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Category for films by composer

Perhaps Category:Film scores by composer was intended for articles about film scores, but its subcats currently seem to be used mainly for films categorised by the composer who scored them. I recently created Category:Soundtracks by composer which is now used for film score (soundtrack) albums.

Please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 April 24#Category:Compositions by Rahul Dev Burman for a suggestion to rename the "Film scores by composer " categories to e.g. "Films scored by". – Fayenatic London 13:02, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Category:Film scores by composer looks to me as if it's well identified, though I've added {{container category}} to it. I don't think it needs renaming. For a moment there, I was confused, thinking that yours was going to duplicate it. Would it be a good idea to rename it as Category:Soundtrack albums by composer, to save other people a similar confusion? --Stfg (talk) 13:56, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Dab for "Smith"

Father Smith is easy to find thanks to a redirect, but I was curious about how the dab page list of people with surname Smith might be organized: it's a bit of a horror, with separate pages for Jeff and Geoff as well as Geoffrey (the first includes some Jeffersons too). I started User:Sparafucil/Sandbox/Musicians named Smith but it might not be too useful to someone who doesn't know a first name unless it's sorted by genre as well as date. Who knew there were (music composer)s as well as (composer)s! I think a tree like composers/classical-jazz-pop and performers/""" might work but welcome suggestions. I could use help too in deciding whether persons who might have dabbled in music actually achieved notability in the field: see Talk:Harry B. Smith for example. Sparafucil (talk) 20:35, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

By an odd coincidence I came here, not having read your post but having just discovered that we have articles on Geoff Smith (British musician) and Geoff Smith (music composer) – these two seem not ideally disambiguated, both being British musicians and both composers. I was going to ask for opinions on how these should better be named, but now seeing your post this could be just part of a bigger mess. --Deskford (talk) 23:45, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
Wow.GS (microtonal composer) and GS (minimalist composer)? Or GS (dulcimerist) and GS (songwriter)? Geoff Smith (50-something-year-old composer) would just be kicking ambiguity down the road a bit; maybe we ought to research middle initials ;-) Sparafucil (talk) 08:20, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Pride 2014

You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride 2014, a campaign to create and improve LGBT-related content at Wikipedia and its sister projects. The campaign will take place throughout the month of June, culminating with a multinational edit-a-thon on June 21. Meetups are being held in some cities, or you can participate remotely. All constructive edits are welcome in order to contribute to Wikipedia's mission of providing quality, accurate information. Articles related to LGBT composers may be of particular interest. You can also upload LGBT-related images by participating in Wikimedia Commons' LGBT-related photo challenge. You are encouraged to share the results of your work here. Happy editing! --Another Believer (Talk) 19:08, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Ofer Ben-Amots

Never heard of him. No reviews. No known compositions. No performances by major ensembles or orchestras.

Is this guy for real? AFD? --Ravpapa (talk) 19:10, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Possibly just about notable enough for an article, but I don't think he merits the recent addition to the Jewish music article. --Deskford (talk) 19:35, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
There's also this article - The Dybbuk: Between Two Worlds - which I rather doubt counts under WP:NOTABLE (2 or 3 performances in Houston in 2009, apparently, and the score self-published by the composer).--Smerus (talk) 09:06, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Wikiproject Composers At Wikimania 2014

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:
Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 15:58, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Living people on EN wiki who are dead on other wikis

The following individuals who are in the scope of this project are showing to be alive on the English wiki, but deceased on another language wiki:

  1. Ivan Marinov (composer): bg:Починали през 2003 година
  2. Jan Håkan Åberg: fi:Vuonna 2012 kuolleet / sv:Avlidna 2012
  3. Maurice El Mediouni: ar:وفيات 2012

Please help to find reliable sources to confirm if these individuals are alive or dead, or correct any mis-categorization on the relevant foreign-language article(s). Please see WP:LIVINGDEAD for more info and raise any issues on the talkpage. Thanks. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 18:04, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Chopin

I've initiated a peer review with the intention of raising this article to FA. All comments welcomed.--Smerus (talk) 19:55, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Ján Zimmer

I see that our article on composer Ján Zimmer has recently been moved to Jan Zimmer. I'm not sure I understand the rationale, but I thought I'd ask for opinions here rather than just trying to move it back. --Deskford (talk) 21:17, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

The rationale is weak, since there would be a redirect either way, and á is easy to type if you know the trick (use the AltGr key). Grove online calls him Ján, but the Oxford Dictionary of Music calls him Jan. Google books gets hits for both forms. I don't think it's a big deal. --Stfg (talk) 21:39, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Ján Zimmer is correct, as he was Slovak. Grove has it right, as well as the website of Music Centre Slovakia, one of the most reputable sources covering Slovak music. We should not distort the name just because "few people know how to key in "á"". --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 05:24, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
I moved it back. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:06, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks everyone! Looking more closely I see that the article is only a few days old, and the editor who moved it is the same editor who created the article, so all credit to him, even if we disagree with the move! --Deskford (talk) 20:26, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
I invited him over here, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:06, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Felix Mendelssohn

