Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Six Moments Musicaux (Rachmaninoff)/archive 2

Six Moments Musicaux (Rachmaninoff)[edit]

Responding to concerns raised in the previous, quasi nomination here: there are two references that make up most of this article, number two, a PhD dissertation, number eight, a PhD dissertation. While I realize these are not the most reliable sources, the History or Reception sections are not cited from either of these sources, and what is used out of these items are either notes about playing time or musical structure, both things that are arbitrary anyways, and performance notes, which are added to the article to provide more than one perspective on the piece. Additionally, they are pretty much the only works I've found that go into the pieces in that much detail.

The article has since been reviewed by (thankfully) "picky" people, and they've corrected glaring errors that were not obvious before. This is still primarily a self-nomination, but I won't claim that I wrote the whole article anymore, thanks to those who clarified and cleaned it up. ALTON .ıl 22:27, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Minor comment. I don't have time at the moment to review this in detail, but I do note that reference 2 is currently giving an error. Espresso Addict 02:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I fixed it. ALTON .ıl 09:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Great work. Ceoil 17:13, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support – Fully deserves featured status. Centy – reply• contribs – 11:10, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comments about media included in the article: Feodor Chaliapin seems to have no direct connection with the music of this article. Therefore I don't think Image:Chaliapin and Rachmaninoff.jpg should be included in the article. Also because it is taken 6 years before Sergei Rachmaninoff composed the six pieces. The media file Image:Sergei Rachmaninoff - Six Moments Musicaux - No 3, B minor.ogg has been requested for deletion. If there are problems with this media file, it should be removed from the article. The names of the individual pieces could be added to the image captions of the images with music notes from these pieces. – Ilse @ 20:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for noticing these problems, you're very observant. Browsing Commons and all the Wikipedias, that image is the closest one I found to the date of this composition. I realize a picture of the composer is not immediately relevant, but it is nice to see what the composer looked like around that time. Additionally, these articles are often very sparse regarding images, and it was either that, or MM2 playing.png, a picture of "performance" (which was removed). If you maintain that the article would be improved by removing this image, I urge you to remove it.

I'll see what I can clarify in the captions. ALTON .ıl 21:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you upload a cropped version of Image:Chaliapin and Rachmaninoff.jpg, then you can show only Sergei Rachmaninoff in this article. – Ilse @ 07:07, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, I'll try. ALTON .ıl 00:58, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Meh, I really dislike pictures of a composer on a page about one of his pieces. Really unnecessary when you could have score music instead. (Besides, the portrait is on the composer's main article which is always linked in the first few words). But it seems like a hoop you just have to jump through nowadays on FAC. Centy – reply• contribs – 22:53, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Haha, well whoever feels more strongly about it can do whatever to the picture. I'm sure the article won't be compromised that much... ALTON .ıl 23:06, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I approve of the way you added the titles to the image captions. Maybe you could also wikilink some important words in these captions; candidates would be "Rachmaninov" (maybe also change into Sergei Rachmaninoff) and "compound meter". And a last suggestion, since there are several media about this opus in Wikimedia Commons, you could consider creating a commons category for them and link it in the external links section. – Ilse @ 08:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I'm afraid the dissertation by Hancock is not permissable as a source per WP:V. It has not been published and the information cited from it is therefore not verifiable. --Carabinieri 11:34, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If the content sourced is deemed not 'encyclopedic content,' then I should be able to remove it without affecting the article's standing, correct? ALTON .ıl 17:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean by that. I'm not saying that the information cited from that source is wrong or "unencyclopedic", just that it's not verifiable to the extent Wikipedia policy would require it to be.--Carabinieri 00:27, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For example, the Maestoso section has a large quote from Hancock that would be removed, since the source is unverifiable. However, that's something that obviously he said, and I felt it should be included. I remarked on this in the first paragraph of my nomination. I don't think that opinions such as these, even if opinions and from an unverified source (which they are), should be removed from this article, because the fact of publication doesn't "verify" opinion anymore than being quoted in the newspaper makes you right. ALTON .ıl 00:44, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid these quotes have to be removed. The point of WP:V is for anyone who reads Wikipedia to be able to check on the claims in the article. Using a source that hasn't been published quite clearly violates this policy.--Carabinieri 12:00, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I initially raised this question as well at the previous FAC. I checked with my piano teacher, who is a professional pianist, and he agrees that this piece is rarely played and certainly not well-studied. I was under the impression that one could use a dissertation if no other sources were available. I thought there was a discussion about this very topic a few months ago on wikipedia (unfortunately, I can't find it again). Certainly academics cite dissertations in their own work. While accessing such dissertations is clearly difficult for the average wikipedia reader, if that is the only information available, I did think it was legitimate to use it. I wonder if this is one of those articles for which GA was originally intended. When I wrote The History of the Fairchild Family, for example, I decided not to take it to FAC, because I don't think there is enough scholarship on it yet. Something to consider. Awadewit | talk 06:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I vaguely remember a discussion about whether something being in an archive is enough to satisfy WP:V. I guess that would include dissertations. I think the Verifiability policy is quite clear on that sources need to have been published, so this article does not satisfy that policy. Also, Awadewit, you know, honestly, that never occurred to me. I think it's fine where it is. --Carabinieri 22:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks you guys, for paying so much attention to this case. It quite clearly doesn't satisfy that guideline, and I am also unwilling to remove all that content. Consider this my (second and final, hooray) withdrawal? ALTON .ıl 23:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support, though I found some of it to be rough. The History section starts abruptly - would be nice to introduce with where Rachmaninoff was in his career/life when it was written. What is Zatayevich's relationship with Rachmaninoff - a "Russian composer he had met before he had composed the work" helped little (well, the first two words helped but the rest in didn't). And why does Zatayevich get his birth and death dates but Rachmaninoff doesn't? The last sentence in Maestoso in C major: "Maintaining this accuracy while managing every other element of the piece and successfully presenting a musically solid performance continues to be the ultimate challenge of all.[8]" gets a little hokey after the "and". Otherwise, well done article, best one on piano compositions that I've ever read. --maclean 19:34, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I don't know why the section is rough. It's hard to write on similar pieces without getting repetitive (the "hard" ones, 6, 4, 2..). Mr Z doesn't have an article so I thought it was standard to include that information. I don't know how much more work I'm going to do on this, I'm just going to try for GA on the other articles. ALTON .ıl 23:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]