Whats happening with the composers category?

[Massenetique]

Maybe this is addressed elsewhere, but is a major category shift happening? Only a fraction of the composers represented show up on the Category:Composers page - others are searchable but do not appear there. Is this related to the move to "people" categories?

[Davydov]

No, there is a bug in the recent upgrade, which Feldmahler's working on (see this thread

[chevre]

This is still pretty messed up? Some time period/style categories are also wrong. The time periods seem good, as they are, but individual composers aren't always classified right. (For example, Beethoven's name should appear under the "Classical" category.)

Generally, when changes are made it should probably be best to make sure finding scores/composers is still easy; all other information seems less important. For example, getting a 'new' people search result that lumps together everyone from a given time period isn't all that useful. Getting a list of composers from a given style category/time is very useful. The quick searches all worked very well before, so I'm not sure what's going on now, or why.

Many thanks for fixing whatever is ailing this soon.

[KGill]

... getting a 'new' people search result that lumps together everyone from a given time period isn't all that useful. Getting a list of composers from a given style category/time is very useful. The quick searches all worked very well before, so I'm not sure what's going on now, or why.

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to. We have the ability to list composers from a given time period - that hasn't changed (it's just under a slightly different name now, that's all). What exactly doesn't work on your end?
(Also, individual cases should be handled as just that - individuals, not a far-reaching technical problem. The argument about Classical vs. Romantic for Beethoven will probably never be resolved, so I've gone ahead and put him in both categories as it seems somewhat arbitrary to decide on one or the other.)

[chevre]

chevre wrote:... getting a 'new' people search result that lumps together everyone from a given time period isn't all that useful. Getting a list of composers from a given style category/time is very useful. The quick searches all worked very well before, so I'm not sure what's going on now, or why.

answer:
I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to. We have the ability to list composers from a given time period - that hasn't changed (it's just under a slightly different name now, that's all). What exactly doesn't work on your end?

Hi, thanks for the answer.

The composer-by-time-period search (a highly useful subcategory that is listed under search-by-composer) redirects now to

http://imslp.org/wiki/Browse_people_by_time_period

--- this gives scores related to everyone working in this time period, including librettists,...

The problem with this is mainly that the results become harder to browse through. The categories are now even bigger than before. It's just a user interface/user experience issue.

Thanks for your help.

PS. Re: Beethoven: It's also good to have any classifications adhere to standard practice. If two forms of standard practice exist (like in this case), I'd say the best choice is to have this particular information accessible under both categories. Again, the idea is to not have an ideological discussion, just to help people quickly find what they're looking for. Thanks.

[KGill]

This is an interesting issue - thanks for bringing it up. I've now put in some new links on all the time period categories that will restrict it to just composers, arrangers, etc. Does that help?
I guess this inevitably leads to the question of having similar intersects for all the different browsing methods - a system that would, for instance, enable one to search for only English translators who lived in the early 20th century. It probably wouldn't be very difficult to implement, either...

[pml]

Restricting the musical personnel – composers, arrangers, performers – to the time period category intersect seems ok to me. It’s also slightly jarring to classify writers according to musical eras, as the ‘Romantic era’ in music seems to extend into the 20th century, unlike other fields of human endeavour!

Figures who stand at the cusp of two eras, and whose œuvres contain works representative of both, e.g. Monteverdi, Beethoven should be listed in both categories.

The A-Z navigation legend at the top begins to annoy, now that we have just under 5,000 composers listed there. Does anyone have a view on whether the letters of the alphabet with more than 200 composers listed under them (actually now half of the alphabet) should have optional links in the form of small subscripts to start further on in the list than the very start of the letter? For example, there are well over 400 composers listed under each of B and S; for some of these people, it’s quicker to jump to C or T and click on “previous 200” than starting at the right letter and having to click “next 200” twice.

As it is, to reach over a third of the composers on the list (1420 of them, in fact) requires choosing a letter AND then clicking “next” or “previous”. I think a few users might appreciate being able to make the browsing of the category a little finer-grained.

The way I’m thinking the current navigation legend could be modified would be something like:

Top – A B e l r C i D e E F e …

Apologies for displaying it thus, but superscripts don’t work here. (I might take this across to a sandbox over at the Wiki.)

Composer stats (total ~ 4940):

400+: B (535) S (484)
300–399: C (348) G (312) M (380)
200–299: D (226) F (218) H (287) K (230) L (280) P (247) R (255) W (218)

100–199: A (199) T (145) V (135)
25–99: E (80) J (64) N (97) O (44) Z (74)
0–25: I (20) Q (8) U (17) X (2) Y (21) Miscellaneous ‘composers’ gathered at top of list (14)

Cheers PML

[imslp]

I would highly encourage such experimentation. Feel free to try it on the wiki.

[pml]

I tried using the method of subscripts on a private sandbox page, but the previews looked unpromising. Since the header for the category is basically a table, I added the auxiliary navigation links as an additional row, and bolded the letters which have more than 200 names listed under them.

Top – A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Ben Boi Ci De Fe Gl Hem Ken Le Men Pe Rel Schl Sit We

Where there are two links for a letter, e.g. W and We, the intention is that since one page can’t cover over 200 names, then the first page by default covers the first 200 names; the second page covers as great a portion of the last 200 names, without encroaching too far into the next letter of the alphabet. If there are only just over 200 names for a given letter, there will be considerable overlap (e.g. D/De, F/Fe, and W/We); on the other hand, nearly 400 names are sorted under M, which will soon need three links to cover each name with a single link – as is the case for B and S.

In these two cases, the third link again tries to cover as many of the last 200 names sorted under that letter; the second link tries to have a balanced set of overlap with both the beginning and the end of the list.

It will be necessary to occasionally change the secondary links as the list of composers continues to grow – the letter A will probably be the next to exceed the 200 item limit per page.

Cheers PML

[imslp]

Nice!

[pml]

Thanks. Now we can get back to Victorian writers being described as “Romantics”, and people randomly being added or omitted from all these new-fangled categories.

(Another possibility to resolve the issue above – which I didn’t want to consider – would have been to allow more than 200 items to be listed in a category, but I’m guessing that would have had ramifications for resources all over the Wiki, particularly page loads for the composers with big œuvres.)

[chevre]

This is an interesting issue - thanks for bringing it up. I've now put in some new links on all the time period categories that will restrict it to just composers, arrangers, etc. Does that help?

Sorry about the late reply: it helps quite a lot, thanks very much!

I guess this inevitably leads to the question of having similar intersects for all the different browsing methods - a system that would, for instance, enable one to search for only English translators who lived in the early 20th century. It probably wouldn't be very difficult to implement, either...

I for one am quite happy with the change you made, and with the addition of sub-categories for the alphabetical listing (done by pml).

(I suppose IMSLP could have an 'advanced search' function to handle more complex user searches like the one you mention, but I think some of the most common browsing problems have been eliminated now.)

The database is much nicer to use with the recent changes. Thanks to everyone!