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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

What's missing from Outline of art?

Also, here's a relevant discussion about subject development you might find interesting.

The Transhumanist 00:59, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

The point of this Project is, it needed to be created due to work done by Version 1.0 back in 2006. See Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/WPArts, and Category:Wikipedia 1.0 Arts articles by quality for the extent of the work done. The question is, should this project be a Parent Project to; Entertainment, Music, Performing Arts, and Visual Arts? If that is the case, shouldn't Entertainment be listed as 1.1 instead of 2?
98.71.198.77 (talk) 02:20, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Italian sound art articles need notability assessment

I need some expert artist eyes on two articles, and on a section within a third article, to assess notability, as I am no expert in determining whether art is notable or not. New user CRMMusic wrote three articles: Planephones, Holophones and Feed-Drum. I moved Planephones to Parabolic loudspeaker and expanded that article instead of proposing deletion of the material, and I proposed deletion for the two other articles. After the prod tag was taken down, I placed notability tags, and both articles have now received a flurry of URL links which I don't know how to classify. Judging by his/her name and the three articles of interest, the editor is clearly a single-purpose account closely connected to the subject, so there's WP:Conflict of interest hanging over the scene. I started an examination of URL references at Talk:Planephones. Perhaps the art pieces are notable after all! Help settle this matter, please. Binksternet (talk) 19:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Try the music project, or something more specific. Hardly anyone watches here. Johnbod (talk) 21:46, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Stoneware

I've had trouble figuring out what project(s) Bartmann jug should sort under. Someone added WP:FOOD, but that's only marginally relevant. Would you say that it could fall within the scope of this project? Peter Isotalo 07:56, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Try Category:Pottery & Category:Ceramics (which are often, but not always the samething) tolerated within the Wikipedia:WikiProject Visual arts. They have some clay related articles elsewhere, particularly under Art Media. GwenW (talk) 07:04, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the tip. I went for the visual arts-template. Even if that might not be the most appropriate, it seems better than having no craft-related banner at all.
Peter Isotalo 10:54, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Could somebody check out some edits by a new editor?

I'm assuming good faith, so have not reverted this editor's edits, but could someone knowledgeable in the arts take a look at Special:Contributions/Brendanwoods? 99.166.95.142 (talk) 16:15, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe refer to Visual Arts Project? The third one seems to have been vandalism. --Kleinzach 00:09, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Assessments: should the project do them?

Up to now this has been an umbrella project that does not do banners or assessments. The reason for this is that the number of articles under Arts is huge, maintaining assessments for all of them would need an army of editors and the work would be pretty pointless given that assessments are already covered by specific projects.

Unfortunately someone has added a quality scale to the project page and apparently rated 390 articles (presumably in a random fashion). Can we remove the various templates before things get out of hand and we have a large mess to clean up here? Thank you. --Kleinzach 23:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Maybe for clarification I should put the ABQ here:
 FA A GABCStartStub FLListCategoryDisambigDraft FMFilePortalProjectRedirectTemplateNA???Total
000000000000000000000
WikiProject Arts  articles by quality     Refresh
If you look at it you will see that it doesn't list articles (as I assumed) but subcategories. The category tree dates back quite a while and I'm not suggesting we mess with it, however the banner/assessments are a different thing altogether. --Kleinzach 00:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
I guess my answer would depend on the following:
  • (1) Are there any articles relating to the "arts" which do not clearly fall within the scope of any of the child projects. If yes, then it would probably be in the best interests of wikipedia for someone to assess them.
  • (2) If the project ever considers using article alerts, the banner placement would be useful.
  • (3) As someone who has intermittently worked on Portal:Arts, I think it might be useful and beneficial to have some way of indicating on an article talk page that that article has been included on the portal before. The banner could do that.
Otherwise, yeah, I would have reservations about the banner myself. John Carter (talk) 01:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Since I posted (above), I've found there is a simple way of removing the assessments from the banner, so I've provisionally done that (see the result at the foot of the project page).
To answer John Carter:
  • (1) Probably only two or three.
  • (2) The project couldn't cope with article alerts for hundreds of thousands (maybe more) of articles. I think this (like many things) is best handled by specific projects.
  • (3) Perhaps a specific notice would serve this purpose?
--Kleinzach 02:07, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Contemporary Music Project

The Contemporary Music Project has been revived.

Covering the past 50 years or so, this project concentrates on music variously described as 'New', 'Postmodernist' or 'Contemporary classical'.

New editors and contributors will be most welcome. The project page is here. --Kleinzach 00:38, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Book-class

Since this is one of the bigger projects, and that several couple of Wikipedia-Books are art-related, could this project (and its taskforces) adopt the book-class? This would really help WikiProject Wikipedia-Books, as the WP Arts (and taskforces) people can oversee books like Art and Art Business much better than we could as far as merging, deletion, content, and such are concerned. Eventually there probably will be a "Books for discussion" process, so that would be incorporated in the Article Alerts.

