Archive 36: January through October 2011. Please do not edit this page -- use my regular talk page instead, as I will not see your message here.

Thanks for fixing this up. I created a stub on her over four years ago. I didn't realise I hadn't put any sources for the article. Not sure how this was an "unsourced BLP" (per the AfD nom) though! Anyway, not to mind now. Cheers. -- Folantin ( talk) 16:52, 30 December 2010 (UTC) reply

You're welcome. I was just starting to root through some very dusty parts of my library for some hard-copy sources. Somewhere I have an anthology of women in music that has some musical excerpts and a bio. Fortunately you can get the whole of the François Joseph Fétis Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique online now through Google Books; that has a bit on her (though someone will object that it's too old to be a secondary source). Cheers and happy new year! Antandrus (talk) 17:09, 30 December 2010 (UTC) reply

Hello, Antandrus/Archive36! WikiProject United States, an outreach effort supporting development of United States related articles in Wikipedia, has recently been restarted after a long period of inactivity. As a user who has shown an interest in United States related topics we wanted to invite you to join us in developing content relating to the United States. If you are interested please add your Username and area of interest to the members page here. Thank you!!!

-- Kumioko ( talk) 02:13, 4 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Welcome to the project. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments or suggestions. -- Kumioko ( talk) 02:06, 4 January 2011 (UTC) reply

On Saturday January 15, 2011, Wikipedia will turn 10 years and people all over the globe will be celebrating Wikipedia on that day. No event is currently planned for Orange County Wikipedians, so I am leaving a message with some of the currently involved editors listed in "Wikipedians in Orange County, California" and "Wikipedians in Southern California" to see if we might want to meet on that day, lunch, dinner, group photo or other ideas welcomed? I will start a "Turning Ten" discussion thread on my Talk page to see if any interest can be planned for and determined. I am located in Old Towne Orange off the circle. Tinkermen ( talk) 20:10, 5 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the help on my talk page. You must have had it cleaned up pretty quickly.. I never got a notice of a new message. Thanks again! Wikipelli ^Talk 17:40, 7 January 2011 (UTC) reply

You're welcome -- another admin dropped him down the memory hole as I was working on my block message. All in a day's work... :) Antandrus (talk) 17:42, 7 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Grüßen! Could you please check the correct name for the opening movement of the symphony? Is it Engelkonzert or Engelskonzert? Viele Danke! -- Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 18:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Funny, I can visualize a score, but can't find it on my shelf -- either I'm making it up or someone borrowed it. My Wolfgang Sawallisch/Philadelphia Orchestra recording on EMI has singular, i.e. Engelkonzert. Google shows Engelkonzert over Engelskonzert by a bit, but not a blowout. It's interesting that Amazon lets you download my version here but misspells it. I'd go without the "s". (Talk page stalkers welcome to chime in!) Antandrus (talk) 20:11, 7 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Oh, and http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathis_der_Maler#Sinfonie also has it spelled without the 's'. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 20:44, 7 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you! Now that I'm home and can look in my own score, it's definitely Engelkonzert. But in the wonderful Internet age, it will be next to impossible to expunge that rogue S... -- Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 02:47, 8 January 2011 (UTC) reply

I did not even see it had been messed up until I saw you had fixed it. betsythedevine ( talk) 04:58, 9 January 2011 (UTC) reply

You're quite welcome! Was just idly looking at recent changes and spotted that. I left a "test1". Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 05:03, 9 January 2011 (UTC) reply

You know this white supremacist guy? He's been resurrecting 3-years old socks of late and his range is softblocked right now. What's the deal? - Alison ^❤ 04:55, 10 January 2011 (UTC) reply

You've got mail. :) Antandrus (talk) 04:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC) reply

As do you ;) - Alison ^❤ 05:01, 10 January 2011 (UTC) reply

And more-- :-p Antandrus (talk) 05:08, 10 January 2011 (UTC) reply

With the first of what I hope will be monthly newsletters I again want to welcome you to the project and hope that as we all work together through the year we can expand the project, create missing articles and generally improve the pedia thought mutual cooperation and support. Now that we have a project and a solid pool of willing members I wanted to strike while the iron is hot and solicite help in doing a few things that I believe is a good next step in solidifiing the project. I have outlined a few suggestions where you can help with on the projects talk page. This includes but is not limited too updating Portal:United States, assessing the remaining US related articles that haven't been assessed, eliminating the Unrefernced BLP's and others. If you have other suggestions or are interested in doing other things feel free. I just wanted to offer a few suggestions were additional help is needed. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments or suggestions or you can always post something on the projects talk page. -- Kumioko ( talk) 02:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC) reply

If you're up for it, I could use some help expanding a new article I just created - Hurrian song. Raul654 ( talk) 06:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Interesting! Do you have JSTOR by any chance? (I do not; I'm yet to find a way in for people like me no longer associated with a university -- incredibly, they don't even allow you to buy access, which I would cheerfully do.) If you do I'd like a copy of "The Babylonian Musical Notation and the Hurrian Melodic Texts," Music and Letters 75 [1993-94] 161-179. I see some information in the online New Grove, and I may have some more scattered around in my library; I'll have a look (not tonight though). Antandrus (talk) 07:02, 12 January 2011 (UTC) reply

I do have access to Jstor. I've emailed the document you requested to your r...@yahoo.com email address. Raul654 ( talk) 07:08, 12 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you! Wow -- impressive work; I've never read about Assyrian music or musical notation before. Deciphering that has got to be nightmarishly difficult. I'll see if I can add something intelligible. Antandrus (talk) 14:51, 12 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Is this a joke and or can it be played? Move down to "Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz" under Bass Driver. Bielle ( talk) 23:38, 14 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Oh man, where to begin ... it's a great joke and has been around for a while. Haven't seen this in a long time! "gradually become agitated" "have a nice day" "Moon walk"... "remove cattle from the stage" -- lol! There are pieces that are almost this hard to read that are intended to make sense; some of Brian Ferneyhough's music, for example. Makes my head hurt. I think one of the hardest gigs I ever did was one where I wasn't even playing -- I was a page-turner for a minimalist piece. Antandrus (talk) 03:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Looks like the results of an orgy involving Harry Partch, LaMonte Young and a player piano. Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 03:38, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

From what I know of those three, the piano probably got the worst of it. Conlon Nancarrow may have been a participant as well ... one of his mensuration canons is at proportions square root of two, cube root of three ... Antandrus (talk) 03:44, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Ah yes, Conlon Nancarrow -- couldn't think of the name. Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 03:50, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

My art tends to be visual, rather than aural, so I rather liked some of the patterns. Once, in an earlier life, I was the editorial director of a textbook publishing house. We produced music texts for schools and some of the music was done by the art department. It didn't occur to us to ask if the artist assigned knew anything about music. (It is still hard for me to believe that anyone could get to the age of 20 and not know anything about its written form, but there was at least one . . .) The artist didn't like the balance on the page and randomly (to a musician's eye) turned tails, closed whole notes, added notes, moved bar lines, and generally made it all quite unplayable. It looked good, though. I wish I had saved it. Thanks for the information. Bielle ( talk) 03:49, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

I looked at a Ferneyhough score. It made me seasick. Bielle ( talk) 03:59, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Wasn't there some early 20th c Russian composer who actually had markings for the musicians to play "with ecstatic horror" and such? Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 04:03, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Possibly Alexander Scriabin? He was a nut. Love his music though. One of the great tragedies of music history was his spectacularly gifted son, who was already writing brilliant and complex music as a child but drowned in the Dneipr at the age of 11. Antandrus (talk) 04:07, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

I think Boris means Nikolai Obukhov (no article on en.wikipedia!). "With ecstatic horror", along with "in the anguish of death", "with the dread of remorse", etc., are all instructions to a singer. Another one is "avec un parfum inconnu". Found in Larry Sitsky, Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900-1929, (Issue 31 of Contributions to the Study of Music and Dance, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994, ISBN  9780313267093) which also compares Obukhov's imaginative performance directions to those of Scriabin and Lourié. --- Sluzzelin talk 05:22, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Oh this is marvelous -- I didn't know this composer -- there's quite a good article in the online New Grove about him (spelled "Obouhow"). Apparently he marked large portions of the 2000-page score of his "Book of Life" in his own blood; his wife attempted to burn the damn thing. (Had a lovely dinner with Larry Sitsky once; he told good stories. Obukhov didn't come up, I don't think.) Antandrus (talk) 05:49, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Terrific! Can't wait to find out more about this guy. You should plagiarize employ these sources to come up with an en.wp entry. Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 05:59, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

I had forgotten about Scriabin's son. And, of course, Scriabin himself died very young as a consequence of a shaving cut which became infected. Funny to think of how the musical landscape could have been altered by a life jacket and a bottle of cephalexin... MastCell  ^Talk 06:12, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Fortunately I haven't shaved since August 1982. No point in taking unnecessary risks. Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 06:16, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Antandrus, you and I have something in common. I also once spent an evening in close quarters with Larry Sitsky. His wife Magda and my then wife were also at our table; not to mention the roomful of people at the Russian ball at which he was the guest of honour. This would have been in late 1984, because my ex was heavily pregnant with our child, who was born in February 85. I met him again briefly in 2001, but he obviously had no memory of me. Fame is so fleeting ...  :) -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 06:28, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Indeed it is. Good thing he got out of China when he did -- did he tell you any stories of life during that turbulent time as Mao was coming to power? Oy! He was a marvelous conversationalist; long time ago, though, and I doubt he remembers me either ... :) Antandrus (talk) 06:32, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

As is typical at Russian balls, the guest of honour makes an after-dinner speech. He did indeed talk about life in China, his early days in Australia, etc, but the only specific thing I can remember now is him saying his given name was Lazar, and when he came to Oz, nobody here had ever heard such a name, so he was dubbed Larry and the name stuck. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 06:39, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Btw I think an article on Nicolai Obouhow (Obouhov, Obokhov, Obukhov) is doable. The article in Slonimsky is under Obouhov; I've found Sitsky's book (1994) and can grab it next time I get to the library. Can any of you folks read Russian? There's some good sources there, as well as several articles in French. Apparently in his "Book of Life" he put in the barlines in his own blood. Antandrus (talk) 00:48, 16 January 2011 (UTC) reply

User:JackofOz reads (and speaks) Russian. Bielle ( talk) 01:07, 16 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Increasingly less, and increasingly less well, on both scores. But yes, I am familiar with a few selected Russian words. That's what a university education can do for you.  :) -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 01:23, 16 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you Bielle for sharing that, I'd not seen it before. Made me hoot. I like the directions "use smooth side of the violin" and "this is actually unplayable" towards the end. Erik Satie's Gnossiennes, which is definitely real music, include directions "Postulez en vous-même", "Ne sortez pas", and "Munissez-vous de clairvoyance". Satie definitely had his tongue in his cheek, though. And Antandrus's mention of Ferneyhough reminds me that his Time and Motion Study II for solo cello and electronics, where I don't think Ferneyhough is joking, contains a separate stave for each cello string, and one for each foot. -- RobertG ♬ talk 07:06, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

I love Satie's directions, almost as much as I love his music. The craziest directions I've ever had to follow in performance were probably in the collected works of P.D.Q. Bach, especially the (notated and pitched!) parts for bassoon reed alone. (Then there is the "Sonata Abassoonata", where a single player must play the bassoon and piano lines at once--but as I can barely play the piano when it gets my full attention, I am not quite skilled enough to pull it off!) As for the original posting, I remember first seeing it when my high school band director had it hanging up on his office wall; somewhere in my collected papers is a wrinkled photocopy... Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 06:47, 17 February 2011 (UTC) reply

While both pages are by John Stump, they're from two unrelated pieces. The page on the right is from his string quartet, "composed" after he switched to Finale, sadly, which severely limited the types of engraving he was able to do. (On the other hand, all the notes there are theoretically playable). -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 05:19, 16 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Have you read Alex Ross's article "Many Voices" in the Jan. 10 New Yorker? (Here's a link to the abstract. I only have hard copy.) There are a half dozen new CDs I must have. (And if CA wanders by, I did get this edition after all.) Bielle ( talk) 17:14, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

No, I hadn't seen that before -- thank you for the link! I think they're right about the significance of the music -- well, obviously, since I spent so much time on Wikipedia writing about it -- but that view has not always been the predominant one. I have William Manchester's A World Lit Only By Fire, a readable and fascinating account of the time of Magellan, but which contains (in my opinion) the single most ignorant paragraph ever scribbled about music by a "major" historian. He clearly didn't get it at all, presenting an embarrassingly 19th-century view of old music as "primitive". Anyway -- I need some new CDs too now! Antandrus (talk) 17:26, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

If you would like the full list of reviewed CDs from the article, let me know and I will type it out here for you. P.S. Historians ought to be enjoined from making judgements in fields where they lack competence. (So should the rest of us, come to think of it.) Bielle ( talk) 17:35, 15 January 2011 (UTC) reply

An editor threatens to resume his/her edit war at this page. See [1] and [2]. See this previous comment by, apparently, the same user under an IP: [3]. Can you give him/her a warning? If you read the talk page discussions here, you will see a pattern, I think.... Thanks for any assistance. Best regards, -- Ssilvers ( talk) 06:18, 21 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Looking at his contribs, both as "Taco Wiz" and as the multiple IPs (all obviously the same person, even though one geolocates to Reno, while most go to northern Maryland), this looks like an editor who doesn't quite get the concept of "collaborative project". I'll try leaving a polite note, but my optimism is limited on this one, as his instinctive reaction seems to be to insult people who try to talk to him reasonably. I also added LSOH to my watchlist -- I'll check back to see if anything has gotten out of hand. Antandrus (talk) 18:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC) reply

I can vouch that there's at least one other distinct person who's agreeing with him - I'm from a forum the two of them frequent. 24.152.189.91 ( talk) 02:27, 23 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Interesting -- there was one cluster of IP locations in northern Maryland-West Virginia, and another in Reno that tracerouted to San Francisco before hitting a firewall. OK. Antandrus (talk) 02:30, 23 January 2011 (UTC) reply

My mistake. It seems the person on other forum is most likely not one of the random IPs, as he's just stated that he finds the edit war to be pretty stupid. So I have absolutely no idea who the other random IPs are. 24.152.189.91 ( talk) 06:12, 24 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks very much. I hope that this editor has an epiphany and joins in the spirit of WP, but if not, I am very glad that you are watching the page. All the best! -- Ssilvers ( talk) 18:34, 22 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi Antandrus. Per this conversation at the OP [4] we need an admin to edit Template:WikiProject Opera to remove unwanted parameters. Here's what you neeed to do...

Under the line:

|MAIN_CAT = WikiProject Opera articles

Remove the following:

|attention={{{attention|}}}

|infobox={{{needs-infobox|}}}

Best, Voceditenore ( talk) 18:46, 21 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Done -- let me know if that's ok -- WP Opera is on my watchlist, but I haven't been following every thread ... (Actually haven't had a whole lot of time for Wikipedia in 2011 yet.) Antandrus (talk) 18:54, 21 January 2011 (UTC) reply

It's great, thanks so much. And a belated Happy New Year too! Best, Voceditenore ( talk) 20:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC) reply

You might also take a look at 69.114.193.75 ( talk · contribs) — I think it's the same guy, at least judging by the images he added to Ten Mile River (California) and Mendocino County, California. — David Eppstein ( talk) 00:45, 23 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Ah, yes, thank you. I would have no problem with this if the person weren't in every picture -- someone went to a great deal of trouble to photograph every public location on the California coast -- but with the sock farm behind this, and the aggressive spamming on multiple Wikimedia projects, I think the good-faith assumptions of a lot of people have passed the breaking point. Antandrus (talk) 00:56, 23 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Is this the same person who visited El Farolito and Third Beach? Certes ( talk) 22:57, 13 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Yes -- I think so. Not certain, but I think so. I'm not an admin at Commons so I can't see the deleted images to refresh my memory. For all I know there may be hundreds of such images that we haven't found ... [5], [6]. Antandrus (talk) 23:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks, Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 23:59, 23 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Quite welcome! I always have to laugh when some anonymous person makes a throwaway account to tell one of us we "have no life". Alas they are always deaf to the irony. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 00:12, 24 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi! Since you've been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, I wanted to let you know about the Wikipedia Ambassador Program, and specifically the role of Online Ambassador. We're looking for friendly Wikipedians who are good at reviewing articles and giving feedback to serve as mentors for students who are assigned to write for Wikipedia in their classes.

If that sounds like you and you're interested, I encourage you to take a look at the Online Ambassador guidelines; the "mentorship process" describes roughly what will be expected of mentors during the current term, which started in January and goes through early May. If that's something you want to do, please apply!

You can find instructions for applying at WP:ONLINE. The main things we're looking for in Online Ambassadors are friendliness, regular activity (since mentorship is a commitment that spans several months), and the ability to give detailed, substantive feedback on articles (both short new articles, and longer, more mature ones).

I hope to hear from you soon.-- Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation ( talk) 18:46, 26 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Interesting; it's possible. I'm busy in that "real world" place and haven't had big slabs of time for Wikipedia so far in 2011, but it does seem like a worthy project. Antandrus (talk) 01:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC) reply

You know, it really is comforting to know that Antandrus is keeping an eye on articles (such as Elgar) in which one has had some input. Your eagle eye and shrewd judgment constitute a great blessing for editors like me. I get in a tangle when trying to do barnstarish things, but pray accept this message as a warm thank-you for your superb pastoral care. Best wishes. Tim riley ( talk) 17:58, 27 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Hey, thank you! Appreciate that. Likewise -- thank you for your work on Elgar, Holst, Delius ... Elgar's long been one of my favorite composers, and a lot of his music we don't get to hear all that often on my side of the pond. His Symphony No. 2 is just unbearably moving, that tender Götterdämmerung for the whole Edwardian era. And I think Delius is one of the most underrated of all the major composers, and has long deserved a better article. (Didn't care for his music much when I was young; it's coming open for me in middle age.) Keep up the good work! Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 23:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Can you please change the status of this page to Semi protected, with all due respect to Brook Taylor he never received a Sir and there is someone who consistently corrupting his page in all the languages.

thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Someone98 ( talk • contribs)

I don't see any obvious evidence that he was either knighted or was a recipient of one of the honours that confer "Sir", so I took it out. I left a note on the talk page; someone can put it back if they have a cite. (I can't really semi-protect unless there's an ongoing edit-war, and the edits are several weeks apart; see our semiprotection policy.) Let me know if the problem returns and I miss it. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 15:09, 28 January 2011 (UTC) reply

For your service in increasing the amusement value of my day by finding the long-deleted List of people who died with tortoises on their heads, I hereby award you this turtle cookie. ^[7] - 2/0 ( cont.) 17:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Made me laugh out loud; what's scary is they actually make me hungry ... time to eat something with my coffee ... but hey, thanks! Oh, and as a side to the conversation on your page, and related to an article I'm working on in my user space, I think maybe I need to start a List of composers who wrote their music in their own blood. Antandrus (talk) 17:50, 28 January 2011 (UTC) reply

That may be too specialized. I would go with List of composers who crossed the invisible but very real line between eccentricity and insanity. That list would be much easier to populate. MastCell  ^Talk 19:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Dunno about composers, but schizophrenia appears somehow conducive to highly creative pop music, like this guy and this guy and this guy and this guy and... More than a few are "out there" if not quite clinically certifiable. Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 20:09, 28 January 2011 (UTC) reply

The invisible but very real line between eccentricity and insanity looks like it belongs at List of ships (The Culture) (nobody mention the last half of Surface Detail, please, I am behind on my reading). Composers are a bit outside my forte (har), but I put out the call to my quirky music friends. - 2/0 ( cont.) 20:26, 28 January 2011 (UTC) reply

MastCell's category starts with Carlo Gesualdo, not when he murdered his wife and her lover (first making him dress in women's clothing), but when in later years he paid his servants to beat him daily as he sat on the pot. He also wrote his most splendidly weird music during that period of his life. (It was only during the neurotic 20th century that anyone began to think it had any value; before the modern age it was just perceived as crazy.) I'd also put Scriabin in the crazies list -- when he died he was working on an enormous piece, which brought together all the senses; it was contrived to bring about the end of the world, the universe, and cause the Second Coming. Antandrus (talk) 21:52, 28 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Perhaps close to crossing the line, what about Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (born Leon Dudley in Chingford), who would require suspension of disbelief if he appeared in a work of fiction. He can't have lacked self-confidence, because he wrote a huge amount of long difficult music (for example Opus Clavicambalisticum takes over 4 hours, Fredrik Ullén is recording his 100 Transcendental Studies) that out-Alkans Alkan, but he was notorious for not allowing anyone to perform it and became a recluse. I used to think Sorabji was a mere curiosity until I heard Marc-André Hamelin's recording of his first sonata. -- RobertG ♬ talk 08:51, 29 January 2011 (UTC) reply

You don’t have to be mad to be a composer. RobertG ♬ talk 14:01, 29 January 2011 (UTC) reply

I just created an article on Schulhoff's opera Flammen/Plameny. I gave it the title under which it was first performed (in Czech), Plameny, with a redirect from Flammen (Schulhoff). I now realize that it's much more widely known and written about as Flammen (its German version). Is it possible to move the article to Flammen (Schulhoff) over the redirect? Best, Voceditenore ( talk) 19:22, 29 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Certainly -- done! Antandrus (talk) 19:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Wow! You're fast! Thanks a million, Voceditenore ( talk) 19:36, 29 January 2011 (UTC) reply

No problem! I'm busy researching an article that I'm building in my user space -- saw the message bar light up.  :) Antandrus (talk) 19:52, 29 January 2011 (UTC) reply

So nice to see so many important changes to the articles on my watchlist recently. You know, changing WPBiography to WikiProject Biography using Project++, adding cleanup tags via AWB, etc.  :-) -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 01:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Ah, I hear you. Bots are starting to overwhelm humans; we may need this book in all our libraries before it is too late. Antandrus (talk) 02:30, 30 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi, mate. I said I'd get to the translation in a day or so, but I found it too interesting to put down. It's still a bit rough and ready in places, but it's an order of magnitude better than google. I found it easier to separate it into discrete sentences, since the original had virtually no punctuation. As with all Russian text, it's sometimes very difficult to know the precise meaning because they employ indirect and idiomatic expressions to a very high degree, and the dictionary translation is no help whatsoever.

Please don't stake your life on it. With those caveats, here goes:

• His father was a hereditary nobleman, Captain Boris Trofimovich Obukhov; his mother was Ekaterina Alekandrovna.

• Obukhov's family had throughout several generations exhibited a rare musicality.

• His paternal grandmother Elizaveta Obukhova (née Baratynskaya) had a beautiful voice.

• His father’s brothers - Alexander and Andrey Obukhov (the father of Nadezhda Obukhova) - possessed beautiful voices and sang; Sergei, who had studied singing in Italy and appeared there in opera, after 1906 was manager of the Imperial Theatres in Moscow.

• Nikolai spent his childhood and youth in Moscow; he received a home education from his family.

• Much attention was paid to his musical education.

• From the age of 6 he played the violin and piano, at 10 he attended the opera, and at home he often presented concerts and musical performances.

• At age 19 he graduated from High School, and from 1911 he studied at the Conservatory with A. Ilinsky then N. Strahov.

• In the autumn of 1913 he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied theory and composition with N Tcherepnin and M. Steinberg until the summer of 1916.

• The early piano pieces and songs of this period, among them - "I'll wait for you "(1913) and" Do not Wait "(1918) – were still far from his definitive style.

• Obukhov’s harmonic language later became that of Scriabin. (???)

• Around 1914 Obukhov formulated for himself the notion of" absolute harmony "- the harmony of 12 tones without doubling," which was commensurate with the discoveries of Schoenberg, Klein, Hauer and Golyshev, but which he discovered completely independently.

• "I forbid myself every doubling – Obukhov wrote - my harmony is based on 12 sounds, and none of them should be doubled. Repetition creates the impression of light without power; from this harmony dies, loses its purity "

• In 1915, Obukhov invented a new way of notation, which is a direct consequence of his 12-tone harmony: the composer felt that every sound of the 12-tone scale should have its own name and an independent position on the stave notation

• Subsequently Obukhov’s notation wasa taken up by others, such as the French composer A Honegger and various Czech composers.

• Naturally, all Obukhov’s works from the creation of this notation were written using this modernised method.

• His first works in which he consistently embodied his new system of notation were the three poems: "The Lamb and our repentance" (1918); "Shepherd and our consolation" (1919) and "Let there be one shepherd and one flock" (1921) to the words of K. Balmont.

• The third poem is remarkable in that, along with voices, it required new electro-acoustic instruments, invented in 1917 by the composer, called "Crystal" and "Ether" - which became famous predecessors for the future «Croix sonore» («-sounding cross"), an instrument of sound radioelectric waves.

• Obukhov was a deeply religious artist, and most researchers consider him a mystical musician

• In him were assimilated and adopted the fundamental ideas of the new Russian religious philosophy, his direct spiritual source being the doctrine of Vl(adimir?) Solovev.

• Hence his attitude to the idea of composing

• The composer’s legacy is one of extraordinary integrity.

• His works, not excluding those that have an independent status, are as if fixed to a single centre.

• Obukhov could be called a composer of a single work: this is the “Book of Life "- an oratorio conceived by the composer as a mystery, a huge piece for large orchestra, chorus, soloists; it remained unfinished

• The composer began preliminary work on sourcing and text in May 1917 and worked on it until his death

• In 19180 (?? 1918), along with his family (in 1913 he married Countess Xenia Komarovskaya; had two sons) he left Russia

• Their path led through Constantinople, and his journey ended in Paris

• Arriving in France, the 27-year-old composer showed his works to M Ravel and expressed a desire to learn orchestration from him.

• Ravel was struck by what he heard and in addition to lessons and advice on orchestration, often repeated his high praise, interceding for Obukhov before publishers and other interested people ready to give support to the young composer

• About Obukhov’s life in France, little is known.

