Talk:Johann Sebastian Bach - Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by GFHandel (talk | contribs) at 20:18, 23 March 2013 (→Infobox proposal: I didn't say there was none, I said... One last observation (and because of a certain incident yesterday, I'm done)...). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 20:18, 23 March 2013 by GFHandel (talk | contribs) (→Infobox proposal: I didn't say there was none, I said... One last observation (and because of a certain incident yesterday, I'm done)...)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Johann Sebastian Bach article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

Template:VA

Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
April 23, 2005	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
May 9, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed
May 28, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
May 30, 2006	Peer review	Reviewed
December 29, 2006	Good article reassessment	Delisted
May 25, 2010	Good article nominee	Not listed
March 16, 2012	Peer review	Reviewed
Current status: Delisted good article

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Biography: Musicians / Core

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Misplaced Pages's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography
	This article is supported by WikiProject Musicians (assessed as Top-importance).
	This article is listed on the project's core biographies page.

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Composers

This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Composers, a group of editors writing and developing biographical articles about composers of all eras and styles. The project discussion page is the place to talk about technical and editorial issues and exchange ideas. New members are welcome!ComposersWikipedia:WikiProject ComposersTemplate:WikiProject ComposersComposers

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Germany Top‑importance

	Germany portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Germany on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GermanyWikipedia:WikiProject GermanyTemplate:WikiProject GermanyGermany
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Pipe organ (inactive)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Pipe organ, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.Pipe organWikipedia:WikiProject Pipe organTemplate:WikiProject Pipe organPipe organ

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Lutheranism High‑importance

	Johann Sebastian Bach is part of WikiProject Lutheranism, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Lutheranism on Misplaced Pages. This includes but is not limited to Lutheran churches, Lutheran theology and worship, and biographies of notable Lutherans. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.LutheranismWikipedia:WikiProject LutheranismTemplate:WikiProject LutheranismLutheranism
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Christianity: Lutheranism Low‑importance

	Christianity portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Christianity, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Christianity on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChristianityWikipedia:WikiProject ChristianityTemplate:WikiProject ChristianityChristianity
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject Lutheranism (assessed as Top-importance).

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.

Former countries: Prussia

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Former countries, a collaborative effort to improve Misplaced Pages's coverage of defunct states and territories (and their subdivisions). If you would like to participate, please join the project.Former countriesWikipedia:WikiProject Former countriesTemplate:WikiProject Former countriesformer country
	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Prussia, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.

Template:WP1.0

This article was the subject of an educational assignment that ended on 3 December 2009. Further details are available here.

Edit request on 27 February 2013

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

i think johann sebastian bach was born on march 21st and not on march 31st as wikipedia suggests 74.101.89.97 (talk) 21:13, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Take a look at the note by the birth dates. It would seem that J.S. Bach was born on March 21 based on use of the "old style" Julian calendar, which was in use in Protestant Germany at the time of his birth, but when matched with the modern-use Gregorian calendar, he was born on March 31. 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 21:58, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Closed edit request per above response. —KuyaBriBri 22:57, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Bach as a Singer

Should singer not be added to all the other musical epithets at the beginning of the article? Wasn't it a choral scholarship he won in his youth? Did he not work as cantor for 27 years? He seems to have had been a singer more than he was a violist or violinist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.242.82.50 (talk) 10:30, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Unsubstantiated claim at footnote 93

Hi--a first-timer here, be merciful.

This sentence: "The structure of the Easter Oratorio, BWV 249, resembles The Crucifixion." has footnote 93, which links here: http://www.bach.org/bach101/other_vocal/easter_oratorio.html

That's the first time I've run into that idea; and since I'm researching the Easter Oratorio now, I was eager to read the argument. The link does lead to text describing the Easter Oratorio, but nowhere in that text, as far as I can see, does the author make the claim that the structure of the piece resembles the Crucifixion. I'd be sorry to see the only sentence mentioning this piece be struck from the Bach article, but it ought to be either properly substantiated or replaced. Thanks.Sangerinde (talk) 11:12, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment of the source; the sentence should be removed. However, I think that source ought to be mentioned in the Easter Oratorio article as external link. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:09, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Infobox proposal

