Talk:Nina (Dalayrac)

Stub?
Many French opera articles were marked as stubs. I've just selectively removed the stub tags from about 20 of the longest articles, out a total of about 70. Unfortunately 4meter4 has reverted me here and restored the stub tag, and this is not the first time this has happened. I wonder if 4meter4 intends to revert all my 'destub' edits? -- Klein zach  10:58, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * (EC) 4meter4 has also reverted here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Why? What's going on here?  -- Klein  zach  11:24, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No,I don't plan on reverting all of them. Many of your de-stubings I totally agree with (ie Fortunio (opera) is a good example). Others, like this one, I do not. This particular article has a prose count of 1068 characters. Its my understanding that an article below 1500 characters is considered a stub. Best.4meter4 (talk) 11:08, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. There is no numerical criteria for stubs. That is specifically stated in the guidelines. -- Klein zach  11:24, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * See Stub: "There is no set size at which an article stops being a stub." Kindly read the guideline and please revert your edits. -- Klein zach  11:27, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This has all the basic features of an opera article: major points of fact (composer, librettist, premiere details etc.), a roles table, a synopsis and sources. Therefore it is not a stub. This is an obscure French opera which lasts about an hour, is never performed nowadays and has never been recorded (with the exception of one aria). It is thus highly unlikely this will ever be a long article comparable to, say, La traviata. We have discussed giving assessments at the Opera Project several times before and it was agreed not to use a Procrustean, "one-size-fits-all" rating system but to adjust assessments according to the amount of information available. So some of our biographical articles on 17th and 18th-century singers, for instance, are only a paragraph long, yet contain almost all that is known about the subject. It was agreed it would be ridiculous to mark such articles as "stub". --Folantin (talk) 12:03, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree. This article is poorly developed, as are the others listed above, and the stub tags are deserved. We have existing librettos for all of these operas, as well as modern performances and recordings for most of them. There is therefore likely to be a lot more material available both on and offline for these works to expand the articles considerably. Take this article for instance which has a published libretto by Ricordi. In five minutes of searching I found these sources:, , , , I'm sure I could dig up a lot more in an hour. I don't think asking for 3 or 4 more sentences of prose in this particular article is all that unreasonable. What bothers me is the removal of stub tags when they are serving a useful purpose of highlighting weak articles in the opera project's scope. These tags are useful and helpful, and they aren't hurting anything. Why fight so hard to remove them from articles that really could use attention? Best.4meter4 (talk) 12:43, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm talking specifically about Nina. You have a recording of this opera, do you? I'm well aware there is some more information available on Nina. That is not the definition of a stub. If it were, most of Wikipedia's articles would be stubs. The whole point of the stub class is to identify pages that are lacking some of the most basic information (i.e. composer/librettist name, premiere date, roles table, basic synopsis and reliable sources). --Folantin (talk) 12:47, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree with your defintion of a stub. Stubs are articles which are "too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject". It is true that Nina is the only opera in this discussion that has not been recorded. But it does have a published libretto which means a synopsis of more than four sentences should be easily feasible. The sources above give some more info about the performance history and music. This article just looks and feals like a stub to me. It's almost a start, but not quite in my opinion. It hasn't yet reached what I would consider encyclopedic coverage. Where that threshold is differs from article to article, and, it would seem by reading the policy, is somewhat subjective.4meter4 (talk) 13:03, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This article does provide basic encyclopaedic coverage. How much action do you think there is in the course of an hour? "Somewhat subjective" applies to the whole assessment system, which is why it's a waste of time. "Stub" is the only useful class as it can be defined objectively to identify articles missing essential details. BTW I'd like a link to the Ricordi libretto please. --Folantin (talk) 13:17, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Here's a link to the original libretto publication by Peytieux. I can't seem to find the Ricordi link again in google books, which is odd... I'll keep hunting for it when I get a chance, but I have to log off soon to head to work. Best.4meter4 (talk) 13:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I didn't realise we had to write the synopsis section from the original published libretto in order to get rid of the "stub" tag. Your problem finding the Ricordi score might be a strong indication that it doesn't in fact exist (or that you've confused it with Paisiello's Nina). A critical edition of this opera, in a volume also containing Dalayrac's Léon ou Le château de Monténèro, was planned by Pendragon Press in the 1990s but I've found no evidence it was ever published.--Folantin (talk) 13:37, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd say this is a "start", based on having all the necessary elements. True, some bits can be expanded, but that's true of most articles. The synopsis is short but gives a good idea what the opera is about. Many encyclopedia entries for this work would be even shorter or non-existent. I've expanded it slightly and added more references. Frankly, the referencing was very poor, e.g. no inline cites and a generic "Source" listing The Viking Opera Guide without a page number or even article name. Had that been the only source, I would have been more inclined to view it as a stub. Voceditenore (talk) 15:49, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, the Viking Opera Guide is listed alphabetically by composer so giving the exact page reference doesn't matter as much as it might otherwise. Thanks for adding other references - but, as far as I can see, except for the additional information about the ballet and foreign performances, they simply corroborate what was already there. I don't see the point in having multiple sourcing if the sources all say the same thing about a subject that is completely uncontroversial. (I know there have been more and more demands for a WP:SHRUBBERY approach with regards to tons of sources in the past few years but I'd be more sympathetic if I believed the shrubbery-demanders actually checked the multiple references they want so badly themselves. Sometimes I get the impression nobody ever looks at the references given even if they are online and directly linked. Look at this beauty I've just found for instance . End of rant for time being). --Folantin (talk) 16:38, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Not having access to Viking, there was no other way I could find or verify the stuff I added, and frankly, I thought the stuff about Berlioz needed an inline cite. Besides, I think multiple sources, especially accessible ones are helpful to the reader and to anyone hoping to expand an article further. Voceditenore (talk) 16:56, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * OK. My basic point in this discussion is that this article was not a stub. --Folantin (talk) 17:02, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That was my basic point too. ;-) Voceditenore (talk) 17:05, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I will defer to consensus on this point. Regaurdless, voced's recent additions have improved the article to the point that I wouldn't call it a stub anymore. Thanks for pitching in.4meter4 (talk) 21:45, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Can 4meter4 now please revert his other edits - Amadis (Lully), Bellérophon, Charles VI (opera), Didon (Desmarets), Le devin du village, Thésée, Cinq-Mars (opera)? All of them are similar cases. When I went through Category:French-language opera stubs, I was updating and checking for missing information. It was clear that nobody had worked on most of these pages for quite some time. I removed stub tags from a fairly small number of them, in cases where the basic information was in place.

A stub is defined by your own Opera Project as follows: "a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work to become a meaningful article. It is usually very short. . . probably contain minimal contextual information, such as date and place of first performance, and may either give a brief plot summary or a list of roles." That's clear and well-established. Articles that are reasonably long, have multiple sections and a coherent approach to the subject should not be tagged.

When non-experts (lacking access to special books etc) are highly unlikely to contribute additional information, tagging pages just gives the reader the idea that the article is unreliable. Also tagging articles permanently as stubs where (role/synopsis or whatever) info is simply unavailable (in some cases because the opera was never written!) is illogical. -- Klein zach  00:24, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Done as requested, and thanks for taking the time today to improve the articles Kleinzach. Best.4meter4 (talk) 05:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC)