Talk:Stanford Fleet Street Singers

March 2018
On 6 March, added an Overly Detailed tag. Of particular note is the principle that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.

Some list-like information featured on this page, such as the [|Discography section] has precedent in similar pages such as Out of the Blue (British band), Stanford Mendicants, or SoCal Vocals. Further, there exists secondary source commentary and research on this section such as found in work by the [|Recorded A Cappella Review Board]. (Although this is not cited on the page; the section currently remains without references to these sources)

However, some other information, including the [|list of Short Films], seems like it might not be of importance to a general audience. I didn't personally find any external primary source/secondary source commentary on the subject. What might an editor provide to prove its notability/worthiness of inclusion? What is a reasonable timeline to remove this content if such references does not surface?

Liam M (talk) 02:23, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Regarding your first line, please see WP:OTHERSTUFF. As far as the rest, it was overly detailed with either no sources, unreliable sources or strictly primary sources. I've been working on cleaning the notable list up as it's largely sourced to linkedin and doesn't actually establish that most of the entries are notable. CHRISSY MAD  ❯❯❯  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  13:38, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Older appearances
On the record sleeve of Fleet Street's 1984 Songs of the Stanford Red, the directors wrote,

"Some highlights of the second year were a highly successful Spring show, the Special Olympics performance, and the first tenors learning to sing in tune... Concerts for the [third] year included the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, the Half Century Club alumni reunion at the Buck Estate, and the Stanford Charity carnival."

Can anyone else find secondary sources on any of these older performances to assess their notability? Especially the Special Olympics performance. My first google search didn't turn up any results, so I'm sharing this print-only quote here just in case someone else has an idea for a verified source on the subject. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 11:08, 20 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Update: I found a newspaper record of the 1990 Special Olympics performance. It's unclear that this is the main Special Olympics event—the article specifies the event as the "14th annual Stanford Special Olympics," which sounds like an ancillary event. I won't add it to the article at this time. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 23:11, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Update: I found another newspaper record of Fleet Street performing at the Stanford Special Olympics, this time in 1989. It appears these are locally-organized Special Olympics-sponsored/affiliated events—not the main event. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shrinkydinks (talk • contribs) 23:22, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Request for Comment: New WikiProject for A Cappella-related articles
Hi there! To any and all interested: I've proposed a WikiProject dedicated to a cappella. This would be a group of editors interested in improving the quality of articles related to a cappella. If you're passionate about a cappella—ranging from the Pentatonix to collegiate a cappella groups like Fleet Street, or perhaps pop culture representations like Pitch Perfect and The Sing-Off—please check out the proposal and share your feedback!

Here's a link to the proposal for WikiProject A Cappella.

If you could see yourself contributing to an article related to a cappella (like this one), please consider joining!


 * —Shrinkydinks (talk) 05:49, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Completeness
Thinking ahead about the completeness of this article, what are areas of tangential development (say, developing adjacent topics that aid understanding of this article) that would benefit this article? Perhaps...
 * Section: Legacy or Impact: How has this group's work impacted other groups? The industry as a whole? How does their first original album fit into the bigger picture? Did Fleet Street's album inspire other original collegiate albums, or is it the only one of its kind as of 2019?
 * ✅. The ideas relating to the original album are handled inside the since-created Fleet Street (album) article (discussed below). The other ideas may be mentioned alongside/in the critical commentary subsection proposed in peer review. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 10:10, 1 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Article: Fleet Street (album). The claim that this is the first original collegiate a cappella album might indicate significance in a bigger picture. Perhaps there exists more writing about this album on its own? (not 100% sure; worth exploring).
 * ✅. 11 December 2019, 12:45pm GMT — I did this! Pretty substantial article, structured/modeled after certified good articles about albums. Used the sources here as a jumping off point and went from there! May nominate it for WP:DYK. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 12:49, 11 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Article: 50-Minute Fun Break. The album was a breakthrough for a cappella recording, mixing and mastering (winning a specially-created category at the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards for best mixing & mastering), and it landed engineer Bill Hare on the map (he would go on to win a few Grammy Awards). This might merit expansion (not 100% sure; worth exploring). —Shrinkydinks (talk) 09:27, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment 3 January 2020: I haven't found enough third-party coverage for this album to merit its own article. So far, it has the awards and some robust critical commentary, but no significant coverage beyond the critical reviews related to its significance. Will leave this red-linked for now. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 09:28, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. 14 January 2020, 10:15pm GMT — In the course of writing the Bill Hare article, I found enough relevant discussion to merit writing an article fo this album, so I made it a couple days ago! —Shrinkydinks (talk) 22:21, 14 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Article: Bill Hare, apparently a long-time collaborator of the group, he has producing credits on most important collegiate a cappella albums. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 12:49, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Article: List of Stanford University a cappella groups. What was previously a category is now a list article, as this allows for the inclusion of relatively substantial prose as well as red-linked articles for the 2-3 groups currently without articles.
 * ✅. 27 December 2019, 23:30am GMT — I made this article! —Shrinkydinks (talk) 23:35, 27 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Section: Musical and comedic style: how the group has moved through barbershop, jazz standards, and more pop (typical of collegiate a cappella) and into original music, generally without beat boxing (atypical of collegiate a cappella). Could also discuss comedic style, as covered a few times in articles by The Stanford Daily. Could potentially also fold into the "Iconography" section idea from peer review, below. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 09:26, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Peer Review: December 2019
I might put this article up for peer review to ask for help on organization. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 09:27, 9 December 2019 (UTC) Here are the major topics discussed in the peer review:
 * Update: peer reviews were kindly completed on 20 December 2019 by both and ! Find it here. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 08:16, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Update: Additional peer review begun by ! Available at the same peer review archive. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 09:01, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Organization of the "Notable performances and works" section:
 * ✅. Per advice from Liz, it was folded into "History," which was itself broken down into eras for clarity.


