User:Chubbles/How to get your article written
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Right now, there are tens of thousands of requested music articles on Wikipedia. In fact, at the current rate of requests, there are many more being added than being written; the list only gets longer. It's very hard for us to tell which ones are worth writing, and wading through the requests is a formidable task. That means that it could be a very long time (up to several years) before anyone takes a look at the request you've made. Here are some ways you can potentially get your article written a lot faster!
[edit] What not to do
- Include links to MySpace, Last.fm, Purevolume, or other promotional/networking sites. This does not help us find anything out about the band that we can use in the article, because they are not reliable sources that establish the band's Notability. Since any band can put up a MySpace page, linking to that page does not help us figure out whether they really deserve an article or not - and, perhaps unfortunately, but perhaps not, it is the case that only artists that are in some way well-known (defined by these standards) can have an article. Once the page is written, you can add these links to it.
- Include a link to the artist/band's official website. If the name of the band is March of the Festering Corpses, and their official website is http://www.marchofthefesteringcorpses.com, we will see this when we do a Google search. We always do a Google search before writing an article. Including a link to the official website is only helpful if the site is not immediately obvious: if the band's name is, say, Chalk Sister, and their website is http://www.zhq.ru/narodnii, then it would be worth adding the link. The point here is that what we really need is some meat for the article - some reliable sources that establish that the group is really worthy of a Wiki page.
[edit] What to do
- Make sure you add the name as a redlink. If you want to put in a request for a band called Fred Astaire, and you request an article for Fred Astaire, we might not notice, and just remove the blue link. Make sure you enter it as Fred Astaire (band). However, take care not to unnecessarily disambiguate. This is key, because if you ask for an article on Jan Garber, but you write his name as Jan Garber (bandleader), it'll take a while before anyone notices that he already has an article.
- Give a short description of the artist. Helpful information includes birth and death dates or decades of activity, genre categories, country/state/province of origin, record label, other associated acts that have Wikipedia articles, any major awards the group has won, and any record chart information from any country in the world. Because people tend to request articles about artists that are very recent, we tend to give more weight to requests about pre-1990s music.
- Link to the artist's All Music Guide page! This is probably the most helpful thing you can do, if the artist has an entry. If the artist has a Biography, or Chart Positions, listed on the Allmusic page, this makes it much more likely that we will be able to fulfill your request.
- Link to articles from Wikipedias in other languages. This is another surefire way to make us sit up and pay attention, especially if the artist already has an article on more than one other Wikipedia. It's not always the case, but often, if an artist has a bio on another Wikipedia, they may need one here, too. You can also request that the foreign language article be translated, on this page. Sometimes it will be translated in a few days, sometimes it takes months.
- Link to news articles about the band. Any kind of press coverage, or books that mention the band, help us get a foothold on an article. The more the better. Mind you, posts from blogs aren't much good for reliable sources, but any kind of newspaper article, writeup in a music magazine, or coverage (album reviews, spotlights, etc.) from reasonably well-known online music sites (Discogs, PopMatters, Pitchfork Media, Absolute Punk, Alternative Addiction, Jesus Freak Hideout, Blabbermouth.net - these are all good starts, and there are many more) will help us see that your artist stands out.
