User talk:Mjb/Archive 3

Roller Derby

I was unaware of the previous discussion. But I must ask you, with all the fluff in that piece, why pick on this one thing? Croce is probably better remembered than "Episode 27 of The Untouchables", for example. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:27, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Well yeah, I would rather include it all, as we did previously, since that appeases the monthly stream of contributors who want to add one tidbit or another. But someone got a bee up their butt about excessive "trivia" and tried to kill the whole section, so the compromise was to remove all the music info, under the theory it was likely to keep growing, whereas the other info was pretty stable. Apparently that person hasn't visited any of the articles about popular TV shows or any number of other pop culture topics, and decided to pick on the roller derby article that day. Also I feel it should all be included because who are we to assume a researcher will not find the info of value?

If you wouldn't mind, could you add a note of support to Talk:Roller derby#Roller derby songs again? Maybe point out that the length of the article is not so much of an issue anymore, since we've spun off the history section into its own article. —mjb (talk) 04:52, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

It was ignored. Well, I tried, anyway. :( Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 04:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't get discouraged! The talk page isn't visited much, the conversation isn't really highlighted, and we haven't directly solicited input from the guy who tried to axe the pop culture section, nor from any of the article's curators (which besides myself is like 2 other people).

It's actually better this way. It'll take some time, but eventually we'll get some other interested folks to weigh in...hopefully in favor of restoring and retaining all the info. The idea is to gather some votes/opinions, and in the meantime, demonstrate through its stability and longevity that the article isn't suffering, and may in fact be benefiting, from having a "roller derby in pop culture" section.

I look at it like this: the longer the article stays in roughly its present state without anyone else coming along and trying to prune it (or further tag it for review), then the more persuasive our argument that there's no harm, and there is potential benefit, in keeping track of all the roller derby in pop culture "trivia". Folks who keep coming in and attempting to undo the deletions just makes for a stronger case for us.

Also, this is a battle that's raging in earnest in other places on Wikipedia: WP:IPC and its discussion page; Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trivia and Popular Culture/Discussion; Template talk:Trivia; Wikipedia talk:Trivia sections; probably elsewhere... I have a feeling the lack of consensus on these issues can be part of our defense. Just be patient :) —mjb (talk) 08:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I have replaced All Bout Derby, inasmuch as it is legitimate DIY journalism and thus a primary source. I disagree that it has "no research value"; it's raw data from the trenches, i.e., suicide seating. (Furthermore, its DIY ethic is very much in keeping with the spirit of the game itself.) If there's a Wikipedia rule to throw at this, throw it my way, but as far as I can tell All Bout Derby is dispositive and meets Wikipedia's criteria. That said, I am of course open to arbitration. kencf0618 (talk) 08:07, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

In general, blogs and Myspace links are not held in high regard or considered reliable sources. There's a bot that will delete the link (for being on myspace.com), so you'll have to reinstate it again soon. The bot won't delete it again, though, once you put it back.

The problems I have with All Bout Derby are not that it's on Myspace, but rather that it's too regional and is only marginally informative about the sport itself. The Myspace page is really just the personal space of Elwood Bruise, and its blog section is just his Pacific Northwest bout recaps. That's awfully personal and regionally focused. Sure, it's of interest to people who are into the sport in the same way that box scores and articles about specific games are of interest to people into baseball or basketball, but it doesn't seem very relevant as an information source that enhances the reader's understanding of the history, nature, or current status of the game.

I suppose the All Bout Derby blog could be said to be like Derby News Network in that it's a primary source one could use to gauge the sport's level of activity and legitimacy/sportsmanship, as well as being a document of its recent history, so I'm not going to fight about it if you really want it in. But it's really just not a strong contender, especially given that there's a roller derby section on the ODP, which is where WP:EL suggests controversial and marginally relevant links should go. As soon as I get around to putting them into ODP, I intend to prune the links to the Yahoo groups, for example. —mjb (talk) 09:53, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

That works for me. Personally I think that Elwood's journalism is more salient than you consider it to be, but it's an issue on which reasonable people can differ. Chacun a son gout and all that. kencf0618 (talk) 21:27, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Afro Cosmic

Hi. If you weren't already aware, I just wanted to let you know that there's already an article about this at Cosmic Disco.P4k (talk) 00:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't! And now I'm wondering how I missed it. Thanks. I'll tag both for a merge. —mjb (talk) 02:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Techno

Hi Mike, I just wanted to tease out this paragraph if possible

Though initially conceived as party music that was played on daily mixed radio programs and played at high school club parties in Detroit, techno has grown to be a global phenomenon. High school clubs such as Snobbs, Hardwear, Brats, Comrades, Weekends, Rumours, and Shari Vari created the incubator in which techno was grown. These young promoters developed and nurtured the local dance music scene by both catering to the tastes of the local audience of young people and by marketing parties with new DJs and their music. As these local clubs grew in popularity, groups of DJs began to band together and market their mixing skills and sound systems to the clubs in order to cater to the growing audiences of listeners. Locations like local church activity centers, vacant warehouses, offices and YMCA auditoriums were the early locations where the underage crowds gathered, and where the musical form was nurtured and defined.[citation needed]

I'm just wondering about the chronology here, what period are we talking about?

