Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of 1930s jazz standards/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was not promoted by The Rambling Man 17:22, 15 September 2011 [1].

List of 1930s jazz standards[edit]

Nominator(s): P.s. (talk) 15:34, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured list because a considerable amount of work has been done to not only include information on the creation of many popular standards and the context in which they were written, but on the impact that they had in the decades to follow and on music in general. User:Jafeluv and others have included hundreds of different citations for the article, and the page provides a fantastic resource for understanding the decade's influence on music, and seeing in one page many of the great songs that have arisen from that time period. P.s. (talk) 15:34, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

My initial though is "why isn't this a table?" Each listing contains a song, composer, lyricist, year, a description and refs. First of all with the current layout it is very difficult to find information beyond that of year. The main concern is that particularly sorting by composer or lyricist would be very user-friendly, as I would imagine many readers would like to know exactly which standards were written by a particular person. This would be easy in a sortable table.
These were originally in table format (with just title, composer, lyricist and year), but IMHO the current bullet point format is far more usable now that each title has an accompanying textual description. It looks nicer, takes up much less space, and is less tedious to edit. A table could be sorted, but the fact that many songs have more than one composer/lyricist makes it difficult to find all works by a certain person with a simple sorting operation. Furthermore that would only list songs written by that person in the 1930s -- a reader wanting to know about all significant compositions by that person would probably find the information more easily by following the link to the composer's article. All that said, if you think a sortable list format would be useful I can put together a version in that format so we can compare which one looks better here. Jafeluv (talk) 11:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Disambig links and image licenses check out good.
Ref 115 (from Music of Puerto Rico) is dead.
Removed. Jafeluv (talk) 11:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am a bit confused as to the inclusion criteria. The article states inclusion in one major fake book; is there consensus for what constitutes a "major"? Also, is there consensus in the jazz community that inclusion in a major fake book as a standard would indeed make most people agree to it being a standard. And perhaps more important, is the term standard so subjective that if the list was composed by another person, it would contain different songs?
The inclusion criteria is a tricky topic, I admit. (It was discussed earlier here, and some further thoughts here.)

Fakebooks are collections of standards, and for the most part there's no question that the songs listed in them have been recorded by a significant number of performers. However, if a fakebook is the only source for a song's standard status, it may be worth reconsidering its inclusion here (and I have removed a few titles from the list in cases where I could find no other source to support inclusion). 'Major' may be an ill-defined term, but I don't think many people would disagree with associating it with the Real Book and the New Real Book, at least. In case someone has access to another important collection, additions are of course always welcome.

The term 'standard' is subjective and naturally some people tend to use it more liberally than others, so lists compiled by different people probably would have some differences. However, inclusion on the list is based on evaluation of the sources and not on personal opinions held by editors. Therefore I hope that the inherent subjectivity of the term doesn't pose too big a problem for the list. Jafeluv (talk) 11:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Overall, the article looks good, although perhaps the lead is a bit on the short side. Arsenikk ^(talk) 08:18, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
TBH I wasn't expecting this to go to FLC just yet, there is still some expansion to do and maybe a peer review would be a good idea as well. In any case, thanks for your comments, Arsenikk. Some responses above :) Jafeluv (talk) 11:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – As far as I can tell, the nominator had never even edited the article prior to the FLC. Normally one of us directors would withdraw this FLC for that reason, but it appears that Jafeluv, the primary contributor, has responded to comments above. If you're watching this, Jafeluv, do you want to take this FLC on or would you feel more comfortable having this come here at another time? I need to know whether or not to review this, not to mention if it should be left here. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 01:15, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If it's okay, I would prefer to finish expanding the list first -- the 1938 and 1939 sections as well as the lead still need some work and as I said above it would probably be a good idea to take the list to peer review before FLC. Jafeluv (talk) 07:30, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.