Talk:Cayuga's Waiters

Dispute over the circumstances of the Waiters' dissociation from the Glee Club
See Talk:Cornell University Glee Club. &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 20:42, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Redirect
Any opposition to redirecting this to Cornell University?--GrapedApe (talk) 03:07, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
 * That doesn't make sense to me, just like we wouldn't direct every student group at Harvard back to Harvard. My suggestion would see what others think, since there wasn't consensus to delete this at the AfD you began.  Redirecting to the college would basically be deletion.--Milowent • hasspoken  03:14, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Re-creation of independent page
I have re-created this as an independent page for the Cayuga's Waiters, using content that had been (wrongly) merged into the Cornell University Glee Club page in 2013.

First, the Caguya's Waiters should clear Wikipedia's notability threshold, certainly more so than many of the other collegiate a cappella ensembles that now have pages. They are the oldest a cappella ensemble at one of the eight Ivy League universities -- that is, the collection of universities which are often regarded as the birthplace of contemporary a cappella in general. Undoubtedly some references in independent secondary sources (newspapers etc.) to this ensemble must exist, perhaps from their earlier era, although perhaps fewer than usual due to Cornell's rural location in an area without many major newspapers. Admittedly, there aren't many such sources cited (yet) in the article as it stands now, and this task is clearly in need of attention by others.

Moreover, one of their alumni (Mickey Rapkin) wrote a book -- Pitch Perfect -- based in part on his own background in this ensemble, and his book was subsequently developed into a major Hollywood film released in 2012. Indeed, he and his book are mentioned in the top section of the general collegiate a cappella page. While this alone might not vouch directly for the ensemble's notability, it is at least "circumstantial evidence."

Meanwhile, regardless of notability, the prior decision to merge into the Cornell University Glee Club page was incorrect. The Cayuga's Waiters were part of the Glee Club for just seven years from 1949-1956 - a relatively brief period in the nearly 150-year history of the Glee Club. Indeed, those years now constitute a very small portion of the 65-plus-year history of the Cayuga's Waiters themselves, most of which has been completely independent from the Glee Club from 1956 through the present.

Most of the content I have moved back here from the Glee Club page, i.e., describing the Cayuga's Waiters' history since 1956, listing many recordings, etc. - has nothing to do with the Glee Club. It should not be included on the Glee Club's page, since the latter cannot be a dumping ground for content related to any independent singing ensemble at Cornell, even if that ensemble is having difficulty establishing Wikipedia notability on its own. If a vote is ultimately taken to delete this Cayuga's Waiters page, then the vast majority of the content from this page should be genuinely deleted and NOT re-merged into the Cornell Glee Club page.

Dss16 (talk) 23:01, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

OK, I've found one non-trivial article from The Ithaca Journal - an independent, non-university, secondary source - about this ensemble putting recordings online, and I have cited it. Unfortunately, the archives available through the paper's website don't seem to go back further than 1999. Logic suggests that there would be more news coverage earlier on, particularly early in the ensemble's history since singing ensembles were "a bigger deal" in the 1950s and 1960s in terms of news coverage. It's still a task in need of further attention from others. Dss16 (talk) 00:25, 6 April 2015 (UTC)