Talk:List of performers at the Metropolitan Opera

Need
Does an encyclopedia really need this list, which is by necessity unstable and constantly evolving? Why not simply have a sentence in the main article on the Metropolitan Opera which links to the source? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:32, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I like this list because it gives a good concept of the Met's history. Much of the list is stable because the majority of the artist's are dead or retired. I personally think its handy because it gives a link to biographies on the performers, something the Met site doesn't do. Besides any list chronicling current events, places, people, etc. is bound to be unstable to an extent. Should we not have a list of opera companies because some new ones might be started or some might go bust? As long as we mark when it was last updated I don't see that there is any problem here.Singingdaisies (talk) 13:43, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, the list should be updated (see the next section). If no one can guarantee it to be up to date, the link to the http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/singers.xml source] would indeed be a much better idea! 85.1.41.185 (talk) 21:49, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Those who wish to go to the Met website are free to do so and an external link is provided.4meter4 (talk) 22:02, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Version control
The list should be updated since the information is "as of 2009". The MET database has been updated. There should be some version control out here. 85.1.41.185 (talk) 21:48, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I would suggest to delete this page and add a link to the MET Database, instead.85.1.41.185 (talk) 21:51, 19 April 2011 (UTC)


 * That would be not very helpful, as the benefit of creating this list is to link to the wiki biographies on the artists. Anyone may update this list at anytime.4meter4 (talk) 22:01, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The list is now current with the Met archives list.4meter4 (talk) 22:47, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Dates/ Update
I have begun the task of updating this page. I'm finished up to James Morris. Should I switch the date out with today's concerning when it was last updated, or wait until I'm done?LM103 (talk) 00:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Where is Mitropoulos ?
Is it normal that Dimitri Mitropoulos is missing from this list? I do not think so! The number is : 208 - December 1954 to april 1960... Just a little oblivion... Patachonf (talk) 17:49, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The introduction to this article states that it lists performers with at least 240 appearances, so Dimitri Mitropoulos with 208 doesn't make it. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:12, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Met to Wikitable
The following Excel VBA code will take the Met's web table and convert it to a wiki table. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:16, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Updated to V2. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:27, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Met report new format
Unfortunately, the new format of the "Performers Report" omits the descriptive column "Category". The template Annotated link could be used to insert Wikipedia's "Short description" from those articles, but doing that for several hundred articles may turn out to be too expensive, and the result may be unsatisfactory anyway, and certainly not as concise as the current descriptor. But without such a descriptor, the list is just a duplication of the list at the Metropolitan Opera (see discussion above) and without a raison d'être on Wikipedia (and fewer than a dozen articles link to it). Also, adding the necessary instructions into the code above might be non-trivial. The alternative, apart from abandoning the list, is to update it manually. I don't see much appetite for that. Thoughts? Pinging 4meter4 who created this list in 2008. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 08:06, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * If there is a way to keep the list functional I think it would be beneficial to hold onto it. I don't mind updating it manually every now and then.4meter4 (talk) 14:07, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
 * After thinking about the problem of the missing "Category" column a bit, the solution revealed itself: carry it over from the current table. This required a bit of coding, but the basic principle of carrying information from the previous wiki table into new Met data was already in the program – it just needed to be expanded. While at it, I also lowercased the category entries and showed full dates. The code above is not very robust and has almost no error checking. It requires the wikitext to be in a specific format. In the wiki version before today someone left two adjacent pipes in the sortname, resulting in faulty output; it took me more than 1/2 hour to find the cause. I'm sure that changing the order of parameters dab and nolink in will break things. Once the data is imported, quite a bit of manual clean-up is needed. New entries will have no "Category" column, and if they don't have an article, it can be laborious to find them. This would be reduced if we would cut the table of at 200 performances. This would roughly halve the table, but it would also drop a significant number of famous singers. Well, that's my work for today, and I don't expect to refresh the list for the next 12 month. If anyone updates individual entries in the meantime (linking, unlinking), please stick to the existing format as slavishly as you can.-- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:26, 17 March 2024 (UTC)