Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Archive 16

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Life of Franz Liszt

This article appeared on 9 September. It was created by Jonyungk "with detailed bio info moved from main Franz Liszt article."

Are there any precedents for this kind of article? I understood that biographies concentrated on 'the life' and we split off sections listing works, special topics etc. Is it a kind of parallel text, duplicating the main article? Any thoughts about this? --Klein zach 07:34, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

This split is unwarranted. We should revert it back forthwith. While we're at it, do we really need Beethoven and C minor as a split? Although this is an article penned by Opus, I am unsure if it is really warranted. Eusebeus (talk) 15:53, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

There was consensus that Franz Liszt was much too long (>300k bytes) and that something had to be done to trim it down and make it more readable. Rather than axing major portions and consigning them to a black hole, user:Jonyungk apparently opted for breaking out those portions into separate articles, such as Life of Franz Liszt.

Franz Liszt is much better for it now, while still giving a sufficient amount of info on Liszt's life. Unless a better alternative is offered, I suggest that the present arrangement be kept and that more portions of Franz Liszt be broken out into separate articles.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 14:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The biography section of Franz Liszt is about 4,000 words. The biography of the Life of Franz Liszt is about 13,000. The problem for me here is duplication and the development of parallel texts. Splitting the article is not an issue. That's a normal WP process. Any of the later sections can be split, e.g. Musical Works and Literary works. However I haven't been a contributor to this article. Perhaps it would be possible to hear from those who have worked on it? --Klein zach 16:40, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Once the biography section of Franz Liszt was transferred to Life of Franz Liszt, the biography section of the main article was greatly overhauled, in many cases completely rewritten as well as severely condensed, using Humphrey Searle's Liszt entry in the New Grove First Edition as a guide. Jonyungk (talk) 17:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I strongly support this split. This is no different than any other WP:SS split, and has been very helpful in keeping the main Liszt article to a reasonable size. Many biographies do this, often for certain parts of the subject's life, but occasionally for their entire life as opposed to their works or legacy - see e.g. John Paul II , Beethoven (though this is somewhat confusing because it puts his works in the life subarticle, which I don't really follow). The choice in the Lizst article is really between losing this information (because it was way too much) or keeping it in a subarticle, which is consistent with the wikipedia preference for preserving information. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Why shouldn't the 'life' be the main article? --Klein zach 14:46, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Why should it? Jonyungk (talk) 06:06, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Access. Easy access for the reader. --Klein zach 03:32, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

There is a precedent for the split—namely, Life of Sergei Rachmaninoff, which is separate but linked to the main Sergei Rachmaninoff article for the same reason (namely, space for covering his life and accomplishments). Jonyungk (talk) 16:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify: do you support having more than one article on the same subject? --Klein zach 00:13, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Your question obfuscates the subject(s)—namely, a main article in WP:summary style on Liszt's life and (considerable) achievements and a linked, detailed article on his life. My answer should have already been obvious. Jonyungk (talk) 06:06, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

If you prefer, Life of Franz Liszt could always be deleted entirely. Jonyungk (talk) 06:59, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

We are not talking about deleting any information - unless it appears twice. This is about the organization of the articles - which should be for the convenience of the readers, not for the convenience of the editors. --Klein zach 07:46, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Granted. The split was made for the convenience of readers, some of whom might want just a summary of Liszt's life as opposed to others who may want more detail. Jonyungk (talk) 15:46, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

"Might want"? Yes it's possible, but why prioritize a hypothetical group over the ordinary reader? The ordinary reader simply wants straightforward access to the information, located where he expects it. The Life of Franz Liszt is an anomaly, and anomalies by definition create a weakness in the structure of the encyclopedia. --Klein zach 03:31, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

No, most readers also will want an overview of his technique/performances, an overview of his work, and an overview of his legacy. These are also important components of the main article. A chronological account of an artist's life is but one part of an appropriate encyclopedic biography. Calliopejen1 (talk) 12:44, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Kleinzach, the article Life of Franz Liszt is very well-written and cited in an appropriate manner; I don't see anything wrong about it. Merging the two articles by this point seems unrealistic. I'm not an expert at Wikipedia policy but there should be nothing wrong with multiple articles on the same topic. The main article is much more manageable. I oppose a merge per above. — Andy W. ^{(talk/contrb.)} 21:19, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Andy, no-one is criticizing the content. The problem is the organization. WP is wikilinked so multiple articles on the same topic are redundant, see WP:Merge "Merging and moving are two fundamental aspects of how articles are developed, structured, and reformed on Wikipedia. A merger is a non-automated process by which two similar or redundant pages are united on one page. . . There are several good reasons to merge a page: 1. Duplicate - There are two or more pages on exactly the same subject and having the same scope." --Klein zach 01:03, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

But the point is that they don't have the same scope, one is giving a brief overview of the main points of his life, the other is giving a more detailed treatment since it doesn't also have to give space to other information, per WP:Summary style. For a non-musical example, look at someone like Keith Miller. David Underdown (talk) 09:22, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The main article should absolutely include a comprehensive biographical treatment: that is common sense and standard encyclopedic organisation. To split the biographical treatment into a separate article was likely well-intentioned, but ultimately a misjudged enterprise. I agree with Kleinzach above and suggest that material be merged back. If we wish to establish broad consensus that biographical details will routinely be treated in a "Life of ..." Article for all composers as a matter of organisational course, that is another matter, but the issue should obviously be discussed centrally. It would be helpful if other project members would add their opinion on this matter. Eusebeus (talk) 15:46, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Opinion stated above. Not all composers are notable enough for a "life of" article, but the amount of info that's encyclopedic will warrant "split" articles. Just my opinion. — Andy W. ^{(talk/contrb.)} 21:19, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Remember what caused this: a glacial deluge of an article that sent readers away screaming and tearing their hair in terror. (I exaggerate, but only a little.) The treatment of article splits is not so cut and dried, it seems to me. If you look at Atom, a Featured Article and the poster child for how things should be done, I find that there is considerable overlap between Atom, Atomic Theory, and Atomism. If even one of the most-reviewed articles on Wikipedia cannot come up with a perfect, internally consistent, non-redundant solution, then how are the few people working on Franz Liszt supposed to do it? My vote goes towards continuing along the route taken by Jonyungk and Calliopejen1. One main article with a high-level overview giving the most important facts, with sub-articles only one mouse click away for those wanting to know more.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 19:02, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Hark to Goodmorningworld (no sarcasm, no joke). I couldn't say anything here without basically echoing him. — $PЯINGεrαgђ 00:01 19 September, 2008 (UTC)

I have to pretty much also agree with Goodmorningworld. Liszt's life was very, to put it bluntly, colorful. He practically had three separate careers, each of which can have much info...so a "life of" article in HIS case is appropriate. It's not for all composers, but we have to take each topic on its own terms. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 12:17, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Infobox

Hello

Recently I've been browsing quite a few articles on composers and was shocked to find that there are infoboxes. I would be happy to make one for you based on the musical artist infobox. An example of what it might look like is on the right.

What do you think? Would this be useful to you? —PolishName 19:30, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Polishname -- thank you for the effort you put into this. There's a link above (Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Composers/Infobox_debates) to just some of the old debates on this issue. Basically, the majority of project participants (including me) oppose adding infoboxes to articles for reasons explained in detail in the various debates, including but not limited to the impossibility of getting the infobox to present a nuanced interpretation of matters such as birth, "floruit", death, nationality, period, instrument, occupation, famous works, -- that is, everything. Infoboxes may be pretty, but most of us believe they compete against the article and present an oversimplified, dis-informative alternative for lazy readers. Hope this helps, and I do appreciate your good faith and work in creating the sample box. Best, Antandrus (talk) 19:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Oops, think I missed that link. OK, well, thanks for your comments. I've removed the test box so it doesn't mess with your talk page every time I update my sandbox! —PolishName 12:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Composers

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:26, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This is the selection: Aaron Copland, Alexander Scriabin, Antonio Vivaldi, Arthur Sullivan, Bradley Joseph, Claude Debussy, Composer, Dmitri Shostakovich, Edgard Varèse, Edvard Grieg, Frank Zappa, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Freddie Mercury, Frédéric Chopin, Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frideric Handel, George Gershwin, Giacomo Puccini, Gioachino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi, Gustav Holst, Gustav Mahler, Hector Berlioz, Igor Stravinsky, Isaac Albéniz, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, John Adams (composer), John Cage, John Philip Sousa, Joseph Haydn, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Leonard Bernstein, Ludwig van Beethoven, Nobuo Uematsu, Paul McCartney, Peter Abelard, Philip Glass, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Richard Wagner, Roy Orbison, Tōru Takemitsu, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. --Klein zach 03:49, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Classical music

The portal - which I guess is shared by this project - has been refurbished by Jay who has asked for suggestions for boxed articles and other content, see here. Best. --Klein zach 08:24, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

DNB article on John Blow

Today John Blow is the featured biography at DNB. You can get this detailed article here: http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/lotw/1.html. I am sure it will help you expand this article. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 13:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Peter Anton Kreusser/Kreüβer

I think Peter Anton Kreusser is a junk article. Google's never heard of him (beyond the cruft that's on that page). Anybody heard of him? Magicpiano (talk) 01:46, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

This one and a series of inter-related edits were made by Rachelclarke6062 in February. They look pretty dubious, and the references would be difficult to check. I'll prod it as non-notable. Perhaps someone will rescue it and make sense of it? --Klein zach 02:15, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe the term you're looking for is hoax. It's certainly not 'cruft'. Considering the link doesn't have anything to do with the person, I'd wager you're indeed right to call attention to it. The only Google hits even taking Wikipedia out seem to be stemmed from this article. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:19, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Both of those observations were why I figured I'd ask the question. (It was one of the odd things that List of German composers had in it...) Magicpiano (talk) 02:37, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Peter Anton Kreusser seems real enough to me:

and the link to the British Library in the article.

