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This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. It provides for suggestions by Arbitrators and other users and for comment by arbitrators, the parties and others. After the analysis of /Evidence here and development of proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies, Arbitrators will vote at /Proposed decision.. Anyone who edits should sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they have confidence in on /Proposed decision.

Contents 1 Motions and requests by the parties 1.1 Adam Cuerden talk 23:29, 1 October 2006 (UTC) 1.2 French Wikipedia 1.3 The real issue is Jean-Thierry Boisseau 1.4 Jean-Thierry Boisseau has consistently failed to assume good faith. 1.5 Jean-Thierry Boisseau and Paul Wehage have been persistently incivil. 2 Proposed temporary injunctions 2.1 Template 2.2 Template 2.3 Template 2.4 Template 3 Questions to the parties 4 Proposed final decision 4.1 Proposed principles 4.1.1 Template 4.1.2 Neutral point of view 4.1.3 "Consensus" never trumps NPOV 4.1.4 Public issues 4.1.5 Wikipedia is dynamic 4.1.6 Creative solutions and original research 4.1.7 Sober tone 4.1.8 Notability 4.1.9 Wikipedia is not an advertising venue 4.1.10 Conflict of interest 4.1.11 Wikipedia is neither a soapbox nor a battleground 4.1.12 Wikipedia is not a battleground 4.1.13 Wikipedia is not a soapbox 4.1.14 Experts with conflicts of interest 4.1.15 Courtesy 4.1.16 Template 4.1.17 Template 4.1.18 Template 4.1.19 Template 4.1.20 Template 4.2 Proposed findings of fact 4.2.1 Template 4.2.2 Musik Fabrik 4.2.3 User:Musikfabrik 4.2.4 Jean-Thierry Boisseau 4.2.5 The issue of gender bias 4.2.6 Promotion of Musik Fabrik composers 4.2.7 Discourtesy by Adam Cuerden 4.2.8 Women opera composers 4.2.9 Outside parties 4.2.10 Good faith efforts by Adam Cuerden 4.2.11 Good faith efforts by the crew from Musik Fabrik 4.2.12 Testing of limits by the crew from Musik Fabrik 4.2.13 Argument from symmetry 4.2.14 Framing 4.2.15 Failure of Jean-Thierry Boisseau to assume good faith 4.2.16 Rudeness by Jean-Thierry_Boisseau 4.2.17 Jean-Thierry Boisseau's superior tone 4.2.18 Method and result are NPOV 4.2.19 Template 4.2.20 Template 4.2.21 Template 4.2.22 Template 4.3 Proposed remedies 4.3.1 Template 4.3.2 The crew from Musik Fabrik 4.3.3 The crew from Musik Fabrik 4.3.4 Jean-Thierry Boisseau placed on probation 4.3.5 Template 4.3.6 Template 4.3.7 Template 4.3.8 Template 4.3.9 Template 4.4 Proposed enforcement 4.4.1 Template 4.4.2 Enforcement by block 4.4.3 Template 4.4.4 Template 4.4.5 Template 4.5 Analysis of evidence 4.5.1 Template 4.5.2 Template 4.5.3 Template 4.5.4 Template 4.5.5 Template 4.5.6 Template 4.5.7 Template 4.6 General discussion

[edit] Motions and requests by the parties

[edit] Adam Cuerden ^talk 23:29, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

1) I doubt this is strictly Wikipedia-related - indeed, it'd be impossible to enforce - but Jean-Thierry Boisseau says that he's been talking to a great deal of people outside of Wikipedia about this. Most worrying is his statement that a professor intended to use this as an example of what amounts to sexist behaviour in her class.[1] due to his telling her. That's... well... given we were trying to follow Wikipedia policies, I think it would go a long way to resolving this amicably if the professor was asked by Boisseau to strip all names and provide no links - I disagree with her conclusion, as I don't believe there was any attempt to weed out sources containing women, only impossible to compare sources containing only women, but am perfectly happy to have her use it - but if she uses my name, that's, well.... slanderous. It's teaching in a university course that a number of wikipedia editors her friend M. Boisseau disagrees with are all sexists working to supress women by keeping up an old boys' club.

If this and any similar incidents could be dealt with, it would go a long way to settling this case at all amicably.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Slighting of women composers is a long established phenomenon. Wikipedia articles should do what they can to minimize the problem. However my first impression is that the issue here is more one of self-promotion. So I doubt we will really grapple with the problem you point to. Any person may use Wikipedia edits or articles as source material provided the GFDL license is conformed to. Fred Bauder 16:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Having looked at this a bit more, I can see there is a gender problem, which I am treating as a NPOV problem. As to the University professor, you will just have to hope she has common sense. Everyone here seems to have been sincere and not intentionally sexist; however I believe NPOV was violated, not intentionally, but because its overarching scope was not appreciated. Fred Bauder 18:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:While I appreciate that this is a real concern for Adam Cuerden (real name), IMO Musikfabrik's/Boisseau's behaviour has gone too far a simple name-removal too end this ArbCom case. What he has done here is bad enough to justify, in my opinion, this RFAR, even without the external attacks on the Wiki and Wiki editors. Moreschi 17:06, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps, but it's the thing most likely to cause actual harm. At the least, that would contain the real-world spill-off of his behaviour, even if it didn't help the Wikipedia side. Adam Cuerden ^talk 18:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

...On the other hand, given[2], it's probably too late. Anyone know any way to reach all these people and tell them what's going on? Adam Cuerden ^talk 18:39, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties: I too appreciate Adam's concerns but I would like to see the whole Musikfabrik/Boisseau affair resolved for good by ArbCom. It's obvious Boisseau has presented a distorted version of this debate to external parties. An attempt should be made to contact those parties to provide a fuller picture. (On the other hand, I believe universities are supposed to engage in research and I would have a very low opinion of any academic who wasn't prepared - or able - to make the minimal effort to investigate this affair properly). --Folantin 19:21, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties: I have already explained that the IAWM was contacted as means of identifying sources and for exploring ways of presenting the inclusion of women in a list of important opera composers. As an organisation made up of over 800 male and female educators, performers, composers and other music professionals who work towards a greater presence of women in the study and perforamnce of all genres of music, it seemed like a logical step to take. The information presented was not biased, but simply an invitation to examine the situation and to respond. Even if it had been biased, most scholars would have been less motivated to accept this bias, but would rather have been inclined to draw their own conclusions based on their views of the evidence. How they have decided to perceive this event is their own business and I have no way of "enforcing" anything decided here on these people outside of this system.

Since all material published on this site is licensed by the GFDL license (everyone defacto agrees to this release everytime something is published here) and this license clearly states that any such material may be used for instruction purposes, I fail to see how the use of this discussion in a Women's studies class violates any sort of agreement, as long as the discussion is properly sourced. In any case, I don't see how anything can be done concerning this sort of use. If it's any consolation, my own presence could be used in a classroom setting as an example of "a man promoting a feminist agenda which is clearly against his own interests".

Since it appears that Mr. Cuerden is now a member of the IAWM discussion list, perhaps he will be able to communicate directly with these scholars and present his side of the story? Jean-Thierry Boisseau 10:05, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

If it's any consolation, my own presence could be used in a classroom setting as an example of "a man promoting a feminist agenda which is clearly against his own interests". Shouldn't that be "a man promoting a feminist agenda as an unsubtle sidetrack to divert attention away from his shameless promotion of his own interests"? You used insinuations of anti-Semitism in exactly the same way. Such altruism. --Folantin 10:24, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

...M. Boisseau, whilst I might be willing to privately contact the unnamed professor in question, had you ever mentioned his or her name, I'm hardly about to drag a large orginisation of professional, accomplished men and women) into asking a minor request of one man or woman who may not - you never said - even be on that list.

You have taken my attempts to get a woman on the list as evidence of me being a sexist. I hardly think that makes you a trustworthy source of information dissemination to this professor.

However, if she can use the situation as you told it her to teach a difficult concept, I see no problem with letting bits of it used, IF names and links are not used. I do, however, object to your belief that slander is justified by no copyright being claimed on the text it's vaguely based on.

For god's sake, I was trying to damn well get a woman on there, and my reward is to have my real, and, I believe, unique name mentioned as a sexist in a class? Adam Cuerden ^talk 18:49, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

A more cool-headed discussion has established that these contacts were, in fact, in reasonably good faith, and not likely to cause harm. At worst, a few students might check sources, and discover we all got rather upset and shouty. Adam Cuerden ^talk 20:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] French Wikipedia

2) Musikfabrik is also a major editor of the French Wikipedia (and would presumably still be a role account): Any decision made about him should likely be liaised to the French Wikipedia administrators, as there is no reason to believe that similar promotion isn't happening there.

Comment by Arbitrators:

It has been established that Musikfabrik is a role account [3]. If someone wishes to make that an issue on the French Wikipedia, that may be done without waiting for us to consider the other issues that may be involved. Fred Bauder 16:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties: Sounds like a very good idea. Moreschi 17:06, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties: Agreed. I said I would not pursue Musikfabrik/Boisseau on to French Wikipedia but suggested they might like to clean up the POV issues they have created there themselves. Very little work has been done (and that grudgingly). It seems likely the French User:Musikfabrik is being employed as a role account.--Folantin 18:36, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties: If you will look at the edit history of this account at [4], you will note that the only two edits made on this account have been to specifically remove POV issues that were brought to my attention. No other edits have been made since September 11, 2006 and we have no intention of using this account until this has been settled here. Jean-Thierry Boisseau 10:05, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Additional comment: the only information on Musikfabrik's French Wikipedia user page [5] clearly gives the impression the account has a single user (If you want to know ME, read MY contributions).--Folantin 13:38, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Mind you, if it is decided that this comes down to language problems, then much of this probably wouldn't be applicable. However, I do suggest to Boisseau - forgive me if this isn't your preferred name, but I'm not quite sure what part of "Jean-Thierry" one use in conversation - that being a bit proactive on the French Wikipedia about making sure it's not a role account and apologising if it formerly was would be wise. Adam Cuerden ^talk 20:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps this might settle this business? [6] A rough translation would be that we are announcing that this account was used a s role account and that the account will not be used again. 87.231.242.188 10:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] The real issue is Jean-Thierry Boisseau

1)

Comment by Arbitrators:

His behavior is one issue. The points he makes are another. Fred Bauder 13:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

How come Boisseau's numerous examples of outrageous behaviour, documented extensively on the evidence page by every other editor, have not been dealt with here? Bullying, harrassment, libellous accusations ("lazy, sexist, anti-Semitic"), time-wasting, goalpost-shifting and violation of WP:POINT etc. etc. He has presented his evidence in clear violation of WP policy (he has exceeded the maximum word count by six times the allowed limit and has provided no diffs.), yet this has aroused no comment from the Wikipedia authorities. I also don't see why Boisseau's friends - "William Osbourne" and the mysterious "Dr. A"- should be given more weight than verifiable sources and standard reference works. I thought WP policy was that the latter were the basis of this encyclopaedia. Moreschi and I spent a great deal of our time providing full references for the list while Boisseau and Wehage hectored us from the sidelines. (Incidentally, Boisseau himself is no great shakes in the world of music; almost all of the minimal information we were able to find about him on the Web was put there by himself or by his company). These issues must be addressed. --Folantin 08:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I hope I can adequately address them. As to evidence, his performance is typical. If he tried similar tactics in a courtroom, he would be out on his ear. I haven't found the diff for "anti-Semitic" yet. As to his friends, I welcome their input. They illustrate that there is a significant point of view which needs to be fairly represented. You are correct that Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources are also fundamental Wikipedia policies. Wikipedia reflects existing knowledge. If that knowledge is inferior, or not the truth, so be it. Fred Bauder 13:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll provide the anti-semitic diff later. It was actually part of his initial statement to ArbCom. Once he belatedly apologised, he deleted the statement. Also probably somewhere in the archives of the List's talk. Moreschi 13:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The diff. is here [7] (second paragraph) in response to this edit [8] in which I revealed Boisseau and Musikfabrik did not object to "gender bias" on notable composer lists if those lists contained precisely one woman composer: Germaine Tailleferre. Tailleferre is published by Musik Fabrik. This is why I am deeply sceptical of Boisseau's concerns about "gender bias". Boisseau reacted as usual with a poorly thought out smokescreen, saying I was suggesting Musik Fabrik had a "hidden Jewish agenda", though the context clearly shows this is nonsense. Anyone can see I was merely trying to establish some gender-ambiguous names in English were men and that Tailleferre was the only woman on the lists to which Boisseau's Wikipedia account had contributed edits. I believe his insinuation of anti-Semitism, like his accusations of sexism, are nothing more than a smokescreen. --Folantin 14:21, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, Mr. Folantin, how do you explain the fact that I was, indeed able to contact people who were working on the subject of "gender bias" instantly? If you will read my last book, you will see that I have written several chapters on this very subject. Yes, there are also two chapters about "Les Six" and "Germaine Tailleferre". It's just that we happen to spend an awful lot of time discussing them around here, since we do a lot of work on the subject.

I have apologized for misunderstanding your statement. You have not accepted my apology. I will apologize again for having misunderstood what you were trying to say. It seemed to me like a reasonable assumption to make at the time, but I was a bit upset. Will you give me the benefit of acting as a human being? IP address etc 87.231.242.188 21:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

You apologised belatedly when you realised you had made a big tactical error. I've had well over a month of dealing with you and your colleague so I've completely figured you out by now. I'm sorry, but I simply don't believe a word you say any more. You are a time-wasting troll trying to "game the system" and destroy the list because your self-promotional activities were exposed by the editors of that list. The diff. above is a classic example of your modus operandi. There was NO way that was a "reasonable assumption" to make. You've made lots of assumptions based on little hard evidence about other users, most notoriously accusing Makemi, a woman editor, of "internalised sexism". You merely use such accusations as tools in a power game, expecting people to scurry around trying desperately to prove they aren't sexist or racist at the slightest such allegation even when it's based on zero hard evidence. Weeks of your bullying, harrassment, massive violations of WP policy and arrogant condescension (all documented on the Evidence page) cannot be brushed away by a simple tactical apology. This simply has to be dealt with by ArbCom.

