG's signature instruments, shouldn't we have accordion tabs for each song? Like, have a seperate page for an accordion tab like we have for guitar and bass tabs.

I'd like accordion tabs, too! It's been discussed before, though, and nobody really settled on a conclusion... Akagi 01:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Henri Ducharme, an accordion teacher in California, sells accordion sheet music for Kiss Me Son of God, Number Three, Shoehorn With Teeth, and The Famous Polka. I have 'em and I figured out a little bit of Older m'self. Erm, how would I go about setting up an Accordion Tab? --Henry 03:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, the Guitar Tab pages are just seperate pages so all you would really have to do is just create a new page with the title Accordion Tab:Kiss Me, Son Of God and then copy the setup from the Guitar Tab pages. We would also have to have someone to edit the Nav Stub template and add <li id="li-accordiontab">[[Accordion Tab:{{PAGENAME}}|Accordion Tab]]</li> . This may or not be correct, because I'm pretty basic on my Wiki skills. We probably want to have someone who really knows what they're doing to help with this. As far as formatting the tabs goes, I'm not sure if you can do accordion tabs as text, mabye we could just upload sheet music .jpg's. --Jonovox 21:49, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Before anyone gets started, we would need to add a namespace for accordion tabs. So, please let us know if this is something that we're going to pursue. --Duke33 14:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to. I'm just unsure how to go about it. :) --Henry 15:39, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to get an accordion later this year and through the magic of garage band I have stripped down a few songs to their simplest (but accurate, and addordion) forms. So if anyone goes through with the idea I can help write a tab or two. Apollo

Adding Metacritic Ratings[edit]

I think it might be useful to add metacritic ratings to the album template when available (either dynamically if possible, or manually). I use metacritic ratings to guide purchases and the rating is just an easy way to see the general consensus on the quality of an album. --ne0g 21:51, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I looked through this the other day, and didn't find any way to get the metacritic ratings dynamically through a web service. W/o a way to get that info dynamically, I would think that it's going to be a hassle to keep that info up-to-date. --Duke33 15:34, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
It might be a pain as far as new releases that might still be reviewed, but metaratings of old releases aren't going to change soon (edit: i checked, only the else, no, the spine, and mink car have ratings) --ne0g 21:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Today in TMBG History[edit]

It'd be cool if on the front page there could be a dynamically generated box on the first page that can say "Today in <year> TMBG played at the <Venue> OR release <album>" With the amount of shows and releases they have it'd be filled pretty often and might be interesting to see. --ne0g 19:30, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I've thought about this before...I know a lot of wiki sites do it, but in all honesty, I don't think it's anything more than a novelty. Just my opinion though. --Duke33 03:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking this too! I mean, I was born the same day Lincoln was released. A "Today in TMBG History" would be awesome. --JasonDeLima 05:34, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Couldn't it be a rollover thing? Like the album release dates. For instance, above the "getting started" box it just says "today in TMBG history" but somthing catchier (catchyer?). It could be a nice little thing. Apollo

Alternate Versions' Song Themes[edit]

We need a standard for all the demos and live versions inhabiting the wiki that differ in their Song Themes section. Some of these alternate versions' Themes sections are blank, some contain all of the themes of the main versions, and some have only a scattered portion of what the themes of the song are. What I have a problem with is the third. Alternate versions' themes lists become obsolete as people add/remove/change themes on the pages of the main song version, and nobody likes a page's information to be flawed or unrepresentative of what it actually is. Ideally, an alternate version's themes simply reflect the production and lyrics and such exactly. As I have said before, I believe there are two options.

The first is to clear the alternate page of everything that version has in common with the main song version and to keep what is unique or relevant to the alternate version. Examples!

The second is to have every theme that applies. So with Maybe I Know again, we'd have:

The former option is more concise since it shows less themes total. By only showing the differences, the unique themes stand out more. The latter is more comprehensive, and it can be argued that by showing every theme in the song, that it does a better job of representing the song version as a whole and seeing basically what it's about. I would suggest the former out of unimportant personal opinion and because it would take substantially less effort to put into effect; for songs like Maybe I Know, you'd simply strip the alternative version's themes list of whatever is the same as the normal version. On the other hand, with the all-inclusive approach, you would have to go back to the countless nearly-identical demos from the early years and live renditions from Severe Tire Damage and so on, and copy each theme over.

