ChoralWiki:Operation and implementation issues
CW:OI redirects here.
External Bulletin Board Upgraded
As the first action of the CPDL Transition Committee, the external Bulletin Board (aka "forums") has been upgraded and is now located at forums.cpdl.org/phpBB3. The upgrade should prevent the majority of spammers and solve posting problems. You can use your old login on the upgraded BB. The Bulletin board here at ChoralWiki will be active at least for the time being, so feel free to use either.
Documentation
This page is part of the ChoralWiki:Bulletin board.
Starting a new topic: Click on the [edit] link at the right of the General topics (most recent first) section and type
== <title of new topic> ==
at the beginning of a new line, below the comment line that reads "Start NEW TOPICS immediately below this line, ABOVE (BEFORE) any other topics." Then post your initial message as described below. Thus, a new topic will appear before (above) any other topics, to make for easier browsing. For example, typing
== Looking for works in Quenya ==
will start a new topic, appearing as:
| Looking for works in Quenya | [edit] |
Starting new topics in the Announcements and special topics section should follow the same protocol, but such topics should only be started by CPDL Admins/Sysops.
When adding a message to an existing topic, simply click on the [edit] link at the right of the topic title and post your message below any previously posted message(s) on the topic as follows:
Posting a message (note NEW syntax): Start a new line, and use the Template:ItemPost in the format:
{{ItemPost
|by=<your name & date>
|text=<your message>
}}
The easiest way to sign and date your message is to type four tildes (~~~~) for <your name & date>. Thus, for example, typing
{{ItemPost
|by=~~~~
|text=
Here is a sample message
spread
over
several lines.<br>
It even has more than one paragraph.
}}
resulted in:
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Here is a sample message
spread
over
several lines. It even has more than one paragraph. | |
N.B. The old syntax for Template:ItemPost still works but is now deprecated in favor of the new syntax.
You can track the activity in this forum by adding this page to your Watchlist - simply click on the watch tab at the top of this page.
Announcements and special topics (most recent first)
CPDL transition
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Rafael Ornes, founder and manager of CPDL, is stepping back from an active role with CPDL. Initially, Raf has turned the operational responsibilities to bobnotts, Carlos, CHGiffen, and johnhenryfowler. Since then, we have enlisted a group of volunteers who have been active on CPDL to serve with us as a CPDL transition committee charged with working out a transition plan. This will cover back-ups and other key areas of operation, setting up a working mechanism for donations (multiple people mailed donation checks and had them returned), etc. In addition to the above-mentioned users, the following users have agreed to serve on the Transtion committee: choralia, Arie Fokkens, and vaarky. These enlistees have already contributed greatly to our understanding of what we need to do and how we should go about doing it. Of course, Rafael Ornes serves ex officio on the committee and will be of enormous help in working out the many details of operation and maintenance which he has managed single-handedly for so long. If you have any questions or comments, or if you would like to offer assistance, please feel free to post here or contact one of us. | |
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As many of you may have already noticed from the Main Page, the old "forums" (external bulletin board) is back up and running. It is accessible at forums.cpdl.org/phpBB3. Members of the Transition committee should be advised that there is a (hidden) transition committee forum there which they will see when they login at the phpBB3. | |
Use of this forum
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This forum is for more techincal discussions of ChoralWiki implementation and operation at CPDL, primarily of interest to admins and others doing editing of pages at CPDL. Some topics of a more technical nature or involving CPDL policy from CPDL support, help, and feedback will be moved here. | |
General topics (most recent first)
New administrator
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We are happy to announce that User:Vaarky has been made a sysop (administrator) at CPDL who, at a crucial time for CPDL, has stepped up and made siginificant contributions both in terms of editing pages, organization at CPDL, and as a member of the Transition committee. We are very grateful for Vaarky's help and accepting a greater role here. Congratulations and welcome! | |
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Congratulations, Vaarky! Be very welcome to the administrative Board, and keep up the good work! | |
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Proposal of a template for files externally hosted
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Hi everyone! Composer and contributor Adrian Cuello has just informed that his old website (http://www.audio.ya.com/adriancuello) is no longer available and all his externally hosted files (pdf's and midi's) will have to be redirected to a new site (http://adriancuello.fortunecity.es). This situation is quite common for contributors who host their editions in free servers and have to move elsewhere from time to time. My suggestion is that for these cases, editors used a template like this: {{website|Adrian_Cuello}}. Their links would look like
