How to get your band article on Wikipedia (and how to keep it there)

[dlloyd]

I don't know if there is any demand for this, but having been an admin on Wikipedia for the past few years, I've seen thousands of band articles and rescued a fair few that have been set for deletion. Most of these have been nominated for deletion purely because they were written by someone who was new to the project and didn't know the convention for writing articles.

Wikipedia has its faults but it has very quickly become the quickest way to find out basic information about a subject. Its potential as a promotional tool for bands has not been missed by many... hundreds of new articles about bands are created every week... and most of these get deleted within a few hours of being created.

When an article gets placed on Wikipedia, it automatically gets placed on a list of newly created pages (unless it was written by a well-established editor who has autopatrolled rights). This list is patrolled by an army of hundreds of volunteers who check whether the article should be there in the first place. Most band pages get rejected for one of two valid reasons:

1. There is no assertion of notability
2. The page is promotional

1 are typically articles that say "The Farts are a band from London" and little more. So what?
2 are typically articles that say "The Farts are a brilliant band whose album can be bought from www.Fartmusic.com"


[b]Notability[/b]

Notability is a key concept on Wikipedia. For band/musician pages, it basically means that the artist in question is demonstrably important enough to warrant a page on Wikipedia. Handily, Wikipedia gives us some guidelines on how to judge notability:

1. Has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, published works appearing in sources that are reliable, not self-published, and are independent from the musician or ensemble itself.
2. Has had a single or album on any country's national music chart.
3. Has had a record certified gold or higher in at least one country.
4. Has received non-trivial coverage in independent reliable sources of an international concert tour, or a national concert tour in at least one sovereign country.
5. Has released two or more albums on a major record label or on one of the more important indie labels.
6. Is an ensemble which contains two or more independently notable musicians, or is a musician who has been a member of two or more independently notable ensembles.
7. Has become one of the most prominent representatives of a notable style or the most prominent of the local scene of a city; note that the subject must still meet all ordinary Wikipedia standards, including verifiability.
8. Has won or been nominated for a major music award, such as a Grammy, Juno, Mercury, Choice or Grammis award.
9. Has won or placed in a major music competition.
10. Has performed music for a work of media that is notable, e.g., a theme for a network television show, performance in a television show or notable film, inclusion on a notable compilation album, etc.
11. Has been placed in rotation nationally by a major radio or music television network.
12. Has been a featured subject of a substantial broadcast segment across a national radio or TV network.

Criterion number 1 is the biggy... a couple of album reviews in national newspapers/magazines is usually more than enough to demonstrate notability. If you can demonstrate that a band ticks a couple of the other boxes, then even better.

Structuring the page

Page reviewers are often lazy. They're also usually impressed by articles that look like they're meant to be there, and there's a general structure you go by:

Infobox
Lead (introduction)
Contents
History
Discography
References

[b]Infobox[/b]

The infobox is a box that appears on the right of the page. They look good and are often enough to separate a self-penned article about a bedroom guitarist from a real, gigging band who really should be on Wikipedia (at least in a reviewer's mind). Here's an example

{{Infobox musical artist
|name = The Farts
|image = FartsLive.jpg
|caption = The Farts live in 2012
|background = group_or_band
|origin = [[London]], [[England]]
|genre = [[Electronica]], [[Barbershop music|Barbershop]]
|Formed = 2004
|years_active = 2004–present
|label = EMI
|website = [http://www.thefarts.co.uk]
|current_members = Joe Fart <small>- Vocals, Guitars, Synths </small><br>Jim Fart <small>- Programming, Synths</small>
|past_members = Tom Fart <small>- Cello</small>}}

"name" speaks for itself
"image" is a photo of the band... usually a live shot of the band is better than a pro photo, which can look a bit contrived. If you're a new editor on Wikipedia, you can't upload photos and will have to wait a few days to get that right.
"caption" is a caption to go under the photo
"background" defines the colour of the infobox... they're all the same for badn articles
"origin" where the band is from. Note the [[ ]] brackets... this is wiki markup, that links to another wikipedia article
"genre" a general idea of what the band sounds like. Note the [[Barbershop music|Barbershop]] link... this will link to an article called Barbershop music but will appear only as Barbershop in the infobox

etc

[b]Lead[/b]

The lead is a few sentences that sum up the rest of the article. The name of the article should be in bold in the first sentence. This is done by putting three inverted commas on either side of the bolded text:

'''The Farts''' are a [[Electronica|Electronic]] [[Barbershop music|Barbershop]] duo from [[London]], [[England]]. They are best known for their 2011 album, ''[[Fart Music]]'' which spent three weeks at number one in the UK.

There's a couple of links in there, which are adjusted for grammer's sake and you can see a pair of inverted commas around the album title... this sets italics.