An editor is insistent on including in Felix Mendelssohn the section 'Ancestry', a table which they have inserted at the end of the article before the notes and references. This lists three generations for Mendelssohn's ancestors (where known) and is not sourced or referenced. The more significant of these ancestors are anyway mentioned in the article. A number of others a red linked, although it is not clear whether the editor concerned is going to create articles for them, or whether indeed there is any claim for them to be they are WP:NOTABLE in their own right. In any case, there already references in the article to the existing articles Mendelssohn family and Itzig family (the families of Felix's parents). As table is both superfluous in itself, and serves no purpose in the article, I am in favour of removing it, but would welcome the opinions of other editors. Thanks, --Smerus (talk) 17:31, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Lists of composers

I just included the two most recent composers from the project page in the List of composers by name. Please add there and in lists by period when you create an article. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:55, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Solfeggietto and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Okay, a little late on this, but on 14 September I proposed Solfeggietto be merged into Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. I put notices on the pages and even notified the creator of the former, but forgot to notify Wikiprojects! Anyway, feedback welcome. Eman235/talk 23:58, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

BBC composer template

I have created a new template, for linking to BBC composer pages. Please see Template talk:BBC composer page#Declaration of interest, and template rollout. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:24, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Infoboxes

Please note that there has been a consensus for this particular WikiProject that the use of biographical infoboxes is counter-productive for composer biographies, and should not be used.

Is this still the current consensus of people following/supporting this project? Both regarding composers and conductors?

The above statement was added in April 2007 by a user who has not (unless he/she - but I somehow think it sounds like a he - changed his wiki-name) contributed to English language wikipedia since September 2010. I know nothing about how or where the "current consensus" in question was obtained.

My own position is that it this not the most important thing in Wikipedia by a long shot. And yet ... it still strikes me as a bit odd that whereas biographical entries of most people justifying a wiki entry acquire infoboxes as the entries build quantity and (one hopes) quality, those involving "classical" musicians do not.

Taking a conductor at random (except there was a feature on him on British television yesterday) Herbert von Karajan gets an infobox in French wiki and Dutch wiki, but not in German wiki or Italian wiki. Or English wiki. I think I find the francophone and Dutch entries slightly more informative because they have infoboxes (but that's partly a comment on my lousy understanding of Dutch). Richard Wagner gets an infobox in Dutch and French wikis. Otherwise not. Jean-Baptiste Lully gets one in French and ... that's it. Which seems to be the pattern with quite a lot of slightly less well known classical musicians.

Any thoughts?

Regards Charles01 (talk) 17:57, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Here be dragons. You may wish to refer to Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/Major discussions and arbitration case, and especially to the pages listed in its Arbitration 2013 section. The current position is documented at Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/Guidelines#Biographical infoboxes. --Stfg (talk) 18:50, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Yeah, there was an entire and very nasty arbcom decision that specifically said the opposite - that the project cannot dictate use of infoboxes, but that they are to be determined for every article on a case by case basis. Please, let's not crank all this up again! Montanabw(talk) 19:41, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
  • "Is this still the current consensus of people following/supporting this project? Both regarding composers and conductors?" No, it is not; and even if it were, it it would not be binding on articles, per WP:OWN and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:14, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Several composers and conductors have an infobox, several talk pages of composers have a discussion. Perhaps the guidelines of a project which claims "Rather than try to force information to appear in a uniform way, this WikiProject aims to present what information is available in the best way possible." can be improved? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:31, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Indeed, if the "wars" could begin to end here it would be a great start in a new year! On collaboration in the spirit of "present what information is available in the best way possible", Smerus and everybody else willing ;) (with thanks to all who did not revert "my" infoboxes, - an act of kindness as I am not in a position to revert a revert), --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:49, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
I'm all for peace in the infobox wars. It helps when the guidelines are clear and balanced so that edit-warriors have a harder time misusing them to bloster an argument in a debate. Montanabw(talk) 21:00, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

James Saunders, classical and experimental composer

Hello all. I declined the article submission Draft:James Saunders, British Composer solely on the grounds that the Draft didn't appear to adequately establish the subject's notability. There has been some discussion about this at User talk:Arthur goes shopping#22:38:27, 1 February 2015 review of submission by 78.144.121.33 where the submitter has indicated that there was a substantial article about Saunders or his work in Grove Music Online, plus an article in MusikTexte and an hour-long documentary on German radio. If these are suitable sources then they seem likely to go a long way towards proving notability. In addition, the apparent regular interviews of Saunders on BBC Radio (mentioned in the talk page section above) would seem to suggest notability is likely, even though we don't normally consider interviews to count towards Wikipedia:General notability guideline in themselves. I have suggested to the submitter that they should resubmit the Draft so it might get reviewed by someone with more knowledge of the field, however I would appreciate any thoughts on whether the subject is likely to be notable. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 14:58, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

