Xenharmonic Wiki talk:Notability guidelines

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Alpharabian interval pages

Hey Sintel, I got your message on my User Talk page, so I think I should try to explain why my Alpharabian interval pages have some theoretical value according to your notability requirements. It is true that a number of Alpharabian Ultramajor and Inframinor intervals have Wilson heights greater than 40, and it's also true that these intervals are largely unknown outside of people like me, Margo, and maybe Atrium.

However, from what I gather, the 2.3.11 subgroup is to quartertones what Pythagorean tuning is to diatonic and chromatic intervals- basically, both are the JI backbones of their respective interval systems. As if that weren't enough, 4096/3993 works in tandem with three instances of 33/32 to split the 9/8 whole tone into four pieces, so this serves as a demonstration of some of the essential characteristics of the 2.3.11 subgroup. It also turns out that Kyle Gann had reason to use 297/256 in his music.

From my end, even though I'm dealing in 159edo for the most part, the approximations of JI intervals like 297/256, 891/512 and 8019/4096 serve as landmarks due to them being represented with a good deal of accuracy in that system. Furthermore, 8192/8019 is one of the intervals that is crucial for the conceptualization of commas like the triagnoshenisma.

While this sums up most of what's going on with those pages at present, I do eventually intend to expand those Alpharabian interval articles with later findings on how to properly use them in musical composition- the only problem is that I haven't gotten around to figuring out how to use some of those intervals yet, as I currently have other things on my plate, but believe me, they're on my radar. Perhaps Margo can elaborate on what she knows about those intervals on her end.

--Aura (talk) 00:25, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

I guess the gist of all this is that now that we know why pages such as the Alpharabian interval pages are useful to readers, I think it suffices to say that I do approve of the majority of these notability guidelines. I do think however, that we can include a few examples of what's notable and why in the guidelines themselves, so that people can spot more of the things that make pages notable, especially those that are notable in spite of other, potentially disqualifying factors.

--Aura (talk) 00:35, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

May I add that 297/256 is very useful as a small minor third or a large interseptimal major second/minor third, being 896/891 smaller than 7/6. This, along with 128/99 and 99/64, for example, can be used in a neomedieval European setting as substitutes for 7/6, 9/7, and 14/9, indeed closer to the likeliest interpretation, such as that of Jay Rahn, of Marcheto (or Marchettus or Marcheto) of Padua in 1318 than my septimal interpretation.

I would need to write an article on proximality in 14th-century European style, but the tangible musical applicability of Aura’s paramajor and paraminor intervals should not be underestimated as a present reality, and thus their notability according to your excellent guidelines.

Mschulter1325 00:56, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Well, it seems clear these pages are useful to at least some people, so they should stay. But instead of spelling it out on this talk page, why not add it to the pages in question? That would immediately make them notable according to the guidelines. – Sintel🎏 (talk) 16:06, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Most of the material that's covered here in the talk page is already on the pages in question- except for the yet-to-be-found practical applications I've alluded to before. As for the rest of the material that's not currently added to these pages, I'll see what I can do about that now. --Aura (talk) 16:25, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Just saw your edits. Good work, thanks for taking the time to add the information! – Sintel🎏 (talk) 17:44, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Exclusion of theoretical systems that are practical, but not necessarily beneficial

I was originally on the position these guidelines were very strict guidelines, but after properly rereading these I am convinced these are mostly reasonable. However ,there are still some areas which I would say the guidelines should perhaps be relaxed, the most important one being this:

> Theoretical value: Theoretical systems that solves specific problems, or demonstrates a clear theoretical or conceptual benefit.

I think that you should maybe consider if theoretical systems which can be practical (possible to apply to music and that the interpretation is not patently arbitrary / nonsensical) but not necessarily demonstrating a clear benefit over other systems, to be allowed under the notability criteria. I will give an example to make this more clear (although I can't really find any very good examples, I think I found one that is good enough to illustrate what I mean). This temperament Miscellaneous_5-limit_temperaments#Kangaroo in the 5-limit is of a high error with its ultrapyth fifth and exaggerated syntonic comma and is also moderately high complexity. I doubt it provides much of a "clear theoretical or conceptual benefit" over other temperaments with similar generators such as say the No-fives_subgroup_temperaments#Threedic. And there are no Kangaroo compositions I know of (unless you count 15edo as Kangaroo[15], 47edo as Kangaroo[47] etc.). So as far as I know this temperament would be rejected under your notability guidelines. But I don't think that Kangaroo temperament is useless, 15edo supports it and there are some people who percieve that 15edo supports 5-limit, so it is probably possible to make compositions in that temperament with at least some perception of the 5-limit intervals it purports to have. This temperament probably has at least some compositional value , and deleting it from the wiki would remove potentially useful information if someone wanted to compose in that temperament.

> Entries consisting solely of automatically generated content (e.g. interval tables, infoboxes) without context or explanation can be deleted without relocation. I also think this is a bit harsh of a policy, considering that even a page which is just infobox, edo intro and interval tables can have at least some value to people (although ideally of course it should be expanded). At least maybe consider moving those to userspace not outright deletion. CompactStar (talk) 04:12, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

BTW for alpharabian & axirabian interval situation I agree with what Aura and Margo Schulter had stated. CompactStar (talk) 04:15, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

With regards to the kangaroo example, I think the fact that it provides a theoretical framework for understanding 15edo in a way that similar temperaments don't is "a clear conceptual benefit" which 'solves a specific problem'. So in my opinion I would say that it is still notable under these guidelines.

But I'll wait to see what Sintel says.

Though it is only notable if the page actually explicitly spells out its usefulness in plain text - if it is just numbers and the reader is left to guess why it's important, then it's not notable. And maybe needs a "niche" mbox though since while useful, it is only useful for quite a niche purpose.

But imo I think it'd still be notable under the current guidelines.

--BudjarnLambeth (talk) 06:59, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Basically this:

Though it is only notable if the page actually explicitly spells out its usefulness in plain text

And yea, such content would be more likely to be moved instead of deleted. Pages with literally just infoboxes though are trivial to recreate if someone does want to add content to it.

– Sintel🎏 (talk) 16:05, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Minor variations, overly niche pages

For the most part, I think these notability guidelines are pretty good; however, you have:

• "Minor variations: Systems that differ only trivially from existing systems. For example, 17 equal divisions of 8/3, which is just 12edo with a slight octave stretch."

This would tend to knock out more than you might want to knock out. For instance, although 17ed8/3 and 19ed3/1 are minor variations on 12edo, each of these is part of a series that has members that deviate considerably more from their nearest EDO. So they not only merit a mention, but should be able to keep their own articles to avoid interrupting the #ed8/3 and #ed3/1 series.

Related to this, you have:

• "High complexity: Temperaments of high complexity or EDOs with extremely high divisions (e.g. 31132edo), unless accompanied by a clear explanation of its utility or theoretical significance. This also includes temperaments and commas in impractical subgroups (e.g. 2.43.83)."

The guideline about things being too niche due to high complexity would knock out pages for high EDOs and complicated(*) ratios that have not found use yet — these should probably be left alone, maybe after adding something like a {{niche}} tag.

(*)We should be wary of using "complex" with respect to ratios unless we really mean it, since this has a specific mathematical meaning that is not generally what is intended here.

Added: Lucius Chiaraviglio (talk) 07:30, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

I am aware that there's currently a decent amount of pages that don't meet the criteria (hitting 'random page' a few times should be enough to demonstrate this). But of course, if it didn't affect anything there wouldn't be a need for this guideline in the first place.

Since there were basically no guidelines before, care will need to be taken in applying them retroactively. I trust other editors and especially sysops not to just start removing stuff without discussion. The focus should be on improving existing pages so they do meet the standards, and deletion still happens mostly on a case-by-case basis.

Sidenote: 17ed8/3 example might not have been the best example, it was just the first thing I could think of. I'll replace it with something better.

– Sintel🎏 (talk) 16:14, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

An example of you never know when something might turn out to be useful later would be 4/9-comma meantone, which was once tagged as Novelty (since re-tagged as Niche), but turns out to be extremely close to 26edo.

And where you have:

* "Minor variations: Systems that differ only trivially from existing systems. For example, a meantone tuning with a fifth very close to quarter-comma meantone should not get its own page. It can be added to the existing tunings on the meantone page."

However, a different type of tuning that gives a fifth that happens to be very close to quarter-comma meantone should get its own page. Examples would include 112edo and temperaments which split 3/1 into 3 to support a 17L 2s scale that happen to give also a good meantone tuning near quarter-comma.

Added: Lucius Chiaraviglio (talk) 20:33, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Last modified: Lucius Chiaraviglio (talk) 20:40, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

If both of the examples I could come up with weren't any good, then maybe it should just be removed. Though I do still believe, in general, if something is very closely related to an already existing page it is preferable to just add it there instead of making a new page. (And most temperament pages do come with a tuning spectrum, which does that job quite nicely.)

If you can think of a better way to phrase it then let me know (or edit the page!) – Sintel🎏 (talk) 22:12, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

What you said has some merit, so I wouldn't want to get rid of it entirely, but adding some qualifiers (with examples) would be good to avoid confusion. Lucius Chiaraviglio (talk) 22:31, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

I think what's going on is that for a tuning to meet the definition of what Sintel's talking about, two separate criteria have to be met. The first is that the tuning in question can't be noticeably different from something else on the wiki- this is something that Sintel's first example does well. However, the second is that the tuning in question should not offer anything substantially new compared to a previously existing tuning. Is this right? --Aura (talk) 22:37, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Sintel, I do think you were barking up the right tree with your second example, but we just need to find a better example along those same lines. First example that comes to my mind is 31edo versus other quarter-comma meantone temperaments with only 31 notes and pure octaves. --Aura (talk) 22:48, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

I have updated the minor variations guideline so it now says the following:

• Minor variations: Systems that differ only trivially from existing systems. For example, a meantone tuning with a fifth very close to quarter-comma meantone should not get its own page. It can be added to the existing tunings on the meantone page.
  • This guideline does not apply to nearby equal divisions of simple intervals (e.g. 12ed2/1, 19ed3/1, and 7ed3/2), because those pages are still useful for navigating between neighbouring ETs using their infobox.

Are you all happy with this?

--BudjarnLambeth (talk) 23:40, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

• • This guideline also does not apply to temperaments that might happen to give similar tunings of common intervals, but also do something else, such as an Alphatricot relative that happens to give a fifth close to quarter-comma meantone, but also divides the twelfth in 3, thereby allowing generator chains that could not exist in actual quarter-comma meantone.
  • In addition, it is best to exercise caution when considering whether to apply these guidelines to existing pages.

Lucius Chiaraviglio (talk) 06:12, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Since the "minor variations" dot point is getting too clunky and wordy, I just decided to follow Sintel's suggestion earlier in this conversation and just remove the "minor variations" dot point entirely.

Is everybody happy for us to move this page into main space and make it official now? Given that the Discord voted 93% in favour, I feel eager to put it into action unless there are still outstanding objections?

--BudjarnLambeth (talk) 23:40, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Sure, seem great! I'd prefer if we got at least one sysop to sign off on it "officially" though. – Sintel🎏 (talk) 11:26, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Put my vote in for that (including getting sysop signoff). Lucius Chiaraviglio (talk) 14:49, 9 May 2025 (UTC)