Jump to content

User talk:Mesocarp

Page contents not supported in other languages.
Add topic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Latest comment: 15 days ago by Mesocarp in topic Plomp and Levelt

Thank you

[edit]

Hi Mesocarp. I just want to say thank you for taking the time out of your day to keep an eye out that I don't fall into any of my worst habits in editing. I gave a lengthy reply, but I think it kind of required it. Giving me a heads up appreciated and I'll try to not disappoint you or any of the fellow editors. Andrzejbanas (talk) 05:21, 20 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

A belated welcome!

[edit]
The welcome may be belated, but the cookies are still warm!

Here's wishing you a belated welcome to Wikipedia, Mesocarp! I see that you've already been around a while and wanted to thank you for your contributions. Though you seem to have been successful in finding your way around, you may still benefit from following some of the links below, which help editors get the most out of Wikipedia:

Need some ideas of what kind of things need doing? Try the Task Center.

If you don't already know, you should sign your posts on talk pages by using four tildes (~~~~) to insert your username and the date.

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Again, welcome! —The Earwig (talk) 06:54, 7 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

For you

[edit]
The Excellent New Editor's Barnstar

A new editor on the right path
Thanks for working to improve Wikipedia. We hope you stick around. Wikipedia needs more good editors like you! Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 00:30, 8 September 2021 (UTC)Reply


Thank you for 3O on Shivaji

[edit]

Thanks for providing a Third Opinion, and for the long and well researched reply. I have left a reply for first point of dispute. Please let me know if you need more information / references for this particular point of dispute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Shivaji#Introduction_Section_Needs_Changes

My pleasure and sure thing. 🍉◜◞🄜e𝚜𝚘𝚌𝚊r🅟🜜🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 21:03, 26 June 2023 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for everything you are doing on this 3O process.
I have replied to your last comment on first point of dispute. It should be easy to find if you search for
"Thanks, I think we are making progress on this point. I think that we are in agreement that Shivaji was Founder of Maratha Empire.".
You have put in considerable effort into this, and I really appreciate that. Nonentity683 (talk) 17:04, 29 June 2023 (UTC)Reply
Sure thing, sorry I went quiet for a bit there! I started to feel kind of embarassed. ;^^ I'll come by and reply. 🍉◜◞🄜e𝚜𝚘𝚌𝚊r🅟🜜🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 04:20, 30 June 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for third opinion

[edit]

Despite how it seems to be going downhill, I'm still thankful for your help.

I would now like to ask you about whether I should proceed to WP:RFC or to WP:DRN if I want find more help to solve the ongoing dispute. Wikipedia bureaucracy is still too confusing to me. Azure94 (talk) 12:52, 16 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

