Talk:Ten-string guitar/Archive 2

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Civility, personal attack, and content issues

Please see User talk:Viktor van Niekerk#Civility, personal attack, and content issues. Andrewa (talk) 06:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, please see this diff which I guess is Viktor's reply.

So, I'm now raising the matter on Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts as the next step.

Much of what I say below was first posted on Viktor's talk page, hoping for a better response. I had to try. I'll just list the important conduct issues here, we're not going to get anywhere on content until we get some progress on conduct IMO.

Viktor has frequently violated WP:ATTACK, WP:CIVILITY and WP:OWN. Some examples:

  • post to User talk:Andrewa ...your denial of physical phenomena that have been empirically and mathematically proven true, shows only YOUR "fringe view" to be "nonsense"! As for the article, I will improve it when I have the time, but I certainly do not need "help" from individuals who have NO KNOWLEDGE of the subject!

This in response to Andrewa's attack on me, referring to the points I make (which are verifiable facts of physics and of history) as "fringe views" and as "nonsense", hence my quotation marks. All this proves is that Andrewa's conduct was an attack on me, a personal vendetta because he cannot concede that a 5-course baroque guitar is not correctly referred to as a 10-string guitar according to well-established organological/musicological conventions.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

  • post to User talk:Andrewa ...You are evidently not a musicologist/organologist/semiologist/semantician so I don't see what you think you will achieve by being bothersome about this issue... (the charge that I'm ...not... is actually false as well as being irrelevant...)

Then please supply your musical credentials and reference an actual musicological journal article that challenges the convention of differentiating instruments from one another by their number of courses rather than their number of strings when those strings in fact form courses).Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

In response to an attack on the 10-string guitar that claimed ludicrously that guitar music is only written in what the user absurdly titled "appropriate keys" such as E-major and that therefore resonance for the notes other than E, A, B and D, is "inappropriate". This was nothing other than an attack on the concept of the 10-string guitar. Moreover, its aims is to establish the the term "appropriate" resonance in the discourse, which is NOT innocent for it brings with it its invidious antonym, "inappropriate" resonance, as if having resonance for F#, G#, C# or D# (all notes in the scale of E-major) would be "inappropriate". It is ludicrous and moreover it is an invidious attack on a concept and on the persons associated with it. As such I did not, and again would not tolerate it.

Whatever the user's involvement, it is still a case of a product being advertised, not an historically significant development. In addition, it was not a 10-string guitar because the strings form courses (pairs that function as a single string). Regardless of what the B.C. Rich company calls this instrument, it is, from a musicological/organological point of view, not a 10-string guitar (not a 10-course guitar), but a 6-course guitar in which four courses are double and two single. It does not have ten individually fretted and sounded strings, so it is not a 10-string guitar.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

In response to unequivocal attacks this user made against the 10-string guitar and (by extension) those persons associated with it: comments (attacks) which were not constructive and not stemming from knowledge about the actual practical use of the instrument or of the true extent of its repertoire.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

  • Post to Janet Marlow's user page Your coattail-riding of the name, image and reputation of Narciso Yepes - of whose actual work ethic, performance practice and concept of the 10-string guitar there is not a trace to be found...

Well, is the name and image of Narciso Yepes not used a lot on www.tenstringguitar.com? Yes. Yet, does that site, in fact, promote understanding of Yepes's instrument or his method of playing it? No, because it is riddled with factual errors and false statements. Refer to www.myspace.com/tenstringuitar for a discussion of the misinformation presented on that site.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Marlow's user page is admittedly a vanity page. Hey, she's a newbie, or was. She set up her user page, and made one edit to the 10-string guitar article, adding her own website as a reference. Viktor immediately reverted the edit, with little explanation, and added insulting remarks to her talk page, and she hasn't been back. And there's something about sock puppetry concerning Archeoix which may well be valid. But none of that is an excuse for incivility.

Andrew, Archeoix was confirmed to have had multiple sock-puppet identities (about a dozen), many of which s/he used to attack me, Narciso Yepes, and the concept of the 10-string guitar. As for Marlow, Andrewa, you are being dishonest and misrepresenting the facts. Marlow did not make an edit to the article, as you claim, citing her own site as source for added/altered information. What she IN TRUTH did was simply to add her own site as a source of reference for the information already contained in the article. Now, most of that information I personally put there and I derived it exclusively from articles and other texts by and interviews with Yepes, as well as from books on acoustics, among other verifiable sources. Marlow's site has NEVER served as a source of reference in the writing of this article. In fact, the contrary is true, because many phrases on Marlow's site have been copied directly from texts I wrote, not to mention the repertoire list on Marlow's site, which is entirely my own research. Furthermore, not only did Marlow's site not serve as the source for this article and not only was she being less than honest in attempting to make it look that way, but Marlow's site also cannot serve as a reliable reference because it is riddled with factual errors which I have elsewhere proven to be deliberate misrepresentations. Before you cry wolf and call this a personal attack, you may wish to refer to my site (www.myspace.com/tenstringguitar) where I step-by-step, in Marlow's own published words, show how she cites texts by Yepes only to change Yepes's words and key points in order to obscure certain truths about his invention, while promoting her own scientifically untenable ideas about stringing and tuning a 10-stringed guitar. Thus, I removed Marlow's reference to her own site because it was not in truth a reference source for the article, nor can it serve as a reliable reference so long as Marlow maintains certain falsities on that site and the publications it promotes. These include (but are not limited to) her claims that Narciso Yepes heard that the 6-string guitar lacked FOUR [rather than EIGHT] resonances and that adding four strings add these FOUR [rather than EIGHT] resonances; referring to the interval between the 7th and 8th string as a "whole step" when it is a minor 7th; and claiming that her own tuning possesses the same acoustic properties as the first defining characteristic and raison d'etre of the Yepes 10-string. These points are unequivocally false and untenable. That is not my opinion, nor is it a personal attack; it is simply a fact as per the laws of physics.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The article needs a great deal of work. Part of it is removing Viktor's POV and bias, and I can't see any way to get other editors involved in it if they need to put up with the abuse that Viktor currently heaps on anyone who disagrees with him.

The article can stand stylistic improvement. But not the inclusion of misinformation. Some of the neutrality issues exist ONLY because individuals like yourself, Andrewa, have insisted on including irrelevant and misleading/confusing sections to the article that more accurately belong under harp guitar and under baroque guitar respectively. We can do away with these neutrality issues if we can agreee simply to include hat-notes to harp guitar and baroque guitar. But if you insist on including these here, then we must necessarily differentiate these from the Yepes instrument, which does not merely have ten strings, but has (as it's primary reason for being) certain acoustic characteristics that are contingent upon its standard tuning. These characteristics (as a fact of physics) are not only unachievable by other "tunings" that falsely lay claim to the same (Marlow's, for example), but are (again as a fact of physics and as per Yepes's discussion of the viola d'amour) exactly contrary to the instrument Yepes invented. These are not neutrality issues or personal attacks, but facts of the science of acoustics.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Another place I thought of raising this is Wikipedia:Third opinion, for comments on content, but that page is specifically intended for disputes that have remained civil.

And we may end up at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, but I'd like to have at least one other editor raise the issues on Viktor's talk page before going there (and it's required for conduct RfCs, but not strictly required for content RfCs). And obviously, this is not one for the fainthearted!

