Template talk:Certification Table Entry

Redundancy in captions

We need to remove the topic song or album name from the data table caption. The guidance at MOS:HEADERS says we should not be repeating the topic title in any data table captions. This is the change I suggest:

• Certifications for "Best song Ever"
• Certifications

Thanks in advance. Binksternet (talk) 18:08, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

@Binksternet: That text is not done by the template. All the template supplies is a |caption= field. Muhandes (talk) 17:07, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

So how do we remove the name of the album or song? Where is that sourced? Binksternet (talk) 17:09, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

It is done manually in each and every article in which it is used, the same way it is added manually to every chart table. In fact, the reason the |caption= field was added was for harmonizing with the single/album chart table, which uses similar captions. Since this is used in almost every music recording article we have, I think more community discussion is needed. Muhandes (talk) 17:14, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Discussion is underway at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Tables#Should_captions_be_mandatory_on_all_data_tables?

MOS:HEADERS is already clear about not having the song or album name in the caption. I have already removed hundreds of redundant captions, many from Taylor Swift and Rihanna pages in the last few days. The guidance follows our practice with section headings at MOS:NOBACKREF which says that we should not "redundantly refer back to the subject of the article". You are correct that this is used in a great many pages, which means a great many pages will need to be corrected. Binksternet (talk) 17:30, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Screen reader only template to reduce visual clutter

We should be following the guidance at Template:Screen_reader-only which talks about how it is redundant to have a section heading saying "Certifications" followed immediately by a data table caption saying "Certifications". We should be using the template to make the data table caption disappear for our sighted readers, to reduce clutter. The suggested change is as follows:

caption={{sronly|Certifications}}

Hope that's clear enough. Binksternet (talk) 18:21, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

See my response above. Since the |caption= field was added for harmonizing with the single/album chart table, and this kind of text exists in most of those tables, I think a much deeper community agreement is needed before this could be implemented. Muhandes (talk) 17:16, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

I already changed the guidance before seeing your response. Community agreement should not be required for the correction of longstanding mistakes. Binksternet (talk) 18:01, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't see MOS:HEADER mentioning screen reader. I don't think I am asking too much when I ask that you wait for community consensus on a matter which probably holds for hundreds of thousands of articles. Muhandes (talk) 18:31, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Belgium album certifications

While looking to verifiy the certification for Survivant, I found broken links on ultratop's website for album certifications. They are for 2002, 2004 and 2006. I sent them an email to see whether or not there were album certifications these years. MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 19:14, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

New Zealand certification using |source=book

For the New Zealand certifications, could we please make the |id= parameter optional (rather than required) when using |source=book.

The physical book doesn't actually have page numbers from pages 41–397 (which are the pages with the charting/cert information); essentially they're a ~350 pages-long table, with artists listed in alphabetical order, so a page number (which doesn't exist) also isn't essential for verification. Nil🥝 23:08, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

 Done Muhandes (talk) 14:26, 4 December 2025 (UTC)