• The only sources are notices about his concert performances, which are hard to come by.

• The first performance of excerpts of the "Book of Life" was held in the spring of 1925.

• A private audition, held in the salon of Rene Dubos under the auspices of the journal « La Revue Musicale », was attended by many musicians and critics, both Russian and French.

• The composer presented these excerpts arranged for voice and piano; he himself played the piano part and provided necessary comments.

• The first public performance, organized by the Theosophical Society, was held 15/6/1925

• The most important event was the performance on 3/6/1926 of "Introduction to the Book of Life", which resembled a symphonic poem, lasting about half an hour, for four voices and symphony orchestra conducted by S Koussevitzky at the "GrandOrbga" (?? Grand Opera)

• A new page in the musician’s biography was that of the 1934 concerts, remarkable for Obukhov demonstrating his instrument «Croix sonore», somewhat similar to the "Theremin", and also to the «Ondes Martenot».

• Obukhov considered that with the acquisition of the «Croix sonore>> he found his true instrument, full of mystical meaning

• Works for «Croix sonore »-« The Almighty blesses the world, "" Eternal Life "," Coronation " and others - were very successfully performed in February 1934 at the Brussels Conservatory, and on 15/5/34 at the Salle Gaveau; participating in these concerts were the singers Susan Balgere, Luis Mata and pianist Marie Antoinette Osenak de Broglie, brilliantly mastering the playing «Croix sonore» and became a convinced follower and collaborator of Obukhov’s.

• After his death in 1954 at his grave in Saint Cloud she placed a monument in the form of a «Croix sonore»l later, she was an organizer of the international composers’ competition named after the composer

• Among the most important events of Obukhov’s biography are the performance of works: "God blesses the world" at the tomb with holy relics; "Duamon" on the night of 14/7/1936; and "World Anthem" made at the international exhibition in Paris in 1937

• Then the war forced a break in his creativity.

• At the end of 1949 Obukhov suffered a blow of fate – he was deprived of his major compositions

• This happened in tragic but still not clear circumstances: a late night return, an attack, and the theft of his portfolio, which contained his manuscripts.

• The composer got to a hospital. Although he survived this severe shock, from that time onwards he composed no more, although he lived for another 5 years

• It is now hard to judge Obukhov’s true place in the music of the 20th century, and what response his ideas, which were linked in time and place to the Russia of the early 20th century, had in France.

• In October 1934 in Italy, with the assistance of the Institute of Rome, «Croix sonore» was filmed,

• In February 1935 there was a scientific conference entitled "From Beethoven to Obukhov"

• In 1947 Durand republished Obukhov’s "Treatise on the tonal, atonal and total harmony”

• In the 1970s there was an attempted reconstruction of the score of the “Book of Life ", its individual parts were recorded,

• But even though these facts tell us a lot, is Obukhov really understood?

• Much of his ideas, going back to the Russian cosmism of the beginning of the century, remained unrealised, and his religious mysticism, a misunderstood but important work, is lost

• An article by B Shletsero, written back in the mid-1920s, contains a sad prediction about the fate of Obukhov’s heritage: "It is not without a sense of fear I proceed to sketch Obukhov’s works. His thoughts, feelings and desires are far from our habits, of our aesthetic, moral and religious ideas, and they do not fit into the framework of modern psychology, they are incomprehensible to the world of art today, they are not accepted in France, England, or even in Russia; so it is difficult to find words that would convey to the reader's mind this peculiarity, such that he felt such a strange and unusual form of vivid beauty and deep meaning "

• -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 05:13, 30 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Fantastic!!! Thank you!! That's extremely helpful. That biography contains details of his early and late life that do not exist in the other sources (I've got his time in Paris pretty well fleshed out -- Slonimsky's reminiscences in Perfect Pitch are full of juicy details). I'm still trying to understand all the Orthodox religious references in some of my other sources; e.g. two resurrections? I'm a little out to sea on some of that. Maybe a question for the Reference Desk. -- It's hard to write about his 12-tone method without doing forbidden "original research" because it seems no one has really studied it in depth -- Sitsky maybe more than anyone else -- I really want to look at one of the scores. Now if only I had a public domain illustration or two ... Anyhow now I can cite that biography, thanks to you! I'm presuming that the "World Encyclopedia" in Russian is a reliable source. (Everything sounds right, and matches up with Grove and the others I've got.) Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 05:22, 30 January 2011 (UTC) reply

You're welcome. I can offer no more assistance on your other questions. I had never come across мир словарей before so I can't help there either, but what I can tell you is that it means "World of Dictionaries", not "World Encyclopedia".

This subject has prompted me to dig out my copy of Perfect Pitch and read it again. It's been too long. Cheers. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 05:35, 30 January 2011 (UTC) reply

I'm impressed! Bielle ( talk) 05:37, 30 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Me too! I have a lot to work with now ... :) Antandrus (talk) 05:43, 30 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Good stuff. BTW I now recall that I first became aware of Obukhov through a short piece on him in a book called Songs in the Key of Z. Not exactly a scholarly reference but maybe it has something you can use. Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 17:07, 30 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Excellent -- I like these books on "outsider" culture, even if they're not meant as scholarly works. Searching through the book (as much as they allow on Amazon), I see they have a chapter on the charming Harry Partch (how can anyone not like the man who made all his own instruments, using castoff brake drums, artillery shells, and Lawrence Berkeley Labs cloud-chamber bowls?) -- and I see the Afterword begins with this sentence: "If you've read this far, it's safe to assume you're a fairly unusual person..." I can't see the whole book so can't find the Obukhov reference, but oh well. I have to say thank you for the lead -- researching and writing about this guy is some of the most fun I've had on Wikipedia for a while now. Antandrus (talk) 17:16, 30 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi Antandrus,
I really like the layout of your userpage. do you mind if I copy the code and use the basic layout on my userpage?
Thanks,
Thomas888b ( talk) 11:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi Thomas -- go right ahead! It was designed by User:Phaedriel several years ago; she used to do a lot of user pages on request. Unfortunately she's left the project, but this particular design has become rather popular. She was talented at page design. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 14:24, 30 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi Antandrus. Would you mind deleting the following categories per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera#Changes to opera cats. The cats have now been empty for more than 4 days as per speedy deletion guidelines. They are:

• Category:American operatic countertenors
• Category:Australian operatic countertenors
• Category:Belgian operatic countertenors
• Category:Brazilian operatic countertenors
• Category:Canadian operatic countertenors
• Category:English operatic countertenors
• Category:French operatic countertenors
• Category:German operatic countertenors
• Category:Scottish operatic countertenors

I could not speedy nom the following cats because they had the above empty sub-cats in them. But they also should be deleted:

• Category:American countertenors
• Category:Australian countertenors
• Category:Belgian countertenors
• Category:Brazilian countertenors
• Category:British countertenors
• Category:English countertenors
• Category:French countertenors
• Category:German countertenors
• Category:Scottish countertenors

Likewise those were a sub-cat of this otherwise empty cat which should be delete:

• Category:Countertenors by nationality

Thanks for your help. It is much appriciated by the whole opera project. 4meter4 ( talk) 18:06, 30 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Done! Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 18:18, 30 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi. An anon user has been inventing recordings and "important premieres" that don't exist, see ( Special:Contributions/79.39.119.34) Opera Project members have been reverting these, but (s)he keeps coming back and re-adding them. It's all very annoying. Have a look, for example, at [ [8]]. What are the chances of an indefinite block? Best. -- Guillaume Tell 12:06, 2 February 2011 (UTC) reply

See also the section Spurious "Performance history" additions on Talk:L'Orfeo and the multiple warnings/invitations to discussion at User talk:79.39.119.34. It's a real pain. Voceditenore ( talk) 14:24, 2 February 2011 (UTC) reply

I did a few quick searches and found the same thing; these premieres / performances don't exist. I blocked the anon for a week; let me know if you see this popping up again under another IP, or if the person makes a comment somewhere. IP traces to Italy. Antandrus (talk) 14:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks! Maybe they'll get bored. -- Guillaume Tell 17:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Starting with the February 2011 issue WikiProject United States has established a newsletter to inform anyone interested in United States related topics of the latest changes. This newsletter will not only discuss issues relating to WikiProject United States but also:

1. Portal:United States
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4. and changes to Wikipolicy, events and other things that may be of interest to you.

You may read or assist in writing the newsletter, subscribe, unsubscribe or change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you by following this link. If you have an idea for improving the newsletter please leave a message on my talk page or the Newsletters talk page. -- Kumioko ( talk) 20:30, 4 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Hello. I have an idea for WikiProject Free Music but decided to propose it to you since the project seems quite inactive and you appeared to be one of the contributors still active in wiki editing.

I was thinking that an admirable (but extremely challenging) goal for WikiProject Classical Music would be to work with the Free Music project to attain basically the same goal Musopen is shooting for - free recordings of all public domain music. However, to achieve this goal, it would be helpful to have a listing of current progress toward this goal, perhaps with tables for each composer, a listing of all their compositions, and the status on recorded versions of those compositions. This would allow the teams to see what exactly has been recorded by every composer and how much they need to get that composer's complete works available. The list here seems useful for cataloging a bunch of songs, but not as a tool to tell what music is available and what isn't by each composer.

So I made a small mockup of this idea in my sandbox here. The meat of the idea is in the Layout section. Would it be a worthwhile endeavor to set up a page with this idea in place, but with a range of composers and all their compositions? I ask because doing so would be a fair amount of work that could be wasted if people don't find the idea useful. Or perhaps I should bring this up on a community discussion page? Not sure heh.

Thanks in advance,

atallcostsky talk 03:57, 5 February 2011 (UTC) reply

It seems to me you should try to get as many eyes on this as possible to recruit those interested. Some will see it here (at last count my talk page had 286 watchers); but I'd suggest posting at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Music, and maybe even Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera (which has lots of public domain recordings of famous singers, for example). You're right -- it would be a lot of work and it's smart to assess interest before getting too far in. (I don't have as much time this year as I have in some past ... so goes "RL" ... ) Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 04:05, 5 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Awesome, thanks for the advice. I'll give those projects a try and see how things go :). Thanks, atallcostsky talk 04:09, 5 February 2011 (UTC) reply

I've sent you an e-mail re info on a composer. Cheers. -- Folantin ( talk) 16:02, 6 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Greetings! Thanks. Yes, I just filled in another redlink -- Nikolai Obukhov. They're getting harder and harder to find. One maddening thing is the lack of public domain photographs. Do you have any idea if a photograph taken by an unknown photographer, in France, say in the 1930s, could be licensed in a free manner? I don't think so. The picture here shows a guy of what -- maybe 35? 40? 45? He was born in 1892. I really want to use that picture but hate to upload anything "fair use" ... Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 17:49, 6 February 2011 (UTC) reply

I'm sorry, I don't have a clue about that kind of copyright law and I've never uploaded a single image to Wikipedia (don't have the technical know-how). -- Folantin ( talk) 18:33, 6 February 2011 (UTC) reply

No problem -- in the last thirty minutes or so I've been picking around and I'm pretty sure I'd have to make a fair use claim, so I'll just let it go.

