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Roberto Carnevale and Graziella Concas promotional editing

  • Graziella Concas - Might this be a self-promo? I note Deskford tagged it with "refs needed" and then the (mainly solo) editor went bonkers and added millions of sources, not all of which are overly-brilliant.... --Jubilee♫clipman 13:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
    Yes, I've had a suspicious eye on this one for a while. Graziella Concas seems connected in some way with Roberto Carnevale, with both of them substantially edited by Neopoiesis (talk · contribs). Until recently, Roberto Carnevale's article cited Neopoiesis as one of his publishers, though that statement now seems to have been removed. Neopoiesis also seems to be the name of some kind of journal that Carnevale writes for. My suspicions were initially alerted by the fact that WP claims Roberto Carnevale to be an associate of such luminaries as Gidon Kremer, Philip Glass, the Kronos Quartet and Ensemble Modern, though I don't think I've ever come across him or his music in the real world, and Amazon doesn't list any recordings of his music. Further investigation reveals that in articles that mention Roberto Carnevale, the link has almost always been added at some stage without explanation by an IP editor. See for example this edit on Ensemble Modern. The problem is compounded by the fact that many of these incursions have been in place for so long that they have been copied from WP to other sites, including in some cases sources that we might normally trust as reliable. Both Graziella Concas and Roberto Carnevale have had loads of new references added lately, and I have not yet gone through them all for evidence of notability. Most of them seem to be in Italian. There also seems to be a history in both articles of maintenance tags being swiftly removed without justification. Please, somebody, tell me these people really are notable and my suspicions are unfounded! --Deskford (talk) 15:09, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
    Yes, I spotted that link when I checked the user contributions but wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Is it just me or does Roberto Carnevale bear a striking resemlance to George Clooney? We can use Babel on the Italian to find out if it is not actually gobbledygook... --Jubilee♫clipman 16:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
    Carnevale is more notable than Graziella Concas, but that's not saying much. I checked her refs. She has won several piano competitions (in the 1980s), but they are all pretty local Italian ones, although maybe someone at WP:CM could give you some input on their notability. The "news" articles listed for her are all simple concert announcements and press releases and none of them were solo concerts. Most of the other "refs" are simply to the homepages of various composers with no mention of her. Carnevale's stuff does seem to get played, although mostly in Italy and he's briefly mentioned as one of "the most interesting young composers in Sicily" in La musica italiana nuova e nuovissima by Nicola Sani, a publication of CEMAT. The problem is that concerts in Italy are rarely reviewed in the mainstream press, even ones with major artists in major venues. And coverage of contemporary music even less so. Voceditenore (talk) 17:24, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, Voceditenore, that sheds some light on this. I do love those Babel translations: Between the young more interesting authors (all between the thirty and forty years) we find Mark Barge, Giovanni Sollima, Giuseppe Cantone, Sergio Pallante, Federico Incardona, Carmelo Caruso, Arming Gagliano, Francisco the Licata, Giovanni Damiani, Roberto Carnival, Giovanni Ferrauto and in particular Emanuele Country house... LOL! --Jubilee♫clipman 17:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

On a lighter note, Noah Creshevsky is about the only article that hasn't been tagged for sourcing issues (either by me or by others) so far. If we have a featured article section at this project, I would nominate this one! --Jubilee♫clipman 13:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I think this website ought to clear up the relationship between Carnevale and Concas. It does not appear to be referenced directly in the Carnevale article, but can be found (eventually) by burrowing into the links found in footnote 2.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

CIO statement sent to my talk page from Neopoiesis:

Hello Jubilee♫clipman, My name is Andrea Ferrante Solerzi. I’m professor of Composition at the Conservatorio di Stato “A. Corelli” in Messina e at the Conservatorio di Stato “Scontrino” in Trapani. From 1997 to 2004 I was professor of Elementi di Composizione at at the Conservatorio di Stato in Palermo, L’Aquila and La Spezia. I have studied with Roberto Carnevale from 1991 to 1995. Roberto Carnevale is professor and vice-director at the Instituto Superiore di Studi Musicali ‘Vincenzo Bellini’ in Catania. I’m NOT a representative of Nuove Edizioni Neopoiesis; I have chosen the name NEOPOIESIS (no Nuove edizioni neopoiesis!) because I’m a composer and some my works was published by Nuove Edizioni Neopoiesis (2001-2005). Now my works are published by Edipan and Prosono. Is this conflict of interest? Best regards, Andrea Ferrante —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neopoiesis (talkcontribs) 14:54, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

What do people think? Andrea Ferrante Solerzi/Andrea F. Solerzi/Andrea Solerzi etc has no article, mind, so this may be a good faith attempt by a friend to help a couple of notable people have decent Wiki entries? --Jubilee♫clipman 16:22, 12 January 2010 (UTC)-

I think we have to assume good faith. There is a Prof. Andrea Ferrante mentioned on the website of said Conservatorio Messina: here. I don't doubt that Roberto Carnevale exists as a minor composer, and perhaps deserves coverage as such, but the claims of association with the likes of Philip Glass and Gidon Kremer I find troublesome. I would like to see links to Carnevale removed from these pages, unless valid references can be found (bearing in mind that many apparently reliable references seem in fact to have been copied from WP). As for Graziella Concas, I'm not convinced of her notability. --Deskford (talk) 16:37, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Are you 100% sure these RSs haven't been copyvioed? Perhaps PROD|AfD Concas? --Jubilee♫clipman 16:46, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
I think you should assume good faith as well. I'm not sure what you mean by "Are you 100% sure these RSs haven't been copyvioed?", but if you're referring to the Carnevale article, no the text doesn't appear to be pasted from copyright sources. Voceditenore (talk) 17:40, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
I was refering to Deskford's comment bearing in mind that many apparently reliable references seem in fact to have been copied from WP. I was wondering if it might actually be the other way around? --Jubilee♫clipman 21:36, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, you can never be 100% sure about these things, but take a look at the following three cited sources:

  • "Gidon Kramer e il Violino". Violinisti.net.
  • "Das Kronos Quartet mit junger Weltmusik". Berliner Leitung.
  • "Kronos Quartet". Intro: Musik und so. Pop, Kultur und gute Noten. - Intro Magazin.

Each merely makes a casual mention of Roberto Carnevale in a list of composers that the subject has worked with, and I suspect these lists have been copied from WP. Indeed the Intro Magazin piece cites WP as a source, so we've got a circular reference here. Maybe Gidon Kremer and the Kronos Quartet have played pieces by Carnevale at some stage — they play works by hundreds of young composers and not all of them go on to be notable — but I don't think we should be giving him that kind of prominence.

The WP article on Gidon Kremer says Kremer has championed the work of composers such as Ástor Piazzolla, George Enescu, Philip Glass, Alfred Schnittke, Leonid Desyatnikov, Alexander Raskatov, Alexander Voustin, Lera Auerbach, Pēteris Vasks, Arvo Pärt, Roberto Carnevale and John Adams. Personally I would take Carnevale out of that list. I might also take Voustin and Auerbach out, maybe Desyatnikov and Raskatov even, but that's a different argument!

If you go to Mr Carnavale's article and click on What links here you get a list of 60 or 70 articles. I suspect many of these links are not really merited, and, as I said before, if you investigate the histories of these articles you usually find that he has been added in to an existing list at some stage by an anonymous IP editor.

Does any of the above justify my suspicions and doubts? I'm not sure!

--Deskford (talk) 17:45, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Neither am I. One the one hand, we have those citations and the Kronos and Kramer claims to notability. On the other, we have the above declaration of interest and the likelyhood of good faith alongside the fact that this composer is actually known and reviewed in Italy. The problem with Kronos is that they play all sorts of minor stuff: citing them could make even little Johny Nobody at [your local high school name here] notable. Same goes for Kramer. Those citations do look rather shakey, I quite agree. However, as has been pointed out, the Italian press do discuss him (very unusual over there) and he appears to be represented by at least one important publishing house (Suvini Zerboni or ESZ, appear to be the Italian arm of Schott Music according to their article). Note that Lera Auerbach is definately notable ([1]), as is Alexander Raskatov (reconstructed Schnittke's Ninth among other important achievements). Not so sure about Leonid Desyatnikov or Alexander Voustin, but the names are vaguely familiar. Roberto Carnevale does look at a little out of place in that list, however, given the massive names like Glass, Pärt and Schnittke (not to mention Adams). --Jubilee♫clipman 22:16, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Don't get me wrong: Raskatov, Desyatnikov, Vustin (to give him his usual spelling) and Auerbach are certainly notable, just significantly less so than Glass, Pärt, Schnittke, Vasks and Adams. --Deskford (talk) 23:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Ah, I see what you mean. However, it's a meant as a fair mix of major and lesser composers, I think, but our questioned name still seems odd there, I agree. --Jubilee♫clipman 23:26, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

