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Talk:List of concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach

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Contested deletion

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I have contested the speedy deletion tag placed on this redirect Concerto (Bach). This page should not be speedily deleted because... this situation is currently being discussed on my talk page (see diff here). Thanks. I feel that this will be satisfactorily resolved. --Steve Quinn (talk) 19:27, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No longer contested

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I removed the speedy delete tag on the redirect for an uncontroversial move by mistake. I misunderstood the circumstances. I retract the above statement. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 19:50, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 11 July 2017

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was:  Not done - this RM has been open for almost a month and the numerous options need discussing individually until a final proposal can be put forward. DrStrauss talk 12:25, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]


List of concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach → Concerto (Bach) – not a list. The (prospective) content of this page is what has been called "Bach's activity in the concerto genre", "Bach's involvement with the concerto genre", "(his) compositional engagement with the concerto genre", "Bach's preoccupation ... with the concerto style", "Bach's preoccupation with concerto form", "Bach's ... contribution to the concerto", (in German) "Johann Sebastian Bachs Konzertschaffen" and "Konzertschaffen Johann Sebastian Bachs" (which shows that separate scholarly articles and books have been published about this topic), etc., not a mere list. Francis Schonken (talk) 06:33, 11 July 2017 (UTC) --Relisting.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:48, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

