Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan/Archive 1

Need G&S stub templates?

Besides the "project" template, are there any other templates we should put in to aid editors, like a stub template or an expand template? Ssilvers

The project template looks great.... Ssilvers 17:40, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:N

I removed G&S Opera Co. It is less than 10 years old and only peforms a half dozen shows per year at the Festival, so it seems less notable than the others. In any case, I agree that it is not a high priority item. Ssilvers 15:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

To do issues

[Re: list of museums, etc.] Is there a comparable article or description on other subjects Wikipedia covers? I haven't seen one. Marc Shepherd 15:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Overture di Ballo/Bridget D'Oyly Carte

I've added a piece on di Ballo, and will be glad if one of the Sullivan (and Wikipedia) experts will run an eye over it. (The facts are all pukka, and I think adequately referenced, but it may need kicking into shape for layout and style etc.) Have also added a first shot at a piece on the Dame, which needs more work i.d.c.

(Hope this request is in the right place (moved from bottom of page). Apologies if not.)

Tim riley 10:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is a good place to put out the word. It would be helpful to provide links. I found Bridget D'Oyly Carte easily enough, but I don't see Overture di Ballo. Marc Shepherd

Verbum sat! I'll remember in future. Here's a link to the overtureTim riley 13:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Rupert D'Oyly Carte

New article added. Tons of info - all referenced. Might benefit from a dispassionate shoving into shape. Tim riley 19:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Tim. However, because of the kind of apostrophe " ' " your computer uses, a search for Rupert D'Oyly Carte, will not find the article, and I think it will also interfere with linking. Can you move the article to Rupert D'Oyly Carte? I think that would be helpful. At a minimum, there needs to be a re-direct. --Ssilvers 19:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Gosh! So sorry. Have copied the lot to the page you suggest. Is it possible to delete the earlier one with the dodgy apostrophe? Tim riley 06:42, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not possible. Wikipedia's view is that redirect pages consume practically no resources, and it isn't worth the effort to delete them. A proposal to delete will be denied. However, there's no harm in letting it hang out there. Marc Shepherd 12:26, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Tim. Now I think the search will work better for most people. I had done some edits on the article, put it in a little more chronological order and added some headings and a link. See what you think. The article could still use expanding, I think, but it's a key addition. --Ssilvers 14:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

VME

Is there a template I can use for Victoria and Merrie England? Vanished user 12:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

For a good example, look at His Excellency. --Ssilvers 12:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

Re-added VME (It's pretty good, but the summary is still weak at the moment, and I'd appreciate a little help with revising it.) and added Mountebanks (Pretty much a stub). Do you think it's worth making stubs for all the W.S. Gilbert plays listed in the To-do list? I've read almost everything he wrote, so it wouldn't be TOO hard, but it might delay getting a good article if they lost prominence. Vanished user 20:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I think there's a distinction between an article that's rather obviously in need of help, and an article that is short of exhaustive.

The VME article is fine with me in the sense that if it were never touched again, it would have about as much as a general purpose encyclopedia requires. Everything else is gravy This doesn't mean you shouldn't add to it, if the spirit moves you, but it is not deficient.

The Mountebanks article is long past stub status. The fact that you can think of more doesn't make the article a stub. In that sense, every article in the G&S project is a stub, because I can think of omissions in all of them.

I would not add stubs for missing Gilbert plays unless you're prepared fairly promptly to do something with them. Otherwise, I would let the editor who's prepared to work on it add the article. Marc Shepherd 20:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with leaving VME in the "clean up" section. Even though you did a good job of putting together the article, I think the language in the summary of the vignettes needs to be clarified and expanded. I agree that you should not add stubs for missing articles unless you are going to add more real soon. That is what I have been doing with the performer bios. I put up a stub with the skeleton of the article, categories, external links, references, etc., and then in a few days I go back into the references and fill out content. BTW, I don't think we want to create a specialized G&S stub tag. Aren't there too many stub tags already? What is the value of it? --Ssilvers 21:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Main value of stubs is that they keep people from going in and removing all the red links, forcing you then to search around every article mentioning, say, Victoria and Merrie England, and adding them all back in. Other than that, useless. I suggested it because, to be honest, you asked about it when the project was first started. Suppose it was a little too enthusiastic. Vanished user 14:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Though, of course, you really should do that anyway - I just did it for the new Onward, Christian Soldiers article (though for some reason I couldn't see the last 9 links of the search) Vanished user 14:59, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Needs Songlist

I think the template {{G&S-Needs-Songlist}} is unnecessary and distracting. The WP:G&S page already lists clean-up opportunities. The lack of a song list is merely one example of the many ways the G&S project articles could be cleaned up or expanded. Why single out that particular case? I suggest maintaining the clean-up and expansion opportunities on WP:G&S, as we have been doing.

In addition, the way in which this template was constructed is non-Wikipedia standard. There are already standard ways to signal missing material, e.g., {{stub}}, {{sectstub}}, {{expand}}, {{expandsection}}, and so forth. However, even these should be employed judiciously. Maintenance templates deface articles. His Excellency and The Beauty Stone are fine articles as they stand. The lack of a song list doesn't make them deficient. It only means that more could be said, if someone so inclined cares to take them up.

As I noted above, every single article in WikiProject G&S could be expanded. {{stub}} and {{expand}} ought to be reserved for the cases where an article is very obviously unacceptable in its current state. Marc Shepherd 15:17, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Instead of creating more editorial aids, I suggest we each concentrate on adding content where we see a need for it. --Ssilvers 17:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Bad idea on my part. Vanished user 14:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Cultural references

Pop culture references to the G&S works show up in several places:

• In the Gilbert and Sullivan article
• In the opera articles for H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado
• In the article for the Major-General's Song.

There isn't a lot of consistency about where these tidbits turn up. For instance, pop-culture references to the Major-General's song appear in Major-General's Song, The Pirates of Penzance, and Gilbert and Sullivan.

More broadly, I am wondering if there comes a point when these pop-culture references become excessive. It's safe to say the Major-General's song has been quoted a lot. Should the articles list every time a character from a television show sang a little bit of the song? It gets to be a very long list, and at some point perhaps it's no longer interesting.

WikiProject Opera took a rather aggressive stance against trivia, concluding:

When it comes to anecdotes, influences on pop culture, and other peripheral content or "trivia", information should only be included in opera articles if it is likely to be of interest to a typical reader of the article. Examples of content which almost always fail this test are: songs, albums, video games, TV shows, or movies that reference the opera. Examples of content passing the test are: Apocalypse Now's use of The Ride of the Valkyries and direct adaptations such as Carmen Jones.

The Opera project's approach was rather ham-fisted and superficial, and I opposed at the time. Nevertheless, I think there comes a point when it's sufficiently documented that a song has been widely quoted, and it becomes a distraction to list every example. At the very least, we need to decide where these references go, because people are just adding bullets wherever it occurs to them. Most of these references, it appears, are being added by people who have no long-term interest in the articles, and aren't concerned with consistency on this level. Marc Shepherd 11:57, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd leave a few highly notable, but choose only the most relevant, with the following exceptions and qualifications:

• Where a more specific page exists, mention adaptations have taken place, but provide only a link, or, at most, a list of one or two of the most notable.
• Very specific articles like "Major-General's Song" may include less-notable adaptations as they're designed for that purpose.
• Arguably, a similar page for the Little List Song would help pull off all the bits currently therein.
• H.M.S. Pinafore's list should quite likely be spun off into its own article.

Vanished user 12:17, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I think I basically agree with Adam. The references in the G&S, Gilbert or Sullivan articles should be moved to the shows that they refer to, with a note left at the main page that cultural references have been numerous and are noted at the shows' articles. Then, for songs that have their own articles, the references should be moved there, with a note on the opera article that there have been numerous references to the song, and that they are listed in the song's article. --Ssilvers 15:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

The Sapphire Necklace

New article. Tear it apart. Vanished user 16:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Also did a stubby little start on Overture In C (In Memoriam). Someone fix that hideous image positioning?

A good start on both. I've edited the image positioning. It now looks right, on my system anyway.

A potential concern is that both articles appear to contain quite a bit of original analysis, and Adam's personal views about those works. While he may be right in both cases, we need to confine ourselves to what can be verified in citable sources. Marc Shepherd 01:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to be largely NPOV, only using research to expand on points mentioned elsewhere in The Sapphire Necklace. That said, I'll admit the musical analysis in Overture in C (In Memoriam) was, indeed, mine, and probably POV-full. In my defense, I was fairly exhausted at the time, but unable to sleep, but quickly grew able to sleep and just saved my work. Oh, yeah. I've broke the image again. How do you fix 'em? Vanished user 10:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Manuscript Locations

Should we be listing for most of these operas (especially the less famous ones like The Mountebanks) where the manuscripts (or any full scores if the manuscript no longer exists) are located and preserved if any of us know? I myself am highly curious, and I suspect a lot of others may be as well. Lack of an available score certainly might be a factor in the infrequent performances of these works. --Anivron 01:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I know several for Mountebanks exist, some of His Excellency is at the British Library, and I think all of Sullivan's survive, though cut material, such as the extra verse s for the other contestants in the Beauty composition is probably lost. Vanished user 01:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Dorothy (opera)

Um... I don't think my last edit quite works.... Vanished user 12:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: the new cast list: That is not how the other articles are formatted. Notable performers can be linked in the intro. What the article needs is a synopsis. --Ssilvers 12:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I think a table, as you did for Mazeppa, would be more effective. Marc Shepherd 12:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Er... That table was there already. It was the only useful part of the stub, t'be honest. Also, I don't suppose it's possible to remove that somewhat ugly greyness from the tables? Makes them unattractive and a bit hard to read. Vanished user 17:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The grayness is a Wikipedia standard. My preference, actually, is for the "Historical Casting" table that we've used for the Savoy Operas. Marc Shepherd 17:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Aye. Much more useful, if perhaps a bit specialised of information. Vanished user 16:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, btw, if you look at the intro to the article, you'll notice that it links to Tempest and Coffin, who starred in the main London production, and Russell, who starred in the American production. --Ssilvers 18:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Lyrics

Am I right in presuming that when quoting lyrics all repeats (with sensible exceptions for things like "All frenzied, frenzied with despair...") should be deleted? I made that presumption when copying over "The Long Day Closes (song)" lyrics from the G&S Archive (Am I right in the presumption that no copyright is being upheld there, or should I ask Paul's explicit permission?). It seems a sensible action, though I doubt it'll come up much - few of the part songs, parlour ballads and hymns are all that notable. The two (or is it three?) Gilbert and Sullivan ones, maybe, but other than that, we've probably got all the notable ones done now, with possible exception of mentioning Orpheus and his Lute in any Henry VIII incidental music article. Vanished user 17:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

In the general case, I would quote from a libretto, which presents the words as the poet conceived them. I'm not aware of any stand-alone libretto for "The long day closes," so you would have to make a reasonable guess as to the original meter.

Yes, I think you can safely copy the lyrics of that song from The G&S Archive. The song is in the public domain. Marc Shepherd 18:19, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Right. Happily, it's pretty easy to reconstruct "The Long Day Closes" - remove the repeats of parts of the third verse and it fits into the exact same pattern as the first two. By the way, just fixed up Sapphire Necklace. Vanished user 18:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Pictures

I have unposted pictures for Agnes Fraser, Richard Barker, and J. Jones Hewson ready to upload if anyone needs them. They match with the photos for Rosina Brandram, Robert Evett, Francois Cellier, Isabel Jay, Louie Pounds, and Henry Lytton (2nd photo) already uploaded. Vanished user 16:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the photos. They really spruce up the articles. Marc Shepherd 16:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

No bother! Remembered I had them, so... why not use them? Vanished user 16:53, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

