Talk:La traviata discography

List of Video Recordings

Concerning the List of Video Recordings, which presently lists all of two entries, a search at IMDb shows 23 listed entries, and a search at Amazon shows 24 listed entries (the first two pages displayed, without rummaging further down for additional Traviatas.

Is it worth even having this section on the page, with only two entries displayed?Milkunderwood (talk) 23:05, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, since the list can and will be expanded by interested editors, and some readers may be specifically looking for video recordings. Note that I have removed inappropriate meta-comments about where to find further recordings of each type from the actual text and put them in footnotes. Voceditenore (talk) 07:17, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Speaking only for myself, as a Wikipedia user I tend to start at the top of a page, and skim down looking for relevant information. I may or may not get down to footnotes ("references"), or to a "see also" section--usually not, for either of these. I understand that Wikipedia tries to follow a standardized format, but not infrequently I've discovered that crucial information is buried down in one or another of these bottom sections. I suspect that most other users tend to do the same as I, never getting down to the bottom notes. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:19, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

The following was added to my talk page by User talk:milkunderwood following a comment which I made on his talk page about the above posting:

At my talk page you said "The format is pretty well set now by the WikiProject Opera goroup's consensus, but feel free to join us and keep contributing to opera articles."

Actually, I just happened by the Traviata discography page, and at first assumed that even if incomplete it would be relatively comprehensive; and it seems to me this is a likely response by nearly every casual passer-by. That's why I bothered to add two CDs that I have, which if I had understood its extremely limited nature to start with, I would not have done.

In fact not only the Traviata page but apparently most such discography pages seem to be just mostly odds and ends of recordings that individual contributors think worth mentioning, for whatever reason.

Dare I say this is extremely misleading?

If it were me--which it is not, by any means--I think *every* such discography page ought to have a disclaimer *preceding* the listings, and then where possible to ref to any more comprehensive listings that can be found. Maybe you should discuss this problem with your WikiProject Opera Group.

Milkunderwood (talk) 01:51, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm back, after thinking about this a little more.

It seems to me that one question that might be useful for the Opera Project group to discuss is simply, what is the aim or purpose of having discography pages on Wikipedia at all?

If I'm ever looking for an audio performance, I start with Amazon.com, which more-or-less tries to keep in stock every single item in print or available in the US. Then I frequently also look at their sister sites--uk, fr, de, jp, etc. Of course some rare items are proprietary and offered only through their own websites.

I do the same thing for any videodisc, except in that case I usually start with IMDb.com.

If you type in "La Traviata cd" in a Music search at Amazon.com, it returns 1,443 results. Of course many of these are false positives, or duplications; but still...

And Amazon is not at all good at giving performance dates or other important information. But on the other hand you can immediately see how well their customers liked the various offerings.

So what, really, is the purpose of posting a very very few recordings in Wikipedia? I'm not suggesting there can be no purpose at all, but I think this needs to be discussed; and then clarified for the user who stumbles upon your various discography pages--hopefully, at the tops of the pages.

Milkunderwood (talk) 02:27, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Another edit: Frequently a true audiophile (which I am not) will want to know not only the cast, conductor and orchestra, and performance date, but also the venue if knowable, and just as important, the original issuing label. Old RCAs sound quite different from old Columbias, etc, which is why I bothered to footnote my Italian reissue of the public domain 1946 Rome performance as being a Columbia. Something else to take into consideration. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:00, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that this raises worthwhile points for discussion amongst Wikipedia: WikiProject Opera members. While we have a layout format here and agreement that the discographies are now called "Recordings" (as distinct from "Selected recordings", a term which was dropped some time ago because of what constituted "selected" and by whom "selected"), we do not have, based on consensus, a specific policy laid out for inclusion and how to reference or source the operas chosen.

As "voceditenore" points out, the list can be expanded by interested editors. I'd like to see discussion here and consensus established so that it can be put into the styles section. Viva-Verdi (talk) 17:55, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

An idea off top of my head: could we attempt to define a "notable recording"? A recording could qualify by certain routes, eg quantity sold; length of time in the catalogue; a citeable recommendation, by, say, The Gramophone magazine or by BBC Radio 3's "Building A Library"? almost-instinct 18:22, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but... See my comment below, about the relative expertise of this group as opposed to that of casual passers-by. Everyone is going to have their own opinions as to how "notable" a given performance is. Even if a column is specified for only 4+ star reviews at Gramophone, BBC, or Amazon, etc, I think enthusiastic users are likely to disregard this. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:55, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I just saw this discussion and thought I'd throw my two cents in. First, I personally feel these discography pages are the most valuable when they provide a complete listing of all commercially released recordings, be they in audio or video format. Visitors to these pages may have many reasons for coming here. For example, often times recordings are re-issued and its difficult to find out at amazon or other websites when a recording was actually made. These pages are helpful because we provide the original issuing date and label. Another example might be readers who are interested in historical recordings, which there is actually a large following of among opera fans. Conversely, others may want to find out information about newer recordings that have the benefit of improved recording technology. Those are just of few reasons people might visit discography pages.