For the record, I've just found another cluster of these mysterious additions. On 15 October 2008 94.163.25.236 (talk · contribs) added Roberto Carnevale into existing lists of links in the articles Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Claudio Abbado and London Sinfonietta. This IP user also added a few other names to the Claudio Abbado list, and added Brian Eno to Philip Glass and vice versa, but has made no other edits before or since. --Deskford (talk) 22:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Similarly, on 24 September 2006 83.225.254.248 (talk · contribs) added Roberto Carnevale into lists on Postminimalism, Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Gidon Kremer and Tasmin Little then did a few other edits to Accademia Musicale Chigiana, but has otherwise never been active on WP. --Deskford (talk) 22:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
And on 13 September 2006 83.225.210.24 (talk · contribs) added Roberto Carnevale into lists on Pianist, Contemporary classical music, Kronos Quartet, Group 180 and American Modern Ensemble, then made one unrelated addition to List of Italian writers. Actually the edit to Pianist was slightly odd, first adding a different name, then changing it to Roberto Carnevale. Once again this IP address has never done anything else on WP on any date before or since. --Deskford (talk) 22:51, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Slight variant of the pattern: on 14 October 2008 94.162.240.163 (talk · contribs) changed Natalia Gutman to Roberto Carnevale on a list of collaborators in the article Yuri Bashmet, then added Roberto Carnevale into lists on Kazue Sawai and Terry Riley. This IP address has made one other unrelated edit on a different date. --Deskford (talk) 23:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Two of the above IP addresses belong to H3G Italia and the other two to Vodafone Italy. --Deskford (talk) 23:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Another thing that doesn't quite seem to add up: in the statement in the yellow box above, Neopoiesis (talk · contribs) states "I'm NOT a representative of Nuove Edizioni Neopoiesis" (Roberto Carnevale's publisher), and this user also claims not to be Roberto Carnevale himself, yet in uploading images of score extracts by Carnevale this user declares himself to be the copyright holder. Is this plausible? --Deskford (talk) 14:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

This just isn't lying down, is it? Perhaps we need to consider sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry? However, the copyrightholder isn't necessarily either composer or publisher: they can all be different people. An image might have been created by someone else or bought by someone else etc. --Jubilee♫clipman 02:33, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
Whatever else is true, the article itself really needs a huge cleanup: it is a sea of red, full of "he... he... he..." and horribly formatted in the unnecessarily huge list of refs. That's just for starters... --Jubilee♫clipman 03:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikibreak / Gerald Garcia

I have finished up to the end of H. There were a few more engineers, and so on, now either correctly linked or redlinked with a (composer) dab. Note also this:

This certainly isn't Jerry Garcia, obviously!

User:Jubileeclipman/List of problematic 21st-century composer articles: this is a very incomplete list of those with issues. I expect all of these to be sorted out before I get back... not!

Anyway, I am going to be off-line for a week or so, from tomorrow. Happy editing and see you all when I get back. --Jubilee♫clipman 01:12, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I've removed Gerald Garcia from the list. I think it's always misleading to include redirects. --Kleinzach 06:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Just spotted this. Thanks Klein. I wonder if the redirect itself aught to be questioned though? Is it really valid? --Jubilee♫clipman 02:39, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
A bit of a puzzling history to this one. He once had an article in his own right, albeit unreferenced. Then someone suggested merging National Youth Guitar Ensemble into Gerald Garcia. 14 months later, someone did the merge, but in the opposite direction. There doesn't seem to be any discussion on either talk page, or even in the edit summaries, to explain the rationale behind the merger. He seems to me a minor composer, but if, as the article used to claim, "his more than fifteen CDs have sold more than 30,000 copies worldwide", that seems like at least an assertion of notability. I'll restore his article to its pre-merged state, as he clearly has some kind of existence outside the NYGE, and we can decide where to go from here. --Deskford (talk) 12:30, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
There are thousands of references to Gerald Garcia out on the web, but so far I have failed to find any that seem independent and reliable. --Deskford (talk) 13:08, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
Good attempt, though. I'll hold off restoring his entry to the list for now, however, in case the article vanishes again... ;) --Jubilee♫clipman 18:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Alan Fleming-Baird