instead of
Whenever the editor had to move to another server, we'd make just one single change to Template:website instead of changing all pages he contributed. What do you all think? | |
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Changes to the Requests: namespace
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After a lot of research, I finally was able to find out why Requests: pages didn't accept talk pages (clicking on the "talk" link would erroneously create a score page instead): a relatively simple 1-line variable setting was missing from LocalSettings.php and is now included. Now all Request talk pages can be created and edited normally, and searched via the combo box namespaces list. And since I was at it, I also renamed the "Requests:" namespace to the singular form "Request:", to comply with the standard followed by all other namespaces. Just by renaming it, all pages in this namespace were automatically renamed too. So now instead of Requests:Vago augelletto (Claudio Monteverdi), we have Request:Vago augelletto (Claudio Monteverdi). This renaming can be easily undone, in case the other admins disagree. The changes made to LocalSettings.php were: (before) $wgExtraNamespaces =
array ( 100 => "Requests",
);
(after) $wgExtraNamespaces =
array ( 100 => "Request",
101 => "Request_talk" );
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Classification of solo works as Bass, Baritone, Tenor, Countertenor, Alto, Soprano solos
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Using the low note/high note specification for an edition I need to know what makes a work have a particular voicepart's solo designation. Need the same definitions for LOW, MEDIUM,and HIGH Voice. ie. Range: B3 - E♭5 Does this make it Tenor solo ? Bass solo ?
Perhaps a diagram like this might help: g a b c d e f g a b c d e f g a b c d e f g a b c d e f g a b c d e f g
1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 6
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Bass |-----------|-----|-----|---| | | |
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Tenor |-----|-----|---------| | |
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Alto |-----|-----------------| |
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Soprano|-----------------------|
Johnhenryfowler 01:08, 5 August 2008 (PDT)
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John, there's something wrong with these ranges: Mezzo's high note A6 is higher than Soprano's C6! The same happens with Baritone's lower note A3, which is higher than Tenor's C3. Perhaps you made this confusion by thinking that the scale begins in A, when in fact it begins in C (...F0,A0,B0,C1,D1,E1,F1,G1,A1,B1,C2... etc.) | |
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Carlos, I did make that mistake. I've fixed it. What would you suggest for the ranges of Mezzo, Counter-Tenor, Baritone ? Does the above look correct now ? | |
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The vocal ranges given above are to be construed as choral ranges, not solo ranges. There is another important Wikipedia article on voice type which is more thorough and includes a discussion of solo vocal ranges. In solo singing, one must take into account not just vocal range, but also tessitura, vocal weight, and timbre - and these combine to determine the voice types for solo voices. A singer's tessitura is where the voice has the best timbre (vocal quality or "color"), easy volume, and most comfort. For example, a soprano and a mezzo-soprano may have almost identical vocal ranges, but have tessituras that lie in different parts of the range (the soprano having the higher tessitura). Here are typical vocal ranges (and typical extremes for soloists):
These are by no means authoritative, and indeed, both the New Harvard Dictionary of Music and the Grove Music Online ranges vary somewhat from my list above and the list John gives. John's and these last two ranges are probably intended to define typical choral vocal ranges. For High, Medium, and Low voicings (ordinarily not gender specific, the female range being an octave above the male range), typical ranges might be:
Indeed these are good norms for choral vocal ranges, as well, corresponding to traditional Soprano (Tenor), Mezzo (Baritone), Alto (Bass) voices. Excursions outside these ranges call for special singers and/or special circumstances (such as large chorus in the case of choral ranges). Furthermore, composers often choose vocal ranges that suit the voices they have at hand (or ranges that they are fond of). For example, I have written more than my share of choral bass parts that extend down to D2 or up to E4, choral soprano parts that extend down to A3. Or, Haydn's Thereseinmesse has choral bass parts that extend from D2 up to F4! It seems that even in classical times, there was little limit to using extreme vocal ranges, even for choral music. The period of solo vocal music also probably is important. For example, here are the bass solos from Messiah and their ranges:
