Dinobass

Vitamin S

Feel free to explain why this page should be kept here. Charles Stewart (talk) 09:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Vitamin S is a community organisation which has been in existence for nearly 7 years and includes a pool of over 100 musicians, artists and other performers. This is not a hoax page, or advertising. Vitamin S facilitates workshops, hosts visiting international musicians and is funded by local and government arts funds. I truly feel it is up to you to come up with a reason why and article about a real organisation that has been around longer than wikipedia should be simply deleted.

The disambiguation page I edited pointed to four things, none of which actually refer to Vitamin S. It seemed a reasonable approach to take. How else would you suggest it be handled? Dinobass (talk) 09:13, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Reply

My suggestions for Vitamin S would be to delete the copyrighted text on the page which wiki doesnt allow and recreate the general idea of what they do. Also establish notability, do they have a published album or maybe a few reviews in the press .Gnevin (talk) 09:40, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

The authors of the website content have agreed to the content from the website being used as a starting point. I do not know how where to put the relevant tags. Vitamin-s receives government and local body funding. This is a matter of public record. Is that notable enough?

Can you show where they have said this about the copyright? Maybe asked them to publish it on their website on the subpage if you can . ,Its more notable alright but i don't know if it would pass a WP:AFD Gnevin (talk) 09:49, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I was hoping there would be a permission tag, similar to the ones for images. I can certainly get the website authors to give permission on the site.Dinobass (talk) 10:06, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Their is no tag's I'm aware of but I'll put a {{helpme}} here some other users may know Gnevin (talk) 10:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I've followed your suggestion and am re-writing the page contents from scratch so there can be no possible question of copyright - but it would be very useful to know how to include content I might have written previously for a web page or other article. Dinobass (talk) 10:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission. If you wrote something for a web page or other publication previously and you still own the copyright, then in theory you ought to be able to license it under GFDL and contribute it to Wikipedia: the problem is that people won't know that you have that right, and policy requires that it be deleted as an apparent copyright violation unless you do something like have the web page display a notice that the content is licenced under GFDL (and put a note on the article talk page pointing out where on the web site that notice appears, e.g. "look at the bottom of the page" etc.)

Here's some standard information that may be helpful:

If you believe that the article or image is not a copyright violation, or if you have permission from the copyright holder to release the content freely under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) then you should do one of the following:

• If you have permission from the author, leave a message explaining the details on the article talk page and send an email with the message to "permissions-en (at) wikimedia (dot) org". See Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission for instructions.
• If a note on the original website states that re-use is permitted under the GFDL or released into the public domain leave a note on the article talk page with a link to where we can find that note.
• If you own the copyright to the material: send an e-mail from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en(at)wikimedia(dot)org or a postal message to the Wikimedia Foundation permitting re-use under the GFDL, and note that you have done so on the article talk page. (To find the article talk page, go to the article, then click on the "discussion" tab at the top.)

However, for text content, you may want to consider rewriting the content in your own words. Thank you, and please feel free to continue contributing to Wikipedia.

--Coppertwig (talk) 13:38, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

If you create a page and are still working the kinks out try placing this template {{construction}} on the top. It lets other editors know that the article is new, you are still working on it, and requests that it not be deleted (or brought to an AfD discussion) until you are finished. Cheers!--Sallicio^{$\color {Red}\oplus$} 01:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Although looking at the AfD history of the person who initially called for deletion in the first place, I suspect this would not have helped in this case. However, in the event I create another page from scratch I will certainly bear that in mind and I've certainly learned a lot from this experience. Dinobass (talk) 11:03, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

April 2008

Hi, the recent edit you made to Bass guitar has been reverted, as it appears to be unconstructive. Use the sandbox for testing; if you believe the edit was constructive, ensure that you provide an informative edit summary. You may also wish to read the introduction to editing. Thanks. Alexfusco⁵ 01:26, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Did you read the changes and why before reverting my edit? The content I removed was essentially a duplicate of existing content *right below* the new content. I explained this in the comments. Dinobass (talk) 01:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Jaco and the fretless

My impression before undertaking the discussion (at Bass guitar) was that Jaco made the fretless significantly more popular than it had been, and the bit of looking into this while undertaking the above discussion seemed to me to confirm this impression. I’m not convinced I’ll ever be able to determine precisely how much more popular, however, and I don’t know how much making more popular it should take to justify the term popularize. This is why I’ve abandoned the argument. There are still dangling points to address, though.