 * Alumni section: Its inclusion and, if kept, its inclusion criteria. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 10:00, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. Per reasoning and perspective from Liz and Paul, this section is being kept (primarily because this collegiate group functions in many ways like a university and thus alumni are appropriate) and decently-notable non-blue linked alumni may be included. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 10:00, 1 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Context for the reader: Ruhrfisch asked for background on a capella music groups at Stanford, both at the time of [Fleet Street's] founding and today.
 * ✅ in a limited way with the See Also section recommended by Ruhrfisch. I don't believe significant additional context is merited beyond the current mention of the Mendicants in the History paragraph, but this is a good thing to keep in mind as editors work on this prose. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 10:00, 1 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Album references: Currently, all album references are to the physical liner notes documents. Ruhrfisch asked for secondary sources, but I believe these only exist for some albums (There are critic reviews for each album post 1992, not including 1999). Paul asked about references for the last two, but I can't find liner notes for these anywhere. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 10:00, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment/Not done. I believe these remain the best references for the album titles and years themselves, as they are the only type of reference that exists for (nearly) all albums. Open to adding critical reviews for all the albums that have them (7 of 11); open to second opinion. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 10:10, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. Added the critical reviews a couple days ago. I think it adds to the article. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 22:16, 28 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Critical reviews of Fleet Street's performances/albums/works. Ruhrfisch pointed out the article lacks this relative to other music group articles. Further, asked, "is there anything on the decision to make an album, or on sales figures?"
 * Comment: Synthesis of the most interesting reviews (say, a couple short prose paragraphs) could make a great transition between the Discography section and the Awards section. Reports of comments by group members (or directors) on why they made some albums could justify some prose wrapper on the Discography list. Will look for those. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 10:00, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅: I couldn't find any style guides to guide this (checked WikiProject Musicians' Article guidelines and WikiProject Opera's Article guidelines and styles and formats). But I added mention of Fleet Street's first album (1984's Songs of the Stanford Red) and their consequential 1992 album 50-Minute Fun Break in-line in the "History" section, the latter of which generated significant critical commentary, which I summarized. I think this critical discussion, alongside the significant critical reception of 2004's Fleet Street comprise sufficient incorporation of critical discussion to mark this done-ish (and avoid straying too far into the weeds; these are the two most important albums, as far as I can tell). ... The group's decision to make an album or sales figures could still be worth adding; will explore for sources on these topics. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 09:17, 3 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Iconography: Ruhrfisch pointed to a preponderance penguin images in the group's main website and asked if this could be mentioned. I mention this here because I believe, if it's going anywhere, it could be worked into whichever future body section gets the collection of group-related info currently in the lead and nowhere else (bowties, black vests, Sweeney Todd, 12–16 members).
 * ✅: Added a cohesive section discussing these things titled "Group identity." Found very few mentions (and no non-passing mentions) of the penguins, so included that only minimally in an unsourced but verifiable way. Now just the lead to do. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 10:07, 4 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Lead: everything in it should be reflected in the article, and everything in the article should be reflected in it.
 * Comment: Situation is improved but not complete. Still needs doing. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 10:00, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. Also removed links per Ruhrfisch's MOS recommendation. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 11:20, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

