User talk:Opus33/Archive1

Archive: Aug. 28, 2003-October 22, 2004

Welcome

Hello Opus, welcome to Wikipedia. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian. You can learn more on the how to edit page. The naming conventions and style guide pages are also useful. There is a sandbox which you can use to experiment in. If you have any questions, see the help pages or add a question to the village pump. If you ever think a page or image should be deleted, please list it at the votes for deletion page. There is also a votes for undeletion page if you want to retrieve something that you think should not have been deleted. Angela 18:06, 28 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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Just wanted to say that your recent additions to fugue - and indeed all the stuff you've added on music pages - were great. Keep up the good work and all that. --Camembert

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What a wonderful article on the social history of the piano. Excellent work! Thanks, BCorr ? Брайен из Детройте 13:28, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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Sibelius

Hi - I made the images at Symphony No. 13 (Haydn) with Sibelius. There's a free version available from their website [1] - I don't think you can save images directly with it, but at the very least you should be able to take a screen-grab and then edit the image in whatever graphics editor you have. Hope that helps. --Camembert

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Just note to say I think that Authentic performance is outstanding! -- Viajero 00:23, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Harpsichord image

The link to the harpsichord image doesn't work anymore. Do you want me uploading it again (in a *smaller* size :-)!)  ? Gérard 10:45, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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Richard Dyer-Bennet

<still needs to be done>

Since you seem to have committed most of the recent major activity on the folk music page, I feel like I should run this by you before doing it. Yeah, I know there's no actual ownership of pages, and I don't have to, but I have a couple of reasons for being skittish about this and would like some reassurance it seems appropriate to somebody other than me. It seems to me that Richard Dyer-Bennet, who was my uncle, deserves mention in the discussion of folk revivals. But I feel like an interested party, and also I'm not an expert on the history of the period, and what I know through family history may well exaggerate his importance. (I'm not receiving any money from the ongoing sales of his recordings or anything, though.) So -- do you have an opinion? User:dd-b 15:57 13-Feb-2004

Hi dd-b: There is indeed no ownership of pages! I've been emphasizing the distinction between traditional folk music and folk music as performed by experts, since so many readers seem to be unaware of the first kind. Yet the Wikipedia clearly should also cover the second kind, about which I know little. For what it's worth, I did a quick Web search and it suggests to me that Richard Dyer-Bennet ought to be included.

Inversions

Hi Opus Thanks for reorganising inversions (reprioritising alternative meanings) - an economical and sensible fix - & then subheading the notations bit - just my ignorance of how to do it - apologies. I still think that there is very slight residual confusion overall in the section due to the wildy different conceptual frameworks from which the different meanings come, but on reflection it is very slight - nothing worry about. Cheers Reflection.

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Courteous note from Jwrosenzweig

Opus, sorry if I offended you! I was originally assuming that you really had seen the letter and simply disputing the letter writer -- it was only when I visited the site and saw no mention of it that I grew suspicious (sorry!). If I was them, I'd have loudly broadcast that letter -- it certainly matches a lot of people's fears. Well, if you're happy with the article as it stands, then I thank you for being willing to see my side of this particular one. :-) You don't have to agree with me, though -- I promise not to get upset! I just personally feel like one letter to the editor isn't sufficient evidence of anything in particular, but I know it could be argued otherwise. Thanks for being so pleasant about the whole thing -- please let me know if you think I handled things wrongly, Jwrosenzweig 17:18, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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Opus -- Thanks for your comments. I've left a response on the "Haydn Variations" talk page. -- TheMaestro

Follow-up: You can find that "Clock" score at [[2]]

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Hints on Wanda Landowska

Yes, that should help nicely. One of those books is in my garage...so slim is the likelihood of my finding it there that a library trip will be in order<G> I think you are right that the Pleyels were built like battleships, but I am hoping to find someone to quote with reagard to that<G>!. I've also left out the Nathalie Barney lesbian salon stuff as I"m not sure if they're more than innuendo. But do edit away if something takes your fancy! -- Nunh-huh 07:13, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Haydn croat

