Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music/Archive 71

Split proposals regarding Keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach
See Talk:Keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach. Please discuss there, not here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:34, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Almost all the content was created by me, which can hardly have been a coincidence. Shuffling around well-written content to create list-like contentless sub-stubs doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. Mathsci (talk) 09:24, 24 March 2018 (UTC)


 * User:Francis Schonken has been editing against WP:consensus for quite a period at Keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach. These almost exclusively concern whole sections created almost entirely by me. His modus operandi involves targeting BWV 1052, BWV 1053, BWV 1057 and BWV 1044, chosen at random. The random edits seem to be some form of WP:HOUNDING.


 * On March 2018 he was involved in similar edits where he made 3 consecutive edits in one 24 hour period. He has accused User:Softlavender and me of tag-teaming, but it appears that he has just been trying to circumvent consensus. Softlavender is an experienced editor who has quite a lot of experience with classical music. Francis Schonken has a history of editing in this way, i.e disruptive edits and and a pattern of targeting particular users. On many occasions Softlavender has explained to Francis Schonken how consensus works, but he has continually ignored that per WP:IDONTHEARTHAT.


 * In 2016 he was topic-banned for 6 months for edits on Orgelbüchlein.


 * Similarly in January 2017 there was a report at WP:ANI where large parts of article were moved around. All of those edits were reverted and changed to redirects by a large number of editors.


 * That conduct is continuing now. Mathsci (talk) 01:20, 4 April 2018 (UTC)


 * The same pattern can be seen on An Wasserflüssen Babylon (Reincken). In that case a careful article on the Lutheran hymn has been written in the usual way with several users: An Wasserflüssen Babylon. user:Gerda Arendt had the main initiative in February 2018 and on my talk page asked me to help me write the article. During this period, however, Francis Schonken has created a fork article (on Reincken). The fork article started out as way to veto Gerda's DYK hook; it then developed into a merge/fork article. Edits to the forked article were mostly made by copy-pasting the main article using images and content mostly created by me. The forked content is up for WP:AfD. Francis Schonken then decided that he would try to produce a complete article. Much of what he has attempted to create is unusable, because it is WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. The section on "music" is just something he invented himself out of thin air. Mathsci (talk) 01:20, 4 April 2018 (UTC)


 * User:Francis Schonken has given no explanation at all of why he is making these kinds of edits. He has ignored User:Softlavender, just claiming that tag-teaming is going on. As has happened on other occasions, he has kept a low profile while WP:AN3 was under review. He then continued in exactly the same way. None of his edits conform with WP:consensus and he is quite aware of that. Mathsci (talk) 21:45, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * None of these matters have so far been resolved in any reasonable manner and/or with consensus. Mathsci (talk) 04:55, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

A link to a DAB page
Cambiata links to Third (music); which is an R from incomplete disambiguation to the DAB page Third. Does anyone know which variety of third this might be? There might be something in Grove (which I don't have). Narky Blert (talk) 14:15, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * This should sort it I suppose, but I'm not too sure whether the rest of the explanation in the intro of the cambiata article works very well. I mean, was asking myself whether there wouldn't be a clearer way to give a short introduction to the topic. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:37, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * TY! Narky Blert (talk) 16:17, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Bach House (Eisenach)
The director of Bach House (Eisenach) has come to en-WP and wants help updating the article there. Perhaps somebody from this project would be interested in reviewing their proposals and updating the page? It is, apparently, very out of date. Jytdog (talk) 00:13, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Tag
What do project members think of the tag on O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 60? Please discuss on the article talk, not here. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:48, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

While the tag is gone (thank you, Smerus), we have three new ones. Do they help the readers? We writers know that our work always leaves something to be desired, no? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:26, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

I fixed two (in on sentence). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:40, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Mathsci fixed the other. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:46, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:42, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Split proposals regarding Keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach
See Talk:Keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach. Please discuss there, not here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:34, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Almost all the content was created by me, which can hardly have been a coincidence. Shuffling around well-written content to create list-like contentless sub-stubs doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. Mathsci (talk) 09:24, 24 March 2018 (UTC)


 * User:Francis Schonken has been editing against WP:consensus for quite a period at Keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach. These almost exclusively concern whole sections created almost entirely by me. His modus operandi involves targeting BWV 1052, BWV 1053, BWV 1057 and BWV 1044, chosen at random. The random edits seem to be some form of WP:HOUNDING.


 * On March 2018 he was involved in similar edits where he made 3 consecutive edits in one 24 hour period. He has accused User:Softlavender and me of tag-teaming, but it appears that he has just been trying to circumvent consensus. Softlavender is an experienced editor who has quite a lot of experience with classical music. Francis Schonken has a history of editing in this way, i.e disruptive edits and and a pattern of targeting particular users. On many occasions Softlavender has explained to Francis Schonken how consensus works, but he has continually ignored that per WP:IDONTHEARTHAT.


 * In 2016 he was topic-banned for 6 months for edits on Orgelbüchlein.


 * Similarly in January 2017 there was a report at WP:ANI where large parts of article were moved around. All of those edits were reverted and changed to redirects by a large number of editors.


 * That conduct is continuing now. Mathsci (talk) 01:20, 4 April 2018 (UTC)


 * The same pattern can be seen on An Wasserflüssen Babylon (Reincken). In that case a careful article on the Lutheran hymn has been written in the usual way with several users: An Wasserflüssen Babylon. user:Gerda Arendt had the main initiative in February 2018 and on my talk page asked me to help me write the article. During this period, however, Francis Schonken has created a fork article (on Reincken). The fork article started out as way to veto Gerda's DYK hook; it then developed into a merge/fork article. Edits to the forked article were mostly made by copy-pasting the main article using images and content mostly created by me. The forked content is up for WP:AfD. Francis Schonken then decided that he would try to produce a complete article. Much of what he has attempted to create is unusable, because it is WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. The section on "music" is just something he invented himself out of thin air. Mathsci (talk) 01:20, 4 April 2018 (UTC)


 * User:Francis Schonken has given no explanation at all of why he is making these kinds of edits. He has ignored User:Softlavender, just claiming that tag-teaming is going on. As has happened on other occasions, he has kept a low profile while WP:AN3 was under review. He then continued in exactly the same way. None of his edits conform with WP:consensus and he is quite aware of that. Mathsci (talk) 21:45, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * None of these matters have so far been resolved in any reasonable manner and/or with consensus. Mathsci (talk) 11:14, 12 May 2018 (UTC)


 * None of these matters have so far been resolved in any reasonable manner and/or with consensus. Mathsci (talk) 04:54, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

MusicBrainz in authority control box
Whether or not MusicBrainz authority file numbers should be included in authority control is currently discussed at External links/Noticeboard. Please discuss there, not here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:23, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

 * Portal:Classical music is the one bannered with this project. It does not appear to have a dedicated maintainer and has had no significant editing or updating since 2009, apart from the "In the news" section which consists of two items from March and February 2016. Because it requires manual editing to change the content appearing in its sections, it has been completely static for the last 9 years, i.e. Richard Wagner is always the "Selected biography", Concerto delle donne is always the "Selected article", and London's Royal Opera House is always the "Selected picture". It also gives the very odd impression to readers that classical music is all about opera. The material in the "Quotes" section is unverified, ditto the "Did you know?" section. If anyone here is interested in reviving this portal, I urge you to visit WikiProject Portals and its talk page. They are developing some automated tools which can significantly improve, dare I say, rescue it and make it virtually maintenance-free. Voceditenore (talk) 15:00, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Major/minor and gender
Major and minor includes "major or minor tonality, sometimes related to masculine and feminine gender" and more, with no references. The text was added to Gender in 2005 and moved to its current position in 2010 (diff). Is a good reference available, or should it be removed? Johnuniq (talk) 04:46, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it should be removed. I have certainly never hear of such a thing, though I had vague reminiscences of a "feminine cadence". Anyway, I think the bit about German is just nonsense (which people in stuff like "Gender studies" seem to be interested in manufacturing). Tongeschlecht (German only) seems to refer to the major/minor distinction, and Geschlecht corresponds (fairly exactly!) to "gender", since it means not only the "male/female" distinction, but also grammatical gender (not limited to masculine/feminine), and other meaning corresponding to the Latin original (Genus: "type"), such as various groups in the classification of life. de:Wikt says that Tonart is a "synonym" for Tongeschlecht, but Tonart just seems to mean "key" or "scale" (Tonleiter: "Leiter" is ladder, which would have got me an extra point on a Sporcle quiz earlier today). de:Wikt helpfully gives "tone gender" (redlink) as an Englisch "translation", but I suppose it would really have to be "type of key, major or minor", because I do not know any single term to capture that distinction. Imaginatorium (talk) 07:57, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Basically, it's nonsense and I have deleted it.--Smerus (talk) 07:10, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Spam links to "Online Music Library"
A single purpose editor has been doing nothing on Wikipedia but placing links to the Online Music Library on dozens of articles. They place them at the very top of "External links" sections and even created Template:OpenMusicLibrary for the purpose. Note, that the original version of this template had two links to the OML, one for the person and one to the site's homepage. I have since altered it to remove the latter link. This is a for-profit site (owned by ProQuest) which aims to get people to subscribe to their streaming and paywall articles. See here. The pages have nothing on them that contributes to further knowledge about the person. See, for example, their pages on Maria Callas and Telemann. I am in the process of removing all of these links (about 30 so far), but would like members' opinion on this. This is a list of the 60+ pages still linked to the template. Previous spammers from this company had also added 30+ links to this site in 2016 and 2017–2018 Some, but not all, of those have since been removed. Voceditenore (talk) 10:37, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it's not entirely clearcut. In principle there should be no bar on links to charging resources, but until or unless this OML (slightly misleading use of "Open", if you ask me) becomes renowned as a standard source for scores, recordings, biographical information and so on, I think the links should be removed. (I just looked at Erik Satie, where it was added at the top of the list, and labelled "Krik Satie".) Imaginatorium (talk) 11:39, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for removing that, Imaginatorium. The OML Erik Satie listng is a case in point. There's a one-sentence bio with a link to Wikipedia. If you click on the blue arrow thinking you'll get a longer bio, you are instead taken to a page with streamed extracts of his music—all of them behind a paywall. The only Satie scores they list are behind pay-walls or require registration despite there being numerous scores freely available without registration or subscription here at IMSLP. The only article by Satie that they list is behind a ProQuest paywall. No mention whatsoever, let alone a link to L'esprit musical: portrait de l'auteur par lui-même (written in March 1924) and apparently the one re-printed in the ProQuest source. It is available for free here on Gallica. I'm going to remove the rest of the OML links, and invite everyone to remove any they come across in the meantime. Voceditenore (talk) 12:54, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * OK. I think removing them is a good idea. My only reservation was that IMSLP (for example) is not a community-run "Open" project, it's a private project run by a benevolent dictator, which can be ideal*, but can also be fragile. There is no knowing whether in 20 years OML will be the "Free" one, and IMSLP not, for some values of "Free". (* It's the IM-Score-LP, but try suggesting that the scores should therefore come before the recordings...) Imaginatorium (talk) 14:02, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I've looked a bit further into OML and at the moment, it appears to be basically only of use as a specialised search engine. Their tactics are really quite dubious. One of the editors involved in adding the links, touted it on his talk page as "the world's largest repository of open access resources for the study of music". I signed up to see how it worked. Simply being signed up apparently entitles you nothing apart from participating in their forums. Here's an example... While signed in, I did a search on "Bach". Amongst the results was the score for Christen, ätzet diesen Tag, BWV 63 published by Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe in 1868. All you get is the title page . Trying to view the rest requires an "institutional login", i.e. from an institution that has paid for access. The title page even displays the logo of Alexander Street, a subsidiary of ProQuest superimposed on the bottom right-hand corner. Yet, this exact same copy of the score is available for free on IMSLP . Nowhere is the hapless "member" informed of its existence, let alone provided with a link. Frankly, I think the whole OML operation, and their attempt to use Wikipedia to publicise it, is simply dishonest. Voceditenore (talk) 13:19, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Mind you, according to the "about" page, they are "leveraging shared ontologies", so it must be something quite complicated... Imaginatorium (talk) 