How I wish I were within day-trip range of Paris ... gotta make a trip to the Bibliothèque nationale (presuming they'd let me look at the guy's manuscripts). Antandrus (talk) 18:42, 6 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Not within day-trip range? Ah, we do miss the Concorde, don't we? Bielle ( talk) 01:04, 9 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Indeed! I never did get to ride on the thing. -- Unfortunately the research I'd try to do at the Bibliothèque nationale would be banned "original research" -- though I'm increasingly thinking that a journal article on Obukhov might actually be doable. There's not much out there in real depth. Antandrus (talk) 01:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Spouse had done the flight several times: 4(?) hours out from New York to London, a 2-hour meeting and back the same day. Finance people are crazy. Bielle ( talk) 02:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC) reply

I think that beats my best - leave Iowa on a Tuesday for Taipei, attend meeting, back in Iowa on Friday. And we don't even have the excuse of making real money like finance people do. Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 04:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Alas I never get to do this any more -- too expensive, too much cost-cutting in the corporate world at the moment. Ten years ago it was another thing entirely. Antandrus (talk) 05:14, 9 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks so much for the Obukhov article!!! It's fascinating to read about this character. A long shot, but do you know if it's possible to get a schematic of the Croix sonore? I'd like to compare it to a Theremin. According to this it seems their principles of operation are similar (heterodyning oscillator). That's to be expected since Obukhov got his inspiration for the thing from the Theremin, but I'd like to see if there's more to the croix sonore than just a repackaged theremin. Short Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 04:47, 9 February 2011 (UTC) reply

You're welcome -- that was a lot of fun to pull together. I didn't encounter a schematic of the croix sonore, but everything I read indicated it was very similar to the theremin. here are some pictures of the thing -- possibly a version by someone else -- and here is an image of the real thing (unfortunately neither is free use). As far as I know, only one was built during Obukhov's lifetime, and it was in rather poor shape when rediscovered in 2009; I don't know if they repaired it into a working version for the version in the Paris Music Museum. Unlike the theremin, you control the volume with a knob in your left hand, connected to the orb with a wire. The vertical antenna is theremin-like, and the principle of heterodyning oscillators appears to be the same. Obukhov never meet Leon Theremin, incredibly, and no relationship has ever been established; he seems to have come up with the idea independently. I had high hopes for an article in MIT's Leonardo Music Journal (Rahma Khazam, 2009) but it was short and gave few technical details. There might be more out there; a couple bibliographic references from the early 1930s I didn't track down (in French and Russian, if I remember correctly). Antandrus (talk) 05:10, 9 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks for catching that vandal on your eponymous page! Ajcee7 ( talk) 00:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC) reply

You're welcome -- and thank you for having the expertise to put a proper article there! I've always been fascinated with the ancient, ruined cities lining the coasts in that part of the world. Antandrus (talk) 01:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Has appeared as an article. See the original edit for the full fractured spelling and syntax. The image needs a fair use rationale, which I doubt will be supplied, given the condition of the original article. Acroterion _(talk) 01:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Yeah -- it's not likely to survive long -- I'm quite familiar with the thing; it may even be the most famous single piece of ridiculously-unplayable-good-for-a-laugh music of the 20th century, but as far as I know it's only circulated informally. Who know though; maybe some significant critic or author has written about it somewhere. Antandrus (talk) 01:54, 11 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Already nommed for a speedy; didn't realize there were two previous AfDs. Acroterion _(talk) 01:58, 11 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi Antandrus. As soon as your block on 79.39.119.34 expired, he started in again at Verdi Requiem discography. While he was blocked, he had turned his attentions to the hapless Italian Wikipedia with these bizarre additions to it:Messa di requiem (Verdi). Best, Voceditenore ( talk) 12:08, 12 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Interesting. Have a look at this -- one of his additions to the Italian Wikipedia comes from that page, and it's an April Fool's joke. I have reverted the anon there and blocked again, this time for two weeks. Antandrus (talk) 15:03, 12 February 2011 (UTC) reply

[Sigh] 79.39.119.34 is at it again.-- Guillaume Tell 11:08, 1 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Blocked -- see below ... Antandrus (talk) 14:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Some interesting vandalism on the Barber of Seville page, also via his IP address -- reverted now. Might a block be a good idea? -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 04:51, 16 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Yah, but he couldn't keep his theme consistent, and after a while got too excited about being able to type dirty words and press "save". Come to think of it I've seen some productions of Rossini that looked (or sounded) like vandalism. I blocked him. Antandrus (talk) 04:59, 16 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Hey Antandrus! Per User:Antandrus/observations on Wikipedia behavior#7, this troll's contribution history just deviated a wee bit, care to give him a warm welcome? -- Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 16:18, 16 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Your welcome is perfect for now ... I'll keep an eye on him. (Wish we could watchlist "contributions" rather than just pages.) Antandrus (talk) 16:36, 16 February 2011 (UTC) reply

It looks like we can RSS them, though, using the button under Toolbox at the relevant Special:Contributions/ page. - 2/0 ( cont.) 17:07, 16 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Cool! Learned something new ...:) Antandrus (talk) 18:00, 16 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Apropos of WP:CODGER -- For a proposed editor's noticeboard, which should be a pleasure to use and a source of support for editor-enthusiasts, see User:Sj/EN. – SJ + 11:04, 21 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Seems to be a good idea; if it gets some attention/use it could go in the WP space. Have watchlisted for now -- I'll post if I can think of something. Btw I think those graphs show a downward trend, in general, because the encyclopedia is mostly built, and there's less exciting work for newbies to do -- while plenty of work remains, little of it is as fun as building an article from scratch, and now you almost need to be a specialist to do that (or someone with a COI writing about a topic of marginal notability). Heck I'm having trouble finding redlinks even in my area of expertise, and for a lot of the ones I know about I only have a single source to work from. Antandrus (talk) 14:58, 21 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Your edit created a grammatical problem. Thank you for correcting the part about 'the Wikipedia adminstration'. I think this makes it pretty clear that the majority of the editors thought the images were of poor quality (not you, I am sure). On the reason for the deletion this refers. The reason isn't very clear. Was it a presumed copyright violation? Or a spamming campaign, as your own comment suggested? Or using Commons as an art gallery? If the latter, is it only permissible to use Commons for unartistic images? By the way, I have nothing to do with Horvitz, never met him nor communicated with him, but I admire his work. Can we continue discussion on the article talk page? I am turning in for tonight. PS from the photo on your user page, you live quite close to where some of this took place! Alan Baring Brown ( talk) 22:49, 26 February 2011 (UTC) reply

Greetings, and no problem -- I can discuss some of this on the article talk page, but per our WP:BLP policy the discussion there has to be focused strictly on article improvement using reliable sources, and our own deletion discussions, weirdly enough, are not considered to be reliable sources (interpreting them will be construed as "original research" by one or another Wikilawyer). However I can comment here. I took out the reason for deletion from the article as it wasn't unanimous or even particularly clear. Personally I don't find the images to be poor quality at all -- some of them, such as the Pelican Beach image, are hauntingly beautiful, and I saw the Caspar Friedrich allusion as well. I'm tempted to put that one back (a cropped version, anyway, showing just the original photo). I voted for deletion primarily because unless we could verify that owner of the photos was the uploader there was a copyright violation, and additionally the project seemed like a spam campaign or prank, made worse by the multiple identities assumed by the uploader; "performance art" never occurred to me, but it makes sense now, reading the commentary on several other websites. Yes, he passed right by where I live, and I corrected one of his locations. Some of the discussion was unnecessarily insulting and I wish people would attempt to keep their own commentary within the domain of our own civility policy, or at least the Golden Rule. All the best, Antandrus (talk) 23:12, 26 February 2011 (UTC) reply

If the mainstream media (or the arts community) picks up on this then presumably it does become notable, then. Let's wait and see. Meanwhile I will round off the article with some other detail if I can find it. I drove up the 101 (at least the LA-SF bit) many years ago. We had a drink at the Biltmore, which was about all we could afford. Best Alan Baring Brown ( talk) 07:48, 27 February 2011 (UTC) reply

79.39.119.34 Just came off his second block and off he went to L'Orfeo with a host of bogus performances. Sigh! Voceditenore ( talk) 11:36, 1 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Oy gevalt. Why is this person doing this?? Blocked him for six months this time. Sorry I've been too busy in RL to do anything on Wikipedia but check my watchlist once a day or so. Antandrus (talk) 15:01, 1 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks! You're always here when we need you. Best, Voceditenore ( talk) 16:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC) reply

I'll have you know, I am Dr. Nielson of Brigham Young University, and my research is of vital importance to my university, Brigham Young University. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thedestroyer1 ( talk • contribs)

Every time you vandalize Wikipedia, God kills a kitten, and He will be starting on puppies next. Antandrus (talk) 04:59, 28 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Free music. Thanks. -- Klein zach 23:28, 30 March 2011 (UTC) reply

Do you have the itch yet? Bielle ( talk) 14:43, 4 April 2011 (UTC) reply

• In case he really does, here's something for him to scratch them itch with. Best. -- Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 18:26, 4 April 2011 (UTC) reply

This editor is a Master Editor and is entitled to display this Platinum Editor Star.

This editor is an Illustrious Looshpah and is entitled to display this Book of All Knowledge.

Thanks guys! Appreciate the ribbons! Yeah, haven't written anything for a while -- I think Nikolai Obukhov was the last -- so I guess that counts as a bit itchy. Maybe we need a Missing Article Noticeboard (or just a "Sucky Articles without OWNers Noticeboard", i.e. ones where you are welcome to edit and no one will get bent out of shape about it). Antandrus (talk) 19:43, 4 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Congratulations (or commiserations) on seven years in this place. Cheers. -- Folantin ( talk) 14:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you. It's a strange hobby, isn't it? Antandrus (talk) 05:11, 6 April 2011 (UTC) reply

The April 2011 issue of the WikiProject United States newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

 
-- Kumioko ( talk) 17:03, 6 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi, The pages on various oilfields in California is quite helpful. I'm trying to replicate the oil field maps but can't quite figure out what information you pulled into ArcGis. ( also I'm using Google Earth which may be part of the problem). Is it possible to include the source of the map info? Hope this is the appropriate place to post this question. thanks. ˜˜˜

Greetings and thank you! I used the field boundaries from DOGGR, and also in the cases where I show individual wells I also got them from that agency (see the links on this page). For the other layers I used the standard public domain stuff -- streets from TIGER files, hillshade from USGS, boundaries from US Census. Once in a while I digitized from hard copy if I couldn't find a shape file or geodatabase. Cheers! Antandrus (talk) 20:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC) reply

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		Thank you for your work on the September 11 attacks article! MONGO 23:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you! I remember that day. We were on a conference call with Cantor Fitzgerald when the first plane hit. The least we can do to honor the memory of those who died is to keep the lunatic, hateful bullshit out of that important article. Thank you as well for your efforts there. Antandrus (talk) 01:34, 13 April 2011 (UTC) reply

CT's seem to grab ahold of what are otherwise quite sane people...that in itself is an interesting discussion...( List of conspiracy theories)-- MONGO 02:47, 13 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi Antandrus, Sorry to take you away from building infoboxes, but can I ask a quick favour. We are having a discussion over an OR, SYNTH article here which is the result of a vigorous backdoor campaign of an editor. Can you protect the redirect for a few weeks until we can sort this out? You'll see form the talk page that there is common agreement on the danger posed by the existing content. Ta! Eusebeus ( talk) 17:05, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Yes, it looks like you have consensus to keep it as a redirect. I protected it (better than blocking someone); if anyone complains that this is overkill I can unprotect (and also if Ret.Prof promises not to change it back against consensus I can unprotect). Sorry, I have been busy in that "RL" place and haven't edited much except for watchlist rollbacks for a couple months now. Antandrus (talk) 18:02, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply

A, you are getting slow in your old age ;) Can you put up the protected rd? (I assume we'll still have access to the content through the history, right? That way we can salvage what is worth salvaging.) The worry, of course, is that readers are looking up this topic and getting this load of nonsense.... Appreciate the help, aye! Eusebeus ( talk) 21:12, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks for protecting this article. Notwithstanding the discussion, there was agreement with John, myself etc that an AfD is the way to go. I am now stepping back from Wikipedia. Cheers Ret.Prof ( talk) 18:42, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply

FYI

We need a category for "Wikipedians least likely to get their own 'Awesome Wikipedian Day'". Antandrus (talk) 18:59, 19 May 2011 (UTC) reply

It's called an indef. block. Oh happy day. Eusebeus ( talk) 08:16, 23 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Good riddance. Working with such people is about as much fun as chewing broken glass, and we've managed to build a pretty good encyclopedia not because of such prickly "experts" but in spite of them. Offhand I'd suspect he will make a sockpuppet, but will be quite incapable of modifying his behavior, so detection will be simple. I find it ironic and amusing that psychiatry and psychopathology seem to be within his areas of expertise. Antandrus (talk) 13:52, 23 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Actually, there's an interesting point lurking there. I had the distinct impression that he had some form of sociopathic issue. If you are that consistently disagreeable over trivial issues, surely something is really quite wrong with you. But one really doesn't like to say anything.... Anyway, I agree that he's a potential sock. However, all we need to look for is a "Go wank yourself cocksucker" reply to the welcome template and, like my compatriot said, that'll be your man. (Btw, I am quite surprised you didn't block him yourself. ) Eusebeus ( talk) 06:43, 24 May 2011 (UTC) reply

I've just remembered this dude. He was pretty funny for all the wrong reasons. He was absolutely insistent that the only valid translation of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron was Moses and Aron, and definitely not Moses and Aaron (heaven forbid!). See the talk page discussion here [9]. When pointed out that Grove refers to the opera as Moses and Aaron, he counters "Grove is not infallible or unchallengeable" and "by all means look to Grove for style. But substance trumps style -- and on this point of substance,Grove is simply wrong." At that point I remembered I had come across the guy before at Talk:Boris Godunov (opera) where he was having a similar fight over the spelling of "Mussorgsky" where he claims "A person without a major character disorder would be happy to have a mere wiki article agree with a generally accepted academic source like the 'New Grove' -- which, sane people may wish to know, calls the composer 'Musorgsky [Mussorgsky; Moussorgsky]'." Heh. -- Folantin ( talk) 17:46, 25 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Happened to see that great quote from Pindar on your page while examining the issue of the redirect on the Canonical Gospels' page. Thank goodness he's still read. Thought you might like the original, which as usual, is far more complex than what we are given in various translations:

μή, φίλα ψυχά, βίον ἀθάνατον
σπεῦδε, τὰν δ᾽ ἔμπρακτον ἄντλει μαχανάν.
Nishidani ( talk) 07:18, 21 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you! Unfortunately I've never learned enough Ancient Greek to read these things in the original; and I'm not joking -- learning that language has been on my life to-do list since I was a teenager. Reading Sophocles and Homer and the Greek Anthology in English translation is like peering in to the Louvre through a dirty tinted glass window. Antandrus (talk) 13:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC) reply

The translation you use comes from Justin O'Brien's English translation of a French translation of Pindar in Albert Camus's Le mythe de Sisyphe: essai sur l'absurde, (1942). Camus quoted it in his epigraph as: 'Ô mon âme, n'aspire pas à la vie immortelle, mais épuise le champ du possible.' Camus probably got it from Paul Valéry who used the original Greek quotation to head his great poem 'Le Cimetière Marin' (1920). Here's a rough crib so you can at least figure it out word by word, and less through a glass darkly!

