Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music/Contemporary music task force/Archive 17

Recruitment
Jerome's point about editors working behind the scenes is a good one but I do note that most of the stuff flagged up above has not even been touched since we last looked at them here, e.g. James McMillan, Lyell Cresswell, Totentango, etc. There are plenty of other articles that need a thorough reworking, expansion or simple copy editing: Gavin Bryars, Roxanna Panufnik, League of Composers, etc., etc. We also need to look at the articles systematically to decide if they are really under our banner: e.g. Drei Klavierstücke, Imaginary Landscape No. 1 etc. Finally, we seem to have a huge number of composers on our books but few actual works (except those that actually don't seem to fall under our banner any more) or, indeed, ensembles, festivals, styles/genres, movements, etc. Are all those composers genuinely contemporary composers, in our sense? Did the important composers that do fall under our banner not write any works that warrant a separate article? I doubt the present situation clearly reflects the truth of the matter. I must admit that I feel overwhelmed at times when I look at the enormous amount of work that us few but dedicated editors need to do. Hence, we really do need some more regular contributors even just to float ideas or to prod us into action!

I have started to ask around for recruitment ideas. See User talk:PrincessofLlyr/2010/June for a start. Some of her ideas are quite workable, e.g. creating templates an using the internal advertising system. One thing she pointed out was that we need to widen our horizons a little and stop seeing this project purely as a "specialist field of interest". Contemporary classical music is indeed off the radar for most WikiPedians, no doubt, especially when they find out we are talking about classical music. That said, we really need:
 * Copy editors - there are so many badly written pages under our banner, it hurts just to look at them...;
 * Media experts - experts in the use of images and sounds in WP, especially, to investigate copyright issues etc.;
 * Vandal-fighters - we do have pages that get regularly vandalised, believe it or not...;
 * Page watchers - e.g. Kobi Adar/Boki Rada or whatever the next incarnation will be;
 * CSD/AfD/PROD watchers - to let us know when articles under our banner get proposed for deletion;
 * GA/FA watchers - to let us know when articles under our banner get proposed for GA/FA or get reviewed;
 * Other - any other editors willing to help in any way they can even if they know nothing about the music of Brian Ferneyhough, have never heard (!) of 4′33″ and wouldn't even know what to do with "a piano" let alone "a counterpoint".

Such editors should help free us... er... "experts"... {cough} up for the more erudite discussions that also need to take place. Does that make sense? Could we do a write-up for the Signpost? How about some friendly invite and welcome templates similar to the one Klein made for the coordinator election? Anything else? --Jubilee♫ clipman 22:09, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't write very well, but I am not bad at copyediting, spelling/punctuation/etc. Unfortunately, I just don't have the time I used to have for research, but I would be happy to look over and help copyedit anything you feel necessary.  I will browse around on my off time but please feel free to also ping me for anything specific.  ♫ Cricket02  (talk) 16:27, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks Cricket! That's brilliant.  I am involved in the Guild of Copy Editors July 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive and will work on CTM articles.  I'll send a few your way!  I will work on the project page and start working on the recruitment drive in tandem with that.  Be warned, though: I have pressing duties in RL to attend to so my edit count will continue to plummet for the foreseeable future...  I will continue to coordinate here as best I can, though  --Jubilee♫ clipman  19:16, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Mic Spencer
Does anybody know anything about a composer called Mic Spencer? The article has been tagged with multiple issues for nearly two years, and was largely written by a single purpose account, which might suggest conflict of interest. --Deskford (talk) 15:27, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The Selected performances section makes claims that his music has been performed by BBC Philharmonic under James MacMillan, played on Radio 3 and at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Another marginal notable, maybe?  The sources are sorely lacking, though...  I am going to start work on Gavin Bryars's article soon, though, now that I have more or less gone as far as I can can with the Music audits for now.  His article needs a major clean up.  Other notables are coming to my attention as I look around, also: I'll post soon with more info.  Like you say: we need to look at the more important figures, now.  Don't forget that we cover the articles on ensembles, compositions, theorists, performers, genres, styles, etc.  We have been concentrating on composers and possibly forgetting about those other articles --Jubilee♫ clipman  00:41, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I made a quick search of Factiva, and found one slightly underwhelming item. I've added a Further reading list including it, but if this is the best that can be found, I would say that "marginal notable" is a charitable characterization.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:34, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * PRODed. I am coming to the conclusion that less really is more... not that I am at all a deletionist but that we really do have a plethora of these non-notable (or at best marginally-notable) composers hanging around like the albatross in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  Chucking the damn things over board wouldn't be a bad idea, IMO  --Jubilee♫ clipman  20:17, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I have become a deletionist, but I am inclined to agree! If and when these people become genuinely notable then independent sources will exist and the articles can be recreated.  It occurs to me that we wouldn't automatically expect to have articles for a violinist who has given a few professional performances or a painter who has sold a few paintings, yet composers seem to think themselves worthy of inclusion just because they've had one or two pieces performed.  --Deskford (talk) 23:01, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Adina Spire

