This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Working with these categories, I have to say that I think the "Musicals by nationality" is pretty useless. Deciding whether some of these shows are British or American relies entirely upon a judgment call. As we already have "Musicals by year", I'm thinking this is a pretty bad way to organize things, and, ultimately, it's just organization for organization sake. Thoughts?
And, btw, I think we should probably decide what makes a musical belong to one year and not another. I think we need to say that a musical is dated from whenever it was first presented in a tangible form, whether that was a stage production or a recording of some sort. For instance, I think Tommy should be considered a 1969 musical, not a 1993 musical. If a show was presented in Wichita in 1984, then on Broadway in 1997, it's still a 1984 musical. If it fell apart during tryouts in Boston and Philly, it still dates from whatever year the production started. I was going through and finding some shows in two categories, which makes no sense at all. If a show's first run on B-way is 1974 and it gets a revival in 2005, it should be in the '74 category and not the '05 category. —
Music
Maker
5376
04:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
I have been doing further work on an article rewrite and find it necessary to propose a new Category (see User:B.C.Schmerker/Deborah Gibson (beta)#Electric Youth and Beyond, 2007—present). If you haven't been tracking News posts on Deborah-Gibson.com, Gibson has at least one musical ready to enter workshop: The Flunky, co-written with Jimmy Van Patten. Other musical theatre shows are doubtless nearing show time as well from other writers. I therefore propose creation of a new Category for Articles on shows under construction, in workshop, and otherwise approaching presentation: Category:Upcoming musicals. The above active Wikilink to the article rewrite shows an implementation of Template:Ambox that may be adapted, along with Image:Gnome globe current event.svg and Image:MTLogo1.svg, for two Templates that may be useful for ID'ing Articles in this Category: Template:Futuremusical and, if desirable, Template:Futuremusical-section. If you need further info on the Proposal, write back to User talk:B.C.Schmerker#New questions. - B.C.Schmerker 15:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
I just archived (obviously), but I left the discussion on categories, because I feel it was unresolved. With the influx of new articles being created, this is really something we should decide. There are two questions that remain unanswered:
There were several arguments given above that should be considered. New arguments can be presented below.
—
Music
Maker
5376
02:31, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I believe the nationalities are a viable and logical way of categorizing musicals. For those that appear to straddle the border, so to speak, such as Whistle Down the Wind, I think its primary lineage needs to be the deciding factor. I'm sure most people think of Whistle as an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, making it a British musical, as well. I recently created an article for Pieces of Eight, which has been produced once, in Edmonton, Canada. However, it's entire creative team was American, so I categorized it as such. Similarly, Jean Seberg was staged only in London, but since Julian Barry and Marvin Hamlisch are American, and at the time of its production there was controversy re: the RNT mounting the world premiere of what was considered an American musical, I categorized it as such. I think over all these gray areas would be few and far between. ConoscoTutto 13:23, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't remember where we were on categories. Frankly, they don't seem too broke to me, and it's not a subject that interestes me, but I'm listening. Also, I don't think we need more pages. People can't watch so many pages. I think it's better to keep discussions here, in one place. Or am I not understanding your question? -- Ssilvers 15:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, thanks for the summary. I would not eliminate these cats, but I have no major objection to changing them from nationality to language. I only have two minor concerns about it: First, I thought that WP rules said that nationality was the way to go, but if you think it's permissible, and you want to do the work, then I wouldn't object. Also, by combining the Brit and US musicals into one big fat category, you will make the vast majority of the articles fall into a huge category of English-language musicals that seems less useful to me. The current system, while creating some difficulty in a number of cases, at least let's someone search for Canadian musicals, Australian musicals and British musicals, etc. separately from the American musicals. I don't see why a straw poll is needed. Only a few editors care about this issue. I think a straw poll with just get a lot of opinions from people who don't care about the issue, haven't thought about it and haven't really worked with categorization. A better plan, if you need more input, would be to float the idea to the category hounds at other projects and see if they have considered the issue. Probably, though, if you sought an opinion from the most active editors on the project, you would have enough information to make a decision. As I said, if you decide to make the changes, I'll trust you. -- Ssilvers 16:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
We have a category tree here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Musical Theatre/Category Tree, but it's a little out of date, because we decided to remove the film categories from our category tree, since films are outside the scope of this project. -- Ssilvers 18:22, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
BTW, I also wonder why we can't list multiple categories if a musical was written by, say, Brits, but opened on B'way, or the music was composed by an American but the book is by a Canadian.... -- Ssilvers 23:01, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Would it not be easier to simply set out the various options and arguments, and leave the editors of each article to make a judgement call about each one? We're clearly having problems coming to a global agreement (there will always be exceptions, no matter what we decide) - so I'd suggest setting out a few guidelines, and deciding on a case-by-case basis. If we disagree about one, then that article can be discussed... instead of trying to shoehorn every article into the same rule. - Dafyd 08:22, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I think I may have a solution:
Why don't we categorize them by language of first production? We have
Category:Broadway musicals and
Category:London West End musicals -- why don't we restrict those cats to ONLY the shows that had their first main production in those locations? We can make
Category:Canadian musicals and
Category:Australian musicals do the same thing (perhaps renaming them if anyone has an acceptable name...), and they can all be subcats of
Category:English-language musicals.