(As for your last - your only? - book, no I haven't read it. Has anybody? Its sales rank at Amazon France is still zero [9]. I'm quite aware of your interest in Germaine Tailleffere. You publish her music. You were quite happy to promote her and ignore other female composers on those WP lists.) --Folantin 08:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] Jean-Thierry Boisseau has consistently failed to assume good faith.

1)Per [10]. These are not the only instances by a long way, but are good samples. Moreschi 14:33, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

[edit] Jean-Thierry Boisseau and Paul Wehage have been persistently incivil.

1)Per [11]. That does not include the notorious anti-Semitic diff [12], and this insulting post on my talk page [13]. Large chunks of their behaviour have been simple trolling. Moreschi 14:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:In fact, forget that anti-semitic diff. This one is much better. It was on the original request for ArbCom until Boisseau removed it. This one is a completely unambigous allegation [14]. Third paragraph, last sentence. Moreschi 16:06, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] Proposed temporary injunctions

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[edit] Questions to the parties

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[edit] Neutral point of view

1) Wikipedia:Neutral point of view mandates that all significant points of view shall be fairly represented in articles.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:18, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

And, if you will look at Talk:List of major opera composers, you will see we are trying to do this as best we may. We are all aware of the issue. Our problem is, frankly, just being told a list should contain women is useless without an NPOV way of selecting women opera composers. Is a woman's gender in itself enough to put her on the list? No. So we need evidence as to which women are the most major, and this, I fear, is very difficult to assess.

It is distinctly POV to say that all of the 20 or so known women opera composers (Source Opera corpus, with presumption of inaccuracy are necessarily all as significant as the most significant of the more numerous men. Whilst noone doubts that some of the women - possibly Judith Weir (4 lists) or Ethel Smyth (2 lists) - are important, we hit the problem that we need to be NPOV: If they were men, we wouldn't be so willing to promote them without evidence, so, can we make an arguement that fits them in? Should we add them to their own section?

Frankly, we need guidance. Yelling at us about something we're perfectly aware of, struggling to fix, but uncertain how to proceed is distinctly unhelpful. Quoting, as M. Boisseau did, reviews of their work is also not helpful, as a little research will show that almost any composer notable enough to be on Wikipedia will have at least one glowing review. In short, this is frankly a useless thing to bring up here. What we need are good-quality suggestions on how to apply it that allows an NPOV selection of women, that accurately reflects their relative importance, and that does not result in tokenism. As it is, the best I can see is a short article on the oppression of women, followed by biographies of the two women found on the lists. I am all for doing this, but I don't even know where to begin the researcch for the explanatory note.

It's pointless to find fault if no suggestions to move forward come of it, in short. Adam Cuerden ^talk 21:13, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello Adam, I can offer to liase some contacts on the subject. However, I run into a problem: As I understand it, Wiki is not supposed to publish 'original' research. But, as observed, research on this subject is laggard. Currently, many institutes and individual researchers are advancing, many books are 'in the making'. Please advise: How long must one wait until the new, 'original' research is eligible for use on Wiki? LosAngelino 05:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

When it is published in a reputable source, read specialized scholarly or mainstream press. Fred Bauder 05:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, now let's see if I've got this right. We're talking about the kind of thing that would appear a book, not in mainstream press -- I assume you mean daily press? While I can quote any number of major mainstream press articles praising operas by women, none of those press articles prints a 'majors' list. So, in this case we are looking for large anthologies with 'lists' of major composers, have I got that right?

I'm not sure you do have it right. I was speaking of say a book published by Oxford or Cambridge, "Great Opera" (Don't look for it, I made the title up). That mythical source, published first in the fall of 2006, not only covers Mozart but also promising new works, some composed by women. Such a work, if it existed, would be a good source for articles which included new music. Fred Bauder 12:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

With popular music, there are top ten charts, and at the end of the year sales and rating information are available from trade associations. However, music copyrights have one of the longest breakeven points in commerce. A hit song may finish its life cycle in 5 months; a service like Napster may come and go within 5 years. For an opera, that cycle can easily take 100 to 500 years. This is a grave problem in the music industry today, focused as it is on quarterly returns, and it represents yet another 'filter' through which an opera must go before it becomes eligilbe for that 'major opera' list.

Wikipedia plans to be around that long. There are problems though. A composer and her work, however excellent, must find both a critical and popular audience before being considered notable, thus appropriate for Wikipedia coverage. A few good reviews might justify a stub article, but inclusion in a list of great operas requires more. Fred Bauder 12:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

In consequence, it seems that even though Wiki realizes the gravity of the problem, it must simply wait for publications to appear. And in the meantime, it reiterates the obvious bias of a system that takes decades to correct. Any professional contacts I might provide would run into the same problem. Hmm, doesn't seem like what I had hoped for. Perhaps my best bet is to stop writing Wikis and start writing that 'best of' article... unless anyone has any better ideas? LosAngelino 06:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we, in fact, merely summarize the "canon of accepted knowledge," playing only the role of a humble reporter. Creative work finds a much better outlet in other venues. There is another way of looking at it though. Look at a Wikipedia article as an art form with certain technical requirements. A skillfully written article about a promising opera composer is an art form in itself. Another possibility is a specialized wiki, perhaps at http://wikia.com/wiki/Wikia That is what the comic book fans did, after battles at Articles for Deletion. The Choral Public Domain Library, Category:Women composers. Fred Bauder 12:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Cuerden, I understand your position and I also understand that you are really trying to examine this problem and find a solution. If I may, I would like to suggest that perhaps all of this was inevitable and had to happen at one point or another. It has happened here and I personally see this as completely natural. I have accepted your apology and was entirely sincere in that, since I do understand your point of view.

The point of all of this is that (at least for me and for some others), there isn't just one way to see anything; There are multiple perspectives. And (in musicology at least), nothing is fixed. I also believe, however, that teaching someone something does not replace experience. Hearing someone say "This is gender bias" does not replace the experience of seeing that, yes, there is indeed gender bias. I believe that you have seen this problem and I also believe that you have a grasp of it's importance. Nothing that is said here by this committee or by anyone else can replace your understanding of that idea. I respect this as a significant result of this conflict. I can only see this as positive myself.

You now have sources. You also have experts in this area who are examining this article (and probably even this discussion). You have had a contact with Dr. A [[15]] who has shown a great understanding for what is happening here. You also have a contact with Losangelino, who is only waiting for a clear response from the community to provide the guidence you need.

The problem is that to receive this guidence, you will have to listen to these people. And somehow, you'll have to have deference for their ideas, which will sometimes challenge you and even make you upset. But, the benefits greatly outweigh the drawbacks. Please try to see the good that has come out of this. (again IP address for Musik Fabrik, JT Boisseau typing) 87.231.242.188 21:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. The trouble is, well, I'm not very comfortable in the subject in the first place - Most of the other articles I've worked on - mainly plays and biography - I've read the original sources, and have read around the sources, knowing many of the really rather obscure plays by the writer, and having read everything again in full before starting. And still was pretty nervous about editing even W. S. Gilbert - who I've read almost every play by, many of his short stories, and have done original research on in regards to collecting his short works from magazines. It's not lack of will with List of major opera composers, it's feeling somewhat uncomfortable with my knowledge level and hoping someone more knowledgable would step in. Well, if noone is, I've done what I could to start, but I don't think it's any good. Adam Cuerden ^talk 22:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

As per WP policy, I get guidance from respected experts who write the standard reference books on the subject and who are acknowledged leaders of their field. Jean-Thierry Boisseau is not among this number (which is, I suspect, part of the reason this whole incident arose in the first place). No matter how many lists of notable composers he and his friends have added him to, very few people seem to have heard of him. He failed the notability test on Wikipedia. His friend Paul Wehage has demonstrated a particularly weak grasp of French Baroque opera, so I think I'll turn down the offer of musicological advice from Musikfabrik and its cohorts. Nor do I wish to take part in pseudo-intellectual thought experiments contrived by Boisseau and his friends which constitute a gross waste of editors' time and a blatant violation of WP:POINT. --Folantin 10:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, Mr. Folantin, it seems that the IAWM has suggested doing an article on the subject of "women who were important composers of opera" in the next issue of their journal (Spring 2007). When the article is published, will this be an acceptable source for inclusion in this article? It seems that this is the result of a query by Mr. Cuerden, so it would appear that he is working towards the documentation of properly sourced materials which would involve the inclusion of women. Would you consider this action to another "pseudo-intellectual thought experiment" or would it be valid as a neutral, third-party source?

Paul Wehage is a specialist of French music of the 20th century and American popular music between 1910-1940. If you would like to know anything about French Baroque music, I would be more than willing to help you with any questions. (IP address etc) 87.231.242.188 21:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

...Boisseau, I'd appreciate not having my actions interpreted second hand. Wikipedia supports published research, and there's been little published research in the feminist music field that directly compares them with male composers. A large group of scholars has agreed to do an analysis of the existing research, and compile it into an explanation of the arguements for the position of the most major women composers as compared to men, and get it published it in a scholarly magazine so that it is usable for projects such as ours. This is an exceedingly kind act by them, and will be extremely helpful. However, your description of it is making it sound like it's some hack-job to overthrow wikipedia policy, instead of a scholarly report written by professors of music to help popularise the modern viewpoints.

In short, you are not helping, lad. Adam Cuerden ^talk 15:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties: I'm not understanding why you have this reaction to my last comment, Mr. Cuerden. My intent was to announce that this article was being prepared and would probably with useful in solving this problem. I didn't mean to imply that it would be a hack-job. I have the utmost respect for the people working within the IAWM. My intent was to bring this into discussion here so that this would not be sense as some sort of "trojan horse" when it finally did come out and perhaps allow people to react as to whether this would be an acceptable source, rather than letting the IAWM people write it and then have it rejected. Since they are being generous, it seems to me that it should be decided whether to accept their generousity or to tell them "no, thanks. This doesn't fit into our rules".

I am trying to be very polite and as helpful as possible. Obviously, we are not communicating well. This could be my fault. 87.231.242.188 15:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not a good idea to bring such things up as part of an arguement that has already turned nasty - the context is such that the nastiness could spill over into interpretation. Adam Cuerden ^talk 16:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The question needs to be asked, since the offer to include the article in their next issue was very generous. Can we agree to let the nastiness drop and perhaps consider the question? 87.231.242.188 00:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] "Consensus" never trumps NPOV

2) No agreement by Wikipedia editors, however rationalized, overrides Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:26, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I would like to point your attention to this statement by Jimmy Wales himself that caused us to believe this was the right way forward.[16] If it has been misinterpreted, I apologise, however, we were acting, according to our best understanding, by what wWikipedia policy was. We have to have some NPOV criteria to define major, or the list should be deleted. It is, frankly, somewhat insulting to have efforts made to try and remove the POV that was formerly rife by using only outside sources, instead of editors' judgements as somehow POV. We need NPOV criteria, and, despirte their significant problems, we have made a first step. Certainly, advise us on how to go farther, but you can't seriously tell me that you think just having everyone add their favourite opera composer is less POV than collating lists. Adam Cuerden ^talk 20:44, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The consensus in the list is that of ten verifiable sources, not Wikipedia editors. The methodology we used to create an NPOV list (rather than "our" list) is clearly set out on the page. Wikipedia policy on NPOV specifically warns against giving "undue weight".--Folantin 20:55, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

A bit of weight is not "undue weight". Fred Bauder 13:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

To be fair, it must be pointed out that the issue of alleged gender bias in this article was only visible to those people who had specialized information. In this case, extremely well-defined beliefs were difficult to release by the group of editors, since they did not have access to the knowledge which could have allowed them to have the "multiple perspectives" of "new musicology". The reactions which I perceived as violent disbelief, exclusionary selection, and organized resistence towards changing the canon already in place are the "expected" results of this type of challenge of an accepted canon containing gender bias. It is not surprising that these reactions have existed. And as William Osborne has pointed out, the reaction is multiplied when it is a man who brings up issues of gender bias to a (mainly) male audience. Although I disagree with the reactions made towards the exclusion of female composers personally, I can understand these reactions as human. And this experience has definitely proved that we are all humans with our faults, personal biases and cultural baggage. I am willing to accept this.

Speaking for myself, I would perfer that this issue becomes a learning experience for the editors concerned, instead of a sentence which must be enforced. And I express this from both sides of the equation. I am not without fault here myself, as I did not fully consider the implications of my actions as a scholar working on original research in a specialized field.

I think that the benefits of realizing what is to be gained by inclusionary practices applied to gender issues greatly outweighs any harm done. Already, I see a tendency towards a more assertive inclusion of women in the music sections of Wikipedia, largely due to the work of Makemi. I hope that Losangelino will continue her work here...and I hope that the Arbcom will consider encouraging her to do so, as she has much to add in this subject. Perhaps this will lead to greater understanding for all concerned? I can only hope that this will be so. (again, I've lots my login, so this is Jean-Thierry typing) 87.231.242.188 21:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. What we need is a major procedural change, that will allow us to correctly place women in their true importance, ignoring the problems of the past.

This is not actually easy as it's being made out. As a stopgap, what do you think of a subsection, "Major women opera composers", containing, for the moment Judith weir and Dame Ethel Smyth, the top two women on the original lists? It would move things forward in some way, even if it shouldn't be the final decision. But it strikes me that, if it is supposed to be major composers, we're not going to get very far by removing every requirement for inclusion, as, well, what's to stop me from adding Alfred Cellier, pointing out the extreme popularity and well-documented impact of Dorothy (opera), and saying he's clearly major? If the list should exist - there is no proof it should, but if - there has to be some guidelines for inclusion. Adam Cuerden ^talk 21:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I would see this step as a positive step in the right direction, but it would have to be presented to other editors. I personally have problems with segregation by gender (and I believe that this is some sort of policy against this, although I may be wrong) since a composer is a composer, but this is a "tricky" situation, as you have so aptly put it.