Re: "You mention King Crimson as being influential to you in 1973. Their bass player up to and for part of 1973 was Boz Burrell--who left them to join Bad Company, where he played an ampeg fretless bass.":

Their bass player (and singer) when I saw them was John Wetton. John Wetton was an essential part of that group from Larks Tongues in Aspic through Starless and Bible Black and Red. I said King Crimson made a much stronger impression on me than Led Zeppelin; I don’t know if I would say they were “influential”. This has nothing to do with the argument, but I shouldn’t like anyone reading this to get the idea I was ever a fan of Bad Company--which is not necessarily to disparage that group.

Re: "My understanding is that Sting played upright bass in the Newcastle big band. Even if that is not the case he also played upright bass in the pre (or parallel with the start of) Police group 'Strontium 90' - which is where Copeland, Sting and Summers first played together.":

Sting doesn’t say in his autobiography what instrument he played in the big band, but he left me with the impression that he played bass guitar in it (since this is the only instrument he mentions playing and he says pretty clearly that he went from guitar to bass guitar). Since the big band was strictly local, Sting interviews are the only other likely source. (I did think it strange to have a bass guitar in a Dixieland group, by the way. Maybe we should petition him for a clearer re-write.) He also doesn't say what instrument he played with Strontium 90, a short-lived ad hoc group. It was concurrent with the Police, but began after the Police. (Andy Summers was not the Police's original guitarist.)

Re: "...and if you listen to those old stones tracks again it's obvious that the bass is fretless on many of them...":

I was never that big on the Rolling Stones, but I’m curious about this. Which tracks in particular? How is it obvious--that is, what should I listen for? Portamento? TheScotch (talk) 09:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

It appears, by the way, that the version of King Crimson that included Boz Burrell broke up in early 1972. TheScotch (talk) 10:11, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

The often repeated statements at question are a) that Jaco Pastorius invented the fretless bass and b) that Jaco polularised the fretless bass. Many articles were written during the late 70's and 80's which promoted both of these ideas. The first, that Jaco invented the fretless bass, can be trivially shown to be false. There was already well over a decade of prior art before Jaco took up the fretless and this should have been obvious to anyone who had cared to check their facts at the time. Bill Wyman was playing fretless bass in the early 1960's - listen to 'Paint it Black' - if I recall correctly there are some clearly fretless slides and a typical 60's fretless tone (not bright like Jaco). For the second statement to be true fretless playing would have needed to start out as an insignificant niche interest, or become significantly more popular, for it to have been 'popularised' by someone. In the 1960's several companies introduced fretless basses into their product ranges - Rickenbacker had a fretless 4001 bass listed in their catalogue from the early 1960's (online sources say 1960 or 1961), Ampeg released a fretless in 1966 and Fender in 1970. There was clearly a demand for the instrument and I've already listed elsewhere many well known pre-Jaco fretless players. What I have attempted to demonstrate is that there were plenty of fretless basses around and fretless players before Jaco and that many of the fretless players who have come after Jaco came to the fretless bass by other routes. Dinobass (talk) 03:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: "The often repeated statements at question are a) that Jaco Pastorius invented the fretless bass and b) that Jaco polularised the fretless bass. Many articles were written during the late 70's and 80's which promoted both of these ideas.

I don't recall encountering any of these articles. I only recall that Jaco's sound was a revelation to me, that before Jaco most of the general public (I'm including non-bass-playing musicians here) had never heard of the fretless (possibly most or many bass players hadn't either, but I won't insist on this point), and that many more bass players began to take up the fretless immediately after Jaco hit.

Re: "Bill Wyman was playing fretless bass in the early 1960's - listen to 'Paint it Black' - if I recall correctly there are some clearly fretless slides and a typical 60's fretless tone (not bright like Jaco).":

Well, this would seem to fit "Paint it Black", anyway, but our attention would likely be drawn to the sitar. For that matter, since the Rolling Stones were clearly imitating the Beatles here (as elsewhere), we wouldn't likely be alert to anything original they might be also doing along the way. Since this is a bit of exotica, I'm inclined to think it would be considered an insignificant side excursion rather than the beginning of a fretless tradition. In any case, thanks for the example; I'll listen for it. TheScotch (talk) 16:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Re 'invented fretless' articles - I'm thinking of things like http://www.rhino.com/rzine/pressrelease.lasso?PRID=156 from 2003! A little googling will reveal how pervasive the idea that Jaco invented the fretless bass is - when in fact it is far from clear that he even took the frets out of his own bass himself (interviews with Jaco himself are in conflict on this point).

