Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan

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This article is part of WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan, organized to complete and improve the Gilbert and Sullivan related articles on Wikipedia. You can participate by editing the article attached to this page or by visiting the project page, to join the project and see a list of open tasks.
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Contents

[edit] Need G&S stub templates?

Besides the "project" template, are there any other templates we should put in to aid editors, like a stub template or an expand template? Ssilvers

The project template looks great.... Ssilvers 17:40, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:N

I removed G&S Opera Co. It is less than 10 years old and only peforms a half dozen shows per year at the Festival, so it seems less notable than the others. In any case, I agree that it is not a high priority item. Ssilvers 15:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] To do issues

[Re: list of museums, etc.] Is there a comparable article or description on other subjects Wikipedia covers? I haven't seen one. Marc Shepherd 15:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Overture di Ballo/Bridget D'Oyly Carte

I've added a piece on di Ballo, and will be glad if one of the Sullivan (and Wikipedia) experts will run an eye over it. (The facts are all pukka, and I think adequately referenced, but it may need kicking into shape for layout and style etc.) Have also added a first shot at a piece on the Dame, which needs more work i.d.c.

(Hope this request is in the right place (moved from bottom of page). Apologies if not.)

Tim riley 10:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is a good place to put out the word. It would be helpful to provide links. I found Bridget D'Oyly Carte easily enough, but I don't see Overture di Ballo. Marc Shepherd
Verbum sat! I'll remember in future. Here's a link to the overtureTim riley 13:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rupert D'Oyly Carte

New article added. Tons of info - all referenced. Might benefit from a dispassionate shoving into shape. Tim riley 19:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Tim. However, because of the kind of apostrophe " ' " your computer uses, a search for Rupert D'Oyly Carte, will not find the article, and I think it will also interfere with linking. Can you move the article to Rupert D'Oyly Carte? I think that would be helpful. At a minimum, there needs to be a re-direct. --Ssilvers 19:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Gosh! So sorry. Have copied the lot to the page you suggest. Is it possible to delete the earlier one with the dodgy apostrophe? Tim riley 06:42, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
No, it's not possible. Wikipedia's view is that redirect pages consume practically no resources, and it isn't worth the effort to delete them. A proposal to delete will be denied. However, there's no harm in letting it hang out there. Marc Shepherd 12:26, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Tim. Now I think the search will work better for most people. I had done some edits on the article, put it in a little more chronological order and added some headings and a link. See what you think. The article could still use expanding, I think, but it's a key addition. --Ssilvers 14:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VME

Is there a template I can use for Victoria and Merrie England? Vanished user 12:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

For a good example, look at His Excellency. --Ssilvers 12:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

Re-added VME (It's pretty good, but the summary is still weak at the moment, and I'd appreciate a little help with revising it.) and added Mountebanks (Pretty much a stub). Do you think it's worth making stubs for all the W.S. Gilbert plays listed in the To-do list? I've read almost everything he wrote, so it wouldn't be TOO hard, but it might delay getting a good article if they lost prominence. Vanished user 20:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I think there's a distinction between an article that's rather obviously in need of help, and an article that is short of exhaustive.
The VME article is fine with me in the sense that if it were never touched again, it would have about as much as a general purpose encyclopedia requires. Everything else is gravy This doesn't mean you shouldn't add to it, if the spirit moves you, but it is not deficient.
The Mountebanks article is long past stub status. The fact that you can think of more doesn't make the article a stub. In that sense, every article in the G&S project is a stub, because I can think of omissions in all of them.
I would not add stubs for missing Gilbert plays unless you're prepared fairly promptly to do something with them. Otherwise, I would let the editor who's prepared to work on it add the article. Marc Shepherd 20:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with leaving VME in the "clean up" section. Even though you did a good job of putting together the article, I think the language in the summary of the vignettes needs to be clarified and expanded. I agree that you should not add stubs for missing articles unless you are going to add more real soon. That is what I have been doing with the performer bios. I put up a stub with the skeleton of the article, categories, external links, references, etc., and then in a few days I go back into the references and fill out content. BTW, I don't think we want to create a specialized G&S stub tag. Aren't there too many stub tags already? What is the value of it? --Ssilvers 21:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Main value of stubs is that they keep people from going in and removing all the red links, forcing you then to search around every article mentioning, say, Victoria and Merrie England, and adding them all back in. Other than that, useless. I suggested it because, to be honest, you asked about it when the project was first started. Suppose it was a little too enthusiastic. Vanished user 14:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Though, of course, you really should do that anyway - I just did it for the new Onward, Christian Soldiers article (though for some reason I couldn't see the last 9 links of the search) Vanished user 14:59, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Needs Songlist

