Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera

Opera Composer of the Month Proposals A simple script will automatically replace the text on the front page with the appropriate month when the time comes. Here are the next three months. - Adam Cuerden talk [edit] Composer of the Month for August 2024 Click Here to set up August's Composer of the Month! [edit] Opera of the Month for August 2024 Click Here to set up August's Opera of the Month! Click here to show the September and October Opera and Composer of the Month preparation areas [edit] Composer of the Month for September 2024 Click Here to set up September's Composer of the Month! [edit] Opera of the Month for September 2024 Click Here to set up September's Opera of the Month! [edit] Composer of the Month for October 2024 Click Here to set up October's Composer of the Month! [edit] Opera of the Month for October 2024 Click Here to set up October's Opera of the Month!

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Default sort tagging help needed!

Looking at Category:Operas under letter I or L, there are a lot of operas mis-sorted under definite/indefinite articles. These need default sort tags e.g. {{DEFAULTSORT:Clemenza di Tito, La}} which puts the opera under C instead of L. Does anyone have time to help do this?

BTW We now have 779 operas restored in Category:Operas. There are probably about 200 more to be found. I don't know if anyone would be willing to undertake, say, Rachmaninoff to Richard Strauss operas? -- Kleinzach 13:00, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I can make a start on the Is and Ls. --GuillaumeTell 16:27, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I've now defaultsort-tagged all the Category:Opera titles still indexed under I, Il, L', La, Le, Les, The, Die and El. The T section may still look as if some titles (The Tempest, The Telephone, The Threepenny Opera) are indexed under The, but in fact they are correctly filed under Tem, Tel and Thr. --GuillaumeTell 21:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I have just finished all the As. Not many needed restoring, but now nine out of the eleven compositions by composer categories under the As are now created by me. --Peter cohen 20:37, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all the help. I have now checked S to Z on The opera corpus and we are now up to 803 titles in Category:Operas. In many sections half of all the operas had been removed so I may be underestimating the number we still haven't found. (I haven't been able to work out the way the operas were selected so there is no easy way to identify them). -- Kleinzach 10:00, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Articles on young singers

We are seeing more and more articles on marginally notable young singers. Here are two examples that have just been created: Paul Potts "a 36 year old resident of South Wales and a mobile phone salesman . . . has an apprenticeship with Gilbert and Sullivan in Bristol . . . has appeared on national and local television and radio", and David Lara "an emerging baritone . . . recently one of the 11 talented singers chosen to train with the Seattle Opera Young Artists Company". Should these pages be put up for deletion and if so what criteria should we use? (It's worth noting that these pages are increasingly sophisticated in the way they are presented.) -- Kleinzach 01:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Possibly a slightly more friendly first step would be to add the {{notability}} tag to the article and wait a few days before proposing for deletion. While these articles are probably self promotion, they are probably sufficiently sophisticated not to warrant speedy deletion. Best, Voceditenore 10:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes indeed, though I was really wondering what criteria we should use for judging these pages. Notability is not the clearest of WP policies. (It was recently used to justify a page about an opera which didn't exist.) It's also not easy to apply in the (contrasting) cases of Paul Potts and David Lara. Anyway there is now an Afd discussion about David Lara. -- Kleinzach 11:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

As for Potts, this diff indicates that he or his fans are causing some disruption. And though his teacher (Ian Comboy) is or was a respectable singer, I don't think that appearing on a Michael Barrymore show or in amateur opera productions (or on YouTube!) are particularly notable. The notability criteria for Music (section entitled "Others") might be helpful here. --GuillaumeTell 17:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ooh, if there's one thing that really annoys me it's BrightYoungThing spam. Composers, performers, conductors, doesn't matter, they just assume they're notable, because, well, they're Bright Young Things, aren't they, dude?

Reminds me, one day we should take a crack at sorting out WP:MUSIC, which is ridiculously biased towards pop music, and does not cover classical music properly at all - the "Others" section is just not specific enough. It's not dreadful, but it should be better.

You can use the proposed deletion process - basically just add {{subst:prod|put reason here}} and an informative edit summary - for uncontroversial cases, or use AfD if the PROD tag is removed or for more tricky cases. Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 18:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Just a note to say that Potts has apparently just won some sort of "reality" TV show, so we won't be able to get rid of him (any more than we can get rid of articles on individual Hollyoaks characters). I do think that we could at least remove his "Welsh opera singers" category, though. --GuillaumeTell 00:29, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Ironic that David Lara has been deleted but Potts flourishes. I've removed the project banner. I see there has been edit warring on the page already, so I am not going to do more. -- Kleinzach 01:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Image Section on Opera Project page?

