Talk:Piero Scaruffi
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The problem I have with this Scaruffi fellow is that while it's one thing to say you don't like a band like the Beatles, it's quite another to say that they're unoriginal, musically insignificant, essentially a 60s boy band, etc. These are objective statements that simply fail with any real knowledge of musicology (http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-notes_on.shtml). Basically, it comes down to this - if you want to make the claim that the Beatles were a musically insignificant band, you need to claim that you know more about music theory than Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland. These guys weren't pumping the Dave Clark Five. And that's a tall task given that Scaruffi seems to lack any serious training in music (as, it seems, in most areas he writes about..).--68.57.83.168 (talk) 10:16, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
- The Beatles didn't innovate, idiot. They are completely derived of The Beach Boys and the '50s blooz guitarists. They even came to late to psychedelia to have any innovation there (late by about a year). Theyn also came about a year too late to "invent the concept album," as some people claim. Therefore, they aren't original. This is why I absolutely detest Beatles fans (eg about 90% of the western world). Please do your homework before you come to class. 92.0.238.33 (talk) 11:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
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- Wow, 92.0.238.33 is SOOOO SMART!! You really don't have any idea what you're talking about, do you? Talk to Brian Wilson about your claim. I have. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.207.198.217 (talk) 14:51, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
This man is totally ignorant in many areas about which he claims to be an expert. His much claims are false and total absurd —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.99.58.102 (talk) 02:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Who the hell IS this guy anyway? I notice he has only a degree (presumably bachelor's) in mathematics and has published several books on consciouness?? I've never head a damned thing abotu him and I've been over here for five years. There are many, many more serious philosophers in Italy who recieve no attention at all. Is it necessary to more articles about cranks? This fellow is non-notable.--Francesco Franco 10:30, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
- Ofcourse, because since you're ignorant to something, it CAN'T be true!! 92.0.238.33 (talk) 11:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
- Anyone who doubts the notability of Piero Scaruffi should take at least one look at his gigantic website: www.scaruffi.com. - Face 17:41, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
- A Web of Science returns eighteen results for a Scaruffi, P., most of which are in the field of cancer research. That ain't the Scaruffi in question. Google Scholar give one work citing A Brief History Of Pop Music: Post-war USA. The authors of this paper are not of a high opinion of Scaruffi's work on the Beatles. A History of Rock Music is published by vanity press iuniverse. The only wikipedia page that links here is a list of music critcs and some external links to album reviews. I agree with Francesco Franco that this guy is non-notable. This paragraph strikes me as especially absurd:
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- In the 1980s, as a computer scientist working at a large computer maker, he pioneered Internet applications, Artificial Intelligence and object-orientated design. As an outgrowth of his computer job, he pioneered Internet-based journalism: in 1985 he created his first e-zine, distributed by e-mail over the Internet, that eventually evolved into his website www.scaruffi.com, originally devoted to rock music only (several years before such websites became ubiquitous).
- Citations are needed.
- I might add that this article rejects all the guidelines of wp:bio. Lowerarchy 05:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
- I'm very suspicious of these "scholarly" works that can be found in various search engines. Google Scholar gives zero results for many of the albums and artists that critics (not just Scaruffi) rave about. Most flash in the pan pop starlets receive hundreds of search results. Some of the search results are simply stores selling the CDs. Where are the scholars? Do students studying Rock Music 101 become an authority if they submit a paper into one of these archives? Festivalimport 00:20, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Anybody else noticed that this guy's reviews have started showing up in album articles? Jesus. It seems that it hasn't even been established he's notable enough for an article on himself, and yet we're including him as an authority on music?--John 04:52, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
- If Robert Christgau can be included, then we can include Piero Scaruffi too. --Gika 12:40, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
- I don't know of anyone in the world with a broader knowledge of music than scaruffi. If such a person is out there, i want to know their name Festivalimport 12:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
- also, an exhaustive article about him on the New York Times (link) should be enough for an article on wikipedia
- No, that's not enough for Wikipedia. wp:bio suggests that several notable publications have to have written about him. So maybe if he'd also had USA Today and Washington Post articles, that suggestion would hold more merit.--John 00:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Piero Scaruffi: is this article relevant, necessary or useful?
I think that this is very badly written article, regardless of whether its subject is noteworthy. Here are some of many flaws:
- Several prizes - which, how many exactly and just how significant are they?
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- Apparently he received a new prize in 2007, from "Fog City Writers", which I added info on. To me it doesn't seem very significant, though; I'd never heard of it. 217.210.3.157 18:25, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
- Most notable poem - what is this based on?
- Reading extracts from the HTML text of his book, 'A History of Rock Music', shows that it may be thick, but not necessarily scholarly.
- A particularly bad passage; not written, I imagine, by someone entirely fluent in English:
- "His rock history has become famous over the Internet partly because of its controversial ratings, which often disagree with most of the worldwide music critics. The most significant example is his page about the Beatles, who, in Scaruffi's opinion, are the most overrated band ever."
- Is there some way of assessing just how important or controversial these 'ratings' are?
- I don't think there is. That whole sentence should be deleted. Festivalimport 03:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
- Scientist section: I can't really comment on the scientific content here, but I can tell that it is badly phrased and completely unsourced and unproven. It seems to be arbitrary, watered-down summaries of his theories.
- Philosopher section: This section is just awful - again, arbitrary nonsense - does it actually represent genuine research and writings or is it the unsubstantiated assumptions of one of his fans?
