User:Cubanabop/Musical instrument stubs
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Cleaning up Instrument Stubs Project
A note to Wikipedians who happen upon this page but are not in MASH[edit]
The Music and Social History class of the University of San Francisco is in the process of editing music stubs and musician pages in Wikipedia, so this page is a collective sandbox for us to practice how to update Wikipedia only before we actually update real live pages. If you see a stub that is unclaimed and want to help us edit stubs, that is great. If you see any updates to a stub that you think are inappropriate, please let us know why you're making the edits, to help us become better Wikipedians.
Purpose of this project[edit]
We’re verifying and cleaning up music instrument stubs—a "stub" is a short entry on a musical instrument that is noteworthy or important to some musical tradition in the world, but does not require its own separate topic entry in Wikipedia.
If you’ve never heard of this instrument before, good: you’re the perfect person to scrutinize the stub. Since a stub is short, your job is to help introduce in just a paragraph or two: "What is this instrument?" and "Why is this instrument notable?" You must also ensure that there are properly cited references that help proves you are certain of the veracity and reliability of the information contained in the text of the stub.
What belongs in a stub on musical instruments?[edit]
Bare minimum elements for any entry in Wikipedia, even Stubs include:
- describe/define the topic. The opening sentence should establish significance of this instrument, include mention of its common and/or important uses, and be written in a way that makes readers want to know more about it. As Wikipedian editors note, even stubs need to be about "to provide adequate context" for the reader.
- indicate notability (why the person reading about this instrument should care about its existence)
- provide context for the instrument and connect this instrument to other topics (e.g. category codes at the bottom of the page, adding "see also" section linking to genres/traditions that use it, or linking the prose within the stub to other pages in Wikipedia that are relevant)
- at least one reliable source/reference that is properly cited (e.g. the references are not just bare urls pointing to an unknown page type)
The best stubs about musical instruments contain the following:
- An “Infobox” specific to instruments (add the "{"{Infobox Instrument}"}” tag at the top of your page
- a paragraph or section on "construction/design" or "tuning" as separate from its "history"
- a mix of multiple reliable sources under references
- a "See also" category for genres or traditions that use the instrument
- "Category" coding at the bottom of the stub that links it to specific traditions
- an audio or video example (or an external link to a source that can provide it)
Examples of best practices/appropriate edits to instrument stubs[edit]
The following were cleaned up and edited former members of MASH classes, and demonstrate good citation practices and proper coding and formatting for the stub page. Most of these started as one or two messy sentences when MASH students first adopted them. You may find it useful to review these pages before starting research on your instrument; the editors only added the information they were able to verify and document, so you'll notice that some pages have more on construction/musical use while others have more on cultural importance. Your final stub edits may have different kinds of categories/information but these should give you an idea of scope: Pinkillo, Hyoshigi, Kafir harp, Masenqo
Resources[edit]
- Use USF Gleeson Library's *[Fusion service, to see if the instrument has been written about in context of articles about the musical tradition. You might also try searching in *Google Scholar] for scholarly articles about the instrument or its use.
- Oxford Dictionary of Music (available to USF students through *Gleeson Library)
- Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (available in Gleeson Library)
- Tourism websites hosted by governments, believe it or not, are often good sources of info about traditional instruments on the web and can usually count as credible sources in your references, just make sure to properly document the website if you add it to your references.
Assignments[edit]
All of the following entries are in real need of help, so choose any one of the instruments below. Each of these pages could use improvement in nearly every aspect of the page (description of notability, music instrument info box, credible references cited, non-technical descriptions, categories at the bottom of the page, internal links to other relevant entries in Wikipedia, and sometimes even overall page layout or editing the existing text). If you don't like any of the choices below and want to find a stub on your own in a tradition that interests you, you may add that to the list with professor's permission. Check out the page listing all known instrument stubs, or check the page about music of a tradition in the world you are interested in, and see if one of that tradition's instruments might need a stub added.
Once you've chosen a stub, please add your name next to it, in the "lead editor" column so no one else chooses it. Scrutinize the entry for what it needs/what's missing or confusing, comparing its stub to the samples provided above, then do some research; what credible sources can you uncover that tell you something about the instrument and its use, especially its notability and cultural importance? [part two will be you helping proof and edit one of your peer's pages as "secondary editor"]
When you're ready, log into Wikipedia, open the page, and make the updates to the stub. Your final step is to document your changes and work in Canvas.
Remember: you'll be taken to a live stub, and be doing editing directly within that page that will be live, for all Wikipedians to see. If you do your updates right, YOUR description will be what all future readers learn about the instrument.