Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Archive 17

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Giovane scuola

I found this extremely short unreferenced article today, which had been bannered for the Composers Project. I've slightly expanded it and added some refs, but it's still clearly a stub and have provisionally tagged it with {{Italy-composer-stub}}. The problem is that it's the name for a group of Italian composers. Feel free to change the stub tag if you think something else would be more suitable. Voceditenore (talk) 13:47, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Assessments points scale

Now we've decided to go ahead with B-class assessments, I'm suggesting we adopt a points scale in order to have a fast and objective method of ranking. This would go on the Assessment page and be similar to those used by the Wagner Project here). (As all the articles are biographies, we would be able to use one basic scale - with some flexibility - for all articles.) The following is a draft - please suggest corrections as necessary:

Elements	Points
Origins/family background/studies	05
Early career	10
Mature career	25
List of works (as available - with dates/catalogue numbers - possibly on a separate page)	15
Critical appreciation (with full sources)	15
Bibliography	05
Illustrations	10
Inline references, notes, sources, internal and external sources	15

The points for each element would be the most that can be allocated. Elements that are present but brief or incomplete would earn part-scores. The maximum total points for any article would be 100.

Points would translated into classifications as follows:

• 0-29: Stub
• 30-59: Start
• 60-89: B
• 90+: A

(GA and FA classes are assessed and awarded independently, so do not figure in the above). --Kleinzach 11:01, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

This looks basically pretty good to me, I suppose I have at best minor quibbles. Basic breakdown: biography 40 points, works 15, criticism 15, "logistics" (biblio, images, citations etc) 30. The logistics bucket feels high. I might fold bibliography into Inline references, etc, and give those five points to works. This is not a strong feeling though, I think it can work the way you propose it too. (I'd also change "Illustrations" to "Media (audio/visual)". Having at least samples of the composer's work is a Good Thing.) Comments? Magic♪piano 15:47, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

An outside view here, but looking at the B-Class criteria, I don't see any points being given for proper structure(WP:LEAD etc.) and MoS criteria. Might want to put that in. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 21:45, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. Here's a revised version:

Elements	Points
Origins/family background/studies	5
Early career	10
Mature career	25
List (or lists) of works (as far as current scholarship allows) with dates/catalogue numbers. (This may exist on a separate page.)	20
Critical appreciation	15
Illustrations and sound clips. (Assuming these are in existence.)	10
Inline references, sources and bibliography	10
Clear structure (WP:LEAD etc.), compliance with WP:MOS, project guidelines etc	5
Note: articles to which this point scale is not applicable - in the case of composers for whom information is limited, and whose articles have been expanded to the maximum extent possible using easily available sources, a "B" class rating is acceptable, providing the writing, citation, and NPOV qualities of the article are up to "B" class level.

--Kleinzach 23:39, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with this "point" scale for composers for whom significant information, illustrations, scholarship exists -- you know who I mean: Lassus, Schein, Locatelli, Dussek, Cherubini, Respighi -- to pick from the ones not commonly named alongside Bach and Beethoven and Mozart. The difficulty arises with all the composers for whom no biographical information is known, or for those for whom biographical information is available but their music has not yet been subject to more than passing scholarly study. Since I write a lot of articles on 15th and 16th century composers I'm particularly sensitive to this issue. (It also applies to living composers for whom no information is available from reliable sources -- it can be surprisingly difficult to get biographical information on people who try to live private lives!) We need a mechanism to give at least "B" ratings to people whose articles have been expanded to the maximum extent reasonably possible using existing, easily available sources (don't make us order microfilms from archives, for example). In the past, the Wikiproject Biography people have gone through and slapped "stub" or "start" tags on these articles, ignorant of the situation with sources and availability of information. It is absurd to stamp "start class" on an article which cannot be expanded without doing original research. François Andrieu is the first one that came to me (currently stamped as "stub"). I suggest a default "B" class for those that have reached the limit of what can be written; and that "limit of what can be written" needs to be determined by someone familiar with the topic, or willing to go to a library (or at the very least, with access to the online Grove). Thanks all, Antandrus (talk) 00:47, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree entirely. Would you like to suggest a mechanism, or failing that a paragraph, to go under the points scale? Or perhaps give a start date for using the points scale? --Kleinzach 01:03, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Probably just a paragraph, ... "exception to using this point system: in the case of composers for whom information is limited, and whose articles have been expanded to the maximum extent possible using easily available sources, a "B" class rating is acceptable, if the writing, citation, and NPOV qualities are of that level." -- Stated this way more or less.