What seems to be more important from my perspective at this point in time is that the discussion be allowed to take place with information provided by people within this system, but also by people who are outside of the system (as well as people who would like to try to interact with this system and have not dared before. "Newbies", I believe you call them?). In other words, I see a definite need for other opinions here. 87.231.242.188 21:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

For the third time on this one page alone: the List of major opera composers was compiled using reputable external sources. The consensus is that of those sources, not those of Wikipedia editors. Moreschi 09:52, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

What Moreschi said. It would be nice if people afforded us the courtesy of actually reading the list in question along with the clear explanation of the methodology and the list of sources there (at least one of which was compiled by a woman; another of which was from a book edited by a woman).--Folantin 10:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

As far as I remember, I have never been involved with this list or any of the editors involved. I have to say that this list as it stands is probably the most NPOV list (apart from purely factual ones like list of presidents of the USA) on Wikipedia I have seen. The criteria for who is or isn't included are based on verifiable and very reputable sources, and there was a thorough discussion of what to include and where to place the cutoff. It is not the fault or the problem of Wikipedia and its editors that the canon on opera composers may be biased, one-sided, sexist, ...: we don't care about truth or political correctness, we bring a verifiable account of major secondary sources. Including people who aren't included in the NPOV list, just because we feel that we have to be politically correct, or because we think that the experts are wrong, would be introducing a serious POV, would violate Wikipedia policies, and would make this list as bad as most lists on Wikipedia. If there is no fault in the criteria used by us to compose the list, then we shouldn't complain about the result. Fram 09:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Public issues

4) As a major website it is to be expected that users who encounter problems which relate to social or political issues will reach out to organizations who are concerned with those issues. In this instance, concern regarding gender bias either by a user who reaches out to an external organization or concern by an external organization which they try to express to Wikipedia users is both expected and welcomed.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 18:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

"...is both expected and welcomed". Even when the user "reaches out" as little more than a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from his own misbehaviour? Surely that's just trolling.--Folantin 21:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I have spoken to the people in question, and found them welcoming and helpful: if Boisseau misrepresented us, it was in minor and probably accidental ways. However, Boisseau, I fear, when bringing the evidence back to the discussion, did so in a very poor way: Evidence was presented in such a way as to give the impression of "Look at all te people marshalling up to look down on and attack you" - this was almost assuredly NOT the intent, but it is the impression I got, and led to a lot of panic on my - and possibly other's? - parts that, given the way evidence was being presented, and given Boisseau's frequent misunderstandings during the worst heat of the argument, that he may have accidentally coloured his requests with some of the, frankly, horrible misunderstandings. For those of us posting under our real names, this is not something that can be overlooked easily.

Better presentation of the statements of others would have led to less panic and fear and more co-operation. I doubt this was the intent, but still, it served to increase the paranoia, particularly after DxG's statement regarding the woman who had contacted him.

Boisseau did act badly at times: certainly, he was too quick to accuse, and perhaps a little too slow to apologise. He didn't quite realise that some of us are not so comfortable with musicology a s him, and so some of his speeds for things to happen were impractical, and this pushing for ever-more-rapid speed, perfection on the first pass, and an unwillingness to accept good faith at times could amount to bullying (I do not think this was intentional: Boisseau is, after all, an expert, and didn't seem to realise he was dealing with amateurs. Certainly, a lot more assumption of good faith was needed by him, but, again, I don't think this was malicious.

However, his production of evidence was extremely confrontational, and did serve to alienate others, and, even, as is likely, this was a cultural difference in debate styles causing difficulties, saying that it's "welcome and expected" ignores the problems with presentation that made the help from others seem more like attacks from others.

There were a lot of misunderstandings and poor communications back at that time, and they were on both sides. A few more friendly overtures from the start on Boisseau's part would have been useful, though, admittedly, I didn't pay much attention to the Peacock terms debate, so I may have missed the founding of the problems. Still, ignoring the presentation of the evidence, and the somewhat sledgehammerish use of it to battle his opponents in favour of an ideal is not useful, even if I later learned the ominous quotes he was throwing around were, in fact, harmless.

We can't ignore the unfortunate presentation, because it was a major factor in why everyone was so slow to listen to Boisseau. There were, indeed, good advice in the quotes, but they were presented in such a way, during a period where several mistaken accusations from Boisseau had limited how much it seemed Boisseau could be trusted, that made it very hard to pay attention to the message in them.

To give an example of a misunderstanding, take Professor A. The way things were phrased, I was of the impression that it was being read as if the "canon formation" in question was, in fact, equivilent to the Old Boys' Club that seek to maintain the status quo, and an equally sexist act. Hence, being told a sentence later that it was being planned for teaching in University, and, given Bosseau had just jumped to an assumption about me being in a conspiracy to oppress women by withholding information - well, all that combined led me to believe I was about to be taught as a sexist under my own name in schools, possibly only referencing the passage on my talk-page that Boisseau had misinterpreted, and a few other sections - as it was a VERY long discussion, after all. This was wrong and unfair to Professor A, but not a ridiculous presumption at the time, given all the accusations by Boisseau flying around.

I'm glad that Boisseau, Wehage, Professor A, and I have had a chance to talk. Once things did get calmer, all these misunderstandings flew away. But the presumption of good faith had been severely tested at that time, and, well...

Eh, this gets too long. But my point is that ithe proposed guideline ignores what was actually happening, in favour of an ideal. The most relevant guideline to this whole mess, IMO, is "Assume Good Faith", which broke down in stages for everybody concerned. I hope I was one of the last, and am still sorry I did break down my assumption in the end, but... Adam Cuerden ^talk23:44, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Surely the point is that we did "reach out" - to published works, often used as reference, of reputable musicology. I fail to see that we must involve organisations with an obvious POV to push, particularly when the organisations in question seem on excellent terms with someone so obscure as a composer and musciologist his wikibio gets deleted and who has persistently bullied and shoved us around. Moreschi 20:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] Wikipedia is dynamic

3) Wikipedia is a wiki, subject to continual editing and correction as events unfold. As applied to the instant case, Wikipedia is able to adequately accommodate listing, in an appropriate article, of promising women opera composers. As public and critical reaction accumulates appropriate revisions can be made using the wiki process.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:39, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Again, Jimmy Wales said that lists should be made of other lists[17]. Due to the traditional oppression of women, it is difficult to find many lists with women oepera composers, and it's difficult to judge which women opera composers are notable, as there are extremely few, without help. We so far have not been presented with help directlyu applicable to the list (suggestions for a secondary article on the oppression of women have been made, and it is desirable to act on it, and link, but that doesn't easily solve the problem of avoiding POV in selection of women composers. We want to move forward, but it is difficult to see how. The list, as it stands, is weird, however, there has to be some sort of NPOV criteria as to what goes on the list, and just talking about dynamism without explaining how to combine that with the tricky NPOV issue is... difficult. Adam Cuerden ^talk 20:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I labor under a double disability here. I know nothing of opera and am expected to not consider content. I am from Denver though and know of the case of Antonia Brico. One thing I noticed is that women did show up on some lists. That I consider a point of view. Fred Bauder 00:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Cuerden, I agree with you this issue is "tricky". This is why I contacted outside sources with significant study in this area. These sources have been most generous with good ideas and more will be forthcoming. I think that the process, if it is allowed to happen, will take place over time. I would hope that the outcome of this business would be that the question should remain open and the discussion should be allowed to take place.

However, when you have a "tricky" problem, sometimes you need to have an "expert opinion". I'm concerned about gender bias, but I'm not as much of an expert as Dr. A., Losangelino and William Osborne. Maybe what they've said will lead to some new ways of seeing things? And you could always contact them, since you've got connections to them now both on the IAWM list and here. again (IP address, JT typing) 87.231.242.188 21:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Done and done, old chap. Not so foolish as to leave this one on my say so. Particularly as I'm almost sure I'm understating Weir's importance. Adam Cuerden ^talk 22:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me, but who are these "experts" and why should I defer to them? I've never heard of any of them. I use reference books as per WP policy which come from renowned publishers such as the Oxford University Press and containing contributions by some of the most famous musicologists in the English-speaking world. Should these be pushed aside in favour of what for all I know might be no more than a fringe group engaged in blatant POV-pushing?

Of course, Monsieur Boisseau seems to have major "issues" with mainstream publishing houses (who are, after all, more successful rivals of his own business) as this bizarre rant he left on my talk page demonstrates [18] --Folantin 09:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. But how do we define "promising" without POV problems??? As I've said a thousand times over, in 20 years that list will probably have 5,10, or 15 women on it, as the operas of contemporary female composers become recognised as "major" BY THE REPUTABLE SOURCES WE COMPLILED THE LIST FROM. Moreschi 09:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Promising composers have a few good reviews which more or less say that they are promising. They may turn out to be duds, or excellent in theory, but never performed. How could Wikipedia appropriately handle such composers? One solution might be to create a subsection of the list which includes a dozen or so of the most prominent women composers. That could be the title of the section ===Prominent women composers===. It could contain a note to the effect that no woman appears on the majority of published lists, but include all women who appear on any list. I put that forth just to illustrate that there might be a way to conform to NPOV without violating verifiability requirements. I agree it is wrong to equate Mozart with a promising, but unrecognized contemporary composer. Fred Bauder 13:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Point of fact: Only two women, as far as I'm aware (it's possible that I didn't realise an obscure name was female) appear on any of the ten lists consulted: Judith Weir and Ethel Smyth. Ethel Smyth is a reasonably established composer (died about 60 years ago, still occassionally performed), and Judith Weir new. Any list of promising women composers would have to be compiled from other lists.

Personally, I think Ethel Smyth and Judith Weir probably are more notable than most other women opera composers, though exception, pehaps, for the addition of those who arose in the last decade. Francesca Caccini might also qualify, though it's very hard to research her. She is, however, the first. I'm not sure whether there would be a sharp decline in quality after them, but neither Smyth or Caccini deserve to be called promising - they are established!Adam Cuerden ^talk 20:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Agreed, but being self-critical of the list is not, in itself, a bad thing, and so I'm asking the IAWM (as you know, I joined a while ago) for help in writing a disclaimer explaining the limitations of the list. I've made a first attempt, then decided that I didn't know anything, it was probably awful, and that I was probably making all sides unhappy, and went to them. Adam Cuerden ^talk 12:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Why exactly do we have to keep being critical of the list? Do we have to bring reputable scholarship into question at the whim of Jean-Thierry Boisseau? Every time we've come up with something, Boisseau has changed the goalposts. This is trolling and WP:POINT. There is also the question whether "rigging" the list to include female composers wouldn't itself be deeply sexist and an example of "patronising tokenism". This is a point of view other users have expressed on the talk page and one which I think must be represented should any "disclaimer" be written. --Folantin 12:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm honestly not sure what to think any more. I think that a secondary section may be appropriate, but it would be tokenism to put them into the main list without good reason. If it could be demonstrated their operas are performed more often than, say, most of the rank 6 composers, that would be compelling evidence, however. Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:38, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

You know, I'm really concerned that we seem to be expected to rig the results here. Apparently we should choose our methodology and sources specifically in order to come up with the "desired" outcome. Think what kind of countries have used this kind of "voting system" in the real world. Are they really desirable "role models"? I suppose it's quite amusing if you look at it one way. Nevertheless... --Folantin 20:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

So, therefore supporting a feminist agenda is therefore supporting the idea of a "banana republic"? This edit summary would tend to suggest that - [[19]]

The problem with this idea, Mr. Folantin, is that women represent more than 50% of the World's population, so this isn't about a "minority" being supressed. This is about the majority being suppressed.

I have tried valiently to refrain from adding oil to the fire here, but this edit summary is simply much too much not to comment on. I would like to ask you to reconsider this statement. (IP address again JTB typing ) 87.231.242.188 20:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was aware women constitute 50% of the the world population. They don't constitute 50% of the world's opera composers. Likewise, Asians constitute 60% of the world's population. They don't constitute 60% of the world's opera composers. Should we fix things so that over 30% of the opera composers on the list are Asian women, thus reflecting the make-up of the world population accurately? Does supporting a "feminist agenda" necessarily entail support for "patronising tokenism" and ballot-rigging? But we already know gender bias on any list can be instantly remedied by adding the magic words "Germaine Tailleferre". --Folantin 20:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

How many times do I need to say this - Germaine Tailleferre does not qualify for this category. It's as simple as that. Germaine was a great composer- probably the most important woman composer after Hildegard von Bingen (and yes, I am biased, but I do believe this), but her operas were not sucessful. It's as simple as that.

However, why should an Asian woman not be included in this category? Do you know every operatic work written by Asian women? At some point, there will be an important opera composer who is an Asian woman. I must say that I don't know the name of this person, but perhaps she has existed or exists. Why not look at the sources which might show who this person is, rather than simply hiding behind "Germaine Tailleferre"? And certainly, it's not Germaine's fault. Why do you keep bringing her up? 87.231.242.188 21:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This just demonstrates the absurdity of the demands being made on us. Boisseau admits there are no major Asian women opera composers in 2006, but complains there are none on the list and insists we go and find them even if they only exist in the future. So mastery of time travel has now apparently been added to the list of demands.

