Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Progressive Rock

The following discussion is an archived proposal of the WikiProject below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or the WikiProject Council). No further edits should be made to this page.

The resulting WikiProject was created at Wikipedia:WikiProject Progressive Rock Wikipedia:WikiProject Progressive Rock

Description

A project dedicated to both bringing current progressive rock articles up to speed, as well as creating the long list of non-existing articles from the timeline of progressive rock. Most likely tied to, or a sub-project or the Rock Music project. Will be focused to one well defined genre of music and the bands, musicians and styles associated with it. A quick glance through the previously listed list will show you that these pages are scantily clad, save for especially notable bands such as Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd, and Dream Theatre. - Floydian (talk) 20:48, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Support

Please specify whether or not you would join the project.

1. Floydian (talk) 20:48, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
2. V Schauf (talk)
3. Krobertj (talk)
4. You!

Discussion

Discounting Pink Floyd and their solo spin-offs – who already have their own project – is there enough material to warrant a separate project? This isn't an opposition by any means (cleaning up the messy The Bevis Frond article has sat on my to-do list for three years now), just a concern that there won't be enough momentum to carry it forward. – iridescent 20:58, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Ideally, I'd want Pink Floyd's wiki project to work with this project, perhaps as a sub project of this, or just alongside it under the rock project. As for material, the page I listed has many bands on it that could us their own articles.

The four bands whose influence can be heard in varying degrees through all prog-rock bands would be the main articles: Genesis (Epics/theatrical), Yes (Symphonic), Emerson Lake and Palmer (Jazz), and King Crimson (Spacey/technical)

Notable bands that would centreline the project would be: Rush, Frank Zappa, Supertramp, Jethro Tull, Uriah Heep, Dream Theatre, Symphony X, Porcupine Tree, Tool, System of a Down and Opeth

In the last 2 weeks, I have made substantial additions in Rush (the song "Show Don't Tell" and also its album Presto). V Schauf (talk) 08:21, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Slightly less notable (Out of the mainstream) are: Gentle Giant, Hawkwind, Soft Machine, Atomic Rooster, Marillion, Ayreon, IQ, Fates Warning, Asia, Spock's Beard, The Flower Kings, The Mars Volta, and many many more.

Not to mention the solo projects of the various members of these bands (especially the first 4 notable ones), I think there is a lot of good content there to work with. -- Floydian ^τ _γ 05:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Having just joined today on the invitation of V Schauf, I'd like to start off by saying that I love the idea of this project and I look forward to working on it. Just a recommendation for another band to work on (though this is probably covered under the etc. in "Slightly less notable groups") would be Van der Graaf Generator/Peter Hammill. Though certainly not the most popular progressive rock group, they/he have been a driving force in the genre since 1969, and have released many albums. In particular, I've noticed that some of Hammil's solo albums do not have articles, and that, I think, should be taken care of with all bands. If we can find enough information, I think every progressive rock album should have a page. Of course I say the same for songs as well, but that's pushing it.

Another band we might want to cover would be Uriah Heep, which could be considered the earliest progressive metal band. If any of you have never listened to these guys, listen to the songs on "Salisbury" (for starters) and tell me what you think of this proposition. Don't worry, you'll probably enjoy them as much as I do! Krobertj (talk) 18:48, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Haven't heard of the former, but Uriah Heep is certainly a biggie. I can't help but notice that as soon as you pull away from the mainstream acts, the articles make a vicious curve toward chaotic fan-page-like muses, we need to fix that. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 19:59, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I see what you mean, and I'm in absolute agreement. We need to establish the merits and significance of all these bands and their music, but also avoid falling into "crazy-fan mode". Nice and neutral is always the best way to handle Wikipedia. Krobertj (talk) 22:53, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

It's going to be tough for some bands, as progressive rock is generally unnoticed by the music world at large. The first step is to establish sites such as dprp.net as key reliable sources. Some bands are absolutely huge on a global scale (The Flower Kings for example), but don't have a single publication concerning them available online.

Second is infoboxes, which in my eyes are a great way of establishing a professional standard on an article. Your average article reader will skim the infobox first and foremost, and so in the midst of adding a "This article is in the scope of WP Prog Rock" to the talk page of articles, infoboxes should be added or checked over as much as possible for factual information and to break the fan-page appearance. Keep recruiting peeps. I have many of the articles watchlisted in hopes of finding more souls interested in the topic.

I also just noticed the Supertramp article... Pretty horrible for a band of their stature. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 02:27, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll do some recruiting on YouTube. I have a lot of friends who are into progressive rock. I agree with your point that every band should have an infobox, as that can keep a tally on band members, years of operation, labels, specific genres, etc. And I just checked the article for Supertramp again. My God, is it short! That really is a disgrace for a band like that. The Uriah Heep article is also too short. Maybe that should be our first priority. Krobertj (talk) 20:04, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)I don't think it is fair to single out a band to improve specifically. Almost every page needs significant improvements, and our first step is to lay out the full reach of the project and assess what is there. Once that is done we will have a list of the articles that need the most improvement. I'm going to see about adding some code so that we can add "infobox=yes" to the {{WikiProject Progressive Rock}} banner on talk pages. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 04:48, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

No, what I meant was we should expand ALL of the prog rock band articles suffering from this problem. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Krobertj (talk) 11:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah ok! You're right then, that should be our first focus, building the stub and start articles. Most of the popular bands (esp. Genesis and Pink Floyd and Rush) have their articles looked after and the only thing that needs to be done is connecting influeced bands to one another so people can find similar bands. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Do any of you know about Coheed and Cambria. They are considered a younger band that has carried on in the prog rock tradition. There's a lot of work to be done, but ideally, we should cover prog rock during the more recent time as well as bands like Supertramp, Genesis, Rush, Pink Floyd and others. Also, do you guys consider Traffic to be a prog rock band??V Schauf (talk) 00:54, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Both are listed as progressive rock, so they would definitely be within the scope. Anyways, I've made some of the starting arrangements on WP:PROGROCK - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 04:51, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Traffic should definitely be included in this scope. They're certainly one of the bands that took the psychedelia and twisted it with other styles to create prog rock. I dare say they were jazzier than ELP. Krobertj (talk) 13:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or at the WikiProject Council). No further edits should be made to this page.