SG review
I do not participate in GA (rather FA), but having missed this when it was at peer review, can make a list of things to work on here. When reviewing an article, I usually start at the bottom, leaving prose refinements to others once basics are in place. You might also entice to have a look.
 * Wow, a shout-out from SG to me?! Is it because of the work I did on MemChu or because of the Rudy Galindo mention here? ;) Happy to help, as always; just ask and I'll either review it for GA or I'll take a look at it when you bring it to FAC, whatever's needed. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 05:38, 23 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Citation formatting and sourcing:
 * Inconsistent citation formatting on author names, and no accessdate: ^ Deke Sharon and Rob Dietz (23 May 2019). "Episode 10: Bill Hare Mixes it Up". Counterpoint with Deke and Dietz
 * ✅. This is a weird one because it’s a podcast. Updated the host field to be formatted like authors across the rest of the references! On mobile it’s displaying its access date:
 * Sharon, Deke; Dietz, Rob (23 May 2019). "Episode 10: Bill Hare Mixes it Up". Counterpoint with Deke and Dietz (Podcast). Event occurs at 11:16. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
 * I’ll check again later when I’m at my computer in case there’s a display issue and we need to not use that particular citation template! —Shrinkydinks (talk) 23:43, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

OK, I will stop there on citations and sources, having looked at only about the first quarter of citations, but those are the kinds of things that would be looked at at FAC. Review throughout, samples only.
 * No publisher, inconsistent date formatting: "Official Results for the ICCA, 1996". 2015-08-12. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
 * Another missing publisher: R. Galindo - 1996 World Figure Skating Championships - Exhibition. 17–24 March 1996. Retrieved 20 January 2020
 * How is this a reliable source? https://www.plover.com/rainbowice/flavor1299.html
 * What makes this source reliable? I can find no About Us page, or anything to indicate our standard measure of reliability: https://www.goldenskate.com/pro-am-figure-skating-results/ice-wars-world-ice-figure-skating-challenge/
 * What makes this source reliable? I can find no About Us page, or anything to indicate our standard measure of reliability: https://www.goldenskate.com/pro-am-figure-skating-results/ice-wars-world-ice-figure-skating-challenge/


 * MOS
 * Review MOS:CAPTIONS; three are sentence fragments that have ending punctuation.
 * WP:ACCESSIBILITY do not place images at the bottom of sections
 * On the chart in Awards and nominations, please review colors per Accessibility
 * Comment: All colors pass guidelines for high contrast with black text. Still searching for the best tool/method to review colors against each other (eg. Legibility of the red vs the green for colorblind users). If I can’t find anything soon I may just use pre-approved colors from the Wikipedia Style Guide. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 22:07, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. I thoroughly read MOS:COLOR and have completed this to the best of my ability. Here's my work:
 * Color is not the only method used to convey important information—Each result is also specified in plain text: Either "Won", "Nominated", "Runner Up", or "Pending".
 * There are no links combined with colored backgrounds.
 * The colors all exceed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 AAA contrast standard of 7:1 by a significant margin. The colors are: Won/Green (AFFBA3), Nominated/Red (FADEDE), Runner up/Yellow (F4F1B7), and Pending/"light yellow" (FFFEE0). Paired with black text, the have contrast ratios of 17, 16.5, 18, and 20.5, respectively.
 * I believe this standard use of the awards table template does not qualify as color overuse.
 * Possible additional work: Additional time could be taken to craft a nonstandard color palette that would further separate red and green to aid color blind viewers. However, I'm not sure how to go about doing this at this time (which tools to use). Long term, I will keep looking to see if Wikipedia's standard awards table templates are sufficiently inclusive, or might be updated to be more inclusive. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 22:43, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
 * See MOS:LQ: On the other hand, some critics criticized the studio work, calling it "intrusive," "unnatural," and "strange."  Sample only, review throughout.
 * WP:MOSNUM, spell out one to ten, otherwise digits: released 13 full-length albums Sample only, review throughout.
 * ✅. MOSNUM seems to say that two-word numbers between 10-100 can be either spelt out or written in numbers; I've left two "dozen"s and two "eleven"s, but made everything 13 and up a number! —Shrinkydinks (talk) 21:41, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Good use of NBSP and AS OF templates !!! But A side and B side should be joined with NBSPs, review for similar throughout-- it's not only numbers, but things that shouldn't break across lines.
 * ✅. I'm a little confused about just how many of these nbsp's I should use. The MOS seems to say it goes between numbers and their unit of measure... But does "15 original albums" get two, one, or zero? In the case of "class of 1993", "class of " seems to be the unit of measure for the year..? Do compound nouns get nbsp's? My assumption for the last one, at least, is no. Just a couple of questions! —Shrinkydinks (talk) 21:41, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Think about where it would look weird if something was left