Let me see...

Mind if I drop in?

Well, it's too specific to be easily Google-able. In that form he isn't asking for recommendations.

Please, you're a part of this!

@MatthewRead: Feel free to do so. :)

@TomWijsman What about the version with the red edits, the first one you sent pre-edit

You feel that was more argumentative than subjective?

Both aren't really easily Googled.

@SRiss: Yes, determine, versus, considered, reliable are keywords in this.

"As a composer, it's vitally important that I'm aware of what's happening in the contemporary music world. I find it very difficult to determine which living composers are highly regarded in the world of classical composition, versus which living composers are frequently performed but not considered to be innovating by the composition community. Is there a reliable source for this sort of list?"

Determining who is highly regarded can lead in arguing, a comparison will sure lead into arguing, validation and reliable could most likely lead into some arguments too. Just without those words, thus in the edited version, it looks a lot better.

@TomWijsman I can easily get behind "reliable" and "versus" too. The others I don't necessarily understand

Heh, for the record I wasn't intending the "warmup exercises" example as a good question, just one that didn't suffer the same problems as the contemporary-composers question. I agree that some forms of the former are Google-able.

@MatthewRead I at least understood that, I just considered it to be an inferior metaphor. What warm-ups exist survive because of word of mouth, the same with compositions.

@SRiss I think the criterion for evaluating a warm-up is whether it worked for you, though, whereas the criterion for evaluating an opinion of a composer is whether or not it agrees with your opinion. And if the question-asker has no prior opinion, then all answers are equally valid. Any explanation boils down to what you like -- someone could say that Person X is innovative because they do Y, but someone else could say that Y isn't innovative. It's a popularity contest.

So is our main problem with andyvn22's question it's argumentative TONE and not the SUBJECTIVE nature of the question?

@MatthewRead this discussion belongs in a different place particularly the thread that already exists for that

@SRiss The tone was definitely a problem, but it was kind of inherent to the question. As Rebecca noted in the other chatroom, the edited question is not really the same question at all.

Sorry if my answer made you translate what I've wrote into the new art post... :(

@SRiss I'm not sure what you mean

@MatthewRead I guess we do have to firstly establish exactly why it was closed, you cite it as subjective, @TomWijsman cites it as argumentative

If we establish the reason it was voted down was due to it's subjective nature, then we should have a clearer defined rubrik of what is subjective, the one we've been quoting so far was intended for sciences, not arts

Well, @Sriss. Subjectivity can lead into Argumentative, hence they are listed together in the close option.

I'm not really sure whether it is subjective as I haven't been around in the start and I'm not wanting to go through it, but the original question did look argumentative to me to some extent.

But subjectivity amongst intelligent, mature, and responsible users will lead to meaningful discussion

@SRiss I think it was argumentative too, but argumentative-ness in the question can generally be edited out. Editing out the subjectiveness would make it a different question entirely (as we see now with the current version). And the degree of subjectiveness ("bad subjective") would lead to lots of argument in the answers (and about the question! haha), which is separate from the question being argumentative.

I don't think "Is there a list of this thing?" is subjective

Which is sort of what the question was to begin with

However, we are still learning so we are not that intelligent, we don't always make 100% mature judgements and I don't think responsibility has anything to do with meaningfulness.

But the "thing" was extremely subjective. If everyone agreed on a definition, it would be easy to answer the question with a yes or no

but he didn't ask for our opinions

he asked for a source of the academic community. I imagine he had a "peer edited and reviewed journal" in mind

publications such as the "ITA journal" (international trombone association) will advertise new works for the trombone along with reviews

Not directly, but our opinions were needed to answer the question. You had to answer whether there was a list of loved and innovative and highly regarded and composing "art", so you had to interpret all of those terms

No one could possibly agree on definitions for those

nevermind a list of composers that they liked and thought fit those terms

asking for a "reliable source" just makes it worse because then you also have decide what a reliable source is and whether there is one for the criteria

but no one can agree on the proper technique to develop the high register on a trombone

yet "what is the best technique" is a question we've endorsed in our FAQ

presumably, you wouldn't think a source that disagreed with you was reliable

@SRiss to me, it looks like a couple trombone players disagree with a trumpet player's guess

that's not really controversy

and there's a meaningful dialogue

@SRiss I would suggest to comment on

actually, that trumpet player's guess was identical to a renowned trombonists opinion

"composer X isn't innovative, i don't like him" or "that guy isn't a reliable source for innovative composers, he's ignorant of music theory" is about all that could result on the other question

to point that issue out, as there might be a better way to describe what exactly is allowed. Perhaps it needs a word that denotes that it's objectively accepted...

What about this answer?

@SRiss I don't see that anywhere in the question/answer/comments, am I missing something? I also think the end result -- whether or not the higher register can be played -- can be objectively measured. People might have different methods, and they can be tried and evaluated to see if they work. You can't "try opinions", at least not realistically. Evaluation is once again a popularity contest, or just picking what agrees with your opinion, etc.