μή (negative =don't), φίλα (dear) ψυχά (soul), σπεῦδε (seek, strive eagerly for), βίον(life) ἀθάνατον(immortal)

δ᾽(but) ἄντλει (bale out (the bilge water)/drain, exhaust) τὰν (the) ἔμπρακτον (practical) μαχανάν (device, means). Regards, Nishidani ( talk) 14:12, 21 April 2011 (UTC) reply

That is quite helpful. Did you study Greek formally? Is it doable without a tutor or a rigorous program? It's just one of those things I'd love to do. -- Never enough time to pursue everything one loves, I suppose. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 00:38, 22 April 2011 (UTC) (Oh, and you're correct -- I pilfered the quote, from memory so possibly inaccurately, from my Camus' Myth of Sisyphus, which is by the way a powerful read itself.) reply

Sorry, I got mixed up. you're absolutely right. Commodus WAS his son. i knew that i just got mixed up

Caligula was still born in Germania though wasn't he? That's probably where i got mixed up. Sorry again and i'm very thankful that you corrected me

According to Suetonius, his birthplace is disputed; one source (Pliny) gives Ambitarvium, which is near the junction of the Moselle and the Rhine, which is indeed in Germania. Another source names Tibur. But he's sure of the date (31 August 12 AD). Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 03:35, 22 April 2011 (UTC) By the way, you might want to ask either on the article's talk page or on the Humanities Reference Desk; I'm no expert -- I just pulled my Suetonius off the shelf to look it up. Antandrus (talk) 03:36, 22 April 2011 (UTC) reply

I need an adminstrator's help to check this article out Grady Warren the article is currently tagged for speedy deletion as db-bio. However that edit was made by a bot. My edit before tagged the article as [db-attack as I felt the article was heavily biased toward the subject and was libel. Now I wanted to undo that edit, however I might trigger and edit war with the bot and end up get blocked. I am not sure what to do. Please give me some advice on my talk page and examine the article and decide on wheather it should be speedy deleted. Thanks. KeeperOfTheInformation ( talk) 01:41, 24 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Greetings. I agree with you, and nuked it. Someone may object and take it to WP:DRV but I think we need to be cautious with our BLP policy; a little bit of aggressive purging of crap articles isn't a bad thing. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 01:54, 24 April 2011 (UTC) reply

The final version of that article included nothing libelous. It was all factually based information supported by primary sources about a minor public figure who has announced plans to run for United States President. Why you would delete the article, rather than tag it as biased, is irresponsible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Dean of Cincinnati ( talk • contribs)

Far from it -- please read our policy on biographies of living persons, as you have been advised to on your talk page again and again, and abide by it. It would be far more irresponsible of us to post an article on a living person full of highly negative material sourced to blogs, user-created sites and YouTube. No thanks. Did I tell you to please read the BLP policy yet? Antandrus (talk) 14:19, 24 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Someone's moved " Adele" to " Adele (name)" without discussion, could you revert this poorly thought move please? I've listed it on "Requested moves‎" also. John Cengiz talk 02:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Listing it at RM is a good idea. There's a couple things I don't like -- this looks an awful lot like an admin edit-warring and using his tools to get his way in a content dispute. In fact, I can't see it as anything else. Not cool. Nor do I like the arrogant tone of his post on your talk page; this isn't exactly the "courteous and conscientious" behavior he claimed on his RFA in 2005 -- then again, lots of us get curmudgeonly after many years on this project. Do I want to unilaterally revert another admin's move over a full protection? -- Not really. Certainly not before coffee on a Monday morning. Consequences and potential drama. Wait for some other opinions on RM, and you may want to list it in the "controversial" subsection. Antandrus (talk) 13:50, 25 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Yes, I admit that I should not have protected the page. It was an abuse of power and I apologize to the user. I don't however think that my message to him was arrogant in the least. I approached him, quoted the relevant MoS/guideline (I searched for the singer and it took me a good few minutes of plodding though a near-infinite list just to come up on her page! Chances are, if I search "Adele", I'm not looking for some random french nun who lived in the 1800s), and yet he has provided no real, valid reason for reverting me other than his feeling that I am not authorized for a move like that. Orane (talk) 18:20, 25 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Sorry -- I probably misread your tone. It's easy to do in this medium, devoid of sound and visual cues. Thank you for unprotecting the redirect; that issue disappears; all of us make mistakes of that type (I've done it myself in six years of adminning). On the topic of the move itself, I'm agnostic -- I don't know anything about the singer Adele, as I don't know much about popular music, nor can I think of a more famous Adele -- honestly, if a visitor can find their way to the article they want by prominent disambiguation notices it should be all right. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 04:15, 26 April 2011 (UTC) reply

I had a response prepared, but all that flew out the window when you said you didn't know Adele. Not that I'm trying to convert you as a fan, but I'll at least try to pique your interest lol. Adele is the person saving popular music right now. The least pop of all the pop stars, a 22 year old British soul/blues singer who can wring pain and sorrow and agony out of every note she sings. A genuine mesh of style and substance. Current album is #1 for 12 weeks in UK, reached #1 in 17 countries, and is number one in the US. And she has a voice that could raise the Titanic. That's all I'll say hahah. Orane (talk) 08:21, 26 April 2011 (UTC) reply

I need help undeleting the photos discussed on my talk page.

Those photographs were valuable, historic evidence that documented an incredibly dynamic environment that is home to critically endangered species such as the Kemp's ridley Sea Turtle and the Perdido Key beach mouse whose numbers were down to 40 individuals at one recent point in history. Had they not been deleted they would have been used to compare to current photos in order to document and understand how the sand dunes on this unique barrier island form and change over time, how the dunes are used and effected by native species and humans and how we can better protect these CRITICALLY ENDANGERED SPECIES. Joey Eads ( talk) 17:09, 26 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Damage to the environment caused by the BP oil spill make these photos invaluable to cartographers and biologists especially.

Joey Eads (
talk) 17:14, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
reply

"Wikipedia does not have firm rules. Rules on Wikipedia are not carved in stone, and the spirit of the rule trumps the letter of the rule." - 5 Pillars of Wikipedia

Greetings -- do you want your uploads undeleted on Wikipedia for use on Wikipedia? I can't do that out of process -- if you think that they were licensed correctly within our image use policy, then the right way is to ask at deletion review where it sounds like you may have a strong case, especially if you are the photographer. (Any of my talk page stalkers are free to chime in if I'm missing something obvious.) Antandrus (talk) 20:50, 26 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Hello again! I noticed just now that the article title for it/them does not capitalize each word of their name (its name?), and I can't see a place to do so. Could you please look into that? I happened to notice it at all in connection with an initially odd-looking edit to the article on the 14th Shostakovitch symphony... -- Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 17:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Greetings! I fixed it (it was the article name itself). Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 19:06, 26 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi, Antandrus. I am a very new user who just signed up some days ago, which makes me a HUGE newbie. The Wikipedia tutorial on how to make new pages, updating, making a user page, etc. is all too confusing for me. Could you be so kind as to give me a dumbed-down tutorial of how to contribute to Wikipedia, please? Thanks.

Just as a note, I don't have a user page yet. -- Soccaguy90 (talk) 12:22, 01 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Greetings -- welcome. It depends on what you want to do. You can edit pretty much anything; just click on the "edit" tab like you did on my page. If you want to create new pages from scratch, that's a little more complicated; it may be best to use the Article Wizard. In general I recommend doing minor edits here and there first to get a feel for the place. Regarding a user page -- you can make one any time, and some people never do; they're not essential, though if someone's been editing for a while (thousands of edits or over a year of editing) they usually find it's a good idea to have at least a simple one that says "Hi, this is the stuff I'm interested in." Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 18:03, 1 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Dear Maestro,

I write you from Far Calabria and with the Heart from Venezuela to ask you if kindly you could improve and the Article to make best. It concerns the Symphonic orchestra of Mérida State. My State of adoption, where very dear and near people to my heart live. Known thanks also to a known, criticized and tortured socialnetwork, these people are always in my heart and in my prayers. I write to you, because I have seen that you are a pianist and that you produce excellent Article in musical field, for this I turn me to you, that have a courtly English, and if I can allow me I also suggest you the Article on Venezuela Symphony Orchestra, also it in is very bad of quality. Says this certain of one help of yours I thank in advance you for true heart and I tell you that exchange the favor with all of my wish. ask me an Article that you have in the heart and me I will translate it to you in Italian and some present dialect of his in the wiki. certainly of one answer of yours I thank you once more... to feel very soon us. Yours Luigi-- Lodewijk Vadacchino ( talk) 10:32, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply

PS I forgot to inform you that if you want, you can find other material in the website, to brief I will think about putting the photos of the official center and the whole orchestra, thanks for the understanding and sorry for mine bad English-- Lodewijk Vadacchino ( talk) 10:41, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply

• Hi Antandrus, your talk page stalker here. ;-) I've nipped over and sorted it out. See also Talk:Mérida State Symphony Orchestra. Best, Voceditenore ( talk) 16:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you! I probably won't have much time for Wikipedia until the weekend at least but will give it a read-through when I can. All the best to you both, Antandrus (talk) 22:33, 4 May 2011 (UTC) reply

The May 2011 issue of the WikiProject United States newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

 
.-- Kumioko ( talk) 01:45, 6 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi Antandrus,

I am a Landscape Architecture student at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and I am currently doing a design project in Old Town Goleta. I was wondering if I could use your photo in my project, which is being entered into a design competition and may have the possibility of being published in a magazine and online. If this is okay with you I would like to reference you as the photographer to give you credit, please get back to me as soon as possible. Thanks!

Yes of course. I took the picture from a Cessna piloted by a friend as we were coming in for a landing at the SB Airport. Since I released the photo under the WP:GFDL license, you can use it for anything you want. Please just credit it to "Antandrus" or "Wikipedia contributor Antandrus." Old Town can certainly use some good design work, so good luck with your project! All the best, Antandrus (talk) 05:28, 18 May 2011 (UTC) reply

You may be interested in commenting at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 May 23#Operatic singer cats. 4meter4 ( talk) 19:14, 23 May 2011 (UTC) reply

My favorite Wikipedia page Antandrus (talk) 03:34, 26 May 2011 (UTC) reply

• People have worked hard to maintain that page. (Admins only). -- RobertG ♬ talk 05:45, 26 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Ah, thanks ... I was wondering how to find the text of that page. Amusing. Antandrus (talk) 18:39, 26 May 2011 (UTC) reply

[10]

Thanks for 7 years of magnificent work, Antandrus. Don't ever stop. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 11:47, 26 May 2011 (UTC) reply

7 years on Wikipedia and you're still sane!!! Amazing...I went insane after 7 months (maybe even sooner than that)...thank you for all the great contributions you have done, quietly and asking for no fanfare...you're a model editor! MONGO 14:08, 26 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you (all) for the kind comments ... yes it's been a few months since I've had much time for anything Wikipedia-related besides fixing corrosion on articles on my watchlist. Hope to change that soon -- I'm not planning on leaving. Cheers! Antandrus (talk) 18:38, 26 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Indeed, happy (belated) wikibirthday. :-) Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 00:20, 29 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you Kat! Good to see you around! Antandrus (talk) 01:47, 30 May 2011 (UTC) reply

I just added a couple of photos that I took last month to the article about the KND oil field. I'm sorry that it took me almost 3 years to get around to doing it! Armona ( talk) 20:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you -- good work! I probably wasn't going to get up there any time soon, and my first attempt to photograph the place was a total failure (I couldn't get close enough to the field without trespassing). I'm glad you found the discovery well monument; perfect. Peculiarity of that place was that the oil was so light and pure that they could pour it directly in the gas tanks of cars (this being the 1930s -- don't do that with a modern car!) and they would run. Antandrus (talk) 01:49, 30 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Hello! This is a note to let the main editors of this article know that it will be appearing as the main page featured article on June 2, 2011. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 2, 2011. If you think it is necessary to change the main date, you can request it with the featured article director Raul654 ( talk · contribs) or at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions of the suggested formatting. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :D Thanks! ۞ Tbhotch ^™ & (ↄ), Problems with my English? 18:30, 30 May 2011 (UTC) reply

Edward Elgar (1857–1934) was an English composer. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works such as the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924. Although his works are regarded as quintessentially English, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. A self-taught Catholic composer from a poor background, he nevertheless married the daughter of a senior British army officer. He struggled to achieve success until his forties, when his Enigma Variations proved immediately popular. His following work, The Dream of Gerontius (1900) remains a core repertory work in Britain and elsewhere. One of the first composers to take the gramophone seriously, he conducted a series of recordings of his works between 1914 and 1925. Elgar's music came, in his later years, to be seen as appealing chiefly to British audiences. More recently, some of his works have been taken up again internationally, but the music remains more played in Britain than elsewhere. ( more...)

The 
Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Example". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. 
Mediation is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the 
request page, the 
formal mediation policy, and the 
guide to formal mediation, please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by  May 6, 2011.

I'm going to guess that this has to do with the single editor spewing bushels of invective on the Milton Babbitt talk page. The text he wants to insert into the Milton Babbitt article insinuates that Babbitt was lying, and that's a non-starter. I'd be happy to give details to a third party, but I'm quite out of patience with the bullying, personal attacks, and general nastiness from the newbie; if someone else would like to be involved that's certainly fine with me. Thanks, Antandrus (talk) 15:00, 9 June 2011 (UTC) reply

You could be right. I received a similar notification, but the case was apparently titled "Example" by the editor who filed it. As a result, Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/Example redirects to Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/Guide. This sounds like the work of someone who cannot either read or understand a Wikipedia guideline, or the instructions on a form. Sounds like our boy, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I am at the moment also (peripherally) involved in another lopsided dispute on an Afd discussion for an item that has been deleted three times previously on grounds of non-notability, and is now clearly headed for a fourth delete and probable SALTing as well. This could also be the source of the mediation request I received (and possibly from the same redlinked editor, operating under a different pseudonym). Even if it isn't, perhaps you would like to have a look and see what you think, here.— Jerome Kohl ( talk) 21:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC) reply

Oh yes, that one. I'd happily delete and salt it myself except that I 'voted' which make me an ineligible admin (guaranteeing a fourth debate, as it would then be easy to do a procedural overturn). That's quite obviously a vanity entry with the composer himself making the nasty remarks. Regarding the mediation request -- it's here, but malformed, and I have no inclination to help this abusive person waste our time. Consensus against him is unanimous, but he tried to list only two people (you and me), instead of the five who opposed him on the talk page, as disputants. Dunno ... I tried to engage him politely at first but it clearly didn't work. Some people are Always Right and just won't accept a consensus model -- they're not suited to be Wikipedia editors, but we get them whether we like it or not. Anyway, his insinuating that Babbitt is lying, the only possible reason for including the first sentence of the article with no explanation, is pretty easy to shoot down under a number of policies. (I still think it was the result of something like this: Editor: "We'll publish your article, but I'm changing the title to "Who Cares if You Listen", since my job is to sell magazines." Babbitt: "No you don't! That completely misses the point!" "If you want it published, that's what you get." "OK then, but let me write an explanatory line at the top." Or some variation -- it doesn't matter exactly -- but he clearly wanted the title to be "Composer as Specialist".) Antandrus (talk) 21:14, 9 June 2011 (UTC) reply

I'd forgotten that you had already chimed in on the AfD, sorry. Thanks for the pointer to the mediation request. As our grammarian friend has amply demonstrated, I am thick as four short planks, and so could never have found that page on my own. Nor would it suit my position to appear to have done so. As for the insinuator, yes, of course his purpose is clear—he has even gone so far as to state it plainly—even though there are a number of equally plausible alternative explanations he refuses to contemplate. However, Babbitt says that the title was changed not just without his consent or assent, but also without his prior knowledge, so it is unlikely that he was offered the opportunity to rewrite the opening sentence. The end result is still the same: Babbitt stated his case, and no one has ever had reason to doubt his word. BTW, I have found the German edition to which Babbitt refers, but I shall not give our persecutor the satisfaction of knowing how that version begins. No point in throwing gasoline onto an already blazing fire, and I would much rather waste my time doing something else.— Jerome Kohl ( talk) 22:18, 9 June 2011 (UTC) reply

It appears I've been included in this, too. I really can't see what there is to mediate. The lack of a source is a complete non-starter. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 23:56, 10 June 2011 (UTC) reply

Regarding the (now finished AfD) about Justin Taylor, looking at the Amazon listing ( [11]) with the incorrectly alphabetized list of composers names, whom do you think Taylor deleted to put his name in there instead: Haydn or Handel? Guessing also that Pärt (as his favorite composer) was also stuck on probably to someone else's already written book? -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 17:41, 12 June 2011 (UTC) reply

Good grief. That's ridiculous. Do you know how those "product descriptions" get written? Antandrus (talk) 16:32, 13 June 2011 (UTC) reply

Antandrus, this is fascinating subject matter! I was alerted to it by an edit I saw pass by on Recent changes, and it concerns something you mentioned in an edit summary: 20 or 21. Please have a look at its recent history. Thanks, Drmies ( talk) 19:37, 9 June 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you for alerting me! Yes, it's not 21 madrigals -- it's 20 madrigals and a motet for a total of 21 pieces (the new editor has 21 plus the motet for a total of 22 -- that's not right). Antandrus (talk) 20:04, 9 June 2011 (UTC) reply

The June 2011 issue of the WikiProject United States newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

 
-- Kumioko ( talk) 16:31, 12 June 2011 (UTC) reply

The 
request for formal mediation concerning Milton Babbitt, to which you were listed as a party, has been 
declined. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the 
mediation request page, which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the 
Chairman of the Committee, or to the 
mailing list. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see 
Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

United States National Archives WikiProject

Would you like to help improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to the National Archives and its incredible collection? This summer, the National Archives—which houses some of America's most important historical documents—is hosting me as its Wikipedian in Residence, and I have created WP:NARA to launch these efforts. There are all sorts of tasks available for any type of editor, whether you're a writer, organizer, gnome, coder, or image guru. The National Archives is making its resources available to Wikipedia, so help us forge this important relationship! Please sign up and introduce yourself. Dominic· t 15:22, 22 June 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi - I was wondering if you could advise me about, or point me in the direction of, finding the answer to a question I have about templates. I've seen the {{Plot}} template placed on movie plot summaries that didn't, to me, appear to be too long. I'd like to know if there is a protocol for what to do with such a template if the editor placing the template did not start a discussion in talk, and nobody has responded in talk or by editing the PS. I've checked WP:TEMP, and it says nothing about this particular issue. Is there a time limit involved, or can anyone remove it if they feel it is unwarranted? Or is the article stuck with the template indefinitely? Thanks. Shirtwaist ☎ 05:08, 1 July 2011 (UTC) reply

I just remove it. It represents someone's opinion. Once in a while the plot summary may indeed be enormous, and account for 90% of the article -- in that case it's legitimate, I think -- but a lot of editors just slap those templates on articles in a drive-by manner, and if they don't support their template at the minimum with a notice on the talk page as to why they put it there, I don't see why anyone needs to extend an equivalent courtesy when they remove it. The edit summary I usually use is "rm opinion".

Some editors treat templates as sacred things that may only be removed after ... well, wait, why not use someone else's immortal contribution?

This is an editorial template, and therefore the editor who inserted it here is God. Unlike ordinary text, that anyone can delete at will, an editorial template cannot absolutely be deleted except after an express written authorization by Jim Wales, the sacrifice of three goats and a young virgin maiden, and consensus approval by the Editorial Template Designers Syndicate. After all, editors who are unwilling to contribute to Wikipedia are entitled to have fun with it, too. (August 2009)

There's more on this absolutely brilliant page. All the best, Antandrus (talk) 13:40, 1 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks. Love the templates! Especially the "Templates are too discrete" template. I noticed there was no "My Template Can Beat Up Your Template" template though. I'll get right on that.;-} Shirtwaist ☎ 08:34, 2 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Looking forward to that one!  ;) Antandrus (talk) 13:31, 2 July 2011 (UTC) reply

	The Barnstar of Good Humor
	Amen? See the latest craze happening at the top of my talk page, its a tiny tab called "wikilove". Dave ♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫® 13:55, 1 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi there! You will be delighted to know that a revert war is going on in the Holst article. -- Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 18:38, 1 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Yeah, I know, I'm the one who "started" it. If you have an opinion, by all means weigh in on the article's talk page. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 19:00, 1 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks for reminding me of that one; I'm not at my best, having slept at the hospital last night after my wife received a new hip joint (she's doing fine, all things considered), so I'm not very alert, or very patient with anyone but her. They have excellent wi-fi, but it's not a good environment for focused thought. Acroterion (talk) 01:24, 7 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Yikes! Glad to hear she's doing OK. Fortunately medical science has gotten pretty good in that particular area. -- I do understand how useful routine Wikipedia tasks can be as a diversion in such circumstances; used it myself that way. All the best to both of you, Antandrus (talk) 01:35, 7 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks, sleeping in a recliner takes its toll, and diversions are welcome in a hospital. I've spent much grimmer times around hospitals than this one, though; this one's going according to plan so far. We'll have to do this again in a few months for the other side, so I might as well get used to it. Acroterion (talk) 01:49, 7 July 2011 (UTC) reply

The July 2011 issue of the WikiProject United States newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

 
-- Kumioko ( talk) 01:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Please take a look at this page, the FariBot is an urgent issue because welcoming new users should be personal and not done by a bot. Puffin ^{Let's talk!} 13:59, 22 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Ah, sorry I didn't get back to you. Looks like it was a good-faith mistake: the owner was from the Persian wiki where such bot behavior is welcomed (look at his talk page). Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 00:14, 26 July 2011 (UTC) reply

• NCortoos ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Registered since 2008-11-19 but only started editing today? Fishy! -- Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 10:51, 25 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Yes, that's a common pattern for someone coming from another wiki. She's ok, in my opinion -- created the account in order to make this edit on .nl. (See here). Antandrus (talk) 13:39, 25 July 2011 (UTC) reply

• Ah... I didn't know that, until now! My bad, good gravy... its a good thing I chosed to stand back and watch. Thanks again! -- Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 00:00, 26 July 2011 (UTC) reply

No problem ... I remember the first time I saw that "account created automatically" in the log, I didn't know what it meant either; I think I asked on the VP. Antandrus (talk) 00:15, 26 July 2011 (UTC) reply

• Say, do you mind mentoring me? IMO, I've got so much more to learn and I'm determined not to let those stupid oldies biter (since theres WP:BITE, something should be done for us oldies as well, eh?) to get the best of me. -- Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 00:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Hey, feel free to ask me anything anytime ...not that I'll know any answers! (General policy: do the right thing, and then find the policy to back you up afterwards; if it's not to be found, go back and make sure it really was the right thing you did.) Antandrus (talk) 01:28, 26 July 2011 (UTC) reply

• Thank you, on top of competence that is indeed some good common sense~! If there's anything, I'll make sure to drop you a note sometimes. Best and cheers~! -- Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 05:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC) reply

	The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
	Great essay! Bryce 53 | talk 13:12, 28 July 2011 (UTC) reply

• Ahhh... I see that you've found your way here from User talk:Ramajois#Observations. Cheers~! -- Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 13:31, 28 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you! Appreciate that! Antandrus (talk) 14:26, 28 July 2011 (UTC) reply

• As you can see, I've been actively promoting your obervation essay to the world, what say you pass some good tidings my way, huh? -- Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 14:31, 28 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Yes, I read this quite a while ago and found it to be one of the greatest series of analyses on Wikipedian behaviour to be found here. Had some real depth. You'd probably be an interesting person to meet. That Ole Cheesy Dude ^{( Talk to the hand!)} 16:03, 28 July 2011 (UTC) reply

As would be you and Dave. I've met a number of Wikipedians in "real life" and not been disappointed. People who collaborate to write an encyclopedia tend to have a lot going on upstairs, and that's a good thing.  :) Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 01:51, 29 July 2011 (UTC) reply

So why did we, yet again, miss meeting in June in Venice? Bielle ( talk) 01:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC) reply

I have no idea; sounds like it would have been wonderful. By chance a bunch of my family was in Italy in June, but alas I had to work. -- Which has been consuming for a while, but so it goes. ("Work, the only dirty four-letter word in the language." -- Abbie Hoffman) Antandrus (talk) 02:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Even though I loved almost every job I ever had, being retired is so much better. Keep your eye on the prize! Bielle ( talk) 02:14, 29 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Hello! I don't know how often you're writing articles these days, but I thought I might propose a slight mystery for you - at User:Makemi/Workspace I have the beginnings of a literal stub on a possibly apocryphal person, Teodora Ginés. I don't have time right now to figure out the current consensus on this 16th century Black woman composer, but I thought you might be interested in unraveling it. There are articles on her on the French and Spanish Wikipedias. I noticed it because references to her were being deleted per something like WP:LISTPEOPLE or some-such cruft I haven't kept up with. Hope you're well and having a lovely summer! Mak (talk) 15:02, 17 August 2011 (UTC) reply

Hey, greetings! It's a good start. I don't know anything about her -- I don't have JSTOR access at the moment. (If you or one of my talk pages stalkers can send me PDFs I could at least look and see if it's viable.) One of the references on both the French and Spanish pages 404'd, and another wasn't of much use. -- I'm still around but haven't been writing much; I think Nikolai Obukhov was the latest. Of course if something interesting pops up ... :) All the best! Antandrus (talk) 22:13, 17 August 2011 (UTC) reply

I emailed you what I have from JSTOR... I didn't find a ton. I sort of think that even if she is apocryphal it might be good to have an article on her character, since a lot of (non-academic) people think she wrote what is apparently an important Cuban song, "El son de la Ma Teodora". It's kind of sad to have to kill off the only black woman 16th century known composer, but if she was only a figment of a 20th century scholar's mis-interpretation of a 19th century song, I guess it has to be done. Best, Mak (talk) 02:20, 18 August 2011 (UTC) reply

That's very comforting. My only connection to Wiki is my entry -- I wrote the thing, trying to be impartial, and for the first year after the arrest, left it up, because it was current. But at some point I think the embarrassing details of your life don't have to be the kicker on your story -- as a writer, that's the second most important part, after the lede. It belongs alongside the book I wrote on the subject, and I've placed it there. Anyway, sorry for the "adult" crack -- it can be very disconcerting, this world. People aren't falling over themselves to jam nice things in, but those are also true.