13:29, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Yikes! Now that I've signed up do you think they'll be leveraging my ontology? SMirC-crazy.svg Voceditenore (talk) 14:00, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I thought I could complement my response below to address this point, too: that assertion relates to the fact that we made use of shared ontologies to connect several digital collections of scores and establish links between their items. We used the ontologies available at http://data.bnf.fr/ (Bibliothèque nationale de France), http://datos.bne.es/ (Biblioteca Nacional de España), to name a couple, to disambiguate personal names of composers, librettists, align scores of the same musical work on one work page, reconcile instruments, etc. Not a trivial effort navigating through several library datasets! ;) Avorio (talk) 16:38, 26 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Although links to OML's individual "person" pages are unsuitable for addition to articles for the reasons outlined above, I have added a link to OML at WikiProject Composers Guide to Online Research. I have, in turn, added a link to the guide at the bottom of WikiProject Classical music/Guidelines. Re access to material behind paywalls in general, I'd like to remind everyone about The Wikipedia Library Card Platform. Wikipedia has formed partnerships with a variety of academic publishers to provide free access to their online material for Wikipedia editors on approved application. Many of them are highly relevant to classical music or have a significant number of books and scholarly journals on the subject, e. g. Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals (RIPM), JSTOR, Project MUSE, Taylor & Francis, Baylor University Press, Bloomsbury Publishing, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Edinburgh University Press, etc.. The full list of partners and instructions for applications is here. Voceditenore (talk) 09:08, 22 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Hello, Voceditenore and Imaginatorium! Thank you for starting this discussion — as the creator of the OML, I appreciate your comments very much. First of all, let me get one thing clear: the OML is a free site that aims to index both open access and paid resources, ultimately aiming at closing the gap that still exists between them... which only makes academic research more difficult (and often incomplete). I put my energies in that because I believe the best research experience is one that gives researchers the widest and broadest view of a discipline, regardless of whether content is paid or free. As far as I can tell, the OML is the first and only free site to make available a huge index of over 1 million articles about music from over 700 music journals. And that's an index which was carefully crafted by humans over a great number of years! Some of those journals are free, others require subscription — which is way beyond my control. In any case, I wanted to give music researchers the ability to query one public database and discover the most content relevant to their research. The same approach applies to scores. We have already indexed over 202,000 scores from several national libraries around the world, and several publishers, too. Again, carefully creating reliable metadata and controlled vocabularies! The OML is the only free site, to my knowledge, that brings together an original manuscript of a musical work (often open access) and in-copyright versions of that same work (which often require a fee), at scale. Take, for example, Fanfare for the Common Man, a 20th century work composed by Aaron Copland. On that musical work page, you will find four scores: two are in the public domain, two were published by Boosey and Hawkes in 1942 and are still in copyright. We show all of them, side by side. If you are affiliated with an academic institution that subscribes to Alexander Street's collections of scores, you will be able to click through to their platform to see them. As Alexander Street does not sell to individuals, only to libraries, I thought about adding a direct link to the publisher's website as well, so that an individual user could purchase the score (or perhaps another form of digital access to that item) — I'm investigating how to achieve that at scale, and welcome suggestions. Erik Satie is indeed a not-so-great example (despite my love for his piano works!), as we don't have many titles by him that is in the public domain yet, but take Clara Schumann, for example: all of her scores are freely accessible. Same thing for Francisca Gonzaga, the Brazilian composer. Or Carl Friedrich Abel: over 75% of his scores are available for free. And that is indeed the ratio across the site for scores: more than 75% of all of our scores are available for free — i.e., 150,000+ items are free to access, 50,000 require a library subscription. My thinking was that Wikipedia pages of composers could have a link to the OML, just like they do to IMSLP, ChoralWiki, IMDb, Grove, and many others. I believe that music researchers would benefit from discovering relevant materials via the OML, be it scores, articles related to a composer, their works, or a specific instrument or arragement. There are indeed many things we could improve on the site, and we're working to do just that — I'm all ears and open to feedback and feature requests from the academic music community, as I have been for the past few years. Avorio (talk) 16:31, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Avorio, OML is not a repository of any open access material. It is a repository of external links to it. Every one of the open access scores takes you to the score on Gallica or the Library of Congress or another library with a digitised collection. For Satie, OML has links to 9 scores, all on Gallica. However, by going directly to Gallica in the first place and searching for Satie Scores, you get 27. In the case of Elliott Carter, the available open-access scores are just click-through's to the Library of Congress, several of them 404s I might add. Going directly to the Library of Congress site and searching for Elliot Carter brings a treasure trove of open access material and scores. As I said, OML is mildly valuable as a search engine, but it privileges subscription material in its searches and presentation. Links to a person ID page require quite laborious further searches to find open-access material. They add zero value to the WP article as an external link in my view. Per External links: "external links in an article can be helpful to the reader, but they should be kept minimal, meritable, and directly relevant to the article. See Links normally to be avoided.". It may be acceptable to list the OML person ID page on the talk page of an article to aid editors seeking to improve the article, although they'll have quite a slog finding things, especially open-access material. Incidentally, many (probably most) WP articles on major classical composers and their works have External links sections that are full of cruft, duplicate sources, etc. and should be drastically pruned. Wikipedia was never meant to be a link directory and our guidelines on external links reflect that. Voceditenore (talk) 17:53, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