Here's a rough draft of a posible section:

Under current Wikipedia policy we cannot use non-free publicity images to illustrate articles about contemporary opera singers, composers, and librettists. Nor can we use images from album or book covers which depict them (except in very restricted cases). We therefore very much welcome contributions of good quality photographs which the photographers/copyright holders are willing to release under a free license. This means that although you retain the copyright and authorship of your work, you grant permission for others to use, copy, and share the photograph freely, and even potentially use it commercially, so long as they do not try to claim the copyright themselves. A free license only concerns copyright, and does not restrict the option to take action against anyone who uses the photograph in a libelous way, or in violation of personality rights, trademark restrictions, etc. If you grant a free license, we will credit you for your work, and if applicable, and provide a link back to your website. If you would like to contribute a photograph under free license, please leave a note on the Opera Project Talk Page

There could also be an addition such as:

We are particularly looking for photographs to illustrate the following articles: Article Name; Article Name; Article Name...

Best, Voceditenore 15:42, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I know it's complicated but dare I suggest cutting the text roughly in half? That way people are much more likely to read it. The 'We are particularly looking . . . ." could go in the Can you help? (8) section. -- Kleinzach 06:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

OK. How about this one...

We cannot use publicity images to illustrate articles about contemporary opera singers, composers, and librettists unless they have been released under a free license. To improve the quality of those articles, we very much welcome contributions of good quality photographs which the photographers/copyright holders are willing to release under such a license. You would retain the copyright of your work but grant permission for others to use and publish the photograph freely. We will credit you for your work, and if applicable, provide a link back to your website. If you can contribute a photograph under free license, please leave a note on the Opera Project Talk Page.

Best, Voceditenore 07:21, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea. We definitely need something like this. Something else that might be worth mentioning is the need to be avoid fair use "galleries", both of images and of audio clips. Maria Callas, until recently, had a fair use image gallery that was not permissible, and on plenty of pop music articles I've had to delete entire fair use sound galleries of maybe twenty clips, for which there is no justification. I haven't seen this happen yet with opera articles, but we should try to prevent it before it does. Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 12:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Well... I tried an experiment by putting that shortened message on the talk page for Juan Diego Flórez. And I got an almost immediate response. Someone added a fair use image of one of his CD covers! (Sigh) I guess the message really needs to point out explicitly that CD covers are not free images. I guess I'll nip over to the JDF talk page tomorrow and add that bit. Best, Voceditenore 18:03, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

(Sorry to take so long to reply). One problem is that the project page is a kind of 'internal' document, addressing participants in the project, rather than copyright holders directly. So I have taken the liberty of rephrasing it. Here it is:

We welcome contributions of good quality photographs for articles about operas, singers and composers etc. if and when photographers (or copyright holders) are willing to release them under a free license. Under this arrangement the holder (who would be credited) retains the copyright of the work, but grants permission to others to freely use and publish the image.

Regrettably we are unable to use photos (or audio clips) based on a 'fair use'/'fair dealing', as we are neither reviewing or promoting artists or works on WP, which is the normal condition for using them.

Is that OK? Please have a go at improving it if you think it's not on target. -- Kleinzach 06:23, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Rosalind Plowright - Mezzo Soprano

The above has turned up on the new article bot's list. It was contributed by User:Rplowright and has already acquired an automated query (on the talk page) about the image. The content is pretty much verbatim from the Biography page of her website. If she wrote this herself, it violates WP:AUTO. What to do?

• Ask on the talk page, or the contributor's talk page, or via the contact page on her website whether (s)he is RP and holds the copyright? If she says yes to both, then what?
• Put it down for Speedy deletion and put up a copyvio notice on the page?
• Do nothing except rename, rewrite and wikify the article (it needs all of those!), which I could do quite easily (she's in Grove and elsewhere).

All suggestions gratefully received. --GuillaumeTell 15:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Given that she is notable - and the user has adopted her name! - I might communicate on her talk page. If she is who she might well be, then it would be a good idea to explain how WP works and offer to rewrite it based on Grove etc. The photo could be a pain, but that's why I think we need someone to specialize in clearing image copyrights. -- Kleinzach 23:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

On my first look at the article I don't think there's anything that screams delete to me. The description of "one of Britain's leading opera stars" is the closest to a judgement as opposed to a fact in it but I wouldn't argue with that assessment anyway. It's certainly a lot less of a hagiography than Gwyneth Jones (opera singer) was. What are needed to improve the article are some references and rather fewer lists.

