Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 62

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Plácido Domingo
The German/Austrian vandal is back again repeatedly changing the birth year from 1941 to 1934 (but leaving the references for the 1941 date). I've already reverted twice today. Could an administrator please semi-protect the page again? Voceditenore (talk) 14:48, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 15:41, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Singer article
I have recently done a major rework of this article and would appriciate some feedback. I have also suggested that the singing article be merged into the singer article.Nrswanson (talk) 06:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks good - but what is the logic behind singer rather than singing? Why shouldn't the activity be the focus rather than the person? For example the main article is Golf not Golfer. -- Klein zach  07:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * True. I guess the reason why I did it that way was really more that I was in the middle of the singer article overhaul when I discovered there was in fact a singing article. Perhaps the opposite name would be better. You should suggest it on the singer talk page where the merger is being discussed. I would support it. I honestly don't care which title it has as long as their is only one article.Nrswanson (talk) 07:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I have gone ahead and added my new version to the singing article and suggested the move to there.Nrswanson (talk) 07:42, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Topical outline of opera
'List of basic opera topics' has been renamed Topical outline of opera. This seems an odd title. Topical has three different meanings. Leaving aside the medical one, it could be either 'by topic' or 'current'. If you are interested, please comment here. -- Klein zach  05:32, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I've changed it back. "Topical outline of opera" is nonsense. --Folantin (talk) 08:19, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's been changed back again. I've asked The Transhumanist to tell us why. -- Klein zach  23:30, 19 June 2008 (UTC) P.S. I now see The Transhumanist has started a WikiProject_Topical_outlines. -- Klein  zach  06:23, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * And once again it's the Topical outline of opera. This time The Transhumanist has posted on the talk page here. -- Klein zach  07:41, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I've reverted it yet again. There's no way I'm going to allow a title like that to stand. --Folantin (talk) 08:05, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's dumb - but 'Topical Outline' is being used on a series of articles. Do we need to express our opinions on the WikiProject_Topical_outlines? -- Klein zach  08:14, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That would probably be a good idea. The title doesn't work well for any subject.Nrswanson (talk) 08:16, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * We should really take that project to Miscellany for deletion before it has a chance to do serious damage. --Folantin (talk) 08:18, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

See this here as well. As far as I can tell only a couple of people approved this at the Village Pump. -- Klein zach  08:33, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I counted three support votes, including the proposer. Incidentally, the project was "List of basic topics" until last week, so probably no need for an MfD, even though it sounds like a useless enterprise anyway. --Folantin (talk) 08:45, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This has now gone to WP:ANI . --Folantin (talk) 15:07, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Assessment proposals/banner
Starting a new topic here as this isn't about composers as such.

Sorry, Kleinzach's 30 May email to me got submerged by the need to keep a closer eye on what MelonBot was doing, plus one does have things to do in Real Life (anyone want my recipe for gravlax?). I will be happy to kick off a proper discussion on assessment and will put up some proposals, in a new topic, within the next 24hrs. I'm inclined to agree with K that we should start with the categories for which we already have points scales - Operas, Opera singers and Opera managers (the latter scale was needed for the various members of the Wagner clan; the Singers scale hasn't actually been used yet) - since they all fall within our remit and don't overlap with other WikiProjects. Note, though, that there are a whole lot of other Opera categories which will need looking at in due course - see Category:Opera. When doing the Wagner Project trial, we didn't contemplate a Composers scale because the only composers to be looked at were Richard Wagner and Siegfried Wagner. (Incidentally, the latter hasn't, apparently been deemed worthy of bannering by the Composers Project.)