There's an article in last week's Signpost if you aren't familiar with Wikipedia-Books and classes in general. If you have any questions just ask. Thanks. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 01:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

This umbrella project doesn't do assessments, so it doesn't use classes. You need to contact the individual arts projects (see the project page). Thanks. --Kleinzach 01:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Well subprojects then. If you don't mind, I'd leave this notice here for a little while (so individual projects might read it, and talk about it amongst themselves). I'll eventually contact every individual project, but it takes quite a chunk of my time to do request, follow-ups, clarifications. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 01:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
This page is not read very much. I think you need to explain 'Wikipedia-Books'. The concept is a bit difficult to understand. Some people may regard it as another annoying Wikipedia invention to make the encyclopedia less accessible. --Kleinzach 01:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Alright, well essentially Wikipedia-Books are collections of articles, which you can arrange in a certain order, separated by chapter an so on. For example Wikipedia:Books/Anton_Bruckner is divided in his biography plus four sections (Insights, Music, Compositions, Symphonies) [I'm not saying this is the best way to arrange the articles, but that's how it is as of writing]. This compilation, meant to be read like a book, can then be downloaded electronically, or ordered in print. See this example PDF.
You can also check WP:Books and Help:Books for more info. Does this clarify what books are about? Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
That takes me a long way! I think the Composers project would be interested in seeing the Wikipedia:Books/Anton_Bruckner example. Would you like to introduce it there? --Kleinzach 02:35, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Sure. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

New Member

I'm new to the Project, just thought I'd introduce myself. Sean (talk || contribs) 04:34, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Merry Christmas. --Kleinzach 06:02, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, can't wait to help out on these pages. Sean (talk || contribs) 14:38, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Categories for 'creative works' – visual arts, music, literature etc.

Following this discussion at the Visual arts project, it's been agreed that some reorganization is needed for or 'creative works" categories (in order to simplify project maintenance routine tasks etc.).

The discussion has been moved here to involve other projects, in particular the Music project etc. The matter is complex — and a bit technical — however the main issues are as follows:

1. 'Artist' categories and subcategories currently include non-visual artists. There is a strong consensus to remove these and put them in a more appropriate place.

2. Music categories are disorganized. There is a high level (see Level 2 in the table below) Category:Works by artist and Category:Works by author but no Category:Works by musician (or Category:Works by composer).

Below is a simplified table showing the present category structure. (Note that Level 3 is only for subcategories of 'Works by artist'.) --Kleinzach 22:58, 27 January 2010 (UTC)


'Works' categories

Level 1.

Category:Creative works

Level 2.

Works by artist, Works by author, Works by choreographer, Works by date, Works by medium, Works by nationality, Works by topic, Works by source, Compilations, Fictional works, Advertisements, Genres, Lost works, Posthumous works, Slogans, Toys, Unfinished creative works, Unreleased works

Level 3. (Works by artist subcategories only)

Visual arts: Buildings and structures by architect, Paintings by artist, Sculptures by artist, Songs by artist, Films by director, Games by designer, Music videos by director,

Music: Compositions by composer, Songs by composer, Songs by songwriter, Albums by artist, Albums by cover artist,

Individual authors, artists and musicians: Works by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Works by Marc Chagall, Works by Michael Craig-Martin, Works by Edgar Degas, Works by Bob Dylan, Works by Francisco Goya, Works by John Lennon, Works by Leonardo da Vinci, Works by Zülfü Livaneli, Works by Madonna (entertainer), Works by Michelangelo, Works by Friedrich Nietzsche, Works by Aoi Nishimata, Works by Prince (musician), Works by Melvin Van Peebles, Works by Richard Wagner

There are various other problems, for example Level 3 also includes a number of anomalous individual musicians, composers, visual artists etc. that need to go in more specific categories.

As a first stage in this discussion - before making specific proposals – what other issues need to be addressed? Are there any general comments that need to be made? I've tried to make this as simple as possible, but please ask any questions you think are necessary to clarify points.