I think the template {{G&S-Needs-Songlist}} is unnecessary and distracting. The WP:G&S page already lists clean-up opportunities. The lack of a song list is merely one example of the many ways the G&S project articles could be cleaned up or expanded. Why single out that particular case? I suggest maintaining the clean-up and expansion opportunities on WP:G&S, as we have been doing.

In addition, the way in which this template was constructed is non-Wikipedia standard. There are already standard ways to signal missing material, e.g., {{stub}}, {{sectstub}}, {{expand}}, {{expandsection}}, and so forth. However, even these should be employed judiciously. Maintenance templates deface articles. His Excellency and The Beauty Stone are fine articles as they stand. The lack of a song list doesn't make them deficient. It only means that more could be said, if someone so inclined cares to take them up.

As I noted above, every single article in WikiProject G&S could be expanded. {{stub}} and {{expand}} ought to be reserved for the cases where an article is very obviously unacceptable in its current state. Marc Shepherd 15:17, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Instead of creating more editorial aids, I suggest we each concentrate on adding content where we see a need for it. --Ssilvers 17:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Bad idea on my part. Vanished user 14:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural references

Pop culture references to the G&S works show up in several places:

There isn't a lot of consistency about where these tidbits turn up. For instance, pop-culture references to the Major-General's song appear in Major-General's Song, The Pirates of Penzance, and Gilbert and Sullivan.

More broadly, I am wondering if there comes a point when these pop-culture references become excessive. It's safe to say the Major-General's song has been quoted a lot. Should the articles list every time a character from a television show sang a little bit of the song? It gets to be a very long list, and at some point perhaps it's no longer interesting.

WikiProject Opera took a rather aggressive stance against trivia, concluding:

When it comes to anecdotes, influences on pop culture, and other peripheral content or "trivia", information should only be included in opera articles if it is likely to be of interest to a typical reader of the article. Examples of content which almost always fail this test are: songs, albums, video games, TV shows, or movies that reference the opera. Examples of content passing the test are: Apocalypse Now's use of The Ride of the Valkyries and direct adaptations such as Carmen Jones.

The Opera project's approach was rather ham-fisted and superficial, and I opposed at the time. Nevertheless, I think there comes a point when it's sufficiently documented that a song has been widely quoted, and it becomes a distraction to list every example. At the very least, we need to decide where these references go, because people are just adding bullets wherever it occurs to them. Most of these references, it appears, are being added by people who have no long-term interest in the articles, and aren't concerned with consistency on this level. Marc Shepherd 11:57, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd leave a few highly notable, but choose only the most relevant, with the following exceptions and qualifications:
  • Where a more specific page exists, mention adaptations have taken place, but provide only a link, or, at most, a list of one or two of the most notable.
  • Very specific articles like "Major-General's Song" may include less-notable adaptations as they're designed for that purpose.
  • Arguably, a similar page for the Little List Song would help pull off all the bits currently therein.
  • H.M.S. Pinafore's list should quite likely be spun off into its own article.
Vanished user 12:17, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I think I basically agree with Adam. The references in the G&S, Gilbert or Sullivan articles should be moved to the shows that they refer to, with a note left at the main page that cultural references have been numerous and are noted at the shows' articles. Then, for songs that have their own articles, the references should be moved there, with a note on the opera article that there have been numerous references to the song, and that they are listed in the song's article. --Ssilvers 15:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] The Sapphire Necklace

New article. Tear it apart. Vanished user 16:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Also did a stubby little start on Overture In C (In Memoriam). Someone fix that hideous image positioning?

A good start on both. I've edited the image positioning. It now looks right, on my system anyway.
A potential concern is that both articles appear to contain quite a bit of original analysis, and Adam's personal views about those works. While he may be right in both cases, we need to confine ourselves to what can be verified in citable sources. Marc Shepherd 01:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I've tried to be largely NPOV, only using research to expand on points mentioned elsewhere in The Sapphire Necklace. That said, I'll admit the musical analysis in Overture in C (In Memoriam) was, indeed, mine, and probably POV-full. In my defense, I was fairly exhausted at the time, but unable to sleep, but quickly grew able to sleep and just saved my work. Oh, yeah. I've broke the image again. How do you fix 'em? Vanished user 10:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Manuscript Locations

Should we be listing for most of these operas (especially the less famous ones like The Mountebanks) where the manuscripts (or any full scores if the manuscript no longer exists) are located and preserved if any of us know? I myself am highly curious, and I suspect a lot of others may be as well. Lack of an available score certainly might be a factor in the infrequent performances of these works. --Anivron 01:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I know several for Mountebanks exist, some of His Excellency is at the British Library, and I think all of Sullivan's survive, though cut material, such as the extra verse s for the other contestants in the Beauty composition is probably lost. Vanished user 01:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dorothy (opera)

Um... I don't think my last edit quite works.... Vanished user 12:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: the new cast list: That is not how the other articles are formatted. Notable performers can be linked in the intro. What the article needs is a synopsis. --Ssilvers 12:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I think a table, as you did for Mazeppa, would be more effective. Marc Shepherd 12:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Er... That table was there already. It was the only useful part of the stub, t'be honest. Also, I don't suppose it's possible to remove that somewhat ugly greyness from the tables? Makes them unattractive and a bit hard to read. Vanished user 17:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The grayness is a Wikipedia standard. My preference, actually, is for the "Historical Casting" table that we've used for the Savoy Operas. Marc Shepherd 17:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Aye. Much more useful, if perhaps a bit specialised of information. Vanished user 16:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, btw, if you look at the intro to the article, you'll notice that it links to Tempest and Coffin, who starred in the main London production, and Russell, who starred in the American production. --Ssilvers 18:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lyrics

Am I right in presuming that when quoting lyrics all repeats (with sensible exceptions for things like "All frenzied, frenzied with despair...") should be deleted? I made that presumption when copying over "The Long Day Closes (song)" lyrics from the G&S Archive (Am I right in the presumption that no copyright is being upheld there, or should I ask Paul's explicit permission?). It seems a sensible action, though I doubt it'll come up much - few of the part songs, parlour ballads and hymns are all that notable. The two (or is it three?) Gilbert and Sullivan ones, maybe, but other than that, we've probably got all the notable ones done now, with possible exception of mentioning Orpheus and his Lute in any Henry VIII incidental music article. Vanished user 17:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

In the general case, I would quote from a libretto, which presents the words as the poet conceived them. I'm not aware of any stand-alone libretto for "The long day closes," so you would have to make a reasonable guess as to the original meter.
Yes, I think you can safely copy the lyrics of that song from The G&S Archive. The song is in the public domain. Marc Shepherd 18:19, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Right. Happily, it's pretty easy to reconstruct "The Long Day Closes" - remove the repeats of parts of the third verse and it fits into the exact same pattern as the first two. By the way, just fixed up Sapphire Necklace. Vanished user 18:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

I have unposted pictures for Agnes Fraser, Richard Barker, and J. Jones Hewson ready to upload if anyone needs them. They match with the photos for Rosina Brandram, Robert Evett, Francois Cellier, Isabel Jay, Louie Pounds, and Henry Lytton (2nd photo) already uploaded. Vanished user 16:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the photos. They really spruce up the articles. Marc Shepherd 16:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
No bother! Remembered I had them, so... why not use them? Vanished user 16:53, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