Re 'Paint it black' - it is easy to discount Bill Wyman as some kind of side excursion - however he'd already been playing that bass as his main bass for possibly three years when he joined the rolling stones and continued to use it on many of their hits - Paint it Black is merely the most obvious. I don't know what or who inspired those early fretless players, but it is clear that many players took up the instrument in the 1960 - 1974 (release of Jaco solo album) time period. Dinobass (talk) 04:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'd be curious to know exactly what Wyman was thinking way back then.

I did subsequently listen to a collection of Rolling Stones songs from the sixties (mostly hits), and, yes, "Paint it Black" was by far the easist for me to spot, especially at the end. In fact, I wasn't sure about any of the other recordings.

I assume this is the remark you have in mind from the article you cite: "Not only a pioneer in style and technique, Jaco crudely pulled out his frets with a pair of pliers, smoothed over the holes with wood putty, and literally invented the fretless bass guitar." The "literally" is amusing because it seems here to mean nearly the opposite of literally. (I recall a conversation in the early eighties in which I maintained that Jaco "re-invented the bass guitar". I of course meant that figuratively.) TheScotch (talk) 06:21, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Interviews with Bill Wyman would imply that his thinking was quite simple. The only bass he could afford looked bad and had worn/cheap frets which buzzed horribly. He removed them with the intention of replacing them with new ones, but liked the sound and chose to leave the bass that way. He also changed the shape of the bass after making a cardboard template that he also thought was an improvement. The bass in question is, apparently, hanging on the wall of his restaurant in London. Dinobass (talk) 11:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Bass guitar

Very good research. Badagnani (talk) 00:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Bass Guitar again

I don't want to edit your lengthy post, but you've missed a bit out; the sentence

Also significant is the number of playable notes. All member of the violin family including the upright bass have double octave fingerboards. At the time of design of the early bass guitars most members of the guitar family only had.

needs finishing.   pablo_hablo. 11:33, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - I'll fix that up. Dinobass (talk) 05:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Question about Pictures

Hi, I see you do a lot of work on the Bass Guitar article, and thought I;d run this idea past you. In the section on pickups, there is a picture of Dual J's. Would you think it relevant for me to upload a picture of the pickup configuration on my bass? I play a Yamaha BB414, with a P and a J pickup. That might be better in place of, or in addition to, the current picture. Dizzizz (talk) 20:03, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Personally I think the article is already too cluttered with images, so I don't think we need any additional images - the article on pickups is the place for that. A picture of a P / J configuration would probably be more informative than the current double J image, but I don't think it would make much difference to most people reading the article. Dinobass (talk) 01:52, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. It's difficult for me to get good images, I didn't want to waste my time if it wasn't necessary. If you need any specific tasks on that article, look me up, I'm happy to help. Dizzizz (talk) 03:06, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Bass Guitar

Did you inform the previous editor that you removed his tag without citation? Stubbleboy 10:46, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Why do you feel that might be necessary? pablo 11:19, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually, no I didn't. Is that protocol? My assumption, given the nature of the statement the tag was added too, is that the citation needed tag was not added in good faith. The meta statement itself is surely not in dispute? Although as BakksterMan has pointed out, a citation for "since the 1950's" would be nice.

Bassists playing the bass

Hi, You recently removed the pictures of bass players. In some cases, as with Michael Manring and Steve Swall0w, they were referred to in the article. I think that there is a middle ground here. How about there can only be pictures of people who are referred to in the article. That means the Manring and Swallow pix would stay. What are your thoughts?OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 23:23, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

The central issue here is, does the image add information about the subject of the article. Which is 'bass guitar', not 'bass guitarists playing instruments'. There are many bass players mentioned in the article, but if we add a picture of each one, has that added anything at all to the article? I would suggest not. It would, as someone else pointed out, make the article look like a grade school project. The wikipedia guidelines may say that a picture can be added if the subject is mentioned, but that is not the same as saying it *should* be added. The pictures of Steve Swallow and Michael Manring do not, in and of themselves, add any new information about the subject of the article. One could argue that we need a picture of a person playing a bass guitar, as bass guitars are objects which are played by people. However, which bass player do we pick? There is no one definitive bass player that everyone, or even a majority of people, would agree with. Therefore, to avoid constant deletions and replacements of pictures by fans and acolytes of particular musicians, I would suggest it is better to follow the lead of the electric guitar page and have no pictures. Certainly there is no need whatsoever for the recent proliferation of pictures. Especially as the number of pictures has been reduced, by concensus, over the last year or so. What is the justification for adding these pictures, other than that you, personally, like them?