Yes, another AfD nomination. This one has had its lack of references challenged since 2006, though the tag was recently removed, as was a PROD nomination, without explanation. The only references cited are the composer's own website, IMDB (user edited, so not reliable), and a review in the Herald of a student concert that included one of his pieces. I can't find any substantial reliable references. Please have a look and see if I'm missing something. --Deskford (talk) 12:28, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Antony le Fleming

Anyone know if composer Antony le Fleming is notable? The article has been in existence for nearly five years and still only has a couple of lines of text and some unreliable external links. I'll give it a WP:PROD, but won't be offended if anyone thinks it worthy of rescue! --Deskford (talk) 12:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll have to check BBC magazine for the quote cited on the Impulse website but it may take a long time given that the issue number and/or date are not cited... The article is certainly lacking substance (!) but, following recent events, we know that that is not proof of NN. There is also a question regarding the spelling: Google asks: "Did you mean: "Anthony le Fleming" -wikipedia". Both spellings seem to lead to the same person, though the spelling lacking h appears to be more authetic. Antony le Fleming is also the name of a Devon county cricketer, which might confuse things a little. However, I suspect this article will simply disappear, given that he is only "reviewed" in relation to commercial releases, user-controlled/edited webistes (such as uTube) or both (Amazon), or in sites simply listing music (such as this) or on minor websites (such as this). The only vaguely useful thing I have yet found is this PDF about the 2009 Bath Festival (see page 2). There might be more, but so far he appears to be a simple local composer of limited appeal. He might be a notable composer of choral music, but we'd need far more to establish that. The PDF should be in the article, however, so I'll add it and try to extract as much as can from it to bulk up the article. I am well rested now, BTW, and raring to get back to work! I've had a look at some of the AfDs above, but those articles also loook pretty dead in the water (though I am still researching Joel Rust). --Jubilee♫clipman 19:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Welcome back! That Bath Festival PDF is better than anything I found on him. I gave him PROD instead of AfD because I didn't think there was any independent sourcing to be found. --Deskford (talk) 19:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the welcome! I have destubbified this but I suspect it still fails notability since I can't find anything else useful. Let's see where it goes. --Jubilee♫clipman 23:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

London Sinfonietta and London Sinfonietta Label

The London Sinfonietta article could do with some attention and addition of reliable sources. The London Sinfonietta Label may not be quite as notable and perhaps should be merged into the article about the ensemble — at present it's an unreferenced stub of an article, but perhaps some third party reviews would make it seem viable in its own right. Any thoughts or opinions? --Deskford (talk) 14:27, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I would support merging if you like to propose that. --Kleinzach 23:16, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
I've put merge tags on both articles. Opinions can be expressed at Talk:London Sinfonietta. --Deskford (talk) 23:39, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

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Resuming work on the list

I'll simply add problem articles to the list I started, viz User:Jubileeclipman/List of problematic 21st-century composer articles, and leave it to others to AfD, PROD, cleanup, reference, cite etc, at least until I finish the main task (checking for mislinks, redirects, astromicrobiologists, all-in wrestlers, or what ever, and non-composing musicians). I will only nominate blatant speedy delete candidates at this stage and even then only after thorough checks. OK here goes... --Jubilee♫clipman 20:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Kati Agócs

Before I start in earnest, however, I don't know if anyone spotted this fluffed addition to the list, removed 2 hours later by an IP? Any idea about this lady (I won't say young as I am only 2 years older than her and it would seem a little vain...)? The addition was messed up because the editor—Bro1041 (talk · contribs)—both added (composer) to the name and got the formatting wrong. The editor corrected the formatting but missed the red link caused by the unnecessary dab. Was the name removed by the IP because it was a redlink or because of some other issue? The article, at first glance, doesn't look too bad: she appears to be no less notable than many of the other names on the list and the refs are not bad (though some are just lists of names). Thoughts? --Jubilee♫clipman 20:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I did notice that edit and removal. She also got added to the New England Conservatory and Milton Babbitt articles, both of which seem to be magnets for self-promotionalists, but in this case I think she may be approaching notability. The article has plenty of references, though I never got round to checking through them for validity and reliability. The editor creating the article, Bro1041 (talk · contribs), is certainly not a single-purpose account, and has been an occasional contibutor since 2006. --Deskford (talk) 21:19, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
I'll add her back into the list, then, given that she unequivocally counts as a 21st-century classical composer in every respect, notability notwithstanding. --Jubilee♫clipman 21:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC)