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Appraisal of Manual of Style (music) and WP:MUSTARD

My initial appraisals of the two major documents covering the style of presentation of music-related subjects are linked here:

Thoughts welcome. They are intended as a springboard for discussion: up until now, I have been working on this audit alone (aside from major discussions on certain specific aspects, that is). Therefore, the appraisals are entirely my opinion and any actual major changes will need full discussion among as many editors as possible (obviously, you might completely disagree with my opinions!). MUSTARD is my biggest concern as a) it claims "This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style" despite covering content issues also, among other things, b) it resides in project space despite wide acceptance by most editors working on music articles and using music notation in other articles, c) it has no clear structure but rather appears to present its guidance in random order. My personal preference would be to split MUSTARD apart and place the Style advice in Manual of Style (music), and create a new page for Content guidance. There are, however, other guidelines that deal with some of the issues already, such as WP:Record charts (content mainly), Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Stringed instrument tunings) (style mainly), Wikipedia:Music samples (style mainly) and the various advice pages written by WikiProjects (varied advice covering style, content, notability, etc). These also need to be rationalised and the advice better publicised if it is to be followed by general editors. For example, it may well be useful to tell editors to avoid certain things when writing articles about such-and-such an aspect of music; however, if the advice is not widely known beyond the circle of people that write that advice then most editors will not know to avoid those certain things unless they are pointed to the guidelines, at which point they may well already have gone against the advice. Therefore, we need to decide the best way of either publicising that advice or bringing it together in one central location. I would personally prefer the latter course of action. One all-encompassing Manual of Style (music) and one all-encompassing Content Guide (music) should do be enough, IMO. One final thought: WP:MUSIC also needs a major overhaul. For one thing, it fails to give any notability criteria for classical music compositions. Perhaps all of these guidelines should be discussed as a unit and dealt with together? I look forward to working with you all as we sort out these guidelines to make them as user-friendly and accessible as possible. Thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 21:19, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I have myself often wondered how WP:MUSTARD can claim to be a part of WP:MOS and be placed in a WikiProject subpage! So without having read your audits, yes, I can only support that it should be merged into MOS:MUSIC. It will certainly require some work to streamline and get rid of redundancies. – IbLeo(talk) 18:38, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. I will probably start an RfC to that effect soon. There can be no doubt that any attempt to streamline these documents will require a lot of work, however. Also, what do we do with the other guides: merge them in also? A lot to think about! --Jubilee♫clipman 19:59, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
We at the Canadian music project have made a simple tips section ...this is done in hopes to simplify the MUSTARD page... we have had a few new editors tell us they found the MUSTARD page over whelming...So we made this simple chart to help! ............Moxy (talk) 21:28, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
?. Before starting a new article! - Notability is a concern that must be adhered to. See Wikipedia:Notability (music) for more information.
Need help starting a new article? See Wikipedia:Article wizard it will help you through the process of submitting a new article to Wikipedia.
I. Write a good lead. Be sure to write a lead that concisely summarizes the entire article into one or two paragraphs, which make sense to someone who may know nothing about the subjects in question. See Wikipedia:Lead section for more information.
II. Use proper spelling and grammar. This is a very important aspect of an article. There is helpful guidelines in regards to styles. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music) for more information.
III. Use footnotes. Take advantage of the footnote ability Wikipedia has, instead of including html links inside the context include them as footnotes. See Wikipedia:Footnotes on how to use them.
IV. Use references. This is an encyclopedia, so remember to include a ==References== section listing websites, newspapers, articles, books and other sources you used to write the article. New articles and statements added to existing articles may be deleted if unreferenced or referenced poorly. See Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Cite_sources and Wikipedia:References for more information.
V. Stay on topic. Many articles are criticized for length; sticking to the subject matter helps eliminate this. See Wikipedia:The perfect article for more information.
VI. Keep it simple. Remember that the average reader should be able to comprehend the erudition. Although you should use a broad vocabulary of regular, non-technical terms, do not provide such a quantity of locutions as to impel those who aspire to derive serviceable information from the article to consult a dictionary.
VI. Use images if possible. Images enhance articles greatly, but only use them when they are necessary, and ensure that their copyright status has been specified and we are allowed to use it on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Images
VII. Use common sense. Ultimately, assume good faith on the part of others, be bold in editing because perfection is not required. See Wikipedia:Editing policy for more information.
  • Thanks for this Moxy. What a great idea! I suspect not a few people find MUSTARD overwhelming... worse, parts of it are (or were) actually against the present Guidelines elsewhere (see discussion about "The/the", above) or are too simplistic—ironically—to be useful (see the section on Nationality for example, discussed on WikiProject Composers talkpage). A massive effort by as many editors as possible is needed, I think, to sort this all out. That said, MUSTARD is till a useful guideline in very many ways. Considered action is needed, therefore rather than drastic, immeadiate acton --Jubilee♫clipman 23:05, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Yep the MUSTARD is a little odd is starts with Abbreviations (i guess done to be in ABC order) at first glans this does not look like it contains info to help a NEW editor, but rather look like its for advanced editors who use alot of coding. Maybe that's whats its for but new people seem to find that first then ask questions. I know nothing will ever be perfect, that's y we adopted this little chart based on one from some other project that deals with bios.. It has been changed/revised/updated to link to music in this case. The problem with all music project and there articles (perhaps not classical etc..) is that its a younger crowd...this is not bad in fact is good do to there enthusiasm and willingness to help and lucky for them music is the easiest to reference (since so much is out there) ! However like the majority of novice (young and old alike) editors are not going to spend hours reading page after page on guidelines...So this little charts that i have seen here and there in projects i think are great....I have always been a fan of the way this page has been simplified and i refer most new editors to it...But now the 7 projects i am involved with this introduced we should reduce the questions a bit  :) Most new people will just edit not ask or search deeply into rules ....Moxy (talk) 00:32, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Chord progressions: dashes or hyphens?

At Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music)#Chords, progressions, and figured bass, should WP:ENDASH be applied to chord progressions like "ii-V-I"? Art LaPella (talk) 23:26, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Hm. Good point. As I see it, the chords are independent elements that just happen to played in that order at that point in the music, so endashes rather than hyphens would seem to be more appropriate: therefore, "ii–V–I" would be more correct than "ii-V-I", just as "diode–transistor logic" is more correct than "diode-transistor logic". OTOH, one could argue that the sequence is a unit like "face-to-face [meeting]" or "little-known [facts]" so that hyphens would be more correct. Certainly emdashes would be wrong as no interuption is intended: ii—V—I. We'll have to see what others think. They should be unspaced, though, I think, because there are no spaces in the elements (but even there I am not sure...). We'll have to check Grove or Harvard, perhaps, and see what they do --Jubilee♫clipman 00:23, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

RfC

It is proposed that Wikipedia:Record charts/Billboard charts guide be merged into WP:record charts. Please comment over at the RfC merge proposal. Thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 01:14, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

MoS naming style

There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 20:57, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

RFC which could affect this MOS

It has been proposed this MOS be moved to Wikipedia:Subject style guide . Please comment at the RFC GnevinAWB (talk) 20:53, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

26 May 2010 changes

In a series of eight edits on 26 May 2010, Hyacinth (talk · contribs) introduced some changes which seem not in tune with current usage in Wikipedia articles.

"'Major' and 'minor' should not be capitalized unless part of a title for example, 'Sonata in F Minor'"

Current usage in Wikipedia is "Sonata in F minor"; see e.g. Category:Piano sonatas by Franz Schubert and Category:Sonatas by George Frideric Handel (and there seems to be a comma missing in that sentence).

"If the number specifies a particular work, is used restrictively, it should not be set off by a commas (thus measure numbers should be set off by commas since they provide additional information about a work)."

I don't quite understand what this sentence is trying to say; specifically, I can't parse "is used restrictively". Also, the sentence preceding in the article has the full stop wrongly after the citation.

"...the Piano Sonata no. 5, mm. 1-4, by Mozart features...


"...Mozart's Piano Sonata, no. 5, in G major, K 283, mm. 1-4, features...


"...measures one through four of Mozart's Piano Sonata in G major, K 283, feature..."

Current usage in Wikipedia is "Piano Sonata No. 5"; see e.g. Category:Piano sonatas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Category:Piano sonatas by Alexander Scriabin.

The range "1–4" must be written with an en-dash, not with a hyphen.

I think the abbreviation "mm." should be avoided; instead, the linked term "measure" should be used.

Köchel numbers are usually written in Wikipedia with a full stop and a space (K. ), and I think they should be linked: K. .

I suggest these guidelines should describe long established and remarkably consistent usage on the English Wikipedia. Wikipedia does not necessarily follow the Chicago Manual of Style or any other style guide. Instead, the elements raised above have been discussed over a long time in many different places, and consensus among editors lead to current usage. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:10, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Belatedly, I'd like to endorse Michael Bednarek's points. (I wasn't previously aware of this discussion.) It's important that we don't unnecessarily invent new rules that contradict established practice and norms on WP, unless we are going to solve some larger and more significant problems in the process. --Kleinzach 01:50, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
If there were discussions regarding the use of "major" or "minor" in composition titles ("Sonata in G major" vs. "Sonata in G Minor") where were these discussions? The reasons given in these discussions could be useful in the guidelines and could provide backup.
While Wikipedia does not have to go by the Chicago Manual of Style, when it does agree with it I see no harm in referring to it.
Hyacinth (talk) 06:24, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
I did find it odd that the changes keep quoting "Wingell" as though we defer to others to set our standards. I doubt Wingell himself is claiming his standard is the one everyone follows, or that anyone who deviates from his standard is wrong, and yet that's the implication in continually referring to the one source. I really think that reference should be taken out. I'd go so far as to say it looks like spam! At the same time, I'm not sure it's any better to say "current usage is..." and find one example (or even a bunch) to prove it, as I'm sure a search can find multiple occurences of just about any alternate usage that fits someone else's standard. It's best to ignore perceived current practice, and Wingell too, and develop our own standards. Also, I did find the bulleted "three examples of saying the same thing" to be puzzlingly redundant. Did that really go through a discussion first? --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 22:25, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
First, there is a difference between a quotation and a citation.
Secondly, aside from one addition, Wingell is used solely to back up the guidelines already present. That addition, that "major" or "minor" be capitalized when used in titles ("Sonata in G Major" rather than "Sonata in G minor") only appears to be a change in regards to current practice, not in regards to the current standards or guidelines. Hyacinth (talk) 06:20, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Regarding the three examples, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music)#Accidentals. Hyacinth (talk) 06:36, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Kochel numbers usually being followed by a period, see Piano Sonata No. 5 (Mozart), and Wikipedia:Be bold. Hyacinth (talk) 06:36, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

The usage in the article on K. 283 is irregular and needs to be corrected.
While some of the concerns I raised have been addressed (n-dashes for ranges, full stop and space after K), others still remain and this sentence has been added which seems to miss "for example" near the end (PS: and the full stop ought to be omitted):
While "op." may remain unlinked, specific catalogue designations should be linked to ("BWV. 1079").
My remaining issues are with the proposed use of lower case spelling for "No." in a work's title which is contradiction to a large number of examples given elsewhere in the manual, thus producing a great deal of inconsistency, and the proposed rule that musical key modes (major/minor) should be spelled with a capital "M" when part of a title, which is not current usage and seems to be not followed by the editor's own examples. Lastly, I still feel that the abbreviation "mm." for "measures" is unhelpful for many readers and should be avoided, not promoted in this manual. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:09, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree with these points. Can we make the necessary corrections? --Kleinzach 23:36, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Done – well, I tried my best. Feel free to improve. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:35, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
Looking much better! Sorry I missed this, BTW, I have not been able to do much at all recently. See below, though (two sections: MUSTARD and Images) --Jubilee♫clipman 23:56, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
Feeling not at home in this discussion as someone who came in rather recently, being more familiar with the (changing) German rules (disliking the current German construction h-Moll for B minor): I never used a full stop after BWV (as in the sentence above) present now in all the Bach cantatas' titles. Also I was told in a discussion that a redirect link to BWV is fine. Is it? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:19, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree, BWV is currently not followed a full stop nor should it. Whether the term is linked to BWV or BWV ([[Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis|BWV]] doesn't matter much. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:57, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Redux: major/minor

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

In this edit, Hyacinth (talk · contribs) has re-inserted this sentence (which seems to have the comma in the wrong place):

"Major" and "minor" should not be capitalized unless part of a title for example, "Sonata in F Minor".

This is contrary to current usage (see above) which is supported by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music). This particular issue was discussed at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music)/Archive 1 in November 2006. I suggest to remove the sentence again. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:50, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

The previous conversation above covers a number of different things, and the archived link appears from a quick glance not to address the title question. Can we be clear here what the issue is? There seem to be two assertions made by Hyacinth's addition: (a) that "major" and "minor" should not be capitalized in normal use (for example, "the piece is in B minor"), and (b) they should be capitalized when part of the title of a work. I suspect there is general acceptance of (a); if so, I suggest the guideline should at least state that. The title question seems more contentious. See the examples given at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music): Concerto for Orchestra (Bartók), for instance, capitalizes "orchestra" even though the word is not itself a proper noun. That would suggest the same treatment of "major" and "minor" when these form part of the title of a work. PL290 (talk) 12:47, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree that the capitalisation of "major/minor" in running prose is not contentious. This use is already mentioned in this guideline.
The usage in titles was per discussion in 2006/07 (Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music)/Archive 1#Major/minor conventions) settled at "Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music)" until today when Hyacinth in two edits introduced these undiscussed changes there. Like DavidRF (talk · contribs) wrote in 2007, I too have no strong opinion on either standard, but I think the guidelines should be consistent with Wikipedia' established usage and guidelines. Hyacynth's unilateral changes to these guidelines and the unwillingness to discuss these issues are disruptive. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
He's made more edits this today. I'm just becoming aware of this because it has hit my watch list? Moving articles is a big pain. Moving them back is a bigger pain. Are you just undoing these changes as he makes them?DavidRF (talk) 14:47, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
Are you becoming aware of my edits or are you asking if you are? Hyacinth (talk) 15:48, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
Wow... I'm too old for these rhetorical games. Could someone get an admin or admins to come in and decide this one or the other. We're obviously not going to get any type of discussion here.DavidRF (talk) 16:24, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
Are you to old to proofread and make sense? Getting an admin to decide, wouldn't be a discussion either. You obviously won't get a discussion if you won't participate in one. Hyacinth (talk) 04:46, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
So, three weeks of discussion based on your edits and your only contribution is to wait until someone fails to proofread and then flame them? That is what I mean by rhetorical games. Are we supposed to assume good faith from you? There are years of precedent for these format guidelines based on pages and pages of other discussions which included the input of many editors. You've had three weeks to discuss this and have not responded to anything constructive. If I revert you one more time, you'll call me on the three-revert rule? If I don't revert you then the guideline won't match the titles of thousands of articles. THAT is why we need an admin to settle this. Did you read the links I posted below? DavidRF (talk) 05:07, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
If not responding to someone's comments is flaming, then you're as guilty as I am, and you should be less critical. Hyacinth (talk) 14:22, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
I fail to see how a brief conversation between three editors, four years ago, which does not mention the word "title", can be considered to have "settled the usage in titles". And, as I pointed out above, as far as titles are concerned Hyacynth's edit appears to accord with the examples given at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music). Please tell me what I am missing. PL290 (talk) 18:25, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
He just changed Wikipedia:Naming conventions (music) this morning to match his edits... so that's what you are missing. There are hundreds, probably thousands of articles named "Symphony No. 1 (Composer)" or "Piano Concerto No. 1 (Composer)" or "String Quartets, Op. 18 (Composer)" or "Prelude in C minor (Composer)". Are we to change each "Op." to "op." and each "No." to "no." and each "minor" to "Minor" in thousands of articles? Are we doing this without discussion? We've had numerous discussions about this. We have to discuss these things because article renames are a lot of work and often difficult to revert. See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Classical_music/Archive_19#Chopin_works_.E2.80.93_article_titles, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Classical_music/Archive_18#Style_issues. There's a subpage userpage discussion here: User:JackofOz/Musical_styles. More here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Classical_music/Archive_17. I could probably find more but I'll stop. Contrary to what User:Hyacinth's edits may claim, we didn't find a universal standard. We discussed for a long time and come up with one we found to be reasonable and applied it everywhere because it would look tacky if these format standards were applied inconsistently from page to page. So do we rename over a thousand pages without discussion based on one editor who refuses to discuss? Lets get an admin in here to decide because User:Hyacinth has made it clear he won't discuss this and renaming is a lot of work and I don't want to have to do it more than once. Bring in User: SarekOfVulcan or someone else. Is User:Antandrus an admin? I forget.DavidRF (talk) 19:39, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes Antandrus is an admin, though he is usually pretty busy. FWIW, I think is is difficult to state any universal standard. I personally favour capitalising only "Major" and "Minor" where these words are unequivocally part of the title of a work. Problem is... define "part of the title". More often than not a composer simply calls the work "Symphony", "Sonata", "Quartet" or whatever and leaves it to the publisher to disambiguate the work from previous works by adding "[N/n]umber 2" or "[O/o]pus 56" or "in C [M/m]inor" or whatever. I note in passing that Liszt's sonata is under Piano Sonata (Liszt) and that none of Sonata in B minor, Sonata in B Minor, Piano Sonata in B minor nor Piano Sonata in B Minor even redirect to that page. I think Liszt simply called it "Piano Sonata" (or possibly just "Sonata"), IIRC, despite the fact that we usually refer to the work as "Sonata in B [M/m]inor". Capital or lower case? No idea! I'd personally suggest using lower case for everything but others might prefer the opposite --Jubilee♫clipman 21:51, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
Speaking of games: You forget if Antandrus is an admin? How could you find out? Click User:Antandrus. Hyacinth (talk) 14:19, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. Now that you're engaged. Do you see the problem with changing the style guides so that they conflict with the names of thousands of articles? Are you proposing that we rename all the articles? I anticipate that a rename project of that size will generate a lot of interest amongst editors. Even if it turns out that we do things your way, then there will be a large amount of discussion generated as a result of it. Frankly, I'd like to get admin input just on the logistical prospects of doing that many article renames. Its been a long time since a project of that scope has been done at WP:CM. That's assuming that we do end up doing things your way. There might be disagreement and this should be aired out before thousands of articles get renamed. Please let us know what your intentions are here. Thanks.DavidRF (talk) 15:23, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
If you yourself where engaged you might realize that I am an admin.
I wonder what you think my "my way" is and what "my way" involves? Conspiracy theory?
If I'm attempting to improve the manual, that's probably my intention, and you probably should settle down. Wikipedia:Ownership of articles? Hyacinth (talk) 15:42, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
Ohhhhhh... well, you strung me along for a while there. I thought you guys were trained not to do that. My mistake. Thanks for eventually letting me off the hook there.
I am calm. To tell you the truth I used "your way" in a very open minded manner. I don't claim to own all of these articles. I just wanted to inform you that changes to the style guide will cause changes to thousands of articles. Is it wrong for me to assume that article-changes will follow from style-changes? The style guide is not written for readers, its written for editors. A style article in article-space like Serial comma can list all the acceptable permutations, but I thought the guides in wikipedia-space were supposed to promote one editorial style just for wiki-consistency.DavidRF (talk) 16:06, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
I didn't realize the other docs had been changed too, so you're right, I was missing that. It does seem from the various discussion links you provided that there are numerous unresolved style questions regarding the rendering of titles of musical works (i.e., major/minor is just one of many problem aspects). And given that conclusively identifying the formal title of a musical work is inherently problematic, it follows that an article title, being the common name of the musical work, may or may not be a proper noun, which is, unfortunately, what needs to be known in order to determine whether to capitalize any but the first word of the article title. I suppose one possible convention would be to always treat common names of musical works as proper nouns, irrespective of the composer's original scrawlings, since they are effectively such. But one way or another, as with many styleguide issues, this one does seem to come down to discussing and agreeing any changes to the guideline. PL290 (talk) 13:31, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not worried about the common-name issue. Consensus is usually reached pretty quickly on a case-by-case basis there. The changes to the style of "generic" titles is a much more sweeping change in my opinion. It is true that we couldn't find a strict universal style. After much discussion, we just picked a style that was reasonable and just ran with it. It doesn't mean that "Piano Concerto No. 21 (Mozart)" is better than "Piano Concerto no. 21 (Mozart)" or that "String Quartets, Op. 76 (Haydn)" is better than "String Quartets, op. 76 (Haydn)". Or you could delete the spaces between the periods and the numbers. We've seen every permutation. But one thing we all agreed upon was that pick one and be consistent. That was what we followed and the style-guide was set up to inform editor of the choices we made. I find it problematic that User:Hyacinth has changed these guidelines so that they are no longer consistent with what is in thousands of articles and their titles. Its not a style-guide for readers, its a style-guide for editors. If the style guide gets changed, all the articles need to be changed. Is that what is being proposed?DavidRF (talk) 15:38, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