Precisely. It happened, but it's not the 'kicker' -- you wrote a book about it, and I think that's sufficient mention. If you have further problems you can always contact OTRS -- they can help, and I may be able to help. I've been around a long time and have some understanding of how the place works. Our rules, policies, crannies and nooks can all seem very byzantine to the unintiated -- indeed they are byzantine even for experts. Kafka would have been amused. All the best, Antandrus (talk) 00:32, 20 August 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks for tidying that one. FYI, you can keep your damn earthquakes in California, by the way: we'll try to keep our hurricanes here, but both in one place are really unacceptable. Acroterion (talk) 03:34, 24 August 2011 (UTC) reply

No kidding. I couldn't believe that. Is that the most destructive quake since the 1880s one in Charleston SC? I've lived in a couple locations back east and I remember being horrified at the way people put large, fragile things on top of furniture, or on high shelves, and then thinking -- oh wait -- that's not an issue here. Antandrus (talk) 03:50, 24 August 2011 (UTC) reply

I have a house full of fragile objects in precarious positions, but only found one thing out of place when I got home, but there were new cracks in the plaster in a few places. I was having lunch with a civil engineering consultant in Rockville, Maryland (seriously) and it was no joke, a very convincing back-and-forth shaking, with distinct arrival of P-wave and S-wave, as I discerned once I got over my incredulity. I wouldn't call it really destructive, but as time goes on people are finding more problems, like cracks in the top of the Washington Monument. I assume the Washington Post is desperately trying to locate any tourists who were up there this afternoon. Now I have to work on my hurricane to-do list: buy water, gas for the generator, make sure windows will close properly ... Acroterion (talk) 04:06, 24 August 2011 (UTC) reply

Yes, Irene could make a mess, looking at the forecast track, and remembering Floyd, for one. Out here most things are well-constructed; the 1994 Northridge quake quite literally hurled me out of bed, but there was no structural damage. I was working in an oil refinery then, and that was a big deal -- lots of checks, lots of shutdowns -- but even there the damage was negligible. (Different closer to the epicenter, of course.) I just read about the cracks in the Washington Monument; hope that's not too serious. Here we chuckle at anything under 6.0, but a 5.8 close to the surface can actually do quite a bit of damage. Reminds me I need to restock my earthquake stash ... Antandrus (talk) 04:32, 24 August 2011 (UTC) reply

Following a discussion at Talk:Grand Opera it seems clear that Grand Opera should be moved to Grand opera - only the latter is a redirect page pointing to the former. May I call on your august powers as an administrator to effect this change, should you see fit? Best regards, --Smerus 18:21, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Done -- I just happened to be checking in when you left your message (I'm not normally watching Wikipedia every minute of the day, honest). Let me know if you need any other help. Antandrus (talk) 18:25, 30 August 2011 (UTC) reply

The September 2011 issue of the WikiProject United States newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

 
-- Kumioko ( talk) 04:17, 5 September 2011 (UTC) reply

I trust you find no lasting ill effects from these revolting events? I console myself with the thought that at least she didn't bite your ankle! Apologetically, Bishonen | talk 23:03, 9 September 2011 (UTC). reply

As requested by BusterD I am passing this along for you to read so that you know that your efforts are appreciated.-- MONGO 17:29, 10 September 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you -- as it happens I had just read it (having seen the message on your talk page which is on my watch list). Incredibly moving, as these testimonials always are. So many acts of simple heroism that day, so much self-sacrifice, and so many people who died so senselessly. I wish more people -- here, and overseas, including especially those who cheered the attackers -- would listen to this message to the future, which becomes more important with each passing generation. Antandrus (talk) 17:46, 10 September 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks, we have out-of-town visitors and I was distracted in the middle of the revert. Acroterion (talk) 03:09, 13 September 2011 (UTC) reply

No problem ... I saw that load that "Flopot" left on your page, so put 7 WTC on my watchlist (can you count the logical fallacies in his short paragraph?) I figured the "truthers" would be out in force about now ... Antandrus (talk) 03:16, 13 September 2011 (UTC) reply

I've been pleasantly surprised: I expected a dozen Flopots (or the troll Brad mentioned farther up my talkpage), but the vast majority of edits on 9/11 related topics in the past couple of days have been either constructive or well-intentioned. Acroterion (talk) 11:47, 13 September 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi,

Thanks for the help with the flood of new editors from NNU. Feel free to update/fix the list. Anna Frodesiak seems to be doing lots of welcoming, too. bobrayner ( talk) 16:32, 18 September 2011 (UTC) reply

I've seen class projects before, but never one this big. Still staring at it trying to figure out the best way. Userfy some of the sloppier, unreferenced articles, case-by-case? I'll add more names to the list if I find any. I like Anna's welcome message! Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 16:40, 18 September 2011 (UTC) reply

Sorry to bother you with kitchen stuff, but could you move Jacobin Club to Jacobin when you have a mo. I have already (badly) shifted the dab, and now al that's needed is to move the main article to the proper name and put a dab hat on it. All well? Eusebeus ( talk) 22:07, 19 September 2011 (UTC) reply

No problem -- happy to help, of course -- check to make sure that's the way you want it now. One of the talk pages got mysteriously left behind in the process so I had to fix it manually but I think it's right now. Antandrus (talk) 22:50, 19 September 2011 (UTC) reply

As always, thanks! Eusebeus ( talk) 09:08, 20 September 2011 (UTC) reply

Hello!

My name is Gabriel, and I represent a startup company called Planeto ( http://planeto.com).

We are currently developing a new type of community we call the Planeto Knowledge Network.

We all have knowledge and interests in various forms, of different topics and areas. We might even be experts at something. Our Knowledge Network is an attempt to gather and connect people who have a passion, and would love to share that passion by communicating their insights and knowledge with other people with similar interests.

After finding you here at Wikipedia, I thought you would be a nice candidate to join the invite-only beta and manage a domain of knowledge regarding Classical Music, which you seemed quite proficient of! Sounds interesting? Send me a mail to gabriel@planeto.com and I'll invite you to our closed beta!

Have a nice day :)

Zedekiel ( talk) 08:29, 22 September 2011 (UTC) reply

Greetings,

My name is John-Paul and I am a student with the University of Alberta specializing in Communications and Technology.

I would like to include your Wikipedia user page in a study I am doing about how people present themselves online. I am interested in whether people see themselves in different ways, online and offline. One of the things I am looking at is how contributors to Wikipedia present themselves to each other through their user pages. Would you consider letting me include your user page in my study?

With your consent, I will read and analyze your user page, and ask you five short questions about it that will take about ten to fifteen minutes to answer. I am looking at about twenty user pages belonging to twenty different people. I will be looking at all user pages together, looking for common threads in the way people introduce themselves to other Wikipedians.

I hope that my research will help answer questions about how people collaborate, work together, and share knowledge. If you are open to participating in this study, please reply to this message, on your User Talk page or on mine. I will provide you with a complete description of my research, which you can use to decide if you want to participate.

Thank-you,

John-Paul Mcvea
University of Alberta
jmcvea@ualberta.ca

Johnpaulmcvea ( talk) 20:54, 22 September 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank-you for agreeing to participate in my study, entitled “Online Self-presentation among Wikipedians.” I appreciate it.

As I indicated before, here are five questions that I would like you to answer. Please be as brief or as thorough as you like.

5 QUESTIONS

1. Are you a member of social networks such Facebook or MySpace?

2. In addition to maintaining a user page in Wikipedia, have you also written or edited articles? If so, about how many times?

3. What are the key messages about yourself that you hope to convey with your user page?

4. Have your Wikipedia contributions ever received feedback, such as being edited by others or commented on? Have you received a message from another Wikipedia user? If so, do you think your user page positively or negatively affected what other people said and how they said it?

5. Do you see your “online self” as being different from your “offline self?” Can you elaborate?

Please indicate your answers to these questions on your talk page, or on mine. If you like, you can email your answers to me instead (jmcvea@ualberta.ca).

Thank you again : )

Johnpaulmcvea ( talk) 21:19, 22 September 2011 (UTC) reply

INDICATING CONSENT

By answering these questions, you indicate your agreement with the following statements:

• That you understand that you have been asked to be in a research study.

• That you have read and received a copy of the Information Sheet, attached below (“Additional Information”).

• That you understand the benefits and risks involved in taking part in this research study.

• That you have had an opportunity to ask questions and discuss this study.

• That you understand that you are free to refuse to participate, or to withdraw from the study at any time, without consequence, and that your information will be withdrawn at your request.

• That the issue of confidentiality been explained to you and that you understand who will have access to your information (see “Additional Information”).

• That you agree to participate.

ADDITONAL INFORMATION

Background

• I am asking you to participate in a research project that is part of my MA degree.

• I am asking you because you have created a user page in Wikipedia that other people can use to learn about you.

Purpose

• My research is about how people present themselves online.

• I will look at how people present themselves when presenting themselves to the Wikipedia community.

Study Procedures

• With your consent, I will analyze the language of your user page and gather basic statistics such as the count of words, the frequency of words, the number of sections, and so on.

• I will also read the text of your user page, looking for elements in common with ads posted by other people. I will note whether you include a picture, or links to other content on the internet.

• I ask you to answer my five questions, above. This will take about ten to fifteen minutes to complete. I will ask you to answer the questions within a week, and send your answers to me.

• Throughout my research, I will adhere to the University of Alberta Standards for the Protection of Human Research Participants, which you can view at http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/gfcpolicymanual/policymanualsection66.cfm

Benefits

• There is no direct benefit to you for participating in this research. You may, however, find it interesting to read my perspective on how you present yourself online.

• I hope that the information I get from doing this study will help understand how technology affects the way people come together into a society.

• There is no reward or compensation for participating in this research.

Risk

• There is no direct risk for participating in this research.

Voluntary Participation

• You are under no obligation to participate in this study. Participation is completely voluntary.

• You can opt out of this study at any time before October 10, 2011, with no penalty. You can ask to have me withdraw any data that I have collected about you. Even if you agree to be in the study, you can change your mind and withdraw.

• If you decline to continue or you wish to withdraw from the study, your information will be removed from the study at your request.

Confidentiality

• This research will be used to support a project that is part of my MA degree.

• A summary of my research will be available on the University of Alberta website.

• Your personally identifiable information will be deleted and digitally shredded as soon as I have finished gathering data about you.

• Data will be kept confidential. Only I will have access to the computer file containing the data. It will be password protected. It will not be sent by email or stored online.

• I will always handle my data in compliance with University of Alberta standards.

• If you would like to receive a copy of my final report, please ask.

Further Information

• If you have any further questions regarding this study, please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Stanley Varnhagen, my research advisor for this project. If you have concerns about this study, you may contact the University of Alberta Research Ethics Committee at 780-492-2615. This office has no affiliation with the study investigators.

Thank-you again!

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.71.49.43 ( talk • contribs)

Firstly, I reinstated this tag on this article as it needs doing. Secondly - I don't really appreciate this edit summary - I spend a fair deal of my Wikipedia time moving references inline (e.g., [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22] & [23] from the last few days alone) and only didn't in this case as I do not have access to the books it mentions. You do realise it's not a badge of shame right? Merely an indiction of a task which needs to be completed. They are references, they should support statements. Nik the stoned 07:57, 30 September 2011 (UTC) reply

"Merely an indication of a task which needs to be completed" -- but by someone else, right? And it's just fine with you to stamp these hideous, top-of-article, in-everyone's face tags on articles to let everyone know that you were too god-damned lazy to help out with a problem you identified yourself, right? You see a hitchhiker waiting in the sun, and you stop, and instead of giving him a ride you hang a sign around his neck saying "HEY! IT'S HOT OUT HERE! SOMEONE GIVE THIS GUY A RIDE!" and then drive off.

