Xenharmonic Wiki talk:Things to do/Archive 1

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This page is an archive of past discussions. Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Infobox for EDO pages

Let’s list what should be present in the template:

  • step count (steps)
  • period? (for EDT and several others?)
    [Xenwolf: no need, consider other templates for other EDs]
  • step size
    [Xenwolf: size alone isn't clear]
  • commas tempered out
    [FloraC: too many stuff]
  • notable commas not tempered out? (possibly with an example of distinguished JI intervals?)
    [FloraC: too many stuff]
  • family?
  • JI subgroup represented fairly well? (and a patent val?)
  • notable modes?
    [FloraC: no consensus]
    [Arseniiv: now I come to think including entire modes would also bloat the table]
  • related EDOs? (maybe more specific relations, like “refines 11edo”?)
    [Xenwolf: include predecessor and successor EDOs]

Thoughts? --Arseniiv (talk) 14:44, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

The parameters step count (or step size) and size seem indisputable to me, EDO implies 2/1 as period (I'd consider to make other templates for other EDs). What about prime factorization? Relates would be great for navigational purposes (for instance predecessor and successor). As far as the parameters can be filled without headaches and without edit wars they should be included. Maybe we can get a community process started about that. --Xenwolf (talk) 18:31, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Do you mean prime factorization for steps? --Arseniiv (talk) 19:39, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Writing only size was a mistake: I corrected that in may comment and in the "working copy" on top. --Xenwolf (talk) 20:42, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Forgot to add yesterday: what do you think about next/previous zeta EDOs (all three kinds of them)? Though all “sequential related page links” should go at the bottom of the template plaque to not steal attention from the properties of the EDO itself. --Arseniiv (talk) 14:30, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I'm afraid Commas tempered out and Commas not tempered out are too many stuff. And there's no consensus what constitutes "notable". FloraC (talk) 18:47, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
(To all:) Is there a consensus about patent vals for EDOs? I seem to remember in several cases there were at least two vals which would be as good, so I don’t know if it’s a good for the template. Also the same about well-representedness of JI subgroups.
I added your comments to the list above so they won’t be forgotten if someone would take just the list and make something! --Arseniiv (talk) 19:39, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Which val is deemed useful is a subjective matter, but the patent val is rigorously defined. FloraC (talk) 11:17, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
So patent val should be added. Am I right in assuming that consistency of intervals relates to it? Can also a subgroup be deduced from it? --Xenwolf (talk) 11:33, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
The relation between consistency and the patent val seems indirect to me. FloraC (talk) 11:59, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I suggest listing the # of edosteps that the 3-limit M2 and m2 span. If the best 3/2 of n-edo is m/n, that would be 2m-n and 3n-5m. This instantly gives you the "flavor" of the edo. --TallKite (talk) 02:35, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
Maybe A1 and m2. FloraC (talk) 09:22, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
@TallKite, @FloraC, Isn't A1 := M2 - m2? Why not all three? Maybe also m itself that should probably better be renamed in, say, f or fifth?
Of course a collection of name-values pairs will not look that great, but maybe something like M2=m2+A1: (as label) and 3=2+1 (as value), as a rough sketch?
--Xenwolf (talk) 10:03, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
I could imagine that the 3-limit inconsistency of certain EDOs could diminish the usefulness of this otherwise very illustrative approach. --Xenwolf (talk) 10:03, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
Yes, A1 = M2 - m2, so A1 isn't needed. Sure, we could have all three. If we have only two, M2 and m2 are the most useful for finding your way around a microtonal guitar. For example, hand a guitarist a 31-edo guitar tuned EADGBE and say M2 = 5 frets and m2 = 3 frets, and they can figure it out pretty quickly.
And yes, for certain edos like 6-edo, it's not that helpful. But for most edos it's very useful, so we might as well include it for all of them. Even if the M2 is not the same as the best approximation of 9/8. Because M2 is always the distance between the best approximation of 4/3 and the best approximation of 3/2. --TallKite (talk) 07:34, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
The reason why I favor A1 over M2 is that addition is easier than subtraction. Once you have A1 and m2, M2 is obvious; not so the other way around. FloraC (talk) 06:49, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
To all: Inthar has got Template:Infobox ET constructed and has implemented it(!) in many edo pages. Let's move on to Template talk:Infobox ET. FloraC (talk) 06:49, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
I am really impressed, but rather not in a positive sense. I left a ping on the user discussion and the template discussion. --Xenwolf (talk) 09:18, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Relations of various interval categories

There are Category:Interval, Category:Just interval, Category:Interval ratio and Category:Ratio with different content of m/n pages like 3/2. Maybe someone knows if there was an intention behind that?