With the exception of The people... the ambitus (range), collectively, is: A2 — E4. This is well within the solo baritone range and (except for The people...) even in the (low extended) tenor solo range. It is largely because of tessitura that these are considered bass solos by most people (even though they are often sung by baritones or bass-baritones). As for John's example with ambitus B3 — E-flat5 is, on vocal range alone, probably best classified as baritone solo, although many tenors and basses could also sing it. The real question, though, is a matter of tessitura, vocal weight, and timbre required of the solo - and for these one must consult the score directly, carefully. | |
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Excellent one Chuck, do you think we should put vocal range indicators in new scores?. | |
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Nice job, Chuck. In the short term I would like to add vocal ranges to the 200 cross-posted scores I just completed from "Art Song Central". Luckily Dave Newman has included the ranges, so it will be straightforward to add them. Putting in the Bass Solo, Tenor Solo, ..., High, Medium, Low categories will not be straightforward without a definition for each. This category information will allow these songs to be searched for by voice type, which I think is a nice addition to CPDL's functionality. We just need to decide how to do it before I embark on editing each of the 200 works pages to include Ranga and solo categories. | |
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Editor/contributor names
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In this edit I changed the contributor's name in a score entry added by John Henry Fowler from "Resneck" to "IMSLP". As some of you will be aware, IMSLP doesn't require contributors to give their real names, instead the scanner's username is listed. I have previously changed "Feldmahler" to "Edward W. Guo" as this is the name given on his user page, however, Resneck doesn't list his/her name. I think in the future, where a person's real name cannot be obtained, we should have the name of the resource that they contributed to in the first place. This only refers to when anyone but the editor or contributor adds the work to CPDL. I'm going away tomorrow but I'm sure the community will make the right decision on this without any further input from me. | |
Franz Schubert
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Is Franz Schubert in the category "Classical composer", "Romantic composer", or both ? Currently his composer page is classified as both, and the various works pages are 50/50 Classical music/Romantic music. | |
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Hi John, as you know it's not uncommon to have composers who lived in a transition period between two styles (as for example Monteverdi and Beethoven) and who composed in both "old" and "new" styles or in a blend of both. This may be the case of Schubert, and hence his composer page cites both categories. As for his works, they would have to be analyzed one by one to decide toward which style they tend more, though this is a somewhat subjective choice. The Wikipedia article about him says the following:
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In fact, Wikipedia also categorizes Schubert both as a Classical composer and as a Romantic composer. As another example, Wikipedia classifies Gustav Mahler both as a 20th century classical composer and as a Romantic composer, which should come as no surprise to those who know Mahler's music. Even Arnold Schoenberg (for example, in the earlier parts of his monumental oratorio Gurre-Lieder) wrote in the Romantic music idiom before turning to atonality later. | |
Aria Music sub-category
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Can we add "Aria" to ChoralWiki:Music Subcategories? It is already in use, but not listed there. And can we use overall category "Solo" to contain works of all the various solo categories? (ie/ Lieder, Art song, etc, etc ...) As you know searching for the string "1v" would list all the solo works, but searches for strings of 3 characters or less don't work in Wikiland, so using a category to help this makes sense. While we are at it, why does everything belong to "Category: Sheet music" ? | |
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Last things first. Not everything belongs to Sheet music - only score/works pages with CPDL editions on them do. And for each edition with {{NewWork|2008-08-01}} appearing on it (note, it's today's date), that page will appear on ChoralWiki:2008-08-01 Scores by virtue of it being in both the "Sheet music" and "2008-08-01" categories. This is because the code that generates this listing is a DPL (Dynamic Page Listing) - take a look at the code if you're interested. Without the "Sheet music" and date categories, you would not see the scores listed under "Most recent scores" on the Main Page. The easiest way to think of "Sheet music" is that it is for pages that have complete edition information on them. Now on to Solos. As presently understood, Solo [link removed - category now deleted] is an obsolete subcategory of Solo vocal music, and works in that subcategory are supposed to be recategorized in an appropriate subcategory of "Solo vocal music", such as Solo medium, Solo Soprano, etc. If you want to do a search for all solos, you could search on the keyword "solo" (which, conveniently and unlike "1vv" or the correct "1v", is a word with more than three characters) - or even "solo baritone" if, say, you wanted to hunt for baritone solos (but simply going to Solo Baritone would be much easier and not yield so many extraneous hits.
