Thanks in album credits

[Blaqthourne]

I know we're going for complete credits for albums, but when it comes to Thanks, some of them have several dozen people (and probably pets) given thanks to. Many of them are also friends and family members that have no other connection to the music industry, with some being named by only their first name (and likely some by their nickname). For these, it would seem to me to serve no purpose to include all of them and only make the credits unnecessarily bloated. How do we want to handle these?

[TheFantomConvoy]

Honestly, there's a lot of times where I wonder the same thing as well.
There's even some sections where it's not necessarily meant to be denoted as an actual credit, but just a word of appreciation.
In fact, there was one such album where the original name field (in the draft) was almost used outside of its proper purpose because of the artist's parents being listed but not directly by name (in the "deep thanks" section).
Honestly, what's even there now (at the end) looks like it has no business being there.

[TheFantomConvoy]

Wait, no, that isn't the album, it was something that @Nicolaas Hamman worked on at one time.
It had "Mom & Dad" listed there, and it was briefly suggested to use the original field for their real names, but as that is only for language differences it wasn't used.

[fusoxide]

Special thanks credits are quite ambiguous. They can range from absolutely nothing to an actual role like performance or engineering. Personally I don't see the problem with including absolutely everyone mentioned though, but I can understand why it is seen as bloated. While people mentioned in special thanks do often have no connection to the music industry, it's possible that they still provided feedback and/or encouragement than may have had an impact on an album's quality or even sound. You can never be 100% certain about their role unless explicitly confirmed by someone.

[Nicolaas Hamman]

Originally Posted by TheFantomConvoy

Wait, no, that isn't the album, it was something that @Nicolaas Hamman worked on at one time.
It had "Mom & Dad" listed there, and it was briefly suggested to use the original field for their real names, but as that is only for language differences it wasn't used.

The album I was working on was Architects of Change, but I did ask about it because I think Elena had used the Original Name field for the full names on that Ecco album you linked, but then fixed it later. But I may be misremembering, I didn't see it mentioned looking back on the old conversation.