Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 92

Archives Table of Contents

Opera singer stubs
WikiProject Stub sorting have broken down Category:Opera singer stubs and are re-tagging articles with the following new stubs: Not that big a deal, and potentially useful as that cat was huge. But there are some anomalies which I've raised with them here. Voceditenore (talk) 18:24, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * UK-opera-singer-stub
 * US-opera-singer-stub
 * Germany-opera-singer-stub
 * Italy-opera-singer-stub
 * Update: I've heard back from the stub sorters. All the categories are now in place and working properly. I'll list the new stubs here. Voceditenore (talk) 15:13, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Quick question
Anyone know of an online list of all of Pav's onstage opera performances (ie missing out arenas, galas)? Cheers,  almost - instinct 12:35, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know of any, although there's a complete list of his Met performances here. Is there a particular performance you want to check? Voceditenore (talk) 10:52, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to find out how many performances he was in of Turandot. I once heard that it Wasn't Very Many. Aside from the Nessun Dorma irony involved, I'm looking at how critically acclaimed studio recordings often don't reflect stage practice. In the case of Turandot, the recording of Turandot that usually gets offered as a benchmark is the Pav-Sutherland one by Decca. To my knowledge Sutherland didn't appear on stage as Turandot at all and I think I once read that Pav only attempted Calaf once. Decca also produced the Del Monaco recording, with Tebaldi as Liu. It sounds like it would be a far more realistic proposition in a theatre; but I can understand why sitting in one's living room one would prefer to listen to the Pav/Sutherland recording  almost - instinct 11:43, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * He attempted it twice, the first was a run of 7 performances in San Francisco in 1977 with Caballe as Turandot, and he didn't attempt the role again until the run of 6 performances at the Met in 1997. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 12:34, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that :-)  almost - instinct 15:53, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement
This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

More chickens coming home to roost
User_talk:Nrswanson - I haven't looked at any of the aliases. --GuillaumeTell 11:43, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I've just sourced all the opera-related ones. Voceditenore (talk) 12:22, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I have all his aliases' talk pages on my watchlist. The only other one with unreferenced BLP notices is User talk:singingdaisies. I've sourced the opera-related ones and prodded the stub Otto Peter — I've been unable to find any reliable biographical sources. His only mentions seem to be on cast lists for recordings, and not many of them either. If anyone disagrees, feel free to remove the PROD tag, but be sure to add a source, even if only a biography in off-line liner notes. Voceditenore (talk) 10:45, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Advice on synopsis
Hey all. I made a page on Donizetti's L'ange de Nisida because it piqued my curiosity and has allowed me to further procrastinate Lucia. I am looking at Ashbrook's synopsis, and it is not divided into acts even though elsewhere in the book L'ange is claimed to be in four acts. How should I write the synopsis? Just glob it all together, or leave it out entirely? -- Andy Walsh  (talk)  22:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Better something than nothing provided you're able to make it sufficiently distinct from your source to avoid accusations of plagiarism. It might be worth checking the description of la favorita in the same book to see whether it indicates any shift in the act boundaries.--Peter cohen (talk) 22:42, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. It's hard to untangle all those knots because some of the characters were changed for La favorite. Thanks for the input. -- Andy Walsh  (talk)  22:51, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that something is better than nothing, and a brief 'gist' synopsis would be adequate at this stage without division into acts. Voceditenore (talk) 07:23, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Fair enough—I'll give it a stab. Thanks! -- Andy Walsh  (talk)  08:11, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Priority BLPs needing references
These immediately stood out (please add any others), for any wikignomes want to work on this. It usually takes about 5 minutes per article to provde a source. When/if, you've done one, please check it off with . Voceditenore (talk) 19:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I've now added a second lot, all of whom are notable, and will keep this updated as other cases come to light. Some of them are tagged refimprove rather than BLP unsourced but they are so poorly sourced that it's only a matter of time before the latter tag will be added instead. The complete list of unsourced opera-related BLPs with indications of relative notability is here. Voceditenore (talk) 11:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * 1) Irina Zhurina
 * 2) Kjerstin Dellert
 * 3) Suzanna Guzmán
 * 4) Vernon Midgley
 * 5) Bojan Šober
 * 6) Jennifer Smith (soprano)
 * 7) Jon Weaving
 * 8) Mikhail Svetlov (singer)
 * 9) Elena Mauti Nunziata
 * 10) Nancy Maultsby
 * 11) Rae Woodland
 * 12) Nicola Martinucci
 * 13) Stefka Evstatieva
 * 14) Martin Bernheimer – critic
 * 15) Mary Allen – arts administrator (ran the Royal Opera House during the turmoil)
 * 16) Ilkka Kuusisto – composer
 * 17) Kathleen Cassello
 * 18) Delores Ivory Davis
 * 19) Janet Coster
 * 20) Ezio Frigerio
 * 21) Carolyn Watkinson
 * 22) Doris Soffel
 * 23) Kristinn Sigmundsson
 * 24) Vasile Martinoiu
 * 25) Elsie Morison
 * 26) Gundula Janowitz
 * 27) Patricia Petibon
 * 28) Alice Goodman
 * 29) Jonas Kaufmann  almost - instinct  15:44, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 30) Henry Herford  almost - instinct  15:44, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 31) Eliane Coelho
 * 32) Ileana Cotrubaş
 * 33) Hubert Deutsch
 * 34) Julia Varady
 * 35) Alan Opie
 * 36) Giorgio Tozzi
 * 37) Inge Borkh
 * 38) Robert Tear
 * 39) Regina Resnik
 * 40) Irina Arkhipova Note: was a blatant copyvio, have reduced to stub and referenced
 * 41) Marco Tutino
 * 42) Samuel Ramey  almost - instinct  20:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment on Biographies of living people
Hello Wikiproject! Currently there is a discussion which will decide whether wikipedia will delete 49,000 articles about a living person without references, here:

Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

Since biographies of living people covers so many topics, many wikiproject topics will be effected.

The two opposing positions which have the most support is:
 * 1) supports the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, User:Jehochman
 * 2) opposes the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, except in limited circumstances, User:Collect

Comments are welcome. Keep in mind that by default, editor's comments are hidden. Simply press edit next to the section to add your comment.

Please keep in mind that at this point, it seems that editors support deleting unreferenced BLP articles if they are not sourced, so your project may want to source these articles as soon as possible. See the next, message, which may help.

If you don't already have this and are interested in creating a list of articles which need cleanup for your wikiproject see: Cleanup listings A list of examples is here
 * List of cleanup articles for your project

If you are interested in moving unreferenced blp articles that your project covers, to a special "incubation page", contact me, User talk:Ikip
 * Moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation page"

If you are interested in watchlisting all of the unreferenced articles once you install Cleanup_listings, contact me, User talk:Ikip
 * Watchlisting all unreferenced articles

Ikip 05:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

February Composer and Opera of the month
With the manic BLP sourcing campaign, this has really slipped under the radar. If there are no suggestions I propose holding over the unfinished work from the January CoM and OoM. Quite a lot was accomplished on those, but we could finish off the rest. Anyhow, other suggestions below, please... Voceditenore (talk) 18:06, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, good idea. I'll try to add to my Britten contribs from January. Viva-Verdi (talk) 23:15, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I've provisionally filled them in on this basis, as I will be very busy this week-end and will then be in the US for over a week, with only limited internet access. If anyone wants to change them to something different before January 31st, go to the top of this page amd click "show" on the green bar labelled Composer and Opera of the Month Proposals. Voceditenore (talk) 10:38, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Fair use examples
From WikiProject Opera:
 * "Fair use images cannot be used for purely decorative purposes and they must be closely tied to the article text (a good example is at Concerto delle donne)."

There don't seem to be any fair use images in that article (two fair use audio snippets, though). Rl (talk) 09:49, 4 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm rather baffled by the use of Concerto delle donne as an example - that article has virtually no connexion with opera. --GuillaumeTell 17:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with both comments. That stuff is left over from "ye olden days" of the the OP. Tomorrow I'll amend that section with something more appropriate. Voceditenore (talk) 18:24, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. See (I kept the Concerto delle donne as an example of appropriate fair use of audio files, as it seems to be the only current vaguely opera-related article that uses them)."   - Voceditenore (talk) 10:37, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Dido and Aeneas GAR
It can be found right here. GamerPro64 (talk) 02:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)


