Talk:Frédéric Chopin

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Contents

[edit] Frédéric instead of Fryderyk?

Why is the French name used instead of the Polish one, despite the fact Fryderyk is Polish? I would understand it if the name Frédéric was English... BeŻet pl (talk) 12:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I think Chopin himself changed it when he emigrated to Paris. --LaPianísta! 00:36, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Doubtless he did what many, if not most, people do when they migrate: adopt the local versions of their given names. I expect that, in correspondence with family and other Poles, he used the original Polish versions. Nihil novi (talk) 04:34, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hullo

Hullo, Can anyone help me please I need to know what the hell (if anything) Chopin though about Beethoven, for some reason I remember somewhere I heard/read that he disliked him but later on started to respect him. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Please! 193.60.133.205 (talk) 14:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

See the article about Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 32. It notes that Chopin "greatly admired" this sonata. But you'd best ask the Humanities reference desk if you need further help; general talk pages aren't generally accepted as places for questions such as that. =) --LaPianísta! 02:12, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

He was christened 'Fryderyk', and that is what is printed in the Grade 8 piano anthology and the Naxos Music Library biography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hermanj (talk • contribs) 20:37, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why did it change?

Who exactly thought it was a good idea to replace an actual PHOTOGRAPH of Chopin with a painting? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Purple Elite (talk • contribs) 06:35, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Don't know whose idea it was. But it seems a good idea to have, at the beginning of the "Chopin" article, a representation of Chopin from the period of his prime (Delacroix's 1838 painting) rather than from his final year, when he was at death's door (Bisson's 1849 photo, which is now in the section where it should be). Nihil novi (talk) 17:53, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Balls. We should have both. Or "bolth" as I sometimes say. When drunk. Sugarbat (talk) 21:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Archive?

A trifling thing...isn't it about time to archive the Chopin discussion page? --LaPianísta! 22:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Done ... :) I retained threads from April for continuity (feel free to move any back that anyone thinks are active) Antandrus (talk) 22:57, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Final two years

The present "Final two years" section badly needs rewriting for narrative coherence and English usage. First, however, someone needs to verify the information, much of which comprises bits of circumstantial evidence, apparently meant to suggest that Jenny Lind planned to marry Chopin (it is not clear just what his view of this may have been, or whether he even knew about it) and that she supported him financially in the final months of his life.

If that sketchy narrative cannot be substantiated, it may be necessary to revert to a more traditional, if perhaps less sensational, account of Chopin's final two years. Nihil novi (talk) 06:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and revised the "Final two years" section. Additional relevant information can be added to it when adequate documentation warrants. Nihil novi (talk) 07:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
1. I find it unfortunate that Nihil novi, with no apparent justification other than his/her personal opinion, suddenly has reverted the ‘Final two years’ section to an earlier and inaccurate version. The cancelled section was posted in March 2008 after a thorough discussion among several parties including MusicConnoisseur, now La Pianista (which for some reason is no longer visible on this page).
2. Nihil novi does not seem to be familiar with the new research evidence on the 1848-1849 period (which includes proof of faulty translation and citation by various scholars in the past, as well as original period documents not published before). Reference was made in the earlier Wiki section to this new material and its validation, including an ISBN-noted biography of 2003, a comprehensive research report and press articles. It includes information to answer Nihil novi’s specific questions on Chopin’s reaction to Jenny Lind’s marriage proposal and on her financial patronage of him in 1848-1849.
3. The fundamental part of this material was endorsed in 2003-2005 by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw; by the noted Chopin experts Prof. Dr Irena Poniatowska of the Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw and Prof. Dr hab. Mieczysław Tomaszewski, Akademia Muzyczna, Kraków; by three British university scholars; and by other bodies.
4. Moreover, in April 2008, the authors of the research and publications posted online a summary of an updated “substantiated narrative”, seemingly supported by what Nihil novi would call “additional relevant research information” and “adequate documentation” including the above endorsements. – I therefore recommend that Nihil novi or Wikipedia reinstate the previous section. Jean de Beaumont (talk) 12:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
The material that I replaced comprised scraps of circumstantial evidence and innuendo, composed in unintelligible English, meant to produce a convincing impression about a questionable hypothesis. I am glad that your English has now improved. By all means introduce relevant information, but please do not attempt to pass off unverified hypotheses and irrelevant information as proven fact. Nihil novi (talk) 20:44, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Nihil novi is a lone user who is unable or unwilling to understand and accept research findings documented by a new book and a research report, which have been validated since 2003 by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw, by noted Polish Chopin experts and by British scholars associated by the Universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews. Nihil novi’s “traditional” version of Chopin’s ‘Final two years’, referring extensively to a few pages of a 1937 biography by Zdzisław Jachimecki, is riddled with inaccuracies and assumptions as shown by the new research (the reason for going to London, Jane Stirling, Chopin's will, his feelings, Lablache, etc.).
The issue is not Nihil novi’s purported “unintelligible English”. Nor ought it be the tone of his/her last comment, which does not facilitate a meaningful discussion of the substance (inadvertently positioning himself/herself as one of the ‘partisans who might prefer the status quo’ as noted in an IHT letter today on “The failure of Wikipedia). – Once more, I recommend the previous version to be re-instated. Jean de Beaumont (talk) 08:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
No, Jean de beaumont, I must say that Nihil Novi is correct in his assessment of the previous revision, though calling it "unintelligible" may have been a step too far. I saw numerous problems in copyediting and style myself, but I was reluctant to edit (partly because my edits were reverted). I don't think it is so much of N.N.'s refusal to accept the information (he wouldn't do that to an article he cares so much for), but instead, his unfamiliarity (and, admittedly, mine as well) with the new information. Your contributions, Jean, are much appreciated, and I hope that we can expediently integrate the new material so that we can boost this article to FA status. I think it's best we come to a consensus, or a re-adding of the new information with copyediting fixes and grammar touchups. I would be gladly willing to help.
P.S.: The previous discussion has not "disappeared." It has been archived, and you can find the link to it at the top of the page. --LaPianista! 23:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Go easy on style - watch for POV