Also, there is an interview with Atkins that I have started pillaging to support other claims which you might want to look at here if you haven't already, because it also clears up the May/909/House incident, he sold it, it wasn't a loan, there is another interview elsewhere that supports this, where Atkins says it was Fowlkes who broke the news that Derek has "sold the sound" to Chicago. Also, the question of Techno City, wasn't that technically an electro tune? Isn't No Ufo's really the tune that broke Techno as "a sound", it basically fused electro/disco/synth pop (perhaps even dub, with its use of delay lines), and in so doing made a clear break from each of the preceding genres? Atkins also says he "used the term techno to describe earlier bands that made heavy use of synthesizers such as Kraftwerk, although many people would consider Kraftwerk's music and Juan's early music in Cybotron as Electro. Techno is considered today as a specific genre." that's from his myspace blurb.

Cheers. Semitransgenic (talk) 16:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I've responded on your talk page. Thanks! —mjb (talk) 20:55, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to give a detailed reply, I agree with much of what you say, from what I can see a genuine musicological analysis has never really been done, this is a problem in terms of establishing facts. It would take countless interviews, then an effort to try and reach consensus agreements - regarding a chronology that relates to what influenced what, the records, artists, etc. I think it could be done, but it's a huge task, plus most of these guys are kinda celebs now so pinning them down with their record collections would be problematic, to say the least. What surprises me is the increase in academic inquiry regarding so called "vernacular" electronic music, in the last 5-8 years, yet I keep coming across stuff that is precisely what you say, "folklore", but no one seems eager to tackle this. There are a few good academic items out there, I just have not had a chance to dig into any of it, but it would really help if something more "authoritative" could be used to underpin the information presented in the article. A lot of the webpage links are very poor and should maybe be removed, plus the books listed are not being exploited to the extent they could be (i.e. quotations etc. as you have pointed out). Most of what I added really just reflects personal knowledge, it serves only to flesh things out a bit, relative to what was there previously, I would like to eventually elaborate on this using suitable source material.

I tried to circumvent the earliest example debate by pushing back to Raymond Scott's work. Though why not go back to Russolo if it's futurism we are discussing? then again try dancing to it : )

The stuff from Juan's myspace page I took to be his words, as far as I'm aware he operates the page personally but I could be wrong about that, you might have a better idea.

Thanks for your feedback, best Semitransgenic (talk) 21:54, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Heh, thanks for understanding. Oh, for quite a while the article did mention Russolo. When I rewrote the article in July 2002, I mentioned him in what I now admit was a rather unencyclopedic 'musicology' section (which has since evolved into the not-much-better 'production techniques and technology' section). The Russolo bit was removed in August 2007. —mjb (talk) 23:28, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

List of Roller Derby Leagues

I think I'm just going to leave that page alone, and let you and others work on it. Take my comments as you will. Something to be careful of, is some folks on here really throw a fit if you claim ownership of an article or a page, so you may want to leave out your hopes for the article and what the article means to you, because that kind of goes against wiki-speak. Here's an example of how to convert what you're saying into wiki-speak: Convert "I do think of the list as documenting the sport's growth throughout its history..." to "The list makes most sense chronologically, by documenting the sport's growth througout its history..." This makes it so people can't acuse you of trying to own an article.

Keep up the good work on roller derby information on here. Fredsmith2 (talk) 02:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Siouxsie citation

Hello, no punk was racist or nationalist : it was not at all the state of mind of that group. everyone should know that by now. Siouxsie explained it in a recent interview for "Tracks" on "Arte" channel. She used the swastika to shock the oldest generation as there was a huge gap between generations in Britain in the mid-70's. Most of these punks were naive, they left school to early : most of them started to read books after 1976. So, that it was to shock the bourgeois, and certainly it was not a national front statement. Carliertwo (talk) 15:54 21 march 2008 —Preceding comment was added at 15:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I realize that — at least, I share the plausible and prevailing belief that Nazi fashion in punk, and Siouxsie's fashion choices in particular, existed for shock value. But for purposes of an encyclopedia, we can't just state it like it's fact, with nothing to back it up; this isn't like a fan site. Pointing to interviews where she explained it makes a world of difference. I did some digging and found on the official Arte site a page that mentions the episode in which she's interviewed: here. It doesn't actually have the interview in it, though; they do have some interview transcripts archived, but not hers yet. I went ahead and added the reference to the article, taking you at your word about what she says in it. Thanks. —mjb (talk) 23:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

mjb: Thanks alot. Wikipedia just makes more sense now because of people like yourself and the others. I learned alot, and appreciate your help immensely. I will get my message out, but not here. So... thanks again! Have a great one man...
Randomblink (talk) 14:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Tech(no) stuff

