User talk:Futureclass

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[edit] Welcome!

Hi Futureclass,

This is a collective Welcome! to you all. Your project sounds very interesting and has the potential for being a big help to Wikpedia too, once you all learn the ropes. I stumbled upon your group because I'm a member of the Wikipedia Opera Project. We have an automatic robot ('bot' in Wikispeak) that each day provides a list all new articles that might possibly be opera related. The Classical Music Project has a similar list. We tag the article's talk page with the appropriate project banner, add category listings (if they're missing), and flag up any issues with the articles that need to be addressed by future editors.

Wikipedia has loads of help pages, but I think these two are particularly helpful to newcomers:

Wikipedia also has a New contributors' help page where you can ask live questions

Some of you may find that your articles or contributions get flagged with various types of clean-up tags. The tags are there to help alert other editors, who can visit the article to improve it. So don't get discouraged if it happens to you. It's all part of the learning process, and just about every editor makes mistakes at first, even some quite eminent people. I'll just list here some common mistakes that are important to avoid so that you don't lose a lot of your hard work:

1. Don't be tempted to copy and paste material from other web sites into an article, even if you plan to re-write it in your own words later. It's considered copyright violation and can cause Wikipedia a lot of hassle. Wikipedia administrators and experienced editors now watch out for this very carefully and on a daily basis. If found, it can result in the article being reduced to stub, or the whole article being speedily deleted. If you do find material that you want to use, copy it into a word processing file (or draft email) and re-write it there before putting it into the article.

2. Be especially careful when writing about people, musical groups or organizations with which you have a personal connection. It's a conflict of interest and makes it awfully hard to produce or edit an article with a neutral point of view, one of the Five pillars of Wikipedia. A conflict of interest also makes it difficult to stand back and decide dispassionately whether people, groups or organizations with which you are affiliated (or know personally) actually deserve an article, according to Wikipedia's standards of notabillity. If they don't, the article can be speediliy deleted or taken to the articles for deletion page to be discussed before action is taken. Here's an example of the process. Here are some notability guidelines for articles about musicians, musical groups,composers etc. and academics.

3. Referencing is key. All articles need to have verifiable and reliable third-party references (not simply the web site of the article's subject). Unreferenced articles that appear to be personal essays or are about people or groups with doubtful notability are much more likely to be deleted. The references are needed to verify claims in the article, establish the notability of the subject, and help the reader find further reliable sources on the subject. They need to be stated in the article, either as inline citations or in a 'Sources' or 'References' section. Here's are some examples of referencing in music-related articles (some better than others, but all reasonably adequate):

Once again, a warm welcome to Wikipedia and I hope you all enjoy your time here. All the best, Voceditenore 08:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another suggestion - Sandboxes

Another suggestion is for each of you to create your own personal sandbox. This allows you to work on an article before you actually publish it to the encyclopedia and keeps it separate from your actual user page. A personal sandbox lets you get your article into good shape before publishing, without the pressure of other editors tagging it or making changes, and it allows you to ask for 'second opinions' from others before you publish. Another bonus is that it preserves your work in case the actual article gets deleted, unlike the general Wikipedia:Sandbox which is emptied every 12 hours. But note that like all pages in Wikipedia, a personal sandbox or user page cannot contain copyright text.

To start your personal sandbox page add this: [[User:Your user name/Sandbox]] to your user page (substituting your actual user name for Your user name). Save the page, then click on the link and start editing. It's also a good idea to place this banner {{userpage}} on both your user page and your sandbox page. For example, here's my sandbox: User:Voceditenore/Sandbox. This would be the sandbox page for user Futureclass: User:Futureclass/Sandbox. You might also want to add this banner: {{User Sandbox}} to your sandbox page. You can create additional user sub-pages if you want the drafts for different articles kept separate. Here's an example of a sub-page for a draft I'm working on: User:Voceditenore/SlyDraft. All the best, Voceditenore 13:12, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Music Divas

Hi Futureclass, I'm wondering if our Opera Project "Singers of the Month" for December might interest some of you. The theme is New Music Divas.

The following articles are stubs needing expansion: Bethany Beardslee, Joan LaBarbara, Cathy Berberian, and Jill Gomez

We lack articles on:

Judith Bettina, who has had works written for her by many noted contemporary composers including Charles Wuorinen, Milton Babbitt, Richard Danielpour, and Tobias Picker.

Jane Manning, who has premiered over 300 new works, including Elisabeth Lutyens' The Valley of Hatsu-Se and has made definitive recordings of song cycles by both Arnold Schönberg and Olivier Messiaen.

Cyndia Sieden, who created the role of Ariel in in Thomas Adès' The Tempest

Christine Whittlesey, who sang the female lead in Straub and Huillet's opera-film of Schönberg's Du jour au lendemain and has sung in the premieres of several 20th century operas including Olga Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek's Bählamms Fest

Susan Narucki, who has appeared in world premieres of many contemporary operas, including Louis Andriessen and Peter Greenaway's Writing to Vermeer, Claude Vivier's Reves d'un Marco Polo and Libby Larsen's Every Man Jack.

If any of you want to create an article on one of the 'red-linked' singers, the article on Jill Gomez is a good model to follow. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 12:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)