Template:Discogs artist/doc

The undefined template generates links to artist discographies at Discogs.com.

Usage
Code:

Note: This template has been changed to be more similar to Rolldabeats. That template usually works without any arguments for simple page names, and now this one does as well. The main difference is not to use plus signs for spaces.
 * For details on simple page names, see section.
 * For details on what's been changed, see section.

Instructions
If no artist ID is provided, then the first value from Wikidata will be used. If the Wikidata item does not have any data, or there is no Wikidata item for the article, then the article title will be used to generate a link.


 * 1) Find the appropriate artist at discogs.com.
 * 2) Copy the artist name from the web page content, not the URL. If they have a suffix such as (2), then copy that as well. Copy only the artist name. Sometimes Discogs has a blue link before the name, do not copy that.
 * 3) Add the following or similar code (see above) to the external links section:
 * Where "xxxxx" is the name you've copied and the link_name is the name you would like to display on the link. If the name you would like to display is different, use parameter 2 or named parameter "name". This template also provides legacy support for named parameter "artist" instead of parameter 1 (see section above) or omission of the parameters altogether for single-word artistnames in their own articles.
 * Where "xxxxx" is the name you've copied and the link_name is the name you would like to display on the link. If the name you would like to display is different, use parameter 2 or named parameter "name". This template also provides legacy support for named parameter "artist" instead of parameter 1 (see section above) or omission of the parameters altogether for single-word artistnames in their own articles.

Main article on a simple artist name
Most page names are simple. Try simple approach in preview mode and see if that works. If it doesn't, see section.
 * 1) For use in the article "Bjørn Torske", search for "Bjørn Torske" on discogs.com, and you will reach this page: http://www.discogs.com/artist/Bjørn+Torske
 * 2) Write:

The result is:
 * (which renders here with a link and linkname with name of the current page)
 * (which renders on Bjørn Torske with a link and linkname with name of that page)

Main article on an artist

 * 1) For use in the article "The Postal Service", search for "The Postal Service" on discogs.com, and you will reach this page: http://www.discogs.com/artist/The+Postal+Service
 * 2) Copy "The Postal Service" from the web page content (not the URL) and then write:

Note that there should be no spaces between the | character and the string. Spaces are fine for the named arguments:

The result is:
 * (which renders here with the linkname of the current page)

When you provide the appropriate second argument "name", you get:
 * (which renders on The Postal Service with the link and linkname of the current page)

(Previously, for the definitive article artist names, Discogs used "Postal Service, The" with URL "http://www.discogs.com/artist/Postal+Service,+The" naming scheme, but this has since been changed to the correct English language grammar.)

Article related to an artist

 * 1) For use in an article related to "The Postal Service", search for "The Postal Service" on discogs.com, and you will reach this page: http://www.discogs.com/artist/The+Postal+Service
 * 2) Copy "The Postal Service" from the web page content (not the URL), and then write:

Again, the named arguments version is

The result is:

(Previously, for the definitive article artist names, Discogs used "Postal Service, The" with URL "http://www.discogs.com/artist/Postal+Service,+The" naming scheme, but this has since been changed to the correct English language grammar.)

Usage note
This template is an external links template and should be placed in the "External links" section of a musical artist's page. You should add a * before the template text to include it as a list item.

What is a simple artist name?
Briefly, a simple artist name is an article's PAGENAME that, short of upper/lowercase issues, exactly matches what Discogs uses. For example, for Kari Wührer they spell her name Kari Wuhrer without the umlaut, so it's not a match. In MediaWiki there are several characters that make pagenames not simple. Among these are ampersand, single quote and double quote (& ' "). (For details, see here and there).

Both Wikipedia and Discogs add suffixes onto their names, but in different styles.
 * Wikipedia:


 * Wikipedia pages have suffixes such as "(band)" or "(musician)" which obviously will not match with Discogs.
 * Sometimes our pagename is fastidious, like the duo Morrissey–Mullen (with our use of en dash), Allmusic calling them "Morrissey & Mullen" and Discogs simply "Morrissey Mullen".
 * We also have a lot of separate pages with a suffix of "discography" for major artists where you will want to provide both parameters to get them to match and to look correctly, because this template says "discography" too, and the page should not say it twice.
 * Discogs:


 * Discogs always puts the "The" at the end of the band name, such as "Beatles, The" for The Beatles. That might at first seem excessive, but it helps them when sorting names and we do the same for our categories.
 * Discogs adds a suffix of a number in parenthesis such as (2) or (3) or more onto duplicate names. An example of mismatch in both cases is where what we call Kaleidoscope (UK band), that web site calls Kaleidoscope (2) or the much too common name Blue (Scottish band) and Blue (31).
 * Sometimes Discogs only uses a first name, whilst we use the whole name.
 * Either:


 * Sometimes we do not space the same. Wikipedia has H. P. Baxxter with a space between the initials and they do not have a space there.

2011 changes and notes
The template has been changed. Technically, it is now using URL encoding in the template (by means of ), we have to remove all plus signs. This task is about 80% complete. So far, we are only able to process the first two plus signs. That means that we still need to finish updating all the pages with page names longer than three words and remove the plus signs from the artist parameters. If this template does not work anymore on your favorite articles, then edit the usage and remove the plus signs "+", replacing them with spaces. If there is URL encoding (using percent signs "%" and hexnum hexnum), then change them back to the special characters they correspond to. The  is now done within the template code and should not be done in the parameters. Pagenames that have special characters such as ampersand, single or double quote, en or em dashes, or peculiar characters that we sometimes use might still require explicit parameters, but in many more cases you can just use the simple, no-parameter notation when calling this template.

When using the "no parameter" style, one will have to check after any sort of Wikipedia page rename and then update the template parameters accordingly. The same applies to translations in non-English-language wikis, such as Russian or Asian, that may use a mix of Western and native languages in their page names for Western artists, or transliterate the artist name.

Here is an example of some plain URLs that work properly:
 * http://discogs.com/artist/Ronski+Speed
 * http://discogs.com/artist/Ronski%20Speed

As a last example, we will have a plain, readable argument such as this for Girls' Generation in Korean:

The result is:

The previous design forced editors to diddle with URL encoding and often turned readable identifiers into opaque. After all, what Wikipedia editor really wants to look at this opaque string or to change a space to a plus there? Those strings are indeed database keys but they're not an id or a number, and they were not designed to be opaque. With this change, we are now close to truly multilingual support just like some other templates already are.
 * http://www.discogs.com/artist/%EC%86%8C%EB%85%80%EC%8B%9C%EB%8C%80

As of early 2011, there are a half-dozen foreign wikis that have imported this template. Only the German wiki has not yet completely applied this "URL encoding in the template" update.