AfD proposal
There is an AfD proposal at Articles for deletion/Valerian Shiukashvili which members of this project may wish to comment on.--Smerus (talk) 07:51, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Piano Sonata No. 2 (Chopin)/GA1
People may want to look in at this GA review.--Smerus (talk) 21:24, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Today's featured article/requests/Claude Debussy
Currently up for consideration for August 22nd --Smerus (talk) 12:19, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Featured list candidates/Daniil Trifonov discography/archive1
I created and nominated this list for FL last month, but the candidacy has not received much attention. Please check it out when you get the chance. Regards, Zingarese talk  ·  contribs  06:00, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

BWV3
As you may have noticed, the best database we have, Bach Digital, has now a new presentation/organization of the BWV numbers. Sigh. Some pieces now have two, some pieces that so far had one, have now two, for different version. However, the "old" numbers are still in place in the database, on an equal level. Typically what used to be BWV 134a is now BWV 134.1, and BWV 210 became BWV 210.2 because there's also BWV 210.1. As you can see, new redirects exist already, thank to Francis Schonken, who also made further changes which I think should have been discussed first.

The question is, what do we do? Which might be anything from doing nothing, to adding the new numbers in footnotes, up to using the new numbers in text, and finally using the new numbers in article tiles. I don't know how to organise a discussion. I oppose strongly to rename articles, and I even oppose to refer to articles by the new unfamiliar names. More to come. We need to talk about hw to style new and old numbers, keeping in mind that the "old" are still valid and have been familiar from the 19th century.

Lead
Francis Schonken wrote this (example linked above):

O holder Tag, erwünschte Zeit (O lovely day, o hoped-for time), BWV 210.2 (formerly BWV 210), is a secular cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach.

I believe that we need to find a different wording.
 * 1) I don't think we should have the "new" number first, when the common name is the "old" number (and possibly will be for a long time if not for ever).
 * 2) I oppose writing "formerly" when the "old" number is still a valid number.
 * 3) I have no good idea about how to describe the "new" number, we could say "also" and leave it to a footnote.

Suggestion:

Johann Sebastian Bach composed the secular cantata O holder Tag, erwünschte Zeit (O lovely day, o hoped-for time), BWV 210, also BWV210.2.

Notes

Referemce

Modified suggestion, to first mentionn something familiar (Bach, cantata), and only then a lot of German, translation, numbers). Ideas welcome. What do you think about adding a footnote about the 2018 numbers, or a link to an explanation? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:43, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Infobox
I followed the changes partly in infoboxes, to discuss if we should
 * 1) use both numbers on top, example BWV 134a that version before revert --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:12, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * 2) use only the traditional number on top, example BWV 210, - the other number could be in a footnote if wanted that version before revert --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:16, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * 3) use no number on top, but both numbers as catalogue numbers below, example ^ BWV 205 --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:07, 23 July 2018 (UTC) that version before revert --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:20, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Example
Based on the suggestions above ("old" BWV number is commonly known), I changed O angenehme Melodei, BWV 210a, using infobox musical composition to accomodate both BWV numbers more easily. Please discuss. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:47, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't see the advantages of any of these proposals, so I reverted those four articles (BWV 134a, BWV 210, BWV 205, BWV 210a) to the version I prefer, and would like to discuss that version (please don't change it, I'm not interested in discussing a version that has imho no advantage whatsoever). --Francis Schonken (talk) 22:04, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Sorry, I had to strike the link, as reverted, the example version was like this. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:08, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * After edit conflict: I said above what I think of these versions. The "old" BWV number is not "formerly", but the common number. Your versions don't convey that. I tried alternatives. You reverted, twice or more, and not only me. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:23, 24 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Re. "... Sigh. ...": I have no strong feelings, not either way, about the updated numbers. Extra work is balanced by an opportunity to explain the succession of versions more clearly (currently often muddy in the articles of these cantatas). I don't think updating these articles to the new numbers should be left to someone who has a negative bias towards them (and tells several inaccuracies about them). --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:14, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I have strong feelings about - when introducing those numbers - removing longstanding infoboxes (on the same article several times, and tell me something about edit warring, and that's what the sigh stands for), but have no time (to argue) today. What do you and others suggest regarding the lead sentence. I find "formerly" unacceptable, and the first position for the new number not a good idea. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:25, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Re. "... what the sigh stands for ..." – that's not what you wrote originally. Please keep your editor-related diatribes away from this page. User talk pages are for comments on editor behaviour. Likewise, please keep your infobox-related diatribes away from this page. As said, per the current rules, these infoboxes should be discussed, each for their own article, on the talk page of the respective article. On the content of your opening sentence proposal: don't agree, and propose to discuss the opening sentence of each of these articles on the respective article talk page. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:44, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree that these infoboxes should have been discussed, each on it's own page, by you who removed them and were reverted. You should find consensus for your removal, and until then, restore the previous stable state.
 * Likewise, your changes, referring to valid BWV numbers as "formerly", seem misleading if not wrong, and should be reverted and discussed. I don't do it because we should first discuss what to do instead. I tried, above, suggesting alternatives. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:43, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Those of you looking at the talks from Wikimania 2018 should notice the developments with WikiCite - and how Wikidata is the foundation of that effort - and how infoboxes are crucial to that project as well. Here's the slide presentation. - 13:10, 26 July 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kosboot (talk • contribs)
 * Exactly why this shouldn't have come here (as I suggested previously, elsewhere), and should have been at the individual articles' talk pages in the first place: despite the multiple exhortations, in various wordings, by ArbCom to not let a discussion about an infobox on a particular article degenerate into a discussion about infoboxes in general, that's exactly what that last contribution aims at, way beyond the handful (or less) infoboxes implied in the OP of this section. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:32, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Francis, please find a way to restore infoboxes to the four articles where you removed them in bold edits. You can remove parameters when unclear. I don't want to have to seek clarification from the arbs how they understand civility in these matters, but would do it tomorrow. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:53, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

BWV 208
Francis, I am surprised to see you advocate discussion in different places, as you did above. Obliging, I began on Talk:Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd, BWV 208, in order not to duplicate from above. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:53, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Proposed style for rhyme schemes
A proposal has been opened at, that Wikipedia adopt a consistent style for rhyme scheme notation. Scansion is also mentioned. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:39, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Did Haydn and Mozart abandon the harpsichord?
Could I please request an extra pair of eyes or two on the recent history of the Harpsichord article? Our established text says that both Haydn and Mozart wrote for the harpsichord in their earlier careers, but later abandoned the harpsichord in favour of the piano. An anonymous editor recently changed this to say that they continued to use the harpsichord throughout their lives, claiming that Mozart played the K. 537 concerto on the harpsichord. No source was provided for this change, and there is no mention of the harpsichord in our article on K. 537, so I reverted the change. The anonymous editor reinstated the change, still without source, but I'm reluctant to revert again, not least because the stable text I reverted to is also unsourced. --Deskford (talk) 08:54, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia's flat sign, ♭
Is it unavoidable that this symbol have so much space around it?

B♭ major

is scarcely an improvement on

Bb major

no?

Other symbols offered don't have the space that these three musical signs have eg ©®™№₧‡♮♯♭

Yours, wondering if perhaps this is a browser issue, and nothing under Wikipedia's control, 146.200.173.17 (talk) 09:56, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Works fine for me on a desktop. Are you reading articles on mobile, in which case the flat symbol would probably show up styled as an emoji instead? Double sharp (talk) 10:01, 3 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I was on a mobile, yes. I've just moved over to my laptop. The sign itself is much smaller relative to the rest of the text, and so the space around it is also smaller. But, still, it's not snug up against the B though.


