Template:Album chart/doc

This template is used to cite sources in Wikipedia. It is specifically for albums. A similar template for use when citing sources for musical singles can be found at Template:Single chart; however, for EPs or other releases, it has not yet been developed.

In general, the template expands to produce a table row with the information country, record chart, reference, and peak position for the given album on the particular chart. Tables of such information are commonly used in Wikipedia articles on singles, albums, discographies and artists.

This template does not verify any positions or chart appearances. It primarily provides a reference URL believed to be associated with a reliable source for a recognised chart. The reference URL itself is also not checked. Entering an incorrect or alternative spelling of an album title can produce a bad link, for example. Individual editors will need to follow the URLs generated by the template to verify their usefulness before walking away from an edited article.

Usage
Following, the most common parameters used on the template:



Following, the parameters for any Billboard chart:

Following, the parameters for any UK chart (except for the main UK parameter and UKZobbel):

Manual referencing
If the following situations arise: Then a manual reference might be needed. When manual referencing is activated, the user must provide the and, and may additionally provide , , ,  and (if specially relevant) , just like on the  template, to add a different source than the commonly used by.
 * 1) The album name contains special characters that the parameter doesn't handle correctly and returns an URL error.
 * 2) When the template will be used for year-end charts instead of weekly charts.
 * 3) When the chart position is retrieved from a source other than the default by such as Billboard's Chart Beat or Allmusic (remember that all sources must be reliable).

To activate manual referencing, write an "M" as the third parameter of the template, after the country name and chart position, as this: And it will show in a table as this: , or.
 * publish-date: Date of publication of the reference generated by the template, in the same format as other dates in citations in the same article. Optional parameter.
 * access-date: Date that the reference generated by the template was retrieved to determine peak position (i.e., last date an editor verified this citation). Should be in the same format as other dates in citations in the same article. Optional parameter.
 * refname: Enables you to specify a name for the reference generated by the template. If no value is provided for refname the default reference name (in the form ac_Chartid_artist) will be used. A reference with a name can be reused for claims elsewhere in the article. Optional parameter.
 * refgroup: Enables you to specify a name for the reference group. Optional parameter.
 * rowheader: An optional statement to identify the cell that contains this template with scope=row. This should be present in almost all cases.

Billboard charts
Billboard charts all require the artist name. Special characters should be omitted from the artist's name to be passed correctly into the URL. For example,
 * is the syntax for citing a number 1 position on the Billboard 200 for P!nk.

The reference generated by the template will point to the following URL: http://www.billboard.com/music/pnk/chart-history/billboard-200.


 * Entering the artist name as "P!nk" will produced an invalid URL (http://www.billboard.com/music/p!nk/chart-history/billboard-200).

Music DVD charts
The following Chart IDs are for Music DVDs. These are different from Live albums and some charts defines them separately. The editor must be extremely careful with the naming when using some of the following IDs.

Example with dummy data
Since this template produces only individual rows within a table, you will need to add (or already have) the table's framework in the article. Here is an example table with its corresponding output:

Expands into:

Example with realistic data
Example using chart data from Homework (Daft Punk album):

Expands into:

Tracking category
This template will automatically categorize articles:
 * – articles with invalid chart names
 * – articles with unsupported parameters
 * "Album chart usages for X", where X is the chart identifier. This is used to keep track of template usage and to ease maintenance. See . Note that alternate names are not handled gracefully, that is, each identifier is categorizes separately.