Rankings in ballet

[Nefertari]

I'm at a bit of a loss as to where to put this, so moderators please move if it would do better somewhere else!

I've been doing some major cleanup work on Wikipedia's dance-related entries, and adding some new ones. Unfortunately the site seems to lack much input from knowledgeable people, and most articles are written by helpful people who have probably only seen ballets or took a few classes when they were younger. And the lack of articles is very depressing; yesterday morning there wasn't an article (in English; the French, Italians, Dutch, and Swedes beat us to it) for Alessandra Ferri, and there still isn't one for Maria Kowroski, Gillian Murphy, Allegra Kent, or Patricia McBride, just to name a few! Not to mention the sad state of many articles on dancers and almost everything relating to ballet itself.

My next project is to fix up the entry "Ballerina". I'm not an expert on the non-dancing side of ballet, but a few things look a little funny to me. First of all, "A ballerina is a female ballet dancer." I know that the term "Ballerina" is now generally used for any female who does ballet, but is that the correct usage? I thought that it still indicated a certain rank of dancer?

I know that different styles and companies use different terms, but are there general guidelines I could write as to the ranks? For example, I seem to remember something like 'Corps, Second Soloist, First Soloist, Principal.'

Guidelines for kinds of roles, using The Nutcracker as an example, being:

Corps = snowflakes, etc.

Second Soloists = Dolls in party scene, etc.

First Soloists = Main Snowflake, etc.

Principals = Sugar Plum Fairy, etc.

Am I making sense, and am I even close?

Thanks in advance!

~Nefertari

[Helene]

Wikipedia is becoming more and more important as a source of information on the Internet, and I think it's in the best interest of ballet to have reasonable information appear in it.

One of the issues with Wikipedia is that many articles emphasize the knowledge and focus of contemporary writers, which on the one hand gives current information on events, performers, athletes, directors, etc. that is great to have when it's firsthand, on the other hand it does in volume that is not always proportionate to their historical importance. While I'm sure it will be helpful to have information on Kowrowski and Murphy, for example -- for younger people, Murphy's performance of Swan Lake seen on PBS may be the only version they've ever seen, and to put it in context would be a good thing -- unless a miracle happens and choreographers of genius appear overnight, their historical importance is not going to be close to that of Kent and McBride, for whom two geniuses, Balanchine and Robbins, created some of their most iconic roles.

Nefertari, you might have more luck with Kent, because she did write a very interesting memoir.

[Nefertari]

Wikipedia is becoming more and more important as a source of information on the Internet, and I think it's in the best interest of ballet to have reasonable information appear in it.

You have pinpointed exactly my reason for working on it. When someone does an internet search for something ballet-related and a poorly-written Wikipedia article comes up, it is not helpful to anyone. Wikipedia does come up in the top few results on many search engines because it is a popular site, so the importance of having well-written, informative articles cannot be understated!

Thank you for the advice on Kent and McBride. I will make them my next priority.

~Nefertari