 * As I said at Talk:Dido and Aeneas/GA1, this is just about the worst, most irresponsible Good Article Review I have ever seen. It violates every guideline at Reviewing good articles. It is now one week since GamerPro64 wrote "I'll say what the "stuff" is tomarrow since I'm reading The Great Gatsby" and he/she has still not responded there. I have asked at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations for someone to review what's going on there. Voceditenore (talk) 18:24, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Jesus H Christ. Moreschi (talk) 01:46, 14 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Update following my prodigious squawking, another reviewer has stepped in with a very helpful review, which I completely agree with. You can find the review at the bottom of Talk:Dido and Aeneas/GA1. I've only been editing this article since this re-assessment began, but I'd like to try to address as many of the issues as I can over the next week. Even if we don't make it all the way to GA, at least the article will have been vastly improved. If any masochists are interested in helping, could you mention it here and say what you'll be working on so we don't duplicate work. The reviewer has offered to email some journal articles and I'm going to take him up on it. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 14:54, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Further update. Please see my suggestion there. Voceditenore (talk) 11:09, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Bayreuth Canon at FLC
Bayreuth canon is one of the current WP:Featured list candidates. Opera project members are welcome to comment.--Peter cohen (talk) 11:29, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Now promoted to FL. Good stuff, Peter! --GuillaumeTell 17:22, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks GT and thanks to everyone else who commented.--Peter cohen (talk) 17:43, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Opera discographies
The various discography pages for major repertory works have recently become more and more complete and inclusive, which I think is great. My thought here is about proper credit for the company or entity responsible for creating the various recordings. Many of the older titles have long since been deleted by the company that made them and are available now on a variety of independent labels. My suggestion is that a separate column be added to the standard discography template to indicate the company that originally made the record. If the recording originated as a live broadcast or performance, that could be indicated here as well. The current label and catalog number column would continue to list the current or most recent version available and the format. Any thoughts? Thanks. Markhh (talk) 21:42, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Having worked on a large number of these tables recently (and reduced many to our "standard" 4 column width). I'm not sure that adding another column provides much value. If the point of having a "Recordings" table is to provide information on the recordings currently available for a particular opera, anything out-of-print would not need to be included and so the original entity issuing the recording is irrelevant.  Most discographies include a reference to sources of these recordings.  Isn't that enough info to provide in each table? Viva-Verdi (talk) 22:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I see your point, but to me the discographies exist to provide documentation of the recordings that have been made of those operas (especially the stand-alone lists) not just to provide a tool to find currently available recordings. In this case, including the record company, or other entity that made them, seems essential. Many out of print but important recordings are listed in the various discographies. Cheers! Markhh (talk) 08:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I disagree with Viva Verdi on this. The discographies are not supposed to be a shopping guide (nor is Wikipedia). In my view, they should be a detailed recording history of the work in tabular form. The recordings should be dated and listed by the date they were first made and the company that recorded it. Current re-issues (and the re-issue label) should be listed as extra information in the Label field for the original recording. Voceditenore (talk) 13:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Great idea Voceditenore - better than mine. I think this would make the discography lists more encyclopedic and valuable. Markhh (talk) 20:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

List of operas performed by Wexford Festival Opera
If anyone has time, I'd appreciate comments here or on my Talk page on a list that I've started in my Gravelbox: List_of_operas_performed_at_the_Wexford_Festival. I'll be adding sources (WFO programmes and a couple of books). I'll also be de-redlinking operas and people with no WP articles.

A few questions have arisen which I'd like to settle before putting in the rest of the data:
 * Are the columns arranged in a sensible order? For example, should the "Language" column follow the opera title?
 * Are any columns unnecessary?
 * Would an extra column listing a small number (2-3 max) of cast members be worth adding when there are WP articles? For example, singers such as Murray Dickie, Janet Baker, Norman Bailey, Juan Diego Flórez, Sesto Bruscantini and Mirella Freni have appeared at Wexford.  The columns are reasonably flexible, and are based on work done by Michael Bednarek and Kleinzach for lists of composers' operas, and by Peter cohen for the Bayreuth canon.

After finishing this project, I have plans to create similar lists for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Buxton Festival and Opera North, companies for which I also have complete data. --GuillaumeTell 16:36, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It looks good. The things that strike me as oddities are
 * the Date column header, presumably shortened so that you can have as many columns across the screen as possible.
 * the language column and the titles used where I think the language and name used in the performance should be the ones in the table and the alternative (often more common) name and language should be in the footnote.
 * To make room for the singers you could consider merging the director and designer columns and using line breaks to separate the names.--Peter cohen (talk) 18:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * --Peter cohen (talk) 18:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * These will be very valuable databases! I'd suggest perhaps re-wording "Date of opera" to "Premiere date". Likewise just use "Opera" instead of "Opera title"? If you have room for one more column, perhaps call it "Notes". In it you could list any truly notable singers and or stuff like the Wexford production was "first performance in 150 years" etc. Voceditenore (talk) 10:10, 27 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, both, very helpful. I am a slow worker, and have other things to do (don't we all?) so a) nothing is yet set in stone and b) don't hold your breath for the eventual emergence of this article into WP.  Creation of extra opera-and-personnel lines is quite fiddly, and I'm having to devote about 30 minutes to each Festival's offerings.  I'll be away for the next three days, as well.

Anyway, some comments:


 * The Date column header has an explanatory footnote.  Would "Year" be better?(I suspect not).  As Peter cohen suggests, my aim was to reduce blank vertical space.  Does the footnote help?
 * Language and titles: I started by putting in the Wexford version, with footnotes, then it seemed better to use the original title and provide different footnotes.  The Merry Wives of Windsor (opera) presents a problem, as the WP article has that title and the opera had a German libretto, but Wexford did it in Engish.  My aim for the language column was sortability - how many German/Italian/Russian/Czech/etc. operas have been done at Wexford?  English-language translations are/were not uncommon, but that's a sideshow.  Any extra thoughts?
 * Merging director and designer(s): yes, saves space, but means directors can be sorted but designers can't.
 * Column headers: my aim was to avoid white space as much as possible in order to drop in a few singers in an extra column. I've made a few alterations, and when I'm back (Monday) will experiment with an extra column for "truly notable singers" and what-have-you.  --<b style="color:forestgreen;">Guillaume</b><i style="color:blue;">Tell</i> 01:20, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

New GA
The article on the borderline opera Twice Through the Heart is now a GA. My project related plans are currently the improvement of Blond Eckbert to GA, the creation of an article on Gavin Bryars' Dr Ox's Experiment and to return to working on Karl Ridderbusch and related discgraphy.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:10, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Congratulations! I've added it to the rotation on Portal:Opera. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 21:10, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. We have a nice mixture ranging from the well known to the obscure on that rotation. However, it would be nice to get a half-way decent picture of Turnage to replace the image of Kay you've had to use. I'm seeing how my request for a picture of Judith Weir goes before I start sending out for more.--Peter cohen (talk) 22:22, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Doh! I forgot about the Snape Maltings photo further down. I've now replaced the out-of-focus picture of the poet with that one. See: Portal:Opera/Selected article/22. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 07:57, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That's better. I'll let you know when the Bayreuth canon is approved for FLC.--Peter cohen (talk) 12:52, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Mass deletion of unreferenced BLPs
There's a considerable brouhaha going on about several administrators who are mass-deleting all unreferenced BLPs:, ,. At first it was BLPs that had the tag since 2006, now they're deleting any article that hasn't been edited in 6 months. Judging by the response here, this will probably continue unabated and accelerate. So don't ignore warnings that an article you've created is an unreferenced BLP... if you want to keep it, that is. Note also that the bots and new page patrollers who are tagging these articles make a lot of mistakes, e.g. or not noticing that the reliable source is actually in the External links section.

There's a list of unreferenced BLP opera articles here. Although note that the bot that produces it only runs about once a month, so there may be others. Worth checking to see if there are any you care about. I've added soources or removed inappropriate tags for some of them. Voceditenore (talk) 16:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I was wondering why I have about 60 deleted edits. Perhaps this is the explanation. At least there won't be a problem with potential editors being put off by the lack of the metaphorical low-hanging fruit with there being people supergluing them back onto the tree.
 * I must say that I find such lists dispiriting. I notice that you and Kleinzach have been fixing some of the bigger names, but perhaps we should identify some self-confessed wikignomes who might be interesting in working on this. I've been toying with the idea of standing for admin when I hit 10K edits around the start of (Northern) Spring., It might be useful having someone in the project who can recover deleted material. I'm also reworking my user page and I shall make sure that anything that I note as having at least a moderate contribution by myself is on my watch list.--Peter cohen (talk) 18:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * My advice would be to shift all the currently unref-ed info that you're intending to work through onto a sandbox. Just paste entire articles into one long page  almost - instinct 18:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Re the list here, I've been gradually adding to articles that are no longer unsourced to avoid duplication of work. I'm also saving a copy of the list, because when the bot updates the page, the deleted articles will no longer appear on it and we'll have no way of knowing which ones were deleted.  That's the real problem with the mass deletions with no prior notification whatsoever. It's very hard to even find out what we've lost or are about to lose. The deletion logs for these admins are now huge. At least articles tagged for speedy delete or PROD appear here and are updated daily. By the way, we do have to admins on the project who can help out with retrieving deleted articles User:Moreschi and User:Antandrus if we need it in a hurry, but I'd love to see Peter as admin. Voceditenore (talk) 19:04, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Since the cleanup listings is a couple of months old I have taken the liberty to make an updated list based on articles tagged with WikiProject Opera or are in a subcat of. The list is currently at User:Rettetast/Sandbox87. Copy, move, advertise or do whatever you want with the list. Ping me if you want it updated. Rettetast (talk) 16:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much for this! I have copied it to WikiProject Opera/Unreferenced BLPs and linked it from the opening paragraph of the main project page. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 19:43, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Am I to understand that many of the deleted articles were never even tagged speedy/prod/xfd? Are creators/major contributors not informed, either? That's a bit heavy handed, if you ask me. At least with tags, even speedy, you get a certain amount of time to review and salvage and are often alerted if/when the article is finally deleted. Bot-mass-deletion simply creates a huge list of deleted articles without telling anyone where to find these lists—or even that they exist. Given the recent activity over at WP:CTM (my fault entirely), there is no doubt whatever that even unreferenced stub BLPs from 2003 can often relate to very notable subjects that have simply been forgotten about. The suggested sandboxing and relisting seem to be sensible methods to combat this purge, though. Thanks for the personal heads up about this Voceditenore. --Jubilee♫ clipman 11:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No, there was no prior deletion notice. But the mass-deletion without notice has now stopped after a general outcry. And it wasn't done by bots, it was done by humans. This triggered off all sorts of other counter-disruptions including mass-reinstatement (some with very bad stuff in them unrepaired), people moving articles en masse into the "article incubator", without any notice to projects that they were there, and yesterday I found a guy adding nonsense to several BLPs with phony edit summaries, e.g. to prove that they would get repaired quickly, i.e. there was "no BLP problem", which is of course, patently untrue. There is a very big problem. Hopefully, a reasonable solution will be found, but whatever it is, I'm pretty sure the days of unreferenced BLP articles are numbered. Voceditenore (talk) 11:56, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Important changes to the biographies of living persons policy
Following the original mass-deletion, it is clear that the policy is going to be changed to allow, in fact require, the deletion of all unreferenced biographies of living persons. This has been endorsed by Jimmy Wales as well.. The only question now is the mechanism and time-scale for it. The various proposals and discussion of them are underway at Requests for comment/Biographies of living people. An interim summary of the outcome is here Note that this will almost certainly be extended to bios which are so poorly and unreliably referenced that they are de facto unreferenced.

This has considerable implications for the OP as there are so many bios of living singers under our banner. In some senses this is a pain primarily because it's happening very quickly and I'm not completely confident that WikiProjects will be properly kept informed of the articles deleted or under threat, although I and others have made repeated requests for this at the RfC. But on the whole, I welcome the increased rigor and quality that will be demanded. It also means that we can get rid of many bios by wannabe opera stars and their agents that are clogging up the encyclopedia. We can also delete all unreferenced cruft from both fans and detractors in articles on sight. In the course of checking the unreferenced opera BLPs here, I've found everything from blatant adverts for totally non-notable singers to blatant copyvios to bizarre additions such as this. Voceditenore (talk) 15:26, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I've finally gone over to the rfc page and started supporting or opposing opinions. There is a definite change in the votes of more recent visitors to the page compared with the initial ones. I don't think that the whole matter should be regarded as a fait accompli.


 * The current actions being taken by project memebrs to improve referencing is a good idea in itself, but if people do have opinions on the broader issue, then please go to the rfc and show which suggests yo support and which you oppose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter cohen (talk • contribs) 14:51, 24 January 2010


 * The discussions there are enormous. I think the best thing would be to do would be make sure that every Operaproject BLP has at least one reference asap, removing the bot-created "this has not refs banner" - this will take them out of the firing line  almost - instinct 15:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * That may be a trick worth trying. But this means that we're spending time fooling the mechanism rather than workign properly. The self-promotional cruft should go as, of course, should the libellous stuff. But what is happenning now is that the tail of wikidramamongers is wagging the dog of constructive editors. We really need to work through all our biographies, a project that will take a very long time, but what is happenning is that we're being pushed into gestures and away from thinking systematically by the WP:POINTy behaviour of a small number of people. The most popular proposal at the rfc had garnered fewer than 130 support votes last time I looked. This is tiny compared with the number of active Wikipedians but people are trying to use it to bully this vast majority of editors into doing what they want.--Peter cohen (talk) 15:52, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Update on BLP sourcing
I've gone through the entire list at WikiProject Opera/Unreferenced BLPs. I've completely removed several articles which were mis-categorized and repaired the cats. I've struck through the articles sourced as of 28 January. I've annotated each name in terms of their relative notability and have now added all the remaining clearly notable unsourced bios to the list below.

We started out with a list of 102 unsourced bios. As of 1 February there remain 42 unsourced of which 0 are for clearly notable people. All in all, I think we're in pretty good shape, and even if the remaining articles get deleted, at least we'll know which ones they are so that we can retrieve them. The exercise has also been useful for finding mis-categorized articles, copyvios, and highlighting some pretty clear non-notables for future PROD/AFD. Voceditenore (talk) 09:57, 27 January 2010 (UTC) [last updated by Voceditenore (talk) 14:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Well done everybody who has worked on this. With about half of the target done in a week and with the most extreme measures at the rfc not gaining consensus, it sounds as if the remainder can be managed if things progress according to the suggestion that projects be informed that inidvidual articles are up for deletion. Of course, the whole business is a wild good chase in that sourced articles are just as prone to being libellous, misleading or some form of peacockery as unsourced ones.--Peter cohen (talk) 17:00, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, it's certainly true that sources don't guarantee against libel or peacockery. But I don't think it's a wild goose chase. There should be no unsourced articles on Wikipedia, and especially no unsourced biographies of living people. It's 'unprofessional', 'tacky', even :-). Frankly, I welcome the culture change, although deplore the manner in which it was originally handled. Voceditenore (talk) 17:27, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Now that all the priority articles have been done, I'm going to archive that section and have added a new section below for any 'second tier' bios that members might want to bring to the attention of the project. Voceditenore (talk) 10:08, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

'Creative works' category discussion
For those of you aren't suffering from "discussion fatigue" yet, WikiProject Arts has a discussion on revising categories for 'creative works' – visual arts, music, literature etc.- Voceditenore (talk) 08:15, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Update Discussion now ended see the link above for the outcome. Voceditenore (talk) 11:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria
In about a week's time I hope to start an expansion of this article, along the lines of Poppea last autumn. Comments/ help welcome as the article develops. Brianboulton (talk) 23:43, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Dawn Padmore
For your information: Articles for deletion/Dawn Padmore. --Vejvančický (talk) 08:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * "Since the above was written, I have added a significant number of references with the result that the following statement appears on the talk page: "The result was Speedy Keep. Invalid grounds provided by nom while no others suggested deleting the article. (non-admin closure) Blodance the Seeker 03:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)"

Anna Christy
I was very surprised this page didn't exist, so I've made a start. If anyone has anything further, that would be really helpful  almost - instinct 14:39, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Fleshed it out a bit with new refs, etc, so, like Dawn Padmore's, it should not be danger.......(But it may show up annonymously undr my IP even though I was logged in...). Viva-Verdi (talk) 20:03, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Bot which automatically updates unreferenced biography of living persons daily
RE: Bot requests/Archive 34

Hello wikiproject, I requested a bot which will update unreferenced living people (BLPs) daily. User talk:Betacommand is willing to create this bot. Since you already have a /Unreferenced BLPs page, this shows your project really cares about this issue.

I just need a list of projects who would like to test this bot. Please let me know here if your project would like to do this. Thank you. Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 19:25, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

The Ghosts of Versailles
Perhaps someone with more experience than I can assist with this. Typing in "Ghosts of Versailles" redirects to the Moberly-Jourdain incident without even a disambiguation page reference back to the opera. As far as I am concerned, the search should redirect primarily to the opera with a disambiguation reference back to the time-slip incident known as Moberly-Jourdain. Theshoveljockey (talk) 23:04, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see the problem; you missed the "The" in "The Ghosts...."

Without the "The" you do go directly to the "incident" you mention. I think that is correctable. I'll try. Viva-Verdi (talk) 23:37, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah I missed the "The" on purpose. I just don't know the etiquette of changing a redirect. It just seems to me that it should go to the opera rather than to the paranormal incident.Theshoveljockey (talk) 02:41, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I have made a disambiguation - --Smerus (talk) 04:57, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Theshoveljockey (talk) 21:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

David Parry (conductor)
I see that a new editor has just created this page without sources - its already had a BLP tag slapped on it. Could someone who knows the subject help him/her out?  almost - instinct 16:41, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * It's done, plenty of refs, banner removed, so no fear of being deleted. Viva-Verdi (talk) 19:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Victory over the Sun
Excuse my ignorance once again about technical matters, but I have noticed that there are two entries for the opera Victory over the Sun. The second and less consequential entry is located at Victory Over The Sun. Since I do not know how exactly to redirect the capitalization variations onto a single entry, can someone please assist in consolidating these two pages? Thank you. Theshoveljockey (talk) 03:30, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorted. All you have to do is click the Edit tab at the top of the inferior article, select all the text and cut and paste it to somewhere else where you can look at it, then substitute #REDIRECT Exact title of superior article, then press the "Show preview" button at the bottom to see if it looks OK, then add an appropriate edit summary and click "Save page" button and hey presto!  That's what I did.  I then compared the two and incorporated 1 (I think) external link and 1 category from the inferior article into the superior article. --<b style="color:forestgreen;">Guillaume</b><i style="color:blue;">Tell</i> 17:43, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

AfD I'm ambivalent about
Articles_for_deletion/Daniel_Dutton is about someone who had an opera performed by Kentucky Opera. It was reviewed by George Heymont under his Tessi Tura alter ego in the Bay Area Reporter. Judging by Heymont's profile he is in the B- or C-list of American opera critics. I'm tending towards keep, but someone who is more familiar with the American scene could better judge whether a production by KO and a review by GH/TT in BAR constitutes notability.--Peter cohen (talk) 12:22, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Just to explain. I PRODed the article but Peter Cohn pointed out the facts above to me so I changed to AfD.  There are some oddities however: possible self-authorship and strange edits adding his official site to various other WP articles not so obviously connected with Dutton.  Vejvančický has recently added more RSs connected with the claims PC highlighted so Dutton is looking more notable by the day.  Still very tough to call though, IMO.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  20:16, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, as I noted in the edit summary line: if we're considering keeping this article, at least let's make it LOOK better.... So, a few wiki links, a few external links, a few titles italicized achieves some of that. Whether it has any operatic significance is another matter....Viva-Verdi (talk) 21:20, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

"Italian Tenor" template
This template has been created and mass added to all articles about Italian tenors. As I wrote at Template talk:Italian tenors:
 * "Sorry, but this template is not only hideous (complete with deprecated flag icon), but also highly unnecessary. These articles are already in Category:Italian tenors What does the template add?? It is full of red links, which completely negates the purpose of a navigation template, i.e., it's full of links to nowhere. If nothing else, this template should be set as default to a collapsed state. Also wouldn't it have been courteous to notify WikiProject Opera who look after these articles before adding such a template?"

I am removing this from every article it's been added to, until consensus is reached here. Voceditenore (talk) 22:48, 14 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Update: Himalayan Explorer/Dr. Blofeld, who created the template has now had it deleted. I have asked him to please discuss it here first if he intends to reinstate it. Voceditenore (talk) 00:04, 15 February 2010 (UTC)