User talk:GuillaumeTell

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[edit] Sir Roger Clifford: hanged or hung?

See my latest three comments on the York Castle talk page. I now lean towards hung, but the evidence is scarce, and ambiguous. Acad Ronin (talk) 01:57, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Layerthorpe

Hi - many thanks for a very interesting and informative article. I know the area well, having commuted through it more times than I care to think about before I left York. My only criticism of the is that it is unreferenced - if you could add your sources this would make the article even better.

On an unrelated note, have you considered archiving this talk pages? 110 sections dating back nearly two years is rather a lot!

Thanks again for your contributions. – Tivedshambo (talk) 08:22, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] UoL ref

Your ref added today to UoL seems to be about colour palette rather than BH? PamD (talk) 12:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Have mended it. PamD (talk) 13:43, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rossini's work

I totally agree with you but I just added the frame based on the roles written in the article. I do not have much ref to Rossini's works - Jay (talk) 17:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I have rearranged Il viaggio a Reims and Mosè in Egitto, the ref taken from the internet. I am not sure whether they correct. - Jay (talk) 18:00, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletion of Template:Mozart Operas wide

A tag has been placed on Template:Mozart Operas wide requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).

Thanks. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Userpage typo

"a very substantially contribution"! PamD (talk) 17:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Her Majesty's Theatre

Thanks for all your input. Do you have further comments on the article? If not, are you ready to support the FA nomination? All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. It would be tricky to put subheadings in amongst all the images. At this point, after it has been reviewed by so many editors at the FA review, I am afraid to fool around with the article structure, since one of the important criteria for advancement to FA is that it must have settled down and become "stable". Perhaps in the future, a reorganization of the section, such as you suggest, could be discussed. Let's see what Kbthompson thinks, but I have seen him say in other talk page messages that he is loath to shake up the article any further until the FA review is concluded. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 13:34, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi y'all. Let's divide that section by period of management, but later. The ballet and opera were performed concurrently (alternate seasons?), so, difficult to untangle them. Easier to identify the management - but even then, they seemed to enjoy limited 'repeat' engagements in some cases. Thank you for all your good sense and valuable suggestions. They are much appreciated. Kbthompson (talk) 14:20, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I made clear that Haymarket Opera House is an informal name. I suspect the practise grew as an antonym to the Covent Garden Opera House - another building cursed with a string of informal epithets. It wouldn't be too difficult to divide the section by Taylor, Ebbers, Laporte, Lumley, Mappleson. The only criticism of that would be too few paragraphs in each section. Maybe groups Laporte and Lumley together under the Revolutionary committee? Kbthompson (talk) 14:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
It was a collaboration. Thanks for providing some sanity in this process! Kbthompson (talk) 12:30, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Adina

  • Sounds good to me. Thanks for the feedback.Nrswanson (talk) 01:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Tchaikovsky operas template

Hi! Thanks for the explanatory note. I just thought it might be easier to deal with if the template itself cleared out the newlines, so that people who use in it don't have to do any special formatting in the articles themselves. My edit to the template seems to have worked, at least; see Iolanthe, which used to have two blank lines at the top and doesn't anymore. What do you think? --Masamage ♫ 01:47, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Assessments: speculative idea . . .

I've been wondering how assessments might be implemented etc. IMO the only way feasible would be to bot-mark all non-stubs (also non GA/FA) as 'Start' class and then promote them individually. Is that something you could support? (With 4,100 articles we need a plan that is practical.) -- Kleinzach (talk) 02:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Good. I think that would be sensible basis for moving forward on assessments. Would you make a proposal to the project?
I agree with all your suggestions, except re: "articles where another project has awarded a class other than Start . . . It would seem to me to be polite to replicate any already-awarded class" . That might be technically difficult to do. If the notice says the assessment is made automatically, there should be no misunderstandings. (Also many assessments by other projects tend to be poorly considered.) Another thing I'd suggest putting aside until later is the importance scale. I think that will complicate things if it is included in the initial proposal. -- Kleinzach (talk) 06:03, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of major minors

Perhaps you would like to have a look at the list Folantin and I have done at: User:Folantin/Userspace_Folantin4 ? Perhaps you would like to add some titles? -- Kleinzach (talk) 11:43, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A new Oxbridge user box

GuillaumeTell...I am currently in the process of writing a user box for all of the colleges that are part of Oxbridge. This template is meant to replace your current college template. Please take a look at the work in progress and comment on it. My main concerns are college abbreviations and color choice. I am using scarf colors for the colleges. Thank you. - LA @ 16:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Opera Project welcome doc

I've drafted a welcome doc for new project members. It's here. Let me know if you have any comments - or edit directly on the draft if you prefer. Best. -- Kleinzach (talk) 00:13, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Good point, I've added something about references. -- Kleinzach (talk) 04:35, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Assessments . . . part two

Now that CotM April is out of the way do you want to launch the assessments discussion? Or would you like me to do? Or should I do a draft to show you? Best. -- Kleinzach (talk) 04:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the draft. The first two paragraphs are fine, no problems. I am concerned, however that we may be pushing our luck in para 3. How about putting more emphasis on gradualism and working out the details (numbers of assessors, points scale etc.) later. Two reasons. One - we don't want it rejected by the project. Two - Personally, I'm not going to have time to be involved in the actual assessing in the way I was with the Wagner project. What do you think? Best. -- Kleinzach (talk) 05:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I think it's good now. Let's post it and see if we can establish a consensus in favour and then get the technicalities worked out with SatyrTN. -- Kleinzach (talk) 00:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I will wait until you get back. (Last time I confused SatyrTN if you remember!) This will also give the project a chance to digest the idea. -- Kleinzach (talk) 14:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Still no comments so I guess that's a green light for going ahead with the bot marking of 'start articles'. Would you like to talk to SatyrTN? After that's finished we can maybe pressgang people into having a real discussion about assessments. BTW I have marked up some FAs, GAs etc as FA/GA, e.g. List of major opera composers, Agrippina (opera), Venus and Adonis (opera), to make it easier for the bot. --Kleinzach (talk) 03:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm afraid SatyrTN is getting more and more popular. It's becoming more and more difficult to politely wait one's turn. I had the same problem last time I contacted him February. So yes I think it's necessary to try again. --Kleinzach (talk) 22:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

