User talk:Niel Shell

Account registration problems You were right, I was wrong... and then I was presumptuous to boot
Good evening all,

Dr Shell: if you click on User:Niel_Shell, you will be guided thru the account registration process. I've also taken the liberty to add this info to the two IP accounts you have edited from, 74.72.37.65 and 74.65.243.109

Hope this helps!

--Shirt58 (talk) 12:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I am not aware of any problems (or how you know "Dr" is the appropriate address). I clicked on "[User:Niel_Shell]]" and see a blank page. I clicked on the IP you cited. I would never have seen your notes if you had not written to this page. I am, as you can tell, a novice wikipedist, and finding the information needed from the wikipedia pages takes a lot of time. I would never edit anything if I waited until I was knowledgeable, so I dive in and do. Indeed, at the outset, I had checked the credentials of Dr. Kohl (as perhaps you did for me), who has been so generous with his time. Niel Shell (talk) 19:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC) Shilkret archivist


 * Forgot to say thank you for your help and encouragement. Also, I now think what I thought of as a "log in" problem is probably what you referred to as a "registration problem." Thanks again. Niel Shell (talk) 13:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You were right, I was wrong... and then I was presumptuous to boot!
 * Sincere thanks for your kind words. The for Yep, you are completely right. I sanctimoniously and wrongly blathered on about on about registering thru starting User:Niel_Shell and so on, when I should have just written "if you click on Log in / create account option at the top right of of the page, you can create an account."
 * At the first of my four alma maters, the full Professor and Head of Department had an MA - he was much too busy writing books, editing books, writing articles for scholarly journals and referee-ing articles in scholarly journals about his, and with every lecture he gave to us, our beloved Henry James - to ever finish his PhD.
 * And yes, I googled you.--Shirt58 (talk) 13:40, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * What an unexpected reply. First, no apology is necessary. I'm just glad that my log in problems went away of their own accord. Second, commenting on your professor and, indirectly, on Henry James was unexpected. Third, since, if I read the Genesis Suite history correctly, it was you who created and shaped the article, I would have expected the passion expressed for James to have been saved for a musician, instead of a literary figure. In my department (math) a PhD is a formal requirement. In fact, in a current search to hire three tenure-bearing faculty members, the stated requirements were a PhD and two years experience. There are noted mathematicians without PhDs: The mathematician Ramanujan whose genius is often described in math history notes, not only didn't have any degrees, but, being from a remote area of India, he didn't even have access to the literature, so that he had to reinvent what was already known. Back to Genesis, do you know if images can be deleted and re-uploaded if they do not come out well? Niel Shell (talk) 05:56, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Palmolive Beauty Box Theater
Hi there! Thanks so much for this article. I've nominated it for Wikipedia's Did you know? feature. You can view your nomination's entry here. Best wishes, Voceditenore (talk) 08:20, 27 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your comments above and your nomination and for making my external link work.Niel Shell (talk) 22:18, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Palmolive Beauty Box Theater
 — Rlevse • Talk  • 18:03, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Template:Commonscat:Genesis Suite


Thank you for experimenting with Wikipedia. Your test worked, and the page that you created has been or soon will be deleted. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion, or "db", tag; if no such tag exists, then the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate and adding a hang-on tag is unnecessary), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. Mhiji 15:58, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The images in the commons for the artice Genesis Suite supply essential references for the article. If eliminating the "Commonscat: Genesis Suite" will delete the commons for the article (which is also used in the commons for the article Nathaniel Shilkret), please do not delete without discussing with me the reason for the deletion. I am the grandson of Nathaniel Shilkret, who commmissioned the Genesis Suite project as work-for-hire and wrote one of the seven pieces. I made the edit, for which the commons provide verification, to correct errors in the previous version which did harm to possible use of the work by claiming the written work was no longer extant. I also corrected several other errors and added substantially to the history of the composition, again making use of the commons.


 * If removing the commonscat will not remove the images from the commons for the Genesis Suite or Nathaniel Shilkret articles, you may remove the commonscat. If this is the case, I would very much appreciate an explanation of how I could have placed the images in the commons without having created a commonscat. Thank you. Niel Shell (talk) 18:25, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * There is no need to have a template for each article called Commons. We already have Commons category which can be used to link to categories on Wikimedia Commons. So for the Nathaniel Shilkret article you use and for Genesis Suite you use , both of which are already in the article. Cheers.

Shikeret Concerto performances
Please see the discussion here about the listing of the performances. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 19:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for getting a second opinion there. Niel Shell (talk) 00:07, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

About Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music, Trombone Concerto (Shilkret) and Genesis Suite
Hi Dr Shell,

You wrote: If, as seems likely, you had a hand in starting the discussion in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music concerning my list of performances, thank you for giving me a forum to present my case. I had no hand it this at all - see Special:Contributions/Shirt58 - You wrote: You provided some help to me when I rewrote the article Genesis Suite which you created, and it would be greatly appreciated if you could help me with an article on another Shilkret classical composition, Trombone Concerto (Shilkret).