His cousin, Georg Anton Kreussler, seems slightly more notable: he's got an entry in Grove: "Edith Peters. "Kreusser, Georg Anton." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/15525."

The article's creator seems to have done some research on Kreusser's family, it's just rather poorly documented. Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:04, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

My prod was removed by DGG but with no editing. Perhaps if someone is willing to add some solid information about his compositions we can have a viable article? Unfortunately the creator of the article was interested in his family connections rather than his work as a composer. --Klein zach 10:23, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Assessments/B-class

This project has made some tentative steps towards assessments. Officially the Assessment page says:

Important note, 18 June 2008

As preparation for a potential scheme of article assessment by Project members, articles with the Project banner on their Talk pages have been automatically given a rating of Stub, if the article has a Stub template.
Some other articles have been individually rated by editors.

Can we now consider going forward, albeit cautiously, on this? I realize that many people are less than enthusiastic about ratings, but some minimal cooperation with 'the system' may help the project avoid external interference.

My suggestion is to introduce assessments for Class B only. At the moment there are 59 of these, so I think it's do-able. (Assessments above B-class are done through peer review on a WP-wide basis).

I also suggest that we remove the recently-invented Class C from the project scheme. IMO it's an unnecessary addition and complication. (I believe some other projects have also done this.)

This would mean changing the note on the Assessments page, as follows:

Composers Project ratings are as follows:
FA, FL, GA when one of those statuses have been awarded

B by short written assessment

C not in active use by the project

Start nominal (unwritten) assessment

Stub when the article has a Stub template

P.S. I also have some proposals for carrying this out if and when the above (or similar) is agreed. --Klein zach 01:52, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea. It's best if we do the assessment job rather than leaving it to those less familiar with our area.

It seems that numerous composers still need the project template on the talk page; for example, I can think of at least three composers offhand that are featured-class but not showing in our featured category (Witold Lutoslawski, Olivier Messiaen, Josquin des Prez -- and there's probably more). I've been trying to remember to assess my own articles as I finish them, giving them "B" if I've written them as far as I can go using Grove and one or two other sources, and "start" if I know there's a lot more that can be included, but since there are several hundred of those, most of those were Wikiproject Biography assessments. Many of those "B" assessments were upgrades of "start" or "stub" that some drive-by assessor rubberstamped there, often at a rate of three or four per minute, during the summer 2007 "contest", most likely on seeing that the article lacked a disinfobox or photograph, or whatever. In my admittedly prejudiced opinion (I prefer assessments to be done by people who know something about the topic) we still have a lot of damage to repair from that odious affair. But I agree with you, Kleinzach, that if these assessments are to have some validity we should do them ourselves. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 02:31, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

We could do a bot run to check for articles that haven't been marked up properly like Josquin des Prez. (The question of which articles should bear the Composers banner is complicated by the overlap with Contemporary music. I don't think this should be a problem but perhaps we need to talk about this under a different topics heading?) --Klein zach 02:53, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I doubt it is a problem -- this project only includes articles about a single person who composes music, right? Some of them are also in the domain of the contemporary music project, but there is a lot of overlap between projects. Does it affect anything that I am missing? Antandrus (talk) 03:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

No, it shouldn't be a problem (other than talk page clutter) if the projects are using the same guidelines - but anyway this is really to get agreement on assessments . . . --Klein zach 03:32, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

As there have been no further comments I am putting the text suggested above onto the Assessment page. --Klein zach 13:51, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Problems with {{Composers}} banner

I spot several problems with the current Talk page banner: {{Composers}}

Namely:

(1) It's not grammatical: articles of music Composers and Songwriters doesn't make sense.

(2) What does "Songwriters" have to do with "Composers"?

Please fix. Thanks very much in advance.

I also suggest that the wording be changed to the following, or something like it:

XXX is within the scope of Composers WikiProject, which aims to improve, expand, cleanup, and maintain all articles related to classical composers. Please read the guidelines for writing and maintaining articles. WikiProject Composers is also a place for editors of biographical articles of classical composers to discuss common issues, discover neglected composer articles and exchange ideas. All who are interested are invited to comment and contribute. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.

