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WikiScores Music Merger

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Why

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It was felt that there were several proposals and several ideas floating around that all were related to a central idea. Instead of having many different proposals it was seen as a better idea to merge them all into to one proposal to avoid confusion and repetitivity as well as increase support.

What's going on

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Currently there are three active projects involving music or music related content of some kind. WikiScores, WikiMusic, Wikimusic II, and the ideas hosted at Effeietsanders user page. The ideas from all of these projects are being merged into one larger project that will hopefully fulfill a larger purpose. There are also several inactive projects, however these are being ignored.

Implementation

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The most obvious thing that will happen is that the two three existing proposals on Proposals_for_new_projects will be merged together. (see below) This will happen by taking all the supporters and comments from the WikiMusic project and adding them to the end of the lists for WikiScores. This is because WikiScores was created first. If anyone would like to search through the history and sort everything by the date that it was posted please do. Naming suggestions, Domain name, and Proposers have also been modified in a similar manner. The scope of the proposal has been modified as well. Further, the scope and other information for "WikiMusic II", including the link to the request on the mailing list.

Other than the project proposals, I would also like to start merging the various discussions about the project. I would like to see a centralized place for development on the project to occur. I've set up a wiki on my desktop computer to help develop ideas and I think it would be good to continue discussion there since it would provide a centralized location and more room than a few 'details' pages. The only problem with this right now is that it is running on my PC so it doesn't exactly have 99.9% uptime, so if anyone has any extra hosting they would like to donate.. :)

What next

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Please comment on any ideas, comments, suggestions, problems, or anything else that you've noticed about the merger. Discussion and questions should go to the talk page, however don't be afraid to edit this page as well.

As you can tell, I've used the word I quite often on this page, I would like to get more input from other people so in a few weeks hopefully all the I's will have become we's. Also, the 'New Proposal' below is intended to be a working model. I did most of the merging myself, one person making all the decisions is not good.

New Proposal

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This will be what goes on the project proposals page on Dec. 20th

