Talk:Peter Dyke/Archive 1

Discussion during review at Articles for Creation

@S2dd: Although I agree with the previous reviewer about the lack of coverage in reliable, independent sources, I still think the subject can "squeak through" our notability standards via the three albums recorded for Regent Records (UK). But I have two concerns that need to be addressed before I can accept the draft for publication.

1. Better documentation for the recordings. I've removed the links to the sales sites. Instead, documentation of recordings is better done by simply listing the record company, the year of release, and the catalog number (I've done one of the albums as an illustration). Also, if any of these albums were registered at the British Library, a file number from the library would also be useful.
2. Biographical detail. Much of the biographical detail appears unsourced, and this is absolutely not acceptable in an article about a living person. If you learned this information from a source other than the subject himself, you'll need to let the reader know where it came from. And if the subject himself happened to be your source of information, then it needs to be removed.

I'm going to mark the submission as "Under review", so that other reviewers will know that this is already being looked at. The template that shows this also asks people to not edit the draft. Please ignore that part of the message. If you feel that you will be unable to work on the draft over the next day or two, please let me know.

If have any questions, feel free to ask. NewYorkActuary (talk) 19:57, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

P.S. I just saw that you hadn't re-submitted the draft, so I'm unable to mark it as "Under review". Feel free to continue editing as usual. NewYorkActuary (talk) 20:02, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

@NewYorkActuary: Hello NewYorkActuary, and thank you so much. Your feedback is really helpful and much appreciated. I'm in the process of stripping out material for which I can't find a source, and updating the recordings per your recommendation. I have one question on that matter: I have dug up British Library listings for Peter Dyke - http://cadensa.bl.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/?ps=f3pV0BASkI/WORKS-FILE/299020036/18/X702/XAUTHOR/Dyke,+Peter,+1965- . I've not been able to find Wikipedia guidelines for including British Library references, so I'd be grateful for your help on this. Should I just add (for example) "British Library 1CD0330502" after the label & disc number? Or could you point me to a Wiki page which includes BL references for CDs, please?

Thanks again!

S2dd (talk) 17:04, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@S2dd: The draft is looking much better. Regarding the British Catalog entries, this is proving to be more difficult than I thought. My intention was to have the BL numbers appear on the same line as the record listing, in the same manner as often happens with {{ISBN}} numbers for books. And there even is a template specifically designed for this -- {{BLCAT}}. Except ... it doesn't work. And there's a problem with using the browser URL that comes with a Cadensa search (such as the one in your response). The "ps" parameter appears to be a session ID that can not be re-used. The documentation at Cadensa has instructions on how to create a perma-link, but those instructions require clicking on a tab that doesn't appear on the catalog page. So, I went back to the basic British Library catalog and fashioned a work-around. You can see it in use with the Christmas in Hereford listing. It looks okay on the screen, but the wiki-code is hellacious. In all, it might be more trouble than it's worth but, because the case for notability here is rather borderline, it might just be worth the effort. Unless you feel differently, I'll see if I can add a few more later today. NewYorkActuary (talk) 20:57, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@NewYorkActuary:Hello again - and thank you again. I'm really grateful for your ongoing help.

It's very generous of you to offer to make more British Library references for the recordings, and I'll gladly accept. Alternatively if you could tell me how you generated them, I could have a go at doing them myself. Thanks again!S2dd (talk) 20:29, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

@S2dd: Sorry about the delay in response. Some background might be helpful here. As I noted at the outset, I think your best chance of demonstrating notability is via the recordings for Regent Records. So long as that label can be considered an "important indie label", then the subject probably passes muster under item #5 of WP:MUSICBIO. And I thought that pointing to British Library registrations might bolster the claim. But, as can be seen by clicking through the External link in the Draft, the Christmas album is the only one of Dyke's albums that Regent bothered to register with the Library. And having it stand there by itself looks odd, so I'm going to remove it (but feel free to add it back if you disagree with my assessment).

I'm willing to go ahead and accept this after I've done some copy editing (mostly to give the Draft a more "standard" appearance). If you're done with adding whatever material or sources that you feel should be included, click the "Submit" button. I'll keep this page on my watchlist and, when I see it's been re-submitted, I'll mark it as "under review" and proceed with the copy editing. When I'm done, I'll notify you and give you an opportunity to discuss the edits I've made. NewYorkActuary (talk) 14:42, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

@NewYorkActuary: Hello again - no need to apologize - I really appreciate your ongoing help. Thanks for the link to WP:MUSICBIO - I believe Dyke also meets criterion 9 re 1st/2nd/3rd place in a major music competition - the St Albans competition is one of the leading organ competitions in the world. I tend to agree with you re a single British Library citation looking a little lost. It's annoying that Priory Records haven't registered the Great European Organs disc, as Priory is noted (in the UK at least) for its many organ recordings.