Softlavender (talk) 22:38, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

In reply: (1) the text reads "editors of biographical articles of music Composers and Songwriters". This makes perfect sense to me. (I'd probably use 'about' rather than 'of' and the capitalization of 'Composers and Songwriters' is perhaps unnecessary.) (2) a 'Songwriter' is a composer of songs. It's a common English word.

What do other people think. Does this need editing? --Klein zach 22:59, 14 October 2008 (UTC) P.S. Regarding the proposed new wording. Using the usual "is within the scope of" might be a good idea, but I would be against using the last sentence ("To participate, . . .") which I think is misleading - also the version doesn't mention article creation. --Klein zach 23:13, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The phrase "music Composers and Songwriters" is problematic on several levels:

(1) The word "music" is redundant.

(2) The lowercase word "music" is confusing and it looks like a typo, since it modifies and abuts an uppercase word.

(3) Composers WikiProject doesn't cover songwriters, and has nothing to do with them. Softlavender (talk) 03:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. That is a rather definite statement. How do you know that this project "doesn't cover songwriters"? The Composers Project was started by Antandrus and others in 2005. He is still active on WP, so I will ask him why the banner refers to both composers and songwriters. --Klein zach 08:51, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Greetings -- yes, I see the template was created by User:Sketchee, who included that wording. Frankly I never looked at it closely. He hasn't edited for a couple months, so you probably would not get an immediate response if you asked him. I don't like "music composers" -- it feels redundant to me (we don't say, in the lede of an article, "Joe Verdi was an Italian music composer"). I realize that some old publications, such as the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica do say "music composer", so it is possibly a slightly archaic usage. As of including songwriters, which to me means composers of popular music including musical theatre, do we? I notice that Irving Berlin, the "Dean of American Songwriters" is not in our Wikiproject, so I suggest just "composers." Antandrus (talk) 13:42, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, look at the talkpage. The article is included. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 19:53, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Oops -- you are indeed correct. Missed it. Antandrus (talk) 02:32, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

The 'scope' on the project page says "This WikiProject aims primarily to document biographical and musical information of composers of any and all eras and styles." i.e not just classical/mainstream. Is this still valid? Re 'Songwriters' I thought it also referred to Lieder, but (personally) I'd be happy to see it cut out.

If it is still 'all eras and styles' how about the following draft?:

XXX is within the scope of the Composers WikiProject, a group of editors writing and developing biographical articles about composers of all eras and styles. The project discussion page is the place to talk about technical and editorial issues and exchange ideas. New members are welcome!

If not:

XXX is within the scope of the Composers WikiProject, a group of editors writing and developing biographical articles about mainstream composers. The project discussion page is the place to talk about technical and editorial issues and exchange ideas. New members are welcome!

Redrafts/hacks welcome! (Few people actually read these things so IMO it's better to keep it short.)--Klein zach 23:31, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm on the fence, but leaning slightly to the more inclusionary "all eras and styles." What do others think? Are composers of show tunes, and Balinese Gamelan composers covered under other Wikiprojects? Antandrus (talk) 01:41, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Musical Theatre definitely do include their composers, see Oscar Hammerstein II. Balinese Gamelan composers are apparently covered by the Indonesia Project, see I Nyoman Windha. --Klein zach 01:55, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about the confusion on the initial wording. When I created this Wikiproject way back in 2005 (when Wikiprojects and Wikiportals were new! it's the wiki style for everyone to evolve it) the intention was to have it maintain everything in Category: Composers which does include songwriters (since they are composers), but I thought at the time that anyone who saw a "composer" tag on a songwriter article would think it was misplaced. Any wording that can be clarified in the tag would be a great idea. The tag is the most likely way people will be introduced to this Wikiproject. Also, it isn't a problem if other Wikiprojects cover the same topics, is it? They're editing articles from the perspective and scope of their projects while we'll be looking at it from the objectives of this project. And this project's articles are all going to fall in the scope of the biography and music projects. My preference would to have the project continue to go with all eras and styles, unless we want to edit Category: Composers to exclude some. --Sketchee (talk) 04:51, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

By the way, we'll need an administrator to unprotect the template when we decide on what to change the wording to. It's protected due to high visibility. --Sketchee (talk) 05:04, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

OK. I will put a note asking for correction to the 'all styles and eras' version. There is also a typo (missing space) in the text linking to 'Comments'. I don't know whether Antandrus might be able to help us with the admin stuff?

Regarding overlapping projects: IMO this can be a problem if there are conflicting project guidelines. The Music Project doesn't overlap because it doesn't banner or assess articles. The Bio Project is something else and it's certainly not doing anything particularly useful . . . --Klein zach 09:46, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I've made an edit protected request. Hope I've done it correctly!--Klein zach 09:56, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

The correction has now been made. --Klein zach 22:36, 22 October 2008 (UTC)