Sequenza21/NetNewMusic Wiki:Community Portal
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Announcement:
2008 Residency Season at the Artists’ Enclave at I-Park
Application Deadline: December 31, 2007
I-Park announces its eighth season hosting The Artists’ Enclave. Artists’ residencies, self-directed/project oriented, will be offered from May through November 2008. Most sessions are four weeks in duration. Residencies will be offered to visual (including digital) artists, music composers, environmental artists, landscape and garden designers, creative writers and architects. Work samples will be evaluated through a competitive, juried process.
There is a $20 application processing fee required and artists are responsible for their own transportation to and from the area. They also provide for their own food and work materials. The facility is otherwise offered at no cost to accepted artists.
I-Park is a 450-acre natural woodland retreat in rural East Haddam, Connecticut. Accommodations include comfortable private living quarters in an 1850’s farmhouse, shared bathroom facilities and a private studio on the grounds. An electric kiln, music equipment, wireless internet and library facilities are provided.
International applicants welcome. To defray the cost of travel, a $1,000 grant will be offered in 2008 to two international artists whose work is held in particularly high regard by the selection committee (details to follow).
For additional project information, go to our website: www.i-park.org. Application materials for 2008, including an in depth FAQ, will be available in early October 2007 and will be available for direct download from the website (Residency Program section). E-mail: ipark2002@ureach.com. Phone: 860-873-2468.
Testing reCAPTCHA!
Hi, I would like to create a page for a composer (Michel Montecrossa) , just want to let you know cause how it seems (and I can understand that - spam is so boring!!) it is not possible at the moment to add a page (at least I haven't found out how) What can I do to create this page?? [1]
Curse you, newBot! I had a little bit of time, so I cleaned up several of the problem pages. Also since this page is at 44 kilobytes long should it be cleaned up so some browsers will not have any problems? - Eminchew
Yeah this one guy seems to have become obssessed with our little wiki. Great! Hello there Mr. Spammer, soooo many better wiki's to attack out there! Try this one! [2]
well, jeff, seems he got even. I just restored this page. --david toub 15:00, 14 Mar 2006 (EST)
Seemed to have pissed off the little spammer and he attacked this page. Hehe... ;-P JH
I decided I'd 'protect' the Main Page now. If somebody needs/wants to edit it, please post here your reasons. We were getting spammed sometimes 2-3 times a day (by the same guy with a different alias). Sorry it had to come to this... asshole spammers. ;( JH
Check out the New Listening Room when you guys get a chance. It's using all kinds of new software, I got from another wiki which enables XSPF players, podcasts, and on the spot playback for different players.
Doing a little re-branding as we've talked about and am also doing a major promotional push at NetNewMusic to see if I can get some more traffic in here. Seems very dead... Don't mean to catch anybody off guard. If you guys want me to brand it Sequenza21/NetNewMusic New Music Wiki that's fine. Just thought it sounded better the other way. Not that it sounds that good either way! For those that don't know, NetNewMusic was the first new music portal, founded in 1994 and will shortly be celebrating its one millionth visit. It functions mainly as a news and link site, and is curated by myself and Steve Layton, another S21 regular. JH
glad the tool works, since I probably would have given up deleting their edits by now.
My new theory for what they're doing: placing hidden links to sites to increase their standing on certain search engines (usually Yahoo and MSN; Google only updates its standings for a topic every month or less often)--david toub 17:18, 18 Dec 2005 (EST)
Now 181 attacks thwarted so far. I'll stop ranting and raving now. ;-) JH
Wo... they just keep coming. It's thwarted 59 attacks so far. It's war! I wonder how long it'll take them to figure out how to make counter-measures. JH
Totally awesome. I figured these idiots weren't Mac users 8-) --david toub 11:03, 16 Dec 2005 (EST)
Yo yo yo! It woiked. Check out these assholes that got busted. ==log file deleted== JH
Ugh... screwed up the installation by a spelling mistake. Fixed and now I see the bad_behavior_log in our database. Fingers crossed!!! ;) JH
Looks promising---thanks!--david toub 14:56, 12 Dec 2005 (EST)
OK, just installed the Bad-Behavior MediaWiki extension. Not sure exactly what it's going to do though, supposed to 'just work.' We'll see I guess... Bad Behavior JH
Jeff, we're getting a ton of drug spam again. I suspect it's the same individual or individuals as before, just registering under new names. What they do is either set up new pages with their drug promotions, or else enter some XML div tags within the body of established, legit pages (including the main page). I've blocked the current offenders and deleted their edits, but I think this is the beginning of a lot of this nonsense. I think the idea of validating new registrants via e-mail (or some other scheme to validate) may be in order. Thoughts?--david toub 22:12, 11 Dec 2005 (EST)
Tom, we don't need that approval. That's between you guys. Just thought it would be nice to ask. BTW, you can certainly link to her full article and that is entirely appropriate. Also, be sure to link to your own web sites or other article about your work. You can cite it as you wish, in a section such as Futher Reading, etc. Something like that...
Finally, in a way, having this third party encylopedic 'tenor' to writings about us can be a really great promotional tool. You can certainly link to our Wiki from your website, as if it were a full blown article about yourself. It's under your control, but it seems like a distant author of an encyclopedia. You can add articles as they become published, which reminds me to add a few article to my own entry. JH
Thanks Jeff. I'll ask Rebecca to shoot you an email. Permission won't be a problem. I appreciate the clarifications regarding Wikis. Tom
Thanks for participating here Tom. Wiki's are strange. There should never be any indicators of who wrote what. In that way, they generate content through accretion and editing by many parties. Of course here, we have limited editors because it serves a micro-community. Maybe you could write Rebecca and ask her permission to reprint without citation? JH
EMAILS: I asked Jeff: I thought the rules stated "no copyrighted material without permission." Do I have that wrong?
Jeff answered: No you understand it correctly. The problem is that there should be no authorship indicators.
My Response: OK- got it. Thanks for letting the text stand. As I wrote to Jerry & Jeff:
"Rebecca Marchand is a PhD candidate at UC Santa Barbra with a specialty in American music. She's an up-and-coming musicologist who has also written for NewMusicBox. Her writing about my work is excerpted from a scholarly article that was funded by the only statearts commission in the U.S. that actually provides direct support to individual artists."
I'd hoped that I could credit her work
Tom
David is there anything specifically in her article about Tom that you don't think is appropriate in a wiki? Seemed to be mainly the reprint and title headers that triggered my 'Inappropriate' flag, but that's me. JH
Well Tom just replaced what I took out. This is interesting... I'm not going to get into a pissing match. I protected his page (blocked from edits). Helloooo Tom! What gives? I've never had to do this before, and I think we're being pretty generous in this case. JH
I think we need better awareness of what this wiki is, and what it isn't. Certainly it can help one's PR. However, like the wikipedia, i suspect it is intended to be a quasi-objective information resource. It should not try to do what a composer's own Web site does, for example. It should be biographical, but not contain press quotes, testimonials, etc. unless that serves a clear informational purpose (ie, it's something someone needs to know). I think that it would be fine, if not a bit of a stretch, to include in an entry on Ralph Shapey that quote that is often cited by some person that he was 'a genius.' Debatable, of course, but even more permissible if the composer is dead (as is indeed the case with RS)--david toub 11:27, 8 Dec 2005 (EST)
Fixed Tom Myron's image. As I've said before, there's no guarantee I'll be keeping these image uploads. I've had a few people complain about Tom's article. I removed the indicators of authorship, which definitely aren't appropriate in a Wiki article and left the article. I'm not sure it really does have laudatory comments to complain about. Any other thoughts? JH
Good idea, if you want to make an instrumental resource section. Something like Flute Resources? Go ahead, if the community has a better idea about where to put such a listing, we'll talk about it here... JH
Hi, there's no music instruments section at resources, maybe there's another place to link a page?--Mireut 18:36, 15 Nov 2005 (EST)
It's not something built into the software. Might be a plugin somewhere though... I'll look when I get a chance. JH
Jeff, in the past day or two I've blocked two idiots who placed XML on three different pages with potential links to drug sites. Is there any way to have new registrants receive an e-mail to verify who they are (ie, their account isn't activated until they click the link in the e-mail autoresponder?)--david toub 10:06, 14 Nov 2005 (EST)
I just put the biggest number I could in, 9999... to block the other spammer. Thanks for keeping an eye on it. JH
I blocked the user for 120 hours: FredyJusert. No clue who he/she is. That is the only page that user has touched. How can I block a user permanently? (I tried "never" but that didn't work)--david toub 09:20, 26 Oct 2005 (EDT)
I keep track of the changes through RSS and noticed someone populated the Talk page with a list of branded drugs along with their URLs. I deleted them. Someone apparently got in and tried to do some free publicity for pharmaceutical products. I'm going to see what I can find out from the history of the page.--david toub 09:15, 26 Oct 2005 (EDT)
Regarding the uploading of images... I'm going to continue to allow it. But at some point, since I pay personally for this site, may have to disallow it. Some people have been uploading 300K images. Ouch! Also, there's an inherent security flaw in allowing images. JPG's can spread viruses thanks to MS... JH
Ying-Chen Kao added her composer page, but mistakenly modified the Template rather than copying the template. I made a page for her at http://netnewmusic.net/wiki/index.php?title=Ying-Chen_Kao. JH
And thanks to Jerry for doing it again. I've banned Xssko1, the spammer. Hopefully, he won't come back. --JH
de nada. -Everette Minchew
Thanks to Eminchew for cleaning up our Wiki spam. It's been hitting most wikis around the web but we'd been lucky enough to miss the bots until now. JH
Wow... lots of excitement on the new look! BTW, I made dem all by myself... ;) JH
Got the new graphics in. Still want to tweak the S21 logo a bit... needs a drop shadow. JH
Yeah... I saw that. Would be nice to have like a 'flag' or something and urge them to fix their content themselves. Kinda like a 'traffic ticket'... you have gone beyond S21 Wiki policy and are urged to bring your texts into compliance... ;-) JH
Everyone, I need some guidance. We're getting some young composers/performers etc adding their profiles to the wiki, which is great. However, I'm finding that in some cases, we're back to the promotional comments thing (see the second and third paragraphs of David T. Little ). This is a wiki, of course, and anyone is free to edit this stuff out. But I remember what happened the last time I did that---not that I care whom I piss off, mind you, but is our policy still in effect? (I assume the answer remains "yes")--david toub 14:46, 12 Aug 2005 (EDT)
Transfer complete! Now I'm turning caching back on... see what happens. Guys/gals if you see caching problems, be sure to post. JH
Hope this works! JH
Many apologies for disappearing for the past month. I've been busy busy busy with too many things. But it looks like there's been lots of activity here since I last stopped by. This is good. I plan to catch up. --rchrd 01:43, 6 Aug 2005 (CDT)
Well the good news is that its fixed. The bad news is this (copied from the MediaWiki-L):
Note that these kinds of errors indicate one or more of the following:
- Power outage or other unorganized shutdown of the computer / server.
- Bug in MySQL itself
- Bug in operating system
- Hardware failure
This is stuff outside of our(my) control which means Jerry, that your webservices provider is having problems. It will probably start happening on a daily basis. Suggestions include moving the site or getting your provider to fix their hardware. FWIW, I don't see a very good set of tools here. The problem was much harder to fix. If you really want Sequenza21 to be secure, I'd suggest moving it to a more professional web-hosting facility. Fixing this problem on a daily basis is going to be let's say, 'problematic.'
Jeff
So... lemme see if this puppy is fixed. JH
Ugh... doesn't like the old fix. Have to poke around. The SEARCHINDEX table is locked. FWIW, Edits are going in, but search is kind of screwy and the message certainly is annoying. Jeff
Yeah... that's the bug! I'll fix again. Jeff
Jeff/David:
Getting the following message after updating pages:
A database query syntax error has occurred. This may indicate a bug in the software. The last attempted database query was: (SQL query hidden) from within function "SearchUpdate::doUpdate". MySQL returned error "1016: Can't open file: 'searchindex.MYI'. (errno: 145) (localhost)".
Started a page called MediaWiki Repair so that someday if necessary the wiki can be fixed if I'm not available. Hopefully, it'll help other MediaWiki users, who were surprisingly often told just to use Google instead of repairing their search table. Jeff Harrington
Just added Galen's Style Sheet to the Main Page. Looks nice and reads well. Thanks, Galen. JB
Bug squashed. Table corruption. Jeff Harrington
Thanks for admitting to your edit... ;P Looking for that 'bug'. Jeff Harrington
Just a FYI: I edited the page for J._C._Batzner. I placed my rationale in the Discussion section of that page.
Robert Johrdahl raises a good point-what about a question/answer session with the subject in question (see the last sentence of his page)? I suggest something like that could be done in the discussion section, but I suppose it could be done as a section within the article itself (we could name it "q+a" or something like that). I suspect that the Discussion tab is tailor-made for this, but many users won't go there. Thoughts? David Toub
Okay, the Style Guide is ready to be Beta tested. Check it out, add to it, correct it, polish it, etc. - GHB
Galen, feel free to take anything you like from my front page stuff. Jerry
Re-arranged totally The Listening Room in the new FILO (first in last out) manner and featured it on the Main Page. Galen, you don't need to ask anybody for permission to re-use content here, especially when its 'meta-content' about how to generate new pages. That's the nature of Wiki edits (as I'm sure you know). If it's a problem we'll talk about it here. Everybody appreciates your efforts. - JH
David -- I don't have a paragraph about setting up redirects to Wikipedia pages; you're probably taking about spot where I suggest using redirects to make sure that variants on a name all point to the same spot, which I intended for internal use. So I probably wasn't clear. And you are right that there _should_ be a point about setting up links to extant articles in Wikipedia and that additional bullet points on our redirect page (a la your Feldman page) are a good idea. Feel free to clean up my explaination of the former and add the latter.
Also, I think you're probably right about keeping the tech overview and the style guide together so that people are more likely to get all of the info.
Steve -- I like the idea about a blurb on the redirect page for redirects that lead to pages outside of our site. In the case of internal redirects to cover name variants (my name, for instance) there's no need, since Wiki is smart enough to take you straight through to the target page (the one with the canonical name).
Jerry -- if you're out there, do you mind if I crib some text from your tech description on the front page? You do a nice job, so I figure why reinvent the wheel?
- GHB
Logins are a good thing, definitely; they only take a second, don't stop anyone from contributing whatever they like, and give just enough protection and accountability to slow down the bots and crazies. The idea of a little text description for a redirect link is good too, should be a standard courtesy both for the reader and to credit the original. I was also the guy who put in a few terms like "Spectralism", Twelve-Tone Composition", etc. with just a redirect. I'd encourage anyone to also just toss in whatever term pops in your head; you don't have to write the full article or anything, but it does get the term up and out there for somebody to bump into and maybe start adding further info. --Steve Layton
Galen, one suggestion for the style guide: I'd like to add something to your paragraph on linking to wikipedia pages about encouraging people to add some additional information as bullet points below the redirect link (see the Morton Feldman page I did, for example. Let me know if this is ok with you. Thanks! --david toub 09:47, 13 Jul 2005 (CDT)
I'm changing the settings so that login will be required for all edits now. JH
The stream thing is my fault, Galen 8-) I noticed that it would automatically download to my desktop rather than play in a browser window through QuickTime, which is how most everything else on the Listening Page is configured.
I deal with style guides all the time at work and am very impressed with what you've done! FWIW, I think having a Getting Started that is separate from the style guide is a good idea, but may not be optimal. I'd suggest setting it up so that Getting Started incorporates the style guide as well, so that it isn't missed (one page is more likely to be read than two). We need to make sure your excellent guide is used every time a newbie joins us 8-) --david toub 06:11, 13 Jul 2005 (CDT)
Great idea to de-clutter the front door. Thanks, GB. I like! Nice piece, too... very Adamsy; I fixed the stream URL too, FWIW. JH
Well, David, you found my Style Guide before I was quite ready to unveil it :) (I haven't even spellchecked. . .) I'm inclined to leave the Guide editable by the public but suggest that before anybody goes in and messes with it they talk it over in here. As long as nobody is abusing the editing priviliges, I think that would keep the Specs the most up to date. Of course I hope people will feel that while it's in this rough draft stage it's open season on editing for both content and style. I expect the final version, when it goes live, will actually be quite different (and better) than what I've got now.
I'm wondering if I have too much technical info in the Style Guide, and if maybe we should have both a Getting Started tech overview (incorporating some of Jerry's material from the front page, too) and a Style Guide that has no tech info, just info on the house style and rules and links to the templates.
And speaking of the templates, obviously I haven't linked them up yet. I'm inclined to move the "composer" template over to "individual" and have enough stuff built into it that it can be used for any type of individual. The "organization" template can be loosely based on the "individual" template, but with some different sections -- history instead of bio, for example.
Ultimately, one of my main goals with the Style guide is to de-clutter the front page. Ideally, IMO, the front page would start with a quick welcome message, a link to the tech info, a link to the Style Guide, a link to an advice page for readers ("Navigation" or something) and then a big table of contents.
-GHB
I like the style guide---it basically codifies what has already been written, and what we've been saying in this portal page for awhile. Excellent! I'm just a bit confused---on one hand, it suggests that it will be editable by the community (which is fine with me), but also suggests that any changes should be directed here instead for discussion. Perhaps this should be clarified. Otherwise, it's great! --david toub 21:36, 12 Jul 2005 (CDT)
Yeah, I'd put it on for about 10 minutes last week to see how it worked, and cookies works - this means you only have to login once. Also, there's no verification, etc. so it's pretty weak login, which makes it easy for people to get straight to editing once they've created an identity. The basic point, is that if we get hit by a bunch of bots (like many of my MovableType blogs have been hit; I had to clean over a thousand comments from 2 blogs) the site will get cleaned when it gets cleaned if you get my drift. It would be a major setback. You're right, I'd rather not do it, I was just visiting another MediaWiki wiki and the Sysop there was complaining about what a nightmare it was. JH
Jeff, while I have mixed feelings (as I suspect you do as well) about requiring a login and restricting access, from a practical and tactical perspective, I'm surprised this wasn't done sooner. You're quite correct about the risks of junk invading the wiki. It's also much easier to figure out who changed something when you have a login name rather than an IP address.
I assume this will make no difference if one is registered and is configured to automatically log in (via cookies) when going to a page (or will that be disabled as well?). Thanks! --david toub 14:01, 12 Jul 2005 (CDT)
Tech Update:
I'm thinking of requiring editors to login before allowing them to edit. I know this isn't the way that Wikipedia allows it but they also have a huge population of savvy tech people. We have me... and I don't have time to wipe the database clean of Nigerian spam when their bots hit us with a thousand inserts in a matter of minutes.
I've been tracking a few other sites using this software and its a real problem. I know it hasn't hit us yet, but we're just getting on Google's scope now. If I don't hear any compelling reasons why I shouldn't do it (another makeshift attempt at defraying accusations of dictatoriality - haha) I'll implement the policy sometime tomorrow. Silence will be considered acquiescence... :)
Also, just a bit of backend news - I'm now making twice daily backups of the database and will soon be placing them offline. So, we should have something that will resist a big database blowup. Database blowups/attacks happen to pretty much every site eventually, so we'll have some security. We're now running a slightly insecure version of MediaWiki and I need to update it shortly. That'll mean taking the site offline for a short period (hopefully). I have no immediate plans to do this.
I'm also looking at some other flavors of Wiki software that are offshoots of MediaWiki, some more secure and more flexible. I find this software pretty rigid in how we can customize it. GetWiki is something I'm considering. It 'should' allow us to use all of our current content as is.
JH
I thought I said Wiki Rabbit. JB
Pax vobiscum. Et dona nobis pacem. (which basically means shalom alechem)
Ich weiss foon gornisht.
/il papa
Go in peace my sons, and remember: the fool says what he knows, but the wise man knows what he says. (Oy gevald, what a meshuga bunch of shlemiels I gotta work with here....) Kylegann 17:00, 9 Jul 2005 (CDT)
Well, as the only Jew in the room right now, then at the very least I get first crack at being named Pope! 8-)
My $0.02: If this were something I were doing at work, of course there should be a consistent standard. However, this isn't work, and this isn't something we're doing at a professional level. I think the informality of it all is a good thing. As we see things that are grossly inconsistent, by all means, let's fix it. But I don't think it's workable having the community-at-large conform to a template, although we certainly can encourage it. Same with editorial standards in general. The cardinal rule is no plagiarizing copyrighted material. If everyone adheres to that one, at least we're doing pretty well. My second rule would be that everyone treats everyone else with respect. That would help with keeping the community together in general.
When I was really active in the open-source Camino (nee Chimera) browser community, it became clear that development often stalled because only Mike Pinkerton and maybe 2-3 others at most were really doing the hard work, while the many users out there were constantly complaining about functionality they wanted and bugs they wanted fixed. Two things that I learned from this: first, the community has to be invested in the project for the long haul. Second: there has to be 2-3 key individuals who make top-level decisions, open-source or no. I think the way this is working is pretty good, but the sysadmins here have to stay in touch (as we do) so that our decisions are mutual and policies, informal as they must be, are consistent.
So let's name Kyle Grand Rabbi, I can be Il Papa. Jeff and Jerry: can you choose a religion already? --david toub 13:37, 9 Jul 2005 (CDT)
I'm sure Kyle has dreamed all his life of being a Wiki Rabbi.
I think Jerry's right -- as long as contributors can discuss differences of opinion in a civilized way, the wiki will benefit from having loose editorial policies.
I agree that we need some basic editorial standards and that Kyle should be our rabbi in these matters. I don't think we want to get too bogged down in rules at the expense of encouraging people to contribute. Robert Venturi was right: messy vitality is preferable to obvious unity. For example, we've have some contributors whose English is perhaps not perfect but I'd rather have them here as is than insisting that they conform to the Chicago Manual of Style. Perhaps we can help clean it up a bit over time. JB
Yeah, he can have the job. Seconded. JH
I nominate Ponchielli as Wiki Dictator. -- LD
At some point, we need to come up with some type of hopefully informal process in how general style/editorial decisions are made. I recognize it must look pretty dictatorial of me to 'make a ruling'. (And I think we have a working consensus that Kyle should be the rabbi for matters editorial). And as you guys probably can see, I'm just flying by the seat of my pants here, and if anybody ever did not desire managerial authority or power it's me. (They've been trying for 8 years at work to make me into management, but I refuse). And if anybody has a better idea, please come forward and tell me mine is stupid/idiotic/premature/whatever.
I just want this thing to be useful and interesting and cool. Cuz if it just turns into a boring mess; a listing of composer web pages I think it will slowly die. JH
I feel so bloody ignorant right now---I have no clue who Ponchielli is (see, I guess my teachers failed me..). I need to look him up on wikipedia 8-) --david toub 09:55, 9 Jul 2005 (CDT)
Lawrence, I'm happy to go on record as asserting that you're even better than Ponchielli. Kylegann 09:33, 9 Jul 2005 (CDT)
Yeah, that was pretty much it. 20 hours and a ruling, by me. Remember all we really have here making edits that aren't to personal web pages are about 4 people. And of course, all of these decisions are open to further discussion. We'd love to have you involve yourself in these discussions. We just don't have enough bodies or enough dissent to bother with polling or a formalized decision-making process at this time, IMO.
Lawrence, just contribute... you can learn all the formatting tricks later and we can clean up after you later. We need interesting contributions that aren't just dupe-off of people's web pages. This Wiki is going to live or die off of its content and the primary purpose, IMO, here is not composer web pages; its articles of interest, editable open documents like the Listening Room, and list pages, etc... Please just type something interesting! :) JH
I'll give it a shot, Jerry, but I don't know if I have a great handle on making this work yet.
Jeff, I did read the thread below, but maybe we had different interpretations. I saw a 20-hour discussion among 4 participants, followed by a ruling. Is that accurate?
I absolutely agree that the line between insight and gush is too vague to enforce with unlimited editorship. No quotes is a good ruling. But thanks for letting me express my concerns. LD
Lawrence, I'm about to put up a page called "The Lists." Could you put up the latest version of your most influential works list, please. I think rather than allow editing, others can create their own lists. JB
Lawrence, that policy evolved here through discussions that you can easily read below. As far as I'm concerned I believe its working well and is entirely appropriate. If there had been some dissenting views, I wouldn't have been so quick to declare policy, but we had consensus and professional editorial guidance (from Kyle which we all appreciate), so it seemed reasonable.
It's my fear that loosening up the rule will weaken it into being ineffective. If we allow 'so and so has described X's music as 'powerful and evocative' but not 'so and so has described X's music as marvellously revelatory' because it's gushing... where's the line? The line is fuzzy in qualified descriptions and we don't really have enough editors with enough fearlessness to go and edit other people's blurbs (about themselves). In an artistic community, editing other people's blurbs - with an edit trail - could lead to some enmity. And since we are at the moment allowing composers and artists to write about themselves (against standard Wikiepedia policy) I think we need to be a little careful in this regard. JH
btw, do you mind if I quote your comment that I'm the greatest composer since Ponchielli? -- LD
Kyle, thanks for the response, and we're in 100% agreement, but somehow your original comment evolved into a policy that eliminated all press quotes. Again, I don't have an issue with it in my case, but maybe at some point someone will come up with a brilliant way to distinguish the insights from the gush. - LD
Hi Lawrence - in response to your blog, what I had originally said was, "laudatory press quotes cheapen the tone a little unless they provide insight into the music." Quotes from third parties can sometimes be very helpful if they explain or give an evocative impression; it's the "Lawrence Dillon is the greatest composer since Ponchielli" type that push without convincing. Kylegann 20:55, 8 Jul 2005 (CDT)
Speaking of templates, and extrapolating to the larger issues of the consistency of pages and the establishment of underlying architecture, here are a few thoughts:
- First, I fancied up the "composer" template, adding bibliography space and a couple new categories. I'm inclined to turn that template into a more general "bio" template, and use it for composers and performers and other individuals alike.
- As I mentioned earlier, I also created a templage for scholarly articles.
- Somebody should build a template for organizations as well.
- Near the top of the front page we should have a prominent link to a style guide, which would include links to all of the templates, instructions on what sort of content is appropriate, etc.
- We might want to consider making use of the "categories" feature. It would be handy to be able to have a link at the bottom of, say, the "minimalism" page to the category page for "minimalist composers" so that every minimalist composer in the database is listed and it's updated automatically. Might make exploration of new music easier for people who are browsing around.
Okay, I gotta run :) -GHB
As you guys can see we now have new graphics, thanks to Jerry. Shouldn't be confusing if we're at Wikipedia or not now! JH
Hey wikimeisters, I'm back home now, so I can tell you all how fantastic the work you've done here is, and how much I regret having given the impression that I didn't appreciate your efforts. A full account of my confusion and misgivings would take up too much space on this portal, so it's posted on my blog at http://www.sequenza21.com/dillon.html -- Lawrence Dillon
Done, but someone might want to do something more with this, such as populating it with instructions, links to actual templates, etc. --david toub 07:39, 8 Jul 2005 (CDT)
Templates are valuable. Not only for providing some sort of consistency, but also for making it easy for novice users to create a usable format. I suggest a special navigation area to Templates: and then follow that with a list of content templates that can be copy/pasted into any edit text box. Is there a way to create a special set of special pages just for templates? --rchrd 01:25, 8 Jul 2005 (CDT)
I agree with Kyle. I think it can be salvaged. However, I think we have to keep the entries objective and referential. Statements that smack of promotionalism shouldn't be here. Just my $0.02 --david toub 13:35, 7 Jul 2005 (CDT)
Second paragraph's OK: should be presented as Innova's mission statement, maybe in quotes. Needs list of characteristic Innova releases, one- or two-sentence history of the label and its objectively defined place in the new-music record business. IM(n-s-)HO. Kylegann 11:23, 7 Jul 2005 (CDT)
And so it begins? Spam or not? Innova Looks like Spam, smells like Spam... Any consensus? JH
Cool,I like templates and consistency. JH
Here's a possible template for scholarly articles, such as the ones on genres and historical movements which includes a bibliography section. Take a look and see what you think. -GHB
So, we need two graphics a background JPG - 1941x220 (which is that pleasant folded grey thing the sunflower sits on top of and a PNG - 135x135 with transparency to replace the Sunflower/Bracket thingie. At the bare minimum we should replace the sunflower. :) JH
Thanks rchrd, I'm sure I can say we all appreciate it. As far as that graphic goes, Jerry gave me a few that didn't seem to work (it really needs transparency to show that background grey thing and I was going to ask one of the artists at work for a sunflower replacement or a sunflower/greytexture replacement, but none of them have been able to do anything yet). So in the spirit of Wiki! We need two PNG's. (I'll look up the graphic sizes once I've had breakfast. JH
Richard, I second that about the logo. If I could draw worth a damn, I'd be glad to help out, but I'd only be making matters worse. I do suspect others could contribute something worthwhile. For now, however, I suspect the focus remains on getting a lot more content up and also QA'ing what's there. We need more people involved in this effort. I keep seeing many of the same people (y'all know who you are) on the Recent Changes page. There will always, as with any project, be a core group of people who tend to do much of the work. But this is a community effort, and it's a shame that more people aren't rising to the challenge. --david toub 05:58, 5 Jul 2005 (CDT)
I took upon myself to add this wiki to the list of wikis over at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sites_using_MediaWiki --rchrd 00:30, 5 Jul 2005 (CDT)
Ya know, that MediaWiki logo over there in the top left corner apparently can be changed. I've noticed some wikis out there that have customized the logo. Looks like all you need to do is replace this file: /wiki/skins/common/images/wiki.png with the Sequenza21 logo. And, about that logo... pretty cheezy IMHO. Can we create something better? --rchrd 00:14, 5 Jul 2005 (CDT)
Oh well, didn't work. There's a theory on the Mediawiki-L that its related to timestamps. So I tried changing some time settings to no avail. ;( Turning off client-side caching again now. JH
Gonna be messing with some settings for if things get wonky uh... don't blame me! I'll post when I'm done. JH
That probably would have been Heather O'Donnell; she's married to Oliver, and I saw she added her own info a couple days ago (she's a dynamite pianist by the way, and Oliver's a pretty darn decent composer from what I've heard so far). I know it mentions it on the edit page, but maybe the main page instructions should also have a line that stresses always using the "preview" button first when making changes, and being sure to scan the whole page before hitting "submit". --Steve Layton
The guy that added Oliver Schneller (Oliver Schneller?) deleted them. I'm guessing accidentally. Delete History JH
Steve, any ideas how the entries went AWOL? /dbt
Thanks Steve! Yeah history can be a great thing when placed in the right hands... haha... JH
I'd just visited the Composer Links page this morning, to discover that all the entries from U through Z were missing! They were there the last time I edited last night... Luckily the "history" tab keeps all the previous versions, so I called up one & copied that missing part back into the current page. --Steve Layton
As long as we don't regret my hacks someday down the road... JH
trying this now in camino 0.8 with browser caching on...works fine----thanks very much, Jeff! /dbt
Well just turned caching off. Let's see what that does... heh. We'll just have to keep an eye on bandwidth charges and traffic to see if that's going to be a problem. For the moment, I think the issue is closed. Unfortunately that was achieved at bandwidth expense. JH
Absolutely. This is just a temporary fix at best. Now, there are some good reasons to disable caching in Safari which I won't bore anyone with. But in general, caching is certainly a great thing. /dbt
Heh, as I just wrote you guys we need to contact our website provider and find out what they changed (if they changed something at all). Fixing things by hacking our clients is not a viable option except temporarily... And we need to fix it in a way that won't triple our bandwidth costs. Turning off caching means every time we hit a page we reload even though it hasn't changed. Caching good! No caching bad! :) FWIW, you can hit Alt-Shift-R on Moz browsers to force a reload. JH
On a Mac running OS X, if one wants to completely disable caching, one can go to the Terminal and type touch ~/Library/Caches/Safari What this does is create a text file in place of the cache, so that's that. One could do the same for FireFox, I would think, in the same fashion (just replace /Safari with /(whatever the cache file name is for FireFox). So far, my edits appear without issue on Safari, but I need to reload the page in order to see changes made by others who are having difficulties. Very strange. /dbt
Disabling cacheing in preferences fixed it for me. (XP IE 6). Jerry
Interesting. I saw that there were changes to this page from the Recent Changes page, but saw nothing new until I refreshed the page again. Didn't need to trash the cache, however. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K, dude... /dbt
Just happened to me though, I had to clear the cache... & I'm Win XP with IE 6. --Steve Layton
Kyle, the issue seems to be with Mozilla-based browsers (Camino, Firefox, Mozilla) regardless of whether one is on a Mac or those other computers 8-) . Doesn't happen with Safari, Doesn't happen with IE on the Mac either. Until this is solved, you might want to consider trying Safari. Hopefully this will be solved soon. /dbt
Correctimundo, I'm on a Mac and also using Mozilla, and no changes were showing up until I went into preferences and disabled cache saving. Very odd. Everybody happy now? Kylegann 16:12, 1 Jul 2005 (CDT)
Ok, problem solved. I just went over to Wikipedia, got Lawrence's bio that Kyle had written, and brought it over here which is where I thought I saw it not so long ago. JB
Editing this right now using Camino .8 (OS X). Yup, doesn't appear without trashing the cache. OK in Safari, however. So I suspect this is limited to Mozilla-based browsers. Konqueror should be fine in Linux. I may get around to testing OmniWeb and Opera. /dbt
Heh... didn't see your comment until I hit 'Edit' (on XP/Firefox. Checking in IE now . Not sure what Kyle's machine is, I think a Mac but his edits weren't showing up. IE seems to be fine. Heh... typical. (fourth edit that has shown up in IE). JH
(Back on Firefox - saw my new post) Issue will probably be corrected by provider me tinx.
On a Mac/FF box now. Changes not visible on my work mac either. FWIW. ;( Heh...
Older Stuff
Jeff, I just checked this out (I typed text here, and then erased it, saving it both times), and it does not seem to happen for me, FWIW. That's meaningless, of course, if it is happening to many others. My cache is currently enabled (disabling it involves writing a simple Unix string in a terminal window, which I'd done before but had re-enabled caching some time ago, so I am caching in Safari). Let me see if I can get this problem to happen on my system, and I'll then be better informed about it. Or not, if I can't get this glitch to happen.
Do we have any specs on the machines where it is happening? Windows vs OS X vs OS 9 vs Linux? Browser choice? Maybe we just have to restrict this wiki to non-IE browsers 8-) /dbt
Appears to be some caching issues going on server side. Forcing your browser to empty its cache seems to fix it client side. Investigating... Database writes are working. Must be on our provider's end. Should fix itself. In the meantime flush your cache to see changes if your changes don't immediately show up. Sux... JH
Excellent idea, GHB. I love the template idea, primarily cuz it keeps the onus of re-formatting out of our hands (hopefully). A bibliography for all the important 20th century musical concepts would be an incredibly useful and pertinent use of this here wiki. I remember one of my professors always telling, "why are you reading that book... so and so called it a..." Galen, if you wanna make a first pass at it, please do. I haven't made a bibliography in uh... a lotta years.
Might be cool to have a 'suggested listening' list for different genres and their subs. Beyond mere record reviews, group-authored 'best of lists' perhaps. I know a lot of folks here hate 'lists', but for really recent things, I often first hear about a new opera or something by seeing it in a greatest or recent faves list. That's how I discovered Sciarrino, FWIW... Thought I'd also bring up the topic of comments on lists. Would be cool to see a list, (even a biblio) and a series of comments (heh ala groupware histories?) of others on that list. JH
Galen, not a bad idea. I don't know that a template is needed per se---all one needs to do is have the link with the description. The font idea is a great one. Thoughts? /dbt
I'm most of the way through a page on the history of electro-acoustic music (I'll put together some smaller pages for defintions of terms and whatnot as well) and I'm thinking about including a bibliography. In this case it would be a pretty short one, since I'm relying almost exclusively on memory and Joel Chadabe's book "Electric Sound," but I wanted to bring up the subject. Might it be a good idea to encourage bibliographies, perhaps by creating a template for articles that has a bibliography section in a smaller font built in? -GHB
How do I adjust the time on my Wiki claims its UTC by default, which seems feasible and appropriate? JH
Heh... must be cuz I never did anything with them; set them etc... JH
Why are the time stamps in CDT? I have my TimeZone preference set to Pacific Time. --rchrd 19:23, 29 Jun 2005 (CDT)
Composer/performer/institution links and listingss are of course a given here, but that's the most insignificant part of this wiki. The Living Composers Project over at Composers21, Jeff's own NetNewMusic, Thomas Moore's huge resource, etc... It will flow in on its own, and be simply one more spot where names will crop up.
The real novelty, use, and power of the wiki is in articles, info (neutral or opinionated) on those artists, techniques, institutions, styles, movements, aesthetics, instruments, etc... Personally, I wouldn't care much if the first person to start a "Serialism" article wrote: "Horrible dead-end intellectual exercise spawned by Satan in the last century, to destroy all the West's musical enjoyment as we know it"... And then the next, more balanced writer might be prompted to put a more rational spin in there instead; then some kind wandering theorist stops by to dump some details on the technique itself and its development... Good, bad or ugly, the ball gets rolling on that entry, and time takes care of the rest. (That's the theory, anyway.) --Steve Layton
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