IMSLP Forums

On each composer page there is an external link to an 'extended' or 'detailed' biography. But, what if the reader only wanted a tiny bit of information, say to make sure he was looking at the right composer, or he just wanted to learn a tiny bit about them?

Perhaps in the Life section of the composer page there could be a little paragraph written than summarises the composer's life, their most famous works, and that kind of information. Rather than having IMSLP rely on linking to other sites.

This may actually not be a bad idea. As I like to say... go ahead and try it There is already a place in the composer template that allows this: the "Extra Information" section. Just add such a section to the composer template, and add the short biography there

People just have to make sure they don't copy copyrighted biographies.

Very good point!

You can still quote and reference however, as long as it isn't too extensive.

While I don't oppose this in principle, I would like to point out that what you are describing should normally be in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article (if it exists). From Wikipedia:Lead section: "The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, summarizing the most important points,..." Where this is not the case, you might wish to improve the Wikipedia article according to this guideline. Also, I think that we don't currently have the manpower to translate everything into multiple languages, while Wikipedia is already multilingual.

I think Leonard brings up a very good point... I did not know that was the case. Unfortunately I don't think there is a way to bring the lead paragraph onto IMSLP, but even so I think it is a good idea to not duplicate the effort... and so I'll close this bug in a while if no one has any other comments.