no, it is rather useless alright ; ) forgot to paste the right one. cheers. Semitransgenic (talk) 15:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Mjb. I was just wondering what you feel about putting the article in for assessment? There is still plenty to be done, smaller subsections need expanding etc. more pictures and some key audio clips would be good, but relatve to some GA's out there is seems pretty strong, even with the lack of content (not something anyone who isn't well versed on the subject would be aware of anyway). I do think that two new sections should be added asap though, namely, trance and ambient techno, that would pretty much cover major developments up to the mid 90's. Also, I'm guessing the current referencing format will have to be overhauled as the footnote section is expanding considerably. Do you think it would be worth outlining a plan for the articles development on the talk page or is better to do it without wider discussion - it could just get bogged down by counter productive bickering etc. Semitransgenic (talk) 09:20, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Then again, ambient techno can be rolled into the IDM section, should it be discussed in the context of it being the precursor to intelligent techno? or is differentiation necessary at all?? Semitransgenic (talk) 11:37, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Funny, as I was working on the jazz section, I was thinking readers would feel it was pretentious to single out jazz yet not talk about techno having been combined with rock or any other notable forms of music. So yeah, we should work on that.

I think we're getting close to putting the article in for assessment. Key audio clips are must-haves, though. I share your concern about bringing things up on the talk page unnecessarily.

Yes, we should find some good sources to add some clarity to trance's relationship to techno. Ambient techno seems too ill-defined and not notable enough to worry about, though. I agree it could go into the IDM section if it must be mentioned. Minimal techno, dub techno, and tech-house (which kind of all go together) would be good to make sure to mention briefly, with pointers to the articles about them. Maybe tech-trance as well. The two kinds of "hardcore" (UK proto-jungle vs. German/Dutch hard techno) aren't really explained very well yet, and need references. I also recall an early '90s interview with a Detroit producer (May, probably) that denegrated ravey UK/Euro techno as a bastardization; I'll try to find a reference.

The notes & references don't really need a major ovehaul, just some better consistency in the formatting. I'm a big fan of using quotations/excerpts, as you probably noticed, so I don't want to lose them; they're essential for the more controversial statements, and they discourage would-be editors from rephrasing things in ways that conflict with the original source. To save a little bit of space, though, we could use Harvard style. It's where you have a list of reference works followed by the footnotes, in which each note looks like "Reynolds:1998:72-73,101" denoting pages 72-73 and 101 of the aforementioned 1998 work by Reynolds. It's good for when you've drawn a lot of info from the same source, but not so good for sources that are only used once. I'll make a pass through the article at some point soon and see what I can do along these lines, if there are no objections. —mjb (talk) 18:49, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Jazz has more relevance because of the whole Af-Am underground musician seeking validation in Europe analogy, and becasue of the various references to parralells with be-bop etc. fact is these guys, and most of the UK Detroit inspired producers, see jazz as a kind of ultimate art form, whereas rock is just a bunch of unruly white dudes drinking beer, I wouldnt worry about pretence, that's just the way it is.

Historically, i would argure, dub-techno and minimal were the same thing but I can't find anything that deals with this properly. I envisage doing a section on the entire German scene, not just Berlin, as well as a section on Belgium and Holland.

Dealing with the emergence of trance is important, becasue it has become such a huge cultural phenomenon, whether any of us like the music or not, we can simply avoid dwelling on it's development.

The tech-this, tech-that, stuff I would propose for a section called 'later developments' or something, mid to late 90s on perhaps - could throw in sections on the Scandanavian, American, Japanese scenes - also.Anyway, I always thought the tech-house tag was BS, but it will have to be dealt with nonetheless.

In terms of referencing, I am not proposing loosing the quotes, but just use footnotes for those, and Harvard cites for everything else as you suggest. Semitransgenic (talk) 10:48, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Mike, sorry I meant to get back to you regarding he email you sent about sources, I replied but I'm not sure you got as I recieved no response. I just wanted to mention a book I have had a look at recently which I think would interest you, it's Hillegonda C. Rietveld's "This is our House", it seems like a very good study that covers a number of points that are missed in some of the more popular publications. Try and check it out if you haven't seen it already. It's a very useful reference. When I find time I will scatter a few bit here and there. Semitransgenic (talk) 13:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the Rietveld tip. I'll see if I can find a copy. I didn't get your email. I have some aggressive anti-spam measures, so it might've been discarded before reaching me. Please resend it.

I see you're embroiled in some drama on the IDM article lead paragraph. That guy complaining about it sure can gripe but is really rather vague about what exactly was wrong with it other than "big fancy words". Meanwhile every week or so I've been having to undo anonymous deletions of house music's gay connections. Even with sources cited, people apparently want to deny that bit of history. Ah, Wikipedia... —mjb (talk) 21:03, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

He seems to have dropped the issue for the time being. I've noticed people are intent on erasing the bits and pieces of history that don't suit them, that is funny about house though, probably some house loving evangelicals. Semitransgenic (talk) 20:09, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I just came across a myspace page for the author of that book, she has links to some of her other writings if you are interested. Semitransgenic (talk) 21:03, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

House music

Thank you for adding the reference for gay black house roots. -- 86.57.138.169 (talk) 22:57, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Non-free images

Thanks for help. Non-free image must be as big as they're used in the article. Rockford IceHogs logo is used as 200px, so 750 × 525 pixels is unneeded and may violates fair use law. OKBot ignores non-free image that is smaller than 500px for hight and width.--OsamaK^{Reply? on my talk page, please} 02:53, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

House music again

Somebody erased the gay connection to house music at the house music article. Who keeps doing this? I think the article should be protected. Pandyu (talk) 19:15, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

It's okay now. I was able to undo the anonymous troll's edit. Seriously, the article needs to be corrected. Pandyu (talk) 19:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi-NRG

Thanks for your comments. I came across the article a few months ago when it looked like this. It was a mess! I've kept a watch on it since to try and keep it clean. Well done on your edits also.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 22:30, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Baffled by XSLT deletion

Hello Mjb,

I am new to this and not sure this is how to contact folk, but I'm a bit baffled as to why you undid my change on XSLT?

OK, it may have been too verbose, but it was an important point that the current Microsoft .Net frameworks do not support XSLT 2.0 (.Net 2.0 and 3.5)...this is a fact why do you point to a crystal ball?

Maybe the whole section should be reworked as first paragraph states that uptake of XSLT 2.0 is slow but this refers to client side Internet Explorer, not to Frameworks. The next para states that XSLT could be provide in Java/.Net frameworks and MSXML3, but this is not true of the latest implementations (.net and MSXML6 do not support XSLT 2.0) which is surely an important point.

I could undertake this change, but I imagine it will be deleted along with my other changes.

Safepage (talk) 19:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

The WP:BALL reference was in regard to the statement already in the article (not added by you) which said that widespread XSLT 2.0 support "will probably" continue to be slow in coming. I changed that statement to be non-speculative at the same time as addressing your edit.

Re: your edit, I'm suspicious of harping on Microsoft's software when it's really not exceptional in this regard; the list of XSLT 1.0 toolkits/software not yet supporting 2.0 is a mile long. You are right, though, that there is room for improvement in that section; please feel free to make it speak more generally about XSLT 2.0 adoption and lack thereof. Then an "Examples include…" sentence can be added to mention some of the noteworthy, widely used software & frameworks that aren't yet supporting 2.0. Just do it in such a way that it doesn't come across as vilifying or chastising one company in particular. Make sense? —mjb (talk) 22:58, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image (File:Mad Rollin Dolls logo.jpg)

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Orphaned non-free image (File:SCRG logo.gif)

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These are all OK to delete because they've been replaced with PNGs. —mjb (talk) 22:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Universal Techno

On the techno article, what happened to the Universal Techno Youtube videos that were in the external links section? Could you put them back? Urabahn (talk) 16:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't delete any links related to the Universal Techno documentary. There's one in the Filmography section. —mjb (talk) 20:35, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

A little Chicago house help

At the Chicago house article, somebody tagged it saying it has unspecified claims and no sources. You know what they are? And I know house music is alive and well in its birthplace, Chicago. I just don't where to look to confirm this. Could you help me there, too? Urabahn (talk) 15:41, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to help out with the Chicago house (sub-)article but I don't know how much time I'll have. If I were you, I'd start by Googling key terms from the article. Google Books results will probably return some hits of cite-worthy publications. For example, for the main house music article, simply searching for "house music" gay on Google Books turned up a bunch of books about disco and house, three of which had excerpts I could look at and cite. Also use Google News to search some newspapers in certain date ranges.

If you are in college, your library might give you free access to much better sources for newspaper searching (ProQuest, Lexis-Nexis Academic); for example you can get hits from Billboard articles through Lexis-Nexis Academic. I've got access to these through a friend and it's quite valuable, but rather time-consuming/distracting!

Maybe also watch the documentaries mentioned in the references on the house music article; the interviews might provide some interesting details. —mjb (talk) 16:13, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Techno categories

Thanks for your note. The establishment of a usable tree categorisation of musical genres requires that the top of that tree be not used to list subgenres and specific styles, but that these be listed only by the means of classification suggested on that page. For example, gospel music is an Afro/North American Christian vocal-instrumental style of the 20thC and can be found under all these headings, whereas clearly Southern gospel is a subcat of gospel. These changes are not intended as an evaluation of any form of music but rather to achieve (what has sadly failed in the past) a logical system that will encourage readers to discover each genre - that is; to encourage discovery of any particular page. Clearly there is room for discussion, but there is also a need for categorisation of hundreds of pages(a considerable job that has produced only two enquiries including your own). I hope you will see the desirability of this effort. Please see [1] Thanks Redheylin (talk) 08:10, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, OK, I do understand the duplicate categorization rule. It's just that you're making these edits without sufficient explanation. Had you said something along the lines of "Techno music category = child of non-distinguished categories Electronic music genres and African American music. So, removing those as dups." it wouldn't have been viewed as possible vandalism or carelessness. I've gone ahead and re-removed those two cats with a more informative edit summary.