This way, yes, one or two "American" musicals may show up as a "London West End musical", but only by nature of that's where they first opened; we're not applying a nationality.
It seems to me that, by doing it this way, we'll still have a need for
Category:American musicals and
Category:British musicals, just as catch-alls for shows that opened in, say, Chicago or York and never made it to Broadway or the West End. However, shows would not be in both categories: it's either American or Broadway, not both.
And, we keep (or create) the interesting cats of
Category:Hebrew musicals and whatnot....
I think that, this way, there's no guesswork at all. No judgment calls. Thoughts? —
Music
Maker
5376
18:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I think we should get rid of all "Musicals by Ethnicity" categories. We've been trying to figure out what to do with them for awhile, and the existance of Category:Chicago musicals is being used to justify adding Wicked (musical) to WikiProject Chicago -- during its FA review. Can we just get rid of them? — Music Maker 5376 02:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
According to Category:Chicago musicals, Chicago is not a major theatre town. It lists two musicals, neither of which originated there. According to West End theatre, "Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking world" - seems quite a straightforward definition. Mary Poppins (musical) is a West End musical (and, later, a Broadway musical), but The Dreaming isn't. If it has played on B'way or in the West End, it goes in those cats. Not complicated. We make a decision to keep only those cats because they represent "the highest level of commercial theatre". At the moment, Chicago (or elsewhere) does not.
"American Musical" may not be a valid definition for new shows, but it certainly is for earlier musicals. We can't lose it just because Wicked or Spamalot don't neatly fit into it. Plenty of historically significant musicals are easily defined as an "American Musical" (in capitals)... There was a great PBS/BBC documentary series a few years ago ("Broadway: The American Musical") that analysed exactly this conundrum - the bigger Broadway gets, the less significant the concept of the "American Musical".
Likewise, I agree that there is no easy answer, MusicMaker, but I'm not sure that getting rid of everything is the answer. - Dafyd ( talk) 17:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
:D
.
Happy‑
melon
19:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)I'll do it, but will wait for consensus and such.
-- omtay 38 20:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
:D
.
Happy‑
melon
21:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Working with these categories, I have to say that I think the "Musicals by nationality" is pretty useless. Deciding whether some of these shows are British or American relies entirely upon a judgment call. As we already have "Musicals by year", I'm thinking this is a pretty bad way to organize things, and, ultimately, it's just organization for organization sake. Thoughts?
And, btw, I think we should probably decide what makes a musical belong to one year and not another. I think we need to say that a musical is dated from whenever it was first presented in a tangible form, whether that was a stage production or a recording of some sort. For instance, I think Tommy should be considered a 1969 musical, not a 1993 musical. If a show was presented in Wichita in 1984, then on Broadway in 1997, it's still a 1984 musical. If it fell apart during tryouts in Boston and Philly, it still dates from whatever year the production started. I was going through and finding some shows in two categories, which makes no sense at all. If a show's first run on B-way is 1974 and it gets a revival in 2005, it should be in the '74 category and not the '05 category. —
Music
Maker
5376
04:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
I have been doing further work on an article rewrite and find it necessary to propose a new Category (see User:B.C.Schmerker/Deborah Gibson (beta)#Electric Youth and Beyond, 2007—present). If you haven't been tracking News posts on Deborah-Gibson.com, Gibson has at least one musical ready to enter workshop: The Flunky, co-written with Jimmy Van Patten. Other musical theatre shows are doubtless nearing show time as well from other writers. I therefore propose creation of a new Category for Articles on shows under construction, in workshop, and otherwise approaching presentation: Category:Upcoming musicals. The above active Wikilink to the article rewrite shows an implementation of Template:Ambox that may be adapted, along with Image:Gnome globe current event.svg and Image:MTLogo1.svg, for two Templates that may be useful for ID'ing Articles in this Category: Template:Futuremusical and, if desirable, Template:Futuremusical-section. If you need further info on the Proposal, write back to User talk:B.C.Schmerker#New questions. - B.C.Schmerker 15:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
I just archived (obviously), but I left the discussion on categories, because I feel it was unresolved. With the influx of new articles being created, this is really something we should decide. There are two questions that remain unanswered:
There were several arguments given above that should be considered. New arguments can be presented below.