 * Articles for deletion/Adina Spire

Another little autobiography for your consideration. --Deskford (talk) 00:47, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Kobi Arad (again!)
He's back, this time as, and he's re-created the article at Yaakob Arad to circumvent the WP:SALT on Kobi Arad. --Deskford (talk) 16:00, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Great... --Jubilee♫ clipman  19:01, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I've nominated this for a speedy deletion; let's see what happens. --Deskford (talk) 16:12, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Great. --Jubilee♫ clipman  19:01, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The page has now been deleted and protected and the new user blocked. --Deskford (talk) 17:20, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Great! --Jubilee♫ clipman  19:01, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Now he's back as and the article is at Kobi Alad. Nominated for speedy deletion once more. --Deskford (talk) 00:13, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
 * How on earth do you find this stuff?! Have you redlinked every possible version of his name in a huge subpage of you userspace or something?  Good work though.  Any thoughts on the MUSTARD split-apart, BTW?  --Jubilee♫ clipman  00:20, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Call it instinct! As for MUSTARD, I keep meaning to have a look what that's all about, but haven't quite got round to it yet.  --Deskford (talk) 00:40, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Instinct it is then! No rush for MUSTARD: I am taking my time and working methodically at it.  Everyone seems to support me (so far...), though  --Jubilee♫ clipman  00:54, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Kobi Alad gone and WP:SALTed. --Deskford (talk) 21:51, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, this month he's called and the article is Kobi Arad. L. Speedy deletion proposed. --Deskford (talk) 01:36, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I notice the article has also recently (27 June 2010) been deleted at Kobi Arad.A &mdash; someone got there before I spotted it! --Deskford (talk) 01:47, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Good grief. There must be a way to stop this guy?  IP range block?  --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:10, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Anything we could do to stop him would be useful. If we block an IP range, though, wouldn't that risk blocking genuine constructive users?  He normally creates a new user identity to recreate the article, rather than creating as an anonymous IP.  Is there a bot somewhere that scans newly created articles for key words and marks them automatically as suspect?  --Deskford (talk) 12:28, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Latest incarnation: Kobi Arad. K recreated as. Speedy deletion requested once more. --Deskford (talk) 17:32, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

List of 20th-century classical composers by birth date
Can I please get a second opinion on recent changes to List of 20th-century classical composers by birth date? I removed Miguel Álvarez-Fernández (born 1979) as there seems no evidence that he was active before the 21st century. Editor added him back again without explanation. This user has also removed Doina Rotaru and Lindsay Cooper, again without explanation. Whilst I can perhaps understand the removal of Lindsay Cooper from this list &mdash; she is better known as a bassoonist than as a composer &mdash; Doina Rotaru is a composer of international significance, even if her WP article is currently a two-line stub. I don't want to get into a battle of reversion here. --Deskford (talk) 11:21, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I've put Doina Rotaru back, but not Lindsay Cooper. Someone else has removed Miguel Álvarez-Fernández again.  --Deskford (talk) 17:02, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Aureobel