As much as I hate scanning pictures from such a thick book (the inside edges get all distorted as the page curves off, despite my best efforts to try and keep the old spine pressed as flat as possible without breaking, leaving me to have to correct everything back out in Photoshop), I tried a different scanner today and managed to crank out lots of photos of actors, actresses, and other people related to Gilbert and Sullivan, which I've added to the relevant pages. I have several more photos, but they're either in a different book or the person doesn't have a page yet. --Anivron 01:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Nice job, both of you. As Marc said, it gives the articles much more appeal. -- Ssilvers 05:32, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Think we could use the cover image from Robert Terrell Bledsoe's biography of Chorley under Fair use? Vanished user 23:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of major opera composers

Have nomnated Arthur Sullivan, but be warned that there seems a bit of antagonism against him: They claim Britten is the first composer of English opera to achieve international recognition since Purcell on the front page, and Kleinzach seems somewhat violently against him in the discussion archive. Still, worth a try, and it is a very odd exclusion. Vanished user 15:23, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

As the old saying does, don't bother trying to teach pigs to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pigs.
The folks at the opera project have a great fondness for standardless lists. List of major opera composers is one of these, and List of important operas is another. Neither one belongs on Wikipedia.
Having said that, given the de facto criteria of the List of major opera composers as the members of the Opera project have evolved it, Sullivan doesn't belong. The list seems to include two categories of composers:
  1. Those whose works are regularly performed by "grand opera" companies (i.e., the sort of companies included in List of important opera companies, not G&S specialist companies like Carl Rosa)
  2. Those whose works are no longer frequently performed, but that were influential in the development of the genre (i.e., Monteverdi, Lully, Charpentier, Purcell, Rameau, Gluck)
Sullivan doesn't fit either criterion. Outside of the English-speaking world, grand opera companies seldom perform Sullivan.
Two other comments made on the talk page for List of major opera composers seemed to me persuasive. First, if Sullivan were added, a whole bunch of others would have to come along with him, and at that point you'd be talking about a very different kind of list. Second, "G&S are about as frequently performed by major opera houses as Sondheim or Rodgers - that is, very rarely, and as a self-conscious venture into "popular" territory." Marc Shepherd 22:41, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not sure they'd have to. I mean, the ones they were listing were significantly harder to justify than Sullivan. Still, you're probably right. By their artificial distinctions...

By the by, I think you forgot to sign your name. Vanished user 23:16, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I've gone back and added my sig.
Yes, you could devise a set of criteria by which Sullivan would belong. As they have defined it, he doesn't. The lack of an independently verifiable standard is the reason this list doesn't belong on Wikipedia. List of important operas was recently an AfD candidate. I voted Keep, but I was wrong. I should have voted Delete (on principle; it would not have altered the outcome). Marc Shepherd 23:28, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Princess Toto

Started setting up this article today. Have a score and a useful reference source, so I should be able to expand it a lot more tomorrow. Took me a while to get my sources together, and when I had, it was too late to finish it. Vanished user 00:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Wikisource: Sullivan

We have a template for this, but it doesn't work yet as it's not hooked up at the Sullivan end. There are things there: Some of the G&S operas [Most hideously-badly formatted], and Wikisource:The Masque at Kenilworth. But more work is needed before we can use that box. Vanished user 15:46, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Fixed! Vanished user 16:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lists

The to-do list includes:

  • Complete list of Arthur Sullivan works, excluding operas (many of these will never have their own articles, so they will not be covered by categories)
  • Complete list of W. S. Gilbert works, excluding G&S operas

Might I suggest that it might be better to sort the works by type (Sullivan's Hymns, Sullivan's Parlour Ballads and Part Songs, Gilbert's Parlour Ballads (and Part Songs??), Gilbert's Bab Ballads, and Gilbert's Short Stories are particularly numerous) It will be very difficult to find EVERY Sullivan Hymn, and EVERY Gilbert Song and Parlour Ballads - indeed, finding even half of Gilbert's Parlour Ballads would be substantially notable research, and, as such, it would be almost impossible to create a complete list of works for either, and, if you did, they'd flood whatever list they were in.