Johann Sebastian Bach
Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach by Elias Gottlob Haussmann, 1748
Born	(1685-03-21)21 March 1685 (31 March 1685) Eisenach, Saxe-Eisenach
Died	28 July 1750(1750-07-28) (aged 65) Leipzig
Occupations	Composer Cantor Organist Conductor
Years active	1703 (1703) – 1707 (1707): Arnstadt 1707 (1707) – 1708 (1708): Mühlhausen 1708 (1708) – 1717 (1717): Weimar 1717 (1717) – 1723 (1723): Köthen 1723 (1723) – 1750 (1750): Leipzig Thomaskantor
Style	Baroque
Spouses	Maria Barbara Bach (1707–1720) Anna Magdalena Bach (1721–1750)
Children	Wilhelm Friedemann Bach Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach Johann Christian Bach
{{Johann Sebastian Bach}}
Signature

I suggest an infobox, which includes a link to his navbox --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:40, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I do not. Toccata quarta (talk) 14:15, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

No comment on whether there could/should be an infobox, but a link to a template's page when that template is already transcluded on the article page is completely inappropriate for any infobox. Voceditenore (talk) 15:23, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Support Infoboxes are very useful and provide a great overview of a topic. Many people often use them. PumpkinSky talk 15:35, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

The infobox would add nothing to the article. It's useless. Toccata quarta (talk) 15:42, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

You are badly informed. The infobox would add the following classes to information in the article: vcard; fn; bday; birthplace; dday; deathdate; deathplace; role; vevent; dtstart; dtend; location; category. None of those are included in the article at present. All of those make the job of scraping information from the article much easier for third-party re-users. In addition, an infobox can be used by more sophisticated tools to extract and aggregate information in ways that you don't seem to be aware of - see Intelligence in Misplaced Pages for some of the possibilities. Additionally, we expect a brief summary overview of a topic at the top right of Misplaced Pages articles.

Now, if you want to argue that the infobox doesn't look right to you; or takes up too much room; or that this sort of subject can lead to misleading summaries which are over-simplified, then you would at least have a credible argument. But the "add nothing/useless" argument was discredited five years ago, and rolling it out again does tend to insult our intelligence. --RexxS (talk) 20:40, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I oppose infoboxes for the reasons that have been repeated many times in discussions like this one, as well as visual reasons, just to be clear. Toccata quarta (talk) 04:29, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

The box opposite would mislead the reader into thinking that Bach was equally important as a cantor, organist, and conductor as a composer. In any case giving pre-modern composers 'occupations' is anachronistic. The pro-boxers never seem to get the anachronism thing. Did none of them ever study history? --Klein zach 03:22, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

That's a valid argument, but falls short by ignoring the point that having the information does not always imply equivalent importance (however importance may be judged). What it does do is allow Google (or whoever) to answer a question like "Was Bach a singer?" quite quickly because they can make semantic relationships between "Was X a Y?" and "occupation=Y" even it is anachronistic. Once you establish that a "Cantor belongs to the set of types of singer", then the answer can be supplied automatically. Not only did some of us study history, we also studied linguistics and information processing. YMMV --RexxS (talk) 03:52, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

RexxS: Ha! I think you need to read Cantor (church). This is quite amusing! You've now demonstrated that this infobox can actually be an infotrap, or should I say a booby trap, leading the innocent reader to the wrong conclusion! Klein zach 04:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