@Arthur goes shopping: Hi. I think his notability is quite clear. His article in Grove is here (subscription required) and he is a full professor of music at a British University, confirmed here. These alone seem to me to establish notability, and the list of festival performances also amount to a credible claim of notability imho. I think the draft should be promoted to mainspace. --Stfg (talk) 16:34, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
Just a followup for AGS: the Grove encyclopedia is the "industry standard" for classical music scholarship; we certainly would want to cover in WP all topics that are in Grove (and quite a few other topics as well). Opus33 (talk) 16:49, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
Hi Arthur goes shopping. I've moved it to article space at James Saunders (composer) and tagged it for clean-up and copyediting. As per my colleagues above, he clearly passes the notability criteria and it stands a much better chance of further improvement in article space than languishing as a draft. I've notified the article's creator, User:Boehmrunner, who may or may not be the IP that submitted the draft for review. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 18:22, 2 February 2015 (UTC).
Thanks everyone, problem solved. I don't remember seeing Grove mentioned in a draft before, but I'm sure it comes up in at least some of this type of article submission, so I will keep it in mind for the future. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 11:14, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Margaritis Kastellis (1907–1972)

This article about a Greek composer is being discussed for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Margaritis Kastellis. – Voceditenore (talk) 10:58, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Question on Composer article

A new editor posted a question on WP:ANI about the Composer article about changing the caption on a picture. The caption originally said that Louis-Nicolas Clérambault was composing on a piano and the editor wanted to change it from piano to harpsichord. Would someone familiar with the subject mind reviewing the discussion at Talk:Composer/Archives/2015#Picture caption and offering advice? Thanks. Ravensfire (talk) 16:41, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Infobox for Frédéric Chopin

A discussion is taking place here on installing an infobox for the article.--Smerus (talk) 07:51, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Reversions

Considering the introduction to this wiki-project:

"Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize information in articles related to composers. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians. If you would like to help, please inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list there. Rather than try to force information to appear in a uniform way, this WikiProject aims to present what information is available in the best way possible. The project provides a place to discuss various ways to accomplish this. These recommendations on the Composers project are based on various Wikipedia style guides and common practices in articles. Use your own judgement in applying these guidelines and all Wikipedia guidelines to composer articles and be bold."

Why are some members of this project scared of other editors seeing the other side of the argument?

Many members of this project have stated the view that Infoboxes are seldom useful additions to articles for many reasons, including:

  1. They often give trivia undue emphasis and prominence at the head of the article
  2. They tend to become redundant (by duplicating the lead)
  3. They can, conversely, become over-complex and thus vague, confused, or misleading, often compounding errors found elsewhere in the article, e.g. by confusing style and genre, setting forth haphazard lists of individual works, or highlighting the subject's trivial secondary or non-musical occupations.

These users think it is normally best, therefore, to avoid infoboxes altogether for classical musicians, and we prefer to add an infobox to an article only following consensus for that inclusion on the article's talk page. Particular care should be taken with featured articles as these have been carefully crafted according to clear consensus on their talkpages. (See the Request for Comment about composers' infoboxes and earlier infobox debates.)

There are other project participants and longtime wikipedia editors who support the inclusion of infoboxes for many reasons, including:

  1. Providing a quick reference to key facts about the subject; in a format easily accessible to those including people in a hurry, or with limited reading skills
  2. Making those facts available in a machine-readable format, using microformats and other techniques, to emit metadata
  3. Allowing data to be more easily exported to, and/or displayed from, Wikidata

As the issue of infoboxes in classical music projects generally was taken to Arbcom and the above "neither required nor prohibited" language upheld, supporters of infoboxes also encourage polite, reasoned debate and discussion of the topic on individual article pages.

Suppressing other editors' viewpoints is the worst form of tyranny on Wikipedia and it shows how far some have moved from the admirable aspirations of the founders of this project. --RexxS (talk) 18:53, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

No tyranny, just fairness. The project page represents (informal) policy and, especially in very controversial cases, should not be edited without obtaining consensus on the Talk page first.
This said, please note that many editors have become very weary of infobox debates. I think it would be a great idea not to launch another one now. Opus33 (talk) 19:30, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
I too am weary, hence why I added balanced language - this page is NOT a "policy" even an "informal" one - NPOV is a policy. And this page didn't accurately state the parameters of the debate, where Arbcom clearly held that infoboxes are a case-by-case discussion - and already exist on many, many classical music articles here and on other language wikis. Montanabw(talk) 21:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
  • (ec) The edit and its reversion were simple WP:BRD. Shouldn't be any problem so far. Language like "tyranny" serves no good purpose. I think the balance of the guideline could be improved a little by mitigating some implied appeals to authority and reducing verbosity (which makes pomposity). Please note that I do not propose any alteration of the substance, only the tone and balance:
    • "Many members of this project have stated the view that" → "Some editors think that". (Project members don't have priority over other editors; "have stated the view" is unnecessary verbosity).
    • Omit "therefore" (unnecessary and pompous).
    • "and we prefer" → "and prefer". Those who prefer this are those who think the first list is better than the second, not the whole project. "We" implies that the guideline is taking sides.
    • The sentence "Particular care should be taken with featured articles as these have been carefully crafted according to clear consensus on their talkpages. (See the Request for Comment about composers' infoboxes and earlier infobox debates.)" should be moved to the end. The need to respect talk page consensus and featured status applies both to those articles that include infoboxes and those that omit them. Its current position seems to take sides.
    • "There are other project participants and longtime wikipedia editors who support" → "Other editors support". (Project members and longtime editors don't have any priority.)
--Stfg (talk) 22:07, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm good with the form "some editors say foo, others say bar" construction - the original (before my edit) said "most" which I changed to "many" but frankly, I'd be groovy with Stfg's "Some/other" for both sides and removal fo the royal "we". And yes, moving the featured article stuff to the end is also a good idea. Let's see how it looks in real time.Montanabw(talk) 22:57, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm taking the absence of comment from all editors except Montanabw as meaning that these proposed changes are agreed. I shall implement them in around 24 hours from now unless constructive discussion resumes. --Stfg (talk) 11:30, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Agreed? Maybe just fatigued. — Would you mind writing down the proposed changes as a whole? I find your bullet points of alterations difficult to read into the original boxed proposal. I'm sure that's my shortcoming, not yours (no sarcasm). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:50, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
Don't worry, Michael, I didn't see any sarcasm in that. In fact it really is confusing, because the version I proposed to alter is not the current version but one that existed earlier on 30th December. I'm not sure how that happened, but anyway, here is how I would edit it now:

====Biographical infoboxes====

Main page: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes § Using infoboxes in articles

The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article.

Most members of this project Some editors think that Infoboxes are seldom useful additions to articles for many reasons, including:

  1. They often give trivia undue emphasis and prominence at the head of the article
  2. They tend to become redundant (by duplicating the lead)
  3. They can, conversely, become over-complex and thus vague, confused, or misleading, often compounding errors found elsewhere in the article, e.g. by confusing style and genre, setting forth haphazard lists of individual works, or highlighting the subject's trivial secondary or non-musical occupations.

We Editors holding this view think it is normally best, therefore, to avoid infoboxes altogether for classical musicians, and we prefer preferring to add an infobox to an article only following consensus for that inclusion on the article's talk page.

Other editors support the inclusion of infoboxes for many reasons, including:

  1. Providing a quick reference to key facts about the subject; in a format easily accessible to those including people in a hurry, or with limited reading skills
  2. Making those facts available in a machine-readable format, using microformats and other techniques, to emit metadata
  3. Allowing data to be more easily exported to, and/or displayed from, Wikidata

Particular care should be taken with featured articles as these have been carefully crafted according to clear consensus on their talkpages. (See the Request for Comment about composers' infoboxes and earlier infobox debates.)

Note that the issue of infoboxes in classical music projects generally was taken to Arbcom and the above "neither required nor prohibited" language upheld.

Regards, --Stfg (talk) 14:41, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
Reads fine to me. I am afraid, though, that an IP missing an infobox in an article will not read it but just add one. I would like to work on a way to deal with such a good-faith addition which is not a simple revert with an edit summary that bears no meaning to a user unaware of conflict, possibly not even knowing to look at an edit history, and thus unhelpful. - The history of Chopin has examples, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:10, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
That's the same as any other happening where an editor (whether IP or otherwise) makes a good-faith edit that violates a guideline they didn't know about. We can't program the system to avoid that. All we can do is to revert politely, not throwing out any baby that may happen to be in the bath water. We can't afford to restrict ourselves to guidelines that can't possibly be overlooked by IPs -- to do that, we'd have to ditch all scholarly values. :) --Stfg (talk) 15:40, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Apologies: in the above I had a "senior moment" and showed how I would edit the guideline as it is today on the project page. Do you still want a diff on the original boxed proposal too? --Stfg (talk) 15:46, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
Ehat you've done above is fine; thank you. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:06, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I like the proposal. Probably no way to address the drive-by editor other than BRD. Montanabw(talk) 23:37, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I won't oppose the changes, although I dispute all 3 "pro" points. 1) On a phone, the lead paragraph appears before the infobox, which is also hidden behind a drop-down button labelled "Quick facts: Born, Died, …" (their typography). Not much use for "those in a hurry". 2) & 3) I don't think it has been shown that anyone is retrieving data/metadata from infoboxes. Google shows that data extraction is possible without infoboxes. Wikidata items can be displayed anywhere in an article. But if it serves peace on earth … -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:06, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
    • " I don't think it has been shown that anyone is retrieving data/metadata from infoboxes" On the contrary, that has been shown many times, with reference not only to Google, but to DBPedia and to IBM Watson initiative (which won and then donated to Wikipedia, $1,000,000 using data extracted in part from infoboxes). I'm not sure how you imagine that your link proves otherwise. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:59, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
  • This proposal contains disputable comments or implications which mean that I'm afraid I must oppose it. In particular the three reasons given in support are all contentious and none of them in fact meet the WP:VERIFY standards. The argument of machine-readability has in any case nothing to do with the quality of articles and should not be supported - even passively - by this project when it does not even form any part of Wikipedia policy. (See also Michael Bednarek's points above). By putting up selected points like this (and implying recognition of them by this project) we potentially aggravate the situation by giving parties on either side potential 'hooks' to launch at each other. However I would however be very happy to support the proposal if it left out the purported attitudes of editors 'for and against' - it would then be non-contentious and make it clear that, as with other edits, consensus is required. That such consensus can be acquired or approached is shown , e.g. at the current discussion at Frédéric_Chopin. In passing, may I add that it is unnecessary to use pejorative characterization of editors with whom one disagrees (e.g. 'scared') in discussing these matters - such an approach actively discourages consensus, and impedes the WP process. WP:AGF is a gold standard.--Smerus (talk) 10:02, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I would not mind dropping the three reasons pro infobox, if the three reasons against could also be dropped: "often trivia" (1) and "often complex" (3) don't apply to a concise infobox (my goal), "redundancy to the lead" is part of the definition, - the main facts appear in both and should not contradict each other. - In case I used a attribute for another user interpreted as pejorative (ever) please tell me and I will change and apologize. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:35, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Yes, that is exactly what I meant, both sets of 'reasons' should be dropped. It was not you, Gerda, but the creator of this thread who used the emotive/combative terms 'scared', 'suppression' and 'tyranny'.--Smerus (talk) 11:06, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Versions 3 & 4

