Mass not appearing in Masses category listing

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MandyShaw
Posts: 79
Joined: 28 May 2007 09:11
Location: Bath, England

Mass not appearing in Masses category listing

Post by MandyShaw »

Hi
Yesterday I added http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Miss ... Valentini) to CPDL. The score page indicates that it is in the Masses category, but it's still not appearing in the Masses category listing this morning. What have I forgotten to do?
Many thanks
Mandy
carlos
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Location: São Paulo, Brasil

Re: Mass not appearing in Masses category listing

Post by carlos »

Hi Mandy! Your edition is there, currently categorized under letter 'M'. In fact we have a problem with this category (and a couple of others): by convention it should list works ordered by composer surname, but depending on how the {{Genre}} template is used inside the editions page (with or without a sort key), the work gets categorized alphabetically instead. So now we have both kinds of categorization mixed together.

Maybe it's a good moment for us to discuss this sorting convention (by composer surname) and see if it still makes sense. If so decided, then the sort key can be automated to cover most cases (there will always be exceptions that will require manual intervention). I particularly don't see the logic behind this long established rule to have some genre categories sorted alphabetically while others are not.
MandyShaw
Posts: 79
Joined: 28 May 2007 09:11
Location: Bath, England

Re: Mass not appearing in Masses category listing

Post by MandyShaw »

Ah, thanks, that makes (sort of) sense - I hadn't thought to look under M.
My opinion would be, in this specific case, that people are likely to refer to/search for a Mass by composer first and then by title.
Mandy
carlos
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Location: São Paulo, Brasil

Re: Mass not appearing in Masses category listing

Post by carlos »

Thank you for your feedback, Mandy! For the time being, I've implemented the automated sort key so as to minimize the problem, but the discussion is still open to others' opinions.
vaarky
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Re: Mass not appearing in Masses category listing

Post by vaarky »

I agree that search by Composer is more likely.
carlos
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Location: São Paulo, Brasil

Re: Mass not appearing in Masses category listing

Post by carlos »

We currently have 26 subcategories for http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Secular_music and 49 for http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Sacred_music, six of which are sorted by composer: Masses, Requiems, Communion Services, Preces and Responses, Morning Canticles, and Evening Canticles.

Vaarky and Mandy, please help me understand it better: do you think that this kind of ordering should be valid only for the six categories listed above, or for others as well?
vaarky
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Re: Mass not appearing in Masses category listing

Post by vaarky »

I have always thought it would be much more useful to sort within each of those categories by composer rather than title. I think it's far more likely when someone peruses the Secular music listing that they want to skim to see what the composer options are rather than how many different pieces start titles with "Ah," and similarly for Motets to see what composers have written, rather than see a list all the Motets starting with "Ave" or "Salve". But my uses have not tended to cover selecting music for a religious occasion.

However, I don't think this needs to be an either-or choice. It can default to a page sorted by composer, for example, with a prominent link at the top that users can click to take them to a page that has an alphabetical sort instead if they prefer.
carlos
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Posts: 1870
Joined: 19 Aug 2008 15:26
Location: São Paulo, Brasil

Re: Mass not appearing in Masses category listing

Post by carlos »

vaarky wrote:I don't think this needs to be an either-or choice. It can default to a page sorted by composer, for example, with a prominent link at the top that users can click to take them to a page that has an alphabetical sort instead if they prefer.
Sure, this can be done! We just need to duplicate all of these categories. We'd have pairs of the kind "Category:Requiems" and "Category:Requiems by composer". Similarly, in the Multi-Category Search we'd be able to select if we want the results listed alphabetically or by composer.
MandyShaw
Posts: 79
Joined: 28 May 2007 09:11
Location: Bath, England

Re: Mass not appearing in Masses category listing

Post by MandyShaw »

This seems to me to be a great solution.
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