Finally a request, can we keep this discussion as focused as possible so we can arrive at viable and agreed conclusions? Thank you. --Kleinzach 22:58, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I think we need to be able to work out how multi-talented creative people fit into the structure and hence how Category:Works by X is used. If Category:Works by X is the standard format that fits into Category:Works by artist type I, and X happens to belong both to Category:Artist type I and Category:Artist type II, then we end up having artwork type II material appearing under artwork type I. Poems by Michelangelo mixed in with the fine art etc.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:57, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps we can start with high-level cats, and then come to the lower level ones later? --Kleinzach 00:29, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
  • I think the first 3 of level 1 should be rolled up into Category:Works by creator. The named "artist" categories in Category:Works by artist in level 2 are I suppose necessary for creators who worked in more than one field, but clutter the category up & should be moved to a cul-de-sac at Category:Works by individual creator with a stiff note explaining when such a category is needed. Then the level 2 would be nice & neat with just "types of work by..." cats. To my mind the division of the visual arts category into just sculpture and (especially) paintings is unfortunate - we have small but growing numbers of articles on drawings, prints etc, which the vast majority of artists also produced. Several of the subcats, eg Category:Works by M. C. Escher revert to "works". Category:Art by William Blake is another formula. It is not really good art-historical style to specify paintings in this way - sculpture is rather different. I'd certainly favour losing "artist" for non-visual artists in Category:Songs by artist and a couple of others - singer", "performer", "recording artist" would all be preferable. On the other hand it is questionable if a performance category belongs here at all. There certainly could be a "Music by composer" category; can't one be set up? Johnbod (talk) 03:00, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. Quite a lot there to think about. I am wondering whether we should separate the discussion into sections (music, visual arts etc.
My responses: (1) Perhaps we can propose Category:Works by creator later and see what support there is for it? (2) I think there are few anomalous creators who genuinely worked in more than one field, and I'd suggest leaving them aside until the overall structure is fixed. (3) I agree that the visual arts cats need to include drawings, prints etc. Also we need to decide whether architecture, films etc come into those cats. Again perhaps you can propose something later? (4) IMO we should try to accommodate all types of music. "Music by musician" might be better at the high level than "Music by composer" as it is more widely embracing, i.e. it could contain Category:Songs by artist (recording artist is obviously meant there) alongside Category:Compositions by composer etc. --Kleinzach 04:26, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm getting confused about where you're going with this. You told me you wanted to concentrate on the high level but Category:Works by creator would be at the highest level. Once we've got that, we're then in the position to break out some of the "by artist" items that aren't by a visual/fine artist into that. Further it is a title which better allows essays and other items (documentaries...) that don't claim to be art.--Peter cohen (talk) 11:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm hoping we can have a general discussion of the issues (if possible with a number of people involved) then go on to a proposal stage, when we can systematically decide which cats to implement, how they should be defined and what they should contain. Having used cats in multiple bot runs, I am conscious of how important it is for projects to have viable categories. Johnbod has been involved with cat. matters — from a different perspective — so he also has interesting ideas about this subject. --Kleinzach 13:43, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Notices

The following projects were notified about this discussion: Literature, Visual arts, Architecture, Music, Classical music, Contemporary music, Opera, Ballet, Theatre. --Kleinzach 03:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposals

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

These proposals follow on from the discussion above, though anyone can introduce new proposals at any stage before the discussion ends and is archived.

Please don't make any changes to the categories before decisions are finalized as these will probably have to be implemented in a systematic and logical way.

Please support, oppose, comment and question as appropriate:

Proposal 1

That Category:Works by artist be defined as 'creative works by visual artists, including painters, draughtsmen, printmakers, sculptors and similar' , and this text be added to the category page.