(I've commented on that one, whether or not it was the best technique you were referring to)

@SRiss Some guy picks a resource he thinks is "probably the best". He backs that up by saying it's run by composers who talk about contermporary composers. If I were interested, I would strongly disagree with him. I'm not interested in the self-evaluation of any group; it's terribly biased.

And since I'm not a composer, they likely have different opinions than me. I'm sure they'd pick composers I thought weren't innovative and miss composers that I thought were innovative. I wouldn't consider it a reliable resource.

@MatthewRead that's an answer to andyvn22's question and it isn't about "composer isn't innovative" Instead it supplies a seemingly useful resource about composers by composers

@MatthewRead Good point.

Yeah, I don't think it's a useful resource, basically. Because the usefulness is evaluated in this super subjective environment that the question set up

But does not a trombonist seek technical advice from other trombonists? Isn't it natural for composers to operate similarly? When I want to know what trombonists on the scene are the best, I ask trombonists

@SRiss But you don't ask on StackExchange :P or at least, the supreme overlords (read: Joel, Jeff, and the other SE people) don't want this to be a platform for that

There are various proposals for recommendation sites, but as far as I know none have succeeded. The only "subjective-oriented" exchange I know of is Programmers, and they have a very tightly-defined scope

but if I don't ask other trombonist on stack exchange? If I ask for a recommendation site?

Chat is a great place to talk about this stuff. We often handle phone recommendations in chat on the Android site, or game recommendation in chat on the Gaming site

Agreed

on Android we also have a meta post with a list of other Android resources, including forums where general discussion (rather than problem-solving Q&A) is the focus

hm...so to establish: clearly the issue of subjectivity

Recommendations about (the cultural value of) music or musicians is bad subjective

What else in music may be subjective? I've seen questions "I'm playing this piece, what other pieces should I play"

I find that subjective by the standards that we've just discussed

Agreed about cultural value questions. I don't like the other sort of questions either. One case might be OK -- "I'm playing X, what else can I play to improve Y as it relates to X" -- but on the others, it's a pure "shopping recommendation"

Recommendations, or at least Shopping Recommendations, are usually closed for being off topic. Simply because the FAQ doesn't allow for Shopping Recommendations.

this post explains why (some) recommendations are bad: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/qa-is-hard-lets-go-shopping/

So rather than bringing this under the subjectivity hat, it might be better to list some of these things as off-topic or any other close reasons.

basically, we want someone to ask "How can I evaluate the difficulty of pieces?" or "How can I identify pieces in the same style or theme as other pieces?"

those are much better than "I'm playing this song, do the work for me and recommend something like it"

@SRiss You say what else, but see how you are again referring to recommendations.

@TomWijsman Good point :)

@TomWijsman I don't understand

oh...ahahaha, ok, I used the same word, ok

@Sriss: You can hover a message to see what it was an answer to, or click the arrow in front to highlight it in yellow.

Hoever, I was specifically referring to a specific type of recommendation. Asking for help with technique yields recommendations

Unless people forget to use the reply link or syntax. :)

True, unless you have other things that fall under the "sets of objective criteria for what is subjective in this community" I would propose two lists of recommendations, those that are allowed and those that are disallowed. And then list them as on and off-topic in

This can avoid subjective and argumentative discussions like the one you had in the future, and more easily cover it because it is listed as a line in the FAQ. :)

@SRiss I think basically every answer can be viewed as a recommendation. It's only bad when it's a shopping recommendation (as described in the blog post) or when the recommendation can't be objectively evaluated. Some recommendations you can try, and they either work or they don't. Others you see whether you "like" or agree with; those are bad, and questions that encourage (not necessarily actively) those answers are bad

I'm still not thoroughly convinced about his original question being subjective, but it's much clearer to me what SE views as subjective

I feel this was very productive, and will see about using "What should our FAQ contain" as a better place for this list

Unless there are any objections @TomWijsman @MatthewRead I will delete my question

Great, thanks for having a productive conversation about this

On an unrelated note @TomWijsman, your piano/guitar question...glorified shopping recommendation

@SRiss Hahaha. One thing we do usually distinguish is the purpose of asking the question. As long as the shopping purpose is kept out of the question, it's OK, and I believe Tom did so just fine.

Which is not to say I think it's a good question ... it's poorly defined and, depending on what a better definition of it is, probably bad subjective

I cannot delete my own question?

Hmm, I wonder if that's a Meta thing

You could flag it for a moderator to delete, or you could just edit out some of the "discussion" and just point to the transcript for this chatroom

http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/463

@MatthewRead Thank you!

@SRiss Well, you could just answer it yourself and link to the transcript and list a small conclusion.

And then accept it once the system allows you to.

You can't delete a question once answers have been given...

@MatthewRead Yeah, as noted in the other channel I haven't really made up my mind about that. I'm trying to avoid shopping questions at all cost, and if I would I would ask advice. :)

@SRiss No problem. I upvoted the question so it's at a netural 0 score, and flagged for a mod to protect it. I think it's useful to have it there with the history and link to this chat, but that question does not need more activity

@TomWijsman I've never found a keyboard I've been happy with, myself. But anyways, I think this chatroom is done ... back to the main one :)