Nihil novi's edit, as soon as his little hands could reach the keys from as soon as his hands could reach the keys is verging on editorial. The only reason I don't take "little" back out is that most people would agree that a child just barely able to reach piano keys most likely does have small hands -- but that's also the reason the adjective could be considered gratuitous (since it's empirical knowledge). I can see this user has devoted lots of time and energy to this article and I'm not at all interested in discouraging that effort, but please do try and keep the style encyclopedic. Sugarbat (talk) 14:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The "little hands" simply follows the source, Jachimecki. I wouldn't fight for "little," but on the other hand it does make it easier to visualize little Chopin reaching to the keyboard. Nihil novi (talk) 20:00, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
This isn't an essay, is my point -- it's an encyclopedia article, and in the same sentence Chopin's already described as just having barely reached piano keys. As I pointed out, above, we don't need to embellish what doesn't need embellishment. Sugarbat (talk) 20:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
P.S. If we're using exact wording from a source, it's best to put the quote in quotes ("") (and, of course, cite it somehow). If Jachimecki said something that you particularly like about Chopin's hands (or anything else), and you want to include it in the article, by all means do so -- just format it correctly, and make sure the context is appropriate, etc. If it's an opinion and *not* surrounded by quotes, then it will likely either be edited or deleted. That's just how WP works.  :) Sugarbat (talk) 21:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Style-edit example and rationale

I'm doing this because I made several edits (to things I'd already worked on a few days ago, but which were subsequently reverted/edited) just now that I'm pretty sure are going to be reverted, in whole or in part, and I want to be clear about why I made them. (I don't normally do this kind of rationalizing on discussion pages, but it does appear as though this is one of those articles that's having trouble maintaining its NPOV dynamic, and in the struggle its overall narrative style is sometimes suffering. So I need to explain, for the record, why I'm doing what I'm doing, in general.)

Material as it appeared before I edited it a few minutes ago (w/o refs tags):

As a child, Chopin showed an intelligence that was said to absorb everything and make use of everything for its development. He would retain later his abilities in observation and sketching, a keen wit and sense of humor, and an uncommon talent for mimicry. A famous anecdote from his school years recounts a teacher being pleasantly surprised by a superb portrait that Chopin had drawn of him in class.
In those years, Chopin was sometimes invited to the Belweder Palace as playmate to the son of Russian Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich, and was said to have charmed the irascible duke with his piano-playing. "Little Chopin's" popularity was attested by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz's "dramatic eclogue," "Nasze Verkehry" ("Our Intercourse," 1818), in which the eight-year-old Chopin is featured as a motif in the dialogues.
During vacations in the countryside, Chopin was exposed to folk melodies that he would later refine into original compositions, and in letters home he parodied the Warsaw newspapers. Maurycy Karasowski recounts a family anecdote about how Chopin helped quiet rowdy children by first improvising a story and then lulling them to sleep with a berceuse (lullaby) — after which he woke everyone with an ear-piercing chord.

1.) In my edit of a few days ago, I'd combined this material into a single paragraph, because these are all detailed examples of the "intelligence" and "abilities" mentioned just above it. For some reason they were split -- again -- using no rational that I can recognize; I have put them back together again. (At the very least, no paragraph ought to *begin* with phrasing like, "In those years,...".)

2.) I've noted, in the edit summary, my rationale for removing "he would retain later" briefly - but specifically, not only is this phrase redundant, it makes no sense in the context of the sentence or its paragraph. I have no problem with someone rewording what I wrote (about Chopin/abilities having "matured" in tandem), as long as the rewording makes sense.

3.) A person can't "be" a "motif" in the above context -- not literally. The conversations Niemcewicz had with the child Chopin inspired parts of the the dialogue in Niemcewicz's eclogue (and I've removed the quotes around "dramatic eclogue", because they're inappropriate (see WP:MOS -- e.g., you wouldn't use quotes around "comic novel" or "tragic play" in similar contexts). Changed this wording [back] to reflect the as it was stated before I edited it the first time, and which I assumed/assume was factual: Chopin was in *one* of the main dialogue-motifs (which is a different thing than "the main-dialogue motifs" or "one of the main-dialogue motifs" or "the dialogue motifs" or "a motif in the dialogues." I.e., in the eclogue were several main dialogues. Those main dialogues had more than one motif. Chopin was in one of the motifs of one of the main dialogues). If we're going to edit syntax, there ought to be a point (clarity, facts, etc.), and not only did I not see the point of this change, but it didn't match the information that was there before I tidied it a few days ago.

4.) I'm not changing "refine into original compositions," but not because I like it; I do not. I'm leaving it alone because I don't know enough about what Chopin specifically did, later in his career, with the folk music that inspired him in his youth. But I will point out that "refining" and "original" don't play together. Either he used bits of the music in the music he wrote himself, or he refined entire melodies -- but if the latter, they weren't "original." Strongly suggest someone (who knows more than I) work on that phrasing.

I feel like I did one or two things in addition to the above, but these are the main edits, and these are the kinds of things I'm checking for/fixing, in addition to general proofing/editing for punctuation, facts, POV, etc. Sugarbat (talk) 21:02, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

My edit (without tags):

As a child, Chopin showed an intelligence that was said to absorb everything and make use of everything for its development. As he matured, so did his abilities in observation and sketching, a keen wit and sense of humor, and an uncommon talent for mimicry. A famous anecdote from his school years recounts a teacher being pleasantly surprised by a superb portrait that Chopin had drawn of him in class. In those years, Chopin was sometimes invited to the Belweder Palace as playmate to the son of Russian Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich, and was said to have charmed the irascible duke with his piano-playing. "Little Chopin's" popularity was attested by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz's dramatic eclogue, "Nasze Verkehry" ("Our Intercourse," 1818), in which the eight-year-old Chopin is featured in a motif in one of the main dialogues. During vacations in the countryside, Chopin was exposed to folk melodies that he would later refine into original compositions, and, in letters, he sometimesparodied the Warsaw newspapers. Biographer Maurycy Karasowski recounts a family anecdote about how Chopin helped quiet rowdy children by first improvising a story and then lulling them to sleep with a berceuse (lullaby) — after which he woke everyone with an ear-piercing chord.

[edit] "Polishness" section not so hot yet

I've taken out one paragraph in this small section, and I want to take out another, but that would leave only one paragraph and I don't want people thinking I'm just a jerk.

Here's what's left:

Zdzisław Jachimecki notes that Chopin at every step demonstrated a "Polish spirit" in the hundreds of letters written in Polish, and in his relations with Paris's other Polish emigrés. Likewise Chopin improvised music to accompany Polish texts[citation needed]; but never musically illustrated a French or German text, even though numbered among his friends were several great French and German poets.[51]

I'm totally interested in reading about how Chopin's Polish heritage (changed from "Polishness," which means nothing to me/readers [not even Polish ones], especially since it's not defined in the section) inspired him in his music. I'd love to see this section expanded; sadly, though, "X said that Chopin was inspired by his Polishness" is also without meaningful content -- it's an introduction that just leaves me wanting more. Too, pointing out what Chopin did *not* do (write music for French/German texts) tells me nothing about what he *did* do (write for Polish texts). Here are some other things Chopin didn't do:

1. Write music for fingerpainting (even though, presumably, he knew some babies)

2. Write music for pigeons

See hidden comment in the first paragraph of that section for at least one thing I'd like to see there -- names (or descriptions, cited appropriately) of musical pieces Chopin composed, and for what/who (and not just that they were Polish; I want titles and author names) he composed them. I'd also love to know exactly why he was moved to do this -- not just "because he was so proud to be Polish," but an actual reason, or set of reasons. Like, "According to his letters to X, Chopin dearly loved kasha, and when Y wrote a poem about Galician buckwheat, Chopin expressed his enthusiasm in his "Minuet to Kasza in F Minor, With Bacon, Op. IV., for Y."

Ergo, without any related details I consider this paragraph superfluous at best, and, at worst, mildly (and irrelevantly) jingoistic.

In asserting his own Polishness, Chopin, according to Jachimecki, exerted "a prepotent influence [toward] the nationalization of the work of numerous later composers, who have often personally — like [the Czech] Smetana and [the Norwegian] Grieg — confirmed this opinion..."[52]

I didn't know what "prepotent" meant, either at large or in this context; I had to look it up. Unfortunately, though, the definition didn't help me much in the context of the sentence or the paragraph, because it's not clear to me what Jachimecki meant by "prepotent" in this quote. I mean, literally: I don't know what this means. In what way did Chopin's "assertion" strongly influence the evolution of...um...the "nationalism" of "works (whatever that means)" of "numerous" "later" "composers"? Who, exactly? And how? What about being Polish made Chopin proud/excited/inspired, etc.? How, exactly, did he "assert" his own "Polishness"? (It's not enough for me that he wrote music for unnamed Polish texts.) Who are "Smetana" and "the Norwegian"? (It drives me nuts when names are used in a main article, as sources, but no info is given in the narrative about who the sources are/why they're credible sources. For all I know, Smetana's your grandma and "the Norwegian," Grieg," is the guy who works at your grocery store, and knows a lot about cheese. Please don't forget that people reading this article may not know anything at all about Chopin, let alone about Chopin-experts/his peers/music in general, etc.) This is the paragraph I would have deleted completely in addition to paragraph #2, and I will, but not before I give the person who started to build this section a chance to beef it up. Because I think it's a great section idea.

[Punctuation note: In possessive-apostrophe use, always add an "s" to a singular noun (after the apostrophe) even if the noun itself ends in an "s" -- e.g., "Paris" = Paris's emigrés. Adding just the apostrophe means the noun is plural -- e.g., Mr. and Mrs. Smith together are the Smiths, and I know the Smiths' dog, Rover. Other examples:

Charles Dickens = Charles Dickens's London
three bears = three bears' porridge
Five houses = five houses' roofs
One patch of moss = the moss's border
Two patches of moss = the mosses' borders]

That is all for now. Sugarbat (talk) 22:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

P.S. In articles written in English, we should try and stay away from "the" when we're identifying nationality. I'm realizing this is probably a language issue more than anything else -- someone's editing whose first language isn't English. Generally speaking, when we're just naming nationality, we don't use the article "the" (as in "the Czech Smetana"). Semantically, what this does is imply either that there is more than one "Smetana," not all of whom are Czech (adjective), or (with a comma: "the Czech, Smetana") that we can either call this person "Smetana" or "the Czech (noun - not so nice)" -- neither of which, I think, was meant here. By and large it's a good idea to be more specific than just naming the nationality of a person/source (e.g., "the Czech trapeze artist, Smetana") because just the person's country of origin is generally not relevant or (more importantly) very interesting (by itself). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sugarbat (talk • contribs) 23:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Officially I give up

Okay - Right before my eyes, the changes I've made are either being reverted or manually changed -- either to something similar to before I fixed them, or something different but also non-encyclopedic.

I hate fighting over this stuff, so I'm going to back off. But please, Nihil -- your changes/additions are

1.) tending to such bias that this article reads like your own personal essay,
2.) is haphazardly formatted in terms of content,
3.) is referring *not just* too much to a single source (Zdzisław Jachimecki, "Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek," Polski słownik biograficzny, vol. III, 1937), but to only four or five pages of that source,
4.) you're deleting/editing NPOV fixes,
5.) using non-encyclopedic, non-professional language, and
6.) not entirely comfortable w/the rudiments of English (just to name the most :consistent issues I'm recognizing).

In the best interest of this article, and of its readers, please especially review these Wikipedia guidelines, all of which you're consistently violating and to which you're deliberately preventing other editors from adhering:

WP:CITE
WP:WEASEL
WP:NPOV
WP:NOR

It makes no sense for me (or anybody) to waste editing time if there's going to be a pointless edit war here, but it makes me sad that this article not only needs so much more work, but it appears as though that work is going to be blocked by a single user. This is not fun, and not friendly. Sugarbat (talk) 07:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: I do see your comment w/r/t month/year format, and wanted to apologize for not checking to see which was the preferred WP style -- AP or Chicago. It looks like, at least in that instance, WP likes AP; I'd assumed Chicago -- so you're right about that. I just don't want to be coming off as a giant blowhard. I really am only interested in making the article perfect; I promise. Sugarbat (talk) 07:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Sugarbat, I hope you won't give up, because you've done some good editing on this article; you've streamlined it, brought attention to things that should have been made clearer, questioned the inclusion of things that reflected a certain subjectivity. But I had hoped that you would also recognize that you sometimes misinterpreted things; it was mostly these misinterpretations that I have addressed in my most recent revisions. I won't bore you or other readers with a detailed rehearsal of them here. But if you have specific questions, I'll try to respond to them. Nihil novi (talk) 08:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
NN -- It's entirely likely that I've reworded things that, had they not been reworded, would have required deletion (for WP:NPOV rule, mostly). Since I don't want to just yank big blocks of text without at least trying to edit them into conformity, I've reworded in ways that might not reflect what the original writer (you, or a resource you've used) meant to say (which mistake of mine actually does much to illustrate the murkiness of the portion needing correction -- if I couldn't tell what was meant by the original, unedited portion, it's reasonable to predict that readers will have similar problems). I've done my best to try and rectify pieces of text instead of deleting them, and I did expect (indeed, hoped) that, since my intention was obvious (rewording for NPOV, etc.), any mistakes I was making in interpretation of fact might be corrected (by you, or another editor) without disrupting the spirit of the correction. Sadly, that hasn't happened, at least as far as I can tell in your reversions/edits of my edits. It's as though you either don't see what I'm trying to do, or don't care -- which is disconcerting. It's clear that you care very much about this article; it's easy to get bogged down about an article/subject about which one feels strongly, and in that bog to make the mistake of becoming convinced one cares more than anyone else. Maybe that's what's happening here? I can't say for sure, but I do know there's trouble here that's going to turn into an edit war if people (including me) aren't careful.


Unfortunately, most of the problems that were (and are still) glaring in the article aren't based on anyone's misinterpretation of the facts of Chopin's life, etc. The biggest error repeating itself throughout the narrative is a non-neutral point of view (in the forms of lots and lots of adjectives and adverbs that aren't in quotes and aren't referred to as having been quoted/written/published), and the second biggest error covers general formatting, grammar, & punctuation.


Here's an example: You wrote He was drawn to the piano powerfully and exclusively from as early as his hands could reach the keys. Although I challenged the "facts" inherent in this statement (that he was "drawn" "powerfully" and "exclusively" to the piano) and wanted badly for this statement to be directly attributed to a specific person qualified to have made it, I left it alone just in case it was empirical knowledge with which I wasn't familiar. I did, though, strike "little" -- not just because it's subjective, but because it was redundant (his "early age," as I pointed out when I made the edit, already implies (empirically) that his hands were "little." What would have been important to document, had it been the case, might have been that his hands were extraordinarily large for a child's. Instead of rewriting the sentence to include the "little" in a quote (since you clearly felt compelled to include it somehow), you put it back in, unedited, with nothing but a note on the discussion page (here): The "little hands" simply follows the source, Jachimecki. That's not the appropriate place or method for justifying information that's been challenged. You don't just put it back -- you reword or reformat it.


In other words, I felt justified in removing that entire sentence as being unclearly sourced and an example of inappropriate subjectivity on the part of an editor, but I left it because I don't want to be an ass. I've really only deleted things that I couldn't fix and couldn't leave in the article because they were clear violations of something (see above list of WP-style links).


Here's another (brief) example -- this sentence, which I edited yesterday, is now back in the article and appears exactly like this:
He had met the sixteen-year-old Maria Wodzińska in Poland five years earlier, and now fell in love with the charming, artistically talented, intelligent young woman and resolved to marry her.
This entire sentence should be deleted if you won't let it be edited. I've put the problems in bold. They are:
1.)Verb tense (inconsistent not just with the rest of the sentence, but with the rest of the article)
2.)"charming," "artistically talented," "intelligent" -- these are adjectives (i.e., opinions) that are not directly attributed to a source (i.e., in a quote [""] or "So and so said that she was..." etc.). They don't belong in an encyclopedic article otherwise. You have either not read, or have read but have decided to disregard, WP:NPOV and/or WP:V.
3.) "Resolved to marry her." He may, indeed, have asked her to marry him -- we may be able to cite sources (witnesses, letters, etc.) that prove he asked her to marry him. But this wording implies you know something about Chopin's inner thoughts that you can't possibly know. Neither you nor I have any personal proof that Chopin "resolved" to do anything -- therefore, we reword this as either fact ("He asked her to marry him on [date]," or "He told X in a letter that he 'resolved to marry Maria.'") or we leave it out.


There are literally scores of examples like this over the past week or so (as long as I've been working on it; I'm not counting edits before I arrived) from you. It seems to me that you're not just nearly singlehandedly slanting this article and disregarding WP rules and guidelines, but you're keeping other people from fixing your mistakes in order to make the article better (i.e. factual, educational, interesting, etc.).


