Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 85
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Popular Pages
I've serendipitously discovered that User:Mr.Z-man has a new service, available to any WikiProject, which gives a monthly update of the number of hits on the 1,000 most frequently accessed articles for that project. Example: Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/Popular pages. I think that this would be a nice addition to our Project page (e.g. useful fodder for article improvement drives) and will be happy to ask Mr. Z-man to add us to his list - any thoughts, anyone? --GuillaumeTell 21:32, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
- Let's go for it. It would certainly be very useful to know if any of our very popular pages were really bad. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:55, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, please ask him on our behalf. Very useful indeed! Once he's done it, I suggest linking the page from it's own sub-section here Voceditenore (talk) 07:30, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Lists of arias in articles
Re this discussion at Talk:Don Giovanni, can we revisit the article format guidelines? While encouraging the incorporation of the arias into the synopsis, they have never explicitly said that there cannot be also a separate section lisitng them. I feel there should be both, for two reasons:
1. A simple separate list of the noted arias/ensembles is also very useful to readers. Ploughing through a detailed (and often convoluted) synopsis to find them is laborious to say the least.
2. This double format has already been used successfully in 
Agrippina.
Opinions please. Voceditenore (talk) 11:39, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
- It's probably worth mentioning that Agrippina lists many of the arias in its synopsis, but not all. It's also worth pondering that Agrippina is in the baroque style, which has very distinct arias, strictly separated by recitatives - other operas do not have such distinct divisions.
- In my opinion, any opera with distinct arias - including pretty much all operetta, baroque opera, and much else - should have a complete list of numbers. Operas without distinct divisions, such as some of the verisimo operas, may be fine listing just the noted arias, to avoid what could easily be seen as meaningless trivia since all the sections flow seamlessly and organically into each other. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 12:08, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
- Yes I agree. There's no need to list every single "number" (for want of a better word), especially in many of the verismo and 20th/21st century works.. Usually if an aria/ensemble appears separately in compilation or recital disks or in the concert repertoire, then it's likely to be "noted". Voceditenore (talk) 12:29, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
- But that said, there are some where it's clearly useful, and we shouldn't rule it out in those cases. Perhaps we should update our suggestions to give various options, and say that which one should be used should be decided based on the nature of the work? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 12:32, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
- I wouldn't rule out a complete list either. I'm all in favour of flexibility when it come to how many or all should be listed in the separate section. Voceditenore (talk) 12:39, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
- But that said, there are some where it's clearly useful, and we shouldn't rule it out in those cases. Perhaps we should update our suggestions to give various options, and say that which one should be used should be decided based on the nature of the work? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 12:32, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
- Yes I agree. There's no need to list every single "number" (for want of a better word), especially in many of the verismo and 20th/21st century works.. Usually if an aria/ensemble appears separately in compilation or recital disks or in the concert repertoire, then it's likely to be "noted". Voceditenore (talk) 12:29, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
I am opposed to having complete lists when all of the noted arais are contained within the text. Many/maybe most of the Verdi operas do have these listis. e.g. La traviata. I am not alone in having integrated them when expanding upon or adding a synopsis. Viva-Verdi (talk) 19:30, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
- Well, we've got three members who think an additional list can be helpful to the reader, and one who doesn't want them at all. I would suggest adding something to the guidelines to the effect that:
- Noted arias and ensembles should be incorporated into a complete synopsis at the appropriate points in the story. However, an additional list in a separate section may also be appropriate and helpful in some cases, especially when aiming for Featured Article status.