If I try to play devil's advocate versus the point scale, I can't think of strong reasons to say no, so -- I support it. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 01:21, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I've added your note above - with a small copyedit. When we test ranked the Wagner Project we found that a points scale did really help us be objective. --Kleinzach 01:46, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

This looks good to me. Antandrus obviously has a valid point about limited knowledge. It does mean that someone who's doing an evaluation will have to make some judgment about whether potential sources appear to have been sufficiently mined. There may be a need (at some point in the future) for "guide to writing" and "guide to evaluation" topics that address these sorts of issues. (Not until after this scheme is tested and evaluated...) Magic♪piano 02:12, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

B-class assessments will be short compared to the full peer reviews for GA and FA. After articles have been confirmed as B, editors will be able to nominate them for promotion and more exhaustive examination. --Kleinzach 02:23, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I've now added the points scale etc to the Assessment page. --Kleinzach 23:10, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Kassia

The Kassia page at Kassia states that she was born into a poor family and other sources online indicate a higher-class family that provided a classical Greek education for her. Perhaps this can be investigated and corrected? -helpy person — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.105.206.95 (talk • contribs)

I have two sources on Kassia. The article in the Grove online states unambiguously that she was born into a wealthy family; the more elaborate article by Diane Touliatos-Banker (the same as the author of the Grove article) in my Historical Anthology of Women in Music (Briscoe) adds that she was highly educated. I corrected the article and added a cite. Antandrus (talk) 01:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Assessments/volunteers needed

I wonder if anyone would like to volunteer to be an assessor? We had a team of three assessors for the test ranking on the Wagner Project. It worked like this: if Assessor 1 and Assessor 2 agreed, there was no need for a third assessment. If they disagreed (which happened particularly in borderline 'start'/'B' cases) then Assessor 3 decided the ranking.

Notes: anyone can nominally rate an article as a B to put it in the assessment queue. The assessors can then confirm an article as a 'B', demote it to 'Start' (or very rarely promote it to 'A'). (Nomination for GA or FA is a separate process.)

Assessments are made on a 'Comments' page (e.g. Talk:Johann Sebastian Bach/Comments) which can be accessed from the Composers banner on the talk page (in this case Talk:Johann Sebastian Bach) if it has already been created. (I've made Comments pages for all the existing Bs.)

Two more points: 1. Assessments should be written under a 'Composers Project assessment' section heading. This is because the assessments will be linked (and sometimes even included) in the other projects' banners, so they will appear to be the work of those other projects unless there is a 'Composers' heading. 2. Assessors shouldn't rate articles to which they have been major contributors - that can lead to misunderstandings.

Any questions, comments, offers? (BTW I'm not intending to do any rating myself but I'll be happy to help support the effort.) --Kleinzach 12:52, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll help. Do we want a template for scoring (vaguely resembling what you see in some banners, like Template:WPMILHIST), or is a simple prose (or bulleted) summary sufficient? Magic♪piano 15:43, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I think a simple prose summary would be fine. I guess we are talking about 100 to 250 words depending on the article. --Kleinzach 22:40, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

It looks as if we have a team of one! But there's no problem starting on that basis. Best. --Kleinzach 03:39, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