Please keep in mind the principle under discussion. Because Wikipedia is dynamic when and if notable Asian women opera composers make a name for themselves, then they can be included. Should a trend develop in Asia, for example, I can imagine India getting into Opera in a big way, we can report it, the divas, the new composers and all that. When and if it happens. If India had been an Italian dominion... Fred Bauder 12:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

(I keep bringing up Tailleferre because you kept bringing up Tailleferre - a Musik Fabrik composer- on all those unreferenced, unsourced, unmethodical "notable composer" lists you contributed to. You know, the ones you got your mate to add the name "Jean-Thierry Boisseau" to? And she does qualify as an opera composer since your friend at Musik Fabrik Paul Wehage has been at work on one of her operas.)--Folantin 08:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Good point, the issue of publicizing artists needs to be addressed. We routinely delete numerous articles on garage bands. Perhaps we should just note that artists who are not notable may be subject to deletion. Fred Bauder 12:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Fred Bauder has grasped the essential point I was trying to make here. You have to achieve notability out there in the real world first before you get it on WP. This encyclopaedia simply reflects the outside world; it isn't a short-cut to notability via self-promotion. Jean-Thierry Boisseau and his company Musik Fabrik have really failed to grasp this big time.

Fred is right that they're may well be some major Asian women opera composers in the future. But none of us can tell what will happen and we can only reflect the present situation. If the world changes, Wikipedia will change. Before the 1830s, there were no real major Russian opera composers. Mikhail Glinka set about changing that in the only way possible: by composing great operas. As far as I know he didn't go about it by badgering contemporary encyclopaedists to include his name in their works and accusing them of bias if they didn't include any Russians.--Folantin 13:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed: We should certainly include any great composers that appear on the scene - This list is not "done" - but we can't easily do anything without the great composers of our preferred division. Certainly, if it's pointed out and demonstrated in a way all can agree is NPOV that we missed one, by all means let us add them Adam Cuerden ^talk 15:12, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments by parties: We are not taking about promotion of our artists here. That is a given which I have already admitted. Would it be possible for me to suggest an idea here considering the "dynamic nature" of Wikipedia. I'm here in France and am surrounded by French Media. The people who are notable here are very diffent that those who are notable in the English press. When I read English language newspapers, half of the time I don't recognize any of the names mentioned. We work a lot in Japan and when I go there, I don't recognize the faces or the people that I see on television (I can't read Japanese, so I can't speak for the press). What I don't quite understand here is this - Is "notability" in English language wiki based only on English language sources, or are sources in other languages meant to be taken into account? This is an important point for me to understand here, as if it's only "English language" notability that is important here, then probably I have nothing to add to anything here and this discussion becomes moot. Could someone clarify this, please? 87.231.242.188 15:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia incorporates all knowledge, whether expressed in English or not. Reviews from the French or Japanese press are just as good a source as from the American or British press. Likewise in the case of scholarly literature. Fred Bauder 18:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Per Folantin - we cannot reflect the future, surely? This applies both to Asians and women - of course Wikipedia is dynamic, and in 10 years that list will look completely different. But right now, in 2006 neither Asians nor women have written an opera that it is global standard repertoire, as is Nixon in China, or as is a whole load of Philip Glass's stuff. Much less written one that is so fantastic that they can be considered a major opera composer. Moreschi 18:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Now, I'm not sure about that: Ethel Smyth is quite good. Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

There is an excellant, extremely well-sourced article from the Journal of the Karpolova society which may be read online here - [20] The article deals with Smyth specifically, but gives an interesting, well-source perspective on the problem as a whole. 87.231.242.188 13:14, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, it probably goes without saying that if you consider what names would be on lists of important opera composers in French and German, they wouldn't probably be the same names that you would find in English. Walton, for example, is almost never heard here, outside of his Viola concerto. You would most certainly get names that most of you have never heard of, much less heard the music; This is simply because what gets done here and other places is not the same things that are getting done in English speaking countries.

The filter of the language isn't the only issue either - there is also the issue of govermental policy towards what gets funded and what doesn't. Here in France, prior to 1990 or so, you would find a great bias towards atonal music and you would perhaps see exclusion of people like Puccini and Charpentier because of that. This has changed in recent years, but the sources containing this bias are still there.

In order to get a notion of what "World-wide notability" would mean, it would seem to me that only using sources in one language would not help in getting an unbiased view of the subject.

Speaking of Asian women who have written operas, Kazuko_Hara has written 18, which have mostly been produced and recorded. The information here is full of holes, unsourced and lacking in depth, but I wonder if there might be sources in Japanese which discuss here work. I know that there are members of Japanese musical societies on the the IAWM list. Maybe they should be asked? Or you could ask the person who has written the article. 87.231.242.188 23:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

However, given that several of the international contributors, Kleinzach,e tc, left soon after all the trouble started, we did the best we could do, given what we had access to. No-one's saying it couldn't be better, however, until everything calms down and the people scared off start returning, we aren't going to have the ability to access things in other languages easily. Adam Cuerden ^talk 23:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Adam, but your account of what happened doesn't match the facts. The trouble started when User:Musikfabrik turned up on the talk page on September 6 with this sarcastic edit [21]. To the best of my knowledge Kleinzach has never taken part in the subsequent discussion. The last contribution he made was August 4, 2006. I believe this is because he was on holiday for a long period of time. I also think he might be British. There is no evidence that "foreign" (define, please) contributors have been driven away from the discussion. If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it. I am also quite capable myself of reading several European languages, but where am I supposed to have access to a whole series of foreign-language reference books about opera? How do we define which languages we should take the lists from? Once again, unreasonable demands are being made of us.

By my rough count, the list breaks down like this by nationality:14 Italians, 14 French, 12 Germans, 8 Russians, 6 Britons, 5 Americans, 3 Austrians, 3 Czechs, 1 Hungarian. Hmm, looks like there might be an "excessive bias" towards French composers there. How this would be eliminated by including French-language sources, I don't know.--Folantin 07:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah. I had presumed that Kleinzach was German, because of the name. Ah, well. Certainly, the list seemed a lot less active after this whole thing got started than before, but that might just be as there seemed to be few of us actually doing the work. Adam Cuerden ^talk 15:04, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Folantin, because of the bias towards atonal music in France between 1950-1990 or so, you might find that there would be fewer of the French composers featured in English language sources in French language sources. I would also suspect that you would start to see names like Stockhausen, Dallapiccola, Nono, Berio, and others. Lists after 1970 or so would be less likely to include "Les Six" composers and only in extremely mainstream sources (more likely to be in "Paris-Match" rather than in the serious music journals) before that date. Messiaen would almost certainly be presented, and names like Georges Arpergis, Marcel Landowski and other people that you have most likely never heard of would be present. There might also be glaring errors, such as lack of names such as "Puccini" and "Poulenc" (both considered to be extremely non-serious composers by a certain faction of the French music world during that period) and this even in "mainstream" sources.

Lists in German, Italian and other languages would also probably be extremely different from the French and English sources.

It would also appear, from this discussion, that "List of major opera composers" is not "Opera News", by definition of the "strictly information, please" aspect of what you are doing here. So it would appear that Mr. Wehage's acessment (which I'm sure was a failed attempt at humour) was correct. 87.231.242.188 10:02, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

As a point of comparison, here [22] is French Wikipedia's equivalent of List of major opera composers. Of the 36 composers on the French list, I believe all but four appear on our English equivalent. That's a remarkable overlap.--Folantin 10:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

You are correct, Mr. Folantin, but I don't see any sources, nor do I see any methodology. Is it possible that the French list was somehow inspired by the English list, since Wiki does seem to overlap in significant ways? Also, isn't there a policy against using Wikipedia itself as a source? 87.231.242.188 12:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The French list was created on January 14, 2005 [23] and as far as I can see the choice of composers has remained essentially unchanged since then with the exception of a few additional names. Our list derived from the ten sources is only a few weeks old. How could the French editors have copied us? I have no intention of using the French list as a source for the English one. I am merely using it as a point of comparison to show that it might indicate there is a remarkable international consensus as to the key names in opera history. The same few composers keep cropping up again and again on lists that were devised independently. There are a few discrepancies, but the overlap of the vast majority of names is quite striking.--Folantin 13:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the edit summary of the article here - [24], the majority of the edits were made by two or three people. The overlap occurs with the edits by one Antandrus - [25] , who says that he is an "occassional vistor from English Wiki" and also by Frank Renda, who edited in English Wikipedia as RCS [26]. So, while the overlap cannot be conclusively proven, it would seem that there may be evidence that such overlap exists. In any case, the article is unsourced, has no explanatory methodology and cannot be scientifically justified, at least from my perspective. In this respect, the French article may be seen as conforming to the state of the English article before this incident took place. 87.231.242.188 13:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

As my edit link shows, the page was created by User:Vargenau, not Antandrus or Frank Renda. Vargenau placed 29 composers on the list. I believe they are all still there. In other words, Vargenau is responsible for at least 80% of the selection.--Folantin 14:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Creative solutions and original research

4) Wikipedia is merely a reporter of existing knowledge. Creative solutions regarding how to better fulfill that project are welcomed; however, creative solutions about how to increase or refine knowledge violate a basic principle, Wikipedia:No original research. There is strong consensus supporting the principle that Wikipedia is a compendium of existing knowledge, not a vehicle for the advancement of knowledge.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 13:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:Or for the advancement of anything else, for that matter - feminism, facism, trolls, or Musikfabrik composers. We reflect existing knowledge and thought. We don't alter such thoughts. Or careers. Moreschi 18:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties: Excuse me, but I am trying very hard to be polite here. Is there a point at which the rules concerning civility might perhaps be extended to me or is this perhaps too much ask? I would also hope that this courtesy might perhaps be extended to my company and to my colleagues. Would this be possible? Thank you. 87.231.242.188 23:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm damned if I'll happily sit back and see Wikipedia be turned into a gigantic advertising venue for the Musikfabrik cabal. Moreschi 10:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Musik Fabrik's activities also provide vital and relevant information regarding this case. --Folantin 10:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] Sober tone

5) In general a sober tone is preferable. Poking fun at editors who merely report existing knowledge, insist on adequate references, and require that the subjects covered be notable is inappropriate. Wikipedia is, by intention, square. Novel, creative, cutting edge initiatives are more appropriate in other, hip, venues.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 13:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I don't understand what this refers to. Adam Cuerden ^talk 16:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, misread. Agree, though I'm not sure what the last part, "and require that the subjects covered be notable is inappropriate. Wikipedia is, by intention, square. Novel, creative, cutting edge initiatives are more appropriate in other, hip, venues.", is referring to in this particular case. Is this a quote? Adam Cuerden ^talk 17:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

If I was looking for interesting new music I would probably find more in the catalog of Musik Fabrik then I would ever find in Wikipedia. Fred Bauder 18:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

That's an odd statement to make and I'm not sure what evidence it's based on. It's also pretty insulting to the numerous editors who have worked on new music articles at Wikipedia and shows a lack of faith in this whole project. I'd guess the majority of Wikipedia new music articles were written by fans with no vested financial interests in the promotion of their favourite composers or themselves.

It's based on our policy of including only established artists and pieces. Basically, we don't do new and interesting. Fred Bauder 19:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, look at User:JzG's evidence on the main page. He knows about new music. I am guessing that not so very many people (Wikipedians or otherwise) are active listeners to contemporary classical music other than film music. I am one of those few, having attended premieres of numerous contemporary classical pieces (by Giles Swayne, Keiko Abe and Naji Hakim among others. This past weekend I was listening to music by Steve Reich and Elizabeth Lutyens and an interview with Margaret Leng Tan about the prepared piano and the work of John Cage (old hat now, I know, and positively mainstream). --Folantin 19:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, a bit unfair on me as well. I see a fair whack of modern ballets; often with specially-comissioned music by contemporary composers: music that is often avant-garde. But this is kind of irrelevant. Moreschi 20:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Would it be possible add some sort of graduation to this idea of "novel, cutting edge, hip" etc so that those who wish to perceive themselves as Wikipedia editors and also as "novel, cutting edge and hip" might also be able to do so?

Mr. Moreschi, you are obviously seeing things which have already gone through a selection process, have been rehearsed, been staged and probably done to preview audiences of critics in order that reviews be published before you've seen them. You are probably not going to libraries and sifting through unperformed scores and making judgements based on that evidence. Guy is refering to radio programmes, recordings and the like. Perhaps some notion of "finished product" rather than "work in progress" might solve this problem. 87.231.242.188 10:28, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] Notability

6) Articles regarding subjects which are not notable are subject to deletion.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 14:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Quite. Which is precisely why Boisseau's own WP biography got deleted as non-notable. Moreschi 16:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Nice poke there. No doubt he will now be more humble and agreeable. Fred Bauder 18:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] Wikipedia is not an advertising venue

7) Wikipedia is not an appropriate venue for the advertisement of new or unrecognized artists or works.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 14:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Just one more comment. This comment about Azerbaijain's composers is especially interesting, [27], particularly when one looks at this link. [28]. See that nice big banner about the Azerbaijani composers, anyone? Moreschi 17:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I see it and find the project very interesting. I would not say on that basis that it is not notable. Where opera finds an enthusiastic mass audience is rather unpredictable. Fred Bauder 18:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

That completely misses the point. Boisseau says we should include Azerbaijaini composers: Musikfabrik has a big Azerbaijian project. There's a connection here - it's evidence, big time, of Musikfabrik promotion. Moreschi 18:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I mentioned Azerbaidjan precisely because I've spent some time there working on cultural projects and they do have a very strong musical tradition in general and in Opera specifically. I was thinking specifically of "Leyli and Majnun", written by Uzeir Hajibeyov [29] in 1907 which was the first opera written not only by an Azeri, but by someone in the Middle East. The music uses elements of the Mugam tradition and is considered a national treasure in Azerbaidjan. The work has extremely important anthropological significance in addition to simply being an extremely fine work of music. No, we don't publish it. I wish I had the sources necessary to do so. In any case, in order to know about this work, one would need access to Russian sources. I am told that this work was taught routinely in Music History classes in the Soviet Union. 87.231.242.188 23:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

My brain must be rotting if I forgot to mention this. At one stage, with no consensus, Boisseau moved the list to List of opera composers of opera claiming that anything else would be POV. In his edit summary, he himself stated that "This means that anyone who has written an opera cannot be excluded". This was useless as ungrammatical gibberish and duplication of The opera corpus, but the obvious point was that this was his big push to get Germaine Tailleferre on the list, as well as (so he says, anyway) himself. More Musikfabrik promotion. Moreschi 21:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Actually, all that I've said from the beginning is that none of our composers would qualify for this list. I don't know how I might say this again so that you understand this. I find it ironic that the minute that I stop working on putting things up about our composers and related activites and start actually working on base ideas in the system which are not related in any way to my business that I am told that I am doing promotional work. Call me out on any of the composers' pages that we've added and I will agree with you, but this simply has nothing to do with any of that. 87.231.242.188 23:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

This edit [30], shows User:Musikfabrik adding "Jean-Thierry Boisseau" to the category "opera composers". Therefore, at least one Musik Fabrik member would qualify for inclusion on a list of opera composers. Namely you. --Folantin 07:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

That is "category - Opera composers", not "list of major opera composers". I have written an opera, so therefore I am an opera composer. It stands to reason that an encyclopedia entry (if acceptable) would include all categories in which that composer worked. Germaine Tailleferre is also in the category of "Opera composers", because she wrote operas. This does not imply that she wrote operas which are performed every night of the week, just that she did indeed write operas.