No way. It's rude, disruptive, and insulting to the readers we should be serving here. How exactly does it help a READER of the article to see that thing at the top of the page? If the article needs more footnotes, why don't you leave a note on the talk page, where the article's EDITORS can see it? Antandrus (talk) 13:43, 30 September 2011 (UTC) reply

(Butting in, speaking generally rather than about this specific case) Antandrus, that's a great analogy: "You see a hitchhiker waiting in the sun, and you stop, and instead of giving him a ride you hang a sign around his neck saying 'HEY! IT'S HOT OUT HERE! SOMEONE GIVE THIS GUY A RIDE!' and then drive off." Unfortunately, this is the way Wikipedia is now headed. Pretty soon 9 out of 10 editors will be taggers and most of the content contributors will be agenda-driven POV-pushers. Wasn't there some Wikiproject (can't remember the name) whose entire purpose was to carpet bomb articles with citation tags for facts such as "the Pope is a Catholic"? There is a point to some of the tags: I tend to use "citation needed" as the equivalent of a raised eyebrow, i.e. I really don't believe this is true and you have a limited time to prove to me otherwise. Likewise, the big ugly templates are useful as a "Caveat lector" when the page is so irremediably awful it needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt from scratch. Otherwise it's a bit of a cheek to go round telling others to do jobs you could do yourself, as I acknowledged long ago when I did it myself here [24]. I think we need more use of this template. Over the past month or so, I've noticed an outbreak of this kind of thing. Yesterday I removed 1,000 articles from my watchlist. I've done my bit, it's now Someone Else's Problem.

PS: Once you get past the initial posts, this [25] is also a very relevant conversation about the current state of Wikipedia. -- Folantin ( talk) 15:33, 2 October 2011 (UTC) reply

That is absolutely spot-on. I wish I'd seen it before. It's almost heresy to say it, but -- crowd-sourced my ass. The best articles on Wikipedia have a single author, or an author and close collaborator or two. The ones genuinely written by crowds tend to be unreadable and incoherent.

Editors are leaving. Content creators are leaving. What we have is like the invasion of non-native plants in an ecosystem -- kudzu in the form of un-removeable maintenance tags is growing unchecked; most editors are -bots or semibots or humanbots, doing repetitive things to multiple articles, with content addition being a low priority. Maybe it must be that way, as all the easy stuff is written, and if we want to grow we need a huge influx of specialists. Adding cites to an article is profoundly un-fun, compared to the thrill of writing an article from scratch and seeing it drop in to that top Google spot, and since it is much easier to add than delete a maintenance tag, it is obvious that the kudzu will grow until it fills all the available space.

As an aside, I agree about single 'citation needed' tags -- those are specific and actionable. Antandrus (talk) 16:28, 2 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Yeah, Wikipedia is an experiment. The thing with experiments is that they're not supposed to be open-ended; at some point you have to take stock and look at the results. One of the results, as you say, is that we can now see that the concept of "crowdsourcing" is nonsense on the whole. Most of the heavy lifting is done by individual editors or teams of two or three. Beyond that, it usually ends up as arguments over the colour of the bikeshed. Spend a few hours looking at "Recent changes" and anyone will see this. They will also see that the bulk of the constructive edits are not made by passing IPs. That's a fantasy some of the high-ups at WMF apparently believe in, but it bears no relation to reality. The trouble is that content-writing has become way too much like an obstacle race. Add sources and you'll get tagged for not using enough sources. Even when you've used the best, up-to-date sources, it will apparently improve matters to slap in some stuff from Victorian books you've found on the Web. If you paraphrase too freely, then "that's not what the citation says"; too closely, and it's copyvio. Articles on the arts suffer from Wikipedia's prevailing positivism/Gradgrindery. Anything resembling an opinion, even if it's one shared by everybody who knows about the subject, must be backed by a dozen citations.* The window for making large-scale content additions is probably closing as the kudzu takes over (mixed metaphor of sorts).

*Some of the best literature articles on Wikipedia are (gasp) almost completely uncited (I'm not going to link to them on a public forum). -- Folantin ( talk) 18:15, 2 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Hey Antandrus, Hope you're well. I've left a comment on Talk:Morton Subotnick and I'd be interested in your thoughts, if you have any on the matter. (Also, yeah, it's frustrating when people just roll through tagging things. Gah.) Best, Mak (talk) 15:58, 2 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Greetings! Commented there. I have a lot to say about her, but cognizant of BLP probably should not. By the way she has a great book on the 16th-century Italian madrigal, which I used for some of the stuff I wrote a few years ago. Good to see you drop in once in a while! Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 16:35, 2 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks! Yeah, her 16th century stuff is pretty interesting. And her writings of the late-80s early-90s were certainly very influential. I assumed, given that she put that quote in the closing paragraph, that she would have written a more fleshed out critique of Subotnick somewhere else, but so far I haven't found it. It's probably more fair to leave it out, since she doesn't seem to have done a full critique anywhere. Mak (talk) 20:29, 3 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi Antandrus -

I wonder how familiar you might be with Beethoven's trios, and also whether you might have access to either New Grove or to Grove Online? I'm not a musician; rather, I'm simply trying to catalog a fairly large collection of CDs and LPs; and I'm finding myself pretty stuck in trying to puzzle out whether there's any "standard" listing of Beethoven's piano trios beyond the first three. Most CDs don't attempt to number them, but for instance:

• Schwann Opus Winter 1997-98 (the latest one I have) has Op. 1 Nos. 1-3 = #s 1-3; Op. 70 No. 1 = #4; Op. 70 No. 2 = #5; Op.97 = #6; Op. 11 = #7; WoO 38 = #8; Op. 121a = #9; WoO 39 = #10. They separately list Op. 44 and Hess 48 without numbering. I don't know whether a more recent Schwann would be the same. Schwann Online [26] is from Ohio University, but with restricted access.

• Beaux Arts Trio (P)1965 on Philips gives this sequence: Op. 1 Nos. 1-3 = #s 1-3; Op. 11 = #4; Op. 70 No. 1 = #5; Op. 70 No. 2 = #6; Op. 97 = #7; WoO 39 = #8; WoO 38 = #9 [in itself, this reversal seems a little strange]; Op. 44 = #10; Op. 121a = #11. The CD omits Hess 48.

• Sony, in their recordings of Casals from Perpignan and Prades, gives Op. 11 = #4; Op. 70 No. 1 = #5; Op. 70 No. 2 = #6; Op. 97 = #7. This follows Beaux Arts on Philips.

• IMSLP [27] lists Op. 1 Nos. 1-3 = #s 1-3 and gives up attempting to number them after that, until WoO 38 = #8. However, their forces listed are also all screwed up. They correctly give Op. 1 and Op. 70 as violin, cello, piano; and Op. 11 as clarinet (or violin), cello, piano. But then Op. 44, Op. 97, and Op. 121a, are shown as violin, viola, cello. WoO 39 and Hess 48 are listed, but without numbering or mention of instrumentation.

• Wikipedia, at List of compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven#List of works by genre#Piano trios, lists as follows:
  • Hess 48: Allegretto in E-flat major for Piano Trio (ca. 1790–1792)
  • WoO 38: Piano Trio in E-flat major (1791)
  • WoO 39: Allegretto in B-flat major for Piano Trio (1812)
  • Opus 1: Three Piano Trios (1795)
    • No. 1: Piano Trio No. 1 in E-flat major
    • No. 2: Piano Trio No. 2 in G major
    • No. 3: Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor
  • Opus 11: Piano Trio No. 4 in B-flat major ("Gassenhauer") (1797) (version with violin)
  • Opus 70: Two Piano Trios (1808)
    • No. 1: Piano Trio No. 5 in D major, "Ghost"
    • No. 2: Piano Trio No. 6 in E-flat major
  • Opus 97: Piano Trio No.7 in B-flat major ("Archduke") (1811)

As you see, this list omits Op. 121a, which however does appear below, only, under List of compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven#List of works by number.

I would be tempted to try to straighten out the WP List of works by genre: Piano trios and add the Kakadu Variations, but have no idea what numbering to use. Normally for my own work I would tend to follow Schwann. In any case, it seems important to add a note somewhere to the effect that the numbering is not standard from one source to another. Thanks for any help you might be able to give. Milkunderwood ( talk) 22:10, 2 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Greetings -- you ask a very good question. As far as I know, there is no standard numbering (like there is for, say, the symphonies). (Any of my talk page stalkers feel free to speak up if I am wrong!) All the professional musicians I have known call them either by their opus numbers or their names (e.g. "Archduke"). I have the 1980 New Grove in hard copy but unfortunately I've let my Grove Online subscription lapse ... just hadn't written any music articles for months. I may change that, because I keep needing it, and frankly the online version is more useful for its searchability than the set of books, even though less fun to browse. I think it's fair just to state that there is no standard numbering, and just list them in chronological (Hess/WoO) and then opus order. Antandrus (talk) 22:30, 2 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks for your very quick response. I can follow your suggestion for my own work, but I don't want to go messing with Wikipedia's listing (other than perhaps adding the Kakadu Variations under Piano trios) without a little more clarity. For one thing, all seven of the opus-numbered trios link to their own separate articles, as does the now-unlisted Kakadu Variations. Just arbitrarily going in and changing stuff there is an excellent way to incur the wrath of other editors. Somehow I think this issue may need some wider discussion. Does your Grove give any guidance at all on this question? Milkunderwood ( talk) 23:32, 2 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Their works list includes the trios under the heading "Chamber Music with Piano", and is chronological by date (with several being approximate). The ones for piano trio are ordered as follows: WoO 38 (?1791), Hess48 (c.1790-92), opus 1 (three), opus 11, opus 121a, opus 70 (two), opus 97, WoO 39 (1812!). They do not otherwise number them. (Let me know if you need the dates on the opus number designations.) Antandrus (talk) 23:44, 2 October 2011 (UTC) reply

These dates all match what's already posted - thank you for checking - so I'll assume the other dates are also probably taken from Grove or some other authoritative source. All this still leaves the question of the numbering scheme used here on Wikipedia. I suppose I ought to just leave well enough alone. (The Mozart violin sonatas are a somewhat similar situation, at least as far as what I find on various discs.) Milkunderwood ( talk) 00:07, 3 October 2011 (UTC) reply

OK, I've copied the Kakadu Variations entry up into the Piano trios, at the end; also changed from "Opus 121" to "121a", and changed from "Piano Trio No. 11" to "for Piano Trio". At the Kakadu article itself there was no mention of "No. 11", and it already had "121a". Milkunderwood ( talk) 01:01, 3 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Hi again - I hope not to make a nuisance of myself with off-the-wall questions that might be addressed in Grove. (In the meantime, I've noted the numbering problem at that list of piano trios, and moved the affected pages to identify by opus numbers rather than by trio numbering.) My question now is whether Grove might give any information about the nickname "Gassenhauer" for Op. 11. The article on that trio doesn't even mention it. Michael Bednarek was kind enough to point me to de:Klaviertrio op. 11 B-Dur (Beethoven), but, quoting here my response to him, "That de: link excels at being a non-explanatory explanation, still giving no indication at all of where the name Gassenhauer comes from. Further, Google Translate renders the German as "His nickname" - whose? Beethoven's? - which I take to actually mean Its nickname. So we're still no further ahead."
Again, thanks very much for any help you can give. Milkunderwood ( talk) 05:59, 4 October 2011 (UTC) reply

No problem at all! I think the nick ("street song") is because it includes a theme and variations on a tune often heard in the street, i.e. a popular song, in this case by Joseph Weigl. There's a little writeup here. (Grove doesn't mention it.) Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 13:38, 4 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Again, thanks very much for your help. In the meantime I see Michael Bednarek has now added some explanation, but your link is even more helpful in translating as "street song", and also saying the nickname is occasionally used. "Archduke" and "Ghost" are virtually always used on recordings, "Gassenhauer" only sometimes. Milkunderwood ( talk) 19:12, 4 October 2011 (UTC) reply

My pleasure; I'll help any time I can! Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 20:10, 4 October 2011 (UTC) reply

There was a bug in MediaWiki 1.18 that caused blocks made via the API to have talk page access disabled when it should have been enabled. This also affected scripts such as User:Animum/easyblock.js. Please review the following blocks to make sure that you really intended talk page access to be disabled, and reblock if necessary.

1. Asde234t1seerg11x ( talk · block log · block user) by Antandrus at 2011-10-09T22:25:04Z, expires infinity: troll
2. Affsdh45 ( talk · block log · block user) by Antandrus at 2011-10-09T22:25:40Z, expires infinity: troll

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to post at User talk:Anomie#Allowusertalk issue. Thanks! Anomie ⚔ 02:03, 14 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Thanks for letting me know -- as it turns out those were throwaway harassment accounts, so allowing talk page access would just have enabled them to waste more of our time. I probably disabled it manually. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 02:15, 14 October 2011 (UTC) reply

Hello Antandrus! I hope you enjoy this cookie as an amicable greeting from a fellow Wikipedian, SwisterTwister talk 03:32, 14 October 2011 (UTC) reply

It was delicious! Thank you! I'm usually too lazy to bake them myself ... :) Antandrus (talk) 03:33, 14 October 2011 (UTC) reply