Hi, See my response on the bass guitar talk page. I think there is a middle ground we can find. As a group, come to a consensus on who the most notable bassists are, from those mentioned in the article. Jaco would seem to be one we could get a consensus on. The value of the picture is it enables the reader to see HOW the bass is held and WHERE the plucking hand is positioned, and WHERE the fretting hand is positioned. We are not bound by the electric guitar article. If we want to look to musical articles for guidance, though, it appears that other editors value pictures of players playing the instrument. I await your response, and hopefully input from other editors on a "Middle ground" position, in between "No pix" and "lots of pix". :)OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 23:27, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

OrphanReferenceFixer: Help on reversion

Hi there! I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. Recently, you reverted my fix to Zoophilia and the law.

If you did this because the references should be removed from the article, you have misunderstood the situation. Most likely, the article originally contained both <ref name="foo">...</ref> and one or more <ref name="foo"/> referring to it. Someone then removed the <ref name="foo">...</ref> but left the <ref name="foo"/>, which results in a in the article. I replaced one of the remaining <ref name="foo"/> with a copy of the <ref name="foo">...</ref>; I did not re-insert the reference to where it was deleted, I just replaced one of the remaining instances. What you need to do to fix it is to make sure you remove all instances of the named reference so as to not leave any .

If you reverted because I made an actual mistake, please be sure to also correct any reference errors in the page so I won't come back and make the same mistake again. Also, please post an error report at User talk:AnomieBOT so my operator can fix me! If the error is so urgent that I need to be stopped, also post a message at User:AnomieBOT/shutoff/OrphanReferenceFixer. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 01:44, 7 April 2014 (UTC) If you do not wish to receive this message in the future, add {{bots|optout=AnomieBOT-OrphanReferenceFixer}} to your talk page.

Hi, I reverted it because one of those refs no longer exists and the other is from a website so bogus as to be laughable and should not be given any credibility as a source. However, I did not notice the unclosed refs - I'll go back and check to see what happened and remove the unclosed refs.

Dinobass (talk) 03:38, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

May 2015

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who accepted the request.

Dinobass (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

---

Request reason:

My account has been blocked in error. Apparently I have been confirmed as a sock puppet of Newzealand123, this is incorrect. I cannot provide any evidence relating to what I did to cause my account to be blocked, because I have done nothing other than good faith edits for a considerable number of years. My account has been active, as far as I can tell, since before Newzealand123 was created. I can only assume that whatever process was used to confirm that my account is anything other than a long standing legitimate account has made an error. I can see no contributions in my list that are not ones I have made myself, and none which could in any way be construed as in anything other than good faith.

Accept reason:

While performing a check, there were some very strong similarities between your account and the target individual. I've looked it over and concluded that it's more than likely a strange coincidence. As such, I have unblocked your account. Unfortunately, as Ritchie333 points out I cannot disclose the technical information as per the privacy policy. Best regards, Mike V • Talk 16:29, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Ritchie333, it is extremely unlikely that Newzealand123 is using the same IP address as myself. But if this transpires to be the case I would appreciate some times and dates when this occured so I can investigate myself.

Dinobass (talk) 12:29, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Mike seems to be quite active, so I'm sure he'll take a look at this as soon as is practical. I'm afraid they won't be able to give you any IP information though, that is strictly confidential amongst checkusers. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:32, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

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Bass Guitar article's Talk page

I am contributing to this article, and I see have been doing it as well. I thought it would be helpful to clean up the Talk page as well, so I archived a few topics using subst:Archive (specifically things that are no longer relevant, or which are completely stale and haven't had replies in years). Since you seem to be way more experienced than me, would you say it's acceptable and good etiquette to do so? I was about to archive another one, posted by a user who used the Talk page to ask a question about which bass Gary Ryan played in the 80s when he was with the Black Hearts; you replied and pointed out that it's the wrong place for the question, but the topic is still there.

I have looked around and haven't really found a clear-cut answer to the question: when is it OK with delete Talk page topics and when to just archive them (Talk Page guidelines say that "It is still common to simply delete gibberish, comments or discussion about the article subject (as opposed to its treatment in the article), test edits, and harmful or prohibited material as described above. Another form of refactoring is to move a thread of entirely personal commentary between two editors to the talk page of the editor who started the off-topic discussion. Your idea of what is off topic may be at variance with what others think is off topic; be sure to err on the side of caution").