Likewise, where appropriate, I'd include the G&S operas, if relevant to the Chronology. For instance, leaving them out of a list of Gilbert's Operas would give a fifteen year gap between Princess Toto and Mountebanks. Vanished user 23:23, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Adam, I'm afraid you've lost me. The to-do list does not include every Gilbert or Sullivan work. So I'm not really following what you're suggesting we should do. Marc Shepherd 11:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I think he's saying that each "complete list of...." should be broken down into smaller lists, or organized under headings, instead of simply chronologically. Is that right, Adam? If so, I think I disagree and think we should do them all chronologically (we could, of course also do "list of parlour songs", "list of choral works", etc., but probably those things exist somewhere that can just be linked to. I do agree, Adam, that we might not be able to find every little thing G&S ever wrote, so we could take off the word "complete". I think that word is just an aspiration. Finally, I don't care whether we include or exclude the G&S operas, since you can link to them in the intro sentence to the list. In a chronological list, I suppose we may as well include them.... -- Ssilvers 13:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Most of these works, and certainly all of the important ones, are listed already:
In the Arthur Sullivan article, the works are organized by genre, and then in chronological order within a genre. The minor works (songs, hymns, partsongs, chamber music) are not listed, but there are links to the G&S Archive where full lists can be found.
In the W. S. Gilbert article, there's a "List of Dramatic Works," which includes all his works for the stage in chronological order. The Bab Ballads are separately listed in the Bab Ballads article. Very nearly all of the consequential Gilbert works are in one of these two lists.
I believe I was responsible for adding these lists, so the way they are organized – for good or ill – was my doing.
If I understand Adam's suggestion, the Sullivan list is already organized the way he is proposing, except that the non-major works (hymns, parlour songs) are linked to off-site lists. Re-creating those lists on Wikipedia would not require significant research, as the G&S Archive is already exhaustive. It would just require a lot of work. The song and hymn lists would need to be hived off into separate articles, as these lists are very long.
Not quite. The list of hymns linked to, for instance, is a SELECTED list of hymns, not a compelete list. As well, a huge chunk of his hymns were written in the period between The Tempest and Cox and Box, so including ALL of them in a "complete" list would drown out notable works in a sea of very minor ones. Vanished user 19:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
As I mentioned, the list of hymns (complete or not) would surely need to be in its own article, as the Sullivan article is already too long. If you have the intestinal fortitude to type in and format all the hymns, go right ahead. Marc Shepherd 21:20, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't think Gilbert wrote very many detached ballads or songs outside of his operas. The vast majority of his short stories were collected in Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales. It wouldn't require a great effort to list them, although no one has gotten around to it so far. There are only a few more Gilbert works to worry about (e.g., The Story of The Mikado). Marc Shepherd 14:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I know of at least four: Thady O'Flynn, Sweetharts, The Distant Shore, and the other one with Sullivan. Since Thady O'Flynn was only brought to my attention when it came up in a discussion of Thespis, and almost no resources list it in any way connected to Gilbert, it would indicate that there is a strong possibility of further, unknown ballads out there. I know it's hard to prove a negative, but since Thady O' Flynn isn't getting listed, it's hard to trust that others aren't. As for Gilbert's stories, there I can definately say, I fear, that you are very much wrong. I know, off hand, of at least five or six not in Foggerty's Fairy: An Elixir of Love, The Adventures of Wheeler Jay Calamity, Vice Triumphant (script-form, that one, but decidedly all new material and not meant for performance), His "Comic Mythologist" series and various other series in Fun, A Schoolboy Sensation Novel, and quite a number of others. I've been trying to work towards collecting all of them, using some published research Andrew Crowther kindly supplied me a reference for to identify them. Vanished user 19:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I should probably mention that I do have a mostly-complete list of Gilbert's non-theatrical, non-musical works, but unfortunately, somewhat depressed over my inability to get everything made up, I loaned everything to Christopher Browne so that it would be spread around a bit. And sent that too. Ah, well. Vanished user 19:45, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Obviously I wasn't clear enough. I am well aware that Gilbert wrote tons of stuff for periodicals that wasn't published elsewhere. It could fill volumes, but all of this material is surely out-of-scope for Wikipedia. What would be the basis for citing it? Most of what you can cite is indeed in Foggerty's Fairy (I never said all). The few parlour ballads you've listed are pretty much the full list. We can't do anything about potentially unknown ones.
As a researcher myself, I am obviously interested in unknown Gilbert that might be awaiting discovery. But in my Wikipedia capacity, it's all original research. This is what it is to have two capacities. Marc Shepherd 20:59, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree that lists don't have to say they are "complete". They will just be lists of the things you can find using secondary sources, which is what WP requires. Of course, additional items can be added to the appropriate lists as references for them are published and available. The G&S Archive already has various lists that can be cross referenced, but I think it would be nice to have one chronological list of Gilbert works and one of Sullivan, so you could say, "What did old Arthur write in 1888?", and find a pretty good list of those items all in one place. I think that any lists we create need to satisfy a useful purpose that is not already satisfied by a page in the G&S Archive. Wikipedia does not encourage the creation of scads of lists, so I think we should not just duplicate lists that already exist on the Archive, unless we can add significant value. Hope these 2 cents help. --Ssilvers 21:12, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
The WP concern is with lists that lack clear standards, e.g., "List of Sullivan's Important Hymns." In such a list, who's saying what's important? It doesn't violate policy if you want to list all of Sullivan's hymns. I tend to agree with Sam, however, that it would add very little value. I think it would be far more helpful—in the Wikipedia sense— to focus on getting our main articles up to "good article" or "featured article" status. Marc Shepherd 21:20, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Weel, the reference was published by, uif I recall correctly, something like the Journal of the New York Public Library - making a hash of that in all likelihood - about a decade or two ago - I haven't used it in a while. It probably shows. So, since it's a published source, it wouldn't be original research.