  • Strong support. I'd also be in favour of adding all visual artists - architects, film directors etc. --Kleinzach 23:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong Support - All visual artists; (although I'm not supportive of including - architects and film directors)...Modernist (talk) 23:20, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose Like Modernist, and following the usual classifications, architects & film directors should not be classified as "artists" or "visual artists"; none of our subs of Category:Artists include them. At the moment all visual arts "foo by artist" categories end up either in "sculptures by.." or "paintings by ....", which includes drawings & prints where appropriate. We do need a category for decorative works. But I don't really see the need for segregating the visual arts in this level. Johnbod (talk) 01:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Architects and film directors are not in this proposal at present (see above). Are you really against the proposal? (BTW feel free to propose a cat for decorative arts if you think it's relevant here.). --Kleinzach 01:22, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
At the moment it would only contain sculptures and paintings by artist & I don't really see the point. I don't like the note either - artists are not really "painters, draughtsmen, print makers" any more than composers are "symphonists, string quartettists and concertoists". Most of the time these are the same people. But the emphasis on painting is a problem throughout our artist categories. Johnbod (talk) 01:24, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
OK. If you want to eliminate Category:Works by artist completely and rename as something else can you propose this (Prop 6)? (Of course this would be subject to Cfd and might get stalled.) --Kleinzach 01:35, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
I think it should be renamed to "by creator" with the authors & choreographers moved in. There are some performer categories there too - where do they go? Johnbod (talk) 01:37, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't think performers should be include in any of this, unless they created the works they perform (by writing the words or music or whatever). --Kleinzach 01:54, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
  • support although it's quite difficult to define the boundaries. Some installations include film and the creator of that sort of thing should be included, but I would not want Hollywood diredtors in here.--Peter cohen (talk) 13:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong Support for the general principle of this one, but clearly the precise boundaries need to be defined (rather than "and similar" which opens up too many loopholes). I'm also not convinced that architects and film directors should be included. Visual art, to me, is both non-functional and static. Therefore, I would also exclude those draughtsmen who produce technical drawings for architects and engineers. Print makers have a similar question mark: they would also need the provisio that they produced non-functional works, as Goya did with The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters). I think it could be defined as "people who produced static non-aural non-verbal and non-functional art" (my personal full usage of the term "artist" in the strict and specific sense). --Jubilee♫clipman 00:42, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
  • There is one problem here though: artist points out that the word is used in multiple ways in differing contexts, all of which are valid. Perhaps we really do have to specify "visual artist" (whether or not we include dynamic and/or functional visual art, as I suspect many would prefer to). If we tried to push too hard with this (in the wider community, I mean), it might open a huge can of worms... --Jubilee♫clipman 02:05, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment. We are just deciding the cat page definition here — a general principle. Once we have done that it will be up to the relevant project (in this case Visual arts) to maintain the cat, and interpret the definition (and perhaps even edit it). Everybody here supports the proposal except Johnbod (who apparently misunderstood it since he agrees with Modernist who supports it) so I don't see any problem with this. --Kleinzach 14:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
No, I understood it fine, thank you. Let me reiterate - I see no need for an extra level containing just two sub-cats for the visual arts. Frankly I'm not sure supporters have thought this through - do they really support the proposed definition? Artists who do drawings are not draughtsmen, print makers is one word, etc. Johnbod (talk) 14:31, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
This is an existing category so I don't understand the reference to an extra level. Where is it? --Kleinzach 15:08, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Come on! At the moment this category includes everybody except authors and choreographers, and is doing the role that Category:Works by creator is now proposed to do. Among many others it contains:Category:Games by designer, Category:Compositions by composer, Category:Songs by songwriter. There currently is no dedicated visual arts category and you are proposing to set one up, which is an extra level. Johnbod (talk) 17:19, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
a) Yes I thought it through: I see no problem with having a cat with only two subcats since plenty of the existing cats are like that—correctly and logically so; b) you are being a little nitpicking with the def as it stands: the precise formatting of "print maker"/"print-maker"/"printmaker" is open to dispute, and, in fact, draughtsmen allows "drawing for artistic purposes" as one of this word's definitions (ie "Artists who do drawings" could easily be defined as draughtsmen); c) the point is that the proposed category could be subcatted from works by creator (or whatever the name should be) once all the non-visual artists are cleared out. Does that clarify things? --Jubilee♫clipman 21:07, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
They weren't unlear before, I just think it causes an unecessary layer in what is already an overcrowded tree. There is no dispute about how to spell printmaker. Please get it through your head I understand the suggestion and still disagree with it. Johnbod (talk) 00:08, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
Fair enough. It's not as if we have any commitment to Category:Works by artist, but it exists and it would be very difficult to get rid of it. --Kleinzach 00:23, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
As I've said before, in Proposal 4 we are essentially expanding it to include the anomalous authors & choreographers, who have ended up on a different level. Proposal 4 should be set up as a rename for this category, with changes, which solves both problems. Johnbod (talk) 03:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
So why not propose that (i.e. as Proposal 8)? --Kleinzach 03:26, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
I thought of doing so, but on the whole I think we have enough overlapping proposals already, & not really enough commenters. There seems to be some support for it, & my opposition is not that strong. I suppose Category:Albums by cover artist belongs here too, which makes three. Johnbod (talk) 03:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal 2

That an overall category for all musical creative works be established as Category:Works by musician in parallel with Category:Works by artist and Category:Works by author. This will be defined as 'creative works by composers and songwriters' , and this text be added to the category page.

  • Support We need a cat to consolidate all musical creations. 'Musician' is the best word to describe composers and songwriters, though 'composer' (used in the broadest sense) might be a possible alternative. --Kleinzach 23:17, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Support- this sets up an approriate parallel category to those for the visual and literary arts. I prefer 'musician' to 'composer'. Just one point: perhaps the definition should read 'creative musical works by composers and songwriters' or do you sggest we include here (where appropriate), literary works? I believe for example that Category:Essays by Richard Wagner should continue to go up the line of Category:Essays by author, etc. in the literature categories. See also my comment on Proposal 5.--Smerus (talk) 07:57, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Subcategories can belong to more than one parent category (e.g. Category:Essays by Richard Wagner can go in both Category:Essays by author and Category:Works by Richard Wagner, with the latter in Category:Works by composer). So IMO this is really no problem. --Kleinzach 14:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
OK let's leave it like that.--Smerus (talk) 20:00, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposal 3

That an overall category for all creative works by composer be established as Category:Works by composer. This will be defined as 'creative works by composers' , and this text be added to the category page. (N.B. 'Works by composer' may be supported as alternative to or additional to 'Works by musician'.) Its subcategories would be Category:Compositions by composer and Category:Works by Fred Composer etc.

