XenReference talk:Guidelines

What to use for the cutoff for referring to just intervals by name?

I've identified a few categories of just intervals, and my takes on each of them:

- Names by prime limit ("septimal major third", "classical minor sixth", "septimal minor semitone") - avoid

- Names of Pythagorean intervals ("Pythagorean major third") - use, but preferably "diatonic" when discussing temperaments

- Any name of an interval with an absurdly complex ratio ("mabilisma", "Pythagorean wolf fifth") - use

- Any name of an interval that's treated as a comma - use

- Names by commatic alteration ("diptolemaic chromatic semitone", "Alpharabian artoneutral third") - ????

- Names of just intervals that specify that they are "chromatic" or "diatonic" semitones beyond the 5-limit, or use the enharmonic interval categories in their names ("large undecimal diminished octave") - ????

What are your thoughts on each of my takes here, and what other categories would you include?

-- Vector (talk) 09:16, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I've just said "not of inordinate complexity". Even if "syntonic comma" is an extremely well-established name, I'd still generally just call it 81/80 after all. On Xen Wiki, page titles of articles about commas with 4 or fewer digits in the numerator and denominator are fractions; with 5 or more digits they are the name. I think we will need a different standard here, but that's the idea. --Lériendil (talk) 17:57, 11 December 2025 (UTC)