SatyrTN seems really busy, doesn't he? Should I give him a double ping? What are our other options, I wonder? Are there any other similar bots? --Kleinzach (talk) 10:10, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I see he hasn't been online for the past three days so I think we might wait until he's back . . . I can't remember where we originally found him, but it wasn't Bot Requests as far as I know.--Kleinzach (talk) 11:03, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
He's now been off for a week - without putting any notice on his userpage. Maybe it's time to think about Bot Requests? --Kleinzach (talk) 23:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm heavily involved in the big debate about getting rid of the 50,000 image placeholders (the sllhouette 'No Free Image' things) here so I'd really appreciate it if you can handle it. I imagine it will be tricky to explain it all to a new bot, but maybe there will be no alternative. --Kleinzach (talk) 00:13, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Singer categories

If you have a moment I'd be grateful if you could have a look at this as well. It's a similar situation to the assessments in that I'm hoping to take a step forward in sorting out a problem, rather than trying to do it all at once (and going into gridlock). Similar also in that I have a guru lined up to do it all automatically - if the idea is accepted. Thanks. --Kleinzach (talk) 12:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The move from Sopranos etc. to Operatic sopranos (plus Oratorio sopranos, Jazz Sopranos and whatever) is intended to be a non-controversial step forward to a more specific cat. I hope it's something we can all agree on - i.e. that it's better to depopulate the top level (Sopranos etc.) and have an exclusively operatic cat (which we can manage/access/count etc) instead of the present mess.
You ask:
(1) ". . . am I to assume that moving singers into categories such as Operatic mezzo-sopranos is a preliminary to combining those categories with French (etc) opera singers to make categories such as French operatic mezzo-sopranos?" Answer - No, that would be subject to further discussion.
(2) "a lot of singers of opera also sing non-opera (Lieder, oratorios, crossover, etc.) and a lot of singers who specialise in non-opera do sometimes sing opera (Martyn Hill and Mark Padmore spring to mind). Does opera in those cases mean necessarily staged opera, or do they count as operatic if they've only appeared in recordings of opera and never on stage?" Answer - strictly speaking we are only responsible for opera on the opera project. Editors are free to add cats as necessary. Lieder is generally neglected on WP so there is a problem much wider than just cats. Oratorio singers could probably be catted quite easily. Crossovers likewise. This would have to be discussed in various places but the point is we would be moving forward not left in gridlock. --Kleinzach (talk) 23:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] AfD Nomination for Oxbridge

Hi, I nominated Oxbridge for deletion since it reads entirely as WP:OR. You can find the discussion here. ColdmachineTalk 22:38, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] York CC

Many thanks for the photos - the county court photo now brings up the rear at List of county courts in England and Wales! Regards, BencherliteTalk 13:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Italo Tajo

Thank you for fixing my article. Yes, I made mistakes but my goal was to write an interesting article not to give you or anybody else work. If it's to much for you just leave it alone ! Marleau (talk) 12:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, Italo Tajo is just but one article, considering my input (which is considerable) I think the job is on the whole "well done", but I agree there is always room for improvement. Marleau (talk) 15:10, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] MelonBot

Looks good. Regarding the idea of changing Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Article ranking, to Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Assessment, this seems reasonable. We originally called it ranking because of opposition to doing assessments, but maybe that's no longer a problem. Maybe if you put a note on the talk page to say that it has changed/updated no one will be much bothered? WPBannerMeta sounds OK - but over my head, of course . . . I imagine you will leave a note with SatyrTN explaining why we have defected. --Kleinzach (talk) 03:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Mmm. Frustrating. SatyrTN is still not active - only one small edit on 14 April. The only other thing I can think of is to ask the advice of Black Falcon, the techy admin who AWB'ed the singer cats. He doesn't have a bot but might have a friend . . . but maybe you will have a better idea. --Kleinzach (talk) 01:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I've added a new message to Wikipedia:Bot requests‎ to draw attention to our 'plight'. --Kleinzach (talk) 02:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
No response to that and your original message has been archived! Any ideas?--Kleinzach (talk) 11:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
A direct approach to User:Happy-melon would be a good idea (first?) and I can talk to Black Falcon (I haven't so far). I don't see any point in putting anything on the Opera Project page - I just think that's the wrong place. (AWB may not be relevant but it does enable you to do repetitive edits at a speed of about one a minute. It's good for category editing of course.) BTW How did you set up your snazzy signature?--Kleinzach (talk) 23:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, The Tell bit was brilliant - but do you have to put in by hand each time (copy and paste?) or have you automated it in some way? --Kleinzach (talk) 00:16, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Photo-Merchant Venturers Hall

Thanks for correcting me. It is the first ever photo I put on Wikipedia and then into an article, it took me about three hours over two days, so I am not surprised if it is wrong. I can see you know your York.....

And this is only the second 'talk' I have done so I hope it reaches you.

Benyon3 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 11:07, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Two Points

First, thanks for your feedback on the tenor article. I will fix the errors you pointed out, most of which are not mine as I did not add them to the article. I am afraid that I am not as knowledgable on tenors as I am on other voice types so I appriciate extra eyes.

Second, I would appriciate your input on the current discussion going on at the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Theatre. There is a proposal for a debate relevent to the opera project going on there.Nrswanson (talk) 21:36, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Your opinion, please?

I would like your opinion at to the debate going on here : [[1]] at Wiki project theatre. Thanks. Smatprt (talk) 01:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rhinemaidens: Categories

You recently deleted the "Opera" category from the Wagner's Rhinemaidens article. Since the Rhinemaidens in question are characters in an opera, created by Wagner based on a variety of possible sources (as explained in the article), it seems odd that you consider the Opera category "unsuitable". Can you explain the reasoning? Brianboulton (talk) 22:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Your reasoning makes perfect sense. Thank you Brianboulton (talk) 09:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category for writers on opera

I noticed this yesterday as well. What about 'Opera critics' or 'Opera writers'? I think they match the other opera people cats which come under the main Opera cat. --Kleinzach (talk) 00:12, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I take your point about Opera writers, but I really think Opera critics is OK for Budden, Newman or anyone else who writes about opera. Isn't opera criticism like literary criticism? --Kleinzach (talk) 00:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes I think Opera critics could come under 'Critics', but also 'Opera' along with Opera singers, Opera directors, Opera managers etc.--Kleinzach (talk) 22:28, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Conclusion: Image placeholders centralized discussion

Hi. I'm sending this to you because you participated in the Centralized discussion on image placeholders that ended on 23 April.

That discussion must produce a conclusion.

We originally asked "Should the addition of this box [example right] be allowed? Does the placeholder system and graphic image need to be improved to satisfy policies and guidelines for inclusion? Is it appropriate to some kinds of biographies, but not to others?" (See introduction).

Conclusions to centralized discussions are either marked as 'policy', 'guideline', 'endorsed', 'rejected', 'no consensus', or 'no change' etc. We should now decide for this discussion.

Please read and approve or disapprove the section here: Conclusion --Kleinzach (talk) 10:57, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Please note this message conforms to WP:CANVASSING and has not been sent to anyone has not already participated in the centralized discussion.

[edit] WikiProject Yorkshire Newsletter - May 2008

Delivered May 2008 by ENewsBot. If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add two *'s by your username on the Project Mainpage.

→ Please direct all enquiries to the WikiProject talk page.
→ This newsletter/release was delivered by ENewsBot · 10:55, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Opera assessment

Tie down your pigs! I think my code for project banner assessments is finally ready to go. There's just one caveat at the moment though: for various technical reasons (mainly because it's still in development and I anticipate having to keep stopping and starting the script, and don't want it to keep going back to the beginning of the list), I need to convert the banners from one template name to another. I want to use {{WikiProject Opera}}, as it's a redirect to {{Opera}} already, and as you can see from CAT:WPB it's also the most popular naming convention for wikiproject banners. In a nutshell, I want to convert the banners from {{Opera}} to {{WikiProject Opera|class=B|importance=}}. The existing template will still work fine, it just makes my life a hell of a lot easier when I have to keep stopping the script to error check. If you're ok with that caveat, I can start work immediately. Happy‑melon 10:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC) This is how the script is normally set up to work:

  • If the article uses a stub template, replace {{Opera}} with {{WikiProject Opera|class=Stub}}
  • If the article appears in the FA list, replace {{Opera}} with {{WikiProject Opera|class=FA}}
  • If the article appears in the GA list, replace {{Opera}} with {{WikiProject Opera|class=GA}}
  • If there are other banners on the talk page, which agree on their rating, copy that rating to the new banner
  • Otherwise, leave unassessed (replace {{Opera}} with {{WikiProject Opera|class=}})
Any of those steps can be disabled if you don't want to use them. The plan is to run that script fully, then it will be an easy job to go through Category:Unassessed Opera articles and replace {{WikiProject Opera|class=}} with {{WikiProject Opera|class=Start}} if that's what you want to do. I'll do a run of 50 articles since I need to submit a test of that size for the bot approval request, so you can take a look at those at the same time as BAG is reviewing it. I'll hopefully be able to do that short run this evening (UTC). Happy‑melon 12:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I've done a short run, which can be found at the top of Special:Contributions/MelonBot for the time being. The first run didn't regrade all the |class= templates as |class=Start, but I have run a simple find-and-replace to do that. Let me know if you see anything wrong with the trial. I also converted {{WikiProject Opera}} to use {{WPBannerMeta}} - I hope you like it! Happy‑melon 21:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Once this run is finished, I'd be more than happy to search Category:Opera and subcats for lost articles - that's what the code is really designed to do. Vis comments, it is very easily possible to add the comment feature to WPBannerMeta banners using |COMMENTS=yes, but note that this is an all-or-nothing option: if comments do not exist for a page, the banner will display a note asking for editors to add them. If this is not what you want, I could code something up for you and hang it on |BOTTOM_TEXT= (or, since it seems like a good idea generally, add it to {{WPBannerMeta}} itself). Happy‑melon 18:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dvorak opera categorization

Oops. Sorry for the inconvenience. I'll leave the opera cats alone from now on. Cheers. DavidRF (talk) 16:53, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bot run/Your message of the 5th

I don't think I have anything to add. (Sorry not to have replied earlier but I've been away.)--Kleinzach (talk) 14:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I've had a look at your message to HM and it looks fine. I agree that we should ignore other project ratings - that's important in my view.--Kleinzach (talk) 22:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Composers and conductors

I've just noticed that a lot of composers are getting opera project banners, presumably because they are in opera composer cats. Was that intended? I thought we were leaving composers with the composers project, just as conductors are apparently left to Classical Music. I don't have any strong feelings about this, but I thought I should check with you. Of course the talk pages all have multiple banners now . . . --Kleinzach (talk) 23:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Banner comments link

I see we don't have a link on the banner to 'Comments' as we had with the Wagner banner. Is the intention to add this later? --Kleinzach (talk) 23:48, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Start-rated articles

HM is doing some high-profile articles such as Opera. (Actually I can't make out how he is selecting titles). This is going to attract attention. Should we alert people and say they can manually change some obviously wrong assessments? What do you think? Would this interfere with HM's work?--Kleinzach (talk) 03:17, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

For reference, I'm just running down the list of Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Opera. Articles are sorted within that list by their pageid number, which is loosely related to creation date; consequently, your oldest (and consequently best-developed) articles are likely to be retemplated first. If you want to add something to |MAIN_TEXT= in {{WikiProject Opera}}, that wouldn't disturb the tagging process at all; alternatively, you can edit any talk page transcluding {{WikiProject Opera}} with impunity (but note that anything you do to a {{Opera}} banner will be lost), so you can just edit Talk:Opera to say {{WikiProject Opera|class=B}} if that would be easier. Happy‑melon 08:20, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Is there any special advantage to using Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Opera? I assumed you would work through Category:WikiProject Opera articles which in theory contains all our articles. Anyway I'll go ahead and edit as suggested: {{WikiProject Opera|class=B}} etc. Thanks. --Kleinzach (talk) 10:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
It's slightly more server-efficient, and also more reliable (it's possible for a page to be categorised into that category without having {{Opera}} on it, which could throw some interesting exceptions!). It's also impossible to separate pages that have been retemplated from those that haven't. Happy‑melon 13:52, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Importance

Thanks for your various comments, to pick up on the last one: I think it would be a step too far right now to start an importance scale. I'm also not convinced that an importance scale would be useful for us. IMO we need to finish the present run first, then explain it carefully to the project . . . --Kleinzach (talk) 03:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Banner comments link/2

I've reworded this to match the Wagner Project banner, however I'm wondering if it's working the same way. Do you remember how we created the Comments pages initially? --Kleinzach (talk) 04:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but is it working properly? See for example my banner edit to La gazza ladra. Is this the same as the Wagner assessments? (There is no link to Comments showing). --Kleinzach (talk) 01:20, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I didn't put any comments on La gazza ladra. There's no redlink on the banner. That's why I was asking whether you remembered how it was set up for the Wagner Project. --Kleinzach (talk) 12:19, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
OK. I must be wrong about this. I thought a red link to 'Comments' appeared first on the banner before any assessment had been written. Obviously I was wrong. Sorry to have confused you. Opera was obviously anomalous in that some old comment page existed prior to the (new) banner. What is the next stage? Will HM go through all the articles substituting 'WikiProject Opera' for 'Opera'? --Kleinzach (talk) 23:18, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
OK. I understand your logic. One minor concern: the text "See comments for details ' is stuck on a line below "This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale." I think it would look more balanced if both sentences were on the same line, but I haven't been able to work out how to do this. How do you feel about this? Any ideas? --Kleinzach (talk) 12:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Not possible without major changes to {{WPBannerMeta}}, I'm afraid. Happy‑melon 13:33, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!

Thanks for the help on the articles. Like I said, this is all new to me, so any guidance is welcomed. Ecoleetage (talk) 21:51, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Banner relics

I'd forgotten about this but {{singer}} and {{singer1}} were still in operation as redirect to {{opera}}. I've now redirected them to {{WikiProject Opera}}. I hope that was the right thing to do. Would it be better to replace them altogether? I guess there are 100-200 of them.--Kleinzach 05:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. (I removed the banner from Sarah Brightman!) You write: "The only problem with the re-redirect is if HappyMelon only deals with the old Opera template, but if the articles have Opera cats they'll get picked up on the category trawl if they haven't already been done on the template trawl." What was the result with that? Regarding the problem with the comments line, it was the odd positioning stuck on the bottom corner of the box that was the problem, not the size of the typeface. Something will have to be done with it - but more on this later. As for the Portal link, I agree. It should be easy enough to add it. Let me know if you have any trouble with it and I'll have a go with it. --Kleinzach 03:40, 26 May 2008 (UTC) P.S. Voce thinks my sig. is over the top. What do you think? It's a real challenge getting the code within 255 characters!

[edit] Project banners done

Mission accomplished - you now have 4,511 articles transcluding {{WikiProject Opera}}, of which 2,847 are currently unassessed. I wrote a fix to also handle redirects, so pages transcluding {{castrato}}, {{russian opera}}, etc, have also been retemplated. Have fun with your new assessment scale! Happy‑melon 21:16, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I've tried to find articles with {{castrato}} and {{russian opera}}, but can't see any - only a handful of archive pages. Am I looking in the wrong place? --Kleinzach 09:27, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
You won't find any any more because they've all been changed :D. They were redirects to {{opera}}, so they got retemplated with all the rest. All talk pages which used to transclude {{opera}}, or {{castrato}}, {{russian opera}} etc, now transclude {{WikiProject Opera}}. Happy‑melon 19:41, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
So why are {{castrato}} and {{russian opera}} still redirects? --Kleinzach 23:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Well there's no desperate need to do anything with them - they're completely harmless as they stand, and it would make old versions confusing if I deleted them. Happy‑melon 10:28, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
While you're here, a couple of things seem to have gone wrong:
  • All those unassessed articles: we were expecting them to have been given Start-class, which is what you did in the original trial. Could you fix this, please.
  • The articles automatically-rated Stub have an unwanted extra semi-banner on the Talk page (I think caused by the auto parameter). We don't need this for Stub or Start - can you get rid of these, too?
I've been busy all weekend, so haven't had a chance to get back to you earlier. Thanks for your efforts so far. --GuillaumeTell 00:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
No problem, I can just run through Category:Unassessed Opera articles and retag as necessary. Removing the auto-assess notice is as simple as removing |AUTO_ASSESS=yes from {{WikiProject Opera}}. Happy‑melon 15:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks very much. There's one other thing, but I'll leave it until you've been through the unassessed articles. --GuillaumeTell 15:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Ok, that's all done: the only things left in Category:Unassessed Opera articles are pages which have been assessed, but which have been automatically marked as "redirect", "category", etc. If you set |FULL_QUALITY_SCALE=yes in {{WikiProject Opera}}, then they would get categorised into Category:Redirect-Class Opera articles, etc. It's you call whether you want to do that. Anything else :D? Happy‑melon 13:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

This is the code adapted from Template:WikiProject Philadelphia which produces a low key small print text at the bottom of the box. Would it be possible to add it (or similar) to the existing banner? I haven't done it myself because I don't want to mess anything up.