 * Oh though I've just noticed something: on the laptop the flat sign available underneath the editing window (B♭) has less space around it than the one I copied and pasted from an article (B♭) The latter, though, looks more like a genuine flat sign. Oh well. 146.200.173.17 (talk) 10:46, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This has been discussed at length at Template talk:Music. It's a problem with the phone's browser. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:42, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It's certainly exacerbated by my phone browser, but as I just noted the problem is nonetheless still present on my PC (Chrome, Windows 7) Thank you the link to the Template Talk. It's many years since I was a WP editor - bizarre obsessions with Infoboxes proved to be the end of my patience - and I couldn't remember how to find things like that. Anyway, I can see in that discussion that if the wherewithal to sort out the problem comes into existence, it will be eagerly seized upon, so no need for any more discussion here! 146.200.173.17 (talk) 12:34, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

neutral point of view
This kind of introduction is advisable?

"Jimmy López (born 21 October 1978) is a classical music composer from Lima, Peru[1] and is considered 'one of the most interesting young composers anywhere today'[2]"

"Fazıl Say (Turkish: [faːˈzɯl saj]; born 14 January 1970) is a Turkish pianist and composer who was born in Ankara, described recently as 'not merely a pianist of genius; but undoubtedly he will be one of the great artists of the twenty-first century'.[1]"

I don't think so. Triplecaña (talk) 10:24, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
 * No they are nonsense and I will edit accordingly.--Smerus (talk) 10:37, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Ethnicity and city of residence
Is there any consensus that an article on a classical composer of a certain ethnicity should have a "See also" for an article on that ethnicity residing in the city?

That's probably to abstract a question, so to put some meat on it:this is arising from an editor adding a see-also link to Chinese in New York City to the Yuja Wang article solely on the basis that Wang is Chinese and currently resides in New York. That seems very tenuously connected, and not at all within, but the editor has been re-adding it, and I seek to avoid an edit war.

WP:SEEALSO says that these entries are to allow a reader "to explore tangentially related topics'; but I think this stretches "tangentially related" too far.

I was going to bring it up on the article's talk page, but it's a pretty low-trafficked page, and I think this is going on on other pages as well, so I thought it worth bringing up here.

Pinging, so he's aware of the discussion. TJRC (talk) 20:40, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I would think the category WikiProject Chinese in New York City would be more appropriate. I'm in a non-contentious mood so I'd bring it up on the talk page so at least future editors will see that there's disagreement. - kosboot (talk) 21:13, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * @TJRC, why do you think I'm a he? That was a downright inappropriate comment on your part. But getting back to this subject, this is a moot point in this particular case. Yuja Wang already appears on the Chinese in New York City as a Notable Person entry. Therefore your argument of "stretching tangentially too far" becomes invalidated by default. I've simply placed a reciprocal entry, which the Wikipedia community encourages, which fits the See Also criteria, and which is a perfectly natural and logical edit for someone to make under the circumstances. I've compromised by removing Piano concerto from "See also" because of the reasonable logic you afforded for removing that entry. More curiously however, is that for such an innocuous and reasonable edit that this represents, I can't comprehend why it's bothering you so much??!! IMHO, better that you not sweat the small stuff. There are weightier disagreements for you to focus intense attention to on Wikipedia.  Castncoot (talk) 22:34, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Yow, my apologies for the "he". You're correct, that was an unjustified assumption on my part.
 * Back on topic, there is no reciprocity practice for "See also". Are you perhaps thinking of navboxs? "Every article that transcludes a given navbox should normally also be included as a link in the navbox so that the navigation is bidirectional." WP:NAVBOX.
 * I'm confused by your last sentences. You're saying it's not important, but it's important enough that you've stuck it in three times? TJRC (talk) 00:50, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Nothing to be confused about. The threshold to include this innocuous and certainly reasonable edit is far lower than the threshold to remove it. Castncoot (talk) 02:51, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Cantus Musicus
This article is being discussed for deletion at Articles for deletion/Cantus Musicus. Voceditenore (talk) 14:43, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Violin Sonata No. 3 (Brahms)
84.196.4.55 (talk) 20:45, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This article has been tagged for not citing any sources since November 2008 !!!
 * What is the purpose of the "infobox" (I think it is called): it just repeats the information that is alrealy in the leed.

Tonsatz
What is Tonsatz in English? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:17, 8 October 2018 (UTC)