Before we can start, though, there needs to be agreement on the visibility of a Comments facility within the Opera project banner on the Talk page. During the Wagner exercise, Kleinzach, Peter Cohen and I agreed that the banner should only display a (blue) link to Comments if there were actually any Comments to display, and that there should not be a redlink when there were no Comments. The reasoning was that, when any or all of us assessed an article, we always provided comments to show why we'd given it a particular class - but we didn't want others to come along and provide comments before we'd done the assessment. The Talk Page would be the place for them to do that, rather than the Comments page dedicated to comments by assessors. Anyway, this option has been implemented as part of the MelonBot runs, and where there are comments the result will look like the banner at Talk:Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg rather than the one at Talk:Gudrun Wagner which postdates the Wagner trial and has no rating and hence no comments. However, there are other options, such as those that can also be seen on the Gudrun Wagner talk page:
 * The Biography Project has given it an automatic Stub rating because the article has a Stub tag. The second Biography banner below the first one invites all and sundry to alter the assessment if they think fit and makes no mention of a Comments page.
 * The Germany Project invites all and sundry to rate the article and to "leave a short summary here (i.e. on a currently redlinked Comments page) to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article".
 * A similar but lower-key approach can be found in Philadephia Project articles such as Talk:Betsy_Ross_House where the invitation to assess and comment is in tiny type at the bottom of the banner.

Which of the Wagner/Biography/Germany/Philadelphia options would you prefer to see on unassessed pages? Are there other existing or potential options? Don't all speak at once. Meanwhile, I'll get to work on those assessment proposals. --GuillaumeTell 16:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I personally like the Philadelphia projects format. In terms of problems, I was wondering how we assess articles like Placido Domingo who fall under more than one point scale. Really that is it. In my opinion all that now needs to be done is finishing writing point scales for all opera categories, deciding how to proceed with assessment in an organized and thorough way, and assembling an assessment team.Nrswanson (talk) 16:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

(Edited version of my comments further up the page) I've never been mad keen on the idea of an Opera Project assessment drive and I doubt if I'll be taking part, but I think using common sense is a better idea than any rigid points system. The problem is it's impossible to fulfill some of those criteria for many composers or operas (especially the earlier ones) because the relevant information does not exist. User:Moreschi made this point when the biography project was on its assessment drive. He knew he had written short articles on singers that contained every known fact about them. It would be pointless to rate such pages "Start" because, even with the best will in the world, they aren't going to get any longer. Using the Wagner Project as a basis for the points system has many drawbacks here because Wagner and his operas have been written about in immense detail and a wealth of information exists for those pages. I hope this has been factored in to any assessment points scheme.

(Further to the above) NR Swanson writes: "I think if all such material avaiable is presented an upgrade to B article in such cases should be allowed." IIRC that was more or less Moreschi's point. A short but "finished" article should be a B. (Forget GA, by the way, the whole process is broken there. Many projects have "A" class articles instead). --Folantin (talk) 19:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Let's separate the two issues here which are (1) the banner and (2) the assessment process. GT is working on proposals for the latter. Let's wait and discuss those when he posts them.


 * Re the banner, we've had problems because HappyMelon wanted us to conform to the system used by the Biography Project etc. based on Template:WPBannerMeta. This was not used by SatyrTN for the Wagner Project (or any opera-related project to my knowledge). We've disabled some of its features but it's inflexible and produces ugly typography. See, for example, the comments display in the Opera banner at Talk:Opera. (Also note the Comments display is not exclusive to Opera - the same text appears in the Version 1.0 box. In other words, if someone writing for another project writes  "Stuff opera!"  on a comments page, it then appears gloria in excelsis in the Opera banner window.)


 * I'd prefer to see a banner like the one used by Philadelphia project. I like the small text under the line. I also like the facility to co-opt another project (in this case WikiProject Pennsylvania). This could for example be used for composers. (So Puccini could be Opera Proj (+ Composers), while Beethoven could be Composers (+ Opera).) I also suggest adding a small boxed link to the Opera Portal. -- Klein zach  00:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * As there have been no further postings, may I take it that everybody basically agrees with my suggestions regarding the comments display? May I explore ways of correcting it? (I have a contact who has been helping with the coding on the Composers Project banner - though this particular feature has not been implemented there yet.) -- Klein zach  22:12, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Please go right ahead. I am assuming then that we are going to try and go with the Philadelphia banner?Nrswanson (talk) 00:29, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I have actually made a template at my sandbox if you want to take a look User talk:Nrswanson/sandbox. It has all the features of the Philadelphia box, including an importance scale. Nrswanson (talk) 01:05, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * OK. I'll have a proper look at it next week. BTW I think an importance scale was rejected by the group. -- Klein zach  07:16, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * As promised, I've had another look at this. Have you tested it with comments? Are you now going to remove the importance scale? Would you like me to have a go at editing it? -- Klein zach  00:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe an importance scale was being reconsidered per your own comments and comments made by GuillaumeTell on June 3-4 on this talk page. That discussion was never concluded. I don't believe that any consensus for or against an importance scale has been reached. Regardless, we don't have to use it the way the template is set up. The system is in place though in case we ever choose to adopt an importance scale.Nrswanson (talk) 07:45, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That's my understanding as well. As I've probably said before, the advantages of an importance scale are a) it will enable the Project as a whole to easily see which articles are top priority for improvement and b) articles which are fairly peripheral to our Project will be given a low importance level by us, though they may well be of high importance for other projects or for Wikipedia as a whole.
 * I've just had a quick look at Nrswanson's sandbox template and it looks good to me.
 * About assessment: I've been busy, but I'll start a new topic for further discussion below.--GuillaumeTell 14:19, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I suggest starting a new topic to discuss the importance scale. It would be an extension of the work we are doing so we'd need to consider it carefully. So far I have not seen a successful implementation. Perhaps someone can point us to one? -- Klein zach  15:16, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Category:Operetta composers and Category:Zarzuela composers
Now that Brit/Ital/Germ/French opera composers are now merged into Category:Opera composers, should we also merge Category:Operetta composers (56 articles) and Category:Zarzuela composers (14) into Opera composers as well? At the moment we have 32 categories for opera genres. Having separate composers categories for all of them might be tedious. (Separate cats for operetta dates back to the time when operetta had its own project.) Any opinions on this? -- Klein zach  01:45, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Cui bono? I fail to see the advantage of lumping all these composers of operettas and zarzuelas into one category. Taken further: why not have just one category: Category:Composers. I think removing these two category is a disservice to the reader. Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:18, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * So do you think we need categories for each genre of opera composer? There are only 4 articles on Zarzuelas (works), (though strangely 14 on their composers). Most other genre categories are much larger (Opéras comiques 60, Tragédies en musique 34, Opera buffa 32 etc.)-- Klein zach  06:42, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think we need categories for each genre of opera composer. There are 31 genres in Category:Operas by genre; correctly, operettas and zarzuelas are not among them.
 * There are more entries for zarzuela composers than zarzuelas until more articles on zarzuelas get written. Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:02, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The project page has always listed operetta as a genre, see here. (None of us seem to have checked Category:Operas by genre for a long time. The absence there can be explained by the separate project structure that previously existed.) We've always followed Grove here in regarding operetta as a form of opera - (especially as the attempt to develop an operetta project collapsed). See Grove's definition:  " Operetta (It. diminutive of 'opera' . . .) A light opera with spoken dialogue, songs and dances . . . " . Operetta is of course fully covered in the Opera Grove. -- Klein  zach  08:03, 18 June 2008 (UTC) P.S. I've found various problems with the category structure since you pointed them out and I've tried to fix them. -- Klein  zach  08:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Indeed, the operetta and zarzuela categories are bound to be valuable to some readers.  Sparafucil (talk) 06:22, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem with the Operas by genre category is that, while some (including operettas and zarzuelas, plus, for example, Singspiels and Opéras comiques) are fairly watertight, others are too much open to interpretation. At least half of those listed in Category:Verismo operas, including Tosca and Andrea Chénier, don't fit the category's description. I've always thought that the only sensible classification here is to go by what description the opera was given by the librettist and/or the composer: Don Giovanni is a dramma giocoso, La gazza ladra is a melodramma, La vestale is a tragédie lyrique and The Merry Widow is an operetta, or that's what The Viking Guide says. However, I don't think we need to go further than Operetta and Zarzuela for sub-cats of Opera.--GuillaumeTell 17:06, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well the question here is about subdividing composers by opera genre (assuming we've established that operetta and zarzuela are genres). My view is that this is over-categorization i.e. a waste of time. -- Klein zach  03:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think it can be described as a waste of time if the current situation is left as it is. The presence of some categories of composers of some genres doesn't mean it's compulsory for every genre. Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The 'current situation' never stays still. Having a couple of opera composer genre cats is an open invitation to make more. Someone will always claim a cat is useful for something. The "I like it" approach is fine if you aren't involved in getting stats and maintaining structures. Deep categorization makes it far more difficult to manage projects and bot runs. It can add hours of work to preparation time.   -- Klein  zach  00:03, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I can see both sides of the argument here. I'm wondering if the problem could be solved by listifying operetta and zarzuela composers rather than having them as a separate category. And as for verismo operas. I'd get rid of that as a category. The term simply isn't categorical enough. I also looked at Verismo. That really does need some improvement, not the least of which is that it's devoid of references. It was started in 2003, when nobody seemed to care about them, or at least care very much. Voceditenore (talk) 01:05, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I support making both these categories into lists. This will be better for general readers, who don't normally use the categories. I also think rethinking Category:Verismo operas would be a good idea. What you propose? -- Klein zach  00:49, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Singer(s) of the Month for July
Yikes! Tempus fugit yet again. Here are two possible "sets":