If she is RP or a relative with the same initials, she at least ought to know or be able to find out the picture copyright status and might be able to assign use of it to us. --Peter cohen 18:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

She is a soprano --Al Pereira(talk) 19:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

She has been a soprano, but she now sings mezzi roles such as Fricka and Amneris. --Peter cohen 19:28, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok but her main carreer was as soprano, right? BTW, I remember indeed her difficulties with high notes. --Al Pereira(talk) 20:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting delete as such, but if the person who created the article isn't Plowright herself, it's a flagrant copyright violation - check the link to the Plowright website that I posted up at the top and compare. Even if it is Plowright, it needs a fair bit of work to turn it into a decent WP article. --GuillaumeTell 21:34, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I've now posted a query on the user talk page about copyright etc. --Peter cohen 23:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

If she doesn't respond - it doesn't seem she has been online for the past few days - I suggest we go ahead and rewrite the article. -- Kleinzach 01:56, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Bot Done

The bot has finished running through the category list and adding your project banner. By my count, there are 3,565 articles.

The next step, of course, is maintenance. One of the benefits of having all your articles tagged is that the bot can make periodic reviews of the articles and let you know where there are ones in need of improvement. The bot currently does this for three or four projects. It produces two lists - for an example, let's look at WP:CM. The two pages it produces are a long list of all articles needing cleanup, wikification, sources, whatever - see Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/To-do list; and a short list, which is a random subset of the long list suitable for including in a "To-Do" template - see Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/Small to-do list and to see how we use the short list in a "to do" template, see WT:LGBT. Pages that may be up for deletion will show up on both.

Another part of maintenance is to review the categories for new articles that have been added to the cats, but don't yet have banners. The LGBT WikiProject does a periodic run and produces a report - see WP:LGBT/NP. WP:Chicago does the run and automatically adds the banner. The bot is set up to run either way.

Let me know if you'd like either of these options set up, or if the bot has made any serious errors in it's tagging. Thanks much!! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 15:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd have thought that both of the above options would be useful. Something else that I've noticed (if we're going to dip a toe into the assessment water at some point) is a nice table of stubs, FAs, unassessed, etc. - see the assessment page at the Yorkshire project for an example from another project that hasn't started assessment but has been putting up banners. --GuillaumeTell 17:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Those statistics are gathered by a different, very useful, bot. I haven't done it for a project, but instructions for using that bot are at: Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 19:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks to SatyrTN for a terrific job. (Great to have a techy, sorry technocrat, on our side for once!) I agree with GuillaumeTell that both maintenance options will be probably be worthwhile. (We will need to discuss the implications of all this.) Kleinzach 12:04, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

3,530 articles on opera!

I have now removed the banner from 35 non-opera singers who were in the basic voice categories, which gives us a revised grand total of 3530 opera articles. In May 2006 I could only identify 1,835 articles. That count was almost certainly an underestimate, but there is no doubt that the Opera Projct is developing rapidly. -- Kleinzach 12:04, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

So if it it takes one editor one week to review one article, how long does it take 25 editors to review 3530 articles? I suppose the stubs, at least, will already be rated. --Peter cohen 12:50, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the banner from 2 Il Divo’s singers - Carlos Marín and David Miller. Kleinzach has removed the banner from the other 2 (Sébastien Izambard and Urs Bühler‎) earlier. - Jay 12:55, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if the wiki article and sources like [1] are correct, three of them are opera singers and could be tagged. --Peter cohen 13:07, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, they mostly aren't very specific about the calibre of the companies they worked with. And I doubt that any of them will be going back to opera any time soon! (Why aren't they called "I Divi"? Oh well, never mind.) --GuillaumeTell 13:19, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

No you cant because Il Divo or 3 of them have make an announcement that they will NOT sing opera arias. And so far, only David and Carlos have been acting (quite sometimes ago). They don’t involve in opera anymore today. As for Urs.. he is not, have you heard him singing? - Jay 13:20, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I think Kleinzach probably made the right decisions in the first place. The tagging was driven by the voice classes and whether he thought it was appropriate for people to remain labelled.

Looking at David Miller [2] [3], he's played major roles in quite big productions

I can 't find details of where Carlos Marin has sung the major roles dmentioned in his bio, but I notice he appears on at least one full opera recording: Martín y Soler - La capricciosa corretta

Marguerite Krull (Ciprigna); Rafaella Milanesi (Cilia); Katia Velletaz (Isabella); Yves Saelens (Lelio); Emiliano Gonzalez-Toro (Valerio); Josep Miquel Ramon (Fiuta); Enrique Baquerizo (Bonario); Carlos Marin (Gon Giglio) Les Talens Lyriques Christophe Rousset, condcutor Naïve E 8887 (2 cds; texts and translations in English and French) which the cast appear to have performed live in Lausanne in December 2002.