- – Voceditenore (talk) 11:00, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
On their own these sections seem a little unnecessary to me, but when combined with audio excerpts as in some articles, a list of musical numbers seems helpful. Markhh (talk) 12:09, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
- This discussion has been useful. As there doesn't seem to be a particular consensus either way, although several editors can see the point of having a separate list under some limited circumstances, I suggest we continue to play it by ear without adding the above to the guidelines. I'll leave this up for a couple of days in case anyone else wants to comment and then archive it for future reference. Voceditenore (talk) 10:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
Heading incrementation
Hey members of WikiProject Opera! I've just been designing and building a bot to "fix" heading hierarchies. A topical example of what the bot would do for the other 16,000 odd pages listed as needing attention is this edit. The bot is trying to improve the accessibility of the page (per international guidelines, as well as the logical progression of headers for consistency reasons, whilst preserve the outline of the article. You can read more about what the bot would do here. These are all in line with (my reading of the) Manual of Style. Therefore the question for you is: should the bot fix Opera-related articles or should it leave them as is? (I am not sending this message to any other WikiProjects; it was suggested that opera articles be a special case scenario.) I personally would prefer them to be all fixed, and then, if anyone found how they looked oppresive they could reformat them, maybe just with bold; this is now the case on the Albert Vanloo article. Hope that makes sense, - Jarry1250 (t, c) 15:14, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
- Well, there can be good reasons for not using the standard order. How does the bot decide whether to move sections around? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:46, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
- I'd love to hear a list of those reasons: I even asked at WP:VPM in fact. In response to your question: er... it doesn't. It just adjusts header-levels, that's all. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 15:49, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
- Primarily, when information in one happens to be important to another. I can't find the recommended order of sections for opera at the moment, but one example might be that, say, the opera was adapted, with extensive changes, from another opera, and so the background section details some of the changes made. Putting the plot summary first may help with understanding this, even if background normally comes before plot. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:07, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
- I'd love to hear a list of those reasons: I even asked at WP:VPM in fact. In response to your question: er... it doesn't. It just adjusts header-levels, that's all. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 15:49, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
- Ah no, you misunderstand (my fault of course). All the bot does / will do is look at the header outline of the page in terms of numbers of equals signs (say 2-2-3-5-5-2-2-2) and then smooth out the bumps (to 2-2-3-4-4-2-2-2) thus preserving the Table of Contents. Nothing more, nothing less. No moving around, no judgements. Examples are all listed at Special:Contributions/LivingBot. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 16:16, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Pageview stats
After a recent request, I added WikiProject Opera to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Popular pages.
The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. I can also get provide the full data for any project covered by the bot if requested, though I normally don't keep it for much longer than a couple weeks after the list is generated. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 04:33, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- This is great, many thanks Z-man and thanks to GuillaumeTell for bringing this service to our attention. I've added a link to it on the main OP page under Articles. I must say I was quite surprised with the #1. ;-) Voceditenore (talk) 10:01, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
Pageview stats: Disparities
There seem to be some wide disparities between this list and the viewing statistics registered in the page history. For instance, Pelléas et Mélisande (opera) doesn't make the list, but according to the page stats it had 2641 views in May [1]. Taking Heinrich Marschner at #999, the list stats give 620 views, the page stats give 527 views [2]. The disparity between the Marschner stats makes sense if slightly different methods are being used; the disparity regarding Pelléas just doesn't compute to me. --Folantin (talk) 09:19, 7 June 2009 (UTC) (ec)Likewise, Iphigénie en Tauride (1264 views per page history [3]) but not on list, whereas L'amour de loin (114 views per talk page history [4]) is. --Folantin (talk) 09:34, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
- If I've understood Mr.Z-man correctly above, although the list was generated in May, it's based on data generated at stats.grok.se which looks like its from August 2008. But I could be wrong.
- Not sure this is the case. The page says "Period: 2009-05-01 — 2009-05-31". Pelléas got 1401 page views back in August 2008. L'amour de loin got 71. Pygmalion (Rousseau) got just 5 page views (!) last August yet it makes the top 1000. --Folantin (talk) 09:37, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
- I see from Z-Man's response [5] at the Classical Music Project that the stuff is current, and some of the discrepancies occur because his program also includes hits to redirects. But certainly not all the discepancies are due to that. I'm wondering if the program he uses has trouble with accent marks. Take Lakmé - 7480 hits on the page stats and only 1249 on the Popular Pages list which pretty much matches the page stats for the redirect only Lakme It would explain the Pelléas and Iphigénie anomalies too. Voceditenore (talk) 06:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- That's what I thought. Where's Der Freischütz, for example? It doesn't eliminate every accented title. Die Entführung aus dem Serail is there, but it's been "demoted" from 5000+ views according to the page history to about 1000 according to the list. Odd. --Folantin (talk) 07:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, again Entführung seems to have made it only by virtue of its various unaccented re-direct pages and the total seems to only refer to them. The 1 non-accented re-direct for Freischütz only got 276 hits in May [6]. I'm going away for about 5 days, but it might be worth someone bringing this to Z-Man's attention in the interim. Otherwise, the list can have serious limitations for OP planning, given how many operas have accents and diacritics in the their actual title. Voceditenore (talk) 10:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- That's what I thought. Where's Der Freischütz, for example? It doesn't eliminate every accented title. Die Entführung aus dem Serail is there, but it's been "demoted" from 5000+ views according to the page history to about 1000 according to the list. Odd. --Folantin (talk) 07:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- I see from Z-Man's response [5] at the Classical Music Project that the stuff is current, and some of the discrepancies occur because his program also includes hits to redirects. But certainly not all the discepancies are due to that. I'm wondering if the program he uses has trouble with accent marks. Take Lakmé - 7480 hits on the page stats and only 1249 on the Popular Pages list which pretty much matches the page stats for the redirect only Lakme It would explain the Pelléas and Iphigénie anomalies too. Voceditenore (talk) 06:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- Not sure this is the case. The page says "Period: 2009-05-01 — 2009-05-31". Pelléas got 1401 page views back in August 2008. L'amour de loin got 71. Pygmalion (Rousseau) got just 5 page views (!) last August yet it makes the top 1000. --Folantin (talk) 09:37, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
- I think I've figured out the problem. Should be fixed for the list next month. Mr.Z-man 15:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Page view stats: Cinque, dieci, venti, trenta
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I had some spare minutes this Saturday evening and was looking at those 1,000 numbers and they seemed to be begging for some inspection.
