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A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page

tedgioia.substack.com

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Re: A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page

#51
post #46
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure much of the famous music for Dragon Ball like "Makafushigi Adventure!"[1] and "Cha-La Head-Cha-La"[2] was made by Japanese composers. Did he do the music for the US dub maybe? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makafushigi_Adventure ! [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cha-La_Head-Cha-La

Yes, the US (Funimation?) version and original has different soundtracks, both for the opening and for in the show. I'm not sure which was used in other regions where the show was popular, my guess would be south/central America got the Funimation music. For example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgJ1heSrskY

>my guess would be south/central America got the Funimation music.

The Spanish dubs used the original Japanese soundtrack afaik.

Re: A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page

#52
post #3

It wouldn't be entirely unfair to say that Wikipedia's policies are designed to keep people like Mr. Gioia off the site and out of the decision making process. Considering that he doesn't want to learn what Wikipedia's policies are, or why they exist (and his calling people who disagree with him "trolls"), I am inclined to think that is a good thing.

> It wouldn't be entirely unfair to say that Wikipedia's policies are designed to keep people like Mr. Gioia off the site and out of the decision making process. Why? Who is he and what has he done that might make Wikipedia dislike him?

Ted Gioia is a prolific author on jazz musicology and history; I have several of his books and find them to be informative and entertaining.

Re: A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page

#53

Honestly even if he isn’t famous why can’t Wikipedia keep his entry? Why does Wikipedia even have “notable” requirements anyways? There’s not a storage issue. Wikipedia can literally have billions of articles and still be easy to maintain. There’s not really a quality issue. Wikipedia is known for not being 100% reliable. But moreover, they have tons of ways to denote “this article needs citations” and “this isn’t a…

> Why does Wikipedia even have “notable” requirements anyways?

Think of it like code in an active open-source project. Someone needs to maintain the article: update it when house style changes, evaluate any new contributions to it as being valid or not, etc. Like code experiencing code-rot, a Wikipedia article rots if editors don't give it active attention.

This has exactly the implications you'd expect: it means that articles about things that don't change, are easier to keep around than are articles about things that might change; which are in turn easier to keep around than are articles about things that definitely will change.

Living people — where the article is basically living biography for them — are in that last category.

The "notability" requirement can be translated into editor-ese as a combination of 1. "how many people could we find who could contribute to this page", and 2. "how much demand is there for Wikipedia — rather than some other website — to do the work of keeping this."

Re: the first point about contribution, this is why Wikipedia doesn't let people be their own primary source — it's because, when that primary-source person eventually stops maintaining the page, who will then be able to take over the maintenance? If that's "nobody", then to prevent that, the page shouldn't be allowed in the first place.

Re: the second point about demand — the Pokemon Pikachu has its own Wikipedia page, because people expect Wikipedia specifically to have an article about Pikachu. Other Pokemon do not — because there's already Bulbapedia around to satisfy the demand for an encyclopedia with articles about Pokemon, and the pages from it are easily found in any search engine. If a different set of editors are willing to take on the maintenance burden for those articles in their own domain — and are doing a decent job of it — then why should Wikipedia's editors duplicate that effort?

Re: A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page

#54

Honestly even if he isn’t famous why can’t Wikipedia keep his entry? Why does Wikipedia even have “notable” requirements anyways? There’s not a storage issue. Wikipedia can literally have billions of articles and still be easy to maintain. There’s not really a quality issue. Wikipedia is known for not being 100% reliable. But moreover, they have tons of ways to denote “this article needs citations” and “this isn’t a…

Regardless of all the accusations of incompetent, unfair, or inconsistent enforcement of their own policies (which are serious and deserve inspection and criticsm), I don't think Wikipedia's stated policies around notability are unreasonable. The policy that most directly addresses your comments is "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_no.... They explicitly reject arguments of the form "we should be able to have any page we want as long as storage costs aren't a problem."

Re: A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page

#55
post #11

Now that Google is down-ranking Wikipedia anyway couldn't Wikipedia relax their notability requirements? I understood why they didn't want anybody to create a marketing page for themselves ten years ago, but I don't understand the rational now. The long term goal for Wikipedia should be to collect information on anything that is of interest to one or more person.

> The long term goal for Wikipedia should be to collect information on anything that is of interest to one or more person.

That is very explicitly not a goal of Wikipedia. Of course you're free to disagree with what Wikipedia ought to be, but they're at least fairly clear and explicit about their own goals.