Yes, dropping the 3 reasons from both sides would make it less essay-like (and possibly less contentious). Here's a draft that does that. For linking convenience I've added anchors #IBversion1 and #IBversion2 to the previous boxed versions, and this new one is #IBversion3.

====Biographical infoboxes====

Main page: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes § Using infoboxes in articles

The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article.

Some editors think that Infoboxes are seldom useful additions to articles and that it is normally best to avoid infoboxes altogether for classical musicians, while other editors support their inclusion.

Therefore please add an infobox to, or remove one from, an article on a classical musician only following consensus on the article's talk page. Particular care should be taken with featured articles as these have been carefully crafted according to clear consensus on their talkpages. (See the Request for Comment about composers' infoboxes and earlier infobox debates.)

Note that the issue of infoboxes in classical music projects generally was taken to Arbcom and the above "neither required nor prohibited" language upheld.

It would also be possible to remove the "Some editors think ..." sentence altogther and to collapse the paragraphs before and after it into one, with an improved flow. The would result in (#IBversion4):

====Biographical infoboxes====

Main page: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes § Using infoboxes in articles

The use of Infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article. Please add an infobox to, or remove one from, an article on a classical musician only following such consensus. Particular care should be taken with featured articles as these have been carefully crafted according to clear consensus on their talkpages. (See the Request for Comment about composers' infoboxes and earlier infobox debates.)

Note that the issue of infoboxes in classical music projects generally was taken to Arbcom and the above "neither required nor prohibited" language upheld.

Are these any closer to acceptable? --Stfg (talk) 11:33, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

"It" doesn't apply, because this is general discussion, while "it" relates to individual articles. - Revolutionary suggestion: drop the paragraph altogether. We all know that some people think this and some that, some composers have infoboxes, others not, composers most often also belong to other projects such as their home country. If we accept the arbcom phrase about individual articles - tiresome as that can get - we don't need any additional guideline for this project, no? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
That's your restriction, Gerda. Andy's is general. But for heaven's sake let's not make an issue of that. His point was constructive enough. --Stfg (talk) 13:44, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Thank you for these clarifications and the associated careful thought that has gone into all this. However, and at the risk of annoying EVERYBODY, I think:
"Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through..."
should be
" Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, are determined through..."
If you are deeply committed to "is" then you can get away with that by kicking off your sentence, "The question of whether to include..."
BUT I think it's easier just to replace "is" with "are"
If you apply the same structure to a simpler sentence it becomes intuitively clearer - at least to me. For instance, I have just had lunch.
Whether to eat fish, how to cook it, and what to do about the bones were matters I probably should have considered more carefully than I did.
(Except I had egg on toast.)
And sorry. Regards Charles01 (talk) 13:15, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
You are right, of course, should be are. This error has been in the guideline for a long time, but can be fixed once we've agreed on the main issues here. --Stfg (talk) 13:39, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to ask who is the target of this proposed revision? The injunction to "add an infobox to, or remove one from, an article on a classical musician only following consensus on the article's talk page" is aimed at whom? The previous discussions linked in the text fail to find any answer to the question:

  • To what extent can WikiProjects expect non-members to follow the former's preference regarding these?

because Wikipedia policy is to be bold and because the infobox policy affirmed by ArbCom is that the decision is to be made on an article-by-article basis - i.e. nobody can impose a blanket ban on infoboxes on any group of articles.