Then again, you could make it just a little more complicated and say that those alternate versions that have slightly different themes should be listed in their entirety, and those other alternate versions (mostly live renditions) with no actual differences be left blank, so you get the comprehensive-ness of the second suggestion without the excessive and needless copy-pasting that the second suggestion would entail. Before I ramble more than I already have, though, let me say that I don't really care what standard is chosen, and I don't even care if the chosen standard is not one of the three I've suggested. I just want feedback. I have brought this topic up a few times, and I feel that it is one of the only things not standardized on the wiki that should be, and I would just like one of the admins (or a number of wikians) to speak up so we can set the standard. ~ magbatz 20:56, April 27, 2008 (EST)

I am for the second idea. Let me also say that I agree with you that there should be a standard and that something should be done. Ramble time: I like how the first singles out unique themes, but it'd be better if it made it clear that these were exclusive ones in addition to the themes of the main version. Perhaps you could link to the main version with a link like "and [[song|others]]." But what would you do if two demo versions of a song have a theme and the main one doesn't? Are they still unique to that version? And sometimes the main version has some the demo doesn't. (For instance, Doctor Worm has Doors and Doctor Worm (Demo) doesn't. [Though it does imply a door. Should Doors be re-added to that one?]) It also might be nice to apply this thinking to the second idea and somehow single out the "unique" themes.
I am also a fan of your third idea, which I am told is a little more complicated than option 1 and which you prefer. But let's say we go with that idea and the only song pages with missing themes are songs with identical themes to the main version of the song. How hard would it be to simply copy/paste the themes from one page to another in that instance? You have already listened to the song and have decided that the themes are identical to the main version. The only difference from option 2 is that instead of copy/pasting the themes you delete them. You are just marking one radio button instead of a different one. It's not saving you any time. Maybe this could even be automated with a template that grabs the themes from the main version's page. This is the sentence noting that while I was typing, you made this comment as well. --badqueso 03:15, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Option two sounds good to me. It's more comprehensive. If others agree, we'd go through the chronology pages, look at the lyrics and note recording/production/history differences and just go and make it all work. While it has more text added to each page, it offers simplicity in that the entire list's presence would never depend on one disputed difference in a single theme.
I thought of one other thing as Badqueso was writing his response, and I just want to make sure that others agree with me (or not!). AKA Driver, for example, lists Problems With Liner Notes. AKA Driver (Live NYC), however, has no connection to liner notes, and therefore no problems with liner notes. I am assuming we would not put Problems With Liner Notes in the page of the live version. Thinking broader, would we do the same thing for TV And Movie Themes? (My opinion: Yes.) Kingdom Of Loathing Reference? (Not sure. No?) Okay. ~ magbatz 03:42, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
So this whole thing is to standardize the pages, right? I'd like the standard to be that the wiki looks as complete as it can. Similar to why we have the Instrumental template on song pages and Live Only template in run times, it looks bad if there are redlinks or empty sections. This is the main reason I'd rather not leave the section blank, even if it is the same as the main version's themes. Relatedly, if you (that is, you who is reading this. not specifically magbatz) think that blanking, leaving blank, or only putting half of the themes is less work, hopefully the second half of my last response makes some kind of sense as to why this isn't true.
Something else to consider is Duke's idea of splitting themes into Themes and Lists. If we are going to do a major re-haul of the themes, we could do this at the same time. And I think we should split them by just having a section called "Lists" under the section called "Song Themes."
RE: the AKA Driver situation. I think this is kind of like what I was saying, right? Where one theme doesn't apply to an alternate version of a song. This also seems like this might be tied to the List idea. Also: Problems With Liner Notes is a page name of which I am not a fan. --badqueso 04:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

May I propose?[edit]

