The End of "Genres"

[Davydov]

Yes, it's important to be clear that the tagging applies to the original work, in the form(s) it was conceived by the composer, just as in the work information section of the page. In other words, no account should be taken of anything under the heading "Arrangements and Transcriptions". (This rule takes also covers a handful of unusual cases, like Host's "The Planets", as mentioned in the project notes).

It's perhaps worth mentioning that the wiki coding of each work page should already contain unique tags to identify arrrangements or transcriptions. Firstly by the level 3 header:

===Arrangements and Transcriptions===

... and then a level 5 header indicating the forces used:

=====For piano solo (Liszt)=====

If we make sure that these headings are always placed at the correct level and their syntax is correct, then this could eventually provide a neat solution to the problem of identifying arrangements and making them searchable as well. Just a thought...

[steltz]

I do think we need to eventually try to find a way for works such as these to come up under searches, though it's not urgent, and probably won't involve large numbers of works. I'm not that familiar with wiki-speak, so if the previous post is a solution, that's great!

Just to clarify using the examples I gave earlier, if I was looking for piano + string quintet, it would be nice to know the Chopin and Beethoven concerto arrangements exist, and that IMSLP has them.

I'm not so concerned about the piano reductions -- a search for "clarinet concerto" will bring up everything including the piano reductions, because the word concerto is in the title.

I would think the "invisible" ones will mainly be where the work type of the arrangement isn't in the title of the original.

[imslp]

After two days of intense coding, the new tagging system is up. All librarians should be part of the group "Librarians" so they can edit MediaWiki:Genres. For this purpose I have made Davydov, as project leader, a Beaurocrat so he can make the project members part of the librarian group.

Pertanent pages:
http://imslp.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Genres (this page also has all the currently available documentation)
http://imslp.org/wiki/Special:GenreParserInfo
http://imslp.org/wiki/Special:CategoryWalker/Scores (play around with this one)

Please fill in gaps in the documentation (I will most likely not have time to do any more), and ask me questions for what you don't understand. The current documentation is minimal but should be enough to get you started. Experiment with the system and document what you see for future/other users.

Please bring all bugs to my attention.

@Steltz: I'm not giving up trying to find a way to get arrangements in there, but at the moment they are not included in the genre system. What Davydov suggested is possible (and neat), but tricky to program and perhaps there is a better solution.

@All: Please do not worry about, or do, arrangement tagging.

[Operalala]

I would like to point out several problems with these categories, some of which are general, and some of which effect Vocalists:

In General:
1) Many of these tags will cause problems when they are incorporated into a category tree because they cross genres. For example,
"Airs" can be instrumental or vocal - which "higher work type category" will they be assigned to? If they included are in the instrumental branch of the category tree, you will have vocal music mixed in with the instrumental works and absent from Vocal branch, or vice versa if all "Airs" are assigned to Vocal music.
2) Titles are often unhelpful in categorizing - i.e is Strauss' "Cappricio" really a cappricio? - and shouldn't be the main factor in cataloging. In addition, titles are already searchable.

For Vocal Works:
1) There is no overall "Art Songs" category, or distinction between "Art Songs" and "Popular Songs", and the only terms on the table are language-specific. i.e. how would a Spanish Art Song be cataloged, given there are no Spanish terms on the table.
2)Davydov, you have suggested (viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2997&start=75#p16383) that the "Operetta" category will feed into the "Opera" category. This will make it impossible to narrow down any search for just Operas.
3)Also operas and operettas are more closely related to other "Vocal Works", and should be grouped with them, not with Ballets in a "Stage Works" supercategory.

Operalala

[imslp]

In General:

1. Categories can have multiple lineages. But that's not what you want. You want separate categories "Arias (vocal)" and "Arias (instrumental)". Which can feed into a separate "Aria" parent if the Librarians want.
2. This is a judgment decision to be made by librarians. I would strongly suggest using title categorization. We do not want to get into philosophical debates about music genres.

For Vocal:

1. Languages can be a separate tag/category branch (tags are not limited to Genre/Instrumentation combos). The specifics is a judgment decision by librarians.
2. This may be fixed by reverse intersect (i.e. NOT in category X), which is not yet implemented, but may be in the future. Otherwise also a judgment decision.
3. Judgment decision.

@All:

I hereby give Davydov the power to have the final say on any aspect of the Librarian Project. Of course, he is expected to listen to diverse opinions and suggestions, but in the event that there is a dispute unresolvable by discussion, he will have the power to specify a resolution, and that result is binding to all IMSLP contributors.

Otherwise, the decision of any single Librarian is binding against non-Librarians (but not against other Librarians or, of course, Davydov). Disputes amongst Librarians unresolvable by themselves will be resolved by Davydov. All Librarians are expected to have good wiki manners and use good faith in furtherance of the Project. Do not view any decision by Davydov or the Librarians as personal, because they aren't.

Davydov will also have the power to select new Librarians, provided that the power is used judicially.

@Davydov:

I forgot to mention in my last post that there are two categories automatically created when necessary: Category:Untagged pages and Category:Unknown tag, both of which apply to applicable work pages.

[Davydov]

@Feldmahler — Many thanks for completing your hard work much sooner than expected. Having read the documentation several times, I still don't understand a word of it, but I'll keep trying

@Librarians — The tagging process won't start for at least another 24 hours (and possibly not until Tuesday), and in the meantime I'll put together further guidance notes so that we all know exactly what we're supposed to be doing.

@Operalala — You haven't quite grasped how the new system will work. Wait until you see it in action...

[imslp]

@Davydov: The way to approach this entire mess is to dive in Replace the "Test" categories and tags with real ones (maybe implementing the Beethoven tags?), and trying it on a real work page. Play around with it.

The system gave me a headache to design, and it won't be satisfying to me if it didn't give you a headache to use! Just kidding. The system is actually imo very malleable and once you get the hang of it it should be rather intuitive.

Also it might be helpful to remember that there are three parts to the entire system:

1. Category intersects (now allows up to 10 categories, use the CategoryWalker to see the syntax)
2. Category walker (to see what other categories are included by pages in a specific intersect, answers questions such as: What types of instrumentations exist for works in genre X?)
3. Tagging system (i.e. MediaWiki:Genres and |Tags=)

[Operalala]

Feldmahler,

1) This is also a problem with having multiple liniages for individual tags - someone searching instrumental works would have to wade through vocal works, and vice versa.
2) I'm not saying that a symphony cannot be categorized a "Symphony" because that's it's title, but titles can be quite imaginative, and catagorizing really needs to be based on informed judgement.

1) "Languages can be a separate tag/category branch." Yes, please! make the language field a categorical. There would also need to be the option to have two languages - i.e Verdi's "Don Carlos", which was originally in French, then composer-revised in Italian.
2)Operas do need their own category, like "Airs" and all the others.
3)I apologize if my focus on vocal music implies my judgement is less than informed.

[imslp]

The reason I say "judgment decision" is not to disparage everyone else. I gave Davydov final say on the entire project because sometimes:

1. Compromises are necessary for technical or other reasons,
2. Implementation cost outweighs utility,
3. People simply can't agree philosophically, no matter how well informed,
4. Prolongation of argumentation is detrimental to the morale of everyone involved (i.e. too much energy wasted on too little return), or
5. Other suitable situations I cannot foresee at the moment but may arise.

Like I said, Davydov will (must) listen to your (informed) opinions, but he will also have to power to ignore them should they fall into the above categories. I didn't pick Davydov to know more than every other IMSLP contributor; I picked Davydov to synthesize all the opinions (and make final decisions where appropriate) and guide the project. Considerations he must take into account are more than just pure academic correctness.

[Operalala]

"Davydov will (must) listen to your (informed) opinions, but he will also have to power to ignore them should they fall into the above categories. I didn't pick Davydov to know more than every other IMSLP contributor; I picked Davydov to synthesize all the opinions (and make final decisions where appropriate) and guide the project."

The problem is that Davydov is not synthesizing in any way, shape or form. This more than academic - Vocalists need to find things, too.

[Davydov]

@Operalala — I can see from your questions that you still have misapprehensions that will only be dispelled once you see the system up and running.

@Feldmahler — Thanks, the new examples help. But the bottom of the first Beethoven work page:

http://imslp.org/wiki/Adagio_for_Mandol ... udwig_van)

... shows that an "Unknown tag" category has been created, even though the tags do now seem to be recognised by the parser. Is there something more I need to do?

[imslp]

I do not see the "Unknown tag" category. Try refreshing the page or using "&action=purge".

Also see my PM response (a few items there probably should be part of the official guidelines, e.g. lowercase + distinguishing tags).

[imslp]

I think I figured out your problem. Your previous edit to MW:G (Mediawiki:Genres) caused "Empty Tag" errors (see my note on MW:G). Empty tags are ignored, so your "adagio" tag would become an "unknown tag".

I've fixed this. See my note.

[Davydov]

That's fixed it, thanks. As you suggested earlier, sometimes you need to break things to find out how they work

[imslp]

Also, feel free to drop the "For" prefix you have on the instrumentation categories, since it is not useful. Unless you have some other consideration. (I know I started it with the "Piece for Kazoo..." thing, but really "Piece for" does not belong in Instrumentation, but in Work Type.)