In my opinion, a complete recording list should meet everyone's needs. There are actually a number of published books that attempt to provide complete recording lists with reviews, such as The Metropolitan Opera guide to recorded opera By Paul Gruber. Of course the Gruber book actually misses a number of recordings (particularly radio broadcasts that were decades later released commercially on CD). In fact I doubt any published work that has attempted to give a complete list of recordings of some of the more frequently recorded operas has actually successfully done so. The benefit of wikipedia is that we can utilize such sources and potentially actually create a more complete list than any other reference source. Sounds pretty useful to me.

A second point Almostinstinct raised was a question of notability. My experience is that pretty much all commercially released opera recordings, whether good or bad in reviews, have enough independent coverage to satisfy the requirements of Wikipedia:Notability (music)#Albums, singles and songs. Almostinstinct's suggested standard goes beyond wikipedia's standard for notability for articles, let alone lists which do not require the same level of criteria for an item in a list as opposed to an article on an individual album. Further, I dislike the idea of evaluating the notability of a recording based on good or bad reviews/quantity sold. Its too complicated and subjective of an approach to be of any real use; particularly since many opera recordings have been re-released numerous times on multiple labels.

Finally, I agree that incomplete lists are not ideal and therefore need work. However, the nature of wikipedia is that the majority of the encyclpedia's articles are less than ideal; otherwise every article would be a Featured Article or Featured List. The only thing to do is take the time to improve them. I think it would be good to add a lead to these lists and another possibility would be to write an overview of the recording history that would highlight some of the more notable recordings. It would require some excellent sourcing; but enough books have been published, such as the Gruber book, that it would be possible.4meter4 (talk) 16:58, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

re lists of recordings (both audio & video) in discography pages

I see my initial attempt at clarification has since been cleaned up; this is now much better.

Keeping in mind that Wikipedia is deliberately designed to encourage editing by any and all users regardless of their expertise, you also want to remember that on the one hand opera project members *do* have a level of expertise that casual passers-by may not. The result is that whatever criteria you may establish amongst yourselves will not be followed by the general public.

My thinking is that, first, whatever is done with La Traviata will need to be carried over to *all* operas for which a discography page has been set up.

Second, in theory, it would be pretty simple to compile fairly comprehensive lists of recordings, both audio and video, but in practice an enormous amount of work.

I had not previously been aware of the excellent UK operadis website. If this were my baby, and if I were willing to devote months of time to the project, I would first crosscheck the operadis listings against the current Amazon.com (US, simply because it's so much more comprehensive than co.uk, etc), and include *everything* that appears on *both* (not each) lists. Next, I would look back at operadis entries *not* shown as being currently available, and try to pick up some of those that seem to be of particular historical value.

This way, if you really are trying to compile useful discography pages for Wikipedia, you will come up with pretty comprehensive listings for audio discs.

Roughly the same thing could be accomplished for videos, by comparing IMDb listings with, again, Amazon listings.

Edit: But note that IMDb is pretty sloppy about including films of, particularly, classical music performances, including operas and ballets, and especially non-US films. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:34, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Obviously all this will be an incredible amount of time and effort. But I still think you need to ask yourselves, just what is the purpose of compiling discography pages in the first place, if you're going to leave them so catch-as-catch-can?

Looking at the present presentation of the La Traviata page, it still strikes me as purporting to be at least a somewhat comprehensive list, requesting users to see if they can help make it even more complete. And I still think this is dreadfully misleading. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:54, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

One simple inclusion criteria might be "X positive reviews in reliable sources" where X might range from 1 for little-known operas, or rather higher for others. An alternative might be "X reviews", with the reviews used to comment on the recording in the article. Shoemaker's Holiday ^talk 04:17, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that this would be getting far too complicated.

Note that on operadis, publications in which these recordings appear are listed in each entry. Typically, these include The Gramophone and High Fidelity. Viva-Verdi (talk) 14:08, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Milkunderwood "I still think you need to ask yourselves, just what is the purpose of compiling discography pages in the first place, if you're going to leave them so catch-as-catch-can?" Well that's the way WP works. These sections originated in information tacked onto the main articles, then split off to keep the originals focused. If anyone wants to expand them that's fine, but I'd advise against inventing complicated criteria for inclusion. I think that would be a waste of time. --Kleinzach 10:50, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree. The discographies are supposed to be comprehensive and (like all Wikipedia articles) a work in progress. The only thing I would exclude from them are compilations which contain extracts from full recordings already listed (or "Highlights" editions) and 'bootleg' off-air or in-house recordings which have not been subsequently released on a legitmate label. Care also has to be taken that the same recording isn't presented multiple times under its various re-issues. Within the main articles for the operas themselves, the recording section should not simply direct the reader to the discography page, but rather summarise the recording history and selectively highlight key recordings with references to support their selection. This has already been done in L'incoronazione di Poppea and La bohème. For more about these issues, see these discussions at WikiProject Opera in November 2009. Voceditenore (talk) 11:11, 31 March 2010 (UTC)