Thanks again for your help; I'll submit just now.S2dd (talk) 20:50, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

@S2dd: I think you forgot the hit the "submit" button on the Draft. NewYorkActuary (talk) 21:57, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

@NewYorkActuary: Apologies - I hit the submit button and then immediately went to do something else, forgetting to hit the "save" button on the next screen. So sorry - now fixed!S2dd (talk) 09:07, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

@S2dd: I've done the copy editing and, as you can see, I ended up doing a lot more than simply standardizing the layout. I saw two major problems that merit discussion here. First, although I was aware that some of the sourcing was coming from the institutions where Dyke works, I was surprised to see how very much the biography depended on those sources. In all likelihood, Dyke himself was the author of those web-bios. And that really limits the extent to which we should be using them here. The second problem was the great amount of detail that didn't actually appear in the sources. I don't question the veracity of that unsourced information. Instead, I note that it raises two issues. The first is what is commonly called (on Wikipedia) "synthesis". For example, I took out the name-dropping for the people who Dyke "worked with". I checked the articles on those other people and I'm satisfied that they actually were employed at the same institution as Dyke at the times he was there. But it's still not enough -- there needs to be a source that actually says they worked together. Similarly, I have no doubt that Dyke accompanied the choir to the United States, but the source for the choir being there didn't mention Dyke at all. (For more detail on this issue, see WP:SYNTH.) The second problem is the presence of information not directly contained in the sources -- it leads one to ask where that information came from. In turn, this will lead a suspicious person to think that maybe you are either Dyke himself or a person closely associated with him (for which the concerns under WP:COI and WP:AUTO would apply).

I am not Sherlock Holmes and, so, if I can see these problems, so too can any other experienced reviewer. And there are plenty of people here who amble through the encyclopedia just looking for articles to delete. Taking all this into consideration, I think it better to take a bare-bones approach to the biography section of the article.

I imagine you will want to comment on these matters and I'll be happy to hear your thoughts. Also, please check everything for accuracy. I tried to be careful but, of course, mistakes sometimes happen. I look forward to your response. NewYorkActuary (talk) 15:58, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

@NewYorkActuary: Hello again, and thank you for the amount of work you're putting in to this.

Thank you also for the link to WP:COI; in response, I should tell you that Peter is my brother; he's not paying me for this.

I take your point about unverified details. It is par for the course in UK cathedrals that the organ scholar will work with the other organists, but as you say, I've not been able to provide a source for that. Similarly for the choir tour.

From our discussions I agree with your assessment that the article should stick to what can be verified. Please forgive my naievete here: I've not written a Wiki article before and have only made minor edits to other articles.

Try as I might, I can't dig up a source for Harpenden/Wheathampstead, and the Hereford Choral Society source for his time at Newport probably suffers from the same problem whereby it could have been written by him - so I'd suggest rewording the opening paragraph to this:

Dyke was Organ Scholar of Robinson College, Cambridge[1] and awarded the Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists in 1987.[2] Dyke entered the interpretation competition at the 1993 St Albans International Organ Festival, co-winning second place.[4]

(I've reworded the organ scholarship bit: in the Oxbridge system, an organ scholar studies a degree rather than the organ; the organ scholarship entails playing the organ and (in many cases) running the choir. I've also tweaked the wording for the FRCO.

Other minor points:

• I've dug up a catalogue number for the Dvorak recording: CDCA 954 (see http://mintrecords.com.au/index.php/dvorak-elgar-dyfed-choir-cdca-954.html).
• I think the choir for the Dvorak recording should be listed as "Dyfed Choir" rather than "Dyfed"; this is because it's a choir which is not resident in a cathedral (unlike Hereford and St Albans).
• I think you've got an extra apostrophe on the end of "Easter Dy in Hereford".

I've mentioned these changes here rather than editing the page directly in response to what I read on the COI page.

In all, I think I've let myself down somewhat by using other UK organists' articles as a template for this one - so thank you again for your hard work and patience. S2dd (talk) 19:59, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

@S2dd: I think we're just about ready to publish this. Two comments. First, Wikipedia is somewhat 'schizophrenic' about the use of first-party sources. We absolutely won't find someone notable simply because they say that they are. But once notability has been established via third-party sources, we do permit first-party sourcing for non-controversial biographical detail, especially if that detail doesn't factor into the notability question. So, I have no problem using the Hereford Society's web-bio for sourcing your brother's employment at St Helen's and at Newport (even though I wouldn't be comfortable using it to source international touring and the like). Second, the conflict-of-interest guidelines are intended to ensure that articles get written by people who are in a position to give a neutral evaluation of what might or might not be of interest to a global readership. No one here would raise any CoI concerns about you editing the page for non-subjective corrections or clarifications (such as correcting typographical errors). I mention this latter point because I intend to insert the full names of each choir, so as to maintain consistency with the "Dyfed Choir" change. If I've gotten any of the other names wrong, feel free to correct them.

I enjoyed working with you on this article. I hope you'll stick around Wikipedia and contribute some more. NewYorkActuary (talk) 21:09, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

@NewYorkActuary: That's grand - and thank you for the clarifications on procedure.

I too have enjoyed working with you on this, and am very grateful for your time and effort. If you ever find yourself in the Highlands of Scotland, let me know!

S2dd (talk) 21:31, 6 April 2017 (UTC)