Template:Album ratings/doc

Instructions
This template provides a brief summary and overview of the critical consensus of album reviews. It is used to display only brief and objectively-verifiable ratings given to an album, such as "", "B+", or "7/10". It cannot capture the general sense of a review that does not include any kind of scale, so do not include language like "Very favorable" or "(mixed)" in the template, as this would be original research.

The template is not to be a substitute for a section in paragraph form, since a review can not be accurately boiled down to a simple rating out of five stars or other numeric score. If an article is lacking a reception section in prose, but the information is presented in table format, the yes parameter can be used to tag the article as needing a reception section in prose.

This template is generally the first element after the heading for the section on Reception, Critical reception, Reviews, or something similar. If one of those sections is not present, the template should be placed immediately after the infobox, and can then be moved once a Reception section is present.

The reviews should be listed alphabetically in the Reviews field. The information in the reviewer field should be the name of the source (most commonly an online music service like AllMusic, or a music magazine like Rolling Stone—note that magazines are italicized). Don't forget to wikilink to the relevant article.

The information in the score field should be the rating given in the review (e.g. 4/5). The rating should use the same format as in the review, to accurately portray the score of the review. For star ratings you should use the star rating template; for example, entering, will render:.

For reviews at AllMusic it is convenient to use the AllMusic template.

For review aggregators AnyDecentMusic? and Metacritic it is convenient to use the fields ADM and MC in the template, respectively.

For reviews from Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide you may use the Christgau rating template. For example, entering  will render:.

Note that the minus sign character (−) is not the same thing as a hyphen (-), so "B–", not "B-". They appear similar but you can use the proper character by inputting &amp;minus; or using the Insert menu that is available in the editing window on Wikipedia; it is located near other such arithmetic operators like <×> and <÷>.

After the rating should be the citation of the source of the review. Per Citing sources do not add reviews without a citation. This means a properly formatted footnote, in most cases providing the author, date, and source, along with an external link if available. Do not use an embedded link with no information (e.g. link) as this promotes link rot and is inconsistent with Wikipedia's policy on embedded links. If you must use an embedded link, be sure to manually provide a full citation in the article's References section per Wikipedia:Citing sources.

Parameters
Required fields:


 * rev#
 * The name of the reviewer. It is recommended to include no more than 10 reviews, but you can add more in exceptional circumstances. For instance, a particularly popular album which has been re-released and has several prominent reviews over decades' time.
 * rev#score
 * The rating given by the reviewer.

All of the following fields are optional:


 * title
 * Can be used to provide a custom title for the table, otherwise, it will default to "Professional ratings".
 * subtitle
 * Used to add additional text before the collapsible section. This is necessary to add if want a longer title, as long titles via the "title" parameter will not center correctly.
 * width
 * Sets the width of the table; default is 24.2em, to match the width of the album infobox in most browsers and skins.
 * ADM
 * AnyDecentMusic? score.
 * MC
 * Metacritic score.
 * aggregate#
 * Name of a review aggregator.
 * aggregate#score
 * The rating given by the review aggregator.
 * noprose
 * Should only be used for articles that do not have a Reception section summarizing the reviews. If set to yes, will categorize articles into Category:Articles with album ratings that need to be turned into prose.

Example
For example, entering



will render

and generate the following footnotes with the sources:

Template data
{	"description": "This template creates a table with reviews for albums. Only add a rating if you cite it with a reference. The template is not to be a substitute for a section in paragraph form.", "params": { "rev1": { "label": "First reviewer", "type": "string", "required": true, "description": "The name of the first reviewer." },		"rev1score": { "label": "First reviewer's rating", "type": "string", "required": true, "description": "The rating given by the first reviewer. " },		"rev2": { "label": "Second reviewer", "type": "string", "description": "The name of the second reviewer. More reviewers can be added with parameters in the format rev[#] (the next one would be rev3). It is recommended to include no more than 10 reviews, but more can be added in exceptional circumstances." },		"rev2score": { "label": "Second reviewer's rating", "type": "string", "description": "The rating given by the second reviewer. More ratings can be added with parameters in the format rev[#]score (the next one would be rev3score). It is recommended to include no more than 10 reviews, but more can be added in exceptional circumstances." },		"title": { "label": "Table title", "type": "string", "description": "A custom title for the table, replacing \"professional ratings\"." },		"subtitle": { "label": "Table subtitle", "type": "string", "description": "Additional text before the collapsible section. This is necessary to add if you want a longer title, as long titles in the \"title\" parameter will not work right." },		"width": { "label": "Table width", "type": "string", "description": "The width of the table." },		"MC": { "label": "Metacritic score", "type": "string", "description": "The Metacritic score. Appears under the \"Aggregate scores\" header." },		"noprose": { "label": "Article lacks prose section", "type": "string" },		"ADM": { "label": "AnyDecentMusic score", "description": "The AnyDecentMusic? score. Appears under the \"Aggregate scores\" header.", "type": "string" },		"aggregate1": { "label": "First review aggregator", "description": "The name of the first review aggregator.", "type": "string" },		"aggregate1score": { "label": "First review aggregator's rating", "description": "The rating given by the first review aggregator.", "type": "string" },		"aggregate2": { "label": "Second review aggregator", "description": "The name of the second review aggregator.", "type": "string" },		"aggregate2score": { "label": "Second review aggregator's rating", "description": "The rating given by the second review aggregator.", "type": "string" }	},	"format": "block" }