[b]Contents[/b]

You don't need to worry about this, Wikipedia does this automatically.

[b]History[/b]

The next bit of wiki markup you need to know is headings... Main headings are indicated by pairs of equals signs:

==History==
The Farts were formed in 2004 by brothers Joe and Jim Fart. ... etc.

This section needs to be factual and to the point... no exageration or superlatives. Everything also needs to be demonstrated by references:

Their 2011 album, ''Fart Music'' was described as "the best album of the year" by the Daily Telegraph.<ref>
{{citation
|title = Fart Music (review)
|work = Daily Telegraph
|date = January 22 2011
}}
</ref>

That's a fairly basic reference... I'll expand on them later, if there's any demand.

[b]Discography[/b]: speaks for itself... one way to do this is as follows:

==Discography==
===Studio albums===
*''Fart Music'' (2011)
*''Silent but Violent'' (2009)
===Singles===
*''She's Like the Wind'' (2012)

etc. That gives a bulleted list in subheadings that looks good

[b]References[/b]: simple really:

==References==
{{reflist}}

This gives a list of references that are defined by the <ref> tags in the main body of text.

If there's any demand for it, I can expand on these tips and give others.

[Skol303]

I use Wikipedia a lot (as a consumer not a contributor) and found your insight very interesting!

Cheers for posting this

[MiltyG565]

Wow, fantastic! Thanks for posting that! And that gives me another idea for the relay

[waynepunkdude]

Yeah thanks for that, when I clicked on it I thought this was going to be some guy who kept on writting a Wiki page for his band and was wondering why it kept on being removed instead I got great insight.

[dlloyd]

Another tip is to place the following tag at the top of the page while you're still building it: {{Underconstruction}}

That'll stop it from being deleted before it's ready.

The other option is to build the article on your user page before putting it on its own page.

[Mr. Foxen]

Some bands write interviews and articles with themselves on their own webzine/webpage/ and release on their own diy record label and write their own wiki article linkig to them, and also have a PR agent that is themself, and their wiki page manages to stay up, whilst no-one on their actual local scene that they are apparently heard of has ever heard of them (although he once stood in my way when I was trying to get a cauliflower).

[dlloyd]

Absolutely... sometimes they last for years even when it's clear on closer inspection that it's just a bunch of school friends who jam in one of their parents' garages once a week, have never gigged, and their recorded output is limited to ten cds they've burnt and passed round their school.

The fact is, new page reviewers are often lazy or too inexperienced to know what they should be looking for and pass a page because it looks good... it looks like a Wikipedia article, with convincing looking references (albeit self-published) therefore they must be a notable band.

Sometimes, however, an article about what looks like a bedroom band that never got further than Myspace turns out to be about a band that existed for years, had a lot of press interest, a reasonably large following, reasonably extensive radio play, international tours, etc. But the article was written by an inexperienced editor who doesn't know the rules of the game (and it is a game) and reviewed by an idiot who doesn't think to check further than the end of his nose.

Conversely, there are bands that have a reasonable following and could or should fall into the second camp, but who don't realise that it is up to them to generate media interest. I've seen that a couple of times and managed to give bands very basic PR advice that has generated the references needed to keep the Wikipedia page.

One of the things that amazed me (in other fields) was how receptive local press particularly were to printing copy that you send to them. I was involved in a sports club for a few years that attracted large amounts of new members because we did the PR thing quite well. We got a lot of write-ups in local press because we wrote it ourselves and sent it with photos to the newspapers.

It's not particularly easy for a new band to get into mainstream music press like the NME unless you've already got a contact, but it's reasonably easy to get albums reviewed in smaller magazines and newspapers. Journalists like free stuff... identify a reasonably credible but local music magazine... examples would be The Skinny or The List (in Scotland) or Nightshift (in Oxfordshire)... most places should have an equivalent. See who reviews bands like yours and email them.... strike up a rapport, invite them to your gig and give them free copies of your album/single and they'll print something about you.

I've also watched as bands that started like that have become larger and broken into more mainstream media... people who write for the bigger magazines do pay attention to smaller press and tend to notice when a band's name is being mentioned every few weeks.

[Dave Vader]

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' timestamp='1371081649' post='2109723']
Some bands write interviews and articles with themselves on their own webzine/webpage/ and release on their own diy record label and write their own wiki article linkig to them, and also have a PR agent that is themself, and their wiki page manages to stay up, whilst no-one on their actual local scene that they are apparently heard of has ever heard of them (although he once stood in my way when I was trying to get a cauliflower).
[/quote]

I think I know that guy.

[MiltyG565]

Voted #1 new emerging group of 2013





[size=1]*by a poll we held on our website that only we voted in.[/size]