Suggestions, anyone? Andrewa (talk) 10:13, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you refer to my texts as well as the numerous journal articles in PDF that I have posted on my site at www.myspace.com/tenstringguitar and first acquaint yourself with the full extent of this topic. You may win this one on "democracy" and numbers, but it will be a case of the bullies in the majority ganging up to cover the truth. It will not, however, change the laws of physics, or the correct, verifiable statements of Narciso Yepes, or the deliberately false statements made by folks like Marlow. I will continue to fight for the truth and, ultimately, I am in the position to publish scholarly work in journals and books which are respectable academic resources (as opposed to the internet).Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

My comments in bold.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Hopefully, others will now have a look at them. Andrewa (talk) 14:28, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I should also have said above, user:129.94.133.166 is also Viktor. I've asked him about this and it's just that he doesn't always log on, as is his right but it's something to bear in mind when looking at article histories. This seems to be the only IP he uses, and he seems to be the only user of it. Andrewa (talk) 21:40, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

(cross posted from Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts)

Thank you

Viktor has announced above his intention to take an indefinite Wikibreak, which is a resolution, albeit not the ideal resolution. But perhaps it is the best that we can hope for at this stage. We have tried our best to accomodate him.

I can now return to the content issues, and will in due course post messages to earlier contributors to the article and/or to its talk page, telling them that their contributions and suggestions are finally being incorporated into the article. Hopefully some of them will return, and collaboration can then start.

There is still a long way to go, and no guarantee that the conflict is over, but should it resume there would probably then be grounds for a user conduct RfC. So in any case this phase of WP:DR is probably over.

Thank you, both to those who have participated, and also to those who lurk ready to contribute, and whose time was committed to this even if their wisdom decided that now was not the time to join the discussion.

Andrew Alder Andrewa (talk) 23:08, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

We move on... See Behaviour issues 2 below. Andrewa (talk) 21:32, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Content issues

I don't propose to pursue these particularly strongly until/unless we get the conduct thing sorted out. But here's a little blueprint of what I think we need:

1. Article structure and balance: It should be primarily and equally about four instruments (probably in this order, which is chronological):

  • Ten-string harp guitars (particularly 19th century ones).
  • Ten-string pedal steel guitars (there are probably more of these in existence than all of the other varieties of ten-string put together, as in E9 tuning it's the standard student pedal steel instrument).
  • Ten-string classical guitar, as developed by Narciso Yepes.
  • Ten-string electric guitar, as produced by B.C.Rich and possibly others. There are at least three models currently in production and several notable players.

The short section on baroque guitar should also stay, as baroque guitars have nine or ten strings and while they are rarely referred to as 10-string guitars this is where many people will look for information on them, if for example they have seen one played or in a photograph and don't know what it is. Even if the instrument were the 9-string variety, many laymen would miss the fact that there's only a single bass string, and describe it as a 10-string guitar.

Finally, there should be a brief mention of the Brazilian viola, another guitar with ten strings that is however rarely if ever called a ten-string guitar.

In Short: NO. The additional instruments you mention are all COURSED and not single strung. Thus, simply, they are not 10-string guitars. There is a musicological convention that must be followed here. You are mistaken.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 12:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll double-indent my replies to your bolded text, to try to make the strings as abvious as possible... suggest you might use indenting as well, rather than bolding. Just a suggestion.
No, the instruments are not all coursed... the pedal steel has only single strings. And this musicological convention to which you appeal is neither relevant nor consistently applied, as for example with the twelve-string guitar, as previously discussed at length.

2. Ten-string classical guitar: Refactor the two sections The modern "Ten-String Guitar" by Yepes/Ramirez and Comparison of Ten-stringed Guitars into one section on the classical ("modern"?) ten-string guitar.

This is the hard part. But a sample from the current article:

...since 1963 ten-string guitars that seem to be modern in appearance have been appropriated by some proponents of the abovementioned Romantic ten-stringed guitar, tuning the additional strings diatonically from D to AI (a system also known by the misnomer "Baroque" tuning). This has led to some confusion between two visually similar but conceptually disparate instruments...

Confusion? Not surprising: This is actually describing two identical instruments, the only difference between them is tuning (and possibly string gauge, bridge compensation etc to support the tuning of course). The thing is, Yepes was passionate about one particular tuning, and so are his followers.