You can include me in if you like but I am running around quite a bit between now and mid-December ---Smerus (talk) 15:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Great. Perhaps you'd like to link up with Magicpiano and see what he has been doing? --Kleinzach 03:27, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I've had a look at Aaron Copland, my comments can be found at Talk:Aaron Copland/Comments. If anyone wants to comment on the form of the assessment, please let me know here or on my talk page. (The content of it can be discussed there, but if you have feedback on the form of the assessment, I'd like to know, since some of it comes from a template.) Magic♪piano 16:55, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. Different from the way we did it before, but it's clearly laid out for contributors to work on. Perhaps we should list 'model' assessments like this on the Assessment page? --Kleinzach 00:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I've added the Model Review, and added a pointer to it on the assessment page. Magic♪piano 17:18, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm probably not able to assess the (important) stylistic level of articles , but I can assess the factual correctness in some cases (mainly Czech music). Btw, the points scale is very good, can you test it on Leoš Janáček article? It seems to me, that I'm main contributor there, therefore I can't assess it by myself. The cooperation and response is rather weak... --Vejvančický (talk) 21:59, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I've added a page for tracking the B-class reviews, for those that want to contribute, or see what's going on. (I'll get to Janáček eventually...) Magic♪piano 18:02, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Looks good. --Kleinzach 02:06, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Assessment request

Please before stamping "stub" or "start" on an article, for allegedly not being long enough, having enough biography, or a works list, establish that such information possibly exists. As I have pointed out in previous discussions, there are a lot of composers for whom only three or four paragraphs can be written without using primary sources and doing original research. Thanks, Antandrus (talk) 14:53, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to be sensitive to that, yes. Unfortunately, I don't have access to your resources... I decided (see the Model Review I posted above for doing the B assessments) that I would use the presence or absence of inline citations, especially in the context of statements on the availability of source material, as a guidepost. (I didn't use the model review in looking at unassessed articles, so that may not have been clear when I reviewed Adrien Basin, which I assume is the source of this comment.) -- Magic♪piano 16:04, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I've just had a look at Adrien Basin. At the moment our definitions of 'stub' and 'start' are:

The [stub] article is either a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work to bring it to A-Class level. It is usually very short, but can be of any length if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible.

Start-Class articles should contain a decent level of contextual information (including a modicum of criticism)

According to this I would have thought Adrien Basin was a clear 'start'. However I wonder if Antandrus would like to suggest a improved version of the wording? BTW I'm not sure I understand why we are assessing this one now anyway, because I thought we'd agreed to concentrate on 'B' class nominations. On our assessment page it says simply "Stub when the article has a Stub template"- which is not actually the case here. Best. --Kleinzach 23:58, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I wanted to see how many unassessed articles I could do in about 1/2 hour of work. Adrien Basin was one of them. It may be that an unassessed article ought to be Stub, but is not have a stub template. Presumably one should be added if that sort of judgment is made.

Also, we (i.e. pretty much you and I) decided that assessment is to some degree a collaborative effort, by (ideally) wanting three reviewers. I'm only human, and rendered an opinion. I'm more than happy to admit that I'm wrong, but I'd also like to learn how to avoid being wrong (preferably in a way that can be documented somewhat objectively). I was attempting to apply the numeric criteria to see how they rank articles. I should probably also cross-check against the written criteria.

In case it isn't obvious, it's in no way my intention to slight Antandrus' contributions. Some things aren't easy to dig out even when relatively well-researched.

(P.S. I'll actually start looking at more of the B-class articles later this week.)

-- Magic♪piano 00:39, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, having been through a similar exercise before, I rather anticipated this kind of problem, hence the emphasis on restricting written assessments to B-class to start with. --Kleinzach 02:35, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Request for asssessment box

I have put a 'Request for assessment' box at the top of this box. It's an experiment. I'll take it if away if it's not used. I hope having a request system will make the introduction of assessments here go a little more smoothly. (The idea is that contributors - who shouldn't be involved in assessing their own contributions - will list their articles at an appropriate time.) --Kleinzach 01:59, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Navigation template for Mozart

While browsing through some Beethoven articles, I noticed the navigation template {{Ludwig van Beethoven}}. I found that template helpful and I suspect many other readers might, too.

There are quite a few articles on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, his family, his works, and I feel they would also benefit from such a navigation template. Now, before I go and create such a template, I thought I come here to ask for the project's opinion lest I stumble into a hornet's nest à la infoboxes or image placeholders. On the other hand, if there is a better place to raise this question, please tell me.

The navigation template I propose, to be named "Template:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart", would appear like this:

The template would be placed in Category:Classical composer templates.

I did not include the articles Mozart symphonies of spurious or doubtful authenticity, Mozart's starling, Mozart in fiction (a page which would need an awful lot work to be meaningful) nor Mozart Modulations (an article which should be deleted).

So: a) should such a navigation template be developed and deployed? b) should anything be added or subtracted from the list above? Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:28, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

No doubt the specialist Mozart editors like Opus33 and Brianboulton etc will want to comment. One thing I note is that Category:Classical composer templates are all links to compositions, whereas the navbox above has biographical articles as well as compositions. I don't know if that is a problem. --Kleinzach 14:03, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

There are some navigation templates with a broader scope for composers in the Category:Classical composer templates, notably Template:Ludwig van Beethoven which lead me there, but also Template:Franz Liszt and Template:Sergei Rachmaninoff; there are a few more of those in its parent Category:Composer templates. In the end, I don't think it matters much in practical terms how the template is categorised (although I suppose that consistency would be useful). The main factor regarding consistency that seems to emerge from the existing templates is that they are named after the composer. Michael Bednarek (talk) 08:06, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Right. Category:Classical composer templates should probably be divided between people and compositions but that doesn't affect the viability of a general Mozart navbox. --Kleinzach 08:51, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Further to the above, I've now found there is a Category:Works by composer templates. Using that one for compositions should solve the problem. --Kleinzach 00:23, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I just noticed this. Hmm. I certainly don't feel the powerful upwelling of indignation that I experience upon seeing an infobox :=) but I still have my doubts. The template would work fine (in fact, would be useful) at the bottom of the main Mozart article, but might sort of overwhelming if placed in the more obscure/shorter satellite articles. Also, bear in mind that the template would have to get longer and longer as the WP expands. WP has a lot of Mozart coverage but what we have is still dwarfed by what you can read in a library.

So maybe just use it at the bottom of the main article? Opus33 (talk) 16:59, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

My intent was not to place this navigation box on each and every article to do with WAM, like on each of his compositions' pages. On the other hand, I thought it only natural if it would be added to the articles mentioned in it. Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:49, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

That seems sensible. We don't want another Michael Nyman megabox! --Kleinzach 01:58, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Songwriters vs. composers

I thought this had been discussed recently (in context of the discussion on the project banner contents), but in reviewing that discussion, but not really.

Since I'm reviewing the B-class composer articles, I am of course frequently looking at Category:B-Class Composers articles. It contains, among other entries (linking articles here rather than Talk pages in the category):

• Christine McVie
• Willie Nelson

Both are eminent songwriters, but from reading their articles, do not appear to have significant compositions beyond the song genre. So the horns of the dilemma:

• are songwriters supposed to be covered by this project? If so, other equally notable songwriters should be included.
• are songwriters not supposed to be covered? If not, these two (and undoubtedly others lurking in Start, Stub and Unassessed) don't belong, and should be de-bannered.

If this has been previously decided, perhaps it ought to be made clearer on the project page's statement of scope. Magic♪piano 14:39, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

The word 'songwriters' was removed from the banner with (I think!) everyone's approval after that discussion (and also doesn't appear on the project page) - so I've removed the Composers banner from Christine McVie and Willie Nelson. In any case the Rock and Country Projects will be best placed to assess these articles.

I think it's sensible to sometimes defer to more specialized projects, for example if a composer is more than 50% opera (e.g. Puccini) or more than 50% musical theatre (e.g. Jerome Kern), it will be better to leave the articles to those projects. We have enough to do anyway without looking for extra work.--Kleinzach 08:37, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Roslavets

The article on Nikolai Roslavets was moved at some point, (presumably by an Ukrainianist) to Mykola Roslavets. When I moved it back he promptly decanted it again to 'Mykola' where it now stands. I have therefore proposed a move back to Nikolai on the articles diuscussion page, and listed it at Wikipedia:Requested_moves. Comments at either or both locations are invited--Smerus (talk) 08:42, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

for reference, this was swiftly resolved. Thanks. --Smerus (talk) 08:05, 2 December 2008 (UTC)