 * Articles for deletion/Aureobel

A record label that seems non-notable. --Deskford (talk) 16:09, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Gary Lee Nelson
The above editors have all been involved in disruptive editing of the article on the composer Gary Lee Nelson lately, mostly through repeated removal of maintenance tags without addressing the issues flagged. There is reason to assume these editors are all the composer himself. Any extra eyes on this article would be useful. (Is anybody except me watching WP:CTM these days?) --Deskford (talk) 18:12, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Two have just been blocked for sockpuppetry. (Sockpuppet_investigations/Geldryk]) Do you want to take the anagram and the IP to SPI too?--Peter cohen (talk) 19:31, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That would be a good idea, but I'm not sure how to do this as the initial case seems to have been archived. --Deskford (talk) 22:41, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Avet Terterian
The article on Avet Terterian is in need of attention, but I am struggling to find good sources that aren't just mirrors of WP. Can anyone help? --Deskford (talk) 15:54, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Thomas Simaku
An editor has recently moved Thomas Simaku to Thoma Simaku, giving as the reason "True name". I have only ever seen him named as "Thomas" in concert programmes, CD reviews &c., though I see there are Google hits for both spellings. Is this the work of an Albanian language purist, or has Simaku started using this spelling himself, does anyone know? --Deskford (talk) 17:00, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Contemporary music articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release
Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Contemporary music articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (&diams;) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 22:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Heavy Babelfish contamination on Hans-Jürgen von Bose page
The section about Hans-Jürgen von Bose's opera "Slaughterhouse V" on his page (Hans-Jürgen_von_Bose) seems to be machine translated. Here is an excerpt: "Bose also permits the findings from the chaos theory, neurobiology and astrophysics polymorphic in his understanding of time are introduced, through the music out into the structuring of the libretto were implemented." Frankly, I cannot understand what is meant most of the time. (and I hope this is due to the translation, not the (ab)use of "artbabble") Could someone with an understanding of what's going on clean up this section? -- megA (talk) 09:36, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, brother! And that is one of the clearer passages in that section! If you expect Babelfish is the culprit, perhaps translating it back into German (or Polish, or whatever language from which it originated) would be helpful in understanding what it is meant to say. A big problem with this kind of text is that Babelfish won't translate it into English! Fortunately, Wikipedia provides us with a tool in such cases: request a reliable source. We need to know what the original says, in whatever language it says it. I will tag this right away—thanks for pointing it out.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:10, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Tigran Mansurian
The article on Tigran Mansurian has just been deleted as a copyright violation of www.otherminds.org.

As far as I can see, based on the Google cache of the deleted page, the biography section contained the same text as the Other Minds page, but the rest of the page (mostly extensive work lists) is not copied. It would have been more appropriate just to remove the offending section rather than delete the lot, resulting in lots of broken links all over the place. Can anyone with administrator's access to the deleted page rescue the situation? --Deskford (talk) 10:50, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Not being an administrator, I thought it would be quicker to re-create/fix it by hand via the cache, also gave the opportunity to add some better refs. See Tigran Mansurian. Voceditenore (talk) 13:09, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks &mdash; a good rescue job! Sorry I didn't have time to stay around to help.  --Deskford (talk) 22:23, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Neglect of this project/archiving/coordinator
This project has not seen any proper maintenance since May. (I've just archived May to September discussions.) The Coordinator seems to be long gone AWOL.

Deskford is still a very active contributor. I wonder whether he would be wiling to take over as coordinator and try to revive this (very worthwhile) project? Best regards to all surviving members here! -- Klein zach  02:34, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * has been inactive on any part of WP since early July so I am removing his name as coordinator. I hope someone else can step forward to take his place. -- Klein zach  06:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing
I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:44, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Should this inactive project be made into a task force?
This project is now obviously inactive. I suggest we make it into a task force of the (still vigorous) WP:CM. -- Klein zach  02:49, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Now implemented. -- Klein zach  07:21, 13 December 2010 (UTC)