As much as I hate scanning pictures from such a thick book (the inside edges get all distorted as the page curves off, despite my best efforts to try and keep the old spine pressed as flat as possible without breaking, leaving me to have to correct everything back out in Photoshop), I tried a different scanner today and managed to crank out lots of photos of actors, actresses, and other people related to Gilbert and Sullivan, which I've added to the relevant pages. I have several more photos, but they're either in a different book or the person doesn't have a page yet. --Anivron 01:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Nice job, both of you. As Marc said, it gives the articles much more appeal. -- Ssilvers 05:32, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Think we could use the cover image from Robert Terrell Bledsoe's biography of Chorley under Fair use? Vanished user 23:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

List of major opera composers

Have nomnated Arthur Sullivan, but be warned that there seems a bit of antagonism against him: They claim Britten is the first composer of English opera to achieve international recognition since Purcell on the front page, and Kleinzach seems somewhat violently against him in the discussion archive. Still, worth a try, and it is a very odd exclusion. Vanished user 15:23, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

As the old saying does, don't bother trying to teach pigs to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pigs.

The folks at the opera project have a great fondness for standardless lists. List of major opera composers is one of these, and List of important operas is another. Neither one belongs on Wikipedia.

Having said that, given the de facto criteria of the List of major opera composers as the members of the Opera project have evolved it, Sullivan doesn't belong. The list seems to include two categories of composers:

1. Those whose works are regularly performed by "grand opera" companies (i.e., the sort of companies included in List of important opera companies, not G&S specialist companies like Carl Rosa)
2. Those whose works are no longer frequently performed, but that were influential in the development of the genre (i.e., Monteverdi, Lully, Charpentier, Purcell, Rameau, Gluck)

Sullivan doesn't fit either criterion. Outside of the English-speaking world, grand opera companies seldom perform Sullivan.

Two other comments made on the talk page for List of major opera composers seemed to me persuasive. First, if Sullivan were added, a whole bunch of others would have to come along with him, and at that point you'd be talking about a very different kind of list. Second, "G&S are about as frequently performed by major opera houses as Sondheim or Rodgers - that is, very rarely, and as a self-conscious venture into "popular" territory." Marc Shepherd 22:41, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not sure they'd have to. I mean, the ones they were listing were significantly harder to justify than Sullivan. Still, you're probably right. By their artificial distinctions...

By the by, I think you forgot to sign your name. Vanished user 23:16, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I've gone back and added my sig.

Yes, you could devise a set of criteria by which Sullivan would belong. As they have defined it, he doesn't. The lack of an independently verifiable standard is the reason this list doesn't belong on Wikipedia. List of important operas was recently an AfD candidate. I voted Keep, but I was wrong. I should have voted Delete (on principle; it would not have altered the outcome). Marc Shepherd 23:28, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Princess Toto

Started setting up this article today. Have a score and a useful reference source, so I should be able to expand it a lot more tomorrow. Took me a while to get my sources together, and when I had, it was too late to finish it. Vanished user 00:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource: Sullivan

We have a template for this, but it doesn't work yet as it's not hooked up at the Sullivan end. There are things there: Some of the G&S operas [Most hideously-badly formatted], and Wikisource:The Masque at Kenilworth. But more work is needed before we can use that box. Vanished user 15:46, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Fixed! Vanished user 16:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Lists

The to-do list includes:

• Complete list of Arthur Sullivan works, excluding operas (many of these will never have their own articles, so they will not be covered by categories)
• Complete list of W. S. Gilbert works, excluding G&S operas

Might I suggest that it might be better to sort the works by type (Sullivan's Hymns, Sullivan's Parlour Ballads and Part Songs, Gilbert's Parlour Ballads (and Part Songs??), Gilbert's Bab Ballads, and Gilbert's Short Stories are particularly numerous) It will be very difficult to find EVERY Sullivan Hymn, and EVERY Gilbert Song and Parlour Ballads - indeed, finding even half of Gilbert's Parlour Ballads would be substantially notable research, and, as such, it would be almost impossible to create a complete list of works for either, and, if you did, they'd flood whatever list they were in.

Likewise, where appropriate, I'd include the G&S operas, if relevant to the Chronology. For instance, leaving them out of a list of Gilbert's Operas would give a fifteen year gap between Princess Toto and Mountebanks. Vanished user 23:23, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Adam, I'm afraid you've lost me. The to-do list does not include every Gilbert or Sullivan work. So I'm not really following what you're suggesting we should do. Marc Shepherd 11:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I think he's saying that each "complete list of...." should be broken down into smaller lists, or organized under headings, instead of simply chronologically. Is that right, Adam? If so, I think I disagree and think we should do them all chronologically (we could, of course also do "list of parlour songs", "list of choral works", etc., but probably those things exist somewhere that can just be linked to. I do agree, Adam, that we might not be able to find every little thing G&S ever wrote, so we could take off the word "complete". I think that word is just an aspiration. Finally, I don't care whether we include or exclude the G&S operas, since you can link to them in the intro sentence to the list. In a chronological list, I suppose we may as well include them.... -- Ssilvers 13:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Most of these works, and certainly all of the important ones, are listed already:

In the Arthur Sullivan article, the works are organized by genre, and then in chronological order within a genre. The minor works (songs, hymns, partsongs, chamber music) are not listed, but there are links to the G&S Archive where full lists can be found.

In the W. S. Gilbert article, there's a "List of Dramatic Works," which includes all his works for the stage in chronological order. The Bab Ballads are separately listed in the Bab Ballads article. Very nearly all of the consequential Gilbert works are in one of these two lists.

I believe I was responsible for adding these lists, so the way they are organized – for good or ill – was my doing.

If I understand Adam's suggestion, the Sullivan list is already organized the way he is proposing, except that the non-major works (hymns, parlour songs) are linked to off-site lists. Re-creating those lists on Wikipedia would not require significant research, as the G&S Archive is already exhaustive. It would just require a lot of work. The song and hymn lists would need to be hived off into separate articles, as these lists are very long.

Not quite. The list of hymns linked to, for instance, is a SELECTED list of hymns, not a compelete list. As well, a huge chunk of his hymns were written in the period between The Tempest and Cox and Box, so including ALL of them in a "complete" list would drown out notable works in a sea of very minor ones. Vanished user 19:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

As I mentioned, the list of hymns (complete or not) would surely need to be in its own article, as the Sullivan article is already too long. If you have the intestinal fortitude to type in and format all the hymns, go right ahead. Marc Shepherd 21:20, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think Gilbert wrote very many detached ballads or songs outside of his operas. The vast majority of his short stories were collected in Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales. It wouldn't require a great effort to list them, although no one has gotten around to it so far. There are only a few more Gilbert works to worry about (e.g., The Story of The Mikado). Marc Shepherd 14:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I know of at least four: Thady O'Flynn, Sweetharts, The Distant Shore, and the other one with Sullivan. Since Thady O'Flynn was only brought to my attention when it came up in a discussion of Thespis, and almost no resources list it in any way connected to Gilbert, it would indicate that there is a strong possibility of further, unknown ballads out there. I know it's hard to prove a negative, but since Thady O' Flynn isn't getting listed, it's hard to trust that others aren't. As for Gilbert's stories, there I can definately say, I fear, that you are very much wrong. I know, off hand, of at least five or six not in Foggerty's Fairy: An Elixir of Love, The Adventures of Wheeler Jay Calamity, Vice Triumphant (script-form, that one, but decidedly all new material and not meant for performance), His "Comic Mythologist" series and various other series in Fun, A Schoolboy Sensation Novel, and quite a number of others. I've been trying to work towards collecting all of them, using some published research Andrew Crowther kindly supplied me a reference for to identify them. Vanished user 19:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I should probably mention that I do have a mostly-complete list of Gilbert's non-theatrical, non-musical works, but unfortunately, somewhat depressed over my inability to get everything made up, I loaned everything to Christopher Browne so that it would be spread around a bit. And sent that too. Ah, well. Vanished user 19:45, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Obviously I wasn't clear enough. I am well aware that Gilbert wrote tons of stuff for periodicals that wasn't published elsewhere. It could fill volumes, but all of this material is surely out-of-scope for Wikipedia. What would be the basis for citing it? Most of what you can cite is indeed in Foggerty's Fairy (I never said all). The few parlour ballads you've listed are pretty much the full list. We can't do anything about potentially unknown ones.

As a researcher myself, I am obviously interested in unknown Gilbert that might be awaiting discovery. But in my Wikipedia capacity, it's all original research. This is what it is to have two capacities. Marc Shepherd 20:59, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that lists don't have to say they are "complete". They will just be lists of the things you can find using secondary sources, which is what WP requires. Of course, additional items can be added to the appropriate lists as references for them are published and available. The G&S Archive already has various lists that can be cross referenced, but I think it would be nice to have one chronological list of Gilbert works and one of Sullivan, so you could say, "What did old Arthur write in 1888?", and find a pretty good list of those items all in one place. I think that any lists we create need to satisfy a useful purpose that is not already satisfied by a page in the G&S Archive. Wikipedia does not encourage the creation of scads of lists, so I think we should not just duplicate lists that already exist on the Archive, unless we can add significant value. Hope these 2 cents help. --Ssilvers 21:12, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The WP concern is with lists that lack clear standards, e.g., "List of Sullivan's Important Hymns." In such a list, who's saying what's important? It doesn't violate policy if you want to list all of Sullivan's hymns. I tend to agree with Sam, however, that it would add very little value. I think it would be far more helpful—in the Wikipedia sense— to focus on getting our main articles up to "good article" or "featured article" status. Marc Shepherd 21:20, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Weel, the reference was published by, uif I recall correctly, something like the Journal of the New York Public Library - making a hash of that in all likelihood - about a decade or two ago - I haven't used it in a while. It probably shows. So, since it's a published source, it wouldn't be original research.

But it would clutter up the lists with a lot of non-notable material, which was my original point. Vanished user 22:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Assessment Department debuts

The Assessment Department has debuted. See the assessment department for more details. See the related talk page for implementation discussion. Marc Shepherd 20:43, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Peer Review

I've been very, very bold, and arranged for Peer reviews of W. S. Gilbert. Results should come in here and here. I noticed the (probably more useful) Biographical peer review after requesting the general peer review.

Point of this, of course, is to get W. S. Gilbert up to at least GA. Vanished user ^talk 05:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the path for W. S. Gilbert should be B->A->FA. GA is generally reserved for excellent short articles. By the way, my sense is that there's a shortage of good FA candidates. Today's FA is Jabba the Hutt. When the featured article is a secondary character from the Star Wars series, you know there aren't a lot of FA's to choose from. Other former featured articules include Bulbasaur (a minor Pokémon character) and Perfect Dark (a minor Nintendo-64 video game).

In parallel to the WSG peer review, Adam also nominated Haste to the Wedding and The Sapphire Necklace for GA status. Both failed rather quickly. I wouldn't have nominated either one. In my view, neither one ranks among the best we have done. A review of the criteria would have made it pretty clear that both fail. By the way, there are only 1,411 GA's, of about 1.3m on Wikipedia, so you're talking about an article that's in the top 0.1%.

Perhaps we need to set up a more rigorous internal assessment for the G&S project. There are some criteria that are pretty straightforward, and if they're not met, nominating for GA is a waste of time. Marc Shepherd 20:14, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

True. But it may be worthwhile to work up one or two of the very short articles into GAs, as they'll take significantly less time. Might be a good motivational thing. I chose those two because they were short, self-contained, and, whilst not inline cited much, were referenced. Thought it might turn up information and advice useful to other short articles. Vanished user ^talk 23:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Biography

Please put talk on the talk page -- try not to clutter up the Project page.

Adam wrote: Sam has done a marvellous job at expanding out the biographical links, but Gilbert's adopted daughter, Nancy McIntosh, is probably the most important omission. Vanished user ^talk 19:04, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Adam, but I think that, other than Nancy, and maybe a couple more others, we are far more in need of articles on the missing Gilbert works that are redlinked in the To do list than more bios. I added several dozen bios, but it is a shame that so many important Gilbert works are still not represented at all in the Project, IMO. Regards, -- Ssilvers 03:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Aye, but Nancy McIntosh is so important to any good biography of the later years of Gilbert that she deserves mention as probably the only important one not done. And, though I could just mention her, you have done wonderful work on performers, so it's worth saying so.

N.B. Why am I still awake? Vanished user ^talk 04:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

• User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory 2,
• User:Badbilltucker/Philosophy and religion Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Sports Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory,
• User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory/United States, (note: This page will be retitled to more accurately reflect its contents)
• User:Badbilltucker/History and society directory, and
• User:Badbilltucker/Science directory

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:51, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now put the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 00:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Article for Deletion

Project participants: Please weigh in with your opinions at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Katisha. -- Ssilvers 20:07, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Post-first-night cuts

Reginald Allen, in his 1948 (? It's across the room and I'm too lazy to check the date right now) edition of the complete first-night libretti, contains copious notes on songs that were traditionally cut after the first night; he does this for every opera, even Thespis (which is sort of a lost cause) and Pinafore (which, remarkably, suffered no trimming of songs after the first night, and only lost a small bit of dialogue). Would this sort of analysis (sourced, of course) be worth adding into the articles for the individual operas? I'm thinking most especially of Utopia, which was given a grand total of three finales, only the last of which stuck.

Incidentally, Allen also has some wonderful quotes from reviews of the opening nights, which I think are worth eventually including.

As an aside, the overture to Ruddigore just came on the radio, and it's the first Sullivan they've played in I don't know how long. Think it's an omen? (No, I don't know of what.)

(I sure do love paranthetical asides.) --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 18:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Most of the operas do have a "versions" or "cut numbers" section. If you want to do the research and do one for Utopia, by all means. You might want to look at Ruddigore and The Yeomen of the Guard for different ways of how it is done in the other articles. -- Ssilvers 18:52, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

By all means! Do it! *idly uploads Gilbert's illustration of I have a song to sing O!*Vanished user ^talk 18:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Alrighty then. I can't promise when it will be done, but hopefully I'll get something together soonish (especially for Utopia, as the history of the cut stuff is rather interesting, to me). --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 19:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Keep this at the bottom of this page

For discussions about categories, see: category discussion page. Ssilvers 06:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

For discussion about opera article categories, see Opera categories page.

For discussion about opera article structure Opera articles page. Marc Shepherd 19:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Automatic bot tagging for opera project. Request for comments.

Hello from Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera, I'm preparing a list of categories relevant to opera (operas by X, English-language operas, opera librettists, English opera singers etc.) so that a bot can tag all pages that are members of those categories with the opera project tag. I'm umming and erring about what to do about the G&S stuff. My instinct is probably to tag Gilbert, Sullivan and their operas (together or separate,) collaborators etc. as part of WP opera. Could people please let me know if this will antagonise everyone here. If so we need to discuss how to avoid problems. I'm new to bots so may need advice on how to avoid affecting G&S pages if this is what we decide on. --Peter cohen 14:50, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes! Please do not do that. We have discussed this many times with the opera project. We have a G&S project tag on all articles related to the project, and we assess and watch those articles. There is no reason to add another tag. I am certain that the opera project members who have any interest in G&S already watch the pages that they are interested in here. Thanks. -- Ssilvers 16:30, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I can omit Category:Operas by Arthur Sullivan and its subcategory from the scan. Unfortunately Category:English-language operas, and Category:Comic operas both seem to contain works by G&S, Sullivan himself appears in Category:Opera composers, Gilbert in Category:Opera librettists etc.. Has anyone here used SatyrBot before? Do you know if we can instruct it to either exclude articles tagged with the G&S project tag or ones which are members of the G&S categories. Hopefully, one or other of these can be answered in the affirmative, or we'll have to rethink the categories. --Peter cohen 17:00, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I doubt anyone here will know much about SatyrBot. The guy that we used to have who was very tech savvy (Marc Shepherd) has retired from Wikipedia. All the operas in the project should be in the Comic Operas category, so if you tell the Bot not to tag articles in that category, you should be OK. As I understand it, currently that category contains pretty much only the G&S project operas, and we could manually tag the few that are not in the G&S project. Does that work for you? -- Ssilvers 17:13, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I think I'll post on the bot page asking for advice. I've noticed the heading in the comic operas category about it changing to english comic operas or such like, so the Smetana, Dvorak, Wolf etc works will presumably be rehoused. Albert Herring stand sout as somethign that is a comic opera but isn't a Savoy opera, so I don't know how it will fit into the system. --Peter cohen 17:30, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Let me know of any exciting developments. Best regards, -- Ssilvers 17:47, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Edward Loder (1813-1865), Ford and The Sapphire Necklace

I see we still don't have an article on Loder, who was a kind of forerunner to Sullivan. Would someone here like to take it on? You probably have better resources for this than I do, though there is an article by Nigel Burton in Grove. Best. -- Kleinzach 23:52, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I've also done a stub on Sullivan's pupil Ernest Ford which someone might like to develop. -- Kleinzach 07:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I added what I could find about Ford, but I never even heard of Loder. -- Ssilvers 14:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Ford looks good. Loder is may be forgotten now, but he gets a lot of space in Grove where he is described as the "main signpost to Sullivan". You have seen that I added The Sapphire Necklace to The opera corpus. I did this simply because the article exists - that list contains all works for which there is an article. If you think it should be deleted/merged or whatever that's fine by me, I have no particular opinion on this. -- 22:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I have no opinion on it either, and you know more about the criteria for inclusion on the opera corpus, so I'll leave it alone. I'd say that Michael William Balfe was a signpost for Sullivan, and that his article could certainly use more attention, but, I'm afraid that I don't have any resources that would help much with either composer. Hopefully someone will come along who is able to help with those. I'm more able to help with Edwardian-era operettas and musical comedies (and later operettas and light operas) than I am with earlier opera composers. Let me know when the composer of the month turns to operettas, and I'll try to help with the English-language info. Best regards, -- Ssilvers 23:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you learn Hungarian? Or find someone who does? That's what we need. -- Kleinzach 01:40, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

English-language operettas

Someone just put all the G&S articles into this category. Recently, we all agreed to put them under English comic operas. Should they ALSO be under English-language operettas? I am not sure whether the person who did this sought any consensus before re-catting everything. -- Ssilvers 21:31, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

The Yeomen of the Guard

Please check out the recent changes and the discussion on the talk page. Please weigh in if you can add to the discussion. Best regards, -- Ssilvers 04:56, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

L'Île Enchantée

We have added a new article on this ballet. Please improve it if you can or note any comments on the talk page. -- Ssilvers 20:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Infobox policy

I added an infobox policy to our project page. I believe that this policy reflects the consensus of opinion at this project, but feel free to move it here if there is any disagreement. If you agree with the policy, feel free to note your agreement here. Now that the project is well over a year old, do we need any other policies that had not been considered in 2006? -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and at the moment can't think of anything else. Marc Shepherd (talk) 22:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Mikado

Repeated use of the N-word in the article. Please comment here. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

George Grossmith and Rutland Barrington

We have nominated these articles for GA review. Please review them and see if you can help to improve them further. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:23, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

They were both promoted to GA class, as was Jessie Bond. -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Gilbert)

I added this article. Please take a look when you have a chance, everyone. Any additions, comments, etc. welcome. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Character lists in plays/ musicals articles

There is currently a discussion on the inclusion of character lists on articles relating to plays, musicals, etc. at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Theatre. I know that many G & S articles already have character lists and this project is sort of its own little world in the theatre/opera related articles. However, I would encourage you all to join the discussion for the purpose of bringing uniformity across performing arts articles. All opinions are welcome.Broadweighbabe (talk) 10:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Trial by Jury

Please vote or comment on the FA nomination of Trial by Jury here: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Trial by Jury. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:03, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
• The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
• A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:48, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Gilbert and Sullivan

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Theatre

Portal:Theatre is currently undergoing a portal peer review, and comments would be appreciated at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Theatre/archive1. Thank you, Cirt (talk) 22:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

FA Nomination: Thespis (opera)

Our article Thespis (opera) is currently being considered for promotion as a WP:Featured Article. Please review it and comment at the FA nomination page: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Thespis (opera)

Cleanup listing

Subscribed this project to User:WolterBot/Cleanup listing subscription, by transcluding that box to the WikiProject main page. It has to be on the WikiProject main page for it to work - so please don't remove it - thank you! Cirt (talk) 04:46, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Milestone Announcements

All WikiProjects are invited to have their "milestone-reached" announcements automatically placed onto Wikipedia's announcements page. Milestones could include the number of FAs, GAs or articles covered by the project. No work need be done by the project themselves; they just need to provide some details when they sign up. A bot will do all of the hard work. Click here for more information or to sign your project up.

I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 21:53, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:32, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Frank Curzon

Please watch this article, everyone. A new editor is trying to add a bunch of unreferenced and dubious information. Google searches do not indicate that any of what is being added is true. Also, the material being added is full of typos, and the putative source that he/she is giving makes no sense. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Bwat Thanks, -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you can call off this alert. With one exception the new editor's additions were correct; I have verified them and added references (mostly to old issues of The Times) and various other information I ran across while rummaging in the archives. Tim riley (talk) 14:23, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Tim, excellent job! -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:26, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:12, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Added [1]. Cirt (talk) 12:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

H.M.S. Pinafore

Pinafore has just been promoted to GA-class, and we intend shortly to get a peer review and go to FAC. Would everyone please review Pinafore and see if you have any comments or research to add? The "Analysis" section in particular needs research and expansion. For example, we mention several themes in the LEAD section that are not discussed in the analysis section. -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I've expanded the "analysis" section. Any comments? -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:43, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks pretty good. Cirt (talk) 12:58, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I have opened a Peer Review for the article. If anyone has any comments on the article, please leave them on the peer review page or at the article's talk page. Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:07, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Opera portal at Featured portal candidates

Portal:Opera is being considered for featured quality status, at the Featured portal candidates process. Comments would be appreciated at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Opera. Cirt (talk) 20:25, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

H.M.S. Pinafore

I have nominated Pinafore for promotion to Featured Article: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/H.M.S. Pinafore/archive1 Please review and comment or vote! -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:59, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of The Absent-Minded Beggar

I am conducting a Reassessment of the article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have one small concern which you may find at Talk:The Absent-Minded Beggar/GA1. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 17:11, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

WP 1.0 bot has been upgraded. The upgrade made many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment on Biographies of living people

Hello Wikiproject! Currently there is a discussion which will decide whether wikipedia will delete 49,000 articles about a living person without references, here:

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

Tools to help your project with unreferenced Biographies of living people

List of cleanup articles for your project

If you don't already have this and are interested in creating a list of articles which need cleanup for your wikiproject see: Cleanup listings A list of examples is here -- Ikip 05:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

NYC G&S lecture Friday, May 7, 2010

FREE G&S lecture in NYC @ 7:00 pm:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=112377532120817&ref=ts -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:14, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Lists

There are two list of Gilbert's works right now:

• W. S. Gilbert bibliography
• List of W. S. Gilbert dramatic works

What is exact scope of them? Maybe we should merge them? vvv^t 22:16, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

One is a chronological list of only Gilbert's plays and operas. The other is the list of bluelinked articles regarding works of Gilbert, including both plays and other works (and a list of his parlour ballads), broken down by useful categories. I don't see any advantage in merging them. -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:59, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Gilbert and Sullivan articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Gilbert and Sullivan articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Oh, god, this nonsense again. I don't think they or anyone else have any idea what the purpose of this is, and they seem determined to ignore everything that was discussed before when a new version comes out. Is it worth fighting this one again? Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:04, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't even understand the question. When they posted this, I went over there and added a few more of our GA articles to the list. Feel free to do anything that you think will be helpful. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:36, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. As requested, I added D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Trial by Jury and The Pirates of Penzance and George Grossmith. Walkerma (talk) 04:29, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 21:02, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

New articles

In recent months, we have added articles on the remaining Gilbert burlesques and a pantomime. See La Vivandière (1867), The Merry Zingara (1868), The Pretty Druidess (1869) and Harlequin Cock Robin and Jenny Wren. We also added a few biographies, such as John Fryatt, Richard Watson (singer), Peggy Ann Jones, Robert Wilson (tenor) and James Walker (conductor). Related efforts included the promotion of Henry J. Wood to FA, the improvement of the article on Victorian burlesque, new articles on Box and Cox, Philip Michael Faraday, J. B. Fagan and Percy Reeve, and lots of improvements on Edwardian musical comedy articles. We had sad news recently of the death of a sometime project member and wonderful Wikipedian, User:Kbthompson. Please see our To-do lists for ideas on how you can contribute, or feel free to post here or on my talk page. Happy editing! -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:58, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Opera banners

In the past, it has been the practice at WikiProject Opera not to double banner articles in our "daughter" projects, WikiProject Richard Wagner, and WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan, although we do banner some G & S singers who have also had significant careers singing "regular" opera. Last December we had lengthy discussions on double-bannering, archived here with a suggestion to relax the "no double bannering" recommendation on our daughter projects which we are now revisiting. Articles bannered by these projects which are GA or FA appear in Portal:Opera regardless. But without the WPO banners these articles will not appear in three useful bot-generated pages: Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Popular pages, Portal:Opera/Featured content (Featured articles and Good articles), and Portal talk:Opera/Featured content (the expanded list which also includes former Good articles, Did you know? articles, and In the News articles). Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera#Double bannering Wagner and G & S project articles revisited. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 14:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

British stage database help

I'm still trying to create the Willy Loman article. If you know anything that might be analogous to www.IBDb.com for West End theatre please chime in at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Theatre#West_End_theatre_database.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:54, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't know of any, but there are lots of books about British theatre that list productions and actors. -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:07, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Haddon_Hall

Just to let everyone know I am still about, and preparing the occasional G&S-related material. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 10:39, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Cheers, Adam. Glad to hear it! -- Derek Ross | Talk 21:10, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Think I could do Ida and Ruddigore next. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 02:58, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Ruddigore

The observant (or, at least, the observant who watchlisted all the operas) may have noticed that I put in the rough scan of an image. Working on the cleaned-up version. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 20:43, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Even more observant people will have noticed it's now TWO images. Because both need a lot of work, but are still far better than what we had. =) Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:07, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Template:The Pirates of Penzance

I have been advised to give your group notice. I have created and deployed {{The Pirates of Penzance}}. This means I have done the following:

1. added the template to the four articles in the body of the template.
2. added the template to the librettist and the work in the title.
3. removed the general {{Gilbert and Sullivan}} template from the pages that they do not link to that my new template links together.

In case you are not aware, I have created hundreds of similar templates for other works on WP. Future things to do for this template include the following:

1. Make sure it has all appropriate links
2. Check all its categories
3. Tag its talk page.

I look forward to your feedback.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Fine, but it does not belong on Gilbert's article. I have removed it there. -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

What is your reasoning?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I would love it if you could explain what purpose this template serves. Although I don't see what it achieves, I do not oppose placing it on the articles you have placed it on, except for Gilbert's. It is quite clear to me that templates for all the shows do not belong on either Gilbert's Sullivan's or D'Oyly Carte's pages, or the G&S main page, as all of those articles concern all13 operas, and we don't want 13 such templates on those pages. -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:59, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

O.K. You probably have never seen these works templates for librettists and opera composers. This is because typically the primary work for these types of templates is not the opera. For novelists and playwrights it is more common for their work to be the primary work from which other works are derived. At WP:OPERA we had some discussion on this issue. To the best of my knowledge, the novelists with the most works templates on their pages are Charles Dickens (11, 6 created by me) and Stephen King (9, 4 by me) followed by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (6, 6), Jane Austen (6, 5) and H. G. Wells (6, 4). If I were studying Dickens I think these templates would teach me something. Those are the extreme cases of what this could look like. For novelists, these templates do two things. Just the sheer number is a very rough metric of cultural significance of the author. Each individual template gives single-click single-glance access to all derivative works that are notable (enough to have WP articles). These templates are of course reliant on the WP beavers having created all the right articles. They don't always point to the most notable works by an author. I am sure some Ernest Hemingway fans are a bit disappointed on which templates are available and which aren't. For Playwrights, Shakespeare would have the most, but I am still trying to nail down my arguments before I do that makeover. He would probably have about 25 about half by me. Oscar Wilde (6, all by me) has the most for playwrights. For playwright the purpose seems similar and works similarly. However, some of the greatest of all time, such as Eugene O'Neill have almost no works that have 4 related articles on wikipedia.

Working my way to opera. In most cases these franchise templates have operas as a derivative work of something like a play or a novel. Thus, the librettist or composer would not be the author of the primary work. Even within the Savoy works, I only see two with sufficient derivative works to have templates: {{The Pirates of Penzance}} and {{The Mikado}}. Thus, even though these are among the few opera composers and librettists who do extensive original works, you are not likely to see a dozen templates on their pages. Only two have the type of cultural significance that these templates are for. Maybe they both should be on both individual pages as well as their joint page. What do you mean by "It is quite clear to me that templates for all the shows do not belong..."?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:46, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

It seems that it might be wiser to make a special combined template for the author him or herself, than to have dozens. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 13:47, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