In fact[4] implies he has several recordings:

• In these last years he has won acclaim as primo baritono in several operas, including La Traviata, The Barber of Seville, La Boheme, Lucia di Lammermoor and Madame Butterfly. Some of his most distinguished opera performances available on record are Mercutio in Campoamor (Oviedo), Don Giglio in La Capricciosa Corretta (highly recommended for opera lovers), or in Damut’s version of Marina.
• Marin has also participated in zarzuela (Spanish operetta). He participated in the zarzuelas in the Jardines de Sabatini (Sabatini Gardens in Madrid) point of encounter for the music lovers during the summer season at the Gardens of Madrid’s Royal Palace. Some of his performances in the Spanish operetta can be found in DVD like La Gran Vía (The Great Way), La Revoltosa (The Rebellious), where he plays Fernando, and La Verbena de la Paloma (The Pigeon’s Festival), where he plays Julián. --Peter cohen 16:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's not worry about this. Actually one other tenor editor asked for the banner to go back on. No one has asked for it to come off as far as I'm aware. Anyway let's stick with the figure of 3,530. (I've made a new section to hive this off. Hope that's OK with everyone.) -- Kleinzach 13:28, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

seeking help with Comédie-Italienne

Hello, over the past few days I've done a translation of this article from the French, but there are some parts of the original article that leave me puzzled. It's partly because I'm more of an anglophone than a francophone, and partly because I just don't know much about that time period. I would really appreciate another pair of eyes to compare the English and the French to see what I've missed or gotten outright wrong, because I've gotten a bit burned out right now from looking at the thing. Thanks, --Kyoko 18:56, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll take a look, though my French is of 'Allo 'Allo qualities. Folantin is better at this sort of thing than I. Perhaps Grove has something I can add. Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 08:56, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Initial impressions are extremely positive. Nice work! I think the big problem is the nightmare of what we do with French capitalisation in some of those titles (it's been discussed here before). I'll play around with it and you should see some of those red links turn blue. Any other specific problems you suspect, Kyoko? --Folantin 09:08, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I've left a note on the talk page as regards the first picture (someone needs to transfer it to Commons, assuming the license is valid). But yes, very impressive stuff, bravo! Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 09:13, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

There is a fair amount of material on the Comédie-Italienne/Théâtre Italien in the article on Paris in Grove. Anyway the article looks good. -- Kleinzach 11:52, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for the compliments! One thing that I don't quite get is the subject of the independence of the theatres. I understand to some extent that in the past, plays were subject to the scrutiny of the crown, but I don't know quite when that stopped. There is a phrase in the French article, during the Restoration, that says "De 1815 à 1818 le Théâtre royal italien a retrouvé son indépendance." I don't understand how to reconcile that statement with the following paragraph where it says that Catalani's privilège was revoked and the theatre shut down. It's as if the theatre is independent of royal control and yet it's not, and it makes for confusing reading. --Kyoko 15:56, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Gilbert and Sullivan

This article is currently a Featured Article Candidate, if anyone wants to have a look. Adam Cuerden ^talk 21:08, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Oops :)

We may get a couple of these, so keep an eye out... [5] -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 00:20, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

That's because he's in Category:Tenors, (sandwiched, if that's the right word, between Lauritz Melchior and Vernon Midgley), right? I'm dubious about whether we need the banner for Midgley, either. --GuillaumeTell 00:53, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Mercury was on my list of 35 special exceptions so absolutely no bot problem there. (I've dealt with all of them now.) I gave the benefit of the doubt to Vernon Midgley - probably not very notable anyway. -- Kleinzach 08:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Infobox: To remove or not to.. better do it once and for all

To avoid misunderstanding especially from the die-heart fans, I think we should remove the infoboxes from all operatic singers – famous or less famous. Some people put it back on because they thought we being “double standard” – simply because famous operatic singers have info boxes in their articles. I just removed from Pavarotti, Caruso and Domingo. See how it goes from here. (It feels a bit sad for me to remove it from Domingo’s article because it looks “nice” in there..) I truly understand why some people were unhappy and decided to put them back on again and again after some of you removed them. Usually when we have our “pet singers”, we tend to “protect” them.. to the extreme :)) I seriously understand the notion. - Jay 10:03, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The Pavarotti one seems to have made a specialty out of pointing out the obvious. Genre = Classical music? Instrument = voice ? No, you don't say (and I always think that Instrument = voice sounds so strange). Moreschi ^Talk 10:15, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Besides, if you're an opera singer, surely your instrument is naturally going to be your voice? So much for professionalism. Moreschi ^Talk 10:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The background to this was a case of racial abuse from an IP user (now temporarily banned) on the Lauritz Melchior article. (Perhaps comically, he thought I was Chinese rather than a height-challenged German.) -- Kleinzach 11:27, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

• Please do not remove infoboxes. The Opera Wikiproject may not like infoboxes, but webpages about operatic singers and composers do not exclusively "belong" to this project. These are biographies also included in Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography, which places a high value on infoboxes for all biographies. I restored the infobox for Grace Moore, who (by the way) was clearly a movie star and pop singer, not "just" an opera singer. (I am not particularly fond of infoboxes; I simply don't think that Opera project participants should be removing them, considering that Biography project participants think they are vital.)--orlady 13:43, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Uhm.. so whats the verdict now? - Jay 13:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure, though Biography is more of a meta-project than anything else (it's really too big to be practical for any other usage). In cases where opera singers do plenty of other things as well, we should look at the box on a case-by-case system. Moreschi ^Talk 13:48, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

This might be a silly idea, but what if there were infoboxes that could be expanded or collapsed, much the same way that tables of contents are on certain page. That way, if you want to see an infobox, you would click on the "show" and it would be visible. If you don't want to see it, you could click on "hide" and the box would shrink into something like "Luciano Pavarotti (show)". --Kyoko 13:57, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Or probably.. the silliest idea is to differentiate the “pure” and the “mixed” operatic singers. Pavarotti and Domingo for example are unlike Grace Moore. They are not Hollywood or movie stars or pop stars but purely operatic singers .. even occasionally singing “crossover”. So, lets the “mixed” singers keep their infoboxes but the “pure” don’t! This is just the silly thought! I'm laughing while writing this. Sorry. - Jay 14:31, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Please don't be mislead by the Grace Moore article. She was a serious singer. She worked in Hollywood but so did many other singers of that period. The info box says she sang pop but I've seen no evidence for this. Also she made her debut in Paris not New York etc. -- Kleinzach 06:41, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

This is going to run and run, and waste a lot of time and energy. Not to mention potential to-ing and fro-ing with the Biography Project and resultant ill-feeling. I personally don't have strong feelings one way or another. At least the background colour is reasonably tasteful. ;-) Perhaps a compromise could be that infoboxes are only added to opera singer articles if there is an available free use photo. Otherwise they are redundant and distracting since they simply repeat the information in the lead paragraph with possibly the addition of the official web site (if any). Perhaps, the OP could also agree on a uniform format for filling in the fields for standard opera singers that doesn't look goofy. (The 'Instrument' field isn't obligatory for example). Here's an example in my sandbox Best, Voceditenore 17:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

We have a policy in place now against using infonoxes this says: New infoboxes: We hope all new infoboxes will be proposed and discussed on the project talk page before being added to individual pages. We deplore the use of generic infoboxes that have not been designed with opera in mind, and contain factual errors and ambiguities. Remember: factual accuracy is essential, infoboxes aren't.

This policy can be changed but I hope it won't. THis policy has been successful in getting them off almost all of the 3,500 opera pages. The danger is that if we allow them on singer pages, we will soon see them back on composer pages and the rest, and then on opera title pages as well.

The main problem as ever with infoboxes is accuracy. Lauritz Melchior was described as a singer of 'opera and pop', Giuseppe di Stefano as a singer of 'opera and Canzone Neapolitana', and Grace Moore currently as 'opera and pop', occupation 'singer and actress'.

Melchior did of course appear on TV a few times. Di Stefano did make one recording on Neapolitan songs and Grace Moore did make films - in which she sang. (The Moore article concentrates on her as an American celebrity, failing to mention that she made her debut as Mimi at the Opéra-Comique in 1928 etc.). However there's no doubt that all of them regarded themselves as opera singers and put all their effort in that direction.

I hope we can continue to try keep infoboxes out of opera articles (wherever possible without getting involved in edit wars) as part of a general policy to stick to accuracy and resists trivialization of the articles. (Obviously we should leave them alone when the articles come under other bona fide projects.)