I replied at WikiProject Hungary#Agressive edit war on Hungarian topics because I think that's a decent forum to try to work things out in right now, given that this spat seems to stretch across a variety of Hungary-related articles. I don't think it's really clear enough yet what the various points of dispute are for you to start an RfC or go to the DRN and have a lot of hope for a productive conclusion.
RfCs are for when you like, have a very specific point of dispute about something, you feel like local discussion isn't really approaching the issue well, and you think the best thing to do to improve the discussion would be to draw in distant, uninvolved editors. It's kind of like 3O but more elaborate. Writing a good RfC is a bit of an art, and if you're not familiar with them it's worth reading through some past ones, keeping an eye on the current RfCs for a while, etc. You could also read User:Beeblebrox/The perfect policy proposal, which is about the highest-level, most bitterly-contested RfCs, the ones that are about broad policy changes. Most RfCs aren't as intense as the ones that essay is about, but it gives you a feeling for how bad they can theoretically get, things to consider when drafting one, and what a healthy mindset can be to approach them through.
RfCs can bring a dispute to a pretty conclusive end. Sometimes they don't come to a clear consensus, but if they do, most people will defer to it after that. Often the only thing that can convince people to abandon the conclusion of an existing RfC is another, newer RfC that comes to the opposite consensus. So, for content disputes, often an RfC is the tool of last resort. If you want to pull in a wider pool of editors but you don't want to go all the way to an RfC, or you really want editors with a particular kind of expertise on a topic instead of random ones from across Wikipedia, another thing you can do is go to a Wikiproject and link to the talk page thread where the dispute is taking place, saying that the dispute might be of interest to people there and you'd like some uninvolved input.
DRN allows you to bring a dispute into a moderated setting, where an uninvolved editor will impose a formal structure on the conversation to keep everyone on-topic and working towards a conclusion. It can be helpful if you're trying to settle a specific point, but other people in the conversation keep straying onto unrelated matters or arguing in a confusing or scattered fashion or whatnot. The moderator won't take sides, they'll just try to keep the conversation tidy and focused and maybe recommend next steps at the end. Of note, everyone in a DRN discussion has to be there willingly; anyone who doesn't want to participate doesn't have to, so it works best when there's mutual exasperation all around, and yet a genuine desire on the part of all parties to work things out amicably. DRN only brings things to a conclusive end if everyone comes to an agreement when it's finished.
Of note, if you feel like the real problem is with another editor's behavior, neither of these is necessarily the right approach. These are tools for resolving content disputes. When the problem is truly with the other user's conduct, and you haven't been able to work things out with them despite your best efforts, your best option may be to get the attention of an admin. Be forewarned, though, that any admins that examine the situation you're bringing up are liable to examine your behavior as closely as anyone else who's involved.
(P.S. It's not really much of a bureaucracy despite its appearances; these aren't "departments" so much as "customs," in the cultural sense. I think it's easier to understand and interact with them if you think of them that way. Wikipedia is light on true rules and regulations, but has lots of ritual and etiquette and all that.) 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 17:09, 16 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the detailed response. I'll wait to see how things turn out on the talk page for WikiProject Hungary. But I don't have high expectations. It's hard to stay on the topic, when he keeps derailing the debate with half-truths, lies-by-omission and personal accusations. Just now I've learned that I'm apparently a Slovakian, since apparently only those people would ever disagree with him. How am I supposed to respond to that without divulging personal information about me? In the end, I fear that this will only be solved by admin intervention. One or another way. Azure94 (talk) 14:50, 17 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
I think it's going better and better. We may yet see the conversation to a successful end. I encourage optimism and good faith and all that. As a side note, if you do want to know my answer to "How am I supposed to respond to that without divulging personal information about me?", I don't think it really needs a response at all. It's not relevant, right? The only things you really need to address are the things that impact the articles themselves. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 04:22, 18 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

A barnstar for you!

[edit]
The Special Barnstar
For diligent work to resolve 3O dispute regarding Article on Shivaji. Nonentity683 (talk) 21:47, 28 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

Debt-trap diplomacy

[edit]

For Debt-trap diplomacy, it turns out that User:KirklandWayne and User:AriaNowen have been banned for sock-puppetry, so reverted back to Sept 14, 2023 version before their edit war. However this may have had the unintended effect of removing your contributions so I apologize, you may add them back in. OneWordWonder (talk) 18:32, 18 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Well, I would have been okay to put my things back, but I guess I agree with JArthur1984 that it probably makes sense to move forward from where the article's at now. I wasn't watching closely during the time AriaNowen was involved but I do remember that I thought some of the KirklandWayne edits I saw were all right given the prior state of the article, and some of them I thought only needed a bit of extra work for me to feel all right about them. So, y'know, even if it's from socks, it's not necessarily all useless content. "Improve over remove" and all that. :P 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 19:46, 18 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

ArbCom 2023 Elections voter message

[edit]

Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2023 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:57, 28 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

ArbCom 2024 Elections voter message

[edit]

Hello! Voting in the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 2 December 2024. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2024 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:42, 19 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Your GA nomination of Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad

[edit]

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Go D. Usopp -- Go D. Usopp (talk) 16:03, 6 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

3O award

[edit]


The Third Opinion Award The Third Opinion Award
Thanks for helping reach a resolution on Community care access centres.Legend of 14 (talk) 18:48, 6 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Your GA nomination of Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad

[edit]

The article Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:Mr. Nutz: Hoppin' Mad for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Go D. Usopp -- Go D. Usopp (talk) 04:03, 7 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Shenyang J-35

[edit]

I just got a notification that the DRN discussion was archived before it was formally closed. What would be the next step? - ZLEA T\C 19:55, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

It was essentially auto-closed for inactivity; I was waiting for at least two people to say they wanted to go on but I don't think that happened. Both you and Nafis said you had nothing more to say and Lgnxz had already abandoned the conversation. Maybe I misunderstood, but if y'all really had nothing more to say there's no point in going on—I could've formally closed it at that point but I was just waiting to see if anyone said anything else. It wouldn't really change anything if I had formally closed it in any case (I would've basically just said "the participants have lost interest" and that would be that). It's really hard to make DRN work unless everyone involved is enthusiastic about it—I could go on and keep sharing my thoughts there but DRN is about discussion, not just someone giving a ruling to a passive audience or something like that. Even if I sided completely with you, we would still ultimately be at a deadlock, because I'm just another editor; Nafis and Lgnxz would take the other side and we would be 2v2 with no end in sight. I don't think that would be the greatest way to moderate a DRN discussion in any case.
Is the dispute still ongoing? All that being said, after reviewing some of the relevant sources, I do think you had a good point, because there are multiple high-quality sources using the J-31B name as we saw in the discussion. I think that fact justifies its inclusion in the article, period. Even if the PLA were to come out and say explicitly that it was just a temporary designation and no longer in use, that still wouldn't provide grounds for just omitting the J-31B name from the article—rather, it would support saying that the variant had been called J-31B at some point and was now called something else. At least from what we saw in that discussion, there isn't even really support for that though—a lot of the rationale I saw from Lgnxz and somewhat Nafis was basically WP:SYNTH as far as I was concerned, based largely in reading between the lines of the existing sources which we just shouldn't do.
Anyway, if the dispute is still active, I think there are probably some approaches you could take that would be more productive at this point than DRN. Like, we could open a new DRN case, but something tells me that Nafis and Lgnxz will have basically zero interest in that so it wouldn't accomplish much (although of course you're welcome to if they say otherwise). If you're still on your own, one thing you could try is going to the talk page of a relevant WikiProject (i.e. WikiProject Aircraft), alerting people to the debate on the J-35 page, and saying that you think it would benefit from more contributors or the like. The best way to do this is totally impartially—i.e. rather than saying "these people are wrong and I need backup" it makes more sense to say "there is a debate about such-and-such on page X and it would be great to have more participants" or the like. You have to be open to people taking the other side; they need to be free to read the existing discussion and draw their own conclusions. At the same time, you're likely to find more seasoned editors that way who are familiar with policy and will be more likely to take reasonable positions. Another thing you could do is start an RfC, which is a more intensive and formal process but one which can settle a debate pretty conclusively, at least for a while. Similar things apply there—the RfC statement should be a to-the-point and impartial description of the issue under discussion. I'd say it's probably worth trying the WikiProject approach first unless there are already a large number of participants, although there's no hard rule about that. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 21:29, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I had already alerted WikiProject Aviation prior to filing a DRN discussion, but got no response. I think your analysis as a WP:3O would be enough to restore the removed content without further discussion. If anyone had any legitimate arguments against inclusion (specifically arguments that did not rely on OR or SYNTH), they should have presented them by the time they removed the sourced info, or at least presented them at DRN. They have been given numerous opportunities to do so, yet they haven't, so I see no reason to continue entertaining what I can only describe as a BRD filibuster. - ZLEA T\C 21:55, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
It's not really a third opinion though because there's already more than one other participant (and 3O isn't binding either, I have to say, it's just that often when someone calls for a 3O and there really are just two existing participants, both often respect the opinion of the 3O if it's well-reasoned, because they're unlikely to carry much bias since they came from far outside the debate). Be careful just proceeding unilaterally—you're likely to end up in an edit war that way unless the people on the other side have lost interest, and that can come back to bite you especially if it escalates over time. It's too bad that no one responded on that WikiProject; you could post again or try another, or just start an RfC, but actually right now I think maybe it's worth just continuing the talk page discussion. I noticed one other person showed up and pointed out the SYNTH-iness and I'll drop by and give my two cents as well. It's possible the other people really have lost interest since it's been a few weeks, but we should see where they stand. If they don't care anymore, the issue is settled; if they do care and they're just as dead-set, we can consider how to best resolve the deadlock at that point once the talk page discussion has really worn itself out.
As a side note, even if the other party or parties are behaving in an extremely vexing manner, it's important to keep your cool and genuinely seek consensus at all times. That doesn't mean you should excuse truly poor conduct, but if the other people are being civil and just extremely firm in their stance, even if they seem to you to be clearly in the wrong, it's really best to resolve the issue one way or another on the talk page before you just go ahead and start editing again. The ideal outcome is if everyone ultimately comes to an agreement, because that's what consensus is about; that can't always happen, practically, but even then I wouldn't really consider the issue resolved until at least most of the participants agree and the few in the minority decide to drop the stick. Things that are truly controversial tend to keep coming back even after an RfC, until the community has genuinely moved on in its feelings. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 22:27, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
All this seems a bit too bureaucratic when one side has failed to provide anything other than OR and SYNTH. Nevertheless, I'll go the RfC route. - ZLEA T\C 22:53, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
On second thought, I'll wait to see if they respond to your reply. - ZLEA T\C 22:55, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think that's probably best, yeah. If it turns out they don't care anymore or don't show, you can probably just go ahead and make the edits you have in mind. If they do show, and they still dig in their heels even after further discussion, that might be a good time to consider an RfC. If it comes to that, I'll help out with drafting the RfC if you like—it's a bit of a careful matter since you really want to ensure good discussion. Nafis and Lgnxz might be willing to weigh in on its formulation too; if there's really a deadlock, it's kind of in the interest of every participant in the debate to have a good RfC that will really settle things.
As a side note, I wouldn't call it bureaucratic—earnestly seeking consensus is really the essence of dispute resolution on Wikipedia, and it can be very informal. It's ultimately about how everyone feels more than any specific process; the processes are just to help discussion move along productively. It's always worth remembering that there isn't really a golden yardstick in the sky to tell us when something is OR or SYNTH; you might feel strongly that something is, but if other people disagree, it's your word against theirs. Generally though, if you have a good position on something like that, you won't have too hard a time drawing in other participants who will come to the same conclusion, and that will really help bolster your argument and may convince the people who disagree with you. On the contrary, if you're holding a position most people would disagree with, you'll find that out pretty quick and it's often better at that point to walk away. In general, I think everything goes better if you really want consensus—if you don't have a genuine craving for consensus, it makes things harder. :P 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 23:08, 28 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Just a heads up, but Nafis Fuad Ayon has merged the J-31B into another variant under the guise of an "update", yet again through OR/SYNTH. If this happens again I'll probably take it to ANI. - ZLEA T\C 08:36, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think it's best to bring things like this up on the article talk page (I went ahead and posted about it there, I hope that's okay with you). You're always welcome to go to ANI whenever you think another user has shown a persistent pattern of bad behavior in a way that merits admin attention. If you're on the verge of doing that as you say, you might want to inform Nafis, so he understands where you're at. I can't say what his reaction would be, but maybe it would prompt him to return to the TP discussion. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 18:59, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I've stated my intentions on the talk page. Thanks again. - ZLEA T\C 22:55, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Signature accessibility