—
Music
Maker
5376
02:31, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I believe the nationalities are a viable and logical way of categorizing musicals. For those that appear to straddle the border, so to speak, such as Whistle Down the Wind, I think its primary lineage needs to be the deciding factor. I'm sure most people think of Whistle as an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, making it a British musical, as well. I recently created an article for Pieces of Eight, which has been produced once, in Edmonton, Canada. However, it's entire creative team was American, so I categorized it as such. Similarly, Jean Seberg was staged only in London, but since Julian Barry and Marvin Hamlisch are American, and at the time of its production there was controversy re: the RNT mounting the world premiere of what was considered an American musical, I categorized it as such. I think over all these gray areas would be few and far between. ConoscoTutto 13:23, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't remember where we were on categories. Frankly, they don't seem too broke to me, and it's not a subject that interestes me, but I'm listening. Also, I don't think we need more pages. People can't watch so many pages. I think it's better to keep discussions here, in one place. Or am I not understanding your question? -- Ssilvers 15:27, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, thanks for the summary. I would not eliminate these cats, but I have no major objection to changing them from nationality to language. I only have two minor concerns about it: First, I thought that WP rules said that nationality was the way to go, but if you think it's permissible, and you want to do the work, then I wouldn't object. Also, by combining the Brit and US musicals into one big fat category, you will make the vast majority of the articles fall into a huge category of English-language musicals that seems less useful to me. The current system, while creating some difficulty in a number of cases, at least let's someone search for Canadian musicals, Australian musicals and British musicals, etc. separately from the American musicals. I don't see why a straw poll is needed. Only a few editors care about this issue. I think a straw poll with just get a lot of opinions from people who don't care about the issue, haven't thought about it and haven't really worked with categorization. A better plan, if you need more input, would be to float the idea to the category hounds at other projects and see if they have considered the issue. Probably, though, if you sought an opinion from the most active editors on the project, you would have enough information to make a decision. As I said, if you decide to make the changes, I'll trust you. -- Ssilvers 16:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
We have a category tree here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Musical Theatre/Category Tree, but it's a little out of date, because we decided to remove the film categories from our category tree, since films are outside the scope of this project. -- Ssilvers 18:22, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
BTW, I also wonder why we can't list multiple categories if a musical was written by, say, Brits, but opened on B'way, or the music was composed by an American but the book is by a Canadian.... -- Ssilvers 23:01, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Would it not be easier to simply set out the various options and arguments, and leave the editors of each article to make a judgement call about each one? We're clearly having problems coming to a global agreement (there will always be exceptions, no matter what we decide) - so I'd suggest setting out a few guidelines, and deciding on a case-by-case basis. If we disagree about one, then that article can be discussed... instead of trying to shoehorn every article into the same rule. - Dafyd 08:22, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I think I may have a solution:
Why don't we categorize them by language of first production? We have
Category:Broadway musicals and
Category:London West End musicals -- why don't we restrict those cats to ONLY the shows that had their first main production in those locations? We can make
Category:Canadian musicals and
Category:Australian musicals do the same thing (perhaps renaming them if anyone has an acceptable name...), and they can all be subcats of
Category:English-language musicals.
This way, yes, one or two "American" musicals may show up as a "London West End musical", but only by nature of that's where they first opened; we're not applying a nationality.
It seems to me that, by doing it this way, we'll still have a need for
Category:American musicals and
Category:British musicals, just as catch-alls for shows that opened in, say, Chicago or York and never made it to Broadway or the West End. However, shows would not be in both categories: it's either American or Broadway, not both.
And, we keep (or create) the interesting cats of
Category:Hebrew musicals and whatnot....
I think that, this way, there's no guesswork at all. No judgment calls. Thoughts? —
Music
Maker
5376
18:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I think we should get rid of all "Musicals by Ethnicity" categories. We've been trying to figure out what to do with them for awhile, and the existance of Category:Chicago musicals is being used to justify adding Wicked (musical) to WikiProject Chicago -- during its FA review. Can we just get rid of them? — Music Maker 5376 02:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
According to Category:Chicago musicals, Chicago is not a major theatre town. It lists two musicals, neither of which originated there. According to West End theatre, "Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking world" - seems quite a straightforward definition. Mary Poppins (musical) is a West End musical (and, later, a Broadway musical), but The Dreaming isn't. If it has played on B'way or in the West End, it goes in those cats. Not complicated. We make a decision to keep only those cats because they represent "the highest level of commercial theatre". At the moment, Chicago (or elsewhere) does not.
"American Musical" may not be a valid definition for new shows, but it certainly is for earlier musicals. We can't lose it just because Wicked or Spamalot don't neatly fit into it. Plenty of historically significant musicals are easily defined as an "American Musical" (in capitals)... There was a great PBS/BBC documentary series a few years ago ("Broadway: The American Musical") that analysed exactly this conundrum - the bigger Broadway gets, the less significant the concept of the "American Musical".
Likewise, I agree that there is no easy answer, MusicMaker, but I'm not sure that getting rid of everything is the answer. - Dafyd ( talk) 17:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
:D
.
Happy‑
melon
19:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)I'll do it, but will wait for consensus and such.
-- omtay 38 20:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
:D
.
Happy‑
melon
21:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)