First, the obvious question: does assessment class have an influence on page views? The short answer is: 0.32 — that's the correlation coefficient between page views and assessment (graded as shown on the right), so it seems there is a weak positive correlation. But what about the absolute and percentage numbers per assessment class? See answers in the table on the right. The first observation is the small number of FAs, FLs and GAs: 13 between them; this makes any analysis of their page view numbers problematic.
Commentary: Given that almost 80% of these 1,000 articles are Start-class stubs, their preponderance in Views is hardly surprising. What is surprising is that the 8% of B-class articles get 26% of all views; in fact B-class articles are overrepresented in Views by exactly as much as FAs are. C-class articles attract proportionally a sigificant higher number of views than GAs. Lists and Stubs are viewed much less in proportion to their number and Featured Lists (all three of them) don't do much better than Start-class articles.
The other question is how concentrated the views are across the 1,000 articles: we reach 50% after 64 articles, 75% after 201; this means that the bottom 800 articles get 25% of the views. This can be expressed with the Gini coefficient (which ranges from 0 for perfect equality and 1 for perfect inequality), which is 0.68 — which is very much not equal. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 17:36, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
- Interesting analysis. I'm not surprised there are such weak correlations. The picture is a bit muddied since the list is based on articles that we've since removed. Three of them were in the top 26, including the whopping Burlesque. Also, a lot of the starts were bot assessed over a year ago where "start" was the default in the absence of a stub tag. We do virtually no systematic human assessment, so many of the starts may actually be C or even B. Andrea Bocelli (Mr. Number 5) is definitely more than start, albeit a tad overly detailed.;-) The 'over-representation' of the Bs is probably a relection of 2 factors. They tend to be on popular or well-known topics and therefore get expanded more readily and since we tend to boycott the GA process, a lot of the B's are probably closer to GA (or A) than we give them credit for. Voceditenore (talk) 19:53, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
- A nice to have would be a listing of what articles have been assessed when. (Obviously the lack of systematic assessment means that never is the most common answer.) But the date of last assessment combined with number of edits since then and the number of views would be an indicator of what are the most valuable articles to assess manually.--Peter cohen (talk) 22:05, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
- It's interesting to see that even the least viewed of these articles got 620 views which means that even improvements to them will be appreciated by 1000s of people a year, but this also gives a less subjective way of estimating our top priority articles. Obviously there's going to be some churn based on what companies are producing which operas and, at the lower end, simply working on an article may make a noticeable difference to its ranking.--Peter cohen (talk) 22:05, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
- I wouldn't be too worried about the correlation. There's a very small number of FA's and GA's relative to the other classes. Those articles are often driven to that high rating by a small group of dedicated editors rather than a large number of editor-viewers (as is the case with current events articles). That's why there's so many Baroque Operas up there and so few from the standard repertoire (where all the views are). Plus, as was pointed out above there seem to be quite a few underrated articles. I don't see why Madama Butterfly (start) and The Barber of Seville (start) are really that much worse than Venus and Adonis (opera) (GA). Rather than focus on the correlation, I'd take it as a suggestion for a TODO list. Focus on the high-view articles in the short term and see if there is any low-lying fruit in terms of improvement or re-rating. DavidRF (talk) 23:36, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Last assessment dates
As a start, I've done two lists of articles from Popular pages with their last assessment dates, TOP 20 OVERALL and TOP 20 ON OPERAS. (I've excluded the articles from which we have removed the banners.) Note that many of the articles rated B, especially those on individual operas were notionally assessed with no comments in August 2008.