[edit]

Hi Mesocarp, I'm Roxy.

I saw your comment at the Teahouse, and noticed that your signature was illegible to me, both due to the use of many emoji and decorative characters, and because my current font seemingly does not render the characters 𝚎, 𝚛, or 𔑪‎.

I wanted to gently suggest choosing a signature that represents your username in plain ASCII. While ᠻꪖꪀᥴꪗ ꪻꫀ᥊ꪻ can be fun, using letter-like Unicode gylphs this way is completely unintelligible to screen readers, and can be a serious inconvenience for people with issues seeing or reading, and even people like me with none of those problems. As an alternative, I would recommend applying an actual font-family via the style attribute.

For example, my computer's TTS pronounces your signature by spelling it out as "Watermelon E-S-E-R-R-A-K-A-C-A-R-A-C-A-S-G-E-N-E-R Talk".

See also:

RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk • stalk) 05:46, 4 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Oh, I see! I'll admit I've been a little worried about that but I haven't been sure about how much of a problem it would cause for other people, mainly since a lot of articles use unusual Unicode characters; I kind of figured that the wiki software would be set up to supply fonts with wide or sufficient Unicode coverage automatically, but it sounds like not. I do take your concerns about screen readers seriously, also—I don't use one but I definitely try to consider the impact on people that do when I do web stuff in general. That said, I didn't realize that unusual Unicode characters pose so much of an issue there; I could see how that would be frustrating especially since someone's signature can appear many times per page. I'll do a little research and experimentation and see if I can come up with something that retains the broad aesthetic/visual punning without posing the same accessibility problems, and if not I'll just do something else. Thanks for the heads-up! 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 06:18, 4 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
@RoxySaunders Does this seem better to you? On my computer the TTS just says "mesocarp talk at" for this which doesn't seem too confusing or obtrusive hopefully, and I managed to make do with ASCII alone and still get across the sort of visual message I want. ('"') (Mesocarp) (talk) (@) 07:24, 4 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

ArbCom 2025 Elections voter message

[edit]

Hello! Voting in the 2025 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 1 December 2025. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2025 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:50, 18 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

June 2026 GAN Backlog Drive

[edit]
Good article nominations | June 2026 Backlog Drive
June 2026 Backlog Drive:

Do you want to become more experienced in the GA process?

  • On 1 June, a one-month backlog drive for good article nominations will begin.
  • Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles reviewed.
  • Mentors are available, and new reviewers (<6 reviews) get bonus points!

Interested in taking part? You can sign up here.

Other ways to participate:
You're receiving this message because you have participated in a good article review this year or participated in the previous backlog drive.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:59, 25 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Plomp and Levelt

[edit]

@Mesocarp

I'll reply to this part here, because it doesn't really fit in Talk:Harmonic series (music), and I don't want to start a new topic in Talk:Consonance dissonance.

I'm reading Plomp and Levelt (1965). It's interesting that in studies of intervals judged on various "semantic scales", musicians differentiated pleasant/unpleasant from consonant/dissonant while lay people didn't because music education uses the latter terms to indicate how intervals should be handled in composition, I say especially in the old rules of counterpoint, where seconds and sevenths "must be resolved", even if they're not actually that unpleasant. Your example intervals in your first message indicate some of that labeling in your own semantics (which I used to share). You say 7/4 is "quite dissonant", probably because it's in the category of minor seventh, but, as I've found out after playing by ear on a fretless banjo for the last few years (which I recommend), 7/4 is slightly easier to tune by ear than the slighty higher numbered 9/5, which is easier than 16/9. You also said 19/16, 27/16, and 25/16 used larger whole numbers but were "widely considered more consonant", but I think that's because you're placing them in the category of "minor third" and "minor sixth", which are consonant according to the rules of handling. However, you omitted the lower numbered spellings for minor third and minor sixth that are more pleasant and more consonant, 6/5 and 8/5. I think if you play around with them by ear, you'll agree. Jed ~2026-38734-14 (talk) 10:39, 30 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

On Wikipedia, it's basically central that we focus on summarizing whatever we find in reliable, mainly secondary sources, as opposed to working from our own subjective conclusions which are intrinsically original research—these subjective conclusions are fine in life in general and useful as a working musician but not so much on Wikipedia specifically. So, for example, it doesn't necessarily matter here which intervals we personally think are consonant or dissonant or pleasant or unpleasant or whatever else, only what's said on such matters in the sources. It's also worth noting that when working with historical sources, even if they might have been viewed as secondary or tertiary in their own time, as they become more and more part of the past, they become more and more primary sources of interest to historians (in this case music historians), and we should then seek to summarize whatever these respected contemporary historians say about them rather than relying on historical sources directly. These are principles I would say have tended to not be that well respected in many of the music theory articles, I think because many of the people with an interest in that topic are enthusiasts of various backgrounds that have rather niche or even unique ideas about them and use those ideas to guide their edits, and it's a bit too niche of a topic in society in general to attract that much attention from other sorts of editors.
Speaking of secondary sources, here's a passage from the contemporary tuning theory text Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale by William Sethares (pp. 74–75):

Pythagoras felt that the coincidence of consonant intervals and small interval ratios were confirmation of deeply held philosophical beliefs. Such intervals are the most natural because they involve powerful mystical numbers like 1, 2, 3, and 4. Rameau [B: 145] considered the just intervals to be natural because they are outlined by the overtones of (many) musical sounds. Lou Harrison says in his Primer [B: 70] that “The interval is just or not at all.” “The best intonation is just intonation.” For Harry Partch [B: 129], 12-tet keyboards are a musical straightjacket, “twelve black and white bars in front of musical freedom.” From all of these points of view, the 12-tet tuning system is seen as a convenient but flawed approximation to just intervals, having made keyboard design more practical, and enabling composers to modulate freely.