You, Andrewa, are confused. These are two separate instruments with incompatible repertoires and not only different acoustic properties, but CONTRARY acoustic properties. Please look beyond the arbitrary numerological similarity and see the concrete acoustic facts: Yepes invented his guitar with a primary purpose, an acoustic characteristic that is contingent upon its standard tuning. In a 1978 interview with Snitzler (on my site) he clearly distances his instrument from the viola d'amour which augments imbalance of resonance rather than linearizing resonance response over the 12 notes. As a fact of acoustics, the Romantic "tuning" does what the viola d'amour does, acoustically. It is exactly contrary to the concept of the Yepes guitar despite the irrelevant, arbitrary numerical similarity of the strings. In addition, the Romantic "tuning" belongs to another instrument, a harp guitar, while Yepes's instrument is not, in fact, a harp-guitar. The reason why the modern instrument has been appropriated for this tuning by some has to do with misinformation propagated that led people to believe that Yepes used a so-called "baroque tuning" when he palyed baroque lute music. This is false. The first trace of this misconception I have been able to find in my extensive research is a 1980 article by Janet Marlow in which she introduces the misnomer "baroque" tuning, for the tuning of the Romantic 10-stringed harp-guitar by Scherzer.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 12:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Nearly all of the facts as you present them here are as far as I know accurate, but not all of them, and the conclusions do not follow. The use of a different tuning or string gauge on a guitar is not elsewhere regarded as making it a different instrument, any more than it is on a banjo where different tunings are even more common, with 5-string players even retuning between songs. Rather, use of a different tuning such as open G tuning is normally just seen as a particular technique for playing the instrument. Or, a twelve string guitar is still a twelve string guitar whether strung for unison G or octave G, and whether conventional or Rickenbacker 360/12 stringing.

In the first place, you have to be honest and consistent about what you are talking about. You cannot talk about scordatura (re-tuning) one moment and the next equate this with stringing an instrument in a non-standard way. The latter is what I am arguing against and this is not "tuning" or scordatura. Secondly, the primary reason why Yepes invented his instrument and why it has 10 strings has to do with particular acoustic characteristics. These are the defining feature of his instrument. Also, they are (as a fact of science) contingent upon the tuning of the 4 additional strings. Any other tuning/stringing with the same number of strings will not (as a fact of acoustics) result in the same acoustic characteristics, i.e. having lineraized transferral of vibrations from plucked strings to resonator strings, in unison with the plucked string, for any note of the chromatic scale from the lowest to the highest note of the treble strings. Yepes furthermore, in a 1978 interview with Snitzler, states that his instrument is the exact opposite of an instrument like the viola d'amour, which has resonator strings, but which augments an imbalance of resonance rather than linearizing/balancing the resonance. Since other "tunings" of 10-stringed guitars result in certain resonances being augmented while there is no resonance for other notes of the chromatic scale (this is a fact as per the laws of physics), they are contrary to the invention of Narciso Yepes in terms of its primary reason for being and its primary characteristic. Arguments could also be made for the fact that the repertoire written for the Yepes instrument is totally unplayable on the Marlow instrument or the Romantic 10-stringed guitar. These latter cannot be "retuned" to standard tuning and cannot be used to execute, say, the music of Maurice Ohana or Bruno Maderna. As such, if these instruments have not compatible original repertoire, they are not the same instrument. An arbitrary numerical similarity in the number of strings do not the same instrument make.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

But in Wikipedia, these various tunings should all be described, and notable users of them cited. At present, instead we have a thinly disguised and rather messy essay promoting one particular tuning, admittedly probably the most important one, but one of several currently used by players of this instrument. And that's the most important content problem with the article.

