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September 23

Category:Composers for cello article

This list seems a bit short, i.e., Beethoven is not listed in the B section. He certainly wrote for the cello. But maybe this list is for composers who wrote solo cello works, but that is not indicated. There is no talk page for this article. 72.225.207.232 (talk) 17:14, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Category pages are special pages that are treated differently than main articles (that's why they have no talk pages). The list of cello composers shown is dependent on the category tag being added to the composers' articles. There is more information at Help:Category --Thomprod (talk) 20:32, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

They most certainly DO have talk pages. But they're not used as much as article talk pages. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:48, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I checked some other 'Composers for <instrument>' categories, and a lot of them are rather poorly populated. For example category:Composers_for_clarinet only includes two composers that I've never heard of, and omits Mozart and Brahms, who both wrote important clarinet works. (In contrast, Category:Composers_for_carillon has 22 members.) As you suggest, it's not clear what the criteria for inclusion should be, but feel free to tag composers' articles with the relevant categories if you think they apply. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 21:29, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Are there well known solo cello compositions other than the Bach suites? 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:DDAF (talk) 08:56, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We have List of solo cello pieces, but some (most?) of those are actually for cello and piano. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:23, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The OP has made the common mistake many people presume when they read Wikipedia. There's a presumption that Wikipedia was created, fully formed, at some indeterminate time in the distant past, and therefore there is a presumption that any mistake should have been already dealt with. In reality, Wikipedia is currently in the process of being created by random people on the internet who meet two criteria 1) They find something missing or wrong or that needs fixing at Wikipedia and 2) They fix it. That is literally it. There is no higher authority to appeal to. There is no one to ask to fix something. There is no one whose job it is to respond to mistakes that other people report. Literally, there is no one who is responding here who has more authority to fix the problem than the OP. There are people here (myself included) who 'could' fix it, if we were interested in doing so. The OP, however has an advantage over all the rest of us. They have already expressed an interest in seeing the text fixed. You're halfway there if you have such an interest. That's the bigger hurdle to overcome, which is caring enough to want it fixed. The easy part is just fixing it. --Jayron 32 11:40, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As Thomprod has said, for Beethoven to appear in Category:Composers for cello, someone would have to add this category to the Beethoven article itself. Warning: someone might then quite likely come along and remove it because they think this is not a WP:DEFINING characteristic for Beethoven – doubting that reliable sources commonly and consistently define Beethoven as being a composer for the cello.[1] Why do we have such a foolish guideline? Because by chance it was decided years ago and it has fossilised. Better would be to have an article along the lines of List of piano composers but sadly we do not have a List of cello composers so one would have to be created. Thincat (talk) 15:39, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed this issue in the past and it definitely should be discussed at WT:CLASSICAL or WT:COMPOSERS. The categories can be divided into three groups: "made significant contributions to the repertoire for [insert instrument]" (Category:Composers for theremin, Category:Composers for viola or Category:Composers for the classical guitar), those where prominence is not a requirement (Category:Composers for pipe organ, Category:Composers for harp or Category:Composers for bandura), and those with no description on the category page (just Category:Composers for flute). Toccata quarta (talk) 14:26, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]