But it would clutter up the lists with a lot of non-notable material, which was my original point. Vanished user 22:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment Department debuts

The Assessment Department has debuted. See the assessment department for more details. See the related talk page for implementation discussion. Marc Shepherd 20:43, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Peer Review

I've been very, very bold, and arranged for Peer reviews of W. S. Gilbert. Results should come in here and here. I noticed the (probably more useful) Biographical peer review after requesting the general peer review.

Point of this, of course, is to get W. S. Gilbert up to at least GA. Vanished user talk 05:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the path for W. S. Gilbert should be B->A->FA. GA is generally reserved for excellent short articles. By the way, my sense is that there's a shortage of good FA candidates. Today's FA is Jabba the Hutt. When the featured article is a secondary character from the Star Wars series, you know there aren't a lot of FA's to choose from. Other former featured articules include Bulbasaur (a minor Pokémon character) and Perfect Dark (a minor Nintendo-64 video game).
In parallel to the WSG peer review, Adam also nominated Haste to the Wedding and The Sapphire Necklace for GA status. Both failed rather quickly. I wouldn't have nominated either one. In my view, neither one ranks among the best we have done. A review of the criteria would have made it pretty clear that both fail. By the way, there are only 1,411 GA's, of about 1.3m on Wikipedia, so you're talking about an article that's in the top 0.1%.
Perhaps we need to set up a more rigorous internal assessment for the G&S project. There are some criteria that are pretty straightforward, and if they're not met, nominating for GA is a waste of time. Marc Shepherd 20:14, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
True. But it may be worthwhile to work up one or two of the very short articles into GAs, as they'll take significantly less time. Might be a good motivational thing. I chose those two because they were short, self-contained, and, whilst not inline cited much, were referenced. Thought it might turn up information and advice useful to other short articles. Vanished user talk 23:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biography

Please put talk on the talk page -- try not to clutter up the Project page.