I have no problem with this project offering advice to its members to discuss on talk pages first, but I'm not prepared to agree with using that as a reason to revert other editors' good faith edits. If this guidance is intended to increase the level of polite collaboration between those who are members of the project, then I'm all for it - it's good stewardship. But if it's just to be used as a stick to ward off non-members from making edits that members don't like, then that's pure ownership and I'll resist it strongly. So, is there any interest here in seeking to accommodate those whose views differ or not? --RexxS (talk) 17:10, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Sigh. "is there any interest here in seeking to accommodate those whose views differ or not?" ... What do you think I and others have been trying to do for the last couple of days? Have you forgotten that the current guideline says "We think it is normally best, therefore, to avoid infoboxes altogether for classical musicians, and we prefer to add an infobox to an article only following consensus for that inclusion on the article's talk page. And your initial draft merely changed the first "We" into "These users". The new draft puts those who like infoboxes and those who dislike them on an equal footing by putting adding and removal of infoboxes on an equal footing.
There is no requirement at all to answer the question "To what extent can WikiProjects expect non-members to follow the former's preference regarding these?" It's a silly question: Any editor may revert any other editor's good-faith edit per BRD. What this text requires of editors is actually nothing more than conformity with WP:Consensus and WP:BRD. Did you even notice that the new draft makes no mention of project members, but only of editors? It treats all editors equally, whether project members or not.
Yes, the intention of this text is "offering advice to its members to discuss on talk pages first". The value of saying it about infoboxes is to alert editors, whether project members or not, to the fact that this is a contentious area, and that it has been addressed by ArbCom, and to inform or remind of the "neither required nor prohibited" position.
In what way do you think that your original proposal treats editors more equally than #IBversion4? If you do think it does, why did you not respond to these comments on your draft?
Language like "tyranny", "scared of other editors seeing the other side of the argument", and "is there any interest here in seeking to accommodate those whose views differ or not?" is inflammatory. Time for some AGF, RexxS. --Stfg (talk) 18:38, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
AGF is not a suicide pact. I've seen far too many occasions where this piece of advice is being wielded as a device to justify reversions of good-faith editors who have added an infobox to an article within this project's scope - and then used to silence their questioning of such reverts on article talk pages. Do you intend to defend such actions? or are you willing to say "enough is enough"? You could just as easily develop a text that expresses the collaborative value of prior discussion between project members, yet avoid it becoming a weapon to bully non-members who merely make a bold edit in line with Wikipedia policy. Did I touch a nerve that you feel it necessary to attack me as "inflammatory", or am I just uncomfortably close to the real reason why this text exists? Keep your focus on the message, not the messenger. --RexxS (talk) 01:34, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
I didn't attack you, I attacked your words. And that snarky "Did I touch a nerve ..." remark: isn't that about the messenger? Show me where I have ever reverted the addition of an infobox in any article, musical or otherwise. Or the removal of one, come to that. Show me where I've ever abandoned neutrality on this issue. With so many people moving in the direction of compromise in the past couple of days, I see no suicide pact in working with both sides as colleagues. And you didn't answer my question: why is #IBversion1 any better? And what about good-faith reversions of editors who remove infoboxes, which IBversion1 doesn't address? What about treating project members and non-members equally as editors, which IBversion1 doesn't do? How does version 4 obstruct anything that version 1 accomplishes, please tell. --Stfg (talk) 10:11, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Version 5

This version is not yet written but perhaps we can work on it. I dream of positively saying that trivia and clutter should be avoided in infoboxes (not only of composers) and how that can be achieved. We could cite examples and talk about parameters, such as: "avoid |known_for=, prefer |notable works=, avoid |nationality=, prefer precise life data. There will always be exceptions. Violeta Dinescu is an example that works, and if you don't agree, let's discuss. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:48, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Free access to RIPM

Hello all! The Wikipedia Library has just launched a partnership with RIPM to offer Wikipedians free access to this archive of music periodicals. Please sign up for one of the 20 free accounts at WP:RIPM. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:27, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Notification of RfC on the form of John Ireland's name in article title disambiguators

Your input would be welcome at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music#RfC: Composer name disambiguator for articles on works by John Ireland. Regards, --Stfg (talk) 19:21, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Jaan Rääts

I've just removed a substantial amount of text from the article on Jaan Rääts as it appeared to be a copyvio from the composer's website, although it claimed to be copied from other sources. The tone was unencyclopedic in any case. This leaves only the work list, which I've attempted to tidy up a bit. If anyone has access to sources to write more about him, please do... after reformatting the work list I've run out of time and enthusiasm! --Deskford (talk) 14:49, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

There's a bio of him in Grove online at
Urve Lippus. "Rääts, Jaan." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed April 14, 2015, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/22760
--Stfg (talk) 16:05, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
Thanks! (Sorry for the slow response.) I don't have access to Grove, but I'll copy your link to the talk page so that anyone who does have access could use it. --Deskford (talk) 21:22, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Input requested at Template:Randy Newman

Input requested at Template talk:Randy Newman#Films scored. The question is, should all of the films he scored be listed in the navbox, or only the two that have album articles? Softlavender (talk) 10:58, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Expanding List of symphony composers

Hi, all. I use the Wikipedia list of symphony composers all the time as a quick, comprehensive, all-in-one-place reference for the who's who of classical symphony composers. That said, I do believe that in its present form the article suffers from being 1) difficult to navigate and find the composer(s) one is looking for; and 2) lacking information and page links to the symphonies of each composer. These changes would make this article so much better of a resource. Below, I propose something along the following lines, where each composer has his or her own subsection, a short (one to three line) summary of their symphonic oeuvre and historical contribution, and then (and most importantly) a bulleted list of links to their works. Care, of course, should be taken to ensure that the bulleted works are consistent with any composer's list of compositions by page. As an example of what I have in mind, I have taken the liberty of providing such updates to Franck, Tchaikovsky, and Sibelius (note: I am agnostic on whether composers should be arranged alphabetically by last name or by date of birth, although I suspect the former would be easier for readers; I have also tried to make a common sense standardized format, with catalogue number first in bold, followed by title, date, and finally—and usefully—number of movements in brackets). This is obviously a rather large overhaul of the existing article, and honestly beyond my individual means (many of these more obscure composers I know nothing of), but I really think that together, as a team, we could get this done rather quickly. I am eager to hear feedback. Good day! Sgvrfjs (talk) 08:33, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

=== César Franck ===

Belgian composer (1822–1890) of 1 symphony, in D minor, best known as an early pioneer of cyclic form.

=== Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ===

Russian composer (1840–1893) of 6 numbered symphonies, of which No. 4, No. 5, and No. 6 Pathétique are the most famous; the programmatic Manfred Symphony is unnumbered. A seventh symphony, in E♭, was abandoned in 1892 (Bogatyrev completion c. 1955), with the first movement rescored in 1894 by the composer as Allegro Brillante for piano and orchestra (later completed by Taneyev as Piano Concerto No. 3).

=== Jean Sibelius ===

Finnish composer (1865–1957) of 7 numbered symphonies (an eighth symphony likely was destroyed by the composer), of which No. 2 and No. 5 are the most famous, while No. 7 (in one movement) erodes the traditional subdivisions of sonata form. Kullervo, Op. 7 (1892) and Lemminkäinen, Op. 22 (1895)—both based upon Kalevala myths—are occasionally classified as unnumbered, programmatic symphonies.[1][2]

  1. ^ Tawaststjerna, Erik (1976). Sibelius: Volume I (1865–1905). (Robert Layton, English translation). London: Faber & Faber. pp. 107–108, 176–177
  2. ^ Hurwitz, David (2007). Jean Sibelius: Sibelius: The Orchestral Works. Pompton Plains: Amadeus Press. pp. 49, 59

Discussion

  • Hi. I hope you don't mind that I've put nowiki tags round the headers above, as they aren't sections of this talk page, and since they are your proposal, people shouldn't be editing them directly. I think it's an interesting idea that would indeed make the list more useful. My only concern is that the page's file size would become huge. Can we think of a way of structuring this to overcome this problem, for example by splitting? --Stfg (talk) 10:29, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for making the no wiki links (didn't know this was a possibility)! Sgvrfjs (talk) 17:17, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Good idea to refer to the lists of symphonies where they exist, and create more of those. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:16, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Not the first time I've cursed Sergerstam's excess! :) Sgvrfjs (talk) 17:19, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't choose that format for a list article, which is meant to make finding an entry easy, because it would make dramatically increase the size of the article and make navigation cumbersome. I would suggest instead changing to a table format which could then be sorted by name or year of birth as the reader chose. The columns I would suggest are: name (wikilinked to article); dates of birth/death; link to "List of symphonies by XYZ"; and notes. I could reformat the present information by automatic means if this route were favoured, or perhaps Pigsonthewing or Alakzi could create a template for such a table's header/rows/footer to make expansion easier, and then I'd reformat the present content to fit that instead? Thoughts? --RexxS (talk) 17:01, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Thank you to everyone for their contributions (and I imagine we'll still get a few more). My original idea being not feasible due to page size issues, I suggest that the route forward is either 1) the sortable table that RexxS proposes (although I should hope that the Notes column he proposes could accommodate the kind of short blurbs I wrote for Tchaikovsky and Sibelius, and which others had previously written for the likes of Dvorak and Mahler, as these little entries are the kind of 'training-wheels' information I think readers seeking to learn about the symphonic repertoire need...the kind of 'lay of the land' and 'where should I start' suggestions...plus then it provides quick access via links to what 'experts' like us would consider, following sources obviously, to be the most important or famous of a composer's oeuvre); or, 2) a basic list format (i.e., as is) but one that partitions the composers by last name letter (so 26 sections), thus making it easier to navigate (I would also bold the names of each composer), with each composer having a blurb where possible/necessary and a link to their list of works page, per suggestions by Deskford and seconded by Gerda Arendt. Sgvrfjs (talk) 17:17, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Unsourced and orphan since 2012

Just discoved an article on composer Ákos Rózmann which has been unreferenced and unsourced for three years.4meter4 (talk) 03:57, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

FLRC notification

I have nominated List of major opera composers for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Giants2008 (Talk) 00:33, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

A Statistical Note on Infoboxes

As part of a project that involves machine-reading data from Wikipedia pages, we noticed that many composer pages were anomalous in that they lacked infoboxes.

Of 6,741 persons scanned, only 224(3.3%) lacked infoboxes.

The scan probably overemphasizes politicians, since they can be traced via predecessor / successor relationships, but there are plenty of general interest persons in the sample as well. Our own interest in infoboxes is the image, birth date/place, death date/place, so that we can place individuals in the context of who was alive at any given point in time.

The length of a person's entry is a proxy for a combination of factors including overall interest, quality of entry, etc. Somewhere around 30-40K characters a person would be generally by a fairly well-educated reader. There are counter-examples in both directions, of course.

Of the top 40 entries lacking infoboxes, 25 were composers(62.5%.)

A few actors, and the rest essentially random. Only a few entries below the top 40 would be widely recognizable.