Filling tenor gaps:
 * Contemporary: Lawrence Brownlee and Vladimir Galouzine
 * 19th Century: Ernesto Nicolini and Enrico Tamberlik

Filling Antipodean gaps:
 * New Zealand baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes
 * Australian bass Malcolm McEachern
 * Australian baritone Horace Stevens
 * Australian baritone Gregory Yurisich

Any other ideas gratefully accepted. ;-) Voceditenore (talk) 17:30, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Missing tenors would be a good idea. Any others? Are any of these 20th century tenors sufficiently interesting? Antonio Cortis, René Maison, Marcel Wittrisch, Herbert Ernst Groh ? -- Klein zach  01:57, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, all of the ones Kleinzach suggested would be very good additions and would give us a wider period range. If no one has any other suggestions by the end of today, I'll add this to the template.
 * Contemporary: Lawrence Brownlee and Vladimir Galouzine
 * 20th century Antonio Cortis, René Maison, Marcel Wittrisch and Herbert Ernst Groh
 * 19th century: Ernesto Nicolini and Enrico Tamberlik
 * Voceditenore (talk) 07:58, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Importance scale: do we need one?
The question of whether to add an importance scale to the project banner keeps coming up, so I think we need to talk about this under a fresh heading. Code can easily be added to the banner to create the scale, however it would be a considerable job to give an importance rating to the whole corpus of opera articles. Before that could take place we'd need to work out criteria: what articles would be of high/low importance and why.

However we need to ask what exactly an importance scale is supposed to achieve. Would it just be there as an aesthetic embellishment, or perhaps to appeal to the '10 best tenors of all time', 'my favourite composer' mentality, or for some genuine practical reason?

Contemporary music have an importance scale. I was told that it is to show the degree to which articles are within the scope of the project. People have pointed out that the project has bannered a large amount of music that can't, by any stretch of the imagination, be called contemporary. That's alright, it's been explained, because 1920s compositions by conservative composers (or whatever) will be assigned low importance.

