Talk:Bay Area Improv Scene

So whoever nominated it for a neutrality check didn't bother to say why, eh? Does someone want some help in finding the problems here that could use work? If anyone's actually interested, let me know. --Doom (talk) 05:51, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

No takers, huh? Well, I took a guess that some of the wording in "the Nature of the Music" section might've sounded like salesmenship, so I tried to tone that down a bit. Deciding what names belong in the list of representative members is a little difficult to do "neutrally", but I'm working on that (one solution would be to gather a collection of "scene overview" articles, and make a list of names that journalists have used in the past). There's a few other things that might look like personal opinion ("The leading venue has been 21 Grand") that I'm sure we can find some references to support. Any other ideas? -- Doom (talk) 20:32, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Found some articles about the significance of 21 Grand, by the way. -- Doom (talk) 23:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes but even if one venue was booking many shows a few years back does not mean they are "leading" I think for neutrality no one venue in general should be listed as a leading venue. Even if the "media" says so does not mean it is true especially in this particular scene. DarkLord99 (talk) 00:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's an interesting point... The trouble is that what the media says is pretty much all we have to use as external support -- I realize it seems silly, but wikipedia is largely about writing summaries of what a bunch of journalists blather in the press. I will try to think about alternate ways of expressing prominence without sounding like I'm endorsing a place (it doesn't particularly matter to me personally if 21 Grand's star is fading... if you can find some ref that supports that, I'll go along). -- Doom (talk) 00:28, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I decided to delete the neutrality-check tag. The article has been worked on a lot since it was tagged, and whoever did it didn't see fit to explain themselves (WP:TAGGING, see "Constructive Tagging"). -- Doom (talk) 00:57, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

general scheme of work

This is what I (vaguely) plan on doing with this article (presuming I keep working on it):

• The long list of names there is a terrible feature, an expository lump no one is going to care much about (except to check it to see if their name is on it). I'm thinking about (1) replacing it with a paragraph with more description, and (most likely) fewer names, probably something of the form "The music ranges from the raucous spray of notes of The Splatter Trio to the contemplative tonalities of This Space Between; from the ___ of ___ to the ___ of ____ ... " and (2) possibly creating a "Members of the Bay Area Improv Scene" page where people can attempt to create an exhaustive list of names, if they like.

Okay, so after Matt expanded the list of names, I moved it over to List of Bay Area Improv Scene bands and artists. I haven't decided what, if anything should be added to the article at the point that wouldn't sound too much like magazine writing. (In a reasonable world we could describe just a few examples to provide a sense of what the music is like, but this is wikipedia). -- Doom (talk) 21:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

• The history section needs to be fleshed out, with at least a few more venues added, some more descriptions of the venues, etc.; Some discussion of the way the music has changed over the years would make sense here also, if some sort of critical consensus can be found that can be referenced.

• I keep going back and forth on the notion of breaking out the discussion of venues into another section preceding the history: that would make it possible to discuss the venues in an order other than chronological.

Started going in that direction, though for now there's just a brief note about geography there. -- Doom (talk) 21:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes I think a chronological view would be the most even handed process as well as venues that are actually active vs those that made a contribution it the past but are no longer viable. Also a list of ongoing organizations that support those venues might be in order as well like SFsound, Outsound, Meridian, Nextarts, etc... DarkLord99 (talk) 00:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

That's a good idea about listing organizations. As for distinguishing between active and inactive, I'd suggest eventually going toward stating lifetimes in years, just as with people: Bleatfest (1995-2001) -- Doom (talk) 00:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

• In addition to a section on venues, it would also make sense to discuss some of the annual festivals and so on.

I agree, and will make some headway into that part as I am somewhat knowledgeable with some of the yearly events. Current Examples: Thingamajigs, Outsound New Music Summit, Mediate (more of a bi-annual series), Skronkathon DarkLord99 (talk) 00:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. -- Doom (talk) 00:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

• More pages about different performers could, and probably should be created. Similarly, pages about the prominent venues would also make sense.

-- Doom (talk) 23:46, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

21 grand capacity

Someone added a remark about 21 Grand having to reduce their capacity in 2007: "Due to unforeseen events Around 2007 the venue had to reduce its booking capacity." I'm not sure what this means. Their website still lists their capacity at 150-200 people, and they seem to have a number of events scheduled for January, so I'm not sure what that remark is supposed to mean. Clarification & references welcome. -- Doom (talk) 07:23, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

21 Grand no longer hosts the same amount of shows (i.e. 5-7 improv music shows per week) that they once did, and thus have a reduced "capacity" of bookings in our scene. They are not much more active then the occastional one offs that happen at sporatic venues thoughout a month, but no matter your edits are good... 99.14.219.145 (talk) 00:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

links to the new-music mailing list (paging Yworo)

Yworo deleted links to the Bay Area New Music mailing list, and I'm afraid I'm some what confused about his reasoning. There were links in two place, one place was down in the "External links" section, and I see nothing in the this policy guideline that forbids a mailing list: [Wikipedia:External links] ((oops, see note below)).

Note that the "External links" section is a place to point to further, more in depth reading, it is not a collection of references offered as evidence for some point in the text.

That means that this guideline doesn't apply to those at all: [Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources].

I can see how you might think that this would apply to the embedded ref in the text, but actually I think that that's a mis-reading of what's going on. The reference is pointing at that mailing list as evidence that the name "New Music" is in use on the scene, it's a prominent example of the use of this term. That's all: there's no quotation of opinion from the list, or anything like that. -- Doom (talk) 00:08, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, read the "External links" article too quickly. Down at the bottom, it is true that email lists are included in the links "normally to be avoided" section. In this particular case, I disagree with this guideline: someone interested in reading more about this scene really would want to know about that mailing list, and it's existence is not at all obvious and easy to turn up on a web search (in part because of the naming confusion discussed in the article). -- Doom (talk) 00:12, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

an explosion of names from the nameless 75.101.14.71

Someone known only as 75.101.14.71 has tacked on a long list of "significant Bay Area ensembles" to the end of the history section. The reason there's a List of Bay Area Improv Scene bands and artists is precisely because lists like this have a way of ballooning out of control: all of these names could just be added to that list.

The writing is a little unclear also: "ensembles that have come and sometimes gone in this time period": what time period? The entire history of the scene? -- Doom (talk) 00:27, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

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