The bottom line here is that the article which had this category attached to it is now deleted. Where is your problem and what do you expect me to do about it? Apologize? Well, I apologize. What else would you like me to do? 87.231.242.188 09:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

As Moreschi has shown, you (or your role account) had plans to change List of major opera composers into List of opera composers, thus making yourself eligible for inclusion. Musik Fabrik's interest in List of major opera composers began the very same day they had added a bunch of their own members to a list of notable organ composers. Go figure.--Folantin 10:46, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I did not move the article in the first place, Mr. Moreschi did. I should have just moved it back. I changed the title to "List of Opera composers" because it was the only NPOV name that I could think of at the time. What you are forgetting, Mr. Folantin, is that I did move finally figure out how to move the article back to it's original title, which is visible from the "move" logs. If I did this, then why did I do this?

In any case, the whole situation should not be happened in the first place. I am very sorry for my part in the process, but I am not entirely at fault here. 87.231.242.188 11:08, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and here is your very own explanation of why you wanted to change the title to "List of composers of opera" [31]: Sorry, that doesn't work. I've moved this to a non-POV name. What this means is that no one who has written an opera can be excluded. The only criteria is having written an opera. Since I'm currently writing an opera myself, this is indeed ENOUGH. That is a POV-statement and I hope that you will all forgive me. So a non-POV opera composer list is one which would allow you to add your own name to it. You also admit your eligibility for a list of opera composers. --Folantin 11:44, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, if I did all of that for the specific reason of including myself, then why did I then move the article back to the original name at the end? [32] If I had been doing this to add myself, why would I have reverted it myself?

Quite frankly, I was so upset at the time that I don't even remember typing that. What doesn't make sense to me is why I said "I am writing an opera". I have written an opera. I am not currently writing an opera. This might not have been me. I honestly don't remember. 87.231.242.188 12:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, Boisseau, it was either you or Wehage - unless further individuals at Musikfabrik have been contributing that we know nothing about? You moved the article back purely because you realised what a horrific tactical error you had made (not to mention grammatical), that getting yourself on the list so soon would have been a little too flagrant.

If anyone wants an explanation of my original move to List of opera composers considered major, it was that I considered this title to soften, BUT NOT REMOVE, the POV problems. I.e then it wouldn't be just us that said "major", it was those 40-odd inline cits I'd just spent a whole afternoon adding. Indeed, I still think the list should be at this title. Moreschi 14:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Moreschi, look at the timestamps in the diff in my last post. The title was changed for exactly nine minutes, and then you changed it back to your title. Twenty-minutes later, I changed it back to the original title. The entire incident, from start to finish, lasted less than an hour.

What harm was caused to the article during this time period? Was any content changed? What was the result of this name change? Once the title was changed back to the original, the effect was negliable, at worst. I fail to see how this incident could be seen as being beneficial to me or my interests in any way. 87.231.242.188 15:06, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

No, no particular harm was done but the intention was clearly there to get both yourself and Tailleferre on the list. Had the list stayed at that version, as you doubtlessly originally intended, you would have been on that list, as would Tailleferre, and probably a bucketful of the others of your Musikfabrik gang. And please format your posts correctly. This is getting very annoying. Moreschi 15:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Technically, it did leave large numbers of double redirects and orphan pages, as well as splitting off the talk page from the main article and losing the edit history. It took an administrator to fix it. None of this was intentional, of course, but it's why a move war is bad. Adam Cuerden ^talk 15:27, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conflict of interest

8) Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, a guideline, requires that the interests of the encyclopedia come before the business interests of contributors. Editing by those who disrupt the editing process by aggressively and persistently advocating information favorable to their business interests may be appropriately limited. Application of such remedies should be proportional to the degree and type of disruption which has resulted.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 10:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

"Degree and type"? A hell of a lot. Quite apart from Boisseau's WP:POINTism (self-admitted) in starting a process of list compilation he had no intention of abiding by, all his other intimidation and this ArbCom case has caused a great deal of wasted time to editors who prefer, as a rule, to contribute content rather than bicker in a fruitless manner. Wikipedia has suffered as a result. Moreschi 10:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me, but if I may make a clarification here. It is ironic, but my "business" editing was not disruptive here. None of the material presented was challenged until this incident. If it had been "disruptive", wouldn't it have been noticed before?

What was disruptive was the insistence on the inclusion of women to this list, but no significant proof has been put forward that this did indeed concern my business interests. I would personnally take the point of that they did not. I will accept that they may be perceived as being "disruptive", but I deny that they involved commercial interests, only my personal position regarding gender issues in music. 87.231.242.188 11:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I would like a distinction to be made between my business persona and my artistic/scholarly persona.

I wasn't born yesterday, or even the day before. Come on. The vast majority of Musikfabrik's editing was promotional editing, some of which violated policies such as WP:POV. And you did try to get both yourself and Tailleferre in that list when you moved it from a selective list to an exhaustive one. Moreschi 14:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] Wikipedia is neither a soapbox nor a battleground

9) Wikipedia is not an appropriate venue for social struggle or for competitive business practices such as struggle for shelf space, see Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox and Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_battleground.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 10:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Shelf space ought not be red. Fred Bauder 10:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

See also From shelf space to mind space. Fred Bauder 11:03, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Note that the links provided concern the power established concerns, in this context, read operas and artists, have to dominate media. Fred Bauder 11:03, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by parties: Again, if I may, I must protest against the implications of commercial issues being mixed with the idea of social struggle. I do accept the principal involved and see the point of the ideas made, but the fact remains that this list does not include nor can it include works from my catalog at the present time.

However, I may be misunderstanding what you are saying concerning "cempetive business practices", as you may be implying that my position is a result of a marketing position that we are taking as a company (e.g. trying to gain favor with the scholars and institutions who work in this area). Indeed, we do try to work with women in music projects, but these projects are not entirely commercially oriented. Artistic and Scholarly concerns are also part of our process as editors. So, perhaps this might be an oversimplification of this perception? 87.231.242.188 11:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

To add some more perspective, there is notion of an European cultural exception (especially in France) which may be relevant to take into account when considering "business pratices" concerning cultural products. The concept is explained extremely well here - [33]. The basic idea is that cultural products should not be considered as "mass consumption" products because of what they are. I'm not saying that this is a valid concept, indeed it is the subject of much discussion. However, it might help bring perspective into a discussion of commercial issues involving cultural products. 87.231.242.188 12:36, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] Wikipedia is not a battleground

10) Wikipedia is not an appropriate venue for competitive business practices such as struggle for shelf space, see Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_battleground.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 14:28, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

[edit] Wikipedia is not a soapbox

11) Wikipedia is not an appropriate venue for social or political struggle see Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 14:28, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:Quite. Something I suspect Boisseau does not appreciate, given that I remember him giving us a lecture starting "A feminist position is something that needs to be taken automatically...". Moreschi 14:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] Experts with conflicts of interest

12) A significant portion of the experts in most fields are engaged in some business venture related to the field. It is desirous that such experts participate in Wikipedia, but important that both they and others appropriately deal with conflict of interest issues.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 14:46, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:Expert? Boisseau? So far, I've not been impressed. In fact, as far as I remember Wehage's first action was to add wrong information to the list!! Moreschi

Comment by others:

Looks good to me as a general principle, but shouldn't it be "desirable" rather than "desirous"? Metamagician3000 13:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Courtesy

13) Users are expected to be reasonably courteous to each other and to assume good faith, Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:Assume good faith.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 19:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

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[edit] Proposed findings of fact

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Comment by others:

[edit] Musik Fabrik

1) Musik Fabrik is a music publishing company. Its website is at http://www.classicalmusicnow.com/ Talk:List_of_major_opera_composers/Archive3#One_major_POV_issue_to_be_resolved

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 15:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

[edit] User:Musikfabrik

2) Musikfabrik (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log), which has been banned as a multiuser, or role, account was used by a number of persons associated with Musik Fabrik, including Paul Wehage, the artistic director and main researcher at Musik Fabrik and Jean-Thierry Boisseau, [34] and Talk:List_of_major_opera_composers/Archive3#One_major_POV_issue_to_be_resolved.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 15:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

[edit] Jean-Thierry Boisseau

3) Jean-Thierry Boisseau, an employee of Musik Fabrik, edits as Jean-Thierry Boisseau (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log). Until it was banned as a multiuser account he edited as Musikfabrik (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log), User:Jean-Thierry Boisseau and Talk:List_of_major_opera_composers/Archive3#One_major_POV_issue_to_be_resolved.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 15:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

According do Jean-Thierry Boisseau he is part owner of the company. Mak (talk) 17:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I will confirm this as true. (This is the IP of Musik Fabrik and this is Jean-Thierry Boisseau typing) 87.231.242.188 20:44, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] The issue of gender bias

4) The issue of gender bias in the selection of lists of opera composers has been raised by Jean-Thierry Boisseau, "it would seem to me to be quite clear that an sexist agenda at work here," Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jean-Thierry_Boisseau#Statement_by_party_2, [35], Talk:List_of_major_opera_composers/Archive4#Not_so_fast.__There_is_obvious_POV_gender_bias_here, Talk:List_of_major_opera_composers/Archive3#NPOV.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 16:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This is extremely poorly worded. What is the point of fact in question?

• If you just mean "Jean-Thierry Boisseau believes there is a gender bias", that is trivial.
• If the finding of fact is to be that there is gender bias, that is probably true, but it is systemic in the opera field in general. Certainly, there have been attempts on our part to fix it, ranging from the comment on women composers in the process description, to trying to figure out how to move on. No-one denies that women should be treated equally to men in music, nor that this hasn't held true in the past. The problem is how to correct for this.
• If you're saying the finding of fact is to be that there is, in fact, a sexist agenda on the part of the contributors, then I am extremely insulted.

Adam Cuerden ^talk 22:46, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I would insert "alleged" before "gender bias" to make clear this is not a finding that such bias does exist. Or perhaps "an allegation of gender bias has been made..." Newyorkbrad 18:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I was concerned that maybe I was being too hypertechnical with the above comment, but Adam Cuerden's response suggests that the clarification I suggest is necessary to prevent the possibility of serious misunderstanding. I do think it clear, subject to correction from Fred Bauder, that he meant the first of the three alternative readings suggested by Adam Cuerden and definitely not the third. Newyorkbrad 14:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Promotion of Musik Fabrik composers

5) Jean-Thierry Boisseau, editing as Musikfabrik has added composers [36] who are listed in the Musik Fabrik catalog Guitar catalog. User Musikfabrik was quite candid about use of Wikipedia articles to promote Musik Fabrik composers [37].

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 16:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties: This particular edit was not done by me, but by Paul Wehage, editing as Musikfabrik, just to clarify. I did others, however, so the point can be made. I would however like to point out that not all of our edits were made strictly for promotional work, but also for musicological work. And, in a certain sense (at least according to our ideas as publishers), our "promotional work" was actually more musicological than promotional. We haven't seen any great uplift in sales since our composers have been on wikipedia, and quite frankly, if we were in this for the money, we would be doing something else. (This is the IP address for Musik Fabrik and this is Jean-Thierry Boisseau typing. I've lost my password to this place...) 87.231.242.188 20:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] Discourtesy by Adam Cuerden

6) Adam Cuerden (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log) has been discourteous [38] "Jean-Thierry Boisseau is a vandal".

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 16:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I'm at somewhat of a loss as to why that rant - quickly apologised for and in response to a claim that I was involved in a conspiracy to conceal evidence that would keep women off the list (which in fact was quite the opposite) outranks all other discourtesy being thrown around in this bit of nastiness? Why am I being singled out? Adam Cuerden ^talk 17:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

It's the "shut up" Fred Bauder 00:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree it was extreme, hence why I soon apologised. However, it was, I hope, the only time I was notably discourteous in this whole mess. Why is this so much more important than everything else that happened that it needs a special vote of condemnation? Adam Cuerden ^talk 03:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This is the workshop page. I am getting feedback that it was an isolated incident, so it is unlikely to become a proposed decision or have any penalty attached even if it does. Fred Bauder 05:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I too am mystified. Adam has been exceptionally (even excessively) courteous in the face of massive provocation. He doesn't deserve this treatment. --Folantin 18:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Drats, I've lost my login and can't get a new one...and quite frankly, I was intending on never posting again on this site. But...I must point out two things. First of all (and probably most importantly, out of all of this), Mr. Cuerden seems to have understood that gender bias does indeed exist and is an issue, which this edit clearly points out - [[39]]

As the offended party, I have to say that any incivility incurred by his remarks far outweighs the importance of his understanding of the situation. Plus, he has apologized and I accepted his apology. As far as I personally am concerned, this part of the issue should not penalize him . The benefits of his new perspective are actually a plus in his role as editor here, as I see it. (This is the IP address of Musikfabrik and this is Jean-Thierry Boisseau typing) 87.231.242.188 20:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

An isolated instance of incivility, especially when provoked, does not typically warrant an ArbCom finding. Newyorkbrad 18:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

This one instance of poor Adam losing his rag is nothing compared to the viciousness and trollery of Boisseau. Moreschi 09:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Women opera composers

7) It was determined by "consensus" that there were no women opera composers "sufficiently notable to be included in [List of major opera composers]," Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jean-Thierry_Boisseau#Statement_by_Party_5

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I think this is somewhat unfair, and misrepresents events. There was a problem with NPOV because at first the list was created without a solid methodology. A methodology was suggested, by Jean-Thierry Boisseau, and enacted by others including Moreschi and Adam Cuerden. This very methodology (which did not rest on editorial consensus, but rather compiled data from sources) was then attacked by Jean-Thierry, even though he first suggested it. No alternate viable methodology was presented, even when requested to by others. Mak (talk) 20:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the method was suggested by Mr. Cuerden, not myself. I decided to begin the process with that because it seemed like the logical first step to take (in other words, allow the participants to begin by defining their canon and then take the discussions from there).