Helmholtz further claimed that untrained and natural singers use just intervals, but that musicians, by constant contact with keyboards, have been trained (or brainwashed) to accept equal-tempered approximations. Only the greatest masters succeed in overcoming this cultural conditioning. Although logically sound, these arguments are not always supported by experimental evidence. Studies of the intonation of performers (such as [B: 4] and [B: 21]) show that they do not tend to play (or sing) in just intervals. Nor do they tend to play in Pythagorean tunings, nor in equal temperaments, exactly. Rather, they tend to play pitches that vary from any theoretically constructed scale.¹⁸

There are arguments based on numerology, physics, and psychoacoustics in favor of certain kinds of scales. There are arguments of expediency and ease of modulation in favor of others. While each kind of argument makes sense within its own framework, none is supported by irrefutable evidence. In fact, actual usage by musicians seems to indicate a considerable tolerance for mistunings in practical musical situations. Perhaps these deviations are part of the expressive or emotional content of music, perhaps they are part of some larger theoretical system, or perhaps they are simply unimportant to the appreciation of the music.

That book has excellent and rich information, based on a wide and deep review of the relevant psychoacoustics and musicology literature, about what actually gives rise to the sensations of consonance and dissonance, to the extent of putting forward a remarkably effective theory of how to quantify the consonance or dissonance of any sound. It also very thoroughly makes the point that consonance and dissonance does not just come from the properties of any tuning system in itself, but also the acoustic qualities of the musical instrument or other sound source:

Thus, a crucial aspect is missing from the previous discussions of scales. Justly intoned scales are appropriate for harmonic timbres. Overtone scales make sense when used with sounds that have harmonic overtones. Gamelan scales are designed for play with metallophones. Whether the scale is made from small integer ratios, whether it is formed from irrational number approximations such as the twelfth root of two, and whether it contains octaves or pseudo-octaves (or neither) is only half of the story. The other half is the kinds of sounds that will be played in the scale.

So, it's worth considering that which precise intervals sound best to you on your banjo won't necessarily sound as appealing to you on a church organ, for example, just because those instruments can have very different timbres (let alone the sorts of precise intervals that sound nicest to tune bells or drums to).
It's quite reasonable, as a side note, not to think of consonance and dissonance as "pleasant" and "unpleasant" respectively which are so much matters of taste, but rather of consonance as "sweet" and dissonance as "piquant"; as in cooking, too much of either one tends to become monotonous, and it's more the delicate interplay between such things that gives rise to musical (or culinary) pleasure. The fact that dissonance can resolve into consonance in a way that "utilizes" or "relieves" the sense of tension that comes with a dissonance, and also orients the listener towards a certain tonic or central pitch at the same time which a composer can make use of in many ways, are important characteristics of consonance and dissonance that everyday "people on the street" know well subconsciously from their experiences of listening to music, even if they don't really know to associate those things with the words "consonance" or "dissonance" (or have any conscious awareness of them at all). Musical training gives people more precise language for talking about things like this and helps them train their "ears" (i.e. their minds) to recognize them consciously, which tends to change their perspective on what those words might most usefully mean. From Counterpoint in Composition by Salzer & Schachter (p. 13):

In a consonant interval the tones blend into a stable sonority, a sonority that tends to remain in a state of repose. In a dissonant interval, on the other hand, the combination of tones gives rise to a tension that demands continuation; dissonances, therefore, serve to intensify musical motion...The meaning of a dissonance, however prominent or strikingly used, depends upon its immediate or ultimate relationship to a context determined by consonances; consonances represent the primary sonorities that can create large contexts while dissonances are the transitory and dependent—but vital—elements that activate and enlighten these contexts.

This is obviously towards a specific musical tradition to some extent (tonal counterpoint) but these ideas can easily be extended far into the psychoacoustics context and thereby generalized beyond common-practice tonal music, as an author like Sethares (or Hindemith for that matter) illustrates well.
You can probably see from what I'm saying that if I was the one to have laid out the organization and major points of the articles on things like consonance and dissonance or the harmonic series in music or the like, I would probably end up doing them quite differently from how they're currently set up, but I've encountered an unpleasant amount of friction in the past trying to edit much in this topic area, and for years have tended to focus more on topic areas where people seem to value the idea of arguing from strong sources more diligently (and on helping other people to settle their disputes, which I tend to enjoy more than being involved in one myself). ('"') (Mesocarp) (talk) (@) 01:53, 31 July 2026 (UTC)Reply