So...what would be your advice?

Honestly I don't know. I've always avoided removing or archiving anything on talk pages for this very reason. The etiquette around this is not clear to me. It is true that most of the discussion on the talk page is very old, so I can't see any harm in archiving anything more than a year old.

Dinobass (talk) 08:41, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

I just asked in the wikipedia-en-help IRC channel. Someone said "you can move them to the bottom of the archive page if you want", by manually editing (cutting the text in Edit Mode, and then pasting it at the bottom of the most recent Archive). Live and learn. Ferkijel (talk) 10:14, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

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Macrons on animal names

Hi there,

I saw you got involved in an exchange with User:Rangatira80, who has be involved in several recent discussions about the use of macrons in NZ English articles. I don't know if you've seen the renaming of Talk:kererū or the proposal to rename Talk:katipo; there are quite a few editors who aren't aware that Māori names are becoming the standard form in New Zealand usage. You can see the sort of arguments involved in the recent Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(New_Zealand) discussion. If you're interested in see Te Reo used correctly in Wikipedia, maybe check out Wikipedia:WikiProject_New_Zealand/Task_force_tohutō; we could do with help.

Cheers, _Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 07:57, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure about back and forth, I think rangitir80 reverted his own edits a couple of times. I've now (for the first time) reinstated the list, and added comments to the talk page. The list with Māori / English common names has been uncontroversial for something like 5 years. I'll have a look at the arguments in naming conventions. The trend for bird names is very clear though, the english names are gradually being displaced - a trend that has been going on for years (several species have no english common name, and most of the bush birds would now be more likely to be recognised by their māori names. Dinobass (talk) 12:06, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm also looking at the standard for other NZ articles, and for overseas articles as well, which just link to a single name, the article title. I admit I sometimes sneak the Latin name in though. Perhaps a better format rather than the spaced forward slash, which only seems to be used for place names, is something like "article title (alternate name, Latinus namus)", or red-crowned parakeet (kākāriki, Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae)? NB Māori names sometimes don't distinguish between species, like red and yellow-crowned parakeets, which is why I've linked to the red-crowned article there, which is the species on Tiritiri Matangi. You're right that the English names are gradually being displaced, but the place to fight that battle is maybe not on one island's Wikipedia article, but on the Wikipedia article for that species. Multiple pages are going to have to be edited regardless, so we should probably go right to the heart of the discussion and work out from there, rather than have dupicate our efforts. Good on you for raising the issue, and feel free to lend your support to renaming discussions that are happening on theose species pages. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 22:57, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

My feeling is that following a 'standard' which set in a mono-cultural context, for a situation where two common names are in use (in some cases very equally), is less helpful to casual browsers of the wikipedia page. The english names are clearly being displaced, but this is a long process and some people will still know the 'old' name for decades after most people have forgotten it. For DoC et al. always using māori and english names is a conscious policy decision. However, it is also a general trend it has been going on for over a century. For some birds, Tūī, kea, kākā, kiwi etc. (and this is a long list) the english common name has fallen into disuse for so long that it is clearly deprecated. For others this is far less clear - ruru / morepork for example. People coming to the article will likely know one or the other, but not necessarily both. As a conservation communicator I therefore find it more appropriate to list both in these circumstances, rather than try to work out if a particular english common name has fallen into disuse yet. Where two names are commonly used, it makes sense to list both. On Tiritiri the policy is to list both common names if they are in general use, which is also why it makes sense to use a list that is familiar to visitors to the island, or people who are researching in preparation for a visit. Dinobass (talk) 00:03, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

All good. But we should be strategic about this. Rather that individual editors having to decide on a case-by-case basis, in each article, which names are commonly used, based on their own reckons, it would be good to spend our energy establishing this at the species article level. Some of those articles aren't even noted as being in NZ English (!); some list the Māori name in italics using a "Maori language" template, as if it were a foreign word. Once we sort that out, non-NZ editors coming into the discussion can see that, say, the Māori name is predominant now or both are equally valid. If we don't sort that out, editors can keep reverting our changes, saying "well, the article says its name is saddleback, why are we listing a non-English language name in English Wikipedia?" And they'd be correct. —Giantflightlessbirds (talk) 00:29, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

It is nice to know, though, that people really are paying attention to our signs on the island Dinobass (talk) 03:05, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

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