I wrote the article in June 2010 and included a table of concert performances of the piece. More than a dozen people have made useful small edits of the article since then. Two days ago Melodia deleted the entire table.

It is common for wikipedia articles on musical compositions to list their usages. The frequency of usage and the stature of the artists, motion pictures and other users of the work provide documentation of the importance of the composition. As an example I looked at 1931 in music (the year chosen at random from a period with which I am somewhat familiar). Links to many of the songs listed, e.g., Dream a Little Dream of Me, Heartaches, and I Don't Know Why give fairly extensive lists of recordings (with no references).

For the Concerto for Trombone, the most extensive modern usage is in concerts, where it has been performed by noted soloists and concert orchestras worldwide, and the list of performances thus provides useful documentation of the importance of the composition and belongs in the article. My stated source of information is the contracts these organizations enter into in order to perform the composition. Again using the 1931 in music article for comparison, I followed the link to Stravinsky's Violin Concerto in D to find the premiere performance was listed with no reference. I have copies of the contracts, but for privacy reasons I can not include complete copies of the contracts on the wikipedia commons.

I reverted the deletion of the table, and Melodia deleted it again. I'm just a Randy in Boise with a taste for C20 classical music. You experts should be able to work it out on your own. - About Original research in the Genesis Suite. Apologies for my long delay in addressing this matter I admit I still have concerns. I would, with most greatest respect to you and your forebears, suggest that you may possibly have added most valuable but still original research and have a conflict of interests, howsoever small but still not inconsequential. I would venture to suggest that we may perhaps investigate an independent "third opinion" about this. - Looking forward to hearing from you again! --Shirt58 (talk) 11:55, 13 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello, Peter.


 * My thanks for writing to me. Perhaps I should have omitted “as seems likely” from my last note to you. At any rate I did have a review by peers of the deletion of my table. Incidentally, “Niel” would also be a fine way to address me, if you choose.


 * It has been quite a while since I thought about the Genesis Suite article, and I recall writing to you, I thought it was about images, but I do not recall the note, nor where I posted it. At any rate, I resolved whatever problems I had.


 * When I did not hear from you for quite a while, I assumed that time did not permit this, which was fine. I often have more communications to me that I would like to answer than I have time to give answers. Speaking of time, my thoughts below need not take your time to answer.


 * Wikipedia policy: My editorial experiences have led me to think in general about WP’s policies. WP policies and government laws have in common that both establish order that apply to a very large number of individuals and a very wide variety of circumstances. It is impossible to write laws that cover every known circumstance, let alone others that can not be anticipated in advance. Laws and WP policies are necessary and generally, but not always, work well. For example, if one speeds to carry a critically ill passenger to the hospital, one is breaking the law, but in my opinion it may be a reasonable thing to do. In many instances, a police officer would provide an escort rather than issue a summons (although it made the local news here recently that a police officer did both). In wikipedia, those to whom wikipedia grants rights make final decisions in disputes play the role of the executive branch, the police officer in my example. As in the law, editors should be reasonable in their interpretaton.


 * WP’s reliable resource criterion requiring a source to be published, that is “made available for public view,” really can be restrictive. For example, if a meteor is mentioned as being in the vacinty of something which is the subject of a WP article, the meteor is available for public view, but has not been MADE available, so I don’t think it could be considered published. As best I can see, the reference to the meteor would have to be removed, even though the meteor itself is a reliable, verifiable source. Contracts, although usually not made public, are the ultimate source of the agreements made therein. If some access is available to them, they can be verifiable. If the New York Times incorrectly stated something that could be corrected based on what is in a contract and a WP article quoted the Times, it seems that the error could not be corrected in WP, even if it harmed one of the parties in the contract. Niel Shell (talk) 20:28, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 13
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Jeannine, I Dream of Lilac Time, you added links pointing to the disambiguation pages Lilac Time and John McCormack. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 10:41, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the error alert. I think the error is fixed. I definitely would not want to opt out of these messages.Niel Shell (talk) 15:42, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

The Chocolate Soldier
Hello! I have removed your new information for now, because you did not add references to verifiable sources. See WP:V. Also, please note that none of that information should go in the Productions section of the article, which is for productions of the operetta on stage. When you re-add it to cite your sources, the information should go under the headings for adaptations and recordings. Here's the text: The 1929 Columbia Picture film short "Tony Sarg's Marionettes in the Orient," with music directed by Rosario Bourdon, included a portion of "Seek the Spy." On May 22, 1934 a one-hour radio adaptation of the operetta aired on NBC on the popular Palmolive Beauty Box Theater, with John Barclay as Bumerli, Gladys Swarthout as Nadina and Frank Macintyre as Colonel Popoff, and music directed by Nathaniel Shilkret. The International Novelty Orchestra, directed by Shilkret, had recorded "My Hero Medley-Waltz" on June 24, 1929, issued as Victor 35993 A.

All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:09, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Select Survey Invite
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Sincere thanks for your help! Porteclefs (talk) 12:48, 20 April 2018 (UTC)