The methodology involved the selection of sources, which implies the creation of a canon by the participants through the act of selecting of the sources. My error, as Dr. A points out in my evidence, was supposing that any canonic discussion could have an outcome without bias, gender or otherwise. This is, according to her perspective, not possible nor does any discussion have significance in terms of knowledge. The only way out of the contradiction, according to Dr. A, is to not use canonic thinking, although she herself sees this as basically impossible.

I now believe that there is probably no way of producing a list of "important opera composers" that is without bias. This is my own personal opinion, but perhaps has some validity. (again, IP is Musik Fabrik IP and this is JT Boisseau typing) 87.231.242.188 21:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

It's probably true, but it may be possible to minimise bias. However, you did go about pointing out the bias in a somewhat tactless way, no offense meant. It had already been a long, labourous process, and so to suddenly be called on to do far more work to correct things wasn't something anyone was ready for just at that moment, however meritorious, and - quite possibly accidentally, it came over as an attack on all of us for daring to use the suggested method. Adam Cuerden ^talk 23:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Clarification: It may be true that any list will reflect bias, at the least society's. Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

NO, NO, NO, NO , NO, and NO again! That is a complete travesty of the truth. That is NOT what happened in the slightest. Please look at the list in its current incarnation. You will clearly see that it was compiled using a reputable external sources. Any "consensus" was the consensus of those sources, NOT of our own! Ten lists of major opera composers were compiled and the composers who appear on a MAJORITY of those lists appear on the WP list. To suggest that we are responsible for the exclusion of women is wrong, insulting, and just plain stupid. Please check your facts a bit more carefully next time. Moreschi 09:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Women did appear on some of the lists. That is what defines a minority point of view which should receive fair representation. Fred Bauder 13:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

And, damn it, they've got fair representation. There's now a section entitled "Major women (sic) opera composers". I rather wish consensus for this had been sought first, but never mind if that's what it takes. Just to point out that surely the only way of picking an NPOV number was to go either with all or with minimal majority? Moreschi 14:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem is you adopted a neutral methodology but arrived at a non-neutral result. The (apparent) minority opinion that some female composers are important, or have made important contributions to the genre, should be included in Wikipedia. If List of major opera composers was instead titled Major opera composers the point might be more clear. (In fact, Major opera composers is a more wikipedia like title anyway, and such an article could contain not just a list, but an explication of what it means to be considered "major," and would allow for more seamless integration of a section of 'important up-and-coming composers or recent composers whose work has not yet demonstrated lasting appeal, said group of composers would probably include some men, women, and other racial and ethnic minorities. (By the way, does the list article contain any blacks or asians?) Thatcher131 15:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I investigated the largest offshoot, Chinese opera, which isn't in the same tradition as Western opera, but seemed worth considering. However, it seems to have been written largely by large groups, so I presumed that it was more appropriate to a list of operas. I do not think there are blacks or Asians, but given that opera was largely a European phenomenon, this is probably not reflective of any particular bias, except that against relatively modern composers. Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Scott Joplin's Opera "Treemonisha" is important both on sociological and musical criteria. I personally would include him on any list of important opera composers as his act of writing this work had an very strong underlying message for African-Americans. Plus, it's very good music, as Gunther Schuller's recording with the Houston Grand Opera clearly points out. (IP address, JTB typing) 87.231.242.188 20:38, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense to me. "The problem is you adopted a neutral methodology but arrived at a non-neutral result". That's an odd definition of "non-neutral". Do you mean "unacceptable to me"? We seem to be being asked to engage in "ballot-rigging" to achieve the desired result. "If List of major opera composers was instead titled Major opera composers the point might be more clear". Again, this makes no sense to me? It's a list, so what's wrong with calling it one? What difference would it make to omit the word "list". Sorry, I really don't understand the reasoning here.--Folantin 16:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

In short, we tried to be neutral, but reflected societal bias, as I read it. Whilst changing it away from a list might allow more analysis, I suspect we don't have enough people at present for a project of that size. However, a secondary list for modern composers may be a very good idea: It would allow us to be more up-to-date, at the least. Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the /Evidence in this case indicates that efforts were made to arrive at an objective measure of "major status" for opera composers, and for historical reasons, the resulting list consisted exclusively of males. This does not indicate a Wikipedia problem requiring correction although it is obviously reflective of historical injustice. The reasons for this are discussed in the evidence of several parties to the case and also that of Guy. Of course this does not mean that we should not attempt to expand our encyclopedic coverage of all significant composers whether or not considered "major" by the criteria of a particular list. Newyorkbrad 16:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Let me suggest again that you think of it from the point of view of an article titled Major opera composers or Important composers of opera instead of List of.... To write such an article you would have to describe the criteria used; what makes a composer important or major (from the point of view of the sources you are using of course). You have some milestones, like first surviving opera example. Do you have the first opera by a woman performed at the Met (or similarly significant venue)? Surely the first woman to be performed at the Met is important, even if she is not on a majority of historical "best of" lists. It would also be more natural in such an article to consider composers who may be important or major but who have not yet stood the test of time, listing criteria that opera authorities have used to define promising or important new composers and stating who they are.

Your sources for the list article suffer from an acknowledged systematic bias that reflects the historical bias of the genre. What would happen if you split the list into two articles, List of historically important opera composers and List of important living opera composers? Would you consult different authorities or different lists? What criteria would be used to determine historical verses current importance? I expect a list of currently important composers would contain more women and minorities. Overall, the bias in List of major opera composers is the end result of multiple biases including historical bias in the genre, the bias inherent in a list that focuses primarily on historical composers (19 from 1800-1850 but only 10 from 1900-1950), the choice of editors to write one sort of article (List of major opera composers) rather than another (List of important living opera composers), and probably other effects I can't imagine right now. Thatcher131 17:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I still don't really understand what you're getting at. One thing you seem to want that might be feasible is a "List of significant dates in opera history". If you want to start that, that's fine. Go ahead and work out the methodology for defining those "significant dates" and compose the list. Our list reflects the "historical biases" inherent in the story of opera. Italians and Germans took more interest in the form than anyone else, so they (deservedly in my view) have a greater representation. Minorities such as Jews, homosexuals, Austrians and Czechs also have notably more than average representation. Why this is so, who knows? Maybe it's because they liked opera more than other people and were prepared to put the time and effort in to compose it. I don't know the answer. If you want to research that, go ahead. But our list simply reflects the historical situation. --Folantin 18:34, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

William Osborne points out an obvious linguistic bias. If the lists included selections from German, Italian and French language sources, the outcome would probably be (at least) slightly different. Certainly, certain names would have less significance than others on lists in other languages. The point is, from Mr. Osborne's point of view, Opera is not inherently an "English" idea, and so using only "English language" sources implies bias. Whether the other sources would have other bias is another matter, but the idea merits reflection. (IP address JTB typing)

English sources were used largely because most of the foreign contributors left during all the nastiness. Adam Cuerden ^talk 20:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Per Adam and Folantin: and just as a purely philosphical point a truly neutral methodology will inevitably arrive at a neutral result. If you wish to go ahead and create all these extra lists and articles then be my guest - but you'd better make sure you reference them properly, or else Boisseau will doubtless chew you up. A list that reflects accurately historical reality is surely acceptable by WP standards. Is Viking Opera Guide, written by some of the best English-language musicologists, really unacceptable as a source? Moreschi 20:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Outside parties

8) Jean-Thierry Boisseau has invited the interest of outside organizations concerned with the advancement of women musicians [40].

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 19:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

[edit] Good faith efforts by Adam Cuerden

9) Adam Cuerden has made good faith efforts to address the problems presented [41]. He has also tried to address the matter of the absence of women composers in List of major opera composers [42] [43] [44].

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 13:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

[edit] Good faith efforts by the crew from Musik Fabrik

10) The crew from Musik Fabrik have made good faith efforts to address the problems presented. Here, a compromise is accepted and an alternative suggested.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties: Here Musik Fabrik claims he/they would find the solution we eventually used an "acceptable compromise". So why isn't it an acceptable compromise for Jean-Thierry Boisseau now? --Folantin 13:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties: It's a acceptable compromise because it represents a good way to start. I was sort of thinking that this would be an ongoing discussion and not something which would be considered "settled". I guess the main reason is that I'm always questioning almost everything and it would appear that some of you probably have things which you take to "given" or "things that you don't have to question" (this is my own impression and I may be wrong). My ideas about this list have been constantly changing since I first started thinking about it and if I continue thinking about it, they will continue to change. I think that perhaps this is probably the most irritating thing about my editing, to many of you. (again IP, JTB typing) [[87.231.242.188 15:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

That's the wiki way. Fred Bauder 18:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

That's right. The rest of us do all the work while you feel perfectly entitled to destroy it at your own whim. There are other explanations for this type of behaviour, i.e. malicious trolling. User:Dybryd nailed your goalpost-shifting right here [45]: And I have to add - you have been arguing for some time against what you assert is a POV bias in this article. But now, you abruptly declare that there is no basis for judging POV bias - that NPOV, one of the three central principles of wikipedia, is "a fallacy." Have you changed your mind? If not, then what have all your criticisms of the article as being biased meant? Now Jean-Thierry believes in NPOV, now he doesn't. But everybody else has to dance to his tune and do the research while he contributes nothing.--Folantin 16:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

And that is a violation of assume good faith. Fred Bauder 18:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, come on. Please. Have you actually read the evidence? Boisseau himself admits to starting the list compilation purely so he could then shoot us down later on grounds of "gender bias". Look at this: "It was very clear to me that a process had to take place in order to bring the list to a starting point where a scientific discussion can begin. I began the process, even offering one list (the contents of which did not really matter, as the results of the survey were predictable from the start) and then allowed the process to happen without intervention, to allow the participants to “define their canon”. Once this had been done, the real discussion could begin.". If that isn't clear WP:POINTism - by wasting our volunteered time for a month - then I don't know what is. Folantin hasn't gone far enough. By his own admission, Boisseau's mind-changing is a completely cycnical maneuver! Moreschi 18:37, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Boisseau, you don't seem to understand why people got so annoyed at you. Allow me to explain.:

• You failed to show good faith, instead deciding to manipulate us, which caused your further messages to be reacted against in an extremely negative manner. If you had sad unequivocally, "this seems like a useful first step", or "Let's try it, then see if anything comes up that needs to be dealt with", the reaction against you wouldn't have been half as strong. However, your exacts words were "That's not a bad idea, and it does use third-party sources. The list that you've given is by a journalist with the BBC, but if you get a pool of 10 or so lists and they're all basically saying the same thing, then perhaps this would mean something; I personally would find this as an acceptable compromise, although I still think that exploring the idea of measuring "popularity" using number of productions, record sales etc would also be an interesting avenue to explore; However, this idea would be perhaps a suitable starting point.

Now, you're waffling a great deal near the end of it, and perhaps you meant the last sentence "However, this idea would be perhaps a suitable starting point." to mean much more than anyone would ever think to read into it. However, you didn't even make mention of possible bias later: Whoever you were speaking with, none of this changes the issue. You will however note that when the sources were added, I (in my old incarnation) took out the "sources needed" tag. If you're able to sort out a NPOV criteria for inclusion in this article, then the subject is closed. A week is fine with me. Actually, just having a solid NPOV criteria that everyone can agree on in one week would fine. I can certainly see a larger timeframe for converting the article as long as this basic criteria is seen as being NPOV.

What I do not understand is why this got to be such an issue. The problem is obvious and the solution is obvious. Why could it not have been solved when it was pointed out? You got the sources done in about a day or so. It not that much work when you put your mind to it.

This also set an arbitrary timeline: the constanct insistance on things being done to your timescale was a major reason why you weren't listened to very much: you never seemed to understand other people had lives.

• You kept providing useless, random information, and seemed shocked that we were unable to act on it. For instance, here - how, exactly, is a list of topics of discussion actually useful in deciding what goes onto a list?

Here you give a list of useless books: one deals only with the French revolutionary period, the other two are biographies of women composers in general, not of women opera composers.

• Finally, the section in question claims: Six were exclusively male, yet the sources which suggested names which were exclusively female were discarded as being "non-neutral". I believe I have above quoted all your "all-female" sources and shown why they were useless. More than that, you were asking us to compare ENTIRE ENCYCLOPEDIA of women composers, only some of which composed opera, to short lists of "major composers" and encyclopedic articles on opera. In short, you were attacking us for not using your sources, when you hadn't actually provided a single source that actually dealt in a meaningful way with the subject at hand! Sam Silvers promptly added a note to the opening. However, you did not even wait for a response from others, but promptly leapt in to viciously attack me: f you have lists that have only men, then you have to accept lists that only list women...and there is the matter of certain lists being suppressed, given this discussion which points to an obvious POV selection of sources... (You made a few minor edits after that, however, they don't substantially change meaning) - in which you mistake a discussion over whether it is possible to raise a woman composer above her ranking because she is comparatively modern as an attempt to suppress women. Admittedly, you may not have been aware it took ten hours for me to collate all the lists, and so Folantin was actually being kind when he said we probably needn't add it. However, it was still gross misinterpretation, and utterly failed to show good faith.