The top 40 entries lacking infoboxes in our sample were: (entry length for selected items)

  • Stanley Kubrick (138,963)
  • Laurence Olivier
  • Benjamin Britten (121,260)
  • Joseph Priestley
  • Rod Steiger
  • Edward Elgar
  • Gustav Mahler
  • Gustav Holst
  • Ian Fleming
  • Hector Berlioz (83,763)
  • Aaron Copland
  • Stephen Crane
  • Frederick Delius
  • Igor Stravinsky
  • Johann Sebastian Bach
  • Arturo Toscanini
  • Dmitri Shostakovich
  • Ernest Shackleton
  • Sergei Prokofiev (65,539)
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • Jean Sibelius
  • Arnold Schoenberg
  • Johannes Brahms
  • Josquin des Prez
  • Antonio Salieri
  • Claude Debussy
  • Robert Schumann
  • Antinous
  • Richard Strauss
  • Modest Mussorgsky (35,550)
  • Vitruvius
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams
  • James Louis Petigru
  • Ian Mikardo
  • John Evelyn
  • Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
  • David Garrick
  • Robert Fulton
  • Campbell Adamson (23,748)

Although our sample may not be perfectly representative, two conclusions that seem inescapable:

  1. Composer pages are apparently out of step with the rest of Wikipedia as regards infoboxes.
  3. Composer pages are less likely to be successfully captured in machine scans of Wikipedia, since manual effort or special coding is required to interpret them.

The lack of infoboxes seems to be a result of a "special snowflake" argument that is from time to time applied to particular pages, and in particular to composers. It's hard to imagine how this realistically improves the quality of entries, but it clearly makes the pages less amenable to machine reading.

Our practical approach to composers for our own app usage is going to be:

  1. Find a few of the most important composers we can think of, and manually process them.
  3. Ignore all the rest - too expensive to capture.

We're certainly not going to be adding infoboxes to composer pages, but want to make sure that everyone knows there are consequences other than pure readability to the current approach. Our discovery was purely accidental.

Evets359 (talk) 17:32, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Sorry - who exactly are the majestic 'we' referred to in the above? And what exactly are "the consequences" that are so chillingly referred to? It's already been (painfully) decided that there is no rule as to whether articles should have infoboxes or not, and that the appropriate procedure is to determine any discussions case by case. It has also been established that "machine scanability" is not a relevant criterion for Wikipedia or for individual articles. If "we" want to pass the idle hours by 'manually processing' them - that is of course up to "we". By the way, the criterion that "The length of a person's entry is a proxy for a combination of factors including overall interest, quality of entry, etc." is a droll piece of WP:OR - let's abandon GA and FA reviews and just go by the length in future :-).--Smerus (talk) 20:27, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I have no interest in this particular war. Just pointing out some statistics that show musical composers are an outlier as compared to other biographical pages. "The consequences" are that these pages are generally less easily read by machines. If no one cares about that, fine. Evets359 (talk) 23:08, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I'll just note that it's never "been established that machine scanability [sic] is not a relevant criterion for Wikipedia or for individual articles". You either just fabricate these falsehoods as you go along, or you delude yourself that you can make policy by fiat. We have a responsibility to all of our audiences - and that includes those who wish to gain information by machine-reading structured data - to make our encyclopedia as accessible for them as possible. It shouldn't matter who "we" are; they are a consumer of the knowledge we are trying to make available, and you don't get to choose to who wants to make use of the content in our project. --RexxS (talk) 01:04, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
Well, some progress, we now know that RexxS is one of "us". Now if he could only cite us the Wikipedia policy which makes machine-scanability (sic or otherwise) a criterion for Wikipedia articles, instead of indulging in personal vituperation (which, by the way, 'our encyclopedia' explicitly proscribes), that would be more of service to his cause.--Smerus (talk) 14:38, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." Now if you could stop sneering at those who don't consume our content only in the way that you think they should, we could really make some progress. So quote for us the policy that says "machine scanability is not a relevant criterion for Wikipedia or for individual articles". You brought up the issue, the burden is on you to substantiate your claim. --RexxS (talk) 22:49, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
It has been observed before that the presence or absence of an infobox doesn't seem to affect Google's search summary. Again, from the list above, I can see no detrimental effect of Google's summary for Stanley Kubrick. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:01, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
And just for the record, it was the original poster of this topic, the "one of us" Smykytyn (aka Evets359), who touted machine scans ("Composer pages are less likely to be successfully captured in machine scans of Wikipedia, since manual effort or special coding is required to interpret them"). It is therefore his - or his colleagues' - responsibility to adduce the Wikipedia policy on this matter.--Smerus (talk) 10:37, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
Michael: If you want to know how Google uses our infoboxes, there's a Google Tech Talk on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqOHbihYbhE - which explains quite clearly the multiple uses Google has been making of them for years. Smerus: you're talking out of your arse again. The original poster made a statement of fact ("Composer pages are less likely to be successfully captured in machine scans of Wikipedia, since manual effort or special coding is required to interpret them"); you're the one who's making up your own set of policies: "It has also been established that "machine scanability" is not a relevant criterion for Wikipedia or for individual articles.". There has never, ever, been any such determination. You know it and I know it, and it's your usual attempt to browbeat an inexperienced user by telling them lies. --RexxS (talk) 23:25, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Created new article - British composer William Busch

I've created a new article on the deceased British composer, William Busch.

Suggestions for additional secondary sources would be appreciated at the article's talk page, at Talk:William Busch.

Thank you,

— Cirt (talk) 17:21, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Created new article - Cuban-born musician Israel Kantor

I've created a new article on the Cuban-born musician Israel Kantor.

Suggestions for additional secondary sources would be appreciated, at Talk:Israel Kantor.

Thank you,

— Cirt (talk) 01:16, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

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