{{{{FULLPAGENAME}}/Comments}} |<!-- ELSE: comments do not exist --> {{#ifeq: {{{class|}}}| |<!-- THEN: no comments AND no rating --> The article has not been rated for quality yet. Please rate the article and then leave comments <span class=plainlinksneverexpand>[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}/Comments&action=edit here]</span> to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. |<!-- ELSE: no comments but has rating --> The article has been rated for quality but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments <span class=plainlinksneverexpand>[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}/Comments&action=edit here]</span> to <!--explain the ratings and/or to -->identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need. }}<!-- end if rating/no rating test -->

Thanks. --Kleinzach 02:53, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I enabled the template's built-in comments feature, which is similar in function to the raw code you've got there. The current functionality is configured to display the comments if they exist (in a collapsible box, which is neater than the code from {{WikiProject Philadelphia}}) and nothing otherwise. IIRC we had a discussion before and decided that it was best not to display a redlink to the comments if they didn't exist; but if you decide you do want this, just define |COMMENT_FORCE=yes. Happy‑melon 13:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, but can we use the two texts above? If I do |COMMENT_FORCE=yes it says: "Please rate this article, and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article." which is not really what we want here. An explanation is more relevant here than a request.
Also, when there are already comments as in Talk:Opera can we reposition and balance the text so many people will understand what edit/history/watch/purge are referring to? I can probably do this myself if you can direct me to the relevant code. Can we also link to actual Comment pages rather than see the assessments in a box? We did it this way for the Wagner Project, e.g. Talk:Lohengrin (opera) and Talk:Lohengrin (opera)/Comments. The latter shows the length of assessment we will probably be seeing. --Kleinzach 14:28, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Kleinzach and I need to discuss this further - I did indeed ask (I think with his approval) for no redlink if there is no comments page, and I'm not sure that the Philadelphia stuff is an improvement. Meanwhile, are you agreeable to a Melonbot trawl through Category:Opera and its subcats, adding the banner to articles which don't currently have it (as I requested on your Talk page)? --GuillaumeTell 16:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
The code for comments display is located at Template:WPBannerMeta/comments; but remember that anything that's changed there is changed for all projects which use the comments feature. Adding the "The article has not been rated for quality yet" phrase might be a good idea; the two passages are otherwise, as far as I can see, identical. If you do decide that the functionality built into WPBannerMeta is not quite what you want, then you can code up anything else you want and pass it to |BOTTOM_TEXT=, like the basic switch I added initially. If you need any help coding anything, do let me know. Vis the category run; yes, I can do it. But it's not as simple as it looks; unlike the previous run, where pages which had been 'handled' were removed from the list of pages transcluding {{opera}}, there is no such activity here. There are 874 subcategories of Category:Opera, and 14,000 pages are categorised into them. Accounting for duplicates, there are 5,736 pages which have to be processed (which implies that about 1,200 templates will be added), all in one go. If I have to stop the script for any reason, it'll have to go back to the beginning; so as you can guess I'm planning to start it early one morning and hope to high heaven that it's done by the end of the day :D. But yes, it's on my to-do list. Happy‑melon 21:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
OK. I think we should deal with the second matter first. I've made some suggestions to GuillaumeTell and I hope he will then follow it up here, thereby avoiding crossing any more wires. --Kleinzach 03:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm surprised that there are an extra 1,200 or so pages that need the banner. Would this include the categories themselves? And/or redirects? And/or other things we aren't expecting and don't want to add the banner to? Could you possibly produce a list of the 874 subcats for us? SatyrTN did one during the previous exercise and it might be useful to compare the two and see if there are any obvious problems. --GuillaumeTell 09:52, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Addendum: It occurs to me that we do not want the Opera Banner to be added to articles which already have the Wagner or Gilbert and Sullivan banners, Template:Wagner and Template:G&S-project. That should knock a few off the 1,200! --GuillaumeTell 10:51, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Ok, run is in progress (starting for the fourth time :D). I've added a quick hack to try and exclude talkpages that already have {{Wagner}} - I can't guarrantee that it'll catch everything, but it should get the bulk. There's a raw, unformatted list of subcategories below. There are 874 unique categories, but 925 total subcategories, so quite apart from anything else you have quite a lot of tree-splitting going on - where a category has two or more parent categories which themselves have a common parent. Might be something to look into. The category talk pages themselves will not be tagged, but anything in them will be. Any desperate problems, ping me (or if it's literally chewing something up and I'm not at home, ping MelonBot). Happy‑melon 11:25, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Unique subcategories of Category:Opera
As I've explained to GT, it's important to avoid any singer cats that don't have opera/operatic in their names. Italian singers, American contraltos etc are likely to be mainly popular, non-operatic. --Kleinzach 14:25, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Ok, it looks we've made something of a mess :S. MelonBot has tagged 338 pages today, all of which need to be checked for sanity before we can continue. You two are vastly more familiar with the topic than I am, so I would appreciate any help you can give me in checking for any more silly taggings in today's run; if you think it would help, I'd be happy to give you rollback, Kleinzach (looks like GuillameTell already has it). I, meanwhile, am going to have a closer look at the Category:Opera descendence tree, and then rewrite my category parser so I can exclude whatever subcategory James Blunt is in :D. Happy‑melon 16:12, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Just got back from a tasty Yorkshire asparagus (yes, it exists) lunch. Kleinzach, who lives in Japan, has gone to bed. I am on UK time, as are you, I think. I'll have a look at the run, but I have this feeling that rollback is the answer for now, so that we can regroup. Expect some comments here before 7pm BST. Festina lente is the watchword, I think. --GuillaumeTell 16:32, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
You spent five and a half hours eating lunch? Lol! For some reason I thought you were on GMT-5, and were American or Canadian :D. Oh well, someone thought I was a girl in my RfA so it just goes to show how easy it is to get things in a twist here! Good luck with the review... I just wish there was a way I could add something along the lines of 
for each in edits: assert not stupid
to my bot script!! Happy‑melon 17:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Lunch starts at 1200 UTC here - 1 1/2 hours eating it, 1/2 hour shopping, 1 hour on a digestif, 1/2 hour reading messages from Kleinzach and you ... anyway, I've rolledback the banners on articles that shouldn't have had them (and added the G&S banners where appropriate), but it's been rather wearisome, so I'm stopping for now - Paolo Fanale is my next one to look at. (I haven't yet checked through the Unique cats above, as rollback seemed the first thing to do - wow, my edit count is now nearly 6000!). Categories that I've met that shouldn't have the banner (unless there's also one that should have it on the same article) so far: anything connected with Gilbert and Sullivan, English male singers, New Zealand sopranos, Oratorios, Oratorios by ..., Tenors, Austrian singers, English baritones, American sopranos, American male singers, American baritones, Sopranos, American tenors, French sopranos, Opera crossover singers, Falsettos, Scottish male baritones. As Kleinzach says above, "opera/operatic" is key for the singers, though Opera crossover singers should not get the banner, unless there's another, legitimate, cat. I'll go through the rest after dinner (i.e. in about 3hr from now, assuming my flaky BTVision box will connect me) if I'm not doing anything else. Meanwhile, I'll just put on my flat cap, feed the whippets and check that there's enough coal in the bath... --GuillaumeTell 18:01, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I've just got back. Yesterday I asked "Is it possible to run the bot in reverse (so to speak)?" . Did Happy-melon see this, I wonder? It looks to me as if it will take hours to check the articles individually, though it might be possible if (1) we had a list, and (2) we divided it up. --Kleinzach 08:04, 1 June 2008 (UTC) who is very tempted to say . . . .

I've been busy this morning and didn't fit many in yesterday evening, but can devote the afternoon today to the job. The list is here. The 338th and last is Elena Gerhardt on the next page - she did sing opera in her early days, but I've debannered her as she's not in Opera Grove and her cat was Category:Mezzo-sopranos, not Operatic mezzo-sopranos. If you've any time to spare, you could start at the bottom and work up. I've done the 48 starting at the top (the next is Paolo Fanale, whoever he is) - a lot of them are unfamiliar and have to be checked. Has HM given you rollback? That does make it a little easier. --GuillaumeTell 10:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
(ec)I saw it, but the anwer is "not really". I could give my bot rollback and tell it to revert all the tags it placed yesterday, but that's not really the right approach - it just makes more mess. From the work GuillaumeTell did yesterday, it looks like about 20% of the taggings were valid and have not been reverted. I posted a link to the list above, it's here also. I've just given you rollback, Kleinzach (don't beat anyone up with it :D), so you can now see for yourself which edits are still at the top of the history. Looks like GuillaumeTell started at the top and got as far as Paolo Fanale, so if you started at the bottom and worked up, you'd meet somewhere in the middle. In terms of continuing, I've looked at the category tree more carefully, and it seems to me that any dodgy subcats are likely to be in Category:Operas, Category:Opera genres or Category:Opera singers. If someone can confirm whether or not there are any dodgy subcats of Category:Operas (which has the lion's share of both subcategories and total articles), then I can start doing the categorisation a bit more piecemeal. Happy‑melon 11:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Just seen your message but am about to go to bed. Don't understand what rollback is but perhaps I will tomorrow. There probably aren't any dubious subcats of Category:Operas or Category:Opera genres (the main problems are with the singers) but I think it would be much safer to check off the cats individually. (If we have a list I can check it.) I know which ones have non-opera articles. I could explain in detail why we having these problems but that won't necessarily help. Peter Cohen and I did do a hand check of all the cats before the SatyrBot run, so we were able to avoid this situation. --Kleinzach 15:03, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
"any dodgy subcats are likely to be in Category:Operas, Category:Opera genres or Category:Opera singers." I've checked through all of these. Operas has sub-cat Category:Operas by genre, from which I've removed Category:Oratorios which was one of the problems. Category:Opera singers had sub-cat Category:Singers by range which I've removed, as it contains subcats which include James Blunt et al - any proper opera singers are in the cats "Operatic [type of singer]....". As for Opera genres, it has a sub-cat Category:Operetta which has a further sub-cat Category:Gilbert and Sullivan This IS a valid subcat BUT it has its own banner (Template:G&S-project), so please can you skip any article that has this on its Talk page. If that's a problem, I can do a temporary fix while the bot runs. I'll be online for the next 3hr approx, sorting out more of the invalid taggings, so get in touch if you have any questions. Duplicating this on melon talk --GuillaumeTell 15:22, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Time for dinner. I've got as far as De Vlaamse Opera, which is about #182 out of 338, plus I rolledback a few obvious sore thumbs further down (Tiny Tim, Nat King Cole, Axl Rose, a few oratorios, etc.). I may or may not continue later this evening. --GuillaumeTell 18:02, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Got as far as Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theatre, about #223. Probably no more time for this until after lunch tomorrow. NB a few articles needed their cats altering. --GuillaumeTell 21:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Did a few more, down to Cher(!). Off to bed now. --GuillaumeTell 00:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I've done Portal talk:Opera up to "Weird Al" Yankovic. Is that what I should have been doing? Obviously I hope there will be no more bot runs until we have finished this particular cleanup. --Kleinzach 01:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Now up to Vibrato. --Kleinzach 04:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I've now hit Vibrato coming from the other direction. So we've finished. I think it's safe to have another Melonbot run when convenient now that the troublesome categories no longer descend from Category:Opera, provided that articles in Category:Gilbert and Sullivan and its subcats (or articles with Template:G&S-project on the Talk page) are ignored. --GuillaumeTell 11:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I've started another run. I had a false start with Category:Kalidasa Plays, another distant subcategory with little or no relevance, but I've coded up an easy way to exclude categories, so we should be in business. I've added the G&S categories to the exclude list, and my hack should cause it to skip pages that already have a {{G&S-project}} or {{Wagner}} banner on them, assuming it works correctly. Did you find on your travels any pages where a {{WikiProject Opera}} banner was added to pages already containing one of these banners? Happy‑melon 13:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Oh dear - the Sanskrit operas cat was created for Satyagraha, which is a real opera - I had no idea that someone was going to add all this other stuff. Yes, I found several pages with Opera + G&S banners (e.g. Talk:Tom Taylor, Talk:Edwardian Musical Comedy) but none with Opera + Wagner. I'll be keeping an eye on my watchlist! --GuillaumeTell 13:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

As I have explained, it would be better to stop this bot run and check the categories before going any further. There's no point in doing another blind hit-or-miss bot run. It would only takes 10 minutes to check a category list. That what we did with SatyrTN and we didn't make any mistakes. --Kleinzach 14:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll have a look at the categories. However, all the problems last time were caused by a) non-operatic singers, b) Oratorios and c)G&S categories (plus a few where the articles themselves were wrongly categorised, which don't count). All those have been attended to as far as I can see. There is no sign of any widespread chaos happening this time, or have you spotted something that I haven't? --GuillaumeTell 14:24, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Well I'm not sure you'll be able to get through this list in ten minutes, but that's a complete list of all subcategories being analysed on the current run, so you're welcome to go through it. As GuillaumeTell says, there doesn't seem to be too much chaos ensuing this time. If there are any obvious problems with that list, do let me know and I'll add them to my new exclude list. Happy‑melon 14:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I've just been through it, and it looks fine. --GuillaumeTell 14:43, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
The list looks basically clean. (Presumably the red linked, unravelled accent cats are inactive?) I thought Yiddish theatre articles might be linked to operetta but could only see one article which we can debanner by hand. Opera Recordings, another suspect hierarchy, looks OK. --Kleinzach 15:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
The redlinked cats are just because wikipedia and python fonts don't interface very well: wikipedia uses UTF8 which can represent just about any character under the sun, while python uses a much smaller subset. If python spots a character it doesn't recognise it prints it like that, which mediawiki then translates into those character strings. When the script queries the site directly it just sends the title as it receives it and doesn't try to understand it, so it doesn't 'realise' that it doesn't understand the character. So those categories will be parsed correctly, even if they don't display correctly (and it crashes the script if it tries to print the category name to the screen :D). Just another quirk of working with bots on wikipedia. Fortunately all the redlinked categories look completely benign. Only about 1,300 pages left to review! Happy‑melon 15:12, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
The redlinked cats are OK. Just accented. --Kleinzach 15:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I've just noticed that Meyer Lutz has been tagged. He's in Category:People associated with Gilbert and Sullivan and should have been ignored. (He's also in Category:Opera composers, but still shouldn't have been picked up, should he? Unless the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.) --GuillaumeTell 15:43, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
He was in a valid subcategory of Category:Opera and didn't have {{G&S-project}}, so he would indeed have been tagged. The 'exclusion' of Category:Gilbert and Sullivan is just a block to stop the bot rooting through those categories directly, it's not an active exclusion of articles within those categories. Happy‑melon 16:16, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
The bot just added the banner at crossover singers Talk:Urs Bühler, Talk:Carlos Marín, Talk:David Miller (tenor) and again at Portal talk:Opera. I just removed them all. One more, in Talk:Portamento. Can we stop it? - Jay (talk) 15:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Let's not panic. Those singers all have an "opera singers" category, which they shouldn't have. The bot is ignoring the Crossover category but not the e.g. Category:Swiss opera singers one. One thing this exercise is throwing up is a number miscategorised articles. I've now removed those cats from the singers' articles. Portamento is in Category:Opera terminology and should have the banner. --GuillaumeTell 15:55, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Re Portal talk:Opera. Why did the bot replace the banner - i.e. why did it feed back into the run? Are there any more articles to which this has happened? --Kleinzach 22:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Bot run is done, number of articles tagged this time: 338 again, bizzarely enough. Looks like much less disruption was caused this time around. If you need anything else, do let me know. Have fun with your new assessement scheme! Happy‑melon 16:13, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gräfin Dubarry/Der Evangelimann

Just a note to say I have no info on these. I don't know whether you were intending to cover them? --Kleinzach 00:51, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought they were in Grove but they're not. Curiously I see Evangelimann is in Oxford so I may have something to add if you can start it. I see there's a substantial article in de. here so maybe we can get something up after all. --Kleinzach 11:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unassessed Opera articles

Now finished - except for a stray one in Moreschi's archives. --Kleinzach 00:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Burlesques, etc

Hi, my queston is not about the bot tagging, but rather I am merely trying to get a consensus about the burlesques as to what we wish to do. Can you give your opinion on the talk page, please? Your opinion is very important to me. No rush, though, if you want to give the issue some thought. Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:11, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. Re: G&S, thanks for the info; however, there are *some* articles that could have both a G&S tag and an opera tag; for instance: Charles Manners, Valerie Masterson or Gillian Knight were G&S performers who went on to substantial opera careers. I understand that you are busy with the Melon-bot program, so if you can't think about the burlesque policy issue, then I'll have to wait. All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:22, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

As I seem to living on this page at the moment, let's avoid double bannering. If a singer is more G&S than gen. opera then the article can have a G&S banner, or vice versa.--Kleinzach 08:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Repeated bannering by MelonBot

Jay has already noted the repeat bannering of the Opera Portal. I also see the redirect Talk:Russian Private Opera has just been rebannered for the third time. It's strange that the number of bannered articles this time (338) is identical to last time. I am continuing to check by hand, but I think we need to find out why the bot is behaving in this way. --Kleinzach 23:20, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

  • Portal:Opera is in Category:Opera. I'm not clear what is wrong with it having the banner. Isn't it part of the Opera Project?
  • Russian Private Opera, although a redirect, is in Category: Opera companies. Most redirects don't have categories, but giving it the category means that this title appears in italics in the category listing, which may or may not be a good thing in this case (I've never heard of it). Might be useful for all those Paris opera houses that kept changing their names, for example.

--GuillaumeTell 00:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Opera can't be assessed (I hope!). In any case it already has a neutralized banner made by Jay. And surely the bot should be able to avoid articles that have already been debannered? Categories are not normally used for redirects, though I have no real objection to it. I think it's better we take this to the Opera Project where I've already expressed my concerns. --Kleinzach 01:04, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Yorkshire - June 2008 Newsletter

Delivered June 2008 by ENewsBot. If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add two *'s by your username on the Project Mainpage.

→ Please direct all enquiries to the WikiProject talk page.
→ This newsletter/release was delivered by ENewsBot · 11:38, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment

Thanks for letting me know. I will leave the starts alone for now. I only removed it as it seemed like such a rediculous grade for such a well developed article. I didn't realise where we were in the assesment process or how it worked. Sorry for stepping on your toes so to speak. My only question is how we know to find articles that have start classes assessed by melon bot and not a person once assessment begins. Unassessed articles are easy to locate which is why I removed the start class.Nrswanson (talk) 11:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Conductors/MelonBot run

I've just seen your new Category:Music directors (opera) which I see is under Cat Opera. This pretty much runs a stagecoach (or whatever is the idiom) through the policy of leaving all conductors in the Classical Music Project. I'm concerned about this opening yet another Pandora's box, especially as we don't seem to have a definition for 'music director'. Should we talk this through on the project page?

Incidentally I've just spent the last four hours going though the last MelonBot run and I haven't finished yet. Most of it is non-opera or marginal. Much of it is actually Theatre Project stuff. Hugely time consuming but apparently no one else is doing any checking. Ahem. --Kleinzach 04:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

My apologies. I was confused. However there certainly are problems. I'll explain tomorrow. Now bed.--Kleinzach 14:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Two (very little) questions

1. When one wishes to make a general appeal for information within a WikiProject community, where should one place it, if not the talk page for the Project page? To leave the request on the talk page of the specific article leaves one at the mercy of whether or not that page is on people's watchlists ... or do all members of a wikiproject automatically have all articles within the Project on their watchlist?
2. I've looked at the links at the bottom of the Josephine Barstow page: it's clear that the page has been adapted from her own biog. Would it be useful for me to try to create something more detailed from the information on the other link? Not knowing much about her career (which is why I looked in the first place) I'm wary of creating some ghastly monster. On the other hand, something more structured might attract the truly knowledgeable almost-instinct 23:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I only saw JB in the flesh once when she played the Kostelnicka for Opera North's Jenufa sometime around 2000/1, and had trouble matching her reputation with what I was hearing: a lot of that role lies quite low and audibility was an issue, the bottom end sounding hollow and brittle, though no doubt the cold, distant acoustic of Manchester's Lowry Centre didn't help. Her interpretation was, on the other hand, blinding, much MUCH superior to what I heard at ENO recently. Later I saw the DVD of the Salzburg Ballo and was astonished; since then I've been intrigued and just feel really hungry for more information. I'm still — as you're probably able to tell! — quite new on WP. One thing that struck me as soon as I started was that the sage's page was in a pretty woeful state; I figured that if it had a clearer and more readable structure then more casual users of Wiki with a proper specialist knowledge of Larkin criticism might feel more inclined to contribute ... but attracting them takes time. While we wait we're enthusiastically debating the legitimacy of “curly inverted commas”. Very WP. almost-instinct 10:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
PS a propos of very little, I find the careful nuturing of the sense of failure very invigorating. When I read “...and say why it never worked for me” or “where has it gone, the lifetime? Search me” or “Postmen, like doctors, go from house to house” I feel inspired by the clarity of the transfer of deadening dread feelings into words. The perfect poise of the language sometimes makes me laugh. I'm too enthusiastic about the poems to care about the criticism! almost-instinct 11:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
That AA quote is so good I had assumed that it was one of PL's pieces of baleful self-criticism, and wondered why I hdan't come across it recently! The Alvarez criticism is something that we very much wanted to get into the article; Linuxlad, who remembers it, can't find his copy of The New Poetry, the book it's in. The Motion and Bradford biogs make brief references to it. Maybe I'll put those in and when someone finds a copy of the book they can replace my contribution. I often find myself wanting to know more about things' reception history, not so much for the criticism itself but what it tells us about the differences between now and then. For example I think the page on Gloriana could have an excellent section on its reception history. I wonder if the Opera North programme for the JB production contained a history of performances up to that point? And finding info about the first performance will be in the Humphrey Burton biog, I suppose. (Do I remember reading about alterations being made so that Janet Baker could sing it, or am I getting totally muddled up with Walton's T&C?) Presumably the rate of productions of G has gone up since the Opera North prod? The Ballo DVD is worth seeing for the singing (the more I hear Domingo, the more I think that, basically, he's it and that his sketchy top notes are some kind of cosmic joke ... "there's always some flaw in them. Always something") but the production is shallow beyond belief, verging on the funny. But I've never heard Ballo in the flesh with a proper cast, so you might want to take my opinion with a pinch of salt. almost-instinct 10:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Trial by Jury

Sorry to take a bit to reply. Could you put your comments on Talk:Trial by Jury? There are a couple other people working on it besides me =) Thanks for the help! Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:56, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Trial by Jury

Sorry, you said that you were going to continue to criticise this - if you don't feel like it, that's fine, but I would appreciate it. Thanks! Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 13:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)