There is a considerable history about the Biography Project, their trawling of opera articles and assignment of them to 'work groups' (to which I can direct anyone interested) however they have a cautious policy on infoboxes

Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Infoboxes says Certain biography articles have opposition camps on infoboxes. With the current work groups, it is generally safe, but, for instance, scientist articles can have some heated debates on these. So, if you are tagging a scientist, academic, or "classical" composer, musician or singer, first ask on the Talk page. Moreover the 'Infobox musical artist' (the one which is being used on singer pages) is specifically for popular musical artists not opera. -- Kleinzach 04:52, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I think Kleinzach has a point about the accuracy of infoboxes. Infoboxes can provide a brief description of a subject, but they can just as easily oversimplify or give a misleading overview of the material. Not having infoboxes for opera-related articles is fine with me. --Kyoko 06:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, it seems quite arrogant to me to argue that opera singers are somehow "above" infoboxes. If there's one problem I have with the whole Wikipedia classical music community, it is this rejection of infoboxes. They are used in almost every other biography article; why should classical musicians and composers be exempt? Because "factual inaccuracies" could find their way into the infoboxes? Then put the articles on your watchlist and make sure they don't; this can happen with any article. All your arguments against infoboxes apply to all singers, not just opera singers, so unless the convention is to be changed for every type of singer, we should remain consistent and use infoboxes in opera articles too. I am an opera and art music enthusiast myself, but this whole affair seems rather snobbish. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 06:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, I have seen it suggested that opera singers use their own infobox. That is fine; why don't we develop our own infobox and avoid this whole mess of genres and whatnot altogether? -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 06:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

That's a good idea too. If there were an opera singer infobox, it could describe the singer's voice in more detail (Fach, etc.), as well as list some signature roles. Some reasons against having an infobox would be the duplication of material in the lead paragraph(s). --Kyoko 06:59, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

One of the main problems with infoboxes, like all ancillary material, is that they can be made without referring to the article itself, hence the outrageous mistakes. We've been through all these discussions before and I don't think it's possible to make boxes that are proof aganist abuse. Even if they were better designed, that would still be a huge waste of time, putting off genuine contributors from writing articles. -- Kleinzach 07:25, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The Opera Project is not alone in being against infoboxes. The other two closely related music projects: Composers and Classical Music are against having them. Many other projects in the sciences and arts also refuse to have them (see the reference to scientists and academics above). It's not just opera singers. To say, as Cielomobile does, that "They are used in almost every other biography article" is untrue. They aren't. -- Kleinzach 07:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Cielomobile – about your suggestion for opera singer specific infobox. The problem with it is, it is not really the issue of “infobox” only. Say that we have a specific “infobox”, how could you tell whether the “said” singer is someone “operatic” or “opera + pop + movie star”. Look at Grace Moore - some people said she is an opera singer but to some, she is a movie + pop star. I just removed infoboxes from Renata Tebaldi, Kiri Te Kanawa, Raina Kabaivanska, Mirella Freni and Ileana Cotrubaş … hopefully nobody would come here and say “hey.. those are pop singers too, therefore their articles should have the infoboxes since they dont belong to opera project only!” If only we could set firm guideline on who are the undisputed opera singers (what I meant as PURE), I am sure, nobody would say anything because opera singers should fall under opera project. It supersedes all other projects (hopefully). But I doubt we could… - Jay 07:16, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Demarcation disputes will always be present while we have the project system. On the other hand we can take the attitude that Opera is a bit like the Chinese Empire, so wide in its scope that the project can give away territory without really noticing, (e.g the dispute we have just had with Cielomobile over Die Dreigroschenoper and Kurt Weill).

Setting guidelines on singers - other than having a good category system - is really not practical. However there is a common-sense question we can apply here : was opera the main thing for singer X? Re Grace Moore the answer must be yes, re Mario Lanza, for example, the answer is probably no. -- Kleinzach 07:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

You can tell that I don't have strong feelings either way regarding infoboxes, though I also think that a good introduction should be able to convey all of the info that an infobox might say. Really, the one thing I like most about infoboxes is that many of them add a picture of the subject at the top of the page, and you don't need an infobox to do that. --Kyoko 07:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. IMO we should always keep the pictutes and not delete them with the boxes. -- Kleinzach 07:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