As only Ssilvers had a chance to respond before you poseted that, and given you were so very far from reality with your accusation, things rapidly turned against you. I was next to respond, and, upset that you had apparently mined my talk page for evidence, that you had accused me of gross sexist behaviour and all, the "yelling at you to shut up" mentioned earlier happened. MAkemi calmed things down (I'll presume anyone reading this can page forward diffs), a discussion of how few women opera composers there were until the 20th century started, and so on. To be fair, Folantin heats things back up a bit, but he was the other of the two people besides me you had just viciously attacked, so I don't think tis should be held against him.

You promptly call him an anti-Semite.

A very unfortunate post. A clear violation of courtesy and assume good faith. Fred Bauder 18:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Not exactly the only one, either. Makemi's evidence at the evidence page provides singularly clear examples of further personal attacks and violations of AGF. In bold so that people can see this properly, I'm not shouting. Moreschi 19:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

...I don't think I need trace that thread further. In short, you actively caused a discussion about what to do about women composers on the list to degrade into attacks by random accusations. THIS is why people trurned against you, and why there seemed to be opposition against fixing gender bias: It was because the discussion on what to do about it was repeatedly interrupted by you attacking everyone. This derailed any sensible discussion.

This is why, even if I've made my peace with you, I'm afraid I cannot say, as Mr. Bauder seems to want to, that you are without fault. You made some hideously awful judgements and jumping to conclusions that viciously attacked even people who were trying to help you. There's an English expression - probably from the bible, many are, "You get more bees with honey than with vinegar". Attacking people on your side, accusing people of anti-semitism for no reason (Are the composers Folantin listed even Jewish?), and other such things served to make this discussion fall to pieces, and drove everyone, no matter how they felt about women in music, against you.

I'm not sure of the best way to correct the list, but certainly, you were not at all helpful, nor did you go about things in a way that made your message, however sincerely meant, at all viable. Adam Cuerden ^talk 16:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The mention of Fred Bauder was perhaps somewhat inappropriate: I realise this isn't an easy case to understand fully, and there's a lot of evidence to process. I apologise - I hadn't actually realised I said it, and it only really applies to a few of the odder proposed fact findings, which I presume are just to test the waters? Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Cuerden, I am not saying that I am without fault. I am saying just the opposite and I have apologized for all of this many times. I will do so again now. However, there are many posts which you cited above in which I fail to see just why you were considering those "attacks". Even the remark that I made to Mr. Folantin was not a direct accusation of anti-semitism, but rather implying that he was suggesting that we had a "hidden Jewish agenda" as well as a feminist agenda. I'm not saying that I was right to make this remark, nor am I suggesting that it was not incivil- Indeed, I have apologized for this and will do so again. However I am pointing this out because you are not quoting me correctly and this would seem to imply to me that you are not perhaps understanding the same thing that I am.

I would like to throw another idea out here. This will seem as if it has nothing to do with this situation, but I think that it does. Please hear me out.

Frank Renda was an extremely active participant in the music category of French Wikipedia, as his old user page will point out - [46]In French Wikipedia, he was respected, well liked and considered a very solid contributor. And his contributions in French did have a bit of an acid wit at times, but we tend to like that.

Recently, I noticed that he had begun editing on English Wikipedia under the user name of RCS and was having a series of interactions with people who edit in the genre of Opera. Here are several "diffs" as you call them as examples. [47],[48], [49], [50]

As a result of this, he has apparently blanked his English user and discussion page. I was surprized to see that he had done the same for his French page. I have no idea of these instances are related, but it would seem that there is something about Francophones in this environment that does not work. It may be that we tend to use language which is not direct and to the point. It may also be that we instinctively use puns, wordplay and other such things. It may also be that we don't understand the nuances of English well enough. The fact is, the problem is there.

I will and do apologize for those remarks that I made which I accept were incivil and impolite. I cannot apologize for all of the remarks that you have cited above because I do not perceive some of them to be incivil and quite honestly do not understand why you would think that they were. This is perhaps my fault. I do not have a solution for this, other than discontinuing editing here. 87.231.242.188 00:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

"Even the remark that I made to Mr. Folantin was not a direct accusation of anti-semitism, but rather implying that he was suggesting that we had a "hidden Jewish agenda" as well as a feminist agenda." I'm sorry, this is pure sophistry. If you suggest someone believes there is a "hidden Jewish agenda" at work, you are accusing them of being anti-Semitic. There's no two ways about it. I fail to see how all your behaviour documented on the evidence page could arise out of language difficulties. You had no problem knocking out 6,000 words of almost completely grammatical English (while totally ignoring the clear injunction to limit your word count to 1,000). I really don't believe you could treat other users the way you have here on foreign language versions of Wikipedia and get away with it (I'm particularly thinking of your appalling behaviour towards Makemi which she has documented extensively on the evidence page). This looks more of a case of a personality problem, not a language problem.--Folantin 08:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Folantin, you did not understand what I was trying to say to Mr. Cuerden. I was not refering to the contents of what I said. My point is that what I said and what he was saying that I said were, in fact, two different things. That is the point that I was trying to make here.

Concerning Makemi, I am sorry that "she" (I am not assuming that "she" is indeed a woman, because "she" has not told me this directly and I thought it better that "she" not give me this information, but I will use the feminine form here for clarity and then "forget" that you told me this, since perhaps "she" would prefer that I not be told) was upset, but "she" asked me a specific question and "she" was unhappy with my answer. I tried to remain non-confrontational and non-specific, but it is not my fault that my answer did not conform to "her" ideas about the subject. I do have my ideas about this and I also have the ideas of others who are studying this problem. I have passed to on to "her" in my answer. "She" can now choose to either accept them or reject them. I am not saying that they are the only way to see this situation.

Finally, if you look at the evidence page itself, you will note that the phrase reads "Please limit your contribution to" and not "Limit your contribution to..." I perceived the word "Please" to indicate a suggestion, not a fixed rule. If it was the intent to suggest an absolute limit of 1000 words, I would like to suggest that this be made more apparent in the instructions. My contribution is clear and fairly clean in terms of grammatical constructions and spelling, but it was proof-read by at least ten other scholars in terms of content and reasoning. I assure you that my first draft was not as clean as this. 87.231.242.188 10:19, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Cuerden, you bring up in your evidence above the following -

• You kept providing useless, random information, and seemed shocked that we were unable to act on it. For instance, here - how, exactly, is a list of topics of discussion actually useful in deciding what goes onto a list?

Here you give a list of useless books: one deals only with the French revolutionary period, the other two are biographies of women composers in general, not of women opera composers.

From my point of view, the "useless random information" were suggestions that perhaps there was another perspective to consider. The "useless sources" were sources which could be used in establishing women as "important opera composers". The book on the French revolution is especially compelling as this period was indeed a part of French history in which women had greater possibilities in terms of rights and opportunities than any other period before this. I myself was not aware of this book, but I find the idea fascinating. I have ordered it and will read it.

It would seem to me that you haven't perhaps really considered what these suggestions might mean and that perhaps you might want to examine them more completely, as there is information which is there which might lead to a greater understanding of this subject. Or maybe they won't. But it does seem a shame not to at least consider what they might be saying. 87.231.242.188 10:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The sources were useless in figuring out who should be on the list: We can't fill the list with French, revolutionary-period, women composers. A book on women composers in general is a useful source of information about them, but one cannot read an encyclopedia cover-to-cover to try and find a subset of the contents, "women composers", who also wrote an opera. In short, it's a useful reference only if you already established a female opera composer is suitable for the list already. A list of recent discussions is even less useful, as there can be no claim whatsoever that it is representative.

At best, these are useful to show that there are a few female opera composers, and might be useful for writing biographies of them after you had selected. But they provide no evidence of use in selecting the female opera composers in the first place. We cannot just choose female opera composers at random, or every female that composes an opera: That is an insult to all who worked hard at their career, and says that merely being a woman and writing an opera is good enough:

Think about that. That's far, far more patronising than leaving them off: It's working from the assumption that women are so unlikely to compose opera that every one is so surprising that it deserves mention, regardless of quality. In short, it's as if we're saying: "AMAZING OCCURENCE: WEAK-BRAINED WOMAN SOMEHOW WRITES OPERA! MUSICOLOGISTS STUNNED: 'BUT THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!' IMPOSSIBLE OCCURENCE TO BE MARKED WITH PLACE ON A LIST OF OPERA COMPOSERS." No! There may not be many, but we should be showing the BEST of women in opera, the ones that are comparable to the great male opera composers. And if there are not yet any, we should explain why, and watch for the woman to inevitably appear. Adam Cuerden ^talk 14:47, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

This business of language differences is so much bull. I'm sorry. Accusing people of laziness, misogyny, sexism and anti-Semitism is the same in any language. I also, for that matter, think that the vast majority of French speakers would heartily object to your efforts to project your own personality on to them. That's actually pretty insulting. Moreschi 14:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Cuerden, may I ask you a question? Have you actually examined the proposed sources you refer to above? We are in agreement that they are not "lists", but they are sources. How do you come to the conclusion that they are, indeed, useless? 87.231.242.188 14:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Fred Bauder 13:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

[edit] Testing of limits by the crew from Musik Fabrik

11) At times suggestions by the crew from Music Fabrik have bordered on creative solutions which involve original research [51]. This orientation, admirable in other contexts, differs from the pedestrian approach appropriate to an enterprise which merely reports existing knowledge. The cited effort was in response to this edit which emphasizes use of existing lists. The cited edit [52] also contains what seems to be joking around, "Now, I'm going over to List of organ composers and fix that NPOV problem over there so that you can forget about it. You might want to actually add some organ music composers after that, since there's a list of about 17000 which need to be added."

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 13:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties: Some of us don't find it much of a joke. In fact this is the core of my complaint against Boisseau and Musik Fabrik's behaviour on Wikipedia. The full context of that edit needs to be understood. It was a response to my revelation that User:Musikfabrik had happily contributed to lists of notable composers (and included their own names!!!) with far worse NPOV problems than the opera list [53]. They had wanted us to include sources, page references and inline citations on the opera list, accusing us of laziness for not doing so. Moreschi and I have done this. You can understand our anger when we found out about their double standards regarding their own contributions to WP. We asked them to put the same amount of effort into creating neutral versions of the lists they had contributed to. Boisseau's response was to provide a single source, a directory of organ composers edited by a friend of his[54]. I then pointed out that from the description of this volume, it contained 17,000 composers while the Wikipedia list contained about two dozen (Paul Wehage was in the same company as Bach)[55]. When I asked Boisseau to source the article properly and indicate the methodology he had used to achieve NPOV, that was his response. He has made no serious contribution to bringing up that page to his own alleged high standards.

This [56] was the state of List of organ composers when User:Musikfabrik made their last edit on September 6, 2006 [57]. Note the caption at the top asserting "The following is a list of NOTABLE organ composers". Note the complete lack of methodology for selection on the page and the total lack of references or sources. Notice the presence of the names Jean-Thierry Boisseau, Paul Wehage and Germaine Tailleferre (a load of Musik Fabrik composers were added that very day). Later the same day User:Musikfabrik began to complain about neutrality on List of major opera composers, holding its editors to completely different standards and using harrassment and intimdation against us (these are examples of User:Musikfabrik screaming at me because I had created a stub I had yet to source on September 14 [58] and [59]. Only edits). Now perhaps you can understand our anger at Boisseau and his colleagues' behaviour.

Boisseau and Musikfabrik believe that they have a right to rigorously enforce Wikipedia policy on other users at their own whim, while the rules don't apply to them. A glaring example of this is Boisseau's presentation of his evidence for this very page which contains none of the required page diffs. and massively violates the clearly stated maximum word limit of 1,000 (by my count, Boisseau has treated himself to well over 6,000 words). This isn't "joking", it's "extracting the urine".--Folantin 14:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments by parties: Concerning the List of organ composers, you will note that the title of the article does not contain a qualifier ("important", "notable", "best" etc etc) but is simply a list of people who have written works for the organ. All of the works that I added were for the organ and they were also all sourced in John Henderson's book, which I added to the sources.

Having run the Sunday organ concerts at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris for Three decades (my father and brother were the organ builders in recent times and the organists there have been close friends with my family since I can remember), I was also planning on working extensively on this list at some point, adding works which are on a project that I did while I was there, making a list of all works that were played there during the time that I ran this series. I hadn't done that yet simply because I had no time. I would probably consider this to be "original research", with my understanding of that now, although the concerts were public. I added the works that we publish because I know the works, I know the composers and because we think that they're good, we've published them. Apparently others do as well, since they've been listed in third party sources. They've also been reviewed in the AGO journal etc. I'm not justifying the fact that I did this, however - I'm only explaining why I did this.

I have been discourteous to you and I apologize for that. The fact remains however that there is a tendency not to source things in the music category specifically and the opera category in general. The importance of sources is something that I've only recently considering and I do personally think now that everything added to this system should have an inline citation. I realize that this is not the norm here, but if I were to continue here (which I am thinking is less and less likely), I would probably add inline citations to everything that I've done to this point. I realize that this is a matter of discussion, however 87.231.242.188 15:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The caption at the top of the List of organ composers page when you added your own composers to it quite clearly states: The following is a list of notable organ composers, people who wrote for the organ and contributed significantly to the organ repertoire[60]. In other words, non-experts will be deceived into thinking that all of the composers on the page (including you) are notable.