Personally, the inclusion of this biography in Wikipedia is very tenuous even without the poor quality of this article. You cannot doubt quite how enormous a body of work Scaruffi has produced over the years. But does all of that - especially when seemingly none of it is peer-reviewed - merit inclusion in Wikipedia? Personally I don't believe the subject adheres to the guidelines of wp:bio.
I would also say in reply to the above point about Robert Christgau: Christgau has been published in Village Voice, etc., etc. for so many years. He is undeniably a respected music critic. Scaruffi's body of music criticism is unpublished, and the one article we have which discusses his reviews seems to be quite critical. Also, I really feel I should say that the phrase Jack of all trades comes to mind.
Christgau barely knows jack about one trade. Festivalimport 16:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
On the other side his website receives a huge number of hits and certainly has some relevance. His academic credentials seem, I suppose, respectable. --TRM-G 17:43, 24 December 2006 (GMT)
All good points and all are indeed major problems. I've tried to address some of them (the rewrite is below) and when you take out the fluff, there's not much article left. I've even taken the liberty of leaving in the philosophy stuff, just to be kind, but without published secondary sources what can you say about a self-published, non-peer reviewed author? Not much.
- Piero Scaruffi (born in Trivero, Italy, in 1955, but based in California since 1983) is an Italian music critic.
- == Historian ==
- Scaruffi has published books on the history of rock music, on avantgarde music and a book on the USA.
- ==Scientist==
- Piero Scaruffi researched in artificial intelligence from 1987 till 1996, both in the corporate and academic world (with stints as visiting scholar at the MIT and at Stanford University).
- His basic tenet is that consciousness is due to a general property of matter. This line of research led him to revisit physics. His most important contribution is a theory of how quantum mechanics could be an emergent phenomenon due to the "ripples" caused by the observer traveling through spacetime.
- He has been on the board of the art magazine Leonardo (MIT Press).
- ==Philosopher==
- His metaphysics is based on his studies in Physics. Scaruffi reached the conclusion that Relativity Theory is about :the universe, about the dimensions of existence, whereas Quantum Theory is about the human world of objects, about :the world of "sizes". Relativistic spacetime is the equivalent of an ocean, and quantum values are the equivalent of :the ripples caused by an object moving through the ocean of spacetime: Relativity is the theory about the ocean, and :Quantum Theory is the theory about the ripples. Quantum Theory describes the ripples caused in spacetime by :energy-matter in motion.
Piero Scaruffi says a lot of bullshits about his career in american universities. The only thing that it is proved about it is a period as "Visiting Scholar" (not Professorship or Research Felloship) at Stanford, documented here: http://www-ksl.stanford.edu/people/scaruffi/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.16.144.159 (talk) 17:09, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
- ==Publications==
- Scaruffi, Piero. (2006). The Nature of Consciousness. ISBN 0976553112
- Scaruffi, Piero. (2003). A History of Rock Music. iUniverse. ISBN 0595295657
- Scaruffi, Piero. (2003). Thinking About Thought: A primer on the new science of mind. iUniverse. ISBN 0595264204
- ==External links==
I think the tack this article could take is to acknowledge Scaruffi's prolific web-based output because, as far as I can tell, that's what he's know for. That would necessitate an even greater rewrite than the above (which really was more of a freehanded deletion than an rewrite) and I haven't done it for a few reasons.
- I'm wary of paring a medium-sized article down to stub length - that's all the NYT article is going to yield.
- I don't want to do anything to an article that may get deleted.
The scientist/philosopher/poet Renaissance man stuff isn't worthy of inclusion until reliable sources can be found. I'm no authority on scientific content either, try as I might I can't see that "... Relativity is the theory about the ocean, and :Quantum Theory is the theory about the ripples. Quantum Theory describes the ripples caused in spacetime by :energy-matter in motion." actually means anything. Lowerarchy 21:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
How about we just translate the italian version of his profile? For starters, there's a dozen publications and nine magazines listed there that aren't listed here. And he's written books on more than just rock and avantgarde. The people who have written the italian profile obviously have more knowledge of the subject than someone like Lowerarchy. Festivalimport 16:30, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
- I've changed my mind. I do think that the article should be pruned back a little (similar to the above attempt, but with more publications listed). All the extra information is available from his personal site, so a link would be more useful than a badly written rewording. Festivalimport 03:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
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- Festivalimport, if those sources on the Italian wikipedia aren't written by Scaruffi, that sounds like a good idea and will probably really improve the article. The main thing here is lack of reliable sources, but perhaps we're really just complaining about the lack of reliable English sources (again, not written by Scaruffi). Lowerarchy 21:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I figure it shouldn't be deleted, since it isn't causing any harmZakTek 22:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
anyway, i think 38,000 results on google (outside scaruffi.com) are enough for notabilty... (ok, technically they don't matter, but they should be considered, i suppose) http://www.google.com/search?q=%22piero+scaruffi%22+-site%3Ascaruffi.com (and there aren't many piero scaruffis out there, it's a pretty uncommon name) --85.18.201.168 23:32, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Music critic
Piero Scaruffi is most known (and criticized) as a Music critic/journalist, especially on the Internet. His poet and philosopher career are not encyclopedic, in my opinion. --Manfroze 16:42, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- Amateur "poet", "historian", you name it. Not a wiki worthy person at all. I'll let other users decide what to do with it.
-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.67.113.136 (talk) 00:15, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