One thing to consider about infoboxes is that they display basic information about the subject of the article in a more linear, easy-to-follow fashion (i.e. without prose that can often be difficult to navigate if you just want to get to the basic information). Anyway, if we just create a separate opera infobox, wouldn't that solve all the problems about genre and so forth? If we don't create the infobox and have a policy of not using infoboxes at all, there will still be disputes over whether the singer falls into the opera or popular music category, and hence whether there should be an infobox or not. If we create our own, I feel such disputes will not exist, or at least be much rarer (I think people are more likely to make a stink about there being some infobox than make a stink over there being a popular music infobox in place of an opera infobox). Like Kyoko said, if we made an opera-specific userbox, we could include details like fach and signature roles (signature arias as an optional field as well, perhaps; it would apply to some singers like Pavarotti). Or we could just keep it simple. Anyway, if you don't create fields that would lead to lots of false information, it won't be a problem. Just fields like picture, name, birth and death dates, years active, musical education, fach, signature roles, and signature aria(s). What could be the harm in that? I could draft up such an infobox, although I don't have much experience with templates (but I'm sure I could figure it out looking at the standard {{Infobox Person}}). -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 08:37, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Here, I've drafted up a preliminary infobox at User:Cielomobile/Infobox Opera singer. Does that really seem unacceptable? -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 09:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that infobox is unacceptable as far as I am concerned. It would soon accumulate the wrong kind of information and invite disputes of a kind obviated by careful phrasing in the article itself. The Opera Project has already decided after long discussions not to use infoboxes. It's all in the archives and those of the Composers Project. I suggest we give the subject a rest for at least another year. -- Kleinzach 11:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm bringing it up again; consensus can change. What if I removed the signature roles/arias field? With which fields do you have a problem? What kind of "wrong information" might it accumulate? I might post this at the village pump to bring the wider Wikipedia community into the discussion, as these discussions have been limited to an obstinate few. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 21:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

WHen was it last discussed? We have a fair turnover of membership of the project--Peter cohen 11:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

28 May (Archive 23) which points to the discussion at WikiProject Composers which lasted from 28 May to 16 June (still unarchived at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers). -- Kleinzach 12:17, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Would Opera project members have any objection to a bare-bones biographical infobox? For example:

{{Infobox Biography | subject_name = | image_name = | image_size = | image_caption = | date_of_birth = | place_of_birth = | date_of_death = | place_of_death = }} --orlady 12:07, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes because that would duplicate the lead paragraph to no purpose. orlady please note I have replied to your reversion of the Grace Moore infobox on the article Talk page. Anyone else interested in the subject of Grace Moore as an opera singer is welcome to contribute to the discussion. I think the article treats her as American celebrity instead of as an international singer. Her adventutes in Hollywood were typical of those of singgers on her period, little different in fact from Pavarotti's Yes, Giorgio. -- Kleinzach 12:27, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, for some singers it would be impossible to fill in even those "bare-bones" fields. See Anna Renzi for example. --Folantin 12:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Kleinzach, this goes for all biography articles, not just those of opera singers. Why should opera singers receive special treatment (I would argue the same for composers and other people without infoboxes)? The consensus of the wider biography community has been to use infoboxes, even if some people disagree. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 21:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Cielomobile, in my opinion, the infobox (your sample) could lead to bigger argument someday. Yea, it is easy for some singer like Pavarotti but how about Domingo and other singers? (lets use Domingo as an example) I just posted Plácido Domingo complete repertoire in his article. If you read some magazines/newspapers etc, some people would say “Cassio” in Otello as his signature role but, some say “Otello” and there are people who would say “Mario Cavaradossi” and on and on. As a big fan of him, I don’t care what his signature role is, thts why I didnt bother to write. One more, signature aria.. how could we tell other than “Nessun Dorma” for Pavarotti. (again, browse in the net or magazines, many people would come up with their own ideas) Look at List of recordings by Plácido Domingo that I posted few weeks ago – with that list, I could imagine “huge” edit warring someday on both signatures. If you google on the net, many people have many ideas on opera singers signature arias.. with Domingo massive repertoire, it made it worst! I agree with Kleinzach, infobox like your sample would soon accumulate the wrong kind of information and invite disputes – huge edit warring. The format is not acceptable to me, sorry! The best is to leave the article to speak by itself, people can read and let them make their own judgement. - Jay 12:45, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

How about we remove those two fields to me, then, just leaving the basics like birth date, death date, years active, education, and fach? -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 21:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, I looked for other groups of editors that oppose the use of infoboxes (such as for scientists), but I couldn't find any. Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin both have long had infoboxes, so it would seem that academics and scientists do indeed have infoboxes. The opposition of infoboxes seems to be limited to the classical music community. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 23:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

In fact, there is an {{Infobox Scientist}}. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 23:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

If you look at Category:English naturalists you will find 49 articles. Only two have infoboxes: Darwin and Muffet. Cielomobile, please check the facts before you make these claims. You can also read the Biography Project archives for the names of editors who have opposed infoboxes. Almost all of them were from outside the three music projects. -- Kleinzach 23:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

• Please do not remove infoboxes. Badagnani 07:14, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Cielomobile's note on the Project page

I have just found that Cielomobile put this note on the Project page:

*Note: this is currently being discussed on the talk page, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Opera#Infobox:_To_remove_or_not_to.._better_do_it_once_and_for_all.