Enough for now. Andrewa (talk) 11:05, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

No, they should not all be described. In fact, the neutrality problems are a result of including a discussion of instruments here that necessarily need to be differentiated from one another because they are NOT all the same, even if they look the same and have the same number of strings. The logical conclusion of Andrewa's lax attitude towards including anything is that we will end up with a Library of Babel (as per the famous story by Jorge Luis Borges) in which wikipedia contains every possible opinion and idea and every meta-opinion and meta-idea ad infinitum, ad nauseam: 99% nonsense. No, this is not constructive and it is not informing anyone, and it is not as if these concepts need advertising because they already get prime spots in google search results. What you suggest, Andrewa, is simply a case of raising opinions, misunderstandings and falsified information up alongside hard facts. Doing what you suggests is the equivalent of going to every other instrument's page and listing every deviation from the violin's standard tuning, or the cello's or the piano's. Shall we also go the 6-string guitar page and list the tuning of E4-E4-E4-E4-E4-E4 ? Why not? This is also a "tuning" used on the guitar for which music has been written. (Seriously.) Finally, you will have to seriously lower the standards by which you define "notable" if you want to do what you suggest above. There is hardly a Notable 10-string guitarist active today (by which I mean a recording and concert artist with an international career) for whom notable composers write music, who performs regularly with notable orchestras and in notable concert venues. Unless we consider someone like Jonathan Leathwood or Stephan Schmidt (who both use the standard [Yepes] tuning, despite Schmidt's deviance from it for the Bach recording - and we do have a link to that already).Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 12:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

We are only interested in notable tunings, I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear above but I thought I had. I admit I didn't know music had been written for that E4 etc tuning... who is it by, is it notable? I'd have said that it was a hypothetical tuning and not of any interest at all, but you may have better information on this.

[Please stop referring to this as tuning, because it is not tuning or scordatura but a method of stringing, or string configuration.] The only notable "tuning" would be the standard tuning. Why? First of all, no other "tuning" is associated with a performer of the same historical significance as Yepes. When we have one performing with the world's leading orchestras, in the concert halls of all the continents, receiving compositions from the leading living composers, then you have a case for historical significance, or notability. As it stands, the only two notable 10-stringed guitars are included already, the Yepes type (which has a standard tuning), and the Romantic 10-stringed harp-guitar (whose standard tuning is D2, C2, B1, A1). Scordatura can be used on both of these, but if they are re-strung with a different string configuration that makes returning to the standard tuning impossible, and makes palying the original repertoire impossible, they are no longer the same instruments.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

If you can make a case that no other tuning for the Yepes instrument is encyclopedic, then go ahead. But you haven't made any attempt at this yet. You have accused Janet Marlow and others of misinformation, but that seems to be simply your opinion, and you haven't even said what she has got wrong, other than that she favours tunings that you dislike so intensely. That's not misinformation.

There are many examples, of this misinformation, too many to list here. I will stick to a couple of examples: In the front matter of Marlow's book "The Ten-String Guitar: An Approach Guide" she falsely claims that "NARCISO YEPES [...] heard that there were FOUR tones with less sustain due to missing sympathetic resonance on the six-string guitar" [my emphasis]. In truth, there are EIGHT notes (from the twelve that make the chromatic octave) that do not have string resonance (i.e. a sympathetic response in unison from an adjacent string). Now, first thing to consider is that Yepes nearly always (in nearly every speech, interview, article) mentions the EIGHT [not four] missing resonances that his four strings add. Furthermore the science of acoustics is on Yepes's side: a string resonates strongly (audibly) when its octave or 12th (the compound 5th) and their octaves are are played on adjacent strings. [We disregard the compound 3rd because the overtones are not in tune with the tempered scale of the fignerboard and thus...no notable resonance.] Now, we have to consider that Marlow, in a 1980 article in Soundboard journal cites a 1978 interview with Yepes as the source of her information. She has put it in writing that she has read this interview and the discussion of Yepes's instrument is reliable because it comes from an interview with Yepes. In the interview, as per usual, Yepes refers to EIGHT resonances added by the four additional strings. So there is no explanation other than deliberate misinformation for Marlow making the claims that "NARCISO YEPES [...] heard that there were FOUR tones with less sustain due to missing sympathetic resonance on the six-string guitar" (her book) and "there are four missing sympathetic resonances on the six string guitar" ([[1]]). Because she has read Yepes saying eight, she has cited a text in which Yepes says eight, and yet she misrepresents his words and the logic behind his invention by distorting the facts. Aslo on [[2]] , the intervals between the additional strigns are referred to as "descending whole steps". Well, the interval between C2 and B2 is not a whole step down but a minor 7th up. Considering how often this innacuracy has led to people assuming that the bass strings of Yepes's last three strings are an octave lower than they actually are, this is a care-less mistake that should not be made. Allan Kozinn (writing in the New York Times) misrepresents the octaves/tuning of Yepes's instrument thus. Nestor Benito, a 10-string guitarist, misrepresents Yepes's tuning thus here in a text that (I might add) is basically drawn from Janet Marlow's 1980 article with the same examples: [[3]] (notice the three last basses are an octave lower than Yepes actually had them - and this makes a big difference in terms of both resonance and having basses at the correct octave for lute music). The newest Narciso Yepes record compilation by Deutsche Grammophon even propagates misinformation in its booklet which gives all manner of wrong tunings in the various mistranslations of the text, including the above mistake. And this is just the tip of the ice-berg, so how are we to make informed decisions about this instrument when it is constantly being misrepresented? And when I make an effort to enforce the correct facts, I naturally encounter opposition from the masses because the information they are drawing from is faulty and ubiquitous. But the sources of my information are reliable primary sources. So you can continue your vendetta against me, Andrewa, but the truth will prevail.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The article currently already describes one of these variant tunings, rather disparagingly, see above. This alternative tuning should either be properly described or not described at all. My feeling is that it should be described, and the force with which you argue that it shouldn't be frankly supports this. It's obviously been a big talking point among Yepes' followers.

My feeling is that it should not be described at all because that is the only way of maintaining neutrality. The neutrality issues arrise only because individuals insist on describing non-standard "tunings" (which are not simply tunings but non-standard string configurations and tunings). If they are to be included, they must necessarily be shown to be dissimilar to the defining characteristics of the instrument Yepes invented. That is because the acoustic characteristics are the primary concern here, not merely an arbitrary similarity in the number of strings.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

As I said, I'm not pursuing these changes for the moment. I just wanted to foreshadow what I had in mind, assuming we can come to some arrangement where they won't just be reverted. Andrewa (talk) 13:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow, what a mess that now is above. Why don't you give indenting a try?

Restating the reasons for your liking the Yepes tuning isn't necessary. For one thing, once was enough, and for another, that's not the issue. Andrewa (talk) 08:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

(Sigh) I just had another go at sorting out the threads above, and gave up. The problem is that Viktor has posted new material interspersed with his previous comments to which I had already replied. While it's possible to sort it out from the signature timestamps and the page history, who has time for that?

Viktor, if you have anything new, relevant and civil to say, please post it again, properly formatted this time. Andrewa (talk) 00:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

And without the shouting. See Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Good practice:
Avoid excessive markup: It undermines a reasoned argument with the appearance of force through Italic text, Bolded text, and especially CAPITAL LETTERS, which are considered SHOUTING, and RANTING!!!!! Gordonofcartoon (talk) 00:36, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Ready, set...

We're almost to the point where I'm prepared to have another try at improving the article - which, after all is the whole point of this discussion.

Unfortunately, my sketch of what is required has been messed up above to the point that I don't think it's recoverable. But you can see it as this old version. Please don't edit that old version - that will delete subsequent comments, which we should eventually archive.

It still describes what I intend to work towards, but it's all still open to discussion. So if you have suggestions, please make them below. You might want to quote the relevant text from my earlier "sketch", but that's not necessary.

Just format discussions so that it's easy for others to see what you're replying to, and also so that they can in turn reply. See Wikipedia:Talk page#Indentation for a guideline, and Wikipedia:Indentation for a tutorial if that's not clear enough.

My hope is that we can get this article to at least Wikipedia:good article status. It won't happen overnight, and meantime there may be lots of cleanup tags. But hopefully these will all be of the sort that can be cleared in due course. Andrewa (talk) 02:55, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

For Andrewa

1) "12-string" is vernacular, embedded in our business from the catalogues of the original manufacturers (the last people interested in logic or organology) and later "folk" nomenclature (never scholarly nomenclature). [The same holds for the B.C. Rich company's catalogue referring to its coursed instrument as "the 10-string guitar".]

A far simpler explanation is that classical musicians have adopted the convention that you advocate, while rock, country and western and folk musicians have adopted a different one. So, instruments most commonly played by classical musicians tend to be named after your convention, and instruments most commonly played by musicians from these other traditions tend to be named by the other.
The more I think about this, the more interesting it becomes. Viktor has posted similar arguments repeatedly , see for example this recent post, in which he again stresses his status as an expert in the field and again states "12-string guitar" is an exception to this....
This is just not true, and anyone with even a basic knowledge of the musical genres in which electric ten and twelve string guitars tend to be used would know it's not true. Rather, in rock, country and western and folk music, this is the standard pattern for naming all coursed instruments, including twelve-string bass, eight-string bass, eight-string mandocaster, and of course the ten-string B.C.Rich Bich which is the particular issue.
The charitable explanation is that Viktor is speaking outside his field of expertise. Andrewa (talk) 01:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

2) Any instrument with at least one non-single string should use "course" for clarity by any serious musicologist.

The semantics of that sentence are a bit mixed up, but I get what you mean I think.
Agree that the term course should be used to refer to a course. And the term string should be used to refer to a string. And I'd have thought any serious musicologist would have no trouble with clarity here, and would be aware of the different naming traditions I describe above.
So I don't think we're going to confuse musicologists either way, and in saying that the B.C.Rich Bich 10 and the Brazilian viola are not ten string guitars despite their both being guitars with ten strings, there's a great deal of risk we'll confuse both laymen and those who play them!
Or if you like, this is a general encyclopedia. The terminology used in esoteric research papers isn't always appropriate here. And again, I'd expect any serious musicologist to realise that.

3) Intruments with 10 strings should be termed "10-stringed guitars" rather than "the 10-string guitar" because there is no one 10-string guitar (with the definitive article).

Hmmm... I guess this point is in support of the fork you suggest below, which shouldn't happen for other reasons. So maybe it's not all that important whether this is true or not. And just as well, as it's not that simple at all.

4) I suggest you start a new article and title it '10-stringed guitars' under which you differentiate the various types under sub-headings accordign to their number of courses. The baroque guitar would fall under 5-course, the B.C. Rich instrument would fall under 6-course.

This would be counter to Wikipedia:naming conventions, possibly counter to Wikipedia:Content forking, and wouldn't do anything to fix the current article, which badly needs work.

5) I suggest a non-guitarist baroque lutenist should mediate this and offer an opinion on the established musicological use of the terms course and string.

Why? There's no dispute or confusion over what course or string mean.

6) We must recognise that "12-string guitar" is an exception to and deviation from a well-established musicological/organological convention, and not the rule according to which we should re-write the terminology. We should also recognise that the term 12-string guitar enters not via musicologists or scholars but via guitar manufacturers and was later taken up mainly by folk musicians. In contrast there is an extensive scholarly history of referring to instruments with at least one PAIR of strings as coursed, not (single) strung/stringed. Now, I am not suggesting re-naming "12-string guitars", but it is a mistake (and folly) to try to oppose centuries-old scholarly conventions and to take the exception as the rule and re-write the terminology of organology. Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Some of this is true, but not all of it and the conclusions don't follow. See above for an alternative view. Andrewa (talk) 06:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

COMMENT: please note related conclusion on WP:WQA. This is Wikipedia and not a highly-technical Musicalinstrumentpedia (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 11:36, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

...Go

Here's the program, as foreshadowed.

Restructure

Rewrite the lead, to have four main sections, chronologically:

  • Harp guitars
  • Pedal steels
  • Yepes etc classical guitars
  • B.C.Rich Bich 10

Mention of baroque guitars, Brazilian viola and any other ten-strings not normally called that at the bottom of the lead, rather than as a hatnote. Inline wikilinks to the articles on these rather than main templates as they won't have their own sections.

