Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A Cappella Groups at the University of Virginia

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Delete. —Quarl (talk) 2006-12-27 06:16Z

A Cappella Groups at the University of Virginia[edit]

A Cappella Groups at the University of Virginia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

An article about several groups which do not meet the notability requirements of WP:MUSIC or the standards of WP:RS/WP:NOR. All the "citations" in this article to the groups personal webistes, not to secondary sources. Multiple, non-trivial secondary-sources are required to establish the notability of a group. Claims from their own website are insufficient. savidan(talk) (e@) 00:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

*Delete Nomination says it all. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 06:06, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete Ok, I realized that I was being hypocritical in choosing to delete this one and not the other a cappella groups. Simply, those are about 1 group and are detailed. This is more or less a list. See WP:NOT. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 06:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I merged the underlying articles into this one, but yes, I agree that this can probably go too. None too notable. Hullabahoos have their own article. Ohconfucius 08:11, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Per nom. Somitho 13:09, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Per nom, and as I see it, it is not notible away from the nomination so theres 2 reasons for ya. → p00rleno (lvl 78) ←ROCKSCRS 13:21, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Virginia-related deletions. -- Slgr@ndson (page - messages - contribs) 14:29, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Keep I would delete individual articles aboout the groups, but I think it is reasonable to have an article about them collectively. I object to the absence of any independent sources (other than the choral groups and the university). The university sources are at least verifiable if not wholly independent. There must have been newspaper articles about the groups or their albums. Serious and encyclopedic music groups at least get independent reviews of their public performances at cathedrals, concert halls, etc. I expect the article and articles like it would get more support if multiple independent reliable sources were provided, because they would then be notable by traditional Wikipedia standards. If it is just a recreational group of no demonstrated artistic merit then it is as non-encyclopedic as a recreational softball or bowling team. Edison 16:36, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Pooling 8 non-notable groups together does not result in notability. Perhaps what you're looking for can better be accomplished at the List of collegiate a cappella groups, which includes their name, school, and website without including any of the unsourced information that is so problematic in these articles. savidan(talk) (e@) 23:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom.--Kungfu Adam (talk) 19:17, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.188.183.7 (talk • contribs) 20:17, December 18, 2006 (UTC).
  • Keep I mean, I don't care for a cappella, but I believe they meet WP:MUSIC #1, "subject of multiple non-trivial published works", per a quick search on the Cavalier Daily. The article on the Sil'hooettes, for example, says they are nationally acclaimed, and have won multiple CARAs (Contemporary A cappella Recording Awards). At least some of the other groups are also covered by Cavalier articles. schi talk 20:59, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Articles in their college newspapers are insufficient. They establish existence but not notability for anyone outside the college. For example, college newspapers often write about their BBQ clubs, whip clubs, etc. These do not all merit encyclopedic articles. savidan(talk) (e@) 23:04, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, college newspapers aren't considered reliable sources? The newspaper does assert notability, at least for the Sil'hooettes if not any of the other groups. And where in WP:N or WP:MUSIC does it say that the source that provides non-trivial colverage has to establish notability? I thought the idea was that if they're covering the subject at all (in a non-trivial manner of course), it's ipso facto notable. schi talk 23:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
College newspapers are not reliable enough to establish that a group is notable beyond their campus. They tend to exaggerate the importance of their institution and cover groups that other media wouldn't. If a groups notability can be established without its college newspapers, they may be used to augment the information in that article. savidan(talk) (e@) 04:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • CommentCollege newspapers are independent sources which can be considered in determining notability. Edison 05:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • College newspapers intentionally promote campus activities like the arts. They should be treated skeptically at best for such activities, not assumed to be independent sources. As WP:INDY states, "An independent source is a source which describes a topic from the outside." Groups that have achieved notoriety through outside publications, like Skull and Bones, can lay claim to independent sources. I don't think Wikipedia has reached the point where any person or organization mentioned in a college newspaper deserves an article. (That will have to wait for the Final Encyclopedia, perhaps. ☺) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:55, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Even if were going to accept WP:INDY as an authority (which it's not), the essay specifically says "for a recording artist, an independent source would be a review of the artist rather than album sleeve notes or a press release". A college newspaper is not these a cappella groups' press releases or album notes. To be on the "inside", the source would have to be a publication of the a cappella group itself - which the Cavalier Daily is not; it's an independent student newspaper with no official