Adam wrote: Sam has done a marvellous job at expanding out the biographical links, but Gilbert's adopted daughter, Nancy McIntosh, is probably the most important omission. Vanished user talk 19:04, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Adam, but I think that, other than Nancy, and maybe a couple more others, we are far more in need of articles on the missing Gilbert works that are redlinked in the To do list than more bios. I added several dozen bios, but it is a shame that so many important Gilbert works are still not represented at all in the Project, IMO. Regards, -- Ssilvers 03:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Aye, but Nancy McIntosh is so important to any good biography of the later years of Gilbert that she deserves mention as probably the only important one not done. And, though I could just mention her, you have done wonderful work on performers, so it's worth saying so.

N.B. Why am I still awake? Vanished user talk 04:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

  • User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory 2,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Philosophy and religion Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Sports Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory/United States, (note: This page will be retitled to more accurately reflect its contents)
  • User:Badbilltucker/History and society directory, and
  • User:Badbilltucker/Science directory

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now put the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 00:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article for Deletion

Project participants: Please weigh in with your opinions at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Katisha. -- Ssilvers 20:07, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Post-first-night cuts

Reginald Allen, in his 1948 (? It's across the room and I'm too lazy to check the date right now) edition of the complete first-night libretti, contains copious notes on songs that were traditionally cut after the first night; he does this for every opera, even Thespis (which is sort of a lost cause) and Pinafore (which, remarkably, suffered no trimming of songs after the first night, and only lost a small bit of dialogue). Would this sort of analysis (sourced, of course) be worth adding into the articles for the individual operas? I'm thinking most especially of Utopia, which was given a grand total of three finales, only the last of which stuck.

Incidentally, Allen also has some wonderful quotes from reviews of the opening nights, which I think are worth eventually including.

As an aside, the overture to Ruddigore just came on the radio, and it's the first Sullivan they've played in I don't know how long. Think it's an omen? (No, I don't know of what.)

(I sure do love paranthetical asides.) --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 18:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Most of the operas do have a "versions" or "cut numbers" section. If you want to do the research and do one for Utopia, by all means. You might want to look at Ruddigore and The Yeomen of the Guard for different ways of how it is done in the other articles. -- Ssilvers 18:52, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
By all means! Do it! *idly uploads Gilbert's illustration of I have a song to sing O!*Vanished user talk 18:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Alrighty then. I can't promise when it will be done, but hopefully I'll get something together soonish (especially for Utopia, as the history of the cut stuff is rather interesting, to me). --User:AlbertHerring Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla! 19:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Keep this at the bottom of this page

For discussions about categories, see: category discussion page. Ssilvers 06:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

For discussion about opera article categories, see Opera categories page.

For discussion about opera article structure Opera articles page. Marc Shepherd 19:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Automatic bot tagging for opera project. Request for comments.

Hello from Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera, I'm preparing a list of categories relevant to opera (operas by X, English-language operas, opera librettists, English opera singers etc.) so that a bot can tag all pages that are members of those categories with the opera project tag. I'm umming and erring about what to do about the G&S stuff. My instinct is probably to tag Gilbert, Sullivan and their operas (together or separate,) collaborators etc. as part of WP opera. Could people please let me know if this will antagonise everyone here. If so we need to discuss how to avoid problems. I'm new to bots so may need advice on how to avoid affecting G&S pages if this is what we decide on. --Peter cohen 14:50, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes! Please do not do that. We have discussed this many times with the opera project. We have a G&S project tag on all articles related to the project, and we assess and watch those articles. There is no reason to add another tag. I am certain that the opera project members who have any interest in G&S already watch the pages that they are interested in here. Thanks. -- Ssilvers 16:30, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I can omit Category:Operas by Arthur Sullivan and its subcategory from the scan. Unfortunately Category:English-language operas, and Category:Comic operas both seem to contain works by G&S, Sullivan himself appears in Category:Opera composers, Gilbert in Category:Opera librettists etc.. Has anyone here used SatyrBot before? Do you know if we can instruct it to either exclude articles tagged with the G&S project tag or ones which are members of the G&S categories. Hopefully, one or other of these can be answered in the affirmative, or we'll have to rethink the categories. --Peter cohen 17:00, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I doubt anyone here will know much about SatyrBot. The guy that we used to have who was very tech savvy (Marc Shepherd) has retired from Wikipedia. All the operas in the project should be in the Comic Operas category, so if you tell the Bot not to tag articles in that category, you should be OK. As I understand it, currently that category contains pretty much only the G&S project operas, and we could manually tag the few that are not in the G&S project. Does that work for you? -- Ssilvers 17:13, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I think I'll post on the bot page asking for advice. I've noticed the heading in the comic operas category about it changing to english comic operas or such like, so the Smetana, Dvorak, Wolf etc works will presumably be rehoused. Albert Herring stand sout as somethign that is a comic opera but isn't a Savoy opera, so I don't know how it will fit into the system. --Peter cohen 17:30, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Let me know of any exciting developments. Best regards, -- Ssilvers 17:47, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edward Loder (1813-1865), Ford and The Sapphire Necklace