Non-content sections such as external links can stay as are for the first cut.

Refactor the section on Yepes etc

Try particularly to retain any well-sourced material, as we presumably won't have Viktor's help and it would be a shame to lose his valuable contributions.

Incorporate material previously rejected

Comb the archive and article history and locate any good stuff there.

Contact conrributors of previously rejected material

Tell them it's safe to return.

Sources

Inline references wherever possible, remove anything seriously unverifiable, then remove the cleanup notice.

Reality check

See what else needs to happen to go for WP:GA. Andrewa (talk) 05:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED, ANDREW. Coursed instruments are referred to as "COURSED", 5-COURSED, not "10-string". You seek to raise the IGNORANCE of manufacturers of folk and rock instruments to a virtue, to a new musicological convention. The centuries-old academic convention that obviously predates rock musicians maintains that a pair of strings is termed a course and instruments with courses are named for their number of COURSES. You "convention" you mention that contradicts this is nothing more than ignorance you wish to dress up as something more.

Tell me, Andrew Alder (church drummer and rhythm guitarist who has never in his life played an actual "ten-string guitar"), if you notate music for a coursed instrument, do you write 12 or 10 separate lines in tablature? NO. You write one per course, which is in practical musical effect one string. If you write it in musical notation (can you even read this??? I doubt highly), would you use numbered circles up to 10 or 12 for each so-called individual string? NO! You would notate the first two strings as a circled number 1, the second pair of strigns as a circled 2, the 5th and 6th strings as a circled number 3, etc. These instruments are COURSED! For all practical purposes these instruments are NOT "ten-string guitars" (with the hypen) a term that has come to signify a specific instrument, an instument you are obscuring and confusing by introducing misinformative garbage. You deserve no less than uncivility. I wil let you play at being a musicologist for a few weeks/months until I have the time to undo your work. So play ahead.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 06:46, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

wikipedia entry on ten-string guitar can no longer be considered reliable

Irrelevant post by Viktor van Niekerk redacted: it can be found for reference here. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 10:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

And read here about WP:SOAP. This project is about WP:CONSENSUS and WP:RELIABILITY with no ability to WP:OWN an article. When a "normal" person wants to know about 10-string guitar-like instruments, they will find out all iterations. Soapboxing is disruptive to the project. You have never been permitted to "oversee" anything - you have been a contributor to a project. (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 10:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm not 100% sure of the etiquette, but I'ver redacted that latest rant per WP:NPA, WP:SOAP and WP:TALK (specifically - their bold - 'Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views and per the section "Deleting material not relevant to improving the article"). Gordonofcartoon (talk) 10:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Behaviour issues 2

Viktor has not left for Wikibreak as he indicated he would, but instead has

  • Continued his uncivil activites.
  • Indicated his intention to continue with them.
  • Indicated his intention to eventually revert changes to this article made without his permission.

In view of this, I am considering now going to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration. This of course means bypassing Wikipedia:Requests for comment and Wikipedia:Mediation.

My reasons for this are:

  • It is now clear that blocks will be necessary.
  • WP:SNOWBALL.

Comments? I'll provide diffs for the above in the draft WP:ArbReq that I intend to work up over the next few days. Even if we end up going through RfC and/or mediation, a draft ArbReq will serve to clarify issues for these. Andrewa (talk) 21:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Rfc first. Gerardw (talk) 21:58, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
OK. Who is prepared to be a party to it? I need at least one other of course, but the more the merrier IMO. Andrewa (talk) 22:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
This has no place on the Talkpage of an article. (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 23:32, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
I would agree. The editor has been blocked for now, ANI or WP:RFC would be the next steps if more worries come up. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:13, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, not sure I understand the problem but I certainly want both to do the right thing and to be seen to do it. Andrewa (talk) 08:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
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