You have not explained at all how these templates are helpful in the least. Your description above about the numerous templates on Dickens and the ones that you plan to put on Shakespeare appear to be awful clutter. We already have a wonderful template for G&S on the author's and composer's pages, as well as blue links in the text and further links in the "see also" section pointing to a list of the author's and composer's major works, and sections in the opera articles discussing adaptations. Plus, we have categories for the works and relationships related to G&S. You have not persuaded me that we need any more templates on the creators' pages, and I strongly oppose adding them. -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:21, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Oppose the proposed templates - the existing system works perfectly and we need not 'clutter' the articles. Jack1956 (talk) 14:48, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I think it's useful enough on the pages it links, but they rapidly get rather distant from Gilbert himself, and shouldn't appear there. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:03, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Oppose - this template may gratify those who delight in creating templates, but are, IMO, of no value whatever to the visiting reader. Not only would I blitz it from WSG's page, but from any page on which it appears, cluttering up useful text. True, it's at the foot of the article, where it is blessedly out of sight to most visitors, but better still to have away with such obsessive, useless bric-a-brac. Tim riley (talk) 15:24, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I have said from the beginning that these types of templates are sort of different for Opera subjects than novelists and playwrights. I won't include them on your bio pages.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:27, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I hope Tony the Tiger will permit me to say how gracious I think his response is. Such magnanimity in WP disagreements is what the project is all about. Warmest regards. Tim riley (talk) 17:19, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Magnanimous would be something else. I am just saying my dog ain't so suited for this fight. Opera is a different animal. I have created some templates that you G&S folks don't like so much.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:42, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Oppose (in part): I assume good faith when I say its purpose on Gilbert is, in my opinion, redundant and pointless. Articles can become over-burdened with templates, and I think in this case, it does just that. I have no real objection to it appearing on The Pirates of Penzance article, or related works, but not here. -- Cassianto^Talk 18:04, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

When a well-made template is added to a well-made article redundencies (don't know what to say about pointless other than I think you are misusing the word) is suppose to occur. Otherwise the template does not belong. Many believe templates should only appear on pages where its many of its links are mentioned in the text.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:46, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Pointless inasmuch that it offers no value to the visiting reader of WSG, thus making it pointless being there. I am not calling the template pointless and I am certainly not sharing this opinion with pirate related articles where I think it does some good, but I believe that it just does not belong here. -- Cassianto^Talk 18:58, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Oppose; I'm not entirely sure of the purpose of this template. Having one with just four links seems to be redundant. The four links appear in the bodies of all the articles in question so it seems to be fairly redundant. - SchroCat (talk) 07:44, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment - I agree that this kind of template does not belong on either Gilbert's or Sullivan's article. However I have no objection to it on the articles directly concerned with TPoP or Mikado. While it may be that its links are redundant, there's something to be said for having them grouped together so that readers who might be interested in derivative works can find them in one place. -- Derek Ross | Talk 16:38, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

GAs

It's pretty obvious many of our articles should be Good articles. I've held back on Iolanthe, Yeomen of the Guard, and Utopia, Limited, as they seemed to be a little bit under-cited, but I think The Sorcerer, The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, Princess Ida, The Mikado, Ruddigore, and The Grand Duke should easily pass, and have nominated them. Let's see how it goes. I'll be on hand to fix up any issues.

If they go well, I'd suggest we start working towards getting them to FA. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:59, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Please, please do NOT nominate any of our opera articles for FA. I am planning to work on all of them first. The closest one is Sorcerer, but unless you do significant work on one first, please do not nominate. I have a plan for all of them. Pirates, Patience, PI, Mikado, Ruddigore and GD are nowhere near GA yet. -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:15, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Having reviewed several GAs recently, I can confidently say they're much better than most of the extant GAs. Of course they're not FA-ready, but do remember GA is somewhat lower than that.

My intention is to work on the three that seem somewhat lower, getting them up to GA. We can then look into FA (Way I'd probably do FA work is to review all the sources I have on hand, check the articles have all the information in them and agree, and, if not, update, unless the information is trivial, for the record, but we can discuss that later, if and when I start an FA push for one). Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:35, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Update: After off-line discussions, Adam Cuerden agreed not to nominate these articles until a consensus is reached that they are ready for nomination. Thanks, Adam Cuerden, for your patience. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:59, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Only Patience of the Savoy Operas is on my watch list. (Ssilvers, Adam and others had the canon covered before I joined WP and I haven't contributed much to any of the articles.) I was mightily surprised to see the sudden GA nominations, and I share Ssilvers's view that a concerted campaign on each is the best strategy. Happy to help if I can be of any use. (Tangentially, I have managed to mention Sullivan separately and G&S jointly in Benjamin Britten which I have up for FAC if any Savoyard cares to look in.) Tim riley (talk) 19:50, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

English-language operettas category question

Could you consider adding the category of English-language operettas to the pages of the G&S operas? I was hoping to do this but I did not want to incur your wrath. The G&S canon can still count as English-language operettas very like Naughty Marietta or Babes in Toyland.Yip1982 (talk) 04:18, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Rollins and Witts

If anyone needs anything looked up in this, I found a very heavily discounted copy. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 12:06, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

If you go through Category:Gilbert and Sullivan performers, I think you will find that about half of them need R&W references. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:54, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

No infoboxes!

I've discovered (the hard way) that this WP does not use infoboxes for articles about people connected with G&S. It would be very useful for non-members of this WP (such as myself) to be informed of this fact when editing the article. This could be done either by an edit note, or by a page notice on all affected articles. Mjroots (talk) 20:26, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Isn't it clear, at least since the Arbcom case, that people should neither add nor delete infoboxes from stable articles without "discussion and consensus" on the Talk page first? As a thought experiment: why not inform all editors when you have decided that you *do* want to use an infobox in an article by an edit note, or by a page notice? The fact that there is no infobox serves as notice that the editors who have worked on the article thus far have not considered an infobox helpful. The assumption that an infobox ought to be used is contrary to the guideline. -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:48, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Project is active

Just in case anyone wanted to know, we are continuing to add bio and other articles on G&S-related subjects. New project participants are always welcome, and the project page suggests some things you can do to help! -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:53, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them. Portals are being redesigned. The new design features are being applied to existing portals. At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}. The discussion about this can be found here. Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals. There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject. Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals. So far, 84 editors have joined. If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive. If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page. Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   07:39, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Portal:Gilbert and Sullivan

Portal:Gilbert and Sullivan, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Gilbert and Sullivan and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Gilbert and Sullivan during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:40, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)