You mean the right conclusion, surely. Bach was indisputably an accomplished singer from his youth. Nevertheless you may have a point if there are examples of cantors who were not singers, so I take your objection seriously. There will always need to be a balance between supplying information and over-simplification. The answer is to be smarter about how we supply information, not to suppress it. --RexxS (talk) 04:32, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Bach was a child singer. The cantor post was that of a (musical) schoolmaster. Did he perform as an adult? Was he a tenor or a bass? It would be interesting if you could provide some information — with sources. The current article doesn't explain anything much about Bach's singing, despite the (apparent) suggestion from the infobox that this was a notable aspect of his work. Klein zach 04:59, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Comment/mild oppose Avoiding infoboxes seems to be common practice for composers. Of the first five classical composers I checked at random (George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff), all followed the same infobox-less format. This appears to be something of a standard for these projects. Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Composers#Article_structure states "It is the consensus of this WikiProject that the lead should not contain an infobox, per Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Composers#Biographical infoboxes, "without first obtaining consensus on the article's talk page". Which in turn says “We think it is normally best, therefore, to avoid infoboxes altogether for classical musicians, and we prefer to add an infobox to an article only following consensus for that inclusion on the article's talk page.” So I'd lean towards oppose unless there was a good reason this article should be different. Rwessel (talk) 22:40, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
- That may well be the consensus of a WikiProject, but the RfC called by members of the project concluded that "WikiProjects are free to publish guidelines and recommendations", which is what you you cite, "but do not have the authority to override a local consensus on the talk page of an article.". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:01, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Support per PumpkinSky & RexxS. An infobox such as that shown here would have enabled the above casual reader to quickly answer their own question, for example. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:09, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose as reductionist, unbalanced, and contrary to the WMF's Strategic Goals. As has been previously noted, there is no technical reason why the metadata Rex supports above could not be provided in a less obtrusive manner. Note: I've also changed the section header to better reflect the topic being discussed. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:12, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
- Not only are infoboxes not "contrary to the WMF's Strategic Goals"; their emission of metadata has been praised by the WMF's technical director. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:33, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
  - You are mistaken: one of the WMF's key goals is to attract new editors in general and women in particular, and to increase accessibility for these groups. The complexity of wikimarkup - being confronted with a wall of template text upon hitting the edit button - is one of the most commonly cited reasons for both groups not becoming editors. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:12, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
    - But the counter-argument, Nikki, is that filling in a template with informative labels is much easier and more natural than writing the raw html to supply useful classes for re-users. I do accept though that new editors often find the edit box and wiki-markup a barrier, although my experience is that new women editors are just as capable of dealing with those barriers as men. We should be looking for better technological solutions like the visual editor and collapsible editing elements (so the editor doesn't see the content of templates until they expand them) to encourage new editors, not repressing our current technology because it's less than perfect. --RexxS (talk) 02:50, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
      - Per your edit summary Fighting with women doesn't do much for the atmosphere, to be honest. There probably is something to be said for the argument that women in general are more likely to walk away from bullying - and there has been more than a bit of bullying in the infobox issues. I think in that sense Nikki's argument is quite strong. Truthkeeper (talk) 03:02, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
      - Rex, expecting a new editor to deal with a large template as the first thing they see when they hit edit is not any more reasonable than asking them to use another method to supply classes...but why on earth should we expect newbies to be doing those tasks? (I do agree with you about the wiki-markup being no more or less intimidating because of my gender, but the publications appear to disagree with us on this point, and of course TK also has a very valid point). I also agree that we should be looking for technological solutions, which is what I said in my initial post - find a less obtrusive way of providing this data to reusers, rather than continuing to push a poor substitute. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:15, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
        I don't think we disagree on the effect on new editors, Nikki: I accept that in full, but I just don't accept that women cope less well with wikimarkup than men. As I've trained dozens of new editors - both men and women - over the last year or so, I'm going to claim some insight, anecdotal at least. Sadly, it has taken us years to make progress on the visual editor and it's still got some distance to go, so we put up with wikimarkup, on the assumption that new editors don't have to use it because it can be tweaked later. I still see infoboxes and citation templates in the same light: article improvements from a technical perspective, but they have to be balanced against other valid issues. At present only infoboxes do the job we want for Google and other re-users, probably because the problem of creating a non-intrusive replacement is not trivial. If we ask a developer to provide us with a substitute, how do we answer them when they reply, "You already have something that does that job for you"? --RexxS (talk) 03:33, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
        As a woman (and yes only a single example) I have to disagree. I'm not entirely unsavvy techwise, but I find templates to be difficult and intrusive in the edit window. If I have to fight about them, as I've spent much of the last year doing, then I'll withdraw my volunteer time spent writing here. This article can do with a great deal of maintenance and clean-up - i.e there are over 30 redundant links creating a great deal of unnecessary blue. Rather than fighting yet another infobox war, and I find this to be provocative at best, perhaps someone should work on bringing it back to GA status. If we're only concerned about the tidbits given to Google, then an entire section of the editor base is unneeded - and the women will leave first because to them this is not a video game to be played over and over. Truthkeeper (talk) 03:46, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
        
        Saying "something exists" has not been a barrier to saying "create something new" for the devs - cf. initiatives like Article Feedback. To my knowledge things like persondata, which also provide metadata, have never been objected to...because those, unlike this, are unobtrusive. Surely that template family could be improved/expanded to serve the purposes you require? Nikkimaria (talk) 12:34, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
        I believe I have previously referred you to the essay in which I explain Persondata's shortcomings. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:48, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
    - I teach Misplaced Pages editing, to a variety of audiences, and estimate a 60% female attendance. I've yet to encounter a woman who couldn't understand and edit an infobox. However, your allegation is one worthy of further investigation. I invite you to make that point in an RfC proposing to remove all infoboxes form Misplaced Pages. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:48, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
      - I invite you to re-read the above and respond to what I actually said. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:26, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
- I decided to sleep on it, but I woke this morning still troubled by the "infoboxes are contrary to the WMF's Strategic Goals because their mark-up is complex and confronting (especially to women)" argument – which, in the absence of empirical or statistical evidence, has to be treated as (sorry to say) a guess.

Articles have many edit buttons, and I don't believe that new editors are likely to start with the one at the top (thus avoiding the infobox syntax); instead, they are more likely to click the edit button for a section (as a result of reading something they wish to update within the bulk of the article). Evidence for that claim? Looking over the history for this article (and discounting vandalism, reverts, bots, and scripted edits), the vast majority of edits have edit summaries that start with a grey comment (the section heading).

Perhaps it's the enlightened part of the world in which I live, but I find (what amounts to) an argument that new editors (and especially women) are less likely to be able to scroll past a well-structured listing of infobox parameter=value pairs (all in clear English) to be, frankly demeaning. In contrast, strong empirical evidence has been presented ("I've yet to encounter a woman who couldn't understand and edit an infobox" – from a teacher of Misplaced Pages editing). A many-more times difficult-to-surmount editing challenge is to get past the vast swathes of in-line referencing/citation syntax (for which WP has developed efficient and elegant alternatives); but watch all hell break loose when an attempt is made to implement those alternatives in music-related articles – in an attempt to simplify the editing challenge for new and casual editors. If you are to adopt a fight about what is "contrary to the WMF's Strategic Goals", could I respectively suggest that you help those of us who are trying to drag music-related article referencing out of the nineteenth century?

Template {{Infobox person}} is used on at least 125,000 articles, so the ship on whether they are "contrary to the WMF's Strategic Goals" has well-and-truly sailed, and is not a cogent argument to be applied to a single instance of debate here.

"Put parameter=value pairs in other mechanisms such as Persondata" argument has exactly the same problem as raised by others here – to do with the over-simplification and distortion of summary information (and you can safely forget the extension of Persondata to encompass composer-related fields). I am sympathetic to that point of view, but what I'm not sympathetic to is the "this is too hard to solve therefore we shouldn't even try" approach that is evident here. Misplaced Pages has numerous talented editors and programmers, and just because a problem is difficult doesn't mean that it shouldn't be attempted, nor does it mean that there isn't a solution. I propose that a workshop page is created and that all of us start to kick around the parameters, ideas, problems, and solutions that could make this work for all of WP's readers (and yes, that includes those who quickly want summary information). That doesn't mean that a solution will definitely be found (let alone implemented), but at least we can say that we gave it a significant shot (and the considered and patient input from those who understand the problems would be more than welcome).

It will be interesting in this case to see if the closer looks beyond the "as per" votes and instead tries to get to the consensus of substantive debate? ("Oppose Per obvious"?) In other words, "most decisions on Misplaced Pages are made on the basis on consensus, not on vote-counting or majority rule". Anyhow, I've had more than my fair share of input now, so I'll leave it alone. Could someone please let me know if/when a serious attempt is made to see if a solution to this is possible (because I would love to be involved)? Cheers.

GFHandel ♬ 22:23, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

You might consider looking for empirical evidence before stating that there is none. To give you a quick example, this source specifically cites infoboxes as impediments to new editors ("the ease of editing around wiki syntax drastically decreased as the complexity of the article increased and included infoboxes"). Sue Gardner has also cited technological barriers as a reason why women don't edit. Your evidence regarding section vs whole-article editing is inaccurate because most of the edits you examined were by experienced editors, not newbies. Preliminary research suggests section-edit buttons as currently designed are confusing to newbies, and a quick look at new and anon edits at Special:RecentChanges finds far fewer section edits than your statement suggests. As to "this is too hard to solve therefore we shouldn't even try" - we should try, but pushing a flawed model because we haven't yet developed something better doesn't qualify as "trying". Instead, I would encourage you to go ahead and create that workshop page. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:49, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I look forward to you taking up my suggestion to start an RfC proposing the removal of all infoboxes from Misplaced Pages. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:02, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I didn't say there was none, I said "in the absence of empirical or statistical evidence" – which was an observation that you had provided none in your original post. I apologise for the misunderstanding. Thanks for providing some links, however since I can't check the first without payment, and the second is a blog which doesn't mention infoboxes, I'm a little stuck in proceeding with analysis (which is not to say that I don't have an opinion about Gardner's command of WP policy – which I'll keep to myself). Of course the point is that there are technical solutions that lessen the problems you mention; for example (and in a similar way to {{Coord}}), I'm sure it wouldn't be the greatest technical problem to move the Infobox syntax to the end of the article and add a parameter such as |display=top (thus circumventing the possibility of new editors encountering mark-up syntax upon first editing). Perhaps you could push for that reform around the time you push to remove the far more confronting mark-up barrier of swathes of in-line referencing syntax (as opposed to the benefits of using things like {{sfn}})? One last observation (and because of a certain incident yesterday, I'm done): there are currently 1,256,137 transclusions of {{Infobox}}, so to try to present an argument that there is some sort of special case for their avoidance in this article (or indeed in some other composers' articles) is disingenuous. GFHandel ♬ 20:18, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Oppose Per Nikkimaria, and the many many many other previously made arguments against infoxboxed being imposed on this subject area. Ceoil (talk) 23:15, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. This infobox has the typical problems of infoboxes. (1) It gives very prominent representation to not-very-important data, such as the sequence of minor German cities Bach lived in while starting his career. (2) The shoehorning of information into the infobox format introduces factual distortions; in particular, a reader of the infobox might think that Bach had only four children (a spectacularly wrong conclusion, as you will learn if you read the article text). Unlike some editors above, I think we should not customize WP for readers who just want to browse for trivia -- we are a reference source, not a trivia outlet, and other WP policies emphasize this point.Opus33 (talk) 00:04, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Did you notice that - in order not to make the infobox too long - it has at the bottom a link to the navbox which provides a timeline of his compositions and much more? It would be easy to add how many more children he had, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 00:12, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

This is true, Gerda -- but on the other hand, it makes the infobox longer and longer. Take a look any chemical element article to see the nightmare this can lead to. Also, please note that I mentioned the kids as an example of inaccuracy, but it's also an example of trivia that should not be prominently displayed. Both are problems for infoboxes. Yours truly, Opus33 (talk) 00:31, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

And also above I see, its not just anymore about making the article easier for supposed two second page hoppers, but reducing so as to make it easier for "third-party re-users" to "scrape". Ceoil (talk) 00:50, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Why the scare-quotes? Do you have a problem with our content being re-used? Did you even look at Intelligence in Misplaced Pages from a Google talk dated 2008? Infoboxes have always had a function in presenting data in a fairly standard way as well as marking up microformats - both of which are used by third parties. --RexxS (talk) 02:58, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