And who is this statement [61] still on your user page aimed at, eh? Recently, I've been concentrating on working to get better sources and use of such criteria such as WP:POV in articles, which tends to irritate those who are too lazy to open the books and get the page numbers.... Moreschi and me? You yourself would be a more appropriate target. It's simply breathtaking... --Folantin 15:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Lest anyone forget, all the inline citations on the list, with one exception, were provided by Folantin and myself - with Boisseau standing on the sidelines carping about how crap our sources were here[62]. Boisseau's actions reek of double standards. Quite apart from the examples provided by Folantin above (which I heartily endorse), Boisseau's own biography on WP had no inline citations either, if my memory serves me correctly - before it got deleted as non-notable after a vote at AfD. Maybe you could cite this as well: "His musicological work on Germaine Tailleferre has lead to many discoveries concerning both Tailleferre's music and the historical reality of her work both before and after her death." That from Paul Wehage's wiki bio. Remarkable claim, and no cite. It also might be interesting to note how most of the cites in Wehage's biography come from your book. Moreschi 16:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Not exactly true, Mr. Moreschi. The online cite for Alban Berg was done by Paul Wehage. But you forget one important thing - I do not have access to the sources which you used. If I had used my own sources, I would have had to rewrite the entire list. I probably would have also been inclined to change a great many things, since the sources that I have readily available here are in French and paint a very different picture of the subject. I felt that if I had done this, it probably wouldn't have helped the situation very much.

Now, yes, Paul Wehage and I work together and yes, he's documented in my book. I'm not him and he's not me. If you start not allowing references in third party sources because the people work together or have a connection, personal or professional, you're not going to have many references left. Even Groves articles are usually written by people with a direct connection to the article (a book that they've written, a course that they teach at a University, recordings that they've made or produced). There are simply very few instances when people have no ties to their subject. I've thought this over quite a bit and really don't think that you're ever going to find a way out of this 87.231.242.188 23:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Please bother to format your posts properly. It's getting annoying. Please also bother to read what I post. I said "with one exception" for the inline cits. You clearly didn't see it. To quote yourself: ever thought of "bothering to go to the library to look up page numbers"? Of course there's nothing wrong with the "Dido and Aeneas" entry from Grove being written by someone who's written a book about the opera. There is something wrong with the primary reference for a biography of a living person being written by his best mate. Moreschi 15:02, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I suppose then that you would also remove quotations by Madeleine Milhaud about Darius, or citations about Franz Liszt about Berlioz, or citations about Schumann by Brahmns? The reality is that people do write about their own experience and often this experience involves interaction with others with whom they have direct professional or personal contacts. Even people who write about composers or other musicians are often students of the very people they are writing about. Knowledge is connected to experience in a very rudimentary way.

Would it not be possible to say that the person who writes the article in Groves about a specific opera and who has also written a book about it might be actually working towards something concerning his own professional standing and career? Perhaps it would lead to tenture, a better position, activity as a private lecturer, or perhaps to offers to write more books? Bias is present in all aspects of human activity. 87.231.242.188 15:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

A lot of this rubbish stands on its own, but I'll just add one or two more comments. No, I wouldn't remove those quotations, but I wouldn't let them be the primary reference source and assertion of notability. Particularly when according you Wehage is the primary authority on Tailleferre, but according to Makemi (I'll check this when I'm next at the library), he's not in the bibliography on Grove. Slight discrepancy there, don't you think? Obviously bias is omnipresent, but I might suggest that you being the primary reference source for the article about your best mate is slightly different from the case of an expert on Dido who writes about it on Grove, for whatever reason. Moreschi 15:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and for the very last time please format your posts correctly. Moreschi 15:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] Argument from symmetry

12) "If you have lists that have only men, then you have to accept lists that only list women" has been raised as an argument. This does not follow if the lists purport to be of the same set.

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Proposed Fred Bauder 19:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Quite, but I fail to see the relevance of this to Boisseau's sustained trolling and bullying. Moreschi 20:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The Opera corpus (a list that attempts completeness of all composers of opera notable to wikipedia) contains 17 women and 380 men. It may not be complete: If we take it as accurate, then that would imply that any list containing only women is likely to be more complete than any of men. In any case, as I showed above (Good faith efforts by the crew from Musik Fabrik), Boisseau never actually provided a relevant list anyway - just provided a list of discussion topics on a mailing list, named books that were vaguely near the subject, and quoted in full one long letter to the Metropolitan Opera about Ethel Smyth. In short, there's been no evidence that a list containing only women that claims to belong to the same set actually exists. Adam Cuerden ^talk 20:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments by parties: At that point, in my mind at least, the process of using the lists was only an experiment and not a "final product". The other information was brought in show that there were perhaps other ways of seeing this outside of a "ten lists in English language media". If you will remember, Mr. Cuerden, I also suggested looking at performance statistics, funding practices, commissioned by recognized festivals and houses etc as another means of bringing in others who were not in the standard lists. There are probably other ways in which the collection of data could be approached. However, the conversation stopped once the list collection process began. 87.231.242.188 23:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Largely because, frankly, all of those would be almost impossible to do and assign weight to. It'd basically involve not only OR, but a complete, world-wide, statistically valid sampling process to arrive at the OR. We can do lists. We frankly can't call up a repreesentative sample of, say, 200 opera houses randomly selected from the entire world and find out their performance history for the last three decades. People give thousands of pounds of funding for such surveys. Adam Cuerden ^talk 23:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by party: What I was implying, perhaps not clearly enough, is that if lists containing only women are unacceptable, then lists containing only men should be also considered to be unacceptable. In either case, both lists should be thrown out for having bias. But all selective lists have bias of various sorts (as well as POV agendas through national movements, academic careers, professional musical work etc) which could be considered unencyclopedic. The very act of selection implies bias.

I now believe that an unbiased list using other lists which clearly must contain bias is impossible. The question now becomes "what is acceptable bias", since bias will be there from the very act of selection. 87.231.242.188 00:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] Framing

13) "This is no more "bias" on Wikipedia's part than the absence of women from the list of Popes." does not follow. Wikipedia is not biased; it has a policy Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, which, if followed, precludes bias. Imagine a list, "List of major spiritual teachers" or "List of major political leaders," which based on published lists, included no women. If the list is framed in terms which exclude women, it will.

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Proposed Fred Bauder 10:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Imagine Ann Coulter's rage.... Fred Bauder 10:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

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Comment by parties: I have to admire your sense of humour, Mr. Bauder. You actually got a laugh out of me with that last comment. 87.231.242.188 12:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

This is not a laughing matter. Far more women have been spiritual teachers or political leaders than they have opera composers. For that matter, women are now represented on the list, so what's the problem? Moreschi 14:24, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I was refering to his comment to Ann Coulter, which I took to be a joke. Perhaps I misunderstood again? 87.231.242.188 14:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Joking around on the internet is always foolish; simply too prone to misinterpretation. Fred Bauder 14:56, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Bauder, we can't just choose women at random: It is an insult to women not to hold them to standards, because it says that their effort doesn't matter, only their gender. The field was almost completely blocked to women until recent decades. There are, as far as I can tell, two established candidates for major opera composers that are women: Dame Ethel Smyth, and Judith Weir. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, we should not be speculating as to the importance of particularly recent composers without evidence. Given the fact that women havelargely been blocked from opera, given that we cannot speculate into the future, and given that it is a direct insult to women to patronise them and say that any woman composer is so rare and unique and impossible that of course they must be major, regardless of talent and effort put in, we CANNOT go about this in a slapdash way. That, in my opinion, is a RANK INSULT to the truly great women composers, whoever they are.

There are two women on the lists that we can prove some scholarly reviewers thought the equals of men. There are also a lot of women about which we can only say "looks promising" or "may be great in the future". It is an insult to the two women who DID get on the lists to just slap in any woman composer in with them.

By all means, let us show women are important. Let us celebrate those women who not only fought the uphill fight to get into music, but who also succeeded magnificently despite the odds. Let us not dilute the accomplishments of the truly great by ranking them with the non-notable.

Of course, if other women can be proven to be great, they deserve to be added. But GENDER CANNOT BE THE ONLY QUALIFICATION. That is insulting to the truly great women. Adam Cuerden ^talk 14:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

That said, the intent is admirable. They're just prone to bad phrasing. How about "The issue of assessing female opera composers is difficult, due to a historical bias and the limited number who succeeded in breaking into the field. As such, further research is encouraged." Rushing the issue could lead to poor judgement, and I think everyone wants all truly major composers on the list. However, assessing how major a composer is is not a trivial issue, particularly if the composer is very recent or was subject to extreme prejudice that prevented awareness of their works. Adam Cuerden ^talk 16:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

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"If the list is framed in terms which exclude women, it will." This gives the impression that this is what some or all editors who supported the solution with ten lists of major opear composers, as provided by major reputable sources, intended. In fact, the list was definitely not "framed in terms which exclude women": none of the lists were about male composers only, and no lists were excluded because they contained too many women. I don't get the attempt in these proposals to shift the blame to the method used and the ditors involved: there is no evidence of any bias, exclusion, sexism, or framing: on the contrary, people have tried their best to counter the dominance of men in these lists, and have even included the politically correct POV section on woman composers to please the opposers. Fram 09:32, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Failure of Jean-Thierry Boisseau to assume good faith

14) Jean-Thierry Boisseau has failed to assume good faith Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jean-Thierry_Boisseau/Evidence#Jean-Thierry_Boisseau_is_extremely_quick_to_leap_to_accusations. See also this, third sentence and this.

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Proposed Fred Bauder 15:02, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:Well, yes. He's also been persistently insulting: see my diffs provided above. Moreschi

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[edit] Rudeness by Jean-Thierry_Boisseau

15) Jean-Thierry_Boisseau has been rude, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jean-Thierry_Boisseau/Evidence#User:Musikfabrik_was_rude.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 18:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] Jean-Thierry Boisseau's superior tone

16) Jean-Thierry Boisseau has at times taken a superior tone in relation to other editors, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jean-Thierry_Boisseau/Evidence#Involved_professionals.2Finformed_amateurs. This may represent a more sophisticated approach, or not, but it definitely pissed other editors off.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 18:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

It most certainly did. That sort of rubbish (and worse) has been completely standard from Boisseau. Quote: "I'm not all happy with the sources uses (sic) here, but I'm willing to allow them to be used...":that's been typical fare. Just who does he think he is? Here's the diff.[63]

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[edit] Method and result are NPOV

17) The List of major opera composers is based on WP:NPOV and WP:V criteria , and follows the letter and the spirit of Wikipedia policies. Eventual bias or faults in the list are an accurate reflection of the opinion of the major sources in the field, and should not be corrected by Wikipedia. From WP:V: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth."

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Comment by parties:

Thanks for your comments. It's also worth pointing out here - because it hasn't been made clear elsewhere on this page - that nobody has provided any hard, verifiable evidence that the specific sources we used were "pushing a sexist agenda". --Folantin 11:12, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

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Proposed. Fram 09:41, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] The crew from Musik Fabrik

1) Jean-Thierry Boisseau and anyone else associated with Musik Fabrik is banned from editing any article dealing with artists or projects listed in their sales catalog. Further, they may not add any such artist or project to any article. Nor may they advocate on any talk page regarding any such artist or project. They may respond to inquiries from interested Wikipedia editors regarding such artists or projects on their own talk pages.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 10:27, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors may call on their expertise. Fred Bauder 10:27, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

That will deal excellently with the relentless Musikfabrik promotion, but what about Boisseau's consistent trolling and intimidation? Moreschi 10:33, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

To enforce this, indefblocking the Musikfabrik IP adress might help. Moreschi 10:46, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Seems harsh. Fred Bauder 17:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties: Mr. Bauder's suggestion seems fair to me, if I do ever decide to continue editing here. 87.231.242.188 13:26, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Probably too restrictive. I'll propose an alternative also. Fred Bauder 13:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

As a matter of tone, in the header, suggest changing "The crew from" to "Users affiliated with" Newyorkbrad 17:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The crew from Musik Fabrik

1) Jean-Thierry Boisseau and anyone else associated with Musik Fabrik is banned from editing any article dealing with artists or projects listed in their sales catalog. Further, they may not add any such artist or project to any article. There is no restriction on making suggestions or participating in discussions on talk pages.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 14:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:Not a fan, as Boisseau's individual account didn't actually edit any articles before he lost his password. It has been behaviour on talk pages that have caused the problems. Moreschi 14:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Same comment as above - change "The crew from..." to "Users affiliated with..." Newyorkbrad 17:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jean-Thierry Boisseau placed on probation

1) Jean-Thierry Boisseau is placed on probation. He may be banned from any article or talk page which he disrupts. All bans to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jean-Thierry_Boisseau#Log_of_blocks_and_bans.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Proposed Fred Bauder 17:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I would suggest that he is banned from the List of major opera composers, which is where the vast bulk of his trolling has taken place. Moreschi 17:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd second Moreschi and extend the ban to any List of X composers or music lists in general. This is where most of Musikfabrik/Boisseau's bad behaviour has occurred (see my evidence on the main page) and it would stop outright any further temptation to try to add themselves or related others to the said lists. --Folantin 18:19, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I will save you all the trouble. This will be my last edit here. Sorry about the bother. Goodbye. 87.231.242.188 19:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] Enforcement by block

1) Any bans imposed under this decision may be enforced by blocking the offender for a period of up to a week. All blocks to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jean-Thierry_Boisseau#Log_of_blocks_and_bans.

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Proposed Fred Bauder 18:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] General discussion

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Comment by parties:Despite Boisseau now departing the scene, I think some measures need to be taken to prevent a recurrence of Musikfabrik promotion of individuals who fail notability guidelines (such as Boisseau himself). To that end I would ban all individuals associated with Musikfabrik from editing or creating articles on those editors in their sales catalogue, and probably a ban from all composer-related lists as well. I would also soft-indef-block the Musikfabrik IP, so that individual accounts can be created from that address but so that the IP cannot be used as a role account. Moreschi 13:42, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

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