Re: A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page

#56
Pedantically:

"In another bizarre case, an editor at Wikipedia told Philip Roth, “one of the most awarded American authors of his generation” (according to Wikipedia) that he was not a reliable source on the subject of Philip Roth."

Philip Roth is not an authoritative source on Philip Roth. I would have thought that was obvious.

Re: A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page

#57

Please read the discussion that deleted this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... It's a hard problem. Volunteer editors are spread thinly over millions of articles, some of which (like "Bruce Faulconer") are about living people that are really important to get right.[1] The project has settled on the guideline of _notability_, meaning that articles are kept only if they have signi…

It seems to me that erroring on the side of not deleting is probably a better policy.

And it seems to be that the opposite is probably a better policy. This is precisely the debate discussed in the link in the previous comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_i...

Re: A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page

#58

Please read the discussion that deleted this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... It's a hard problem. Volunteer editors are spread thinly over millions of articles, some of which (like "Bruce Faulconer") are about living people that are really important to get right.[1] The project has settled on the guideline of _notability_, meaning that articles are kept only if they have signi…

>Volunteer editors are spread thinly over millions of articles I would like to point out that this is, effectively, a very clever way of saying that Wikipedia is controlled by a tiny group of people whose goals for Wikipedia do not match the expectations of the general public.

There's definitely a systemic bias on Wikipedia towards its generally more-white, more-male, younger, English-speaking editors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Systemic_bias

I'm not sure what the policy solution is. Some suggestions are given on the linked page, but it's a continuing issue.

Re: A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page

#59

Please read the discussion that deleted this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... It's a hard problem. Volunteer editors are spread thinly over millions of articles, some of which (like "Bruce Faulconer") are about living people that are really important to get right.[1] The project has settled on the guideline of _notability_, meaning that articles are kept only if they have signi…

Further the guidelines on composers that are likely to apply to him are listed below. It is not at all clear that he meets the bar here.

From the info I have, the only criteria he may meet is #1 for in the first group, and it is not actually clear that "soundtrack for DBZ" is a notable composition. for a TV show soundtrack to qualify as notable, it would need to be something often written about. For example, if a show is discussed for its music almost as often as for its plot, then sure the soundtrack is probably notable. I don't think that actually applies here.

And even if so, if he is only really known for one work (which pretty much is the case), that would generally be merged with the article for that work. So he could be mentioned in the "Sound Track of DBZ" article if one existed, or the "soundtrack" section of the main DBZ article.

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Composers, songwriters, librettists or lyricists, may be notable if they meet at least one of the following criteria:

1. Has credit for writing or co-writing either lyrics or music for a notable composition. 2. Has written musical theatre of some sort (includes musicals, operas, etc.) that was performed in a notable theatre that had a reasonable run, as such things are judged in their particular situation, context, and time. 3. Has had a work used as the basis for a later composition by a songwriter, composer or lyricist who meets the above criteria. 4. Has written a composition that has won (or in some cases been given a second or other place) in a major music competition not established expressly for newcomers. 5. Has been listed as a major influence or teacher of a composer, songwriter or lyricist that meets the above criteria. 6. Appears at reasonable length in standard reference books on their genre of music.

Where possible, composers or lyricists with insufficient verifiable material to warrant a reasonably detailed article should be merged into the article about their work. When a composer or lyricist is known for multiple works, such a merger may not be possible.

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Composers and performers outside mass media traditions may be notable if they meet at least one of the following criteria:

1. Is frequently covered in publications devoted to a notable music sub-culture.

2. Has composed a number of notable melodies, tunes or standards used in a notable music genre.

3. Is cited in reliable sources as being influential in style, technique, repertory or teaching for a particular music genre.

4. Is cited by reliable sources as having established a tradition or school in a particular music genre.

5. Has been listed as a significant musical influence on musicians or composers who meet the above criteria.

Re: A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page

#60

Honestly even if he isn’t famous why can’t Wikipedia keep his entry? Why does Wikipedia even have “notable” requirements anyways? There’s not a storage issue. Wikipedia can literally have billions of articles and still be easy to maintain. There’s not really a quality issue. Wikipedia is known for not being 100% reliable. But moreover, they have tons of ways to denote “this article needs citations” and “this isn’t a…

Readers interested in these arguments can find more at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inclusionism and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deletionism.
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