Talk:English Touring Opera

Recent rewrite is somewhat OTT[edit]

The recent rewrite, while useful in many ways, has made the article sound rather OTT about ETO. I wonder if it can be tweaked a bit further to represent more of a WP:NPOV? DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered (talk) 07:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hugely improved and still improving. I can't now see any justification for keeping the advert tag which I added earlier. Nice one. DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered (talk) 16:04, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Revision[edit]

Do you have specific advice/pointers to make the information in the article better/more useful? 81.137.208.66 (talk) 11:28, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm far from an expert but I think that quite a lot of what you need to know is covered in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars and especially the bit that talks about the "Neutral Point of View" (NPOV). I feel that the article is steadily getting better but the sort of thing that's been troubling me is terms like "groundbreaking" which I feel are quite open to challenge. Some editors would just remove it and others would mark it with a tag asking for a citation - prove it or lose it, kind of thing. Here's another one that makes me slightly uncomfortable: "the ETO brings high quality opera to ..." - now I may be being too sensitive but to me that's a claim being made by the article itself - we, Wikipedia, are saying that that's what it does, and it is indistinguishable from something like a marketing statement from the company itself, which is an impression we should avoid. It used to say something more like (and I am quoting from memory here): "the ETO aims to bring high quality opera to ..." which I feel is much less contentious because it is merely reporting what the ETO states is an objective, and this could presumably be backed up by a mission statement or whatever that ETO has published and is easily verifiable. I know it's a minor wording change but I feel that there's all the difference in the world between:

The ETO is wonderful (Wikipedia says it is);

and

The ETO aims to be wonderful (Wikipedia reports the ETO's verifiable claim that it is).

I hope this helps. If you are new to WP you will find this odd at first - you can't just say something even if you know or feel you know it to be true - you have to say it neutrally and be prepared to back it up. But it kind of works in the long term even though it can cause short-term frustration! (Believe me, I have been there.) Cheers, DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered (talk) 13:02, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I should add, in passing, that I am relieved that the horrible word "vibrant" has been quietly zapped! :) DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered (talk) 13:05, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Revisions made[edit]

Cool. I see what you mean. Thanks for the tips!

and thank you very much for improving the article so gracefully. DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered (talk) 16:05, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Special permissions to travel[edit]

In this, "ETO is sponsored in part by Arts Council England and has special permissions to travel freely throughout the country with regular performances in London, Cambridge ..." what is actually meant about the "special permissions to travel"? I am sure it has some specific meaning to the editor who contributed it, but I can't see what it might be. Permission from whom, and to do what exactly? Help please?! Thanks DBaK (talk) 17:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it means that they aren't subject to surveillance on their travels.

--GuillaumeTell 22:29, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dated lists - a hostage to fortune?[edit]

What's to become of the dated (in both senses, hoho) lists of productions and community outreach projects? They're fine if someone's got the energy to keep updating them but at the moment they look as if they've somewhat run out of steam - or, worse, they could give the impression that the company has done so! We show 2006-2008 and 2007-2009 respectively. Unless someone feels like keeping them updated, I wonder if it is appropriate for them still to be here, or whether the article would not be better served by sending people to the company's own site? What do you think? Best wishes DBaK (talk) 07:35, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at a selection of the edits here, I'm guessing that much of the content of the article was contributed by a/some person(s) associated with the company. You and I, and probably others, have toned down the contributions to meet WP's standards, but recently the source/sources has/have dried up, perhaps because of sockpuppetry allegations. I have no association with the company (or any other company) and don't see their work very often, so I'd agree that slimming down the article is probably a good idea. Keeping up with developments at Wexford Festival Opera, Opera North and, to an extent, Glyndebourne Festival Opera is quite enough, if not a bit too much, for me. --GuillaumeTell 15:52, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the reply. I think that's about right. I am usually somewhat averse to chucking away information, but when it is going out of date, and presents the same data - but less efficiently - as can be read at the source, and arguably risks presenting a distorted view of the subject - then I think it could quite possibly go, unless anyone has another idea. Declaration of interest: Amusingly enough I do actually have an association as I was a founder member of the Opera 80 orchestra and worked with them for the first several seasons; but it was a long time ago, and I edit quite carefully, and I don't think it is unduly influencing my contributions here! :) Best wishes DBaK (talk) 09:58, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi both, I work with the company and have just joined Wikipedia to try to keep this page a bit more up to date. I was going to start with the list of production and education projects when I noticed this discussion. Has a consensus been reached about how best to edit the section in question? If you feel that providing a list of productions is not very informative, then we could perhaps replace it with a Repertoire section, similar to what English National Opera has on its Wiki page. It would be easier to keep updated too. Any other ideas/suggestions? Best wishes Etopera (talk) 17:22, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 external links on English Touring Opera. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 00:00, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]