I'm really not going to work on this article any more, because it's frustrating. I did sleep on it to make sure I'm not just having a baby tantrum, and my conclusion was that if I *don't* move away from this article, I'm in danger of taking it too personally -- exactly what (among other things) I've been advising against. Maybe I'll come back in a few months to see how it's going, but for now I really do want to back off, especially before things get really heated, and let others work on this one. Sugarbat (talk) 18:09, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


What is outrageous about an author (Jachimecki) describing Maria Wodzińska as charming, artistically talented and intelligent? Print encyclopedias routinely include judgments that are equally, as you would argue, "subjective." And how do you know that Jachimechi did not have evidence — say, one of Chopin's confessional letters to family and friends — that he resolved to marry her? Nihil novi (talk) 05:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
NN: It's not "outrageous," nor did I say it was, to refer to the opinions of a qualified source such as Jamichecki appears to have been -- and you've actually made one of my points, yourself, in your question above. I don't know that Jachimecki didn't have evidence of such a thing, and I want to know. I (as a reader) come to this article wanting to know more than I did before I came -- and if you can give it to me (the reader) in the form of explicit reference to Jachimecki's collection of facts, I'll be delighted! What's important is that the context of (Jachimecki's, or any other qualified source's) opinions and/or conclusions should be clear in the narrative -- ideally, the information should either be in quotes ("") or it needs to be made clear in (some other fashion than a footnote to a page in the source text) that it was Jachimecki who believed Maria to have those traits (or that Jachimecki, in the course of his Chopin research, was told, by either Chopin or someone who knew Maria personally, that she had those traits). Without such formatting or couching, such descriptions are peacocky (or jingoistic, in an example like, "Chopin, the ardent Polish patriot...") and therefore not only unencyclopedic in style (see WP:NOR), but annoying to the reader (because they impart no real information).
Don't get me wrong! It isn't *at all* that I don't want to learn about Maria and her wonderful characteristics. I didn't delete that stuff because I don't care, or don't think it's relevant; I actually feel exactly the opposite. But if I learn about her characteristics at all, I want to know 1.) who thought she was so wonderful 2.) why he/she is/was qualified to judge and 3.) what about her led him/her to that opinion. For example, in what way was Maria "charming"? What did she do that revealed her artistic talents to someone/people qualified to opine? And so on. What I want to know (and what would make the article richer and therefore more valuable than it is now) is *why* Chopin fell in love with this person. Don't just give me a list of characteristics, especially without reference to tangible manifestations of them. It's not just encyclopedic; it's boring. I promise I'm not being argumentative or ugly when I say that, either -- the truth is that I suspect you have tons and tons of valuable information inside your head that you can (because it's your head) refer to at will, and because you're so used to this access, you might be forgetting that other people can't see inside your head as well as you can.  :) A good rule of thumb when stating, in an article, what's going to sound like an opinion ("Maria was charming."), is to ask yourself these questions: How do I know this? and Will other people know, without being told, how I know this? If the answer to the second question is "no," then answer the first question in the narrative.
Here's an example (that I'm making up out of nowhere):
Bad:
  • George was the handsomest man in the village, and all the girls were in love with him.
Good:
  • [Name of famous painter]* after meeting George once at a party, traveled 700 miles from Munich, in the summer of 1837, to George's village to paint his portrait for free. <[ref]> The portrait was subsequently duplicated in color prints and engravings in 14 major periodicals all across western Europe between 1840-68, and George himself received thousands of letters, mostly via magazine publishers, from women he did not know; many of the letters contained blatant marriage proposals.<[ref]> His portrait hung over the fireplace in the main hall at Georgehof until 1911, when it was donated by his great-grandson to the Louvre.<[ref]>
  • (note: If the painter isn't likely to be reasonably famous to English-language readers [like John Singer Sargent, Michaelangelo, Mark Rothko, etc.] [and therefore probably not starring in his own (English-language) WP article], then state his name and then who he was -- i.e., "Boris Hessemankewskyvedirka, respected Lithuanian watercolor painter, traveled 700 miles from Vilnius....")
What you (specifically -- Nihil novi) know is more valuable than any technical formatting -- but without the formatting, your knowledge is difficult for other people to access and interpret. The formatting (of an encyclopedic article) isn't just a set of gratuitous rules to make editor's lives harder; it's meant to help editors frame the material in the best possible way for public access and appreciation. Not applying the right formatting is like (for example) pinning the Mona Lisa, unblocked, with thumbtacks to a dirty alley wall in the middle of the night.
Does this help at all? I mean in explaining what I'm trying to do/say? Sugarbat (talk) 17:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request comment -- need suggestions w/r/t editors working together on article WP:MOS compliance, etc.

A user has requested comment on biography for this section.
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OUTSIDE OPINION From what I can glean from the history and the discussion above, I'll make some points about style:

  • As for citation style, WP prefers neither APA or Chicago style. Per WP:CITE#HOW, you're basically just supposed to keep the article consistent- if one style is already being used, stick to it.
Right; although when I made the AP/ChiMan comment/apology, I was talking specifically about date formatting -- and, more specifically, about the "of"/no "of" between month and year.
Chicago: May of 2008
AP: May 2008
Wikipedia evidently prefers no "of (which makes sense, as one of AP's goals is brevity of text)." Sugarbat (talk) 00:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Per the section, "go easy on style", the language Sugarbat removed was definitely unencyclopedic. Remember that, while some prose makes the article more interesting, encyclopedia articles are relatively dry in nature. I would definitely say that this edit was a good one.
The specific instance that you cite here is a good example of helpful streamlining that Sugarbat has contributed to "Chopin." And you will note that I did not revert it — though I did remove his weasel expression, "some believe," and remedied his sentence's clumsiness by splitting it. Nihil novi (talk) 08:48, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, sort of.  :) It's not my favorite method, but I was compelled to resort to weasel-kindness in this article in a couple of spots. I, too, like to target/remove them, when I can avoid collateral damage -- but in the cases (in this article) where I either left one alone or added one myself, I did it because the only other option was to delete a whole sentence whose information carried a reference # -- and I hate to delete stuff that's cited if I can avoid it. So, in a sentence like (and I'm making this up) Mr. Mophead was very angry when the book came out.[ref], where the source was a newspaper article, I might edit to It was rumored that Mr. Mophead was angry when the book came out.[ref] rather than cut the whole thing.


However. <baleful music>Let's look at the real sentence. Original (before I edited, added weasel, etc. -- bold mine):
  • After Chopin's matrimonial plans had been shattered, there appeared on his erotic horizon, but only episodically, a great lady, the beautiful and talented Delfina Potocka.[1] She would be a muse to him (he composed for her his Waltz in D flat major, Op. 64) but even more so to the Polish Romantic poet Zygmunt Krasiński.


Now -- my edit:
  • (→Paris: deleted tons of adjectives. How about some facts about this person? (plus added media file))
After Chopin's matrimonial plans ended, Polish countess Delfina Potocka appeared episodically in Chopin's life, as muse and, some believe, romantic interest, and for whom he composed his Waltz in D flat major, Op. 64 — or, the famous "Minute Waltz."[2]


[inserted tags for playable media file]


Your "fix
  • (→Paris: [no summary])":
After Chopin's matrimonial plans ended, Polish countess Delfina Potocka appeared episodically in Chopin's life as muse and romantic interest. For her he composed his "Waltz in D flat major," Op. 64 — the famous "Minute Waltz."[3]


I'll let readers decide about the origin of the "clumsiness," and whether I deserve some credit for obviously attempting to salvage as much of the original wording as possible.</baleful music>
I do, though, keep an eye on the weasels (especially my own), and if no one makes a better edit in a few days, I'll come back and do it myself (or delete the whole thing). Sugarbat (talk) 00:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I also agree with what is in the section, "style-edit example". The previous revision that was cited was very wordy. When you look at it, the new paragraph said the exact same thing, without as much reading.
Sugarbat's version did not say "the exact same thing" — it materially altered the source's meaning in a number of points. Nihil novi (talk) 09:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Please see "not my favorite method," above. :) (And my related point there, which I'll restate: If I couldn't tell what was meant by the original, unedited portion, it's reasonable to predict that readers will have similar problems. Sugarbat (talk) 00:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The sentence example in "Officially, I give up" is a good example. It's not encyclopedic to describe someone in that way. Nihil novi seemed to seek inclusion based upon the statement from the source, but the sources aren't held to the standards of WP:NPOV as the article is. Can you imagine the mess if articles on politicians, e.g. George W. Bush, were worded based upon the sources? It could range anywhere from the greatest man alive to a spawn of Hitler.
Also please see "peacocky" and "jingoism." Sugarbat (talk) 00:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Sugarbat's comments in "Officially..." (whatever that title was meant to convey) are more notable for vituperation and condescension than for reasoned critique. But he has demonstrated some ability in editing, and I believe that in time he will also develop some tact and care. Nihil novi (talk) 09:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm a girl[bot]. But seriously, if I came across as condescending in the narrative cited (the "I Give Up" treatise), I apologize. I was/am frustrated and I'm sure that was evident, but rather than (just) walking off in a (verbal) huff, I did make some effort to explain 1.) why I was frustrated 2.) what I had been trying to do with the article and 3.) why I believed the article (the real star in this melancholy cabaret) was suffering in general. I gave examples -- which can sometimes be interpreted as condescending, but while I totally love the word "vituperation (tragically underrepresented in hip hop, for instance)," I can't see anything in my exit speech that demonstrated ill will, whereas your comment accusing me of same does, in fact, rub my electrodes in a funny (not funny-ha-ha) way. (How, for example, could I have meant anything other than complimentary when I said, "What you (specifically -- Nihil novi) know is more valuable than any technical formatting," and, "I suspect you have tons and tons of valuable information inside your head..."? I hope you didn't think I was being sarcastic or disingenuous, because I wasn't, at all.)

I will also (and probably only here, in the relative obscurity of this particular talk page, and only this once) say that I'm a professional copy editor, among other things. I do this for money. I try to apply pretty much the same degree of professionalism and related ethic (not to mention refreshing repartee) to my volunteer work on WP as to my bread-and-butter work. I make mistakes in both places, but I contribute my extensive "ability in editing" here, as there, with only one goal in my mind: to make the text perfect. If go nutty on occasion it is probably because of the existence of (necessary and valuable, but challenging) obstacles here that aren't quite as rampant offline -- and I apologize once again if it seems I've stepped on your toes for no other reason than I enjoy stepping on toes. Sugarbat (talk) 00:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Those are my thoughts. I hope Sugar bat doesn't give up because others disagree; their ideas are good ones. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 04:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Nihil novi (talk) 09:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, Jeremy, for taking the time to look at the article and the edits, and for your comments. I do think I'm going to continue my break from editing Chopin at least for another week or so, mostly (at this point) because I'd like to see other people contribute. I'll try and root up some Chopin admirers/scholars and direct them to the page -- beef up the gene pool, as it were (if anybody else uses the term "as it were," I will nuke it :) ) -- and check back myself later to see what magic has blossomed in the interim. Until then

Good Night!

Arrangiamento di Gabriele Piccinnu

Problems listening to the file? See media help. . Sugarbat (talk) 00:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:RFC tag

Since this was the first time I've ever used it, I'm not sure what the protocol is for how long to leave it up/under what circumstances to remove it. If one outside opinion is typically grounds for removing it, then I'll take it down myself, but if that's not the deciding factor, I'm inclined to leave it up for now, since the article itself is still in really bad shape (in my opinion), in terms of encyclopedic style and NPOV, mostly, and I'd really like to get a bigger consensus w/r/t a workable plan for editors to use in the process of making it better. In other words, I want to see some work get done, instead of done/reverted/done/reverted, etc., but I don't have any wonderful ideas about how to best make that happen in this particular case. I really believe this article's been up long enough to have reached featured status by now, and I think we should all be ashamed of ourselves until we can make that happen. Sugarbat (talk) 00:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Au revoir, mon POV

In the next day or two, I'm going to comb this article for [unsourced] opinions and remove them. I'll make an effort to reword if the context gives me some clues, but if I'm unable to do this to a piece of text, I will remove it. I'm just putting up this notice so no one can accuse me of coming in here and sadistically laying waste. This procedure might smart a little, but at least I'm giving everybody time to take some aspirin (and edit, add sources, etc.) Love, Sugarbat (talk) 18:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Now might be a good time (with POV concerns and all) to address my concerns with this sentence:

He is widely regarded as the greatest Polish composer, and ranks as one of music's greatest tone poets by reason of superfine imagination and fastidious craftsmanship.

I know it's cited, but the language is far too flowery for me "superfine," "craftsmanship," etc. Any suggestions, per se?
P.S.: My apologies for not being one of the influential editors for this article, though it has a nice warm, fuzzy spot on my watchlist. :-) --LaPianista! 03:08, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I hate to break it to you, but I'd already deleted almost all the language of which you speak, not once, but a number of times (see RfC tag, above, as well as the lengthy discussions, and the edit history of the article itself). It's also why I put the disclaimer up a couple days ago, because I expect most of my edits to be reverted. I'm now going to comb, as announced above. :) I enthusiastically welcome you to come back later and critique!
(As for the cited stuff you mention specifically, I'm going to delete it unless such language is specifically referred to, in the article text, as being the opinion of a reliable source (as defined by WP). In other words, even if there's a ref tag at the end of a paragraph, if a sentence sounds like an opinion and can't be traced, in context, to a source, I'm going to edit or delete. Just to be clear.) Sugarbat (talk) 20:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)