There are a couple of pan-genre music genre articles I've worked on, Balearic and Afro/Cosmic. Both are from the world of alternative dance music, but neither is focused on a single, easily definable aesthetic with a single parent. Well, Balearic was, for a while, but sources seem to agree it's still basically a philosophy of selecting from a fairly diverse range of styles (although not an infinite range). I'm not sure these indivisible aggregations of genres can fit neatly into some deep leaf node in your tree. They're children of Dance music, sure, but they're also the names of genres, themselves, abstract as they may be. So they ought to fit somewhere under the Music genres category. But where? I couldn't figure it out, so that's why I have Afro/Cosmic at the top, and Balearic is under Electronic music, although in hindsight that's probably too limiting. If you have a better suggestion, I'm all ears. —mjb (talk) 09:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Character entity references in HTML

Hi, below are a few notes regarding your recent edits to the article List of XML and HTML character entity references.

Thanks for distinguishing Unicode from UTF-8. It's an important and apt distinction, since NCRs reference characters by code point rather than by an encoded character's serialized value. The less obvious reminder that the HTML discussion concerns multiple DTDs, and not just one, is equally valid and significant.

Where things get sticky is in the usage of the term entity as it applies to SGML. In SGML, there are numerous types of entities, and the HTML DTDs are of course, loaded with them. The character references defined for the HTML application are of a variety called character data entities (or CDATA entities). The documents which declare these particular CDATA entities are themselves external parsed entities (similar to an include file). So the phrase "the HTML 4 DTDs define 252 named entities" is problematic for two reasons: First, all entities are named; in fact, the name is the entity's defining characteristic, since it's an alias which passes data by reference. Second, there are more than 252 entities in the HTML 4 DTDs, but only 252 of them are defined to be character references.

However, the assertion that "the HTML 4 specification... does not allow users to define additional entities" is correct, since the HTML standard forbids <!ENTITY> declarations in HTML documents. Nonetheless, the assertion is actually still correct—and even tautological—if one substitutes any of the terms entity references, character references, or character entity references, since by defining an entity, one implicitly defines references to it (provided they occur later in the document). In functional programming terms, a character reference is like a constant that refers to a pointer; using the character reference dereferences the pointer.

I'm grateful for your interest in the underpinnings of HTML. The number of Web specialists who take markup languages and digital typesetting seriously is far too small. – Ringbang (talk) 03:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

IFPI

Your comprimise seems like a much better solution. I support it --Drogonov (talk) 20:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Apology

I pushed the wrong button while watching recent changes. That's the simple answer. I knew it immediately and attempted an "undo". That froze my PC so that when I got to your page to manually "undo", I saw the user had already done so. I have already left them an apology [2], and I am offering yours now. It's not my routine to refactor others' talk pages except with regard to vandalism. Again, sorry for the mistake. Thanks. Tiderolls 20:20, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

OK. No problem. Thanks! —mjb (talk) 05:30, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

More apologies

I am truly sorry to have overlooked your note re dance music genres for several days. I decided to say so right away, then look at your comments (clearly well thought out) in detail. I can say right away

• I cleared a lot of pages into subcats - this has been throughout the music field and involved 000s of edits. Sorry for anything over hasty.
• Hi NRG had enough pages to deserve its own subcat to clear to, so I made it.
• The terms "dance music" and "electronic music" have much broader reach than merely "electronic dance music", since 1) dance has always been an important influence on music (and vv) and 2) Some electronic music is pretty undanceable, counted as classical, etc etc. To make valuable links between dance, music and electronics may, then, require a touch of kindness on the part of those for whom those three words automatically connote the sound of the sampled kick drum!
• I know already I am going to find your comments valuable. Will contact later, but pls respond to above if you wish. Redheylin (talk) 16:08, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

"Afro/Cosmic music" article and a possibly-to-be-merged "Cosmic disco" article. Yes, saw problem and decided to leave it for the mo. So glad you are here.....Redheylin (talk) 16:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

overlapping that period, Balearic Beat was a style of DJing. I think this is easy to fix by making article clear that decks and workstations have been/are both used, and categorising under DJ as well as ElMus. (difficult music-technology interface again - needs fixing. Will be opening discussion soon) Redheylin (talk) 16:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, allmusic's strategy is to produce a simple, flat tree of genres, and their contributors have no qualms about inventing genres just to bridge gaps or make it possible to tag every artist with a single genre. I must admit to some similar guilt myself! You HAVE to, because there are no fuzzy categories on databases. The funk-disco-dance interface circa 1970s is another problematic area where I did my best and tried not to upset fans, but was aware of a slight fudginess. But I COULD see the sense in a "dance-pop" category for the likes of Madonna and Prince and also some kind of "indie-dance" category for the Madchester lot. Interested in your thoughts. Redheylin (talk) 16:20, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Right now you've got post-disco under disco, which sort of makes sense in that it's a genre defined in relation to disco, but it's a bit like filing Postmodernism under Modernism... the idea is that it's not disco, but rather a reaction against and evolution beyond. And alternative dance is filed under the dance-pop category, as is, well, dance-pop... but shouldn't they be under dance music somehow? Yes. You have picked up on nearly all the dodgy areas I left! If you go up to the top categories where I was working you can see the lay-out as it now is. Contents of subcats of "electronic music" may have had this top category removed since the category as a whole belongs to the top category. That is, anything categorised as "dance-pop" or "techno" is automatically categorised as "EDM" so duplicate categories just swamp the category system at the highest levels, ,making those few articles that really belong at the top level much harder to find.

As I said above, to get this job done I have to rely upon feedback from the ground-floor of various genres; it's very welcome and very perceptive in this case. Just please bear in mind what I said about the universality of the expression "dance music", the existence of undanceable electronica and the few high-level category problems that may impede smooth linkage between these fields, and please do anything about "post disco" that you like - I agree it's a pretty obscure concept. Redheylin (talk) 16:29, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Ectopic House?

Completely made that up mate! Although if I produced electronic music I would like to produce some 'ectopic' house. Besides Dubstep, we need a movement away from four to the floor do you agree? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.217.92.109 (talk • contribs) 09:35, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

You mean like broken beat (which tends to be house-ish)? It hasn't fared so well. mjb (talk) 18:59, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

August 2009

Again, thanks so much!

		The Copyeditor's Barnstar
		I have to award you with this barnstar for helping (not only) in post-disco article (maybe someday it will be a feature article). You did corrected my grammatical mistakes and other "errors". Very thanks! RockandDiscoFanCZ (talk) 18:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

*mjb buries his head in his hands* —mjb (talk) 20:39, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Sibel Edmonds

The sentence was intended to characterize the nature and seriousness of the allegations, not to assert either their truth or falsity. In what way did you think that they asserted that, and even if you did, could you not have summarized thrust in a way that met your own criterion for fairness? ( Martin | talk • contribs )

I already did edit it to my satisfaction. The problem was that you mixed up the topic of the allegations – the competence and integrity of the FBI translation unit – with the allegations themselves – that the unit was incompetent and 'possibly subversive', which is also a term I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking is hyperbolic speculation or editorial analysis, however plausible it may be. So instead of saying she made allegations regarding the incompetent and possibly subversive operation of the FBI translation unit it would be better to say regarding the competence and integrity of the FBI translation unit. However, neither phrase is ideal because her allegations over time seem to have broader scope than just what went on in the FBI translation unit. It seems sufficient to just say she made a number of allegations, and then to list what they are. —mjb (talk) 00:18, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Did I post that text above to your talk page? I can't believe it. What does that last phrase even mean - "have summarized thrust", or what was I expecting? Anyway, did you see that someone cut out the section on the recent deposition, deleted references to it, and put a weak protection on the page, since removed. I am going to put most of it back, as I think that the judgment of the other administrator seems to be in line with my sense of common sense.( Martin | talk • contribs 22:38, 7 September 2009 (UTC))

Be careful with that. I agree with the other editor that BradBlog isn't a very good third-party source and due to the WP:BLP policy I support being extra cautious when deciding whether & how to talk about its reports in the Wikipedia article. But I agree with you to the extent that the actual video of Edmonds' "deposition"/public statement/publicity stunt is a good primary source for a summary of what she said. Assume good faith and politely try to work with the other editors on this. —mjb (talk) 02:13, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

The Long Tail

Thanks for the edits on the Music Industry article mjb - It's definitely much better and fairer now.

I thought I'd drop you a note advising caution on the "Long Tail Theory" contradiction - it's not what it seems. A huge number of tracks on the online database are from Artists that, to all intents and purposes, nobody has ever heard about and in all probability nobody ever will. These tracks do not meet the Long Tail qualifications of being "obscure or forgotten". They have never attained any recognised status, however small and insignificant. They are, in effect, completely invisible, still in their box.

In the early days of building online catalogues, the rush was to build them as big as possible. Inevitably they were stuffed to the gunnels with anything made available. This situation never existed in the pre-online world, such items would never have been manufactured, and even if they had, the retailers would never have bought/stocked them. What IS interesting, is that the same long(ish) tail that existed for manufactured music, appears to be the same tail that is now wagging online.

Bottom line: There is a difference between genuine back catalogue and the full catalogue available for download. Back catalogue sales are a key factor for industry profitability. Why else would they constantly re-release, re-master so many albums (and not just the big hits) time and again? David T Tokyo (talk) 08:09, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if that's entirely true that retailers never would've stocked unproven releases. The physical record & book industries involves a strange system of returning unsold stock to distributors so vendors could afford to take a chance on new and "deep catalogue" releases rather than being stuck with everything they bought. When I worked at a record store in the early '90s, the major distributors nearly simultaneously decided to stop accepting vinyl returns; suddenly we no longer had any incentive to stock any vinyl other than what we already knew would sell!

The biggest caveat of the Long Tail rebuttal is that the contradiction was authored by someone at PRS; I imagine they'd like to shoot holes in theories that people use to justify unlicensed file-sharing (e.g. that it benefits the relatively unknown & forgotten artists and that the legitimate industry is out of touch and too focused on peddling the mega-hits). Although, as this article notes, Will Page's report acknowledges the try-before-you-buy/file-sharing-as-radio theory has merit; it's just that (according to their data) it doesn't matter: people still really only swap exactly what they buy: the hits.

Anyway, what I was hoping to do in the music industry article was just explain to the reader why they were introduced to the concept of "back catalogue" — after experiencing their initial wave of popularity, they're trotted back out from time to time on reissues or are licensed for compilations, movies, TV, and so on. I guess your point is more that the use of "back catalogue"/"library" refers to these perennial hits, big and small, and that the terms shouldn't be equated with "deep catalogue"/"full catalogue" which would include all the total duds that never sold online and whose physical product all got returned by the few vendors that tried to stock it? If that's the case then maybe we should work on maybe adding this to the article somehow. —mjb (talk) 17:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Articles for deletion nomination of List of roller derby leagues

I have nominated List of roller derby leagues, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of roller derby leagues. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Orange Mike | Talk 02:00, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

One problem with newspaper articles...

Is that they tend to NOT be archived, at least on the web. Once they've been out there long enough, archive.org will have 'em. As often as not, when a visit a league's "Press" page, they are loaded with dead links. There's probably some good ways to find that stuff on archive.org, but I haven't figured 'em out yet. TimBRoy (talk) 17:56, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:IDM musicians

I have nominated Category:IDM musicians (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for renaming to Category:Intelligent dance musicians (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. — ξ^xplicit 07:22, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Post-disco

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Post-disco. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Post-disco. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:12, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

post-disco era / movement

hello. dear MjB let me introduce some album from 1978 that is evidently post-disco [3]. You know what it's mean? Postdisco is not an era (because pure orchestral/"horny" disco music was in the year 1978 still productive), it's typified by some characters like stripped-down more electronic sound, no orchestra or big band etc. It's not some symbolic era after the disco Demolition Night, post-Disco era isn't worthy of article (it's 1979~2012 era), post-disco movement is. sincerely, RockandDiscoFanCZ (talk) 22:06, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's what has happened so far. You initially insisted that post-disco was a genre, because the AllMusic website implies such, even though it simultaneously explains that post-disco, in the opinion of the now-uncredited author, is really a collection of genres which owe their existence at least partly to the synthy, experimental side of disco. After some arguments over infobox edits, you were challenged on the legitimacy of AllMusic as the sole source for post-disco being a genre. You reaction was to find numerous citations of the phrase "post-disco", and add them to the article. You were then confronted with the fact that every one of those references was either tongue-in-cheek or referred to post-disco as an era. Eventually the article was nominated for deletion. The ensuing discussion yielded no consensus on deletion, but everyone (except you) seems to agree on these points: 1. to date, there's nothing besides AllMusic to say that post-disco is a genre, and that's not good enough, so the article needs to be rewritten (if not deleted); and 2. some content about boogie probably should exist somewhere else in Wikipedia. As this discussion was going on, you seemed to accept these points as you created a separate boogie (genre) article (thank you for that) and rewrote much of the post-disco article to specifically refer to post-disco as only an era. But then, a week later, once the danger of deletion seemed to be over, you seemingly reversed your position and chose to redefine post-disco as both an era (supported by references) and a "movement" (not supported by references, except AllMusic, which is unreliable for genres). This seems to be a reversal of your position, perhaps because you want to justify the inclusion of post-disco in genre infoboxes. In any case, you seem to be very attached to the the idea of post-disco being more than just an era, despite having no support from credible sources on this issue.

But anyway, focusing on the post-disco article's lead paragraph, it seems you are trying to suggest that a movement is not a genre because a movement is a gentle progression, without distinct boundaries in time or style. This, to me, is splitting hairs; it's exactly the definition of a genre. Genres in music do not exist in isolation; they're always connected to preceding and concurrent styles, and they rarely, if ever, have a distinct beginning or end. In other words, a movement, in this context, is a progression in style, and is therefore synonymous (exactly!) with genre for the average reader or even scholars of music. Until you get non-AllMusic references to support referring to post-disco as a "movement", this term needs to be avoided just as much as genre.

I'm willing to concede that the edit of mine that you're responding to wasn't ideal because I did say that the post-disco era "immediately follows" the era dominated by disco music, whereas there is indeed some overlap. I think we should continue to work in this direction, trying not to say that disco and post-disco are completely isolated from each other. I hope you will accept that my edits to this end are made in good faith. I will try to do the same. —mjb (talk) 07:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

yes that's a true and good recapitulation, but AMG admits that post-disco is a change of disco music, not only an era (because this "post-disco era" is still active). These post-disco albums from 1977 or even from 1978 tells post-disco have some characteristic elements (electronic-influenced sounds ,..blah blah .. you know what I mean).

yep, that's correct, post-disco is not isolated from disco, because it is a progression of disco music.

This edit is going back to its roots - to the first edit when it's defined as a "movement". I know mostly sources don't say "post-disco is a genre"*, but post-disco as a movement is more logical than era or genre (althrough movement indirectly is a "genre".. yes yes i know).

• [*]Also see this review of MJ's Thriller album [4] (seems like a solid reference, and it's not a blog). Autor of the article mentioned "post-disco" as a style among with rock, funk, easy listening, etc, so this is demonstrating that post-disco is same "genre" as funk, rock, etc, because funk/rock/etc are obviously genres..

btw, another similiar story, post-punk tells there is an post-punk era [5] but also a movement typified by characteristic elements. Post-punk is the same umbrella term as post-disco, post-rock, post-post... etc.. some haters said "post-disco" is just "after the disco" era, what a lame argument, but they're not even have sources providing "post-disco is an era". Funny. Some people (see Post-disco article history) mentioned post-disco is an era after the "end (it means Disco Demolition Night)" of disco music so after the year 1979 disco music. However it is incorrect and illogical, because some "post-disco" albums are produced in 1978 or even 1977 (and also don't forget Kraftwerk & their innovative songs).

P.S.also I found this http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Post-disco ... not a reliable source but still interesting page (author claims it is based on Wikipedia articles mixed with OR by Jahsonic & friends)

sincerely RockandDiscoFanCZ (talk) 18:39, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I think first you need to decide what the definition of "movement" is. What makes it different from a "genre"? —mjb (talk) 00:03, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

well,

(post-disco) movement is some kind of short-lived "wave" that is relevant to some era or decade. Genre is a genre, you have rock song from 1953, 1968, 1986, 1993 or 2006. Movement is just not this flexible (but there are "revivals" of these movements like post-punk revival or swing revival [also swing music is more movement or form of jazz than "pure" genre], etc). These "innovative experiments" are just once in the "life". Post-disco is more form of experimental music or movement than solid genre or era. RockandDiscoFanCZ (talk) 16:56, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe your definitions are very well-known; I've never heard of them, and I'm wondering where I can read about this seemingly arbitrary distinction. But even if you are correct, you're still saying a genre and a movement are the same thing: a set of trends in musical style. One is long-lived and the other is shorter in duration and perhaps prone to revivals, but it's still the same concept. So replacing the word 'genre' with 'movement' might be more precise, but since no one besides AllMusic even comes close to saying that post-disco is a set of trends in musical style rather than just an era, and since AllMusic isn't accepted as a reputable source for genre/movement info, the replacement of terms is no more accurate or verifiable. The article deletion discussion essentially said we can justify calling post-disco an era, and I think we can even talk about how the term has been more creatively applied by AllMusic and tongue-in-cheek references, but we can't yet interpret/accept as fact those one-off, characterizations of post-disco being a term describing a specific set of trends in musical styles, be they a genre or movement or whatever other term you want to use for precision. That's why I feel the intro should only refer to post-disco as an era, i.e. "the post-disco era (in dance music)" or similar. —mjb (talk) 18:48, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

However the whole post-disco era also includes non-experimental disco songs with no stripped-down sound characters, so this is so difficult. AMG is solid reference (good ratings and "every people" say AMG is simply the best) or show me where is AMG is not RS. Also this is questionable - AMG put "post-disco" under "genre" column, and that's enough; if the whole article is about something else.. no one cares, it's just about some source say "post-disco = genre" and AMG put it under the musical genre. So this is enough to accept "post-disco " as a genre and I guess I (or somebody else) can find more than two references where is "post-disco" mentioned as "genre" or "musical style". Also there is a musician range, who is post-disco and who is not. There are more evidences about "genre" than we think. RockandDiscoFanCZ (talk) 19:01, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Trax Records

Could you mention Trax Records in the house music article? It's not in there. B-Machine (talk) 19:28, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, surely Trax and DJ International should both be mentioned, but we need to make sure it's done in a way that emphasizes their importance in the history of house, lest people take it as a cue to add every house label that ever existed. I'm hesitant to add anything to that article anymore without having good sources to cite. It might be a while before I can get to it. —mjb (talk) 00:07, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

№

Unicode's stance is not to avoid the use of this character. Why do you say that it is? (And why is it recommended to be avoided?) -- Evertype·✆ 10:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I've misinterpreted, but Unicode's stance is that the symbol gets to be a "character" not to reflect English typographic conventions with the Latin script, but rather just so that Unicode will be compatible with (pre-Unicode) Cyrillic and East Asian standards which have called it a character; that is, it's not simply a precomposed Latin "N" + raised "o", even though it does decompose to those. My understanding is that it's used on Russian keyboards. Unicode acknowledges that the symbol's typical rendering reflects this Cyrillic-ness; at least with serif fonts, it's more stylized than would be appropriate in English/Latin-script text.

As for why it's recommended to be avoided on Wikipedia, good question. I don't know if the reasoning has anything to do with its Cyrillic-ness. If I had my druthers, I'd use that as the one and only reason to discourage its use in English prose on Wikipedia.

It might be discouraged here because we have the option of using superscript with the separate "N" and "o", and I believe Unicode favors that option rather than using precomposed alternatives (correct me if I'm wrong). More likely, though, it's discouraged here just out of font compatibility paranoia, and the "we can't have people entering it with <sup>o</sup> or as № or № because it'll be hard to edit" silliness that Noetica seems to think is insurmountable without completely banning the character. Also it could be that in fonts that do support it, sometimes it looks a little squished, horizontally, which rubs some people the wrong way. These are the kind of arguments I'm up against in my advocacy of the precomposed ellipsis. I think they're all a little misguided! —mjb (talk) 23:07, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

It being late I will return to this tomorrow, I think. But consider medieval and mediaeval and mediæval in the meantime. None can really be proscribed. -- Evertype·✆ 00:32, 14 January 2010 (UTC)