Hi

ok but i don`t know who is writting that all this people are croatian-maradona tesla, some american baseball players. i don`t know how to explain them that if maradonas grand,grand,grand,grand,grand,grand :) father was croat it doesn`t make him a croat.

                    hope that you will help me in fighting against nonsense lying on wiki by croatian nationalists

Avala 16:22, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

List of Croatians

I think I can feel what you felt when reverting this page on daily bases! List of people that are Croatians are even those that have no connection to it! Also I could use some help over there if youve got nerves!:) Avala 12:50, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The anonymous Croatian editor

Nice job on the Haydn and Croatian folk music page. I've been copyediting so many of these Croation pages and, knowing nothing at all about the culture or history, have been unable to really do anything other than copyedit. Your additions and explanations of the various issues make it a more compelling article. Elf | Talk 03:53, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

<Opus33 replied on Elf's talk page thus:> Thanks, Elf. I never imagined I would be involuntarily coauthoring articles with a group of enthusiastic Croatian nationalists, but, hey, there's a first time for everything! Cheers, Opus33 05:41, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Re: "Group of croation nationalists": I've seen this referred to a couple of times. Having tracked this Croatian stuff for about 3 months, it is my very clear impression that there is exactly one person doing all of the Croatian work. The person is always anonymous, never types edit summaries, never responds to "you have new messages" even when a couple of us have left messages at their anonymous user talk pages. Always edits at about the same time in the evening; always only one IP address each day; often makes same kinds of edits and language errors on different days & in different articles; usually revisits articles he/she edited on the previous visit for a quick once-over and continues to new or different articles. All patterns of just one user who is possibly logging in from maybe an internet cafe or who-knows-what's available. A very partial list of the user IPs is on my user page and it's like a game tracking down what IP address they've most recently edited under, then using "user contributions" to find which articles he/she edited on that day, then using those page histories to see what other IP addresses they used on previous days, then those user contributions to see what pages he/she edited, etc. I've also put many of the croatian pages on my watchlist since he/she/it often revisits to make similar revision in several articles. Anyway, I'm almost positive it's just one person.  :-) Elf | Talk 16:01, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Elf, for your observations. Nice detective work! :-)

From what I've seen, this anonymous editor's approach seems to be something like "Glorify Croatia, no matter what the facts". I find this approach distasteful and feel it is contrary to the purpose of the Wikipedia. But I've only witnessed the Maradona and Haydn episodes; you know more.

Do you think we should just keep monitoring, or would it be appropriate to call on the official anti-vandalism channels of the Wikipedia? I'd be curious to know your opinion. Cheers, Opus33 22:11, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I've never gotten the impression that this is vandalism or deliberate malfeasance. A tremendous amount of work and research has gone into many articles, and there are dozens of them, most created from scratch by this person and most about locations in Croatia and individuals who are clearly Croatian. I have no way of knowing what's "fact" and what's maybe exaggerated unreasonably--I just follow him/her around, copyediting. :-) This person just might be a little overproud of their Croatian connection (or maybe feeling a little subconsciously inferior because Croatia has such a rough history to overcome of being overrun and ruled by others--) Anyway, I didn't realize until recently that some people were viewing this as malicious behavior. I don't think it is. Best argument there is that I haven't seen any edit wars or the like when others come in and deemphasize the Croatian stuff. Elf | Talk 01:13, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Elf. I appreciate your patient approach. Maybe I'm the only person who's edit-warred with him! I will try to be patient... Opus33 23:49, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

I am not patient. Block him and protect those pages :) I am so cruel, am I? ;) But really that page is going on my nerves, and even worse is when they call me a nationalist and envious because Maradona, Andretti, Haydn and Zola are Croatians !!! Grrrr

--Avala 14:30, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi Avala, Ah yes, now I remember I'm not the only one who's edited-warred with this guy!  :=) But really, it takes a huge amount of effort to get somebody blocked--even in a clear case, which according to Elf, this is not. Probably just patiently reverting the most egregious cases is the best policy to follow here. Cheers, Opus33 14:59, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Lunette

There's a start at lunette. Wish I knew how to upload images... Wetman 18:53, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I uploaded my first image at Classical orders. Would you look at the job I did and give me some pointers? Wetman 00:43, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

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"Grr"?

Thought I'd drop you a note as I made you "grr". Sorry for any annoyance. Hyacinth 21:50, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Nope, I'm not 209.6.196.152 (I had to check) so no offense taken. Happy editing! Hyacinth 02:24, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

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Sorry I did not get back to you about Wynton and Haydn, been away, busy, and both. I will try to formulate a (semi-) coherent sentence and reply properly some time. Apologies, Nevilley 08:40, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Camembert's sound file

Oops - looks like my brain took a brief vacation. I'll fix that, thanks for pointing it out. --Camembert

By the way - if you can get it to play, can you let me know if it sounds too quick to you? Playing it in my browser, it seems fast to me (I mean, it's not very quick, but it's too quick for Tristan), but in an external player it sounds just fine. --Camembert

More on the list of Croatians; Wikipedia serenity

Maybe it was a good idea when you decided to leave that page.

User:GeneralPatton has called me :"shpeherd","little cunt" and he said " I will shit on your king peters picture". Of course cowardly in Croatian so other users could not understand. Then he said I made up translation. At last he admitted when he saw that there are more pople that understood what he was saying.

I also edited something else. I was trying to prove that Ante Pavelic is ustasha general not policitican (which he is) but GeneralPatton called him a hero and all other nazi killers.

Avala 20:00, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi Avala, Concerning what you said first: "Maybe it was a good idea when you decided to leave that page." I think you're on the right track in saying that--I believe you'll enjoy your Wikipedia experience more if you stay away from the high-conflict regions.

Here's the method that I follow: periodically I go to my Watchlist, click on "Display and edit the complete list", then deselect all the articles that are disturbing my peace and serenity. I find it makes a great improvement in my enjoyment of the Wikipedia! Besides, sooner or later, those troublesome articles will almost certainly get sorted out by other people. Yours truly, Opus33 20:41, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanx! My biggest problem is - other people. Somebody will read that Pavelic is hero and he will not even take a look at his article to see how many people he killed. But I will try to stay away from such pages. Best wishes--Avala 20:57, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Susan McClary

It would be great if you could add criticisms of McClary's work. I won't be able to add an example (sympathetic but critical) till next week.

First let me say that I think McClary is not alone in her thoughts, but representative or exemplary (in a good or bad way). By excluding criticism and attempts at social grounding in the sonata article, you would grant at least one of her arguments. That said, I think that is a fine temporary approach, if we feel that there really will be heavy NPOV work or conflict. Then, when the language and text of one article, Susan McClary, is settled, it would allow us to exctract or signifigantly rephrase in an appropriate manner information for the sonata form article.

User:Hyacinth/Full disclosure. I would be interested to find out your personal objections to Susan McClary, perhaps I would have no objections to their inclusion (perhaps I will). Hyacinth 05:02, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

temp

We need these links as redirects: Stringed instrument, Stringed instruments

hello

Hi Opus33, I just wanted to say: great work on that Turkish music article; it's very accurate and informative. Also I have been enjoying watching the Creation (Haydn) article grow. Btw I also love those op. 33 quartets. Antandrus 23:57, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Apologies

I never got back to you properly about Wynton and Haydn and now I fear I never will: sorry. Briefly, I just felt that it was a bad example because (in my view) it both overestimated the impact of Wynton's recording, and underestimated how popular and well-known the concerto already was before Wynton was even heard of. It seems to give a status to that one recording which is not due (I speak as a trumpet player who very much admires Wynton as a player, but is very suspicious of the hype which sometimes attends him) and which seems to ignore the many fine recordings of this piece which have been made before and after that one. It's not a situation like Gorecki 3 or the loathsome The Piano. It just, from where I am sitting, entirely lacks the feeling of a crossover. It's just one good recording, among many, of a very popular piece. LOTS of non-classical-specialists could whistle the 3rd movt tune while Wynton was still at school! :) I'm sorry to do this to you as you now won't have a chance to argue with me, but it's the best I can manage right now. Best wishes, Neville ( --Nevilley 07:39, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC) )

Thank you for that, it's most kind. And now I really must go. All the best -- Neville.

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Beethoven 32

Hi. I still hope to write something about Beethoven's opus 111, but it'll probably be a month or two before I get round to it, so do feel free to help the article out yourself in the meantime. In case you don't know, I uploaded an image of the opening bars (Image:Beethoven pf son 32 opening.png) which you might be able to use.

I'm probably not gone from the classical music articles for good, by the way; it's just that I've been so closely involved with them for such a long time, I think I need to take a couple of months off to get a fresh perspective. Thanks for the kind words. All the best--Camembert

Memorizing method

Hi Opus33, I agree with you on your comment on the violin article. I have neither heard of the Belknap method, nor am I able to find it on Google. It is possible it is mis-named or misspelled, but it is rather similar to methods I remember from when I studied violin. Possibly it is useful information but probably belongs in a "Belknap Method" article, not in the main violin article. I may change it when I get home from work... can't spend too much time on this right now. Best wishes! Antandrus 17:46, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I moved the section to talk. I think the information is valuable, but needs to be in a music memorization methods article (or something). Thanks for pointing it out! I had never read the violin article. Antandrus 01:47, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Emma Darwin

I have a huge to do list on the Darwin -- Wedgwood family if you're interested, I particularly want help with the artists (no composers unfortunately). Anyway, see talk:Darwin -- Wedgwood family/to do Dunc_Harris|☺ 08:45, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Le Tombeau de Couperin

A piano piece for you maybe to cleanup. Dunc_Harris|☺ 22:50, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

<Antandrus promptly took this on and did a fine job. -O33>

Sacred Harp

Good work on Sacred Harp! I love that stuff. Seems a lot of the old American music articles are still virgin territory for Wikipedia ... Lowell Mason still links red alas... btw good to see you editing again; not many people working in the classical music area these days :-( Be well! Antandrus 05:45, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Lowell Mason

Kudos, Opus33, for the fine article on this man. Really good work. I think you hit it on the head: he is to be praised for his part in bringing the classical music tradition to America, but the native music that was flourishing was awfully good in its own way and was underrated for a long time. Be well! Antandrus 03:03, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The Abduction from the Seraglio

Thanks for cleaning up the mess I made. That's what I get for editing just before I go to sleep. Gamaliel 18:56, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Kenneth Alan

Kenneth Alan's case is now in arbitration. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Kenneth Alan. You may wish to add comment to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Kenneth Alan/Evidence Mintguy (T) 14:29, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Linking to Wikipedia namespace pages from within articles

Please stop linking to pages in the Wikipedia namespace from within articles. See Wikipedia:Avoid self-references for why. --mav 23:24, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Again - stop adding links to non-article pages from within articles. Instead add an external link to a help page in the OGG article. --mav 23:37, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just as I did for the Ogg article - it is an external link. Now just link to the Ogg article. This works for downstream users of our database dumps very well. --mav 00:35, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Billings

Nice job on Africa!! Have you ever sung the poignant four-part round "When Jesus Wept" (that could use an entry too...) Billings also has a very funny one "Jargon" (From the Singing-Master's Assistant, same as Chester). Happy editing! Antandrus 17:53, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Shaped notes

Thank you for the excellent edits on the shaped note article. uc 23:01, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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Opus, thanks for the good work you're doing rearranging the Shape note and Sacred Harp articles. - Rlvaughn 01:31, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Wikiquote "ad"

The Wikiquote ad that you reverted from Dr. Seuss is the new standard. It's that prominent, so that we can hopefully increase awareness of all of are smaller projects, through a simple act of synergy. -- user:zanimum

Pastiche

Hi, my answer is at User talk:KF. |l'KF'l| 13:32, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

SB Channel

Hey, thanks for your addition to Santa Barbara Channel! I just noticed it. Do you live in my neck-o-the-woods? I just added a pic to the article; you can see the islands clearly but not the oil platforms (they're off the pic to the right and left). Happy editing! Antandrus 03:50, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Name day

Oh, I just used the rollback function because it was handy, I meant no offense :) My point was not to remove the redirection to the calendar of saints page which explains it (more or less). Rather, I left the link in as is, but put a #REDIRECT statement from there to the calendar of saints. That way, people still get to the definition, but we have a clear picture (in Special:Whatlinkshere) of how many pages use the term.

BTW, "name day" isn't really alien to English these days, it has a definition in the WordNet dictionary ("the feast day of a saint whose name one bears"). --Joy [shallot] 21:42, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

1897 Sacred Harp

Opus, I don't know if anything has been written on the 1897 printing of the Sacred Harp Book. This stuff below is just a cut and paste of some discussion from the Fasola discussion listserve. Maybe it will serve as a starter until you find something more/better. You'll probably want to remove this once you have read it. - Rlvaughn 02:23, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"The 1897 was a reprint of the 4th edition (1869), I think done by C P Byrd (Bird) an Atlanta printer - one of White's daughters married a Byrd."

"What edition or printing of the Sacred Harp took place in 1897? The Sacred Harp 4th edition (1870) reprint by James Landrum White & C.P. Byrd 1896 Atlanta, GA."

"I have a copy of the 1897 book if you have any questions. The front cover reads: Fourth Edition, Much Improved and Greatly Enlarged. The Sacred Harp ...A Collection of... Psalm and Hymn Tunes, Odes and Anthems Selected from the Most Eminent Authors. Together with Nearly One Hundred Pieces Never Before Published, Suited to Most Meters, And Well Adapted to Churches of Every Denomination, Singing Schools and Private Societies, with Plain Rules for Learners. By B. F. White and E. J. King. Fourth Edition Entiely Remodeled ---containing--- One Hundred and Thirty New and Select Pieces, Expressly Arranged and Prepared for This Book, Compiled by a Committee Appointed by 'The Southern Musical Convention': Atlanta, GA.:

Jas. L. White, Publisher.Atlanta, GA., Phillips & Crew, S. P. Richards & Son, Savannah, GA., Ludden & Bates, Mobile, Ala., J. K. Randal?, Little Rock, Ark., Wilson & Webb, Louisville, Ky., J. P. Morton & Co. Baltimore, Md., T. Newton Kurtz. St. Louis, Mo., Jno. L. Boland. Copyrighted, 1897, by C. P. Byrd. All Rights Reserved.

It does appear to be a reprint of the 1870 edition, since the Preface to the New Edition was 'Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1870, by B. F. and D. P. White, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.'"

"C. P. Byrd is evidently the grandson of B. F. White. In September of 1856, Nancy Ogburn White married Theodore Henry Byrd in Harris County. In 1860, they are living in Randolph County with 3 children - the oldest is Charley. In 1870, they were living in Dekalb County. The oldest child is listed as Charles P. (12 yrs. old). This is probably the C. P. Byrd of the 1897 printing. Interestingly, T. H. Byrd is listed in that 1870 census as a printer (in the 1860 it is written, or Mike White copied it as, a painter; but it is probably printer instead). Also, a little "googling" yielded a C. P. Byrd as the "state printer" of Georgia (whatever that means) ca. 1909 to possibly 1926 - probably the same person."

"____ ____ sent me some information on the 1897 printing of the Sacred Harp which makes me think there may have been another printing. I bought a book that at the time I thought was the 1870 B.F./D.P. White release. But now I am thinking I may have an 1897 printing or something similar. I'm noticing on the barely readable front cover that it has much of information that ____ gave me, but with slight differences.

The cover of the book has basically the same thing, except where ____'s reads, Atlanta, Ga.: Jas. L. White, Publisher' mine has 'Atlanta, Ga.: Chas. P. Byrd, Publisher'. After that the next two lines look like what ____ has: 'Atlanta, GA., Phillips & Crew, S. P. Richards & Son, Savannah, GA., Ludden & Bates, Mobile, Ala., J. K. Randal?, Little Rock, Ark., Wilson & Webb, Louisville, Ky., J. P. Morton & Co. Baltimore, Md., T. Newton Kurtz. St. Louis, Mo., Jno. L. Boland. Copyrighted, 1897, by C. P. Byrd. All Rights Reserved, compared to Atlanta, GA., C. P. Byrd, Phillips & Crew, S. P. Richards & Son, Savannah, GA...not readable...St. Louis, Mo., Jno. L. Boland. The exception is that C. P. Byrd is on the first line in front of Phillips & Crew, and that there appears to be no information on a copyright.

The back cover is also well worn, but I can tell it has an advertisement for 'Phillips and Crew', which appears to be selling song books and organs. I can barely make out the words 'Sacred Harp', 'Parlor Organ' and 'Church Organ'. Another line has 'DO YOU WANT a piano, a ??, a guitar, a banjo, ??, ??'. The cover sheets inside must be missing. The first remaining page has the 'Preface to the Sacred Harp'. Since there are slight differences between these two copies, was there possibly more than one printing of The Sacred Harp by Chas. P. Byrd??"

This is a lot, and some of it slightly contradictory, but maybe it will start you on the path to finding more. - Rlvaughn 02:23, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Discussion on the Wikiquote box

By the way, on Wikipedia talk:Sister projects, I wasn't implying that you shouldn't contribute -- I hope I didn't give that impression. You're obviously a valued contributer, and I didn't mean to be rude. Also, when you said "for me, voting justifies compulsion better than consensus does, since it's clearer", I agree. If the consensus were "we use the wikiquote-box to link to Wikiquote", then you still wouldn't be compelled to put it in; you'd just have to deal with lots of people putting it in frequently. But as of now, I don't know that there is a consensus one way or the other. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 21:02, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Benjamin Franklin White

Opus, I took a look at the broken link on White's page, and found that it was coming up with the parenthesis - http://fasola.org/introduction/note_shapes.html). Without it, it works fine - http://fasola.org/introduction/note_shapes.html

The link you added works just as good for the purpose of showing the shapes, but I thought you might want to know this for future use. - Rlvaughn 18:08, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

popular culture

Hi Opus, LOL, thanks for the note! I should remind myself not to edit when I'm in too cynical a mood. Do you ever get the feeling sometimes that no one ever reads what you do? I was starting to get an attack of the "why bother?" which may be the first sign of burning out on this all. Thanks also for the note on Ravenscroft--he did a superb job collecting music which would otherwise be lost. Btw, I love that opus 33 passage on your user page! If I may ask, how do you like the Sibelius program? I use Finale and am thinking of switching. Happy editing! Antandrus 03:06, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

fuging tune

I must compliment you yet again, this time on the fuging tune article, WOW. Nice work. I just now bumped into it. It's better than the article in Grove! (which is only four paragraphs). Be well, Antandrus 04:31, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Beethoven

Geez, I almost had a heart attack seeing what happened to the Beethoven article today. I get the feeling it is just you and me watching the entire classical music area right now ... consequently I'm going to add a bunch of composers to my watchlist. Thanks for the previous revert. Hope all is well with you, Antandrus 00:07, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

(Opus replies on the Antandrus talk page, including: Might a strategy that would help be the "general article--dependent articles" model, like they do for country articles? )

I think this is a good issue to bring up. It seems that when articles hit a certain "critical mass" they benefit from being split up, as recently happened with the Renaissance article. We've already split out the Beethoven works list, which was good to do (that wouldn't be necessary for the Ravenscroft complete works, LOL). A "short and sober" Beethoven article would certainly be easier to maintain, even though it would still get lots of short additions from drive-by editors, and the important detailed sections, split out, would probably be left alone except by the more serious editors. I wish we could put page hit counters here--I would love to know how many subsection articles get hits by clicked links from their parent articles! That could show that the model actually works. And to answer your other question... I too feel some dissatisfaction with the Beethoven article (though it's not as strong as my distaste for some of the burdensome 1911 articles that remain, such as Schubert!) Anyway, much to talk about in this area. I wish we had a little "classical music discussion room" for the few of us that remain. Be well! Antandrus 03:22, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Classical music - "permanence"

Hi Opus 33,

The long section before the TOC of the "classical music" article being removed is just fine for me. I don't think it was any good anyways. And my comments hadn't made it any better (even if some of them are prefectly verifiable). It just didn't help in defining classical music.