"Did you even look at Intelligence in Misplaced Pages from a Google talk dated 2008". Read what you said there again. In all fairness. I have a problem with content being subverted for secondary use. Ceoil (talk) 00:39, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Oppose Per Opus33. The oversimplification mandated by the infobox concept seems particularly ill-advised for articles on artists of all sorts, including composers. The complex nature of "classical" music in particular resists this sort of Disneyfication. Dumbing down Misplaced Pages composer articles like this trivializes the article. Save it for the "Classical Music for Doofuses" websites.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:20, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose per several, including Opus and JK. We have to take a stand somewhere against the dumbing-down of Misplaced Pages. Infoboxes compete against the article, and lazy eyes pick up their oversimplifications, trivia, and distortions. We're an encyclopedia, not a trivia site, and only the article itself can present the appropriate nuance. To casual readers: read the first paragraph. Antandrus (talk) 01:32, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
- In the case of the causal reader referred to above, the opening paragraph does not mention Bach's two marriages. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:15, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
  - Bach is not famous for having been married twice. Your argument is an excellent example of exactly why we should not have the infobox -- since it privileges the unimportant. Antandrus (talk) 01:45, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
    - Since my argument is not that Bach is "famous for having been married twice", your response appears to use the straw man fallacy. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:02, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose Infoboxes are useful for biographical articles in a handful of categories—professional athletes for instance, whose uniform numbers and career statistics can be presented in quick-reference reductionist format without making a mockery of their life's work—but are generally detrimental in articles about artists. Ewulp (talk) 01:55, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
blah blah blah infoboxes suck and should never be on composer articles because they are just so special and anyone who wants them is a lazy idiot. blah blah blah (etc.) (and in case you didn't get it, that was a parody of the arguments that people usually use. Over and over and over again. And again. Ad nausum) ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:07, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose per Nikkimaria, Opus33, Jerome Kohl, Antandrus, and Ewulp, all of whom have made strong arguments against trivialising this article about one of the greatest and most important composers of all time. --Klein zach 03:12, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Support. I don't believe that an Infobox is trivialising or dumbing-down. It is about supplying information to a wide range of readers – something WP is in a unique position to do. I choose not to assume the worst about our readers; instead, I believe that each reader will get out of our articles what we can supply and what they want – and if a reader comes to the article to find obvious facts, then it is WP's duty to present such information in a consistent way across similar articles. BTW, the bulk of the article is still there for those who want to dig (and really dig sometimes because similar information for Bach, Handel, Mozart, Cage, etc. is always presented differently in the prosaic text). I have written a large amount of WP-database XML scraping software, and it is a refreshing change to find well-formatted infoboxes that allow me to acquire information consistently (so there really is a downstream argument in this debate). The wise approach here would not be to jettison the suggestion with trivialisations, but to work on improving the infobox layout so that it is both useful and unobtrusive. Such an approach might be to create collapsible sections (such as already happens with {{Handel}}). I am dismayed about (what I can only describe as) the Luddite mentality that pervades composer and music pages (as I frequently see in referencing/citation discussions), and I live in hope that one day a refreshing and clean wind will breeze through – dragging these articles out of their current appearance (which can best be described as being from a nineteenth-century book). Discussing this in an intelligent, calm, considerate, and open-minded way would be a very good place to start. GFHandel ♬ 04:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
- It would be most helpful to discuss this in a calm and considerate manner, yes. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:26, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose per WP:COMPOSERS and the other "oppose" votes here. Toccata quarta (talk) 04:29, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
- WP:COMPOSERS is not binding here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:15, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose, a piece of clutter which is contra WP:COMPOSERS policy for very good reasons many of which are given above. It is rather naughty to use Bach as a catspaw in trying to change this - it would be more polite and transparent to engage discussion at the project page.--Smerus (talk) 07:46, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
- WP:COMPOSERS is not binding here; and nor does a single project have control (this article is under the umbrella of many). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:15, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Note: A single project has been selectively canvassed about this debate. Readers are invited to guess which, before visiting that link. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:21, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
- Hmmm...perhaps the one with which this subject would be most strongly associated? Note also the other side. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:30, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
  - {{Infobox composer}} is hardly "the other side". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:58, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Support Not always a fan of infoboxes on biographies but I feel this would be an improvement.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 15:17, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose Worthless, reductionist techno-clutter with the usual undue weight problems with focus on trivia. Also, this is an encyclopaedia for humans, not a database for computers. --Folantin (talk) 15:34, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
- Note: the above comment was changed after another editor had referred to it. It previously said "Oppose Per obvious plus other well-argued opposes." Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:03, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. I really thought about not getting involved in this, as I generally find the infobox wars more trouble than they're worth, but Antandrus's arguments have convinced me it's worth opposing. Aside from the "dumbing down" issue, itself undesirable in my opinion, the real issue for me is the emphasis on trivial details that Antandrus points out. This is sufficient reason to exclude the infobox. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:46, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Opposed to adding an infobox in this particular article unless it contains only the dates and cities of his birth and death and the simple fact (not expressed as an "occupation") that he was a composer. Nothing else. Voceditenore (talk) 09:08, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
- Noted that you don't want to include his name(!), portrait, or image of his signature. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:07, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Oppose – per the excellent points made by Kleinzach, Opus33, Jerome Kohl, Antandrus, Ewulp and Folantin, which in my view boil down to showing that this "infobox" (yes, they are scarequotes) is unhelpful, possibly downright confusing, for the interested reader. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:37, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Gerda's three comments

I suggest that even if some seem not to welcome an infobox now, we can think about a future. I would like to find out if the general {{person}} can be changed to suit our needs better, or if we have to create a more specialised one, example: |occupation=. Please keep in mind that the proposal is only a first approach, to be discussed. - Personal note: a friend died, let's be patient. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:52, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Bach is a vital article

I believe that Bach is of wider interest than for only project composer, that's why I brought the topic here. Bach is a vital article, as other artists such as Michelangelo and Franz Kafka. Readers and editors seem to be able to deal with infoboxes there. If editors are not trusted to understand the edit-mode of an infobox, there could be a helpful comment at its beginning. I am female, I didn't need it ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Bach as a composer

Project composer has found solutions for infoboxes on composers for Philip Glass, Robert Stoepel and others, after interesting discussions. A key feature was to stay factual and avoid parameters such as |known_for= and |influenced=. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Single parameters

The proposal is only a suggestion, we can discuss which fields should be included, and what part of every single one should be shown. I didn't include works because they are covered well in the navbox, and a duplication seems not desirable. (Needless to say, if the navbox was transcluded in an infobox it would not have to be repeated at the bottom.) I was surprised that both Bach's wives have an article, good to know in "Women in history"-month, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

This is what the infobox would look like if you transcluded the navbox. Did you mean simply linking to it instead? If so, using {{Johann Sebastian Bach}} with the curly brackets is a terrible way to link, it's counter-intuitive and counter the MOS. For inexperienced readers and editors, the curly brackets are quite mysterious. In any case, no, it wouldn't make the footer navboxes redundant. Believe it or not, many, many readers ignore the infobox and actually read the article, all the way to the bottom. Even if they skim, they, and most editors, are expecting the navboxes to be at the foot of the page. To avoid confusion, you'd have to transclude all three Bach navboxes into the infobox, i.e. this. For people with short attention spans, no time, inability to read English, and/or roaming data-bots (the alleged reasons why we "need" infoboxes) how do those seas of links transcluded in (or linked from) the infobox enhance their knowledge, quickly, transparently, and without distortion? Even if you transcluded all of them, they still wouldn't tell the reader that Bach had more than 4 children, or contextualise the assertion that one of his "occupations" was "singer". Voceditenore (talk) 10:14, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, sorry that I used the wrong term, I meant link (I actually saw what transcluding leads to, by mistake.). Would you rather recommend to list works in an infobox? Any way to avoid their repetition (which is likely to cause errors)? - Number of children: normally I don't mention children at all, as too private information. Children with an article are a different story. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:34, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

A compromise infobox is still an infobox. Ceoil (talk) 00:35, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Gerda, I am opposed to adding an infobox in this article unless it contains only the dates and cities of his birth and death and the fact (not expressed as an "occupation") that he was a composer. Voceditenore (talk) 08:59, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Summary deletion and reversion of archive tags

GFHandel: you have deleted my last message to this talk page. You have also reverted my closure (with archive tags). You are entitled to revert the closure, but not to delete the message. Kindly put it back, GFHandel. Now. Klein zach 01:42, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there's any need to be hostile with bold italics, particularly as the primary cause of this whole situation was the inappropriate closure by an involved editor, not the revert thereof. As GFHandel doesn't seem to be around now, I've gone ahead and restored the comment with a note that it refers to a now-reverted closure. Tweak as necessary. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:59, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

No, "the primary cause of this whole situation" was the proposal on 21 March that started this discussion. Was the proposal in good faith? I'll leave that question open. --Klein zach 05:41, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Your closure was inappropriate (not least for the reasons given by Heimstern Läufer); as is your questioning of Gerda's good faith. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 07:53, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Summary of now-reverted closure

The proposal is rejected. Only a small minority of editors wish to see an bio-infobox for this article. This is one of a series of recent attempts to introduce boxes to articles where there is an existing and ongoing consensus not to use them. This kind of proposal wastes the time of all editors, pro or anti-box, who could be contributing productively and harmoniously to the improvement of the content of the encyclopaedia. I am now archiving this. Let's put Bach first, and forget about ephemera. Let's move on. Klein zach 00:53, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

The above summary was initially accompanied by an archiving of this discussion, but was reverted by User:GFHandel, saying "You cannot close. You are involved, and discussion is ongoing." Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:59, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd be interested to see the evidence for the claimed "existing and ongoing consensus". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 07:55, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Categories: