Tuba Wiki

[Rick Denney]

I have contributed on several occasions, and a couple of times extensively, to the tuba article on Wikipedia.

Much of the information I've found to disagree with has been regionally narrow--that is--it's a regional practice presented as a universal practice. There has been as much of that from the UK as from America.

When I've added stuff, I've always listed my source. But even my sources are secondary sources, while a true encyclopedist would be expected to write from primary sources. So, while I might use Clifford Bevan's book The Tuba Family as a source, a proper encyclopedic entry on the Tuba should use the sources that Cliff (presumably) used.

Why did I add to the article even though I didn't have the primary sources? Because what I had from secondary sources was more reliable than what was there. To really keep up with an article on an open Wiki, however, one has to look at it every day, because one never knows when someone is going to throw in an opinion held by his teacher, who heard if from his teacher's college buddy's third cousin, and state it as established fact.

I had this argument once before on Tubenet, where one noted correspondent claimed that Berlioz intended this or that in one of his works. I asked him to cite primary sources so that those of us prepared to do real research could learn, too. But he acted as though that was a challenge to his integrity and became offended. The confusion between facts and interpretations is pervasive among the general population, even those who have done college research papers, and often even those who teach in college in fields that don't require rigorous publication standards. And the notion of primary vs. secondary sources is not a science discussion--it's a research discussion and as important to historians as to scientists. I saw a program on David McCullough last night, and he said that to write about John Adams, it was not enough to read books about John Adams. He had to go back and read all of Adams's correspondence and other writings, and the correspondence and other writings of the contemporaries who interacted with him and who created the environment in which he lived.

I review papers for three journals, the Transportation Research Record, Transportation Science, and ASCE Transportation Journal. I'm quite familiar with these requirements, and have had to conform to them in my own published research.

Thus, I think of Wiki as a sort of oral history--stories heard around the campfire. They are more useful as a snapshot of what people believe about a topic than as actual fact. If people use it as such, then it has some value. I use it to find out what people think as opposed to what is true.

The myth of Wiki is that the collective knowledge is better than the individual knowledge, to the point that it is self-policing. This grew out of a philosophy of collective wisdom popular in certain circles of the IT world. I rather think the opposite is true. I'll listen to one true expert with a good knowledge and explanation of primary sources any day over 1000 people filtering out only the most obvious inaccuracies from each other's work. Stated another way, I'd much rather listen to Cliff Bevan present the history of the tuba than Rick Denney.

Rick "thinking that the word 'fact' has lost it's true meaning" Denney

[dtemp]

I agree very much with what Rick is saying.

I didn't intend the wiki to be a "scholarly" endeavor whatsoever. I just wanted to create a place where people could get the information they wanted quickly.

When I want to know something general (i.e. when Nebraska became a state), I'll look it up on Wikipedia. Even if the year is off by a few, I have a general idea. If I were writing a paper on the history of Nebraska, I would do further research, or course.

That's kind of what I envisioned for TubaWiki. People go there to get the general "oral" history of Cerveny tubas, for instance. But if they wanted to specifically date their horn, they would have to do more research.

Horns, brands, specs, players, ensembles, albums, mouthpieces, audition results of historical significance, previous audition lists. These could all have articles. I'm sure there are way more that I can't even think of.

I'm sure there will be some vandalism, and if this thing takes off I might ask for some help moderating. I hope that in time the only corrections will be minor ones, and I don't to keep reversing articles where people insert their own names as the winner of the Chicago audition.

I have high hopes.

[DaTubaKid]

I didnt explain that well......sorry

For the first semester, we had a 10 page paper over medieval chant type stuff (early renaissance acceptable). ACU's library sucks.....BADLY, alot of the stuff in the library that isnt a score or encyclopedia was donated byt he music history professor. HSU has a better music library, but still not too good, and our professor knows that. Our subscription to J-stor sucks currently. In fact on my evolution of tertian harmony paper, I had a great example from a piece by obrecht that showed a great musical excerpt (it was from an article). Well, he didnt make me get the complete score (since he knew we didnt have it and would be hard to get), so he had me just cite it from the article.

I did my 2nd semester (ended up being 24 pages) paper on the comparison of characteristics, folksong, and rhythmic/harmonic motives in Stravinsky's 3 composition periods. I had alot of information, 5 articles by Strauss.

He is strict....I will quote a direct statement and cite it from a well known book/article, and he says "I disagree with that" and counts off, though its a valid statement and relates to the thesis (writing intensive classes).


Wikipedia for the tertian harmony paper had a VERY valuable source about obrecht and a travel to italy where many composers met...so on and so forth.....and the professor agreed with that. The Stravinsky paper.....all I used it for was a listing of compositions with years (VERY helpful)

I apologize that your music library sucks. You'd be amazed at some of the things you can learn while at a good music library.

I feel like you've gone off a completely unnecessary tangent, James. To me, you've just written a long post stating why your music library sucks (for which, again, I'm sorry that that is the case) and telling us all about your papers (which is all fine and dandy, but not particularly relevant).

I think if you had just taken that last paragraph where you actually talked about Wikipedia, maybe elaborated a little bit more in there, and just posted that, it would have been a lot more on topic.

On the other hand, that is really weird of a professor to mark off because of a differing opinions instead of differing facts. Was that something he maybe thought you personally had come to a conclusion rather than cited from a source? Could/Did you show him the source from whence that information came in an attempt to regain lost points?

My statement on the reliability of Wikipedia: Wikipedia is reliable-ish. Certainly don't base a whole paper soley on Wikipedia (unless it's a paper about the unreliability of Wikipedia...), but I very agree with everyone else's statements that Wikipedia is a very good starting point for a paper. It can easily give you some very good ideas about what directions you should go, but you should always verify information you get off of Wikipedia from a reliable resource.

[TexTuba]

I apologize that your music library sucks. You'd be amazed at some of the things you can learn while at a good music library.

I feel like you've gone off a completely unnecessary tangent, James. To me, you've just written a long post stating why your music library sucks (for which, again, I'm sorry that that is the case) and telling us all about your papers (which is all fine and dandy, but not particularly relevant).

I think if you had just taken that last paragraph where you actually talked about Wikipedia, maybe elaborated a little bit more in there, and just posted that, it would have been a lot more on topic.

On the other hand, that is really weird of a professor to mark off because of a differing opinions instead of differing facts. Was that something he maybe thought you personally had come to a conclusion rather than cited from a source? Could/Did you show him the source from whence that information came in an attempt to regain lost points?

My statement on the reliability of Wikipedia: Wikipedia is reliable-ish. Certainly don't base a whole paper soley on Wikipedia (unless it's a paper about the unreliability of Wikipedia...), but I very agree with everyone else's statements that Wikipedia is a very good starting point for a paper. It can easily give you some very good ideas about what directions you should go, but you should always verify information you get off of Wikipedia from a reliable resource.

Really? What do you think you just did?

[Rick Denney]

I didn't intend the wiki to be a "scholarly" endeavor whatsoever. I just wanted to create a place where people could get the information they wanted quickly.

"Information they want" and "correct information" may not be the same thing. The problem is, the incorrect information doesn't come with a warning tag. Personally, I would rather not see bad information that presents itself as good information. No information is preferred.

One story I should have added is that I once looked at the Wikipedia article on traffic signals. That is the topic of my professional career and my expertise and history is as good as anyone's. There was so much wrong with that article that the only way I could have fixed it was to erase it all and start over. But since there was (at least some) consensus around what had been written there, doing so would likely pit a large group of enthusiastic amateurs against one weary professional. I don't get paid to fight those battles and, as a professional, getting paid is the point. So, I walked away, shaking my head.

(I imagine that if Cliff Bevan reads what I've written here and on Wikipedia concerning tubas, his reaction might be similar. That is most humbling--not a common enough trait for Wiki contributors, it seems to me. But it makes me careful to identify my speculations as such.)

(This is also closely related to the axiom that the press is always accurate except when writing about a subject about which we have personal and authoritative knowledge.)

Thus, I do not think you'll get much truly authoritative participation, at least not consistently.

Rick "thinking this alone explains the relative dearth of professional participation on online forums" Denney

[Allen]

I agree with what Rick has said. I fear that articles from those with more enthusiasm than expertise, and from those with rather narrowly-based strong opinions, would have a tendency to drown out writings from those who could really enlighten us.

For that reason, I would favor something less ambitious: a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about tubas, playing tubas and music for tubas. For example, we frequently get requests for fingering charts for tubas. It would be good if there were an article on how tubas work, and how to figure out your own fingering chart. Another good article would be "How to play in tune and how to adjust your slides to help playing in tune." Generally, I am suggesting some articles to help people understand how our instruments work, and lots of tips and advice. This sort of thing would not have scholarly pretensions. Rather, it would be full of useful things to know and useful advice.

Who would write these articles? I have seen elements of all that I have mentioned posted here from time to time. I know that qualified contributors exist. Now, here's the hard part: How do we decide what goes into the FAQ? Is it by consensus, wiki-style? Are a few wise heads appointed to be referees/editors? Who decides?

I'm looking forward to some more dialog on this.

Cheers,
Allen

[Charlie Goodman]

This is kind of off topic, but is part of the whole wikipedia as a scholary field.

My music history professor is pretty strict, we had a 10 page paper on medieval music and a 20 page paper on a topic of classical-20th century of our choice. He said wikipedia is a valid source to help validate other information presented allowing for a position in the paper.

This would be INVALUABLE for a middle/high school director, student, and so forth for quick information. I mean, include information about good school tubas and prices and such for that....as the one stop tuba place

Really? My music history professor hates Wikipedia so much that she dispatches her graduate students to the site to *edit* the articles/entries so that they contain fraudulent and misleading information. I'll be sticking to the ol' peer-reviewed material...

Intentionally disseminating fraudulent information about her subject to her students is a really good habit for a professor.

I think people come in with the wrong idea about Wikipedia (probably because of the -pedia part)... it's in no way an academically sound publication, but I think it would be difficult to deny the assertion that it is an unprecedented resource for personal knowledge. It's not necessarily in-depth, and it's not guaranteed to be accurate, but it is a single place where someone who is unfamiliar with almost anything imaginable can get an overview of the topic. Encyclopedias aren't the type of thing you'd quote in a scholarly paper, either. They give a reasonably succinct description of what one might need to know about a topic, not the full details. Encyclopedias are strong in breadth of information, not depth, and with that focus in mind, Wikipedia is off the charts. You can search for a topic and be reasonably sure to find enough at least to understand what it is, and the number of topics available is completely unprecedented. It might be academically lax, but it's incredibly useful when you just need to find out, for day to day use, what something is. You just run the risk of sounding like an *** when it turns out that the article you happened to read about Theodore Roosevelt was fabricated by bored high schoolers in their computer class, who seem to be unaware of the fact that the late president was not, in fact, born in the time of Christ.

[Biggs]

This is kind of off topic, but is part of the whole wikipedia as a scholary field.

My music history professor is pretty strict, we had a 10 page paper on medieval music and a 20 page paper on a topic of classical-20th century of our choice. He said wikipedia is a valid source to help validate other information presented allowing for a position in the paper.

This would be INVALUABLE for a middle/high school director, student, and so forth for quick information. I mean, include information about good school tubas and prices and such for that....as the one stop tuba place

Really? My music history professor hates Wikipedia so much that she dispatches her graduate students to the site to *edit* the articles/entries so that they contain fraudulent and misleading information. I'll be sticking to the ol' peer-reviewed material...

Intentionally disseminating fraudulent information about her subject to her students is a really good habit for a professor.

Her students have the facts straight; it's those Wikipedia-citing ACU students who are in danger of fraudulent information...

As much as I would laugh in the face of anyone who cited Wikipedia in an academic paper, I agree with your point that it can be the right tool for the right job. It can be a good jumping-off point, even in academic writing, for someone seeking information (or entertainment) but is not a substitute for research.

[Rick Denney]

Is it by consensus, wiki-style?

That's the problem with the wiki approach. It's not consensus. It's tyranny of the loudest, most attentive, and most persistent.

Consensus is when a document is hammered out that everyone can agree to. Wiki is an article that gets revised every time someone has a whim and then corrected when a true expert is aware and motivated. There is no consensus process to weed out the whims before they get into the document.

Expert editing is a whole other discussion.

Rick "deeply experienced with consensus processes and has the scars to prove it" Denney