A) Who would admins be trained by (they are voted in, not put through an academy)? B) You could have clicked on User:Hyacinth just as you could have clicked on User:Antandrus). C) I didn't string you along since obviously you don't want me to make the decision. D) The style guide is for editors but I'm unconcerned with that. Would you oppose moving an article to the correct title simply because it seems difficult? This would be like saying, "well, I know that morals say I shouldn't eat human babies but it's just easier to make my breakfast from them". Hyacinth (talk) 16:28, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I've found that Admins usually have a more open and mediatory demeanor. They tend explain what's going on. I saw some page moves, I saw editors I knew disagreeing with your edits with very little discussion back from you. And then I get a proofread flame from you and I just assumed you were a strong-willed editor who refused to engage in constructive discussion. We get those from time to time. The idea that you were an admin didn't cross my mind, so I guess I was wrong. You're right, I could have easily checked, but I asked for an admin and you didn't identify yourself. You just gave me a shovel and told me where to dig. You got me. Oh well, whatever.
I'm not necessarily against the page moves, if this is what the consensus wants, then fire up the bots. That said it was unclear that everyone understood that all the page moves would be necessary. Moving thousands of pages usually generates a lot of reaction from other editors and I thought it would be helpful to have that discussion before the moves rather than after. We had a well-meaning user go through and rename a few dozen Chopin articles without obtaining consensus and it was a real pain to clean that up. We had to get admin help because many page-title changes can't be undone because they clash with a redirect (or something).
I don't know how constructive your eating human babies analogies is. These format are relatively trivial issues, but it will significantly change the "look-and-feel" of extremely large portions of WP:CM. If that happened, *I* would get used to that change, but I think we'll get a lot of feedback from other editors on those change as well. I feel awkward trying to explain this because of the way I was strung along above. Like if I don't phrase something correctly, I'll get dinged for claiming ownership or being a paranoid conspiracy theorist. Am I unreasonable in assuming that these style guide changes will result in sweeping changes across a lot of articles? Am I unreasonable in assuming that sweeping changes across a lot of articles will generate more feedback from editors than what we've gotten here so far? Can you throw me a bone and tell me what is going on? Thanks. DavidRF (talk) 17:24, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't think it's exactly unreasonable to assume that changes to a manual of style may require changes in articles. But as I said, it's unreasonable to oppose changes to a manual of style because of that. That's why manuals of style exist, to guide articles.
If you don't want to get dinged for being a conspiracy theorist don't accuse me of having some grand and horrible plot. Also, I would have thought you could handle being asked a question regarding your typos without explodinng<sp>.
Regarding the negative feedback you predict may happen in the future, I don't have the crystal ball you apparently do, and so I'm not worried about the future. I'm worried about correct and accurate standards. As a legislator I wouldn't vote to overturn a law against eating babies just because I got feedback that it was difficult to enforce, or worse, because I got feedback that it might be difficult to enforce if the authorities were to try.
Again, you weren't strung along: you asked for an admin to "make the decision" (or summarize the consensus), which I can't do for you since I'm personally involved. What do you want to know about what is going on? Other than that we're having a discussion on this talk page, regarding major/minor and titles, etc.... Hyacinth (talk) 18:20, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
In fact, do you have a reason to oppose my changes other pure conservatism and dislike of me? Hyacinth (talk) 18:21, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
Exploding? Re-read it again. I just tuned you out and asked for mediation. And you didn't string me along? Saying "Getting an admin to decide, wouldn't be a discussion either" when you are actually an admin yourself? And trying to introduce the notion that I may or may not like you into the discussion? I don't understand why you are fanning the flames here. I thought as an admin you were supposed to be redirecting everyone towards constructive discussion.
Moving on.... If you read the archives at WP:CM, you would understand why I think there would be a lot of discussion generated by these changes. There's a lot of discussion on infoboxes, names of Chopin articles, names of Bach cantata articles, there's an Opus/catalog discussion in archive 27. More style issues in archive 18 which spawned a discussion page at User:JackofOz/Musical styles. Please re-read these archives. There's nothing about the old guidelines that is etched in stone. A lot of the decisions were indeed arbitrary, but the changes you've made here aren't necessarily better. Its just as arbitrary. If you want to dismiss that as pure conservatism, then fine. My suggestion would be to let all editors who contributed to the discussions I listed above know about this discussion and the changes that may result from it ahead of time. Of course, not everyone is going to agree on everything, but I think people will react more calmly and rationally to the page moves and mass-edits they see on their watch list if they knew about it ahead of time and got to throw in their two cents. Thanks.DavidRF (talk) 19:43, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
Telling someone they gave you a shovel and told you where to dig, and then telling him to read an entire archive is ironic and hypocritical (especially when they had only told you to read a category: two words). I assume you also realize that accusing someone of fanning the flames is fanning them, and that you did so rather than giving a reason for opposing the changes. Hyacinth (talk) 22:37, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
You asked for an admin, but there's one pointed out at the top of this page. Hyacinth (talk) 22:39, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Changes to the Manual of Style that affect a large number of articles need the consensus of a large number of editors. At the very least, the changes should have been advertised in numerous talkpages before they were made. Better still, an RfC should have been called. As it is, I personally think we should revert all the changes made by Hyacinth, start again and call an RfC. Clearly this is not going to be resolved by a small handful of editors misunderstanding each other --Jubilee♫clipman 20:13, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

(Though I don't think DavidRF or anyone can quote me using the word "universal") In regards to a standard the claim that "we" didn't or can't find a universal standard seems strange since contrary to claims, I'm not sure if we tried to find one. I found 3 1/2 sources with all the same standard. Hyacinth (talk) 23:14, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

That's not the point Hyacinth. The changes you are making affect a huge number of articles and need full consensus. At this stage, whether I agree with you or not is irrelevant as so far there are only 4 voices in this increasingly heated discussion. I think you and David should take this to WP:DR or start an RfC. This discussion is clearly going nowhere and you are continuing to change the MOS without consensus to do so. If this continues I will have no choice but to go to ANI and request that your and David's behaviour be reviewed and the various edits requiring admin intervention to revert also be reviewed. Thanks --Jubilee♫clipman 23:53, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
Did I say it was the point? It could be a point, if someone would be willing to address it. As Jubilee says below, perhaps we could start again, or perhaps you could threaten to report me for continuing to discuss. Hyacinth (talk) 02:57, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
There's no need for WP:DR. I didn't realize that User:Hyacinth was an admin. I know he's an admin now. I'm sorry for not recognizing that. My attempts to explain my confusion don't appear to be helping things. I'm sorry for that as well. Can we get back to discussing the topic? Maybe we can archive the confusing back-and-forth part above because its leading people to think there's a flame war going on when that was not my intention at all.DavidRF (talk) 13:53, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
  • I have been bold and reverted both this page and the Naming Conventions page to the last stable version before Hyacinth made his controversial changes. Perhaps we can start again and discuss these changes first? --Jubilee♫clipman 00:45, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. I wanted to say something but it'd just get lost in the flames I'm sure. All said, Hyacinth had no right to go about changing all that without any sort of discussion, especially as much of it (such as Op.) was discussed already. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:09, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
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