Also there seems to be a forgotten todo in the description of Category:Intervals. --Arseniiv (talk) 16:06, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Good catch! This is caused by the migration procedure (from wikispaces to MediaWiki), categories were retrieved from tags. Tags are much more lightweight and community-driven so there is not much consistency. The important question is how to name it, which has to be wisely decided considering relating (super, sub, sibling) categories. --Xenwolf (talk) 18:21, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Yeah I agree. AFAIU, no one here needs ratios by themselves, mathematically, so we would have a simple inclusion Just interval inside Interval, taking both existing categories and reshuffling which page belongs where: rational intervals into Just interval, and remaining few irrational intervals may reside directly in Interval without their own subcategory. (FTR Category:Comma stays as it was.) Now we need more opinions! --Arseniiv (talk) 18:59, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree. I think Category:Just interval is the best solution here (a more technical term would be something like Category:Interval page, but I prefer your - more pragmatic - solution). --Xenwolf (talk) 17:41, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
I suggest the category "ratio" should remain and "just interval" should go, for there's no consensus what "just" really means. I once talked about the concept of "just" in the FB group. Obviously there are people who argue:
  1. Rational isn't synonymous with just;
  2. Justness is a perceptual property and has nothing to do with the rationality of an interval;
  3. Justness contrasts with wolfness;
  4. The point of rationality of an interval is neutralized by the Gabor limit. FloraC (talk) 18:02, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
What about "rational interval" then? It's a technical term that doesn't imply musical quality. I find "interval" and "ratio" too common terms, I'd like to discuss this first before we do a lot of category changes. --Xenwolf (talk) 18:46, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
My previous suggestion takes the extent of changes into account. If there's no problem with that, I think "rational interval" is better. FloraC (talk) 19:04, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
I guess Ratio may be simply moved to the new one? Ah, but page texts won’t change with that… Looks like work for a bot. But it seems there will be lots of work anyway, as sometimes for example there are several categories applied at the same time. (When I saw that, I didn’t touch it exactly because of undecidedness which ones are suited better.) --Arseniiv (talk) 19:17, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
As we seem to agree about the pragmatical usefulness of "Rational interval", I'd say we could add this without problems to uncategorized pages, we could also replace "interval ratio" with it (this one was introduced by me after the migration to MediaWiki to combine "interval" and "ratio", two tags from the wikispaces era - tags were single words). The same would apply to pages that are categorized as both "interval" and "ratio", or written in a more
compact form:
  • (none) → "Rational interval"
  • "Interval ratio" → "Rational interval"
  • "Interval" and "Ratio" → "Rational interval"
But nothing to be done right now. Should we try to get Aura, CritDeathX, IlL, TallKite, and Yourmusic Productions involved? What do you think? --Xenwolf (talk) 19:51, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Of course all active people should have a say, I think. :) Also they should see this new page for discussing overarching plans; maybe few of them had still seen it? --Arseniiv (talk) 20:36, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
I do think that a "Rational Interval" is a good idea for a category, and as a target for merging a number of the various categories. However, "Interval" should remain its own category, with "Rational Interval" as the subcategory. --Aura (talk) 13:34, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
@Aura: What you just suggested is already planned: keep Category:Interval and placing Category:Rational interval into it. --Xenwolf (talk) 15:06, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I don't have a strong opinion. --TallKite (talk) 07:11, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I'd incline towards the shortest unambiguous tags possible. The longer they are, the more likely people are to forget or misspell them, resulting in pages falling through the cracks. Yourmusic Productions (talk) 10:30, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
@Yourmusic Productions: Sorry that I have to correct you about a misconception. There is no tag feature available in MediaWiki. The category feature is comparable but not as lightweight and not combinable (see below). Since the term Just is disputable and Interval and Ratio so little significant, we are searching for a category name that will do a good job in containing all the pages about individual intervals. MediaWiki unfortunately does not support selecting pages by a logic combination of categories (like Interval AND Ratio AND Just), so single words as category names will not be as usable as you might imagine. --Xenwolf (talk) 11:27, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I think it'd be good if we have Interval as a regular category with Rational Interval as a subcategory. Its possible we could include irrational intervals on the wiki, though at the moment it doesn't seem clear when we would need those pages. --CritDeathX (talk) 00:37, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree with the main ideas for "Rational interval", although I would advise going for "Rational intervals" (plural) instead, since this would be a set category. Considering that the category is still unused at this point, I will take the chance of renaming the category into its plural form, and we can revert if necessary.
Relatedly, the "Interval" category should probably be called "Intervals", but that category already exists although it is proposed to be merged elsewhere, so I will proceed to freeing that category by completing the current suggested merge.
I also agree that moving pages to the right categories would be the work for a bot, and I'd be glad to help in this matter if there is anything I can do. --Fredg999 (talk) 16:28, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Sure. Now, is it good to add the category to Template:Infobox Interval? Shall we get this started any time? FloraC (talk) 19:52, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Seeing as this infobox template seems used for rational intervals only, I think your suggestion is much more efficient than mine. We'd have to clean up the old categories anyway, but at least the new category would be present already. Fredg999 (talk) 21:49, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Shorten editing titles

