[Smt-talk] Music Theory Project on Wikipedia

[kos at panix.com]

Some months ago there on AMS-L (the email list of the American Musicological 
Society) there was much haggling about Wikipedia and what to do with it.

Today I see that a person identified as "Nrswanson" has started a Music Theory 
WikiProject.  The project's home page is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Music_Theory

For those of you unfamiliar with "Wikipedia Projects":  A Wikipedia Project is 
a determined effort to increase the number and quality of articles on Wikipedia 
devoted to a particular topic.  Thanks to the Wikipedia Opera Project, there is 
more information on opera than you'll find in any publish source (particularly 
on obsure composers and their works).

I'm involved in 2 Wikipedia Projects (opera and musicals) and it tends to be 
a very collaborative process, with many people reviewing (and correcting and
emending) each others work, and sometimes standards being (eventually) set up 
for indicating level of quality, as well as a kind of "best practices" for 
quality of article.  (I feel it's a rather instructive learning process.)

Despite the debut of Google's Knol this week, I think this Music Theory 
Wikipedia Project is a great opportunity for members of SMT to become involved 
and (indirectly) help steer the course of Wikipedia entries on music theory.

I'm sending this to SMT-TALK rather than to SMT-ANNOUNCE, assuming that some 
people will want to discuss it.


Bob Kosovsky, Ph.D. -- Curator, Rare Books and Manuscripts,
Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
     blog (NEW address):  http://www.nypl.org/blogs/bob-kosovsky
   Listowner: OPERA-L ; SMT-TALK ; SMT-ANNOUNCE ; SoundForge-users
--- My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my institutions ---