I see we still don't have an article on Loder, who was a kind of forerunner to Sullivan. Would someone here like to take it on? You probably have better resources for this than I do, though there is an article by Nigel Burton in Grove. Best. -- Kleinzach 23:52, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I've also done a stub on Sullivan's pupil Ernest Ford which someone might like to develop. -- Kleinzach 07:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I added what I could find about Ford, but I never even heard of Loder. -- Ssilvers 14:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Ford looks good. Loder is may be forgotten now, but he gets a lot of space in Grove where he is described as the "main signpost to Sullivan". You have seen that I added The Sapphire Necklace to The opera corpus. I did this simply because the article exists - that list contains all works for which there is an article. If you think it should be deleted/merged or whatever that's fine by me, I have no particular opinion on this. -- 22:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I have no opinion on it either, and you know more about the criteria for inclusion on the opera corpus, so I'll leave it alone. I'd say that Michael William Balfe was a signpost for Sullivan, and that his article could certainly use more attention, but, I'm afraid that I don't have any resources that would help much with either composer. Hopefully someone will come along who is able to help with those. I'm more able to help with Edwardian-era operettas and musical comedies (and later operettas and light operas) than I am with earlier opera composers. Let me know when the composer of the month turns to operettas, and I'll try to help with the English-language info. Best regards, -- Ssilvers 23:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you learn Hungarian? Or find someone who does? That's what we need. -- Kleinzach 01:40, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] English-language operettas

Someone just put all the G&S articles into this category. Recently, we all agreed to put them under English comic operas. Should they ALSO be under English-language operettas? I am not sure whether the person who did this sought any consensus before re-catting everything. -- Ssilvers 21:31, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Yeomen of the Guard

Please check out the recent changes and the discussion on the talk page. Please weigh in if you can add to the discussion. Best regards, -- Ssilvers 04:56, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] L'Île Enchantée

We have added a new article on this ballet. Please improve it if you can or note any comments on the talk page. -- Ssilvers 20:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FA Nomination: Thespis (opera)

Our article Thespis (opera) is currently being considered for promotion as a WP:Featured Article. Please review it and comment at the FA nomination page: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Thespis (opera)

[edit] Infobox policy

I added an infobox policy to our project page. I believe that this policy reflects the consensus of opinion at this project, but feel free to move it here if there is any disagreement. If you agree with the policy, feel free to note your agreement here. Now that the project is well over a year old, do we need any other policies that had not been considered in 2006? -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and at the moment can't think of anything else. Marc Shepherd (talk) 22:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mikado

Repeated use of the N-word in the article. Please comment here. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] George Grossmith and Rutland Barrington

We have nominated these articles for GA review. Please review them and see if you can help to improve them further. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:23, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

They were both promoted to GA class, as was Jessie Bond. -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Gilbert)

I added this article. Please take a look when you have a chance, everyone. Any additions, comments, etc. welcome. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Character lists in plays/ musicals articles

There is currently a discussion on the inclusion of character lists on articles relating to plays, musicals, etc. at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Theatre. I know that many G & S articles already have character lists and this project is sort of its own little world in the theatre/opera related articles. However, I would encourage you all to join the discussion for the purpose of bringing uniformity across performing arts articles. All opinions are welcome.Broadweighbabe (talk) 10:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)