If this is to remain an exclusively classical category, it may be best to say so: Category:Classical music compositions by composer (or works). Johnbod (talk) 17:03, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't think this should be exclusively classical — if it's created. ('Classical music' issues — of which there is considerable history — are best avoided. Not relevant here anyway.) --Kleinzach 01:27, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Presumably this goes under "Works by musician", but does not contain pop songs. Doesn't this need to be clearer? Johnbod (talk) 01:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Two possibilities (1) as an alternative to Category:Works by musician, and (2) under Category:Works by musician (not including pop songs). Which do you support? --Kleinzach 01:48, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
They are in Category:Songs by artist. (If Prop 2. was approved Category:Songs by artist would become a subcategory of Category:Works by musician.) --Kleinzach 13:58, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
This is apparently wrong I should have said Category:Songs by songwriter rather than Category:Songs by artist. --Kleinzach 15:14, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
This would differ from Category:Compositions by composer by including all works by a composer not just compositions. --Kleinzach 14:16, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes indeed, all the works of Wagner (or Berlioz or whoever) could be conveniently categorized in a single set of articles. (A similar situation exists in the visual arts with Category:Works by artist and Category:Paintings by artist etc.) --Kleinzach 14:27, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Actually, the more I think about it the more necessary this cat becomes: we have not only Wagner and Berlioz but also Stravinsky, F. Couperin, Schoenberg, Liszt, Cage, etc etc who all wrote important theoretical works about music. Some of these people, and many others, also wrote important treateses unrelated to music etc etc. We also have various letters by the Bachs, the Mozarts, the Beethovens etc, many of which have (or certainly warrant) their own entries (Immortal Beloved comes to mind): these need to be categorised somewhere useful, too. Therefore——
Support per my reasoning above (heirarchy, IMO: Works by musician subcatted to Works by songwriter and Works by composer. We can formalise the precise details of who goes where later—eg, are jazzmen songwriters or composers? Subcats of Works by composers would also need some thought: eg, do we need to create Music theory works by composer, Non-music theory works by composer, Personal correspondence by composer etc or are these dealt with already?--Jubilee♫clipman 15:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposal 4

That Category:Works by creator be established as the parent category of Category:Works by artist, Category:Works by author etc. and as a subcategory of Category:Creative works. This will be defined as ' works by authors, choreographers, musicians, visual artists and similar' , and this text be added to the category page.

  • Neutral Biblical overtones? ('World in 7 Days' etc?) Would it duplicate (the apparently unproblematic) Category:Creative works? --Kleinzach 23:22, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes, but easier to rename existing "Works by artist" & merge in the other 2. At the moment Category:Creative works includes "artists", authors and choreographers, while the other 11? types, which probably should be larger, are all sub-cats of "Works by artist". All should be on the same level. It is unclear what the proposal intends for the non-visual types of work currently in "Works by artist". Johnbod (talk) 01:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree about being on the same level. My original assumption was that Category:Creative works would contain Category:Works by artist, Category:Works by author, Category:Works by musician/composer, Category:Works by choreographer, Category:Works by architect, etc etc. Please make a new proposal if you thinks this needs clarification. We can always 'retire' this one. --Kleinzach 01:43, 30 January 2010 (UTC
Mmm. IMO cats need specificity to be viable. In this case we are unlikely to have a Category:Works by uncreative people or Category:Works by creative martians, so I think Category:Creative works is more logical and practical. --Kleinzach 00:13, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
Haha! Just spotted this... I take your point; however, you can't get much more specific than "creative" and "people" without getting into the details of their actual creativity (or specifying "individuals" as opposed to "groups"). Cats don't specifically need opposing cats to be viable, AFAIK. Anyway, there might be good case for Category:Works by creative animals if you count that dog on YouTube that "plays" the piano and the dolphins that "paint" etc... I would doubt it though! --Jubilee♫clipman 01:36, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal 5

That Category:Works by individual creator be established as the parent category of anomalous creators who worked in multiple fields. This will be defined as ' creative works by artists who were creative in more than one basic field (with specific articles covering these different fields)' , and this text be added to the category page.

  • Oppose. Ambiguous, might mean all works by individuals rather than groups, thereby attracting the wrong articles. 'Works by multi-talented creators' perhaps? But I'm not convinced we need this. After all, anomalies are anomalies. --Kleinzach 23:10, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Support - there may be a better name. Johnbod (talk) 01:15, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
  • I oppose this on balance. I don't see why polymath creators cannot be simply classified in each of the fields where they are relevant (see my comments to Proposal 2). That avoids any ambiguities which could arise from this proposal. (You could I suppose also create a category for 'creators active in more than one field' if you get the right wording. --Smerus (talk) 08:15, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Without Category:Works by Gian Lorenzo Bernini there is no way of connecting the categories containing his sculptures and his buildings, and eponymous categories named after "creators" are very vulnerable to deletion or renaming to this formula. Johnbod (talk) 15:00, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree entirely, absolutely, but how would the Category:Works by individual creator relate to this? --Kleinzach 14:36, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
It creates a holding category for these which is out of the way, and does not clutter up the main categories as at present. These categories are much too random a result of our categorization system to be interesting as a group, but they need to be tied into this tree somehow, and should not be sitting around in a major category as they do now. Johnbod (talk) 14:41, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
IMO that's just an expediency argument . . . --Kleinzach 22:28, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
It makes for tidy presentation, but what's wrong with that? Johnbod (talk) 16:28, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal 6

That a category called Category:Works by performer be established under Category:Creative works to hold categories such as Category:Albums by artist and Category:Songs by artist, now in Category:Works by artist. I'd love to get rid of "artist" for "performer/singer/recording artist" in the sub-cat names too. Of couse many of them are also written by the performers too, but many aren't, & I agree with Kleinzach that a firm line should be drawn between creation & performance. Johnbod (talk) 15:13, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

No, Category:Songs by artist is at least meant to contain only songs by performer - there is also Category:Songs by songwriter, with a mere 1,414 sub-cats. I thought you wanted to keep performers out of Category:Works by musician ? Johnbod (talk) 01:20, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Ah. I take your point. If that's correct we should indeed keep Category:Songs by artist out of Category:Works by musician. (I have struck out my comment above.) However I am still against creating a Category:Works by performer cat. IMO performing artists perform works, they don't create them. --Kleinzach 14:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
See my comment at bottom (for now) replying to Peter Cohen. Johnbod (talk) 17:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Neutral for now, anyway. I totally agree that "artist" should be removed from all those named cats, but the problem needs to addressed by the pop/rock/RnB/folk/blues/jazz/country/etc music enthusiasts once they have been drawn over to our way of thinking—if that is even possible... --Jubilee♫clipman 01:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I think its worth pushing. The existing Category:Works by artist contains all Category:Anonymous works, Category:Films by director, Category:Music videos by director, etc & narrowinging just to visual artists is a step in the right direction. There is support at Cfd for restricting plain "artist" to the visual arts, & the Category:Artists tree has always worked this way, althought the odd DJ etc has to be removed. Moving singers etc categories to "recording artist" is enough imo. Johnbod (talk) 10:19, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Good to see that the Category:Artists tree is 'clean', but I don't think this cat (Category:Works by performer) is needed. Category:Albums by artist can go under Category:Albums and Category:Songs by artist can go under Category:Songs. (If the relevant projects want to make new cats in the future they can.) --Kleinzach 15:32, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I certainly agree that it is worth pushing: we shouldn't just lie down dead! My concern is that when the cats start getting renamed/expanded/contracted/reorganised etc the wider community will suddenly become aware and many will vehemently oppose such restructuring. At present, this discussion appear to be restricted to editors interested in visual art and classical music (or both): what about those interested in pop/rock/jazz/etc? I don't see many (if any) if those here. Also, where specifically in WP:Categories for discussion is the consensus for limiting the word "artist" to "visual artist"? (I could trawl the whole lot, but I rather hope someone has flagged it up for themselves...) --Jubilee♫clipman 17:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Support "artist" is of course an awkward term. I do feel that performers especially those who are the creators of wyat they perdoem do belong somewhere in this tree.--Peter cohen (talk) 16:51, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. This is part of the tree for Category:Creative works, which needs to include all categories consisting of creative works, however grouped. At the moment these categories sit in Category:Works by artist, and I agree with the proposal to remove them from there. They then either need a "by type" head cat such as this proposal, or to go somewhere. If this type of category is in fact all musical, it could sit in Category:Musical compositions, but I'm not sure that is the case. "Performer by performance" categories are not allowed in most areas, eg for actors, but there may well be other exceptions. If this is the the case they should have a category collecting them above the music-only level. Johnbod (talk) 17:23, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Actors as a rule work with several others of their profession at the same time. Categorising Hollywood flms under every actor who appeared in them would be silly. Categorising them under diretor and production company sounds more sensible to me. Musicians, of course, also work together. A lot of recordings have identifiable primary performers - a conductor or the pop soloist whose name appears on the cover of the album or single - or are identified as by an ensemble - the Amadeus String Quartet or the Rolling Stones. I would think it appropriate to have album by musician or a parent such as recording by musician listed in the same place in the heirarchy as film by director. By and large such listings of albums are unlikely to be classical, simply because there are so many more rock and pop editors here than classical ones and because albums are thought of as that much more seminal in the rock sphere. However there could be a case that some recordings by classical musicians - the Solti Ring, one of the Bach cantata cycles - are sufficiently notable to justify their own articles should someone care to produce them. And the same might go for live theatrical performances: the Peter Brooke A Midsummer's Night Dream, the Chereau Ring. So I think some performances by performer are appropriate.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC) (belated sig)
Peter Cohen's comment immeadiately above raises an interesting point: do we cat orchestral performances under orchestra or conductor? Technically, a conductor is non-performing... I agree with general gist of his comment, though: actors don't count and the number of notable classical albums is pretty small and relatively easy to manage. --Jubilee♫clipman 20:49, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
AFAIK we have few articles on performances per se, as opposed to festivals, theatres, performers, recordings etc. I don't think this is a useful road to go down. If we are not careful we'll soon be considering Category:Works by football managers. --Kleinzach 22:50, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
(Edit conflict)Kleinzach - Ah good point. I suspect that recordings and live performances could be lumped together in our case (for convenience) but I agree with you that the whole proposal is pretty moot as far as classical music is concerned. Pop music etc is quite a different matter and I'll leave it to the experts in those fields to categorise (or otherwise) by performer... Anyway, "works by performer" implies non-musical works or at least music-related works (that aren't themselves music) as well—it would then be parallel to "works by composer". Some performers have probably written important books about pop music that may warrant separate articles and some performers may have written important books etc totally unrelated to music (again warranting separate articles). However, we do seem to need to have a category above Category:Albums by artist and Category:Songs by artist (one that doesn't use the word "artist" I mean) and we really do need to remove the word "artist" from those categories... --Jubilee♫clipman 23:30, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Thinking about it, the examples I gave above were of productions not performances. There are occasional performances that are notable in themselves but most have multiple performers. Live Aid, World Concert for Peace, galas. And others are associated with other events - the Furtwangler Beethoven 9 that reopened the Bayreuth Festival in 51 or Roger Walters doing the Wall in Berlin. Horowitz in Moscow and the first rock bands visiting the Eastern Block or China might be notable but some might be series of performances not one-offs. I suppose we might have a category for farewell performances by Frank Sinatra. Each of his farewells must have had plenty of coverage.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Except for conductorless groups or some small ensembles, classical recordings are generally talked of as by the conductor or by the soloist. The Klemperer Beethoven cycle, not the PO one, Haitinck's Bruckner not the Concertgebouw's. I would disagree about a conductor being non-performing. A theatrical director is very limited in what they can do once the actors are on stage performing; a conductor controls the orchestra all the time.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I meant that conductors don't actually play an instrument but I take your point. It's a moot point anyway, I suspect, as Klein points out... --Jubilee♫clipman 23:32, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposal 7

That commercial (mass market) 'products/works' be excluded from the 'creative works' categories. This would mean removing Category:songs by artist (i.e. so-called recording artists), Category:Albums by artist, Category:Albums by cover artist, Category:Advertisements, Category:Slogans and similar.

Please note 'mass market' in parentheses. These cat should be excluded because because they are not normally considered works of art. --Kleinzach 23:23, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I would personally consider Tubular Bells and The Wall (among many others) as works of art, but maybe that's just me... --Jubilee♫clipman 23:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I hadn't noticed slogans and advertisements before. They don't so obviously fit into the creations by X framework. But I suspect that "Go to work on an egg" and "Naughty but nice" are probably the most famous lines by Fay Wheldon and Salman Rushdie respectively.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) No, no. At present Aida is in 'creative works' (it's in a subcat of 'Compositions by composer'), however the Aida discography is not because recordings are not 'works of art' (only 'reproductions' of them). This proposal would apply the same general principle to popular music. P.S. Are you saying that Tubular Bells and The Wall only exist as discs, that there is no separate work in the form of a score or whatever?--Kleinzach 23:55, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Actually Aida discography is in the "creative works" tree, as is the whole of Category:Opera recordings. Johnbod (talk) 16:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
I found Aida quite quickly: Category:Creative works → Category:Works by date → Category:Operas by date → Category:Operas by century → Category:19th-century operas → Category:1870s operas → Category:1871 operas → "A". (That's what I did though there are other ways of getting there). Could you specify the links to the others? --Jubilee♫clipman 01:43, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
It's always much easier to start from the bottom & work up! Category:Opera recordings - recorded music - musical compositions - works by medium ... I think. You'll find it easily enough. Johnbod (talk) 03:43, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
This shows how one illogical link (in this case Category:recorded music → Category:musical compositions) can connect large numbers of articles without it even being apparent. In reality the 'category tree' is a random collection of roots and branches. --Kleinzach 04:01, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
There is nothing illogical about the link once it is understood that the purpose of "creative works" tree is to hold all copyrightable material, which it is. The link might be made another way, or a "Musical works" category inserted by addition or renaming, but recordings do belong here. Johnbod (talk) 04:10, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
I begin to see your point here. However, I am going to get back to the task over at WP:CTM now and let others decide the best way forward. To be fair, there is probably a score for Wannabe—in fact, I have a reduction for small band in a collection of Music of the Ninties floating around some where... Not sure if the Spice Girls wrote much "art music" though... I am not sure how you can define your boundaries clearly here but knowing you, you probably will! I am not sure we should use the definitions used by lawers, however, either... I won't comment further here unless there is something that particularly grabs my attention. --Jubilee♫clipman 00:49, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely not. (see above). --Kleinzach 23:56, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose A complete non-starter. Have you actually looked at what is in this tree? Every film, album, pop song, best-selling diet book, computer game and Japanese anime we have. And you talk above of "opening Pandora's box"!!! The definition of "creative works" is a lawyer's one, and essentially means anything that is copyrightable. Johnbod (talk) 00:02, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
To clarify: do you think Category:Advertisements and Category:Slogans should be included? What about patents? All intellectual property? This is the first time anyone has suggest using a 'lawyer's definition'. --Kleinzach 00:30, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
No, it is already & always has been a lawyer's definition. Patents are different; another kind of intellectual property, governed by different laws. You can't patent a novel or copyright a chemical process. Both come under Category:Intellectual works. Advertisements & slogans (potentially, if an author can be demonstrated) are creative works. What all the proposals above are discussing is one level 2 area of the Category:Creative works tree and it is no use proposing solutions for this area that are not compatible with the level 1 category, or would involve massive disruption to it that hasn't a snowball's chance at Cfd. I suggest you spend sometime looking at what the various sub-cats of that contain (basically everything). Johnbod (talk) 03:01, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposal closure, and comments

I've been requested to read through these, assess consensus, and close the discussion of these specific proposals. I'm going to do about six-sevenths of that assignment. Proposals 2, 3, and 4 have clear consensus; proposals 5, 6, and 7 do not achieve consensus. For proposal 4, Category:Works by creator, as long as "creator" is lower case, I don't see the problem of "Biblical" overtones. Seems sensible. Unless I'm missing something, 2, 3, and 4 are not mutually exclusive and can be acted upon. Right?

Proposal 1 is more problematic because of Johnbod's strong and well-stated objection. It seems that if we pass Proposal 4, we don't need Proposal 1. Right? Before "final" closure of the discussion I want to make sure that works for everyone, i.e. that we have consensus for 4 rather than 1. If I've missed something obvious do let me know -- it was kind of hard to follow all this. Antandrus (talk) 03:55, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Your assessment is more or less correct. Prop 4 needs far more work though: the requested category title was opposed on semantic grounds, among other things, by Kleinzach and me and Johnbod raised some pertinant points, also. Prop 1 was more or less WP:snowed against Johnbod's objection. We need to look at both of those again. --Jubilee♫clipman 16:36, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I presume all this is a preliminary to one or more Cfd noms - the matter should go there. From my point of view, Proposal 4 is a clear step forward, but Prop 1 is not made irrelevant by it. I don't like prop 1 myself, just as an extra layer, but at least having it does not cause new problems with the rest of the scheme. Nb it looks like there will soon be a proposal at Cfd to rename all "Paintings by Foo" cats to "Art by Foo", but keeping sculptures separate. I will support this. I'm a bit unclear where the music categories are left by props 2&3 (I didn't "vote" on either). Are they alternatives? Where do the many performers categories go? If the "works" are a "cul-de-sac" above "compositions" to contain Wagner's essays etc, I suppose that is ok. Prop 6 I think is still needed for performers. These are tricky issues & I'm not surprised the result looks rather messy. Johnbod (talk) 17:05, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I dont think there is a problem in leaving te outcome of proposal 1 as inconclusive. Theres not been huge participation here and therefore the outcome once this goes to cfd could well be different from what was the consensus here.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:02, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Endorse the closure proposed by Antandrus. It's important that we finish this. I agree that leaving Proposal 1 as inconclusive is not a huge problem. (It's within the bailiwick of the Visual Arts project, so perhaps they will now take the initiative in taking this further to decide how they want their categories structured.) Proposal 4, as Antandrus has indicated, is probably desirable if we don't pass Proposal 1, and it was not opposed (despite the reservations expressed by myself and Jubilee♫). Clearly there is more work to do. Let's agree to close this as Antandrus has suggested and move on. --Kleinzach 23:53, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Full closure and send to CfD. --Jubilee♫clipman 03:25, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Full closure yes, but I don't agree with 'sending this to Cfd'. (Specific Cfds can be started, but not a general one.). --Kleinzach 09:50, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
OK -- so be it. Probably best to link to this discussion from there so interested parties can read the details. I'll leave it to one of you guys to initiate the discussion there. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 03:48, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Endorse Kleinzach's objection (above)

Actually, I withdraw my suggestion to send to CfD. That's how this whole business started! (I forgot...) Indeed, as Kleinzach points out, we shouldn't need to discuss the entire structure proposed above any further: we just need to get on with (re)categorising articles so that the structure is logical. Actualising the above endorsed props 2, 3 and 4 will go along way towards making this happen. Indeed, the cats are now available and awaiting population... Great work! --Jubilee♫clipman 00:02, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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