I have removed it and ask him never to do this again. The Infobox policy was discussed here and the wording was agreed by the Project. It is not for one editor to announce the policy is under review especially when he/she is the only person challenging it. This is unacceptable behaviour. -- Kleinzach 23:52, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I won't put it up there again unless someone else agrees, but the way I see it, it's a bit like a {{POV}} note put on an article. It does not take consensus to note that the POV of an article is being disputed. If one or two edits think that there is POV, then a notice is placed on the article. The fact is, I'm not the only editor who is disputing this (I noticed that you are among only two edits who are adamant about the use of absolutely no infoboxes; other seem to be open to at least the possibility). If the final outcome of the discussion is that we are not to use infoboxes, then there should be no such note, but until then, editors should know that a discussion is currently taking place. Consensus can change, and past decisions is not set in stone. This is an official Wikipedia policy, Kleinzach, and unless you are going to ignore it, it should be respected. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 00:54, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The question of infoboxes has been discusssed repeatedly over several months. Each time it is re-affirmed that we are not going to use them, then a couple of weeks later (or less) someone comes along and announces, as you have done, that there is a debate in progress. Of course, consensus can change and it should change with changed circumstances, however if we have to engage in these sterile arguments ad nauseam it disrupts contributing to the encyclopedia. -- Kleinzach 01:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've posted at the village pump to get more people into the discussion. Perhaps consensus won't change, but I'd like to give it a chance. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 06:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Cielomobile's wording should be restored to the project page. It has been clear for some time that there is no consensus on this issue. Wikipedia works by consensus-building, not affirmation by self-appointed cabals. Ongoing and wider discussion is necessary. Andy Mabbett 07:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Cielomobile's Straw poll on infoboxes

I thought I'd create a straw poll to gauge where rough consensus lies. I know that straw polls are evil, but they can be useful too.

Willing to use a specific opera infobox, provided that it does not contain too many fields

An example infobox is here.

• Support per my arguments in the above section. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 01:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

The first choice Completely against the use of all infoboxes rather loads the question. Shouldn't it be Against the use of infoboxes in opera articles? I can see a use for them in articles about cities or countries, for example, which tend to be very long. But really, this whole business is quite a distraction and waste of time considering that there were lengthy discussions on this recently. There is so much more valuable work to do writing articles and improving the actual content of the current ones. Slapping infoboxes on them in a drive for 'graphic uniformity' when Wikipedia is light years away from any kind of 'quality uniformity' seems an odd priority of time and energy. Just my two cents. I shall vote and then spend the rest of my time actually working on articles, not discussing infoboxes. Best, Voceditenore 07:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Bot maintenance

SatyrTN has kindly offered to follow up the bot run by generating 'to do' lists similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/To-do list and Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/Small to-do list, also to review the categories for new articles that have been added to the cats, but don't yet have banners. It seems a good idea to keep track of which articles have been tagged for lacking sources etc. Should we go ahead with this? -- Kleinzach 02:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes: Canvassing of WP:VP, WT:WPBIO, WT:CM, and WT:MUSICIANS

Cielomobile has invited members of WT:WPBIO, WT:CM, and WT:MUSICIANS, also WP:VP, to vote on whether we should have infoboxes on opera articles. Two of these projects WT:WPBIO and WT:MUSICIANS (which concentrates on popular music), have been instrumental in trying to promote infoboxes throughout WP. -- Kleinzach 07:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I feel that these notices falls under WP:CANVAS#Friendly_notice, as the message I left was neutral, I posted to a limited number of venues, and I posted to venues that would likely solicit views from both sides (WP:CM would likely solicit views supporting the anti-infoboxes position, and the other two would likely solicit views supporting the pro-infoboxes position). I also posted on Kleinzach's talk page to inform him of this, so I did act with transparency. If you feel that I should remove one of the notices on either WikiProject Biography or WikiProject Musicians to "even out" the bias of the audience, so to speak, I would be happy to do that. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 07:35, 19 June 2007 (UTC)