May I propose that we work on figuring out the keys of TMBG songs not just in signatures A through G without sharps or flats? Such as, figuring out which TMBG songs are in B flat, and F sharp? Is there any instance where this would be impossible? And will anyone be willing to work with me? --Lemita 02:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

may you? i think you just did : ). also, sure, i like the idea. a few songs don't have set keys, like ant, for instance. anyway, i would be glad to help as i've done quite a bit of music theory, but i also have a lot of stuff going on in the non-tmbw realm of my life, so i will not always be able to be around. --ant 02:17, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Well thanks. Does anyone else want to help? With an instance such as Ant, we can make a page for "songs without set key signatures." I'll do my best. --Lemita 21:07, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Tabs for Alternate Instruments[edit]

Proposed February 08, 2009

  • Here's a project for all you musicians who can translate music into other instruments by ear.
    • Create sheet music for bands
    • Create piano sheet music to convert songs into synthesizers
    • Create sheet music for other instruments TMBG uses

--Apollo

This is an idea that has been suggested several times in different ways and is already implemented in some. Check out the Tab Squad already on the To-Do List for organized guitar tab creation. On this page there is a discussion on #Accordion Tabs. On Category talk:Guitar Tabs there is discussion of sheet music. The main sticking points are format and getting people to actually write these. Note that we have categories for Guitar, Bass, and Drum tabs but if you want to start a movement to create a bunch of transcriptions for other instruments then feel free to. --badqueso 03:31, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

A plea for the children('s) *[edit]

Soooo umm. It's kind of been a year since Here Come the 123s has come out, and in that time it's kind of won acclaim with a Grammy and been a big deal and all. Also, we've just passed the fourth anniversary of that delightful album Here Come the ABCs, which I hear was also somewhat popular or something. So, I was just sorta wondering is all.
CAN WE PLEASE FILL IN THE CREDITS FOR THESE TWO ALBUMS?
Please? [PS: I call not-it for now at least on account of living hundreds of miles away from my copies of the CDs. :p]

~ magbatz 02:10, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I've done some of the legwork on the 123's, but i'm kinda distracted with some other stuff at the time being. So, i'm going to chime in and make a plea with Magbatz...someone else want to join in and fill in the remainders? --Duke33 03:52, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
I'll step up to the plate. At a quick glance it looks like about half the tracks on each album need credits. Do we know if the other credits are complete or do they still need info filled in as well? I'll get to work this week. --BlueCanary 06:42, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
I filled in the rest of the credits for 123s except for the live bonus tracks but there is still lots of info about instruments needing to be filled in especially on the tracks from Higglytown and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I'll get to work on ABCs tomorrow.--BlueCanary 19:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
All the credits for ABCs and 123s are now done unless I missed something (entirely possible). They could definitely benefit from some work identifying specific instruments but all basic information is there and I took a stab at identifying what I could on ABCs in particular. Someone with a better ear and more extensive knowledge of instruments can now take over. --BlueCanary 21:29, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Songs that are NOT by tmbg[edit]

Since They Might Be Giants are characterized as weird, there are a lot of weird and (not-so-weird) songs that have been attributed to them on places like LimeWire, like "Fish Heads", the Backyardigans theme, and even "Puttin' on the Ritz". So I had an idea that we could make a page of songs that are not by They Might Be Giants, just to clear that up. Some site has one of those pages for Weird Al, and boy is it long. --MetalDetector

Your will be done. ~ magbatz 23:04, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Videos[edit]

What do people think of having separate pages for each song's video? I've been thinking about it for a while, and I thought of some useful aspects (and a few detriments) but I need someone who isn't blinded by the notion of the idea being fantastic. So tell me it's terrible, already! It would take a long time, for instance. And it might be pointless. I guess we could do a stills gallery, like on the H*R wiki, and maybe put some information about the video that would be out of place on the song page. But, you know. Totally unnecessary, right? I hope this hasn't been brought up before, which would be redundant. -Apollo. 00:19, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I like the idea of a stills gallery, but a separate page for each video? As if we didn't have enough things come up when searching for a song (like when searching for "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" and fourteen pages show up). I think maybe a page that can only be found by a link from the actual song page, and containing video information would be good, if that's even possible. But might this lead to a whole new branch of the wiki focusing on the videos? Keep in mind that H*R wiki does center around videos. -- DidgeGuy (आ ज) 2:26, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Merch Store[edit]