  • Link to request on foundation-l: [1]
  • Naming suggestions: WikiScores, WikiSheets, WikiMusic, WikiNotes, WikiLyrics
  • Domain name: wikiscores.org, wikisheets.org, wikimusic.org, music.wikipedia.org, music.wikimedia.org
  • Scope: A wiki with
    • information about music in public domain or free from copyright restrictions
    • both sheet music and lyrics
    • the music itself in a playable music file (in different versions, for example one version with trumpet, one with a whole orchestra, not MIDI)
    • would need a scoring language/interface, including a feature to make a MIDI
    • not a place for illegal music sharing
  • Details: WikiScores, WikiMusic, Wikimusic
  • Demo: WikiMusic
  • Proposer: Phauna, Andy753421, Effeietsanders
  • For older discussion and proposals, see: [2], [3], [4], [5]
  • People interested joining:
    • --Member 9 July 2005 00:39 (UTC) nice idea, it could have an impact as big as Wikipedia
    • ErezSegal an excellent idea. must have uniqe format for scoring.
    • Phauna, CdaMVvWgS
    • Splat
    • Zhaladshar
    • +sj+ - should start out as a wikibook
    • Brigand - Why not use MIDI?
    • Christiaan - oh yes please, this is something I could get my technophobic mother into (she's a music teacher)
    • I like the idea :-) Anthere 23:30, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Lazylemon 11:43, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • 83.64.122.86 - Great idea, already reality in wikibooks (eg. recipes)
    • Jaberwocky6669 17:46, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Starwiz 22:51, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC) Desperately needed, although it could be incorporated into Wikisource with enough work.
    • Jun-Dai 17:54, 3 May 2005 (UTC) I would only be truly interested in this if the scores were stored in Lilypond (which still needs help as far as piano scores are concerned) or something similar, with multiple output formats. I'm not so interested in a wiki that merely collects PDFs or PS documents.[reply]
    • --Sterio 20:14, 3 May 2005 (UTC) I'd be really interested in participating in something like this. I find it hard to imagine how it'd work, but I think it's a great idea.[reply]
    • Jbmccoy 15:54, 17 June 2005 (UTC) I'd love to take part in something like this. I don't see why a unique new score format is necessary - could something like MusicML be used for this? MIDI is IMO completely inappropriate - no score or layout information can be stored in a MIDI file.[reply]
    • Hoekenheef 13:39, 1 Jul 2005 (UTC) Wonderful idea that would benifet a large portion of the community.
    • Mysekurity would be happy to contribute some of the things he's been working on (made with FruityLoops, Wavelab, Acid, Reason, and others). We could outdo Bach! 04:22, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • User:dragonstongue2000 - There needs to be a place on the internet to get free sheet music.
    • Solarusdude - If you've ever been a regular visitor of a website that publishes lyrics for thousands of songs (ie Leo's Lyrics), you know that there are inaccurate entries and popular songs missing altogether. In the case of Leo's Lyrics, users can enter new lyrics into the database, but they cannot be changed later. Meaning that if someone enters lyrics that are inaccurate, you're stuck with them. As a result, there will be a lot of repeat entries for songs with conflicting lyrics. One thing that I like about Leo's Lyrics is that users can comment on songs, such as their interpretation of the lyrics and how the song is important to them. I believe this is something that can be done on a Wiki platform and I strongly suggest that Wikimedia initate a project that archives musical lyrics. I suggest that it be called, "WikiLyrics"
    • Quadraxis 01:47, 23 October 2005 (UTC) I suggest creating the pages similar to those often used for tv show episodes, as in, "title of song (band)" then a small description of the song (what it's about, etc.), followed by the lyrics, followed by a trivia section. Each article would have a sidebar containing the band, each album the song was on, what date it was first released (on the first album) what other bands have played covers of it, etc. As a sort of example of what i mean, i offer up This Stargate Atlantis Episode as an example. If you would like, i'll make an example page to explain what i mean. (yes, i've been thinking about this for a while, even before i found you're proposal. --Quadraxis 01:47, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Stephenhcarlson - I would love a Wiki that allowed aspiring musicians to collaboratively transcribe songs. Has anyone seen the TABs on OLGA? They leave much to be desired - they are incomplete at best, and are often fraught with blatant errors that can be very misleading to a budding musician. Would love for Wiki to support in-browser TAB editing, and if we could find a way to support MIDI playback, we'd have a real winner here.
    • Gflores - Sounds like a great idea!
    • Sloyment - I am interested in a free music wiki, i.e. a wiki used to collect, publish and compose PD or freely licensed music in the form of lyrics, notes, computer music files and recordings, and maybe to share knowledge about composing, playing and recording.
    • W0lfie - I'd love to contribute. Where do I pitch in? I already contribute to Musipedia. But I'm a little confused where to contribute here? Heck, maybe I'm not even supposed to edit this!  :-)
    • Optimix 03:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC) - Great idea. It could be nice to start copying titles from freedb.org. After that we can write the lyrics for the songs :)[reply]
  • Comments:
    • Why couldn't this be part of wikisource? A separate subdomain, maybe, like a new language. I'd say the only thing keeping it from already being part of wikisource is lack of Lilypond support. I support making this part of Wikisource rather than having it stand on its own. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 16:47, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is also the WikiMusic proposal below. Merge? -- Sloyment 08:13, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Other: The Wiki lyrics concept has been explored via KiwiLyrics. How great an experience it provides, well...I'm not going to vouch for it, but yes you can correct the pages. And at least their Google ads are less annoying than on most lyrics sites... Metaeducation 12:15, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is a problem, however. Using the full lyrics of commercial songs is not lawful fair use. This project would therefore be reduced to merely covering folk songs and other copyrightless sources. Garrett 13:27, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Is this true? I mean, how can the lyrics be published on hundreds of other sites, and then i have to wonder why some songs on Wikipedia contain lyrics?--Quadraxis 01:47, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fair use ought to cover lyrics if the songs are being critiqued, especially if presented in an educational setting. Since the lyrics would not be used to create a reproduction of the copywrited recording, record companies cannot complain that they are losing money from having the lyrics published, and thus have little grounds to sue for copywrite infringement anyway. Solarusdude 19:54, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • The point is that, as far as I'm concerned, it should be possible to use everything on Wikimedia wikis to create reproductions. That is the whole idea of "free the music". Therefore, lyrics and music of any songs that are still covered by copyright and are not appropriately licensed cannot go on such a wiki, because they are unfree. – gpvos (talk) 11:06, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Almost all of the sites i have been on that are lyrics databases, have spyware, lots of ads, innacurate lyrics, awful load times (b/c of the ads), and are lacking of a place to contain other trivia about songs.
    • I am brainstorming with some people about a Wikimusic as well, but then restricted to free music. Personnely I would like to make of this (probably most PD) music a page with the score, the music and the tekst. I am talking with other wiki-like projects about coöporation. See for the brainstorming etc: my userspace at nl.wp. (however at nl.wp, most of the discussion is in English) I hope to see the discussion grow. Effeietsanders 15:11, 1 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • There should be a Wiki version of allmusic.com! There are no copyright issues if it is just short album reviews, links to "similar artists" and "influences", and lists of descriptive keywords like "brooding," "atmospheric," etc.
    • I threw up a copy of media wiki that we can use to work on how stuff would be laid out. It's under 'Demo' (above), so if you're interested head over and edit away. --Andy753421 22:34, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is already the WikiScores proposal above. Merge? -- Sloyment 08:08, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have merged the "WikiMusic II" proposal to WikiScores Music Merger. --Kernigh 21:12, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]