Say what you think about the change proposed (Xenharmonic Wiki:Things to do#Proposal: Shorten editing titles)?

  • I'm for it: I have already tried it for three years in another wiki and can say that it proved to be useful there. --Xenwolf (talk)

New Category?

Would it be possible to have a Kite Guitar category? There's already about a dozen pages about it.

Definitively. Good idea. I'll do it in a moment. --Xenwolf (talk) 10:37, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
PS: Please, Kite, think of signing your contributions on discussion pages; it's easy, just type --~~~~ (2 hyphens and 4 tildes),
the 4 tildes will be replaced automatically (on saving) by your linked user name and the time of saving. --Xenwolf (talk) 10:37, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, I keep forgetting to sign. Ill try signing before typing in my comment. --TallKite (talk) 22:01, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Great :) (I sometimes myself forget to sign). I hope the category:Kite Guitar brings the expected benefits, hopefully I got all the pages you meant. --Xenwolf (talk) 22:06, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Looks good! By the way, how do I fix a double redirect? --TallKite (talk) 07:39, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
Double redirects (A → B → C) are fixed by changing them into normal ones (A → C). Resolving double redirects is no big effort, I check from time to time if there are any to clean up. The Special:DoubleRedirects page helps with that. I'll leave it for a while in case you want to do it yourself. Please let me know if you like me to do it. --Xenwolf (talk) 08:38, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
I tried to fix it, did I do it right? --TallKite (talk) 01:33, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
Yeah absolutely :) --Xenwolf (talk) 12:22, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Naming articles

I'd like to write down our collaborative findings and experience about naming. What do you think? Is it reliable, or even correct? --Xenwolf (talk) 22:10, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I'll be adding this:

We follow Wikipedia's style guides Wikipedia: WP:THE, Wikipedia: WP:PLURAL, and Wikipedia: WP:NCCAPS. In summary:

Case
Use English sentence case. This means that words inside the title are written in lower case, except for proper names. The very first character is automatically capitalized by the wiki software.
Plurals
Use singular nouns, unless it is a collection for different types of things.
Articles
Save articles at the initial of the title, unless it is an integral part of the title.

Examples:

What do you dudes think? FloraC (talk) 15:22, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree with everything on that topic so far. I also suggest that we follow parts of Wikipedia's style guides for categories, more specifically Wikipedia: WP:TOPICCAT, Wikipedia: WP:SUBCAT and Wikipedia: WP:DIFFUSE.
Plurals: Use singular for topic categories and plural for set categories.
Examples:
  • Category:Scale (correct: topic category, to include pages like Periodic scale and Hexany)
  • Category:Scales (correct: set category, to be diffused in subcategories ­— see below)
  • Category:Musician (unless we have pages that would fit in a "Musician" topic category rather than pages about specific musicians)
  • Category:Musicians (correct)
Subcategorization: If logical membership of one category implies logical membership of a second (an is-a relationship), then the first category should be made a subcategory (directly or indirectly) of the second.
Example:
Diffusion: Do not include a page both in a category and its parent category unless the category is a non-diffusing category.
Examples:
Metacategories: schemes of subcategories can be organized with metacategories.
Example:
Aside the fact that there are multiple redundant categories for various topics (which is already noted with Category:Todo:merge categories), it is often the case that pages about a topic and pages in a set are mixed together in one or many of those categories. Category:Scale is a good example of that phenomenon.
I think there is a way to move and reorganize existing pages and categories efficiently using Cat-a-lot, but I'm not very familiar with it, and I don't know if I even have the user right to use it for that matter. --Fredg999 (talk) 22:38, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
I agree with these categorization policies. Just a few notes. Category:Scales by number of tones is actually Category:Scales by size. Category:Scale has been cleared. Most topics are under Category:Scale theory. Meanwhile the move from Category:Musician to Category:Musicians hasn't started yet.
I'm adding my part. FloraC (talk) 23:12, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for the first note in particular. I replaced the example with Category:Scales by size in my previous message for clarity. I hadn't created the category yet at the time of writing that, so it seems I changed my mind afterwards.
Also, concerning the use of Cat-a-lot, I know there is already a "manual bot" user, User:Keenan Pepper category edits, which can use Cat-a-lot, but I would feel out of place to use that account, since it's associated with Keenan Pepper. Could I create a similar account for myself which I could then use for Cat-a-lot work? --Fredg999 (talk) 00:34, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
Sure. Why not. Plz request it. FloraC (talk) 11:44, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
There are only few users in this wiki who have the rights to make this new account a bot (see userrights in Special:ListGroupRights). And I've currently not the time to wait. --Xenwolf (talk) 18:20, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
I created the account (User:Fredg999 category edits) anyway. Hope you could spare some time to set it to a bot. Meanwhile I'll get in touch with Mike. FloraC (talk) 13:04, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
The account is in the bot group. --Xenwolf (talk) 18:39, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Category: Pages with internal sound examples

