User talk:Robert.Allen/Archive 1

Template:Albéniz operas

Hi Robert.Allen, Thanks for the message, I find it interesting. If you have the reference for what you said, it is best if you could edit the article first. The template usually was created based on the data in the article. I will bring up your concern to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera, and I was hoping if you could participate in the discussion. I will make a changes after you and other members have amended the article. - Jay (talk) 11:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I have edited the template - Jay (talk) 13:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Classical music topics

This page needs some work: Music stand

Discussion of stands in general should be deleted: A large portion of this article discusses "stands" in general, rather than the topic of the article title: "music stands" The section begins:

Despite this basic definition, by the middle of the 18th century, many stands had developed into more elaborate constructions fitted with various open shelves, drawers, and other compartments for the display of various items such as plate and china.

and ends

Nevertheless, the distinction becomes fuzzy with certain pieces when the stand is no longer a separate construction but rather an integral part of the piece in question, as, for example, a speaker’s desk or a lectern.

This whole section should be deleted.

Also there are no references for this article.--Robert.Allen (talk) 20:46, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Busoni Catalogs

Current projects:

1) Catalog of adaptations by Ferruccio Busoni

• Under construction--Robert.Allen (talk) 20:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

2) Catalog of original compositions by Ferruccio Busoni

• Need to work on Details of table BV 201 to 303--Robert.Allen (talk) 20:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Doktor Faust

Thanks. :-) Same to you. Its been fun improving the article together.Singingdaisies (talk) 10:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Ferruccio Busoni and Egon Petri

Hello Robert! I may need some advice on how to proceed with the Petri biography. Specifically, if I were to find a box of notes taken by student on his piano method, would that meet the standard for inclusion? The problem here is that his method was almost entirely transmitted by oral tradition. My piano teacher, a student of Petri's, did keep notes - and I may be able to locate some of them. Have you or do you know of a favorite Editor to consult on these matters? Another thing I'm not sure about is whether Wikipedia prefers to capture factual details about his life, or factual details about his most important contribution... that being his approach to playing the piano (IMO). Thanks in advance :) Reechard (talk) 08:22, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello Reechard, If you find the box, and the notes appear to be valuable, you will be doing some original research (which is great). Wikipedia has a "policy" against including "original" research, but this seems to be a gray area to me. What if you were to deposit the materials with a library, where they would be available to others? You could cite their location, then perhaps that might meet Wikipedia requirements. (I'm not an expert on this. I'm not that familiar with other editors who could help you out.) You should probably keep copies. Do any of your local college or university libraries have archive departments? You might also consider scanning them into PDF files and uploading them to Wikimedia Commons. (I like this option because they would be immediately available to anyone, anywhere.) Wikimedia Commons is supposed to be for media files and pictures. Isn't a scan of a handwritten document a picture? (There is also an area called Wikisource. See Wikisource:What Wikisource includes, but these are text files, so you would have to transcribe it into text. Also, I think they require that the document has been published first.) Once the notes are uploaded and available, then you could link to them from the Petri article. To upload them, you would have to have permission from the copyright holder: the person who wrote them (or whoever inherited the copyright?). This is an area I'm not very familiar with. You might want do a little research on this, if you're up to it, on Wikipedia's help pages. This might be a place to start: Wikipedia:Questions Sorry I don't know very much about this. Wish I could help more. It seems important, so good luck! --Robert.Allen (talk) 19:03, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Robert, I don't know if you'll see this note on a very old thread, but I have good news! There is an UNPUBLISHED BOOK by my teacher that I need to go fetch. In it he no doubt has SAVED IMPORTANT NOTES ON THE PETRI (and Libermann) METHOD! Sorry for shouting, but I'm excited that the past seems to have anticipated the future, and I found a present left by my dear deceased mentor. I'll let you know more when I "take possession" of the goods :) It's not original research any longer! Reechard (talk) 03:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Odd character...

That character depicts fine for me with both IE and firefox. Its a bit large and odd-looking, but it works. How did you create that symbol?

If it were me, though, I'd stay simple and just use the regular asterisk in a nowiki block: <nowiki>*</nowiki> depicting as (*) Cheers. DavidRF (talk) 17:57, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Fredrik Fors

Hello Robert.Allen. Thanks for that article, very nice! I own that recording, excellent performance of Poulenc's Sonate and Martinů's Sonatine (this is one of the best chamber compositions for clarinet ever, in my opinion). Have a good day! --Vejvančický (talk) 07:34, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely, the Martinu was a highlight! --Robert.Allen (talk) 07:43, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Blacklist

Thanks and sorry I appreciate you asking for my input on blacklisting theclassicshop, but I honestly don't have anything to add. Please post on my talk if you need me. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:35, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: Screen reader edits

Hi Robert, I use a screen reader called JAWS, which is one of the most popular Windows screen readers for blind people. When it encounters an HTML list of 4 items with blank lines between them, it will read them like so: "list of 1 items, blah, list end; list of 1 items, blah, list end; list of 1 items ...". When I remove the blank lines, it reads the list like this: "list of 4 items, blah blah blah blah, list end", which is much easier to read. Most complex screen readers will do the same thing with lists. Graham87 18:41, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Hello. There is one more thing to consider : the HTML code that MediaWiki produces. There are three steps : 1. You type text in wiki syntax in the edit box. 2. MediaWiki translate that text into HTML. 3. A screen reader tries to make something useful of the HTML and reads it aloud.

"A single blank line between items in a list does not mean the start of a new list." Well, I do believe Screen readers already work that way. The problem is, MediaWiki interprets a "blank line between items in a list" as "the start of a new list". Therefore, MediaWiki produces the corresponding (and wrong) HTML code, and screen readers get the wrong information.

See, in HTML, <ul> means "beginning of a new list", and </ul> means "end of the list". <li> means "beginning of an item in the list", and </li> means "end of item in the list". Knowing that, you should understand the following code produced by MediaWiki:

The HTML list before Graham's edit:

<ul>
<li>Book 1: Preludietto, Fughetta ed Esercizio...</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Book 2: Preludio, Fuga e Fuga figurata...</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Book 3: Giga, Bolero e Variazione...</li>
</ul>

The HTML list after Graham's edit:

<ul>
<li>Book 1: Preludietto, Fughetta ed Esercizio...</li>
<li>Book 2: Preludio, Fuga e Fuga figurata...</li>
<li>Book 3: Giga, Bolero e Variazione...</li>
</ul>

As you can see, the problem is with the code MediaWiki produces. If you want it to be fixed, you should open a bug at bugzilla. Tell the developers there that "a single blank line between items in a list does not mean the start of a new list". Provide a link to this explanation of mine, they will understand it. I'm not sure they would agree though, but it's worth trying. :-) Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 21:51, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dodoïste: Thank you so much for the explanation. I have a question though: how would they introduce the blank line in the HTML code? Would they need to use "<br />"? --Robert.Allen (talk) 00:48, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I tried it with your sample code, but it seems to insert a blank line that is too tall:

• Book 1: Preludietto, Fughetta ed Esercizio...


• Book 2: Preludio, Fuga e Fuga figurata...


• Book 3: Giga, Bolero e Variazione...

Not as nice as the previous version of the An die Jugend article: here. --Robert.Allen (talk) 00:56, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Of course, what I did gets translated to this:

<ul>
<li>Book 1: Preludietto, Fughetta ed Esercizio...</li>
<li style="list-style: none"><br /></li>
<li>Book 2: Preludio, Fuga e Fuga figurata...</li>
<li style="list-style: none"><br /></li>
<li>Book 3: Giga, Bolero e Variazione...</li>
<li style="list-style: none"><br /></li>
</ul>

Seems I'm pretty in the dark about these things! --Robert.Allen (talk) 01:01, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

If you want a blank line between each item in a bulleted list, add <br/> at the end of each item. This will not effect how screen readers interpret list items. Yes, it would be nice if there was some way to fix it through software; it would be a good function of HTML Tidy, which is used on Wikipedia, or just MediaWiki itself. There's a little bit about discontinuous HTML lists at Wikipedia:Accessibility#Lists.

As for OCR programs that read text aloud, two good examples are Kurzweil 1000 from Kurzweil Educational Systems and OpenBook from Freedom Scientific, but they are quite expensive. I don't know of any free options.

Re: links, JAWS puts each link on its own line so they're easy to distinguish, and this is true of other screen readers such as NVDA. Which screen reader are you using? Most good screen readers should tell a user when there's a link in a page. --Graham87 (talk) 2:58, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Aha, you're using VoiceOver. It can do some advanced things, but I don't know how to use it effectively. Graham87 05:51, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome - I'm happy to provide help with accessibility! Graham87 07:20, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

You can use CSS to do that:

<ul>
<li style="margin-bottom: 8px;">Book 1: Preludietto, Fughetta ed Esercizio...</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 8px;">Book 2: Preludio, Fuga e Fuga figurata...</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 8px;">Book 3: Giga, Bolero e Variazione...</li>
</ul>

And the result wil be:

• Book 1: Preludietto, Fughetta ed Esercizio...
• Book 2: Preludio, Fuga e Fuga figurata...
• Book 3: Giga, Bolero e Variazione...

But using HTML and CSS in articles makes them harder to edit. If it improves readability, you might want to start a new discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). It might be a good idea to improve the readability of every list. Many users there know how to do that. :-) Dodoïste (talk) 00:18, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thanks! That's a great tip. These articles don't get edited much, so it's probably not that big a problem if we do it. Plus usually people can figure out how to add something by following the example of what's already there. --Robert.Allen (talk) 00:27, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

You can also add to your Special:Mypage/monobook.css Special:Mypage/vector.css the following code :

li
{
padding-bottom:5px;
}

If you want more or less space, you simply change the value of the pixel. :-) This code adds a space between every item in a list, and the TOC is concerned too because it is also a list. Customizing your monobook.css or vector.css is a better approach, because it won't affect people who might have a different opinion about this blank space. And editing won't be more complicated. :-) Yours, Dodoïste (talk) 23:07, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

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Cedilla

The change is random because it is applied in one article out of a million - this can't work as a way of changing consensus. I'm far from offended, and I would picture neither are the Romanian editors who stuck with it in the first place, before I even came here - the really absurd thing was that the people at the Academy got up and thought of this quirk long after everybody else was using the regular letter, and expected the world to follow - which it still doesn't do. This is far from a "huge mistake", and it's probably not even a mistake of any sort (also note that this "practice" is not followed on the Romanian wikipedia, where Timişoara [sic] is an FA). Now, I'd imagine that a million page moves and a million more edits of various phrases in articles would take more that some IP shouting the claim on an isolated talk page (especially after years of consensus), but I consider your move nothing other than an honest mistake. Dahn (talk) 09:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I probably should have asked first, but I thought the reader had a legitimate point. Since then, I've gone to the Romanian Wikipedia and they use the same s with the cedilla just like here. So now you have me totally convinced. Sorry for causing trouble. --Robert.Allen (talk) 09:17, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

No problem. Would you please change it in the philharmonic article as well? Dahn (talk) 09:32, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay, that was an edit conflict - I was replying here while you were on my talk page. You could either ask an admin to do it or go with Wikipedia:Requested moves. The easier way is to move it a new title (like Banatul Philharmonic of Timişoara), but that may break precedents on naming for philharmonics (you may know more than me about what those are, if any). Dahn (talk) 09:35, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know of any reason why we couldn't use that title (Banatul Philharmonic of Timişoara). I'm getting very tired, so I'll try to do it tomorrow. Thanks for the help. --Robert.Allen (talk) 09:40, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. See you around. Dahn (talk) 09:41, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Discographies

Thanks for your reply. The best discographies are probably the opera ones. There are 29 of them, see Category:Opera discographies, see also Plácido Domingo discography. Formats are explained here.

WP:CM discographies are less developed. See for example The Planets discography which needs a lot of work. (I should also mention is that none of the discographies (AFAIK) use sortable tables (as for example List of operas by Handel. This could be useful in, say, grouping recordings by conductor or by orchestra.)

Please let me know if I can give you any more information or suggestions for future work.--Kleinzach 23:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Busoni Piano Concerto

Oh, don't worry, Robert. I've read that intro a hundred times without noticing anything odd before. Around here, we come to expect things to be written not quite as we would have done, and that's OK, by and large, but every once in a while my editor's blue pen comes out and goes to town. Cheers. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:18, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Stalingrad

Thanks for your comments. Do you think that it is ready for a GAN?--Coldplay Expért ^{Let's talk} 00:27, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't reading it with that in mind, and I have no experience with GANs. I did think it is one of the better articles I've read in a while. It's probably pretty close to that stage. I could reread it, and if I see anything that seems like a problem to me I could give you feedback on it. (Probably mostly general editing things.) But it's not an area that I know at all, and I don't have any reference books on the subject, so I might not see many things that could potentially be a problem. --Robert.Allen (talk) 02:13, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry about the refs or anything else. Seeing as I hold one of the largest private collections of World War II related books and other stuff that I have ever seen of people where I live. Im sure I can handle the ref problems. Almost all of the images need to be replaced though, because the ruskies inacted a law in January of 08 that results in all of the images's copyrights being unknown. Once I get the images fixed. Ill nominate it. You can help by re-reading the article and finding any sentences or paragraohs that need a ref. You can also check all the external links and see if they are broken. If you do find anything, just report it on the talk page and Ill get too it. Thanks!--Coldplay Expért ^{Let's talk} 02:31, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Great comment on WWII

Excellent comment, noting that the WWII article should probably mention the word Nazi somewhere in the introduction, in order for people unfamiliar to the topic to be introduced to the term.

Please feel free to stop by Encyc. I am known as Emperor there. Sole Flounder (talk) 02:33, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

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Message to BB on Sherlock Holmes

Please see my message to Bovineboy2008 at User_talk:Bovineboy2008 regarding the Sherlock Holmes film rating.--WickerGuy (talk) 16:26, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your support. The discussion got transferred to Talk:Sherlock Holmes (2009 film)#Ratings. I'm afraid I'm outnumbered there, and it's not likely I will persuade any of them. Not sure it's worth the effort. My own thoughts on it are that valid justifications for deleting sourced information are really very limited, and there aren't any good ones in this case, but consensus is often very difficult to achieve. --Robert.Allen (talk) 07:58, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I regret to say that I have shifted my thinking on this. Regardless of vague policy, de facto WP has discussed movie ratings whenever there is a public controversy over the ratings. All of the following films have had their MPAA ratings discussed on Wikipedia

Last Tango in Paris

Crash (1996 film)

Boys Don't Cry

Kids

Swimming Pool

Gremlins

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

Live Free or Die Hard

The Fly II

Eyes Wide Shut

Angel Heart

Dracula (1958)

Facing the Giants

Coming Soon (1999

In all cases there was public controversy over whether the rating was appropriate or over the granting of Adults Only to such a high-profile film. The closest we get to the issues you raise of Sherlock Holmes is the film Live Free or Die Hard since it is the 4th film a series in which the first three are rated R, but this one a mere PG-13. So the precedent of previous practice seems to be to discuss film ratings whenever there is a lot of public discussion about them. This has not in fact happened with the Sherlock Holmes films. There should be no surprise there. It has the same PG-13 rating as recent James Bond films and recent Star Trek films. I therefore respectfully state that I side with the majority, although I think it was technically incorrect to appeal to WP:Notability as that effects the existence of entire articles, and they should instead of appealed to WP:Indiscriminate. Sometimes editors make the right decision but appeal imprecisely to the wrong policy.

Happy New Year--WickerGuy (talk) 17:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Erik's mention of MOS:FILM#Ratings pretty much concurs with what I just said.--WickerGuy (talk) 18:04, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

1812 Overture

In April 2007, this article had a refimprove template put onto it. I've done some work, and since the user who originally placed the template there is gone, I thought you could tell me if you think the template can be removed now. Brambleclawx 16:31, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

If you think there are enough valid references, then you may remove it. If another editor thinks there should be more, then they will add it back. I looked through the article, it seems to have quite a few citations, but I have not checked them in detail, so I do not feel I should remove it. --Robert.Allen (talk) 17:44, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

At least one of the citations (which is used four times) is to a website which is taken from the Wikipedia article itself. You need to verify that the citation is to an article which provides information which was not taken from the Wikipedia article. The Internet Archive can sometimes be useful to verify that the citation predates the information in the Wikipedia. In view of this I think this issue needs to be addressed more carefully. --Robert.Allen (talk) 17:52, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I have no idea how to use Internet Archive, sorry. I tried my best, but some thigns are just beyond me. Brambleclawx 17:56, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

No problem. I appreciate your bringing this to my attention. I have copied our discussion to the article talk page Talk:1812 Overture, where it really belongs. Please make any additional comments there. --Robert.Allen (talk) 18:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Calcitriol merger

Hi. I tweaked the {{Copied}} tags that you placed and added more detailed edit summaries via dummy edits. You did a good job and don't need to change anything – I'm working through using some undocumented parameters. Thanks. Flatscan (talk) 04:43, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

So far I haven't been able to figure out where you get the ID numbers.--Robert.Allen (talk) 08:07, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Now I see: they are in the url. --Robert.Allen (talk) 08:09, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

You did 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase nearly perfectly. I finished up with a {{R from merge}} on the redirect. Keep in mind that all the oldid stuff is optional, if it's too much trouble.

Let me know if you have any other questions, and I'll try to answer them in the revised documentation, with links to Help:Page history and Help:Diff. Flatscan (talk) 04:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Stiffelio

I posted another comment following your research, for which many thanks.

Also, I noticed that you made some valuable additions to the article based on the Met's program notes of Sat. 23rd January. We must have both been at the same performance. While reading Phil Gossett's notes, it had occured to me that some additions were in order, so I'm glad you got there first. All the best, Viva-Verdi (talk) 05:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC) from Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I can't claim to have added the info from the Met program. That was already in the article when I edited it. I just rearranged things a bit, so it would (at least to me) read better. What got me onto Stiffelio in the first place was the question of whether the American premiere was in Boston or New York. It didn't take much effort to discover the NY Times article reviewing the small-scale stage production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. So I started re-editing the article to reflect that information. I saw Stiffelio in Boston with Sarah Caldwell conducting and Anna Moffo (who unfortunately was ill and not singing her best). I've never seen it at the Met in New York, but I have the Met's video, but not Covent Garden's. Anyway, you now have me thinking that perhaps the London production did Act III in three scenes. You must have gotten that idea from somewhere (plus the rather specific info that the putative scene 2 setting is Stiffelio's house, which makes great sense) and as you say the music is written so as to accommodate a scene change at that point. Do you think you will be getting your video back anytime soon? I've added it to the top of my Blockbuster queue, and their web site says it's available, but that doesn't always mean it will get here right away. --Robert.Allen (talk) 05:45, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

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Left a note for you up there

Under your previous reply in the section Ferruccio Busoni and Egon Petri Reechard (talk) 03:16, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Dash policy

Please see WP:DASH If something is still unclear, please post on my talk. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Clarification Looking back at your posts on my talk, I'm not sure that I actually addressed your question. I was replacing {{ndash}} with  – because that is what the former actually outputs. Upon further consideration, I'm not sure that it's necessary to replace it, so I've stopped. And, as you can see, I fixed the error that you pointed out for me. Thanks for your responses. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:58, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Salle Ventadour

This is a nice article, and it meets the criteria for the did you know column on the page, so I've nominated it at Template talk:Did you know. In the future, you may wish to nominate any other articles you create which meet the criteria—created or expanded 5x in 5 days, 1500 bytes of prose, and referenced properly—yourself. Thanks for creating these articles! —innotata 01:01, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Salle Ventadour

Materialscientist (talk) 16:02, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Mademoiselle de Condé and her Hôtel

Monsieur, as it was only her residence, i felt it made sense to name it after her! There is a need to diferentiate between Louise Adélaides home and that of her brothers. as I believe (have read within this page) the principle Condé house was the Hôtel de Condé and later the Palais Bourbon after the demolition of the former. However, i do like the idea of naming the articles after the road. I feel its important to differentiate the two for, not only people familiar with the French court and its people, but people who are not
Monsieur le Duc LouisPhilippeCharles (talk) 13:28, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Hii, sorry for taking sooo long to reply; here we go:

1. removed the Condé as it is like a way of differentiating her from other Louise Adélaide's of the era (such as her great aunt (Mademoiselle de La Roche-sur-Yon) and as such were not were not born as Bourbon-Condé - Bourbon was the family name and Condé was the main lines title; like the Hôtel's themselves, as there was more than one it was easy to tell which was which! I think it is confusing to readers who are not familiar with this and therefore patrol that issue alot.
2. I agree with your about the brackets: Now I also notice you added brackets like this: Hôtel de [Bourbon-]Condé - just say it has been incorrectly known as X
3. With regards to the name of the article, what do you want to do!? Personally i feel the road name would be fine emphasising that that property was hers and the other was her brother's (Make sense!?)
4. Also, yes she does seem to have been a nice woman, maybe slightly lonely due to her life in a convent. Personally, I prefer her mother Charlotte de Rohan ;)

P.S I really hope this makes sense, I have a habit of droning on..! Monsieur le Duc 21:12, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Robert Allen: answer to your post on my talk page. Cordialement, --Frania W. (talk) 04:38, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I have also :) Monsieur le Duc LouisPhilippeCharles (talk) 12:56, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Robert, what does this mean "a drawback is that Bourbon-Condé is apparently a misnomer," ? Je ne comprends pas ce que vous voulez dire. Cordialement, --Frania W. (talk) 23:49, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

La marquise de Brinvilliers

Thanks for the kind words and for the proofreading, too! It all started with a quiz in the latest Opera Boston program for La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 02:07, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

You are now a Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, is currently undergoing a two-month trial scheduled to end 15 August 2010.

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under pending changes. Pending changes is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial. The list of articles with pending changes awaiting review is located at Special:OldReviewedPages.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Courcelles (talk) 18:45, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Dupont death

See search results here.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:08, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Project on 20th century French drama

Hi Robert-- I noticed that you have made edits to Athenaeum Theatre. I am looking for people who are interested in creating quality articles on the plays of Jean Giraudoux and related subjects. I am so delighted that some people are beginning to contribute to the array of articles related to Giraudoux and French theatre in general. Nice job, by the way. I just this morning started really working on Atheneaum myself. I was thinking of just plugging in the clumsy Google translation (ugh) for the time being. But what you did is so much better. Thanks.

Giraudoux is not a big enough subject to be a WikiProject; but all of 20th century French drama certainly would be. For a more complete outline of ideas on the subject, see my personal page at the link below. If you are interested, drop me a note on that same personal page.

French drama --Foobarnix (talk) 05:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but my knowledge of French theatre (and language) is pretty minimal. It's not that I'm not interested. But if I find sources in English, I will contribute what I can. --Robert.Allen (talk) 07:09, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

See Ondine References and especially Ondine Further reading for sources in English. I do not know if you have a good library where you are. Finding authoritative information about France is difficult to do online and this really slows me down. I am still working to get more people. Thanks for your interest. --Foobarnix (talk) 10:09, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Pierre Renoir

Hi Robert -- good catch on the Pierre Renoir reference to his tenure at the Atheneaum -- it's my fault, I mis-read the French source. It's corrected, and thanks! --Lockley (talk) 03:55, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

List of demolished entertainment venues in Paris

....and to follow up on your three suggestions about former theatres, I've taken your suggestions and fixed the articles and categories accordingly. Again, thanks for the heads-up. --Lockley (talk) 04:10, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

SW (talk) 00:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)== Henry-Louis de La Grange ==

Henry-Louis de La Grange

Dear Robert,

As I am new to Wikipedia, I appreciate your input. However, I did not copy anything from another website, but worked from a biography Henry-Louis himself gave me personally. Since this is more or less his standard biography, he probably also published it elsewhere. However, as he himself gave it to me and thereby authorized me to use it, I don't see that this could constitute a violation of copyright. Does he need to sign a release of any kind?

Best,

Sybille Werner —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sw1818 (talk • contribs) 00:08, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Robert, I very much appreciate your input. Although I consider myself fairly computer literate, wikipedia does not make it easy for a novice. Most of the help pages are written in legalese. What is missing is a really good, concise "how-to" section, with references to the more elaborate existing "help" pages. All that aside, we are working on the photo issue. The photo does belong to the photographer, Dominique Degli-Esposti. I have already asked him to send the release to the permissions address. We are also trying to include the photo on wikimedia, so it will be available for the French, German and Italian versions of the page which are planned. Part of the problem is communication, since the photographer speaks limited English and I almost no French. Today a mutual friend was going to try to work with him, on the French wikimedia page, to supply the necessary releases.

SW (talk) 23:03, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

And thank you for all the work you have done formatting, researching, and adding information and links to the page!!!

SW (talk) 00:05, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

How can this be removed from the top of the page, now that you have reviewed it:

This page is a new unreviewed article. This template should be removed once the page has been reviewed by someone other than its creator; if necessary the page should be appropriately tagged for cleanup. If you are the article's creator, you can seek feedback on your new article. (September 2010) SW (talk) 02:03, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

No problem. I have more that I would eventually like to go over, but the template looks terrible. Since all Wikipedia articles are constantly subject to review, there is no need for it. I hope the changes I have been making are acceptable and improve the article. --Robert.Allen (talk) 02:31, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

La Grange is the proper way to refer to Henry-Louis when only the last name is used. However, I have found that most people talk about him as de La Grange, so I guess either one would be acceptable. SW (talk) 03:45, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

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Talkback

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DYK for Lodovico Graziani

— Rlevse • Talk • 12:03, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Nice work!

Great job on expanding Marie Sasse‎. I nominated it for DYK. Cheers.4meter4 (talk) 20:17, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. Just goes to show what a little stub creation can inspire. :-)4meter4 (talk) 21:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Marie Sasse

— Rlevse • Talk • 12:02, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Théâtre vs Theatre

Message for you on my talk page.Foobarnix (talk) 09:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Another short message for you on my talk page. I am never sure where to put these discussions: on my talk page? on your talk page? on the talk page of the relevant article? (my favorite since I keep such articles on my watchlist.)

• Robert -- I took your suggestion and moved our discussion from my talk page to the Theatre Marigny discussion page. See a couple new remarks there. Also, feel free to delete this section from your talk page. By the way, if you need a fantastic site for finding the Latitude and Longitude of any address in the world, see here--Foobarnix (talk) 06:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Odéon Theatre

Robert - The same issue of Théâtre vs Theatre that existed for Théâtre de l'Athénée also exists for the Odéon Theatre and perhaps the other two theatres below:

• Odéon Theatre (in French: Théâtre de l'Odéon)
• Comédie-Italienne (in French: Théâtre italien de Paris) note the illogical lower case i
• Bouffes du Nord (in French: Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord)

Any thoughts on this? Perhaps continue discussion at Talk:Odéon Theatre.

I have been wandering around adding latitude & longitudes and also fixing the sort template for various venues. I am baffled that Théâtre de l'Athénée appears under "C" in the list of theatres Category:Theatres in Paris. (Am I missing something or is there a bug in Wikipedia sorting?)Foobarnix (talk) 21:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I fixed the sorting problem. An incorrect sort tag was present, probably because the category was entered by using copy/paste and the sort tag failed to be updated.

Regarding names, the policy is to use names most commonly employed in English-language sources. In addition, the French Wikipedia, besides being in French rather than English, is like the English Wikipedia, that is, it is not considered a valid source and can't be cited as one in Wikipedia articles. An apparent exception is when articles have been translated into English from the French Wikipedia. If the French Wikipedia article has cited sources, these should be included in the translated article. Any information from the French Wikipedia which appears in a translation that is not sourced can be challenged and deleted from the English Wikipedia. Also, English-language sources are generally preferred, and hopefully these translated articles will be edited over time with this in mind. When good English-language sources are lacking, of course, French sources will have to be cited.

We can try to address the specific names issues on the article talk pages. But generally, if two versions of the name are commonly used in English sources, an anglicized one like Odéon Theatre (similar to Athénée Theatre) might be preferred over the French name. It was only because there appeared to be a significant preference for Théâtre de l'Athénée in the English sources that I suggested we should prefer it over Athénée Theatre, although something like this is always open to discussion. In the case of the Odéon, I don't know. I haven't really looked at the literature with this in mind. I would say, we should not rush to move any pages to/from the anglicized names without some careful investigation into the English-language sources. This may not be a high priority issue. (Since "Athenaeum Theatre" seemed to not be used much at all in the sources, I thought it was a good idea to change it.) Regarding the Marigny, Marigny Theatre seemed like a viable alternative, but Theatre Marigny did not. Again the sources seemed to show a marked preference for Théâtre Marigny, so I think we made the right move by adding back the diacriticals.

Regarding the capitalization issue, I've never understood French practice, but not capitalizing words in titles, especially adjectives, appears to be quite common, even in proper names. For example, I believe the Paris Opera was often referred to as the "Académie royale de musique" (but compare [1] and [2]). Editors, and and both French- and English-language authors, seem to frequently disagree about these things. --Robert.Allen (talk) 23:26, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

By the way, we need to prefix Category:Theatres in Paris with a colon (the colon shows up in the edit box) in order to keep my talk page from appearing in the category and also make a link to the category page appear in the text instead of at the bottom of the page. (This is easy to forget.) --Robert.Allen (talk) 23:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello! I've just noticed this conversation! I've been active on these articles during the past few days - and indeed I've been in contact with Foobarnix. Perhaps I should explain that I moved Bouffes du Nord to Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord on the basis that we have used original names (with accents) for other opera houses and theatres. I think the rule is that we don't anglicize unless a well-established anglicization already exists (e.g. Vienna State Opera) and these are rare. I also arranged for Odéon Theatre to be changed to Théâtre de l'Odéon. Is this OK? (My interest in the theatres is related to the Category:Lists of operas by composer which includes detail about theatres.) Regards. Best. --Kleinzach 00:50, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I haven't looked in detail as this particular theatre, but I do not have any problem with your change. As you may have noticed I can sometimes get a bit carried away with researching things (probably a result of going to school for too long). --Robert.Allen (talk) 01:04, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps I should also explain the Wiki-history of the vexed subject of French capitalization? There is no one system of course, but (many) years ago the Opera Project adopted the one which is used by most of the publishers including Grove, it's explained here. This is directed to opera titles, but by extension to theatre names, however if the theatre itself officially uses a different form of capitalization that might trump the normal capitalization rule. Hope that helps! --Kleinzach 01:20, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the article titles for theatres I was trying to use WP:UCN as a guide and then searching Google Books to try to find what seemed to be most commonly used name in English language sources. Regarding caps and the opera titles, our current practice is fine with me, but I confess, I sometimes forget to use it and just copy what is in the source I am using at the time. Thanks for the help. --Robert.Allen (talk) 02:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it is unfortunate that MOS gives somewhat different advice: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (France & French-related)#Works of art. But I find the rules there excessively complicated, and as a counterexample, the book edited by Fauser and Everist Music, Theater, and Cultural Transfer absolutely follows the same capitalization rules for opera titles as the opera project. So I feel our current practice is much preferable to MOS, and I would not suggest changing anything. --Robert.Allen (talk) 02:32, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Given that the French themselves never sorted this out themselves (unlike the Germans etc.) it's all 'no-win'. IMO the MOS rules would never have been practical for the music projects, partly because of their complexity but also because our coverage has overtaken the French Wikipedia itself, making it difficult to follow their usage. --Kleinzach 03:15, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Théâtre des Champs-Élysées

Attention Robert and User:Kleinzach. I just discovered something disturbing about the article Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Much of it is identical to Here. I was just trying to add references and sources when I ran across this disconcerting fact. Which page is the copy? What do we do now? Paraphrase? Rewrite? Blank most of the page? Who has experience dealing with plagiarism? Is it plagiarism?--Foobarnix (talk) 07:23, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Apparently an IP copied the text from the fn.auburn.edu site in 2005, see this diff. Since then the article has developed. I think the best thing to do is paraphrase the text as much as possible to remove the copied wording. I don't think it's practical at this late stage to simply remove it. As the article improves all evidence of the copy and paste should disappear. --Kleinzach 09:48, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Kleinzach, thanks for looking at it, and the advice. I'm going to be pretty busy with other things for the next few days, so I won't be able to get to it for a while. --Robert.Allen (talk) 09:59, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

ISBNs

Robert, I wanted to make a direct post to you to make sure I've been clear, but without filling the ISBN talk pages with too many words from me. So: I agree with you that there is an existing issue with searching Wikipedia by ISBN, and this is something we should try to improve. Since websites and publishers out there use various combinations of hyphenation, spacing and no spacing for their ISBNs, we should have a search facility that allows the user to search with a valid ISBN in any of these formats, and see all the results regardless of the actual format of the ISBNs on the wiki pages. So, to this extent I agree with you there's a problem. If I didn't agree with you when you first contacted me about ISBNs, I think it was because I thought you were referring to the search in the other direction, i.e. Special:BookSources, which happily already performs the same search (or rather offers the same links) regardless of input hyphenation and spacing, which is very good. However, I do not agree with you that removing hyphenation and spacing from ISBNs is a workable solution, since users may run searches for ISBNs with any hyphenation or spacing, depending on where they saw the ISBN (lots of books show hyphenated ISBNs on the back – the four I have to hand do), and these searches would not show the right results either. So, if you agree that dehyphenation is not actually going to fully fix the search problem, I would be very happy to collaborate with you on defining in more detail our requirements for ISBN search (we haven't considered if a search for an ISBN-13 should look for the corresponding ISBN-10, wouldn't it be great if it did?), considering how we'd like it to function, raising it for discussion on the technical village pump, and (I assume) raising in mediawiki bugzilla from there. Thanks Rjwilmsi 10:11, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello Rjwilmsi, I appreciate that you have put a lot of thought into this problem in a well-intentioned effort to improve the Wikipedia. Unfortunately, the more I look at the issue the more I am convinced that it is probably not a good idea to add hyphens at this time given the current situation. Also, I think we should probably discuss it further on the appropriate talk pages. Thanks for your comment. --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:03, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Raymond Ericson

Thanks for the kind message. :-) I figured that I owed it to Ericson to create an article on him as I've cited him in over a dozen wiki articles by now. lol You may want to check out these recent additions: Donal Henahan, Theodore Strongin‎, and Robert Sherman (music critic). 4meter4 (talk) 09:31, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Henri IV of France

Your link to Project Gutenberg does not have the same publisher or year as listed in the reference I used. That is why you are not finding the correct information. --Kansas Bear (talk) 03:49, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

The italics issue

Hi. I understand from the Opera Project discussion that you intend to italicize opera titles. This is a controversial issue — one which is much bigger than the Opera Project. I've raised it here and here and I'm considering taking it to somewhere more central to get more feedback. I'm personally opposed to using italics (on typographical grounds to do with the use of disambiguators) but will accept them if there is a consensus. Perhaps you would be willing to hold off until one emerges — and also participate in the discussion? Best. --Kleinzach 01:13, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

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List of operas by Auber/sort problem

Hi. I see you have changed the 'Place, theatre' column to 'Theatre' which is fine, but I think we now have a sort problem. This column (and others like it) didn't have sort tags because originally it sorted OK without them. Now, for reasons I don't really understand, it doesn't sort accurately. --Kleinzach 09:16, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Another thing I don't understand. Why are you doing repetitive inks of Eugene Scribe, Opéra-Comique etc.? We've always done one link per table. --Kleinzach 09:23, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Regarding linking, I have read that it is incorrect to link only once in a table or list, see WP:REPEATLINK. It's probably particularly important to do this in a sortable table where the row order is changed after sorting, and there really is no "first" link.

I really don't think WP:REPEATLINK justifies a large number of repeat links. It certainly justifies a new link (after one in body text) but the opera editors have always thought that large numbers of repeats in tables are something to be avoided. I'd appreciated it if we didn't start doing this. --Kleinzach 12:23, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, the guideline is pretty unambiguous: "where the links are in a table or in a list, as each row should stand on its own", so that's what I have done. --Robert.Allen (talk) 02:22, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The theatre column is sorting correctly. Before it was sorting on City-Company. Now it is sorting on Company-Theatre. However, I can see it might be better to sort theatre names on, for example, "Bourse", "Favart", "Gymnase", etc. rather than "Theatre de", "Theatre des", "Theatre du". This could be fixed with sort tags. I checked some books. Some index theatres as, for example, "Theatre du Vaudeville", others as "Vaudeville, Theatre du", so the way it's sorting now is actually OK, so I guess I don't see any problem, unless we should change "London, Covent Garden" to "Covent Garden (London)" since "London" is not really part of the company name. --Robert.Allen (talk) 11:26, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

What I am seeing is 'Opéra-Comique, Salle Feydeau' followed by 'Opéra-Comique, Salle Ventadour' followed by 'Opéra-Comique, Salle de la Bourse". I don't see the logic to this. Am I missing something? When I looked at it before I assumed the invisible coding was affecting the sorting. --Kleinzach 12:28, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah! Thank you! I missed that. Could it be the no-break spaces? I'll check into it. --Robert.Allen (talk) 21:44, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I have not been able to replicate your result. How did you manage to get that? When I load the page and click the Theatre column sort tab, the Opéra-Comique section starts with Salle de la Bourse followed by Salle Favart II, Salle Feydeau, and Salle Ventadour. --Robert.Allen (talk) 22:09, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Strange. I've double checked. When I open the page, I immediately sort the theatre column (nothing else) and get the result described above. I've asked Michael Bednarek to have a look. (He did all the sorting code on the other lists.) --Kleinzach 22:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I realize one problem now. I'm looking at List of operas by Adam. I'd better look at the page you are talking about! Sorry! --Robert.Allen (talk) 01:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I made some changes to List of operas by Auber. Please check and make sure it's OK. Thanks for noticing this! (It was related to the formatting differences using nbsp and the nowrap template. I think it sorts better now without too much editing. (Apologies for my looking at the wrong page. I had just finished editing Adam's page, so I guess it was on my mind.) --Robert.Allen (talk) 02:08, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

For some reason I sorted Salle Doyen under Doyen and Chateau de Chimay under Chimay, but Théâtre de l'Odeon comes under T. How do we want to sort these? I'm open to any mode, just so it's as consistent as we can make it. --Robert.Allen (talk) 02:14, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

To make Odéon consistent with Chimay, Doyen, and Versailles, I sorted it under Odeon. (Versailles was sorted under V before I started this series of edits, so now we are following what was already in place.) But as I say, I don't have any strong opinion on this. I also made List of operas by Adam consistent with this mode. --Robert.Allen (talk) 02:26, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

As this is getting complicated I'll reply about List of operas by Adam on the article talk page. --Kleinzach 03:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

As you may have noticed, I'm big on simplicity (italics, links etc.) — not fixing things that aren't broken — and that goes for sorting as well. Michael and I originally found the 'place, theatre' column worked well. If we start doing case by case sorting — here by Opéra, there not by Théâtre, here by Salle etc — it all gets very time consuming and you end up with something illogical. So can we agree to leave the existing sorting as it is in future? Basically these big lists take a lot of time to produce, so we try to do them as expeditiously as possible. Having said that I do appreciate your work on clarifying the exact theatres as these are not always made very clear in Grove. Best. --Kleinzach 03:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Wild and Charlton spent a lot of time in Paris checking primary sources, verifying dates and venues for the Opéra-Comique. They published their results in 2005. I thought it was a good idea to add them to some of our articles. I tried to compare the every entry in these two tables against their book and also made an effort to make the table more readable, which is why I added formatting to the theatre column. I also tried to follow Wikipedia policy with respect to linking in the table for some but not all of the links (for instance, I did not add additional linking to the genre column). My primary aim was checking dates and adding the missing theatre names. Regarding the sorting, I followed the example of Palace of Versailles, which was already in one of the tables, where it was sorted under "V". I had not given much thought to the sorting problem until you pointed it out, but I have been willing to do the editing, and I feel the results were worth the effort. (It is not that difficult using global find/replace.) Thanks for all your help. --Robert.Allen (talk) 04:04, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Adding the Wild and Charlton stuff is really useful. We have a problem with the French theatres that actually spreads over many articles. These 'lists of operas' are intended to be (amongst other things) a kind of factual underpinning for the more popular articles, so it's important that the details are right. Unfortunately the more I look at the sorting the more I feel it's too confusing for the reader to see a list that is sometimes arranged by first letter, and sometimes by a subsequent one, (see here). --Kleinzach 04:21, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I restored the original sort order of the Theatre column (on the first word of each entry) for both Auber and Adam. That's probably the best approach. If another editor disagrees, it is not difficult to change it again. Thanks for all the feedback and help! --Robert.Allen (talk) 22:08, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Théâtre des Nouveautés

This discussion has been moved to Talk:Théâtre des Nouveautés. Please leave any further comments there. --Robert.Allen (talk) 06:08, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

List of theatres and entertainment venues in Paris

Hi Robert -- If you are not already watching my user page you may want to take a glance at: User_talk:Foobarnix#List_of_theatres_and_entertainment_venues_in_Paris

I think that Kleinzach's new article List of theatres and entertainment venues in Paris (and associated pages) is a terrific piece of work. I had already suggested to KZ that he ask you if you wanted to help. In addition, I think KZ deserves a barnstar for his work on this. (I already gave him one for something else). If you agree with me, I bet he would appreciate another one from, say, you. Just an idea. Cheers--Foobarnix (talk) 22:25, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Kleinzach has long been an outstanding contributor to the Wikipedia. It's difficult to single out any one contribution with so many great ones to choose from. Thanks for the link to the new article. I will try to take a look at it soon. --Robert.Allen (talk) 00:15, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Maude Fay

Category:Maude Fay, which you created, has been nominated for discussion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:01, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Maude Fay

Hi Robert. Regarding this comment/question, you could wait for the CfD to close but since the cat is so small, you can also do the following steps by hand. a) Create Category:Images of Maude Fay and link it to the Maude Fay article using {{catmore|Maude Fay}}. b) Change the categories on the three images. c) Tag the original category for speedy deletion by adding {{db-author}}. (I hope I'm not just saying technical things that you already knew) Best, Pichpich (talk) 21:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, this is very helpful. I already started doing the edits. --Robert.Allen (talk) 21:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Col width of cast list on all? most opera articles

One of the reasons for fixing a width on the cast column is to prevent wrapping of long names and confusion in reading them. Also, the point is that a fixed width of this column keeps the left side of the table compact for those who may have "old fashioned" old TV-shaped monitors. Then the table does not drift off to the right, requiring scrolling across.

Apart from the cast column and the date column (which establishes its own, rather narrow width) all other columns are left alone.

I beleive that there is something to this effect of the WikiProject Opera page. Viva-Verdi (talk) 03:09, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

My understanding, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that depending on fonts and font sizes, which can be different with different user preference settings, the optimum colwidth can vary. For instance, the setting you selected might not work for someone who uses a larger font size than you do, for whom a long name will wrap if it is longer than your set width, while for someone who uses a smaller font size, the column will be wider than their setting requires. By using the nobreak space(s) for the longest name, no name wrapping should occur in the first column regardless of the font size, and the column can collapse to whatever minimum width the font size setting allows. When you made your edit, I believe the column may have been too wide because the heading was wide. I added some breaks to the heading to convert the role names into a vertical list to prevent the heading from making the column too wide. I was thinking that if the singer names are in a vertical list, the role names could probably also be in a vertical list. (Is that possibly a problem? The heading could be reformatted. The main aim would be to prevent it from making the column too wide. [Update: I created a test edit with an example of what I mean here]) Did the changes I made not work correctly for you when you tried different (narrow and wide) browser window widths? (As it is currently set up, the window would have to be fairly narrow for horizontal scrolling to be activated. Horizontal scrolling will activate at the point where no further wrapping can occur in all the columns. If wrapping of names is prevented in the first column, this will occur sooner, regardless of the method used to achieve it, so maybe that is not really an issue.) --Robert.Allen (talk) 07:40, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

If the aim is simply to prevent wrapping in a column, Help:Table#Nowrap recommends this: "In a table that spans the entire width of a page, cells narrower than the widest cell tend to wrap. To keep an entire column from wrapping, use style=white-space:nowrap in a non-header cell on the longest/widest cell to affect the entire column." I was unaware of this method, and personally I have used nobreak spaces (or for content with hyhens Template:Nowrap). I find them easier to remember and give the same result. The main thing is to suppress wrapping in the longest cell in the column. If the aim is to prevent the column from becoming too wide, formatting the cells with the longest content with breaks (in this case the header cell) works well. Both these methods avoid the problems caused by setting an absolute width when users may have different font widths. --Robert.Allen (talk) 21:24, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for these comments. I did not know about the no-wrap feature and shall look into it further, but it sounds as though that will solve the issue of the names (especially the long ones) in the "cast" column from wrapping. I don't think that there is really an issue with wrapping for the other columns in the table. Viva-Verdi (talk) 14:17, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Métro vs. Metro

Hi, Robert.Allen. I am not sure if there's any consensus; however, since you have provided references on capitalization of 'M' in Paris Metro, I'll stick to it in the future. As for the 'e', I won't put an accent mark on it. Thanks for your help! 0704monochrome (talk) 16:37, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Falcon

You overwrote some other correct material in your revert which I have now restored. --Smerus (talk) 06:45, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

PS Please leave the redlink for Stradella - I only revised the Falcon article in the first place because I am preparing an article for this opera.--Smerus (talk) 06:53, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi there! could you please just double-check your source that Dorus was in the cast when Falcon made her debut as Alice? I ask because Dorus premiered the role in 1831 and it seems a tad unlikely that she was in the cast which gave 'her' part to the newcomer. Best, --Smerus (talk) 11:49, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

According to Pitou: "She [Falcon] was invited to the Opéra by Adolphe Nourrit to appear with him and Mlle Julie Dorus in Robert le Diable on 20 July 1832." Desarbes (see here) states that Dorus alternated in the roles of Alice and Isabelle. Dorus was well known for avoiding intrigue, and it is likely she readily consented to sing Isabelle for the young newcomer's debut, and why not, since it was well advertised that the performance was going to be a very important event. --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:33, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I also wanted to mention that Pitou cites Bouvet's book and apparently uses a lot of material from it but sticks with the 1812 year of birth. Another oddity. No source seems to mention the discrepancy between Fétis and Bouvet or why one date should be preferred over the other. My inclination is to believe Bouvet, who obviously did some research on Falcon's family background. --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:56, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps we should collate some of our discussion and move it to Talk:Cornélie Falcon. What do you think? --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:58, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Thnaks for this. I am working abroad at present so alhough I have online access to Grove and JSTOR etc., I am remote from most printed sources, alas. I am sure you are right about Dorus. The question about Falcon's birth is probably best brought up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera as various mavens there will have something to say about it.--Smerus (talk) 06:10, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Of course correct re birth date, I flew over 'hier' in my excitement -thanks for noting this. On the moment of crisis, I am very happy to go with Cairns/Bouvet - will you replace in aticle, as you have the citations?. Best, --Smerus (talk) 04:58, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

As did I initially. Then I started asking myself why didn't Walton change his date to 29 January? That's when I started looking at it a bit more carefully and figured it out. It's a bit tricky, especially on first read. --Robert.Allen (talk) 05:21, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

'Did you see the Met's recent HD telecast (or DVD) of Carmen? I watched it last night. The wonderful playing by the woodwinds was beautifully caught. (I used to play clarinet, oh so long ago.) --Robert.Allen (talk) 05:50, 17 June 2011 (UTC)' - alas these telecasts don't reach Kiev where I am holed up most of the time these days. As an ex-faggotist I would have appreciated the sentry-go.--Smerus (talk) 09:27, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

On Falcon's 'Jewishness' - unfortunately Jordan's Halevy biography is itself a poor performance. To be fair, it was published posthumously and she might have tidied it up. However (and I write as a Jew myself) she significantly 'overinterpreted' Jewish elements in Halevy's life and work and misrepresented Halevy's own Jewishness. Others have followed in her footsteps. (see my forthcoming book 'Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner', Cambridge University Press, later this year). It is typical that she does not cite her source for Falcon's supposed Jewishness - as you see there is no trace or hint of this in Braud or in the names of the acte de naissance. Doubtless she took the hint from Chorley. But then, Disraeli wrote that Rossini was Jewish... we can't just take the surmises of contemporaries as evidence! Best,--Smerus (talk) 06:27, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Véron

Ta for this. We learn something every day. I was just looking at the article on Grand Opera and it needs some thorough going over - nothing there about the singers for example.....--Smerus (talk) 18:54, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I've enjoyed learning about Cornélie and editing the article with you. The Grand Opera article sounds like a good project. Enjoy! --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:39, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Curtiss, Jordan, Hallmann et. al

We do not have a reliable, scholarly, sourced, modern, English biography of Halevy. Curtiss covers much of the ground in a non-analytical manner and I agree that she was a source or perhaps inspiration for Jordan, whose extremely lacklustre and credulous book at least gives us the storylines of some of the more obscure operas. Hallman's book has a lot of good background detail, but her central objective, to present Halevy and 'La Juive' as pioneering responses to 'anti-semitism' is preposterous and sacrifices genuine historical perspectives to academic fashion (imho :-} ). I don't know whether or not Hallman is Jewish, but she has little or no understanding of Jewish culture and traditions, which undermines a lot of what she writes. (Nor does she have a clear understanding of the word 'anti-Semitism' which like many others she confuses with 'Jew-hatred'). She also shares the credulity of Curtiss and Jordan about Halevy's fictional 'Roman journal'. Read the book, but save your money.--Smerus (talk) 07:31, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

PS: 'BTW, is there a source we can cite for the note which you added to the Chorley quote?'. The problem is, it is difficult to cite a source for the absence of information! I did a fair amount of research on the origins of musical personalities of the period, and came across nothing that would substantiate Falcon. I suspect Chorley's attribution may be a 'rollover' from her definitive performances in 'La Juive' and her association with Meyerbeer - however, the latter, sensitive as he was about Judaism and Jews in Paris, nowhere mentions Falcon as Jewish in his correpsondence or diaries as far as I am aware. These attributions should always be taken with a very large pinch of salt. I once came across an article in a learned journal asserting that Auber was Jewish. This turned out to be based on a comment by Vincent d'Indy (a full-blooded anti-Semite) on the lines of 'considering how close his music was to Meyerbeer and Halevy, you definitely couldn't call him a Christian'. --Smerus (talk) 08:00, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

If by the way you are interested in my view of Halevy you can get some taster here in my website which I am trying to gradually bring up to speed. I hae changed my views slightly since writing this a few years ago, but not much. Best ---Smerus (talk) 09:39, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Chorley

'Kelly 2004, p. 167, labels Chorley's rather indirect phraseology as "anti-semitic doubletalk".' Very disappointing to find this sort of over-the-top intepretation from Kelly, who is generally a fount of common sense. What possible reason is there to suppose Chorley, one of Mendelssohn's closest allies, and who was close to Moscheles and many other Jewish musical activists in London, in any way anti-Jewish? (I set aside for the moment the anachronism of using the word anti-semitism, which was coined only in the 1870s as the name for a political movement, and should always be distinguished from Jew-hatred, if that is what a writer means). I have no doubt that Chorely meant his description in terms of admiration, not of disguised denigration. Alas! --Smerus (talk) 18:37, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I suspect that Kelly may have had second thoughts after he published this, but of course now it's part of the record. I feel we are somewhat obligated to mention his remark in this context, but it is best relegated to the footnote. Chorley's roundabout way of writing about Falcon's presumed ancestry may reflect a certain societal bias, but it also seems to me a 19th-century poetical style which he uses to place her in a particular ethnic cultural tradition. The result: it is rich in associations but easy to misinterpret, especially after the passage of so much time, when now the way people view things has changed so much. (Just using the word "race" is perilous these days.) As you suggested, Chorley's imagination was probably stimulated by Falcon's totally convincing portrayal of Rachel in Halévy's La Juive so that in his mind the person became the character. I have to confess Chorley's description gave me pause, as you see from the links I added, since I was not all that familiar with his references. Fortunately the Wikipedia has relevant information, which now is so often the case. (Hurrah for the Wikipedia!) --Robert.Allen (talk) 19:53, 20 June 2011 (UTC)