This article about the "Music of Eastern Europe" was started as a stub in 2004 with this text.



Four years later, this extremely informative article has evolved into this "sweeping statement".



Now, after four years of diligent research, hard work and refined writing skills, the phenomenon of "The Music of Eastern Europe" has finally been explained.

Can anybody tell me exactly what it is that they're trying to say? And does anybody else find this reference to Kievan Rus a little odd for lack of a better word? And the Eastern European countries which are not included in the article about the Music of Eastern Europe because they're not Slavs???....

It could just be me, however...

Did you see my No TRUE Scottsman example? When you get into categorization arguments of this type, and keep having to pare things down and down and down, ad hoc, it's a clue that you probably have made a false (or bad or unuseful or unhelpful) generalization to begin with. What you really need to do, is rename the article to "Slavic-influenced music" or something, where the thing is defined operationally by the major influence which is the only common thing about all the stuff you're talking about. Thus, a far more natural and easier to write article. Some things are just intersections of natural boundaries with artificial ones that seem a waste of time to document. Birds of Luxemburg. I don't see the harm, but on the otherhand, aren't there more naturally categorized articles in need of attention?

What I found fascinating is that after four years, this horrible article (which tells you absolutely nothing about "the Music of Eastern Europe") has not only remained horrible, but has gotten worse over time.

Does this mean that this article probably should not have been written in the first place? Probably, since the way it is framed is probably based on some sort of ethnic bias. This kind of thing simply never works.

Not EVEN ethnic bias, is the problem. It's just an artifical category, like Viridae's list of CEOs whose last names start with A or who have red hair. It's an intersection of two things that aren't intrinsically very related. So yes, it was a waste of time to create and begging for trouble as something that would be a dust magnet for a nearly random collection of unrelated junk. (Like a list of Jewish mobsters, I would argue, but not necessarily like a list of prominant Jewish businessmen, which was the question begging the simile).

I once toured the Huntington Library and gardens in San Marino, CA, which was once a rich man's house and is now open to the public, like San Simeon. One of the many spectacular gardens on the place is a garden of "plants mentioned in Shakespeare." I went around it thinking of thyme, oxlips, nodding violets, woodbine, sweet musk roses and eglantine. And also that somebody once had had WAAAAY too much time on their hands.

That could explain quite a few articles on WP.

Well, somebody apparently saw this, because it's up for deletion "over there"....and this discussion even gets a mention! (so much for "bad sites", huh?)

And it's been turned into a redirect anyway, which basically solves the problem...

No...why would it be?

Are you familiar at all with the history of the Russian state?

Now I see why I get so little credit here for adding sincere, non-self-promotional content that criticizes Wikipedia. My posts aren't being read thoroughly, apparently!

Happy 3,000th post, Greg!

I do think it's a bad idea to create an article that covers such a broad geographic area. It would be better to just make specific articles about say Czech music or Slovak music.

Well, it's just that not all music in Eastern Europe is orthodox, nor is it all influenced by Russian music. To talk about that one ethnic influence just isn't true for that very large region. So, that was the thing that set off bells in my head.

Anyway, it's gone now. Good riddance!

I think it's a viable topic, but it's huge and it would be very difficult to cover the subject well.

I don't - even on the strictest definition, you're including countries that have nothing in common other than a Slavic language, and on a geographic definition you're including cultures as diverse as Turkey, East Prussian Germans and Ukrainian Jews. As a thought experiment, imagine how unworkable [[Music of West Europe]] would be.