I made a new category called "Pages with internal sound examples". This category is similar to the "Listen" category, but it only lists pages with embedded audio files AKA internal sound examples. I believe this is a useful category to have for cases in which someone on the xen wiki wants to listen to a sound example without having to go to an external website. So far I have looked through the list of all pages to find and categorize pages that have internal sound examples, but for me alone to fully complete this process would take at least a week or so, provided I have enough spare time to edit the xen wiki on a regular basis. Because of this, I would like to know if anyone else on this wiki would be willing to help me add pages to the "Pages with internal sound examples" category. --Userminusone (talk) 03:25, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

I've already partially guessed this intention, so good to read this. This category definitely wouldn't hurt, let's see if it's of any use. I'm happy to join your efforts and will add sites to this category as I come across them (though probably not systematically). --Xenwolf (talk) 08:43, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, Xenwolf. Now that you're on board, can I put this on "Xenharmonic Wiki:Things to do" so that other people can see it and contribute? --Userminusone (talk) 19:01, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Odd harmonics table instead of prime harmonics for edos

Suggestion: use User:Inthar/Template:Harmonics in edo (for odd harmonics) instead of Template:Primes in edo (for prime harmonics).

I saw that this has been done to a number of edo pages. The way I use this table is to find the error of a JI ratio in an edo. For 5/3, I subtract prime 3's error from prime 5's error. For 15/14, I add 3 and 5 and subtract 7. Because I'm used to doing all this, I don't need that redundant 9 column. For 9/8, I simply double 3's error. So this table which already is rather wide on the screen now has redundant columns for 9, 15, 21, 25 and 27. So personally I would prefer the old way, prime harmonics only. --TallKite (talk) 05:37, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
One of the points of using odd tables is to ease inconsistent edos. With some edos with like a really off 3 but accurate 9, the odd table is likely to be helpful. With others the odd table is redundant. It depends on the edo. I propose a general guide: if error of prime 3 < 25%, show the prime table, otherwise odd table, or we may examine it case-by-case. FloraC (talk) 08:53, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Re: inconsistent edos, that is indeed one reason why I made the odds table. My humble proposal: if there's no inconsistency in the odds table, use the prime table (showing primes up to 31). Otherwise use the odds table.
Imo even when there's no inconsistency, I can still see the odds table being useful for showing at a glance how e.g. 31edo's 11/9 is really good. And, lack of inconsistency is in itself a piece of information about an edo. Inthar (talk) 09:09, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
I could see including 9 when prime 3 is > 25% off. 9 is a pretty small number, and the 9th harmonic is pretty audible on acoustic instruments. But why include all the other non-prime odd numbers? --TallKite (talk) 22:11, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
18edo is an example of an edo that has a good 21/16 (-4.1c error) which is inconsistent with the best 3/2 and the best 7/4. And it's nice to to be able to gauge the error for, say, 21/17 in an edo just by looking at the direct errors of the best 21 and the best 17. The table is meant to be a quick reference. Besides, aren't 15/8 and 21/16 both important JI ratios in the 5-limit and the 7-limit? Inthar (talk) 01:36, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
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