- TOP 20 OVERALL
- Assessed by humans
- George Frideric Handel - 29 January 2009 - B
- Opera - 15 June 2007 - B
- Antonio Vivaldi - 7 June 2009 - B
- Luciano Pavarotti - 26 June 2008 - B
- Sydney Opera House - 27 April 2007 - B
- Giuseppe Verdi - 28 September 2006 - B
- Carmen - 12 August 2008 - B
- Singing- 30 June 2008 - B
- Falsetto - 23 October 2008 - C
- Philip Glass - 17 November 2008 - B
- Giacomo Puccini - 28 September 2006 - B
- Assessed by bots
- Soprano - 28 May 2008 - start
- Andrea Bocelli 28 May 2008 - start
- Contralto - 28 May 2008 - start
- Tenor - 28 May 2008 - start
- Countertenor - 28 May 2008 - start
- Baritone - 28 May 2008 - start
- Mezzo-soprano - 28 May 2008 - start
- Nessun dorma - 28 May 2008 - start
- Malena Ernman - 29 May 2008 - start
- TOP 20 ON OPERAS
- Assessed by humans
- Carmen - 12 August 2008 - B
- The Magic Flute - 12 August 2008 - B
- Aida - 7 August 2008 - B
- La traviata - 7 August 2008 - B
- Turandot - 7 August 2008 - B
- Tosca - 7 August 2008 - B
- La bohème - 11 February 2009 - C
- Don Giovanni - 12 August 2008 - B
- Porgy and Bess - 30 May 2008 - B
- Rigoletto - 7 August 2008 - B
- Fidelio - 12 August 2008 - B
- Dido and Æneas 3 February 2006 - GA
- Assessed by bots
- Madama Butterfly - 28 May 2008 - start
- The Barber of Seville - 28 May 2008 - start
- The Threepenny Opera - 29 May 2008 - start
- Wozzeck - 28 May 2008 - start
- Pagliacci - 28 May 2008 - start
- La Cenerentola - 28 May 2008 - start
- Lucia di Lammermoor - 28 May 2008 - start
- The Beggar's Opera - 28 May 2008 - start
Comments on lists
Thanks for compiling these lists. All the starts seem to be bot assessed. Therefore some of the fruit may be so low-lying that just assessing them will promote them. Of course, changing their "paper" ranking is just a cosmetic improvement. I notice that the assessed articles do not generally have comment sections filled in. Are they all in the general improvements list? Making sure that we somewhere have it documented what improvements to the major articles are needed to reach the next level will allow progress to be more systematic. I have the ENO guides for quite a few of the above operas. A list of the key areas for improvement to improve an article's ranking would probably allow me to pick out operas that I am interested in and have documentation for and in an afternoon improve an issue that would be worth a few ranking points.
The suggestion of having voice ranges as "operas of the month" was made on the assumption that they were poor articles that could easilly be improved. It certainly will be worth someone assessing them. We don't have our own marking system for these, but it might be worth someone suggesting a standard format with key expected contents etc so that we can have the articles all headed in the same direction.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- Hi Peter, it's great to see you back at the OP! We have a special 'man-made' list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Key article improvement to which anyone can add. The titles in bold are ones the adder thought were 'super key' articles. They all have suggestions after them for improvements needed (although they may be out of date and the work may already be done on some of them). Re the voice articles, I wouldn't say they were poor. But they could also use improvements, and as I mentioned below, the list-cruft really ought to go. I'd be all in favour of someone having a look at the voice type articles and suggesting a standard format.
- I'd also be in favour of maybe simplfying the proposed assessment system in general. It never really got off the ground. It's very elaborate and rather off-putting with all those points and formulas – see here. I'd suggest something a little less elaborate like the excellent ones that MagicPiano does for the Composers Project, e.g. Talk:George Frideric Handel/Comments. They're more likely to get takers. Voceditenore (talk) 12:34, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Project banner removal
Looking through the new WikiProject Opera/Popular pages above, I found some articles with the OP banner, that really aren't under the scope of the project. I removed it from:
- Bryan Magee
- William Marshall (film and television actor)
- Smokey Robinson
- Tarja Turunen (sole claim to operatic fame was a crossover concert at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in 2006)
If anyone disagrees, give a shout. Frankly, I'm also wondering if Burlesque really belongs with this project, but I've left it for now. Voceditenore (talk) 11:33, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- IU'll mention Magee at WP:Wagner, in case people think he's an important enough Wagnerian.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:33, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- Do these (from the top 100) belong:
- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:45, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- We don't really need any of these. Burlesque is too general a term. I can see the association of Hockney (scene designer) and Colette (librettist) with opera but, frankly, they're much better dealt with by arts and literature projects. Project tags are not supposed to be duplicates of Wikipedia categories, though many people seem to treat them that way. --Folantin (talk) 13:56, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- I agree. There is definitely a case for bannering if a very significant proportion of the person's career involved designing or directing operas, or writing librettos, etc. Or it's what they are primarily known for today. Or if a term like Monologue or Vocal folds applied primarily to opera. But none of the above really fit that criterion. I'd say to just go ahead and take the banners off. Voceditenore (talk) 15:18, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- I think we could reasonably leave Colette bannered. She did write the libretto to a Ravel opera, and that's pretty notable. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:04, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- I don't particularly care one way or another, but really, the libretto she wrote is a complete anomaly in her career and she originally wrote it for a ballet. As a project, do we have any significant input to make in her biography? Are we interested in maintaining it? Are we likely to be a useful resource for those working on the article? These are the questions I ask when I think about whether to banner or not. Voceditenore (talk) 21:38, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, what's the point? Hans Christian Andersen, Victor Hugo and Emile Zola all wrote opera libretti but I don't see why their pages should be bannered with the Opera Project template. I think people who know something about French or Danish literature are going to have a more significant chance of improving those pages. As I said above, talk page templates are not an additional way of categorising pages - and I hope we're not one of those megalomaniac projects whose chief purpose seems to be sticking their flag into as many pages as possible. --Folantin (talk) 21:46, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- Ah, yes. I've noticed that the minute an opera singer's biography gets a DYK on the WP front page this happens. Voceditenore (talk) 22:13, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, what's the point? Hans Christian Andersen, Victor Hugo and Emile Zola all wrote opera libretti but I don't see why their pages should be bannered with the Opera Project template. I think people who know something about French or Danish literature are going to have a more significant chance of improving those pages. As I said above, talk page templates are not an additional way of categorising pages - and I hope we're not one of those megalomaniac projects whose chief purpose seems to be sticking their flag into as many pages as possible. --Folantin (talk) 21:46, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- I don't particularly care one way or another, but really, the libretto she wrote is a complete anomaly in her career and she originally wrote it for a ballet. As a project, do we have any significant input to make in her biography? Are we interested in maintaining it? Are we likely to be a useful resource for those working on the article? These are the questions I ask when I think about whether to banner or not. Voceditenore (talk) 21:38, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- I think we could reasonably leave Colette bannered. She did write the libretto to a Ravel opera, and that's pretty notable. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:04, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- I agree. There is definitely a case for bannering if a very significant proportion of the person's career involved designing or directing operas, or writing librettos, etc. Or it's what they are primarily known for today. Or if a term like Monologue or Vocal folds applied primarily to opera. But none of the above really fit that criterion. I'd say to just go ahead and take the banners off. Voceditenore (talk) 15:18, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- We don't really need any of these. Burlesque is too general a term. I can see the association of Hockney (scene designer) and Colette (librettist) with opera but, frankly, they're much better dealt with by arts and literature projects. Project tags are not supposed to be duplicates of Wikipedia categories, though many people seem to treat them that way. --Folantin (talk) 13:56, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
It certainly does point out a few fields to work on: A future OotM should be Soprano, Mezzo-soprano, Contralto, Tenor, etc. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:59, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- Even for people who prefer workign on their own, there are plenty of Start classes with hundreds or thousands of views.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:33, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
- @Shoemaker's Holiday So, um, who composed the opera, Contralto? Just joking.;-) But a more suitable place to put these – with specific recommendations for improvement – is Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Key article improvement. Working on those subjects requires specialist knowledge and a very specific interest. There's nothing to stop anyone from suggesting here on the OP talk page that they'd like to improve these articles and seek collaborators, but I don't think we should start mudddying the waters of the OoM and CoM with completely anomalous candidates. One thing I would suggest re these articles, is that separate sections of the type "Notable Contraltos" be eliminated. They do nothing but attract "drive-by", unreferenced additions of pop-singers and very borderline notable opera singers (desperate for a link to some other WP article and/or to bask in the reflected glory of truly famous singers) and don't really add to the reader's understanding of the term. I got so sick of that going on in Baritone, that I finally hived off the non-opertaic baritones to a separate list and required that any additions to it have an inline citation. Interestingly, the new list has had no more drive-by additions. Voceditenore (talk) 21:09, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
Contralto is an 1833 opera by Mezzo Soprano. It tells the tale of the titular heroine, and her doomed love, Bass Baritone. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:28, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
I have nominated Pinafore for promotion to Featured Article: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/H.M.S. Pinafore/archive1 Please review and comment or vote there if you have a chance! All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC
Selected recordings
During Agrippina's sojourn on the main page an editor queried the inclusion of "selected recordings" in opera articles. I believe his arguments have some merit – see Agrippina (opera) talk page. Since Selected recordings is a section recommended by the Opera Project for inclusion in opera article, perhaps the discussion could better be continued here. Brianboulton (talk) 09:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- I don't remember the debate (was there one?) but I was never very happy with "Selected recordings" (who's doing the selecting? What are the criteria?). It just used to be "Recordings". This was fine for many operas, especially some of the early ones where you are lucky if a single recording exists. It's more of a problem with the most popular works in the repertoire, but some of these now have their own separate "Discography" pages. (BTW I think we should discourage the listing of bootlegs - unless they have been subsequently "legitimised" - and rare live recordings on obscure labels). --Folantin (talk) 10:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- I've moved this down here for more prominence. I never liked the "Selected recordings" either and for the same reasons. I suggest we change the guidelines to simply calling this section "Recordings". I also agree with Folantin about the bootlegs. Should we add something like this too?...
- Private or "bootleg" recordings should not be listed in this section unless they have been subsequently released under a reasonably well-known commercial label such as Opera d'Oro, Myto, Testament Records, or Marston Records.
- I deliberately excluded outfits like Premiere Opera and House of Opera, which are basically repositories of bootleg recordings, which are then copied and sent to customers in a "plain wrapper" so to speak. Voceditenore (talk) 10:01, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
- I've moved this down here for more prominence. I never liked the "Selected recordings" either and for the same reasons. I suggest we change the guidelines to simply calling this section "Recordings". I also agree with Folantin about the bootlegs. Should we add something like this too?...
Note. I've moved this to the bottom of the page for greater visibility. Can we have somne opinions on this? I.E. changing the article section from "Selected recordings" to simply "Recordings" in the format guidelines and advising that (a) a reference to a recording review should be provided for each entry and (b) pirate recordings should be avoided. Voceditenore (talk) 07:52, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
- Agree that "Recordings" is fine. There was one editor who challenged the Madama Butterfly article's inclusion of certain recordings (before it became what it is today) and demanded justification for their presence. "Selected" - by whom? "Recordings" alone allows for a broader selection.
- I'm not sure that we can find reviews of enough recordings to require them to justify every entry, although inclusion in Holden's New Penguin Guide, for example, might be one justification.
- As far as pirates are concerned, yes they should be avoided. Viva-Verdi (talk) 14:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
- I agree that "selected" is problematic. We could invent criteria for selection such as mention in the Penguin Guide or being reviewed in Gramophone etc., but that creates an extra bureaucratic level where would we need to check entries in existing articles and explain things to every new editor who takes an interest in opera. I suggest that everything that has had a commercial release is elligible with discographies being appropriate when we get above, say half a dozen recordings. What is a bootleg can vary around the world - I think the US has longer copyright restrictions than Europe. But if it has had a legitiamte release in Europe, I think the recording can be listed.--Peter cohen (talk) 18:15, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, that's why I made the exception for the various European labels like Myto etc., plus Naxos Historical. I was referring to non-labels like House of Opera and Premiere Opera (see above). Voceditenore (talk) 09:44, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
- I think that there is a clear consensus in this discussion. And this will imply changes. I'm pretty sure thst a lot of the Wagnerian listings omit these sorts of recordings.--Peter cohen (talk) 09:49, 26 June 2009 (UTC)