I leave this note on your page because I'm going to add something to the "permanence" section of this article nonetheless, while I feel it turns around arguments: "Classical music" in general can not be defined by permanence (so permanence is no criterion as it is written now). All music of all times had a minority of pieces that showed some permanence, but that has little to do with "classical music" in general. Most of the music you and I would immediately recognize as "classical" (if it were still played today), showed absolutely no permanence (apart from laying around in dusty libraries, if not destroyed altogether).

--Francis Schonken 07:17, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Classical Music, again

On the discussion page for classical music, you wrote "This little brouhaha illustrates one reason that it is so frustrating trying to put together a good classical music section on the Wikipedia."

For what it's worth, IMNSHO opinion the "classical music" article does a very good job so far, minor issues notwithstanding. I am sorry, that you feel frustrated. The outcome, however, seems to be worth the hastle. I am new to wikipedia and the high overall quality of the articles on music comes as a pleasant surprise to me. Thank you for your work. -- Utis 10:33, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You got my reference!! LOL, I'm always impressed by you. Keep up the good work! By the way, that's a big writhing can of night-crawlers on the classical music talk page and I'm dreading going there tonight to see where it's gotten to ... oy. Be well, Antandrus 00:59, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sorry! I actually feel the same way (I myself have a Yamaha grand sitting a few yards away from me as I type). I don’t know why I was so absent-minded at that.

• edits sentence out*

- Keron Cyst

Sound help pages

I object to being told in your edit summary to "leave this page alone!"; I was merely creating a redirect because I assumed that you weren't aware you were duplicating an existing page. If you think that "that page is *useless* for many users--they want a straight answer" then please do improve it: this is a wiki, after all, so you don't have to start a whole new page from scratch just because the existing one isn't good enough.

Better still, why not contribute to the effort I mentioned at Wikipedia talk:How to play Ogg files#Why this page is rather redundant (I know that's not a very positive heading, but I couldn't think of a better one; sorry) to have a proper review of multimedia policy at meta:Multimedia. Most relevantly, I invite your comments to my draft help page at meta:Multimedia/Help:Listening to sounds - it's a lot more comprehensive than Wikipedia:How to play Ogg files currently is, but also intended to be much more user-friendly than Wikipedia:Sound. If you think this is still not straight-forward enough for average users, please add some suggestions about how it can be improved.

Again, I apologise if I seem to be discouraging you in any way; my intention was only to avoid duplication of effort by directing your attention, and that of readers, to the existing help pages and discussion. If we all work on different versions of the same thing, we're just going to repeat each other's mistakes. - IMSoP 20:13, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

More on sounds

Thanks for getting back to me. I was going to dump all my thoughts here, but then I thought it would be more helpful for posterity to keep each conversation somewhere relevant; so I've added a comment to the discussion about using the term "Ogg" and quite a detailed set of thoughts to the talk page attached to my proposal on meta, comparing yor proposal to mine. Some additional thoughts, though, here:

• I think we both agree that the current Wikipedia:Sound page is pretty-much useless in its current state; I don't think it's a case of it being for a different audience than the page you're trying to create, though, I think it's just very badly laid out. Whatever page(s) we create, it/they need to replace that one, not go alongside it.
• In case you're wondering, the reason I keep trying to push the discussion onto meta is that exactly the same policies, help pages, and software features are needed in all the other languages, and in other projects, like Wiktionary, too.
• As far as the problem with putting a link through from Ogg to whatever help page we end up with is concerned, I think there's a very simple solution: don't link to Ogg in the first place, just put a nice, clear "Help!" link next to each sound pointing to the help page. At meta:Multimedia#Software features, I've suggested that this be incorporated into the software, but you could do something like my demonstration there right now with a very simple template (in fact, it's quite a good idea, since it makes things easier to change later; it even confines the self-reference to that one template, as suggested at Wikipedia:Avoid self-references). There's no need for the term "Ogg" (or, as I'd prefer, "Ogg Vorbis" or "Vorbis") to appear anywhere near it; the elderly user wanting help will be even happier if they can just click "help" and get it.

I hope I'm not over-whelming you with all this, I just keep thinking of more things to say! - IMSoP 20:10, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)