User talk:Bobnotts/Archive 4

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Transpositions

Hi Rob, I saw that you removed a few works from Adrian Cuello's page. I understand your point, they aren't really original compositions, but those that I saw were not simple transpositions too, he did a lot of "rewriting" to adapt them for female choir. Do you think he could leave them under a specific section in his composer page, say, Re-arrangements? If not, perhaps in his user page... but I think that his "intellectual" work on these scores deserved being mentioned on his composer page. I don't know if there's already a consensus on this subject here at CPDL, if so please let me know. -- Carlos^Talk 23:27, 14 May 2008 (PDT)

Hi Carlos. I have to say that I didn't look closely at the level of arrangement that Adrian made to the works. The ones that I skimmed over I compared to the originals and saw mainly just transposition. If you have any specific references to hand, I'd like to take a closer look. I have to say that I'm against listing so-called "arrangements" on individuals' composer pages as, in my opinion, anything but considerable re-writing isn't arrangement - it's editing. However, I'd think it's fine for an editor to list his editions on his editor page like Chuck and I have. Now I realise this may develop into something of a discussion of semantics, not the actual issue, so here are a few example that I think are useful:

1. David Fraser has edited many works by William Byrd. Byrd often wrote for ATB or subdivisions of that, ATTB, AATB, etc. I know that Dave often transposes some of Byrd's works for SATB as most choirs use those forces, but I would never consider him an arranger because of this transposition, rather this is a part of editing - making a work which was composed some time ago suitable for modern day performance.
2. User:Denis Mason has made 2 editions of Cantique de Jean Racine by Gabriel Fauré, one for SSA and one for TBB. Are those arrangements? I'm not sure but they're not listed on his composer page (he doesn't have one), nor on his editor page.

So I guess it comes down to the amount of re-writing. If there's some considerable re-writing then it's probably fair to call it an arrangement. If the person has just swapped a few clefs around then I don't think that counts... --Bobnotts talk 19:30, 23 May 2008 (PDT)

User:Thierry

Hi Rob, thanks for fixing things in Thierry's userpage, I erroneously thought his username was Thierry Buclin and moved his talk page with no reason. Must remember to look more carefully when a User: page is really a userpage. :) -- Carlos^Talk 02:31, 24 May 2008 (PDT)

No problem :-) --Bobnotts talk 04:49, 24 May 2008 (PDT)

Add works form problems

Hi Rob,

I tried to use the create works page to put up a new mass setting i've finally finished.. after entering all the info, i clicked submit and got the error message "unable to update table". Any help or advice of what's going on? Thanks Paul R. Marchesano

Hi Paul. You get this error message when you use an apostrophe without putting a backslash before it. Simply follow the instructions at the top of the page, "Technical note: If you use an apostrophe, you must use a backslash before it, or the program will not work correctly" and you should be fine. Please note that all movements of a mass should be added to the same score pages. Hope that helps. --Bobnotts talk 07:04, 30 May 2008 (PDT)

Thanks for adding the composer to the Mass page. I didn't have an apostrophe, but I did have quotation marks. That may have done it. --Paul Marchesa 13:52, 3 June 2008 (PDT)

Mulitple editions

Hi Rob. I see you have been removing parentheses around multiple editions listings on the Victoria page by typing out, eg. 3 editions available. I'm not sure I understand your rationale behind this, since from earliest times we have had such items appear as (3 editions available). See Template:3editions, Template:Editions, etc. As far as I'm concerned, the Victoria page (which I had adopted) looks horrible with that material not enclosed in parentheses ... the italics of the work title conflict with the italics in the number of editions information. Moreover, the " - " that has been removed makes it look even worse. I think that any such changes in style should not be made by hand by circumventing the templates already in place. If change is warranted, it should be made with the templates themselves. As for the Victoria page, I'm reverting all the editions information back to templates. The one change I am contemplating (with the templates) is to have them read, eg. "(3 editions)" ... ie. not including the parentheses themselves inside italics. -- Chuck_talk Giffen_♫ 02:48, 27 June 2008 (PDT)

Hi Chuck. I meant to reply to this a couple of days ago and got distracted... the reason for my removing the editions templates was that I saw a development for Template:Editions which we could introduce. We know how many score pages there are on CPDL, but we don't know how many editions there are since the catalogue system has been skewed by people misusing the add works form. Would it be useful to know how many editions there are on CPDL? Maybe. If so, I think the best way to determine this would be to use the existing Template:Editions to add a category to the score page to categorise it as "Works with 2 editions" or "Works with 3 editions" etc. Then we could find out how many editions are on CPDL. Now, if the template is used on composer pages too, this would, of course, mess up the count. What do you think about extending Template:Editions? --Bobnotts talk 23:38, 28 June 2008 (PDT)

Hi Rob. Are you trying to count CPDL number used or what? I'm not sure what counstitutes an "edition", since, variously, people have used more than one edition number for what amounts to a single edition with separate CPDL numbers for individual movements or even individual paper sizes, while others have put these under one CPDL number. I strongly suspect that a simple-minded thing like the editions template is going to fill the bill.

If we had some accurate idea as to what it is we wish to count, then the editions template might be expanded to included it, or, more likely, it might not (for example for a work with major movements, some of which have differing numbers of editions, currently usually covered under the rubric "multiple editions"). Furthermore, if we ever do get a handle on what it is we wish to count, then a separate template for the counting purposes should be added to the works pages. At present, the editions template does not count CPDL numbers, because of the above-mentioned problem of multiple CPDL numbers being used for what really is a single edition. Neither does it count PDFs or MIDIs. What the editions template does when it provides a number (sometimes it does not!) is to give a subjective count of the number of editions available, and in its present form, I think it is something we should leave pretty much alone, at least for the present.

If tracking and counting CPDL numbers is the goal (and I think it probably should be a goal, since CPDL numbers are like "catalog numbers"), then I think something like [[Category:CPDL jklmn]] should be added to the page containing the CPDL number "ijklmn", and this category page should itself be categorised [[Category:CPDL numbers| jklmn]]. This would make the Category:CPDL numbers a complete list of all individual CPDL numbers, each linked to the page containing the edition information. -- Chuck_talk Giffen_♫ 02:05, 30 June 2008 (PDT)

I'm not really sure I understand the last part of what you said there, Chuck. Why create c.15,000 categories on the wiki just to check the catalogue numbering system? Surely there's an easier way? Anyway, the idea wasn't to count CPDL numbers used instead the number of editions on CPDL. The latest CPDL number is 17407 but I we both know there are many fewer than 17407 editions on CPDL... as for what constitutes an edition, we could go into that later... I know exactly what Template:Editions does at the moment and I think that we wouldn't have to have a subjective decision - we could make guidelines. Thanks for the award, btw! Is there going to be an alto clef award?! --Bobnotts talk 07:45, 30 June 2008 (PDT)

And the envelope, please...

		The Bass Clef award
		for basic work essential to the functioning of CPDL is hereby awarded to Robert Nottingham for tireless, countless, ongoing and steady edits and contributions to the overall look and feel of CPDL. — Chucktalk Giffen♫

Your IMSLP Forum Posting

Hi Bob, Might want to get back on the IMSLP forum. David Newman (owner of the "Art Song Central" site has objected to your proposed removal of his PDF-file "Branding" in his Art Song Central PDF files. If you read the comments on his user page you will see he proposes his PDF files be only linked to, and Chuck recently deleted all the copies of his PDF files which were on CPDL, in favor of remote links to the same files. (See Ralph Vaughan Williams, "Songs of Travel")

Your IMSLP Forums post in reference:

I've just discovered Art Song Central and I want to copy all the PDFs over to IMSLP. Can someone explain how to remove the text at the bottom of the PDF pages? I have Acrobat 6.0. Alternatively, is someone willing to remove this text themselves? I couldn't find a help file on this which is why I'm asking here. I'd be happy to write a help page if/when I work this process out! Cheers, Rob

Feel free to delete this post after you have read it. Johnhenryfowler 06:33, 8 July 2008 (PDT)

Blank page

Hi Rob, I couldn't understand your reasoning in restoring this blank page and protecting it for admins access only. Do you intend to begin editing it soon? Vaarky has offered to create a text draft for this page and I thought it would make more sense to let her recreate the page only when she had the draft ready. —Carlos  00:29, 28 July 2008 (PDT)

Hi Carlos. I blanked the page and protected it for the same reason that I blanked it and protected it before you deleted it, "so that spam bots cannot create the page which is potentially a system page". I don't plan on editing it any time soon but if Vaarky fancies writing a draft, she can do so on a user sub-page. As site policy, it should be checked and ratified by admins before being published in my opinion. --Bobnotts talk 06:00, 28 July 2008 (PDT)

Thanks for trying to make it more convenient for me. FWIW, the approach Carlos suggested makes perfect sense to me. A draft for something like this is best reviewed in the discussion page section, so it doesn't create an impression that the document is ratified by the site's administrators until it actually has been. Requiring admin approval for edits to a page that purports to represent CPDL policy sounds like a fine idea. --Vaarky 10:10, 28 July 2008 (PDT)

Hi Rob, now I understood what you did! But isn't it a bit weird to maintain a page protected and empty just to avoid it being spammed? What do you think if we put some text on it (like, "Under construction" :), or even a redirect to the Main Page, anything that would make it more meaningful/useful until we have a true policy to show. If you like the idea, please feel free to do what you think is best. —Carlos  13:54, 28 July 2008 (PDT)

(Sorry, I meant the approach Rob suggested (protecting it) when I wrote Carlos) --Vaarky 14:34, 28 July 2008 (PDT)

I'd say it's not weird, Carlos, since clicking on it and being redirected to the main page would just be annoying and having a sign which says "under construction" is rather obvious if the page is empty. Some spam edits slip through the net and I wouldn't want users to click on what seems like an official page to arrive at a load of spam links. You can edit it if you feel strongly about the subject. --Bobnotts talk 06:08, 29 July 2008 (PDT)

External tool for editing score pages

Hi Rob, you've been editing and adding templates to a lot of score pages lately! Would you like to experiment a bit with the macros I was talking about at the forum? I uploaded the necessary files here (program) and here (CPDL macros). The macros aren't still totally developed, so you may want to customize them to fit your needs (or ask me to if you don't know how). Some step-by-step instructions:

1. Unzip ue32v90.zip to a folder
2. Save CPDL.MAC in the same folder
3. Execute uedit32.exe
4. On menu Macro -> Load, select file CPDL.MAC
5. On menu Macro -> Set Auto Load..., select the same file
6. Now open a new empy document: menu File -> New
7. Edit a score page on CPDL and select all text (Ctrl-C)
8. Paste the text (Ctrl-V) to UltraEdit's new doc
9. Now (Ctrl-L), select macro CPDL__Score and OK
10. Select all text (Ctrl-A), go back to CPDL page and paste (Ctrl-V)

That's it! Now just compare changes and see if there's something missing. It may sound a bit difficult at first, but with some training you'll do all steps very quickly.

This is just a temporary solution. I'm working on a way to implement a bot that would accurately do most of these edits for us. Regards, —Carlos  06:26, 31 July 2008 (PDT)

Thanks for that, Carlos. A bot would definitely be a good idea, something I looked into a while ago but determined I don't have the programming skills. I use a macro in MS Word at the moment but that's quite basic. Have you tried Python? I might have a go at the program you suggest when I get a mo, thanks. --Bobnotts talk 05:45, 1 August 2008 (PDT)

You guessed it, Rob! I was trying to customize PyWikipediaBot (a Python based bot) to run these macros in place of UltraEdit, but I'm not sure yet if it'll work as a standalone bot. Python was totally new to me, but it seemed to be one of the solutions that could be best customized to work with other "non-pedia" wikis. —Carlos  13:37, 1 August 2008 (PDT)

Contributor of Winterreise (IMSLP)

Hi Bob, You changed the "Contributor" of Winterreise (Franz Schubert)) to "Edward W. Guo" - where did you find this name. I used the "uploader" at the main page for Winterreise:

http://imslp.org/wiki/Winterreise%2C_D.911_(Op.89)_(Schubert%2C_Franz Uploader: Feldmahler (24 February 2006) Johnhenryfowler 02:00, 1 August 2008 (PDT)

Hi John. I changed it because that's his real name, elusively hidden on his user page ;-) --Bobnotts talk 18:39, 1 August 2008 (PDT)

did you mean to delete this page?

Just came across this page which was marked for deletion a while ago and wanted to check if it fell through the cracks or there was some decision to hold off (didn't see any indication on its talk page): Requests-chronological Vaarky 04:49, 29 August 2008 (PDT)

I've just deleted it, thanks for reminding me. --Bobnotts talk 19:32, 4 September 2008 (PDT)

deleting superfluous redirects

I noticed you (and I think others) deleting superfluous redirects--thanks. When we rename a page by using the Move function, it leaves behind a redirect at the old location. When the redirect is superfluous, is there any recommended way to request such deletion, or is the appearance in the change logs sufficient? Tx. Vaarky 09:11, 4 September 2008 (PDT)

You can mark any page for immediate deletion by following the instructions here. --Bobnotts talk 19:32, 4 September 2008 (PDT)

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