Forum:When to use the "first" option in a song template box

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In our song template, we have an option to add the first or earliest known appearance of a song when it's a song that has been done more that once. I can't remember if we decided, as a community, how to handle it. When do we use it and when do we not?

I thought we were using it the same way we use the first and eka templates, but maybe I've been confused about that. Should we use them? Is it worth taking out of the template? —Scott (talk) 13:41, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

I thought it was there for insert pieces, like the way we track sketches with the EKA template. But to me, there's a difference between a song that really is intended to be used once vs. an insert song they intended to rerun. The grey area I guess is songs done a whole bunch of times like "Sing" or "I've Got Two," but something like "Tugboat Song" was intended just for the one episode and just happened to get reused in a few episodes later on. - Shane (talk) 16:31, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Okay, so the "first" denotes the first appearance of that exact version of the song, not counting remakes. Making it inapproproate to use on "Little Things" (for example) because that film was never repeated and the later occurances of the song are different performances. I'm cool with that if everyone else is. —Scott (talk) 17:12, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

I can see why we wouldn't want to use it when the songbox is adjacent to the article text which often describes it's first performance, when we feel like we're restating information. Some song pages have Performances table sections, as opposed to just article text, and there's a greater case for including the "first" in those instances, because otherwise readers have to scroll to that section learn when a song first appeared on the show. Not that we usually take mobile into account, but the songbox is positioned at the top. It's particularly important to the first performances of songs like "ABC-DEF-GHI" at the top, and I contend that whenever it's not mentioned in the first paragraph, we use the "first" in the songbox. — Jon (talk) 13:39, 17 January 2021 (UTC)