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Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.
  • Support This move is logical. The page as it exists is not a list page. It is a mix of prose, a chart, a list here or there, more prose and so on. This is a typical main space "prose" page. Also, this page functions as a navigation page, which happens due to spin-offs. Just look at the templates directing to other "main" and "see also" pages. So, this is not a list page and the proposed title for the move is more than appropriate. The idea is these are navigation tools and prose for Bach's concertos, and not someone else's compositions, hence the name - Concerto (Bach). It is a good fit. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 04:57, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Further comment - I suppose this page can also be called a set index article. I prefer navigation page, but potato - pot-ah-to; six of one - half dozen of the other. As an aside, I think the discussion above should be moved to the below section entitled "Discussion". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steve Quinn (talk • contribs)
Re. "moved to ... below" – I'd avoid refactoring for the time being: it is usually more trouble than it's worth in a !vote/discussion, and it is not as if the comments are not germane to the expressed !vote. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:13, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you can't have them both – a set index article is something halfway between a dab page and a list, and Francis has already expressed an incentive to add more prose in this article, thus moving it further away from the list/SIA format. No such user (talk) 08:33, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Francis Schonken: no problem. @No such user: no problem. Let's see how this RFC goes. I think Francis has expressed a view that shows he knows what he is doing as pertains to the issues surrounding this page and Classical music composers. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 04:22, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Explain how Concerto (Bach) implies many concertos composed by and transcribed by Bach while Violin Concerto in A minor (Bach) implies a single piece of music by Bach. The form is exactly the same. There is no limit on how many violin concertos in A minor he could have written. Srnec (talk) 00:12, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
None of these titles "implies" in or by itself anything about the number of compositions: for comparison, String Trio (Schubert) and String Trio in B-flat major (Schubert) is about three known compositions, whatever way it is turned. Similarly Magnificat (Bach) explores what has been said about the "multiple" Magnificats the composer would have written, i.e. according to his earliest biographical records (see Magnificat (Bach)#Other Magnificats by Bach?).
The principle behind this is explained at WP:AT, e.g. at WP:AT#Conciseness: the goal of conciseness in article titling is "... to identify the topic to a person familiar with the subject area" (emphasis added). So if you're not familiar with the topic area, you'd never know how many violin concertos in A minor or Magnificats Bach (or Schütz) wrote, nor how many string trios Schubert wrote, and in which key(s). All you'd have to know (if not familiar with the subject area) is that whatever is commonly known as "Violin concerto in A major (Bach)" is explained at the page with that title, as well as whatever that is commonly known as "String Trio (Schubert)" is documented at that page. Again, the overarching principle of article titles in mainspace (as opposed to category space) is that generally, unless one is speaking about a definite set like Brandenburg Concertos, a singular article title never in and by itself "implies" that there's only one instance of whatever the name is. E.g. the article title Roger Taylor does not imply that there's only one single "Roger Taylor". --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:46, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think your interpretation of WP:AT#Conciseness matches broader consensus (and that particular wording has undergone several changes through history, and for a while it used to read something like to a person familiar with, but not necessarily an expert in, the subject area). I'm certainly somewhat familiar with Schubert's opus, but I really wouldn't know how many string trios he wrote; I'd consider that an expert knowledge. Thus, I claim that String Trio (Schubert) is mistitled as well, and to anyone familiar with our naming conventions indicates a single string trio, thus it should be named String trios by Schubert or like. For comparison, we don't have Tragedy (Shakespeare), or Comedy (Shakespeare) but Shakespearean tragedy and Shakespearean comedy. We can have a debate how best to balance recognizability and conciseness (whether to include the full author's name or just the surname, for example), but parenthetical disambiguation it is not. No such user (talk) 12:03, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Not impressed by the hair-splitting. For instance, I take the WP:AT policy as it reads today. If a prior version of that policy led to hair-splitting, and that old version obviously still does today, then I'm glad we got rid of that language, leaving me unimpressed by reasoning built on that discarded version.
I see clear article titles such as Shakespearean tragedy and Bach cantata, both singular, and conforming to WP:AT. Similar for chorale cantata (Bach), etc, and the proposed concerto (Bach). --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:26, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
For my part, I can assure you that non-impressedness is mutual (and not the first time, by the way). No such user (talk) 21:10, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Re. "...not the first time..." – no need to make this personal. I couldn't remember where we may or may not have agreed or disagreed before. Whatever that may have been, it should not have a bearing on the issue we're discussing here: let's keep prejudice of this kind far away from this discussion, as I already suggested above ("Don't worry about what I've been involved in or not ... [&c]").
I try to keep as close as possible to current article titling guidance. I'm not impressed by arguments based on obsolete guidance. I'd rather have it that way than the other way around. This is not a discussion about what we would have liked to be in the guidance but isn't actually there. The talk pages of these guidelines and policies exist for that purpose. Until if and when there is a consensus to change the guidance (back), we should go by the guidance as it is today. According to that guidance there is no problem whatsoever with concerto (Bach) for the proposed content (i.e. rather an overview than a list). --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:39, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. Stricken. Re the substantial issue: WP:CRITERIA lists Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness, and Consistency as five goals, stating that These should be seen as goals, not as rules. [...] It may be necessary to favor one or more of these goals over the others. This is done by consensus. Traditionally, they are weighed in that same order on RMs. Recognizability says that The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize and that's actually from where I remembered that wording. Naturalness says that The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for, and WP:PRECISION Usually, titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that.. Further, WP:NCDAB has Natural disambiguation is generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation; for instance mechanical fan and hand fan are used instead of fan (mechanical) and fan (implement). Titles like Concerto (Bach), although very concise, fail several other criteria:
Now, I don't have a strong opinion whether to use "Johann Sebastian Bach" or just "Bach" (would prefer the former for consistency with the main article, category, and articles on lesser authors), or whether to use "Works by Author", "Author Works", or "Works of Author", but I would like to see a broader consistency within the classical music domain, and it seems that "[List of] Works by Author" is the most broadly applied form. No such user (talk) 09:53, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Re. "Concerto (Bach) ... implies that it is about a single work named Concerto" (emphasis added): nah, nothing of the sort (see above). On the other hand:
  • Starting an article title with "List of ..." implies that the page is primarily a list, which is not what this page is about;
  • Ending an article title with "... by Johann Sebastian Bach" implies that the page is primarily about item(s) created "by" Johann Sebastian Bach, which is also not what this page is about.
"List of ..." and/or "... by Johann Sebastian Bach" may be highly recognisable, but if that is the case that would be for the wrong reasons. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:13, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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Any additional comments:
imho we're very far from any sort of serialisation (a.k.a. "consistency", 5th of the WP:CRITERIA). Neither is this individual RM a suitable instrument for working towards article title serialisation, which I don't think very well possible yet for "genre-by-composer" overview articles (as the wide variety of formats in the examples above illustrates). Even the little bit of direct guidance that is available on the matter (i.e.: preferably a full name after "by") isn't always followed. In other words:
Thanks for the analysis – so let us start a discussion there and try to forge a convention. Without one, we're going to go round in circles as on this discussion. No such user (talk) 12:00, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that I wrote "... serialisation, which I don't think very well possible yet for "genre-by-composer" overview articles ..." (emphasis added) means that I'm not "optimistic enough that a consistent article title format would be possible" in this context for initiating a discussion on it at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music) or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music (Don't let that stop you from being "optimistic enough" though). Such possible future discussion has however, for the time being, no impact whatsoever on the current RM (we'll have to do without it in the foreseeable future for deciding the matter at hand here), and I even seriously doubt there will be any influence on RMs or impact on the applicable guidance after such discussion has taken place. Take it from a regular contributor to such guidance. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:53, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
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