Opera on the other hand is a relatively well-defined project, so what would be the purpose of giving some articles high or low importance? (I may personally feel that the 17th-century Polish composer Gubitas Szigilwortszki is overrated but do we need to nail this down by giving him low importance? I don't think so.) -- Klein zach  02:09, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I personally like having an importance scale for two major reasons. First, when working with other projects it helps to establish a hierarchy of interest. For example, in the recent debacle over the List of basic opera terms article, an importance scale would have shown it was a high importance article to our project and of lower importance to the Topical outline project. Second, we need a way to evaluate what articles should recieve more attention. A ratings scale in itself is not enough. We have several thousands of stubs and start articles. An importance scale will help highlight out of those thousands of lower quality articles where editing would be most beneficial. For example, the Boito's Mefistofele article, which I would view as important since it is still performed regularly, has been in existence since 2002 and is still a stub. There are probably many articles that might not ever improve without an importance scale.Nrswanson (talk) 04:21, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think these are good reasons for having an importance scale, because: (1) 'a hierarchy of interest' could only be subjective, (2) a double set of criteria, first to rate the articles by importance and then by quality would be laborious and bureaucratic, (3) we already have stubs to indicate incomplete articles, (4) we already have categories to group articles so they don't disappear below the radar. What do other people think? -- Klein zach  05:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Categories and stubs may highlight articles but once you are dealing with hundreds or even thousands of articles in those categories/stubs it is often hard to get a clear picture of which articles could be easily improved upon and which can't. The more important an article, the more likely it is that resources are likely to be found to improve that subject and the more likely that visitors to the encyclopedia will be viewing that page. Two good reasons to recognize and edit articles of higher importance.Nrswanson (talk) 05:15, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Haven't we already got places where we assess importance. I'm thinking of things like opera corpus and List of important operas. It should be possible to use things lke the sources for these to develop ideas fo defining importance.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:35, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm totally with Kleinzach on this one. It's a huge amount of bureaucracy and work (if done properly) for very, very little return. We don't even have the manpower (or womanpower) to do it even if we all immediately stopped writing and editing articles and did nothing else but assess "importance". Why not just use common sense vis a vis importance and which articles we should be paying particular attention to. Make an OP subpage where various members can informally list those articles which they feel ought to be given special attention by the project. Or members could annotate the "to do" list with asterisks by the articles which they feel should be prioritised. Much better than setting it in stone on the OP banners. By the way, articles about iconic singers like Caruso or opera houses like La Scala can be just as important as articles about individual operas and they aren't too fab at the moment either. Actually, the more I think about a formal assessment of importance, the more it seems like a time-sink nightmare Voceditenore (talk) 18:24, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. This would be a waste of time. "Make an OP subpage where various members can informally list those articles which they feel ought to be given special attention by the project". Yes. We have pretty good breadth of coverage, now we should focus on bringing our core articles up to scratch. For instance, once we have articles on the remaining operas here I think we should convert Composer of the Month into focussing on one major composer bio and one major opera article. --Folantin (talk) 18:37, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If there are no objections, I suggest we put a sentence on the Assesment page to say that: As of 24 June 2008, the project has decided not to implement an importance scale. -- Klein zach  05:36, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That appears to be the majority position. The one thing you might consider is adding a date to revisit it six months or a year away. Then when someone tries re-opening it before then you can say that there was a consensus not to re-open the issue before them. I'm thinking of the various other discussions that are more active than the living dead.--Peter cohen (talk) 07:08, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * As of 24 June 2008, the project has decided not to implement an importance scale. This decision may be reconsidered in June 2009 or later. OK? -- Klein zach  09:07, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I've now added this sentence to the assessments page. -- Klein zach  22:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I am ok with an alternative solution as long as we have a better system in place than now to highlight articles where our efforts would best be placed. Perhaps we could create a category that members could place on pages that they feel deserve attention. Also, I think it would be cool if we added a section to the opera project (once assessment is completed) that picks one article from each rating below featured article with the intent of moving it one grade up the assessment ladder. That hopefully would increase the number of feature articles and good articles within our project and give us a way to work on important pages.Nrswanson (talk) 08:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * We already have the To do list. This lists tagged articles so we know which ones have which specific problems. It needs updating because SatyrBot is no longer active, but I should be able to arrange that.-- Klein  zach  08:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Category:Verismo operas
I'd propose deleting the verismo operas category, frankly, and not listifying it either. The criteria are too fuzzy. Voceditenore (talk) 15:06, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * OK - do you feel energetic enough to beat off the Cfd cowboys? -- Klein zach  03:17, 26 June 2008 (UTC)