Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Recording Artists


 * 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 proposed WikiProject was not created

Description
In an effort to "narrow" the scope of WikiProject Musicians, the proposed WikiProject Recording artists would specialize in vocalists, while the existing WikiProject Musicians may be restructured to focus on instrumentalists, perhaps under a modified title. WikiRedactor (talk) 21:41, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

List of important pages and categories for this proposed group
 * american singers (number of pages in the category: 11,427)
 * american child singers (number of pages in the category: 399)


 * List of WikiProjects currently on the talk pages of those articles
 * Please invite these and any other similar groups to join the discussion about this proposal. See WikiProject_Council/Directory to find similar WikiProjects.




 * Why do you want to start a new group, instead of joining one of these existing groups?
 * After coming across WikiProject Musicians in passing, I realized that its scope covers both vocalists and instrumentalists, two very different parts of the music industry. If these topics were covered in a smaller scope on Wikipedia, it might make sense to merge them into a single WikiProject like the current arrangement. However, with just two categories, we have 11,000+ articles on vocalists from the United States alone, several of whom are not notable for any instrument aside from singing.


 * Separating the existing WikiProject definitely seems like a tedious task; however, moving articles from one WikiProject (ie. talk page templates) to another can be done over time, and with various different editors focusing on various different artists, the transition will be completed smoothly. I'll also take this opportunity to propose that if this proposal is successful, that the existing WikiProject Musicians be restructured as a WikiProject Instrumentalists, which would take on a redefined scope of solely people who are notable for their instrumental abilities (ie. orchestra members).


 * While this proposal may seem like a lot of work, I believe that the pay-off of honing in on more specific topics will make both projects more successful with their "smaller" workloads, and will also help connect Wikipedians with similar interests to collaborate within the WikiProject, more efficiently the current arrangement.

Support
Also, specify whether or not you would join the project.
 * 1) WikiRedactor (talk) 21:41, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Comment I'm not sure I see the point of this, other than to create more project pages and more bureaucracy. Why does the focus of the Musicians project need to be narrowed? Is there something you would do in this new WikiProject that you can't do in an existing one (organize interested editors, discuss styles, assess articles, etc.)? Also, "recording artist" is a poor title since it is not synonymous with "vocalist". A recording artist is any vocalist or instrumentalist who makes records. I can see creating a subproject or task force if a group has specific needs and interests that don't apply to other articles covered by an existing project, but I don't see that to be the case here. -- Laser brain  (talk)  23:55, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * My concern is that combining both the vocal and instrumental aspects of the music industry into a single collaboration is a lot for one WikiProject to take on by itself. My idea was that dividing them into into these separate categories, which would still have more than enough articles to supply the WikiProjects, would gather more Wikipedians of similar editing interests to more efficiently improve the articles at hand, because the current set-up seems way too open-ended in my opinion. Although I will say, since this proposal would affect a large project, I am certainly interested to hear about other suggestions that may serve the same purpose, including perhaps renaming it WikiProject Vocalists if the proposal itself is accepted. WikiRedactor (talk) 00:39, 1 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose. This project is hardly overwhelmed right now, and WP suffers from too many, too-narrow moribund projects as it is. Proposal is a solution for a non-existent problem. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk)
 * Weak Oppose: I'm not a big participant in projects, so my opinion may well be naive. I would think 1) and tell me if this not policy, that projects don't have to be mutually exclusive, and 2) that - in the case of a wide subject area such as musicians - breaking it the effort down into areas of tighter focus aka subprojects might be helpful. That said, if one wanted to make a project focusing on vocalists - it should be called WikiProject: Vocalists, or even WikiProject:Musicians/Vocalists, and similarly Instrumentalists, which perhaps could even be further focused by instrument. As far as "Recording Artist" goes, it is practically meaningless in this day of ubiquitous recording and publishing. Wwwhatsup (talk) 07:07, 1 January 2014 (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.