Wow...thanks everyone who helped! We knocked that out in record time! --Duke33 00:49, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

a big mess:[edit]

interpretation pages! seriously, shouldn't there be some sort of standard with...any of it? i know new ones are supposed to have the subject line, but most of them don't, and hardly any older ones do. also, there really ought to be a TOC at the top of the page (it would also be nice if there weren't interpretations above the TOC, and all interpretations had titles so that they're in the TOC). anons don't generally sign interps which is annoying, so i really think we should start using subst:unsigned more. normally i wouldn't really care about signing things/tocs/neatness, but interpretations aren't discussion pages, they are content pages! i imagine it would take ages to move through the entirety of them, but shouldn't we at least have guidelines for how to fix 'em up so that if a user has a spare half hour they can knock out a couple? -Apollo (colloquia!) 15:18, 14 August 2012 (EDT)

Yes, you're right...they are kind of a mess, and that's because a lot of the interps were added back when the site was in its infancy. My preference would be that every interp have a heading. If there are subsequent follow-ups that are a direct response to the interpretation, then I think we can indent it underneath the main interp. I also think every interpretation should be signed in some way. What do you all think? --Duke33 12:03, 15 August 2012 (EDT)
I agree, but how could we reorganize the existing interpretations without manually formatting and signing all of them?--Oldpinebox 13:06, 15 August 2012 (EDT)
i think things would generally have to be done manually. for interpretations that were not titled by their authors, headings should probably be general and standardised (i'm just thinking "interpretation 1, interpretation 2", etc.—though perhaps at the editor's discretion a short, appropriate description could be entered). signing them all would presumably take a long time, but all the necessary information can be found in the history tab. i think some of the very old stuff might not appear in the page's history, so maybe just a general signature (unknown author, pre-[whatever the earliest date in the history tab is] or something similar?) would be appropriate. i can't really think of a way to speed up the process with a bot. -Apollo (colloquia!) 15:45, 15 August 2012 (EDT)
There's nothing we can do with a bot, really. It'll have to be by hand. Here's an example of some cleanup I did. Thoughts? --Duke33 17:10, 15 August 2012 (EDT)
that looks much better, i think! but hmm, thinking about it (and considering the "author unknown" example) it occurs to me that subst:unsigned isn't really appropriate for interpretation pages (i wouldn't call them "comments" so much as entires and reactions). could we maybe make a new template for unsigned interpretations ("unsigned interp"?) which would default to "--Unknown author" if no values were filled in, and "--{{{1}}}" if a user filled in an author for an interp (e.g. "{{Unsigned Interp}}" yields "--Unknown author", "{{Unsigned Interp|Foo}}" yields "--Foo", "{{Unsigned Interp|Foo, 2:34 8 March 2006}}" yields "--Foo, 2:34 8 March 2006", etc.), or is that overkill?
the other thing i had in mind was to have one of the bots go through all the interpretation pages and slap a template (consisting of a category) or just a category onto all interpretation pages marking them as yet-to-be-cleaned-up, then after a user did the necessary cleanup they could take the template/category off. it might be a good system for organisation and to ensure people don't double up. then again, it would just be kind of sad if we never finish.
furthermore, can't a bot also add a __TOC__ (or {{tocright}}!?) at the top of all the pages? for extra consistency/organisation? or would that be unnecessary...? -Apollo (colloquia!) 17:58, 15 August 2012 (EDT)
I added the table of contents to all interp pages through the Nav Stub. I had to use "forcetoc", but it appears to work. Also, for the unknown interps, I figured we could use the "Unsigned" template. Check out the "E Eats Everything" interpretation now. Thoughts? --Duke33 15:49, 16 August 2012 (EDT)
i think the "e eats everything" page looks just right, now. it's definitely much neater (and less discussion-page-like) than before, which is swell. those redlinks are kinda yucky, but such is life. can i write up some instructions to go on the to-do list, or is this too ambitious a project for inclusion there? -Apollo (colloquia!) 17:53, 16 August 2012 (EDT)
If you want to put something together, I can start trying to round up people to help us clean them up. --Duke33 08:22, 17 August 2012 (EDT)
I for one would be willing to volunteer on that. --Self Called Nowhere 14:58, 17 August 2012 (EDT)
As some of you might know, I have been working on Ana Ng(which is rather large). I noticed that some large chunks of interpretations have been deleted (see here and here). Is there a reason for that? Should I restore the old interpretations, or keep them gone? --Oldpinebox 22:52, 19 August 2012 (EDT)

more rules[edit]

hello, wikipeople. while i've been cleaning up interpretation pages, and observing, generally, i've noticed a couple things that need to be standardised—mostly signature-related. please feel free to add to this list and/or suggest means for standardisation. i have opinions on most of them but i'll type that up later. -Apollo (colloquia!) 15:52, 20 August 2012 (EDT)

  1. Some users signed posts with a tilde (~) or hyphen (-), should these be preserved or swapped for two hyphens (--)?
    That's what I have been doing. However I noticed that subst:Unsigned uses one em dash. Could that be changed to be consistent with the two hyphens? --Oldpinebox 18:05, 20 August 2012 (EDT)
    em dash is better, i think. but i'm not sure it's necessary to change them. -Apollo (colloquia!) 19:33, 20 August 2012 (EDT)
    If there's been a prior discussion about standardizing interpretations, apologies, I missed it, but I'd go one step further and say I'd treat this case of changing the way someone presented their contribution to a discussion as vanadlism. It's akin to "correcting" a custom signature in green text or Trebuchet MS back to normal. It also is a tiny factor in the aesthetics of a page. ~ magbatz 00:58, 21 August 2012 (EDT)
    i agree with magz here. -Apollo (colloquia!) 10:53, 17 September 2012 (EDT)
  2. Should time stamps be added when the user signed their entry but did not date it?
    Generally I see including the time in the body of a contribution as a courteous but voluntary practice. The only time I would think to timestamp someone else's post is if it would be confusing or misleading otherwise. For example if for whatever (legitimate) reason the latest contributor posts a reply somewhere in the middle of a discussion, before earlier posts, or I suppose if someone leaves a reply two years after an original discussion ended, either filling in the new response or the lone previously-unanswered comment from years back. ~ magbatz 00:58, 21 August 2012 (EDT)
  3. When an anonymous user leaves a name with their interpretation that is not associated with a user on tmbw, should that name be deleted and replaced with subst:Unsigned, should it be incorporated into a signature based on subst:Unsigned, or is there something else we could do with it?
    I have been making the name a link to the ip address's contributions. Like "--Matt 00:24, 22 November 2004" --Oldpinebox 18:05, 20 August 2012 (EDT)
    my solution was something along the lines of "--Matt (blah blah contents of subst:unsigned)". -Apollo (colloquia!) 19:33, 20 August 2012 (EDT)
  4. Should unknown authors get subst:Unsigned? can we put an #ifeq in the Unsigned template for "Unknown Author" so that it doesn't create a link? do you know what i mean?
    Yes, I was having to edit the links out later. --Oldpinebox 18:05, 20 August 2012 (EDT)
  5. Should we name topics ourselves? Interpretation 1, Interpretation 2, etc. gets pretty messy sometimes.
    It might mix up the sequential progression of an interpretations page, but I think it would look most helpful to group header-less interps at the top, and let the index box and headers start after them. ~ magbatz 00:58, 21 August 2012 (EDT)
    while that is a logical solution from our standpoint, i think from a regular reader's point of view, it might seem kind of arbitrary. plus, then the toc gets pushed down to a weird place, and one might not notice it's even there. -Apollo (colloquia!) 10:53, 17 September 2012 (EDT)
  6. Should we <pre> lyric examples? Block quote them? Bold them?
    gosh this is getting convoluted. -Apollo (colloquia!) 19:33, 20 August 2012 (EDT)
    In the context of interpretation pages? Unless the way some people are doing it is really obtrusive/distracting, I'd say leave them be. .... FWIW personally I've always been thrown off by <pre> tags in an interps page, but then I'm also not a great fan of TMBW's blockquotes. ~ magbatz 00:58, 21 August 2012 (EDT)
    yeah, i think as much original content as possible should be preserved...although, if interpreters did single, non-html line breaks between the lines, it might not hurt to give them a hand by inserting the <br />s. -Apollo (colloquia!) 10:53, 17 September 2012 (EDT)
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