links to the a cappella groups. If you contend that a college newspaper, because of the very nature of its focus, is not a sufficiently independent source, then does that mean the New York Times should likewise be treated skeptically for its coverage of Manhattan news? Or we shouldn't consider USA Today independent in its coverage of U.S. news, but should rather consider the foreign press? There is nothing in WP:RS that indicates college newspapers are not reliable sources. In terms of exaggerating the institution - I'm sure there are plenty of college newspapers/alumni publications which larger circulations than plenty of other, non-school-affiliated "reliable sources". I don't see why these sources should be treated "skeptically" just because their community of readers is based on an educational institution rather than say, a county. schi talk 08:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with a lot of the previous post. I don't think anyone is arguing that we should assume that facts sourced to college newspapers are false. However, the existence of a college newspaper article about a college club does not establish that clubs notability, even if the article tosses around adjectives like "premier", "internationally-known," etc. It's not that we can't trust sources within the geographical jurisdiction that their name implies, it's that small sources tend to cover their local beat generously. Thus, a college club that manages to get an article in their college newspaper does not automatically warrant a wikipedia article. savidan(talk) (e@) 09:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
schi, as someone who has personally experienced the low bar of college-newspaper journalistic integrity of by having entire sentences invented by a "reporter" and attributed to me, I think it's outrageous to compare the New York Times and USA Today to them. And, anticipating the next riposte, I advise against using Jayson Blair or the like as a yardstick of NYT and its ilk. It's precisely because such incidents are outrageous scandals, not the business-as-usual of amateur student writing, that we consider professional publications reliable sources. Personally, I'd prefer to have outside sources for just about anything cited in a college paper. But savidan again reminds us that the issue here is notability, not factual accuracy. The issue of other, outside sources for college material becomes moot because the subjects are of only parochial interest. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 13:19, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment College newspapers typically are very critical in their reporting of the cultural efforts of on campus groups. There is no incentive for the campus reporters to slavishly praise every musical group on campus. It is purely a strawman argument to go from the statement that a campus paper counts as a source to saying "I don't think Wikipedia has reached the point where any person or organization mentioned in a college newspaper deserves an article." No one has even proposed that "any group or organization mentioned in the New York Times deserves an article." Substantial reporting of a campus group in a campus paper counts fro as much toward notability as an equivalent reporting of an off campus group in the local town newspaper. Also a strawman argument is reference to "an article" in the campus paper not being enough, since outr standard is multiple sources. But an article can certainly be one of those sources, in combination with other sources. Please do not use a sliding scale to disallow coverage in campus papers. At colleges I attended, they were not a mouthpiece to do public relations. The reviewers ridiculed lame efforts by student groups as much as they ridiculed stupid policies of campus administrators. Edison 15:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Jeffq, for the record, I did not attribute a similarity in journalistic integrity between the apparently monolithic establishment of college newspaper journalism with such institutions as the NYT and USA Today. (Nor do I particularly appreciate your presumption that I was going to next invoke Jayson Blair, as that is obviously an irrelevant and extraordinary circumstance.) My point is that college newspapers should, generally, pass WP:INDY with flying colors, just as much as NYT or USA Today would. The assumption that just because an independent, reliable source covers a particular community makes it de facto unsuitable for determining notability seems to me to leave the door wide open for systemic cultural POV. You may call a school-affiliated publication a "small" source, or a particular-school-affiliated subject a parochial topic, but where do you draw the line/set the arbitrary level of granularity? (!Pokemon, but...) To consider notability as something that must be geographically affirmed (nationally recognized, etc.) privileges arbitrary geographic formations that aren't necessarily relevant to the scope of the topic. I'm sure you would agree that a topic doesn't have to rise to the level of being covered by a state or national newspaper to be considered sufficiently notable for inclusion in an encyclopedia, as in many, many cases that would be totally irrelevant, but that's what these arguments sound like. I guess we have a fundamental disagreement, which I think I'm sure I've seen in other Wikipedia discussions like this. schi talk 18:33, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Response to Edison: Please be careful about accusing people of making straw man arguments. My statement, "I don't think Wikipedia has reached the point where any person or organization mentioned in a college newspaper deserves an article", was specifically about Wikipedia articles, not campus paper articles. I said nothing about "'an article' in the campus paper", and turning this into a denial of the "multiple sources" standard can itself be construed as a straw man. I am saying that any amount of reporting in a campus paper is not inherently reliable or notability-confirming. It must be judged on its merits and double-checked for accuracy, since the authors are not professionals, and the oversight of collegiate news is in general less rigorous than the professionals and varies widely from school to school and year to year. But this whole line of discussion is a straw man, because there are no such college-paper articles cited in A Cappella Groups at the University of Virginia. Currently, its sole "sources" are group websites, which can be useful but can't be the only means of justifying notability. It is certainly possible for student reporters to do a good job, but the proof is in the pudding, and we have no pudding at the moment. I would also like to make clear (not that you suggested otherwise!) that I do not believe that we should delete all college a cappella group articles on principle. To use your example above, the Virginia Sil'hooettes have an arguable case for notability, having won 2 CARAs — a verifiable factual tidbit from the Cavalier. My problem is with this article, which encourages the inclusion of any collection of Wahoos who know how to sing without instruments and can file a student group application. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:13, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Response to schi: I apologize for offending you with the Blair comparison, but I believe it was an obvious next argument for someone who is pushing the geographical-context comparison between NYT and UVA's Cavalier without acknowledging the editorial-concern argument, given my point that I have personal experience with reporters-in-training making stuff up to serve their agendas. I concede this is an extreme example, and that reporting on college music groups is probably not usually this biased. I also apologize for any implication of a "monolithic establishment of college newspaper journalism". As I mention in my above response to Edison, college papers can have useful material, but they must be double-checked because they are far more prone to favoritism and simple ineptitude by fledging reporters. (The change at Wikipedia:Notability (music) was done with far too little discussion or any meaningful consensus, and opens the door to the promotion of any local artist or group that catches the fancy of the student staff.) Finally, I don't agree that a topic need not "rise to the level of being covered by a state or national newspaper"; I think this is a useful yardstick for notability in a global encyclopedia. I take this position because Wikipedians are, in general, atrociously bad at creating proper citations for reliable sources, mostly believing that (A) "truth" is all that matters; (B) bare links to self-promotional websites, fansites, or user forums are sufficient; or (C) mentioning correspondence or a newspaper without giving specifics is more than enough for "sourcing"; when none of these are adequate for verifiability. I am not saying you are doing this; that's just the experience motivating my hard line on solid, neutral, professional sources. (My point can be easily demonstrated by observing the sore lack of proper sources in the first 10 articles one fetches through "Random article".) If we had more folks doing a thorough job of vetting sources, I'd be much more willing to accept very local sources, as I am an inclusionist at heart. Until that time, I'm a practical deletionist in order to force that vetting. But as I mention above, we currently have absolutely zero independent sources cited in this article. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:13, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Jeffq, I wasn't really offended, but I do appreciate the civility. Finally, I don't agree that a topic need not "rise to the level of being covered by a state or national newspaper"; I think this is a useful yardstick for notability in a global encyclopedia. - Perhaps I shouldn't have said "rise", as my point here is that the fact that an information source is geographically-based is often irrelevant to its usefulness as a reliable source (to establish notability). Esoteric/academic/highly-technical topics that are routinely not covered in general (geographically-based) newspapers but are discussed in academic journals/conference proceedings are considered sufficiently notable for an encyclopedia, even though such sources can have very small audiences and are not geographically-based. schi talk 00:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I submit that a previous deletion nomination should be considered which happens to be one of the a cappella groups in question.Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Hullabahoos. In the end this article was kept... we need to maintain consistency... if we keep Hullabahoos, how can we delete a listing for the remaining a cappella groups at the same University? I know the rest are not as developed as the linked example, but you have to give it some time to grow. Seems kind of hypocritical to keep the example and delete this one if you ask me. Jazznutuva 08:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Don't see why keeping one group at a University, means we have to keep all a cappella related articles from that University. savidan(talk) (e@) 09:40, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Consistency" is a common but erroneous argument for inclusion. To quote Wikipedia:Verifiability, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." The golden standard for verifiability is multiple reliable sources. Hullabahoos has them; many other UVA a cappella groups do not. What's more, this is not a discussion about the groups themselves, but rather whether we should have an article collecting the groups. This list article currently has no independent, reliable sources whatsoever. (Actually, after examining the Hullaboos article, I see that the use of bare links disguises the fact that most of the "sources" are either Cavalier articles or clearly not wiki-reliable sources. Only the Kennedy Center link is inarguably reliable. This will need some investigation, too.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:27, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - lacks reliable sources, and the article is apepar to be essentially an attempt to get around notability of individual groups by lumpng them into teh same article. -- Whpq 17:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or merge into a larger University of Virginia student organizations or something. Dylan 17:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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