Now, for Arias. As for "Christmas", there are two kinds - secular and sacred. And the current Arias category contains both types, which is unfortunate, since this appears as a subcategory of Secular music. Indeed, we should have two categories Secular arias and Sacred arias. Note, we do already have Sacred songs, but (aside from many of these being for chorus/choir with or without solos) I think that is analogous to Lieder vs. Art songs, or Anthems vs. Motets, or Hymns vs. Chorales. Do we make a change to two categories? ... I don't know. I will at least list "Arias" under Seculular music on ChoralWiki:Music Subcategories, since they already appear as a subcategory of "Secular music". I would suggest that we need to reach a decision soon (better than later) and recategorize arias appropriately if we go with the two flavors of aria categories. I hope these explanations help and that people will add their thoughts. | |
Contact with Rafael Ornes
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Rafael Ornes, founder and manager of CPDL since its inception has recently replied to an e-mail which I sent earlier today (cc also to Robert Nottingham, Carlos Augusto Mourão, and John Henry Fowler, all of us sysops/admins at CPDL). In addition, Raf and I had a very cordial and informative telephone conversation about an hour and a half ago, in which he told me that he had sent the e-mail reply to me and the above admins, as well as expanding upon some of the information in the e-mail. The main thrust of his message is that he has been considering turning over all elements of CPDL for many months, having become too inundated by work and family obligations to manage CPDL properly. The backlog for him has grown to the point that he was been unable to do much more than reply to some direct support emails and do absolutely required backups and mainenance. This has been a very trying realization for Raf to arrive at, and, after almost 10 years of managing CPDL, he feels a deep sorrow over having to let it go. Raf is giving Carlos and me the necessary login/access information for the CPDL webserver. He commends the active group of admins for working together extremely well. He has offered to help us out and is glad not to have the great pressure overseeing such a large and vital endeavor as CPDL. In our conversation by phone, Raf suggested that we might consider forming some sort of managing committee to do the many things necessary to address current needs of CPDL, such as upgrading the MediaWiki software and extensions, as well as managing the MySQL database directly. I wish to consult with all admins (at least the active ones) as soon as possible, so that we might quickly come to agreement on how best to do all this. We will do everything possible to maintain CPDL, enhance it, and preserve the legacy that Rafael has given to choral musicians through CPDL. I know many of you will be variously affected by this news. Personally, although I am relieved that we have some guidance and direction in which to proceed, it is with a deep sense of compassion, appreciation, and respect for my friend Raf that I am also saddened by his needing to step back. My best wishes and prayers are with him and his family. | |
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I think these news are very positive for CPDL, even though it's sad that Raf needs to step back. You sysops/admins can count on me as an IT professional as well as to contribute to the budget that may be required to run the operations of CPDL. As a sign of appreciation for everything Raf did for CPDL, I would propose to highlight his name in the home page, e.g. by adding a "Founder: Rafael Ornes" on the top of the page, or something like that. Max | |
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Great idea! I've found myself mentioning CPDL and the Internet alongside penicillin when commenting that it's a great time to be alive. Although it's unfortunate that Rafael doesn't have time to remain actively involved, having some definiteness around his role may help pave the way for other admins to move projects along that were on hold. Worth updating ChoralWiki:Contact_CPDL with updated phone or e-mail contact info. I flagged it for Cleanup but I'm not sure if someone reads each one or if it waits for volunteers to go through it when they have time--apologies if ths is redundant. | |
Proposal to eliminate file sizes from works pages
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Putting in the file size of PDF, MIDI and Source files represents a lot of additional time and bother. Only when the file size is over 100 meg is it really helpful to the user. Bob has suggested that we omit this information, and has started removing the "200 Kb." estimates on my recent postings, which means I can't search and replace this information in the future. I therefore will be omitting file sizes in future postings. This will make Bobs editing job easier, and eliminate the need to update the estimates to real file sizes in the future. | |
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In general I agree with you, John, file size is no longer a very useful information nowadays when everybody has broadband. I think that leaving just page format (A4/Letter) and number of pages will suffice. | |
CPDL.org donations address still valid?
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I mailed a check in April. The post office returned it to me with a yellow label over it saying "Return to Sender, not deliverable as addressed, unable to forward." The address matches. Has the address changed? Should I resend? | |
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Hi Vaarky. Thank you very much for your generosity and desire to donate to CPDL. Unfortunately, Raf Ornes is currently not involved in the project except when he is absolutely required to be (eg. the crash last year). If you want to get in touch, I suggest you email him, but don't hold out for a reply as he seems to have no time even to reply to emails these days. I have commented out the address on the ChoralWiki:Site support page for the moment, until Raf updates us with a new address. Again, thanks for your donation and I'm sorry that we can't accept it at this time. | |
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Does this problem above signal the end of CPDL as we know it some time in the future ? Is anyone else concerned? It seems we are busy with arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Can't we fix the Bulletin Board system, the "Add Score" script, update the Wiki software, and now we can't accept contributions ? Our work on CPDL is just a crashed disk away from total destruction if no one is steering the ship... | |
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I had the same experience, with my check returned, and I'm very worried about the future of CPDL. An action is in progress by a couple of CPDL administrators to get in touch with Raf. If this attempt does not succeed, I think we should contact the administrator of the server farm where CPDL is hosted, and ascertain that back-ups are regularly made, and somebody can restore them in the case of need. My phpBB3 back-up bulletin board is always available for whoever wants to use it, and it may act as a contact point for our admins should CPDL collapse (that will make this wiki version collapse as well. | |
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As Choralia said, an attempt was made to contact Raf Ornes 9 days ago, during the spambot attacks (more about it below, under "Administrative remedies ... "). We emailed Raf through 3 different email accounts (CPDL's, personal Gmail and even his Church email) and still no reply. He seems to have shifted his priorities towards other projects lately, and I'm trying to figure out what exactly this will mean for the future of CPDL. | |
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I did e-mail Rafael back then but got no reply. FWIW, I think the biggest priority (in addition to reaching him) would be to take a snapshot of CPDL and, ideally, the external score pages that are linked by it too (and then set up periodic updates to the back-ups to stay current). My husband (I can provide further details in e-mail) is willing
to take this on if the admins can provide: Additionally, I'm willing to put up funds to underwrite a different hosting solution if needed (up to the low 4-digits $US per year for at least 5 years) if I can't talk an ISP I know into sponsoring hosting it on their site (they've sponsored projects I've been involved with in the past--I can provide details via e-mail about the ISP as well. Please drop me a note if you'd like to discuss my husband's info/credentials or the ISP. I just don't want those aspects Googleable if I can avoid it. | |
Request for extension to Template:Editor
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I've just been updating O magnum mysterium (Tomás Luis de Victoria) with the names of the editors from Mutopia (see http://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/piece-info.cgi?id=244) who have edited this work. Unfortunately, the Editor template cannot take more than one editor in its current state. Would it be possible for someone to extend it in the same manner as Template:Language? I would but it takes me a while to get my head round template code and I know other people are better at it :-) | |
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It's done, Rob! Check the new syntaxes on the template page: Template:Editor. I already applied it to O magnum mysterium as a test. | |
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Thanks a lot, Carlos. That's a great help. | |
LilyPond icons
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I came across this page whilst doing some spam reverting and noticed a few LilyPond icons ( | |
) in place of the usual text "LilyPond". What do people think about adopting this icon universally and adding it to the Legend? I've just created 
) for LilyPond files hosted externally. I figure, the more icons and less text on score and composer pages, the better.
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Hi Rob, I never thought about this before, might be a good idea. The icons for the PDF and MIDI files are quite obvious and universally recognized. I just wonder if people visiting score pages won't be a bit confused at first with icons they don't know yet (I suppose we'd adopt icons for the other sources too, as Sibelius, Encore etc.?), but as soon as they look at the Legend everything would be clear. The ideal would be if we could make the tooltip (that appears when we drag the mouse over the icons) show the program name instead of the link that it shows now. | |
Archived topics
Topics included in an archive are listed below the archive name. Click on the archive name to find the archived postings.
Archive 3
- Administrative remedies to mitigate current (July 08) spam storm?
- Category:New works added to Template:NewWorks
- Testing a new set of Link templates
- Lyricist template
- Semi-automation now available
- 'New template - copyright warning
- How should we handle entries for composite works, where two separate "works" are in the same file
- How should we handle entries for the second editor
Archive 2
- New template "CompCatTxt"
- Nomination for adminship
- Moving to the new BBS system
- Add brass to accompaniment cat?
- New template for formatting of credits in Translations section
- Uniform sort keys for categorization templates on sheet music pages
- New add works form
Archive 1
- Discontinuation of Village pump
- Making text-translations pages into categories
- List of current CPDL problems
- Moved here from CPDL support, help, and feedback
- Should we consider setting up a mirror site?
- Moved here from CPDL support, help, and feedback