Template:Album ratings/doc

'Only add a rating if you cite it with a reference. For further information on sources, see WikiProject Albums. For the guide on transitioning from Infoboxes->AlbumRatings, see WikiProject Albums/Moving infobox reviews into article space'

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 a phrase like "unfavorable". 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 reviews at Metacritic it is convenient to use "MC=" in the template.

For reviews from Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide you may use the Christgau rating template. For example, entering  will render:. If no rating is given in the review you should use one of the words "favorable" or "unfavorable" to describe the review, possibly allowing for "ambivalent", "mixed", "extremely favorable" and more, but keep it short and simple. If you cannot summarize the review, don't include it in the template.

Please note that the minus sign character (−) is not the same thing as a hyphen (-).

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.

For example, entering



will render

and generate the following footnotes with the sources:

Syntax
Required fields:


 * rev#
 * the name of the reviewer, goes from rev1 to rev20. It is recommended to include no more than 10 reviews, but the template can support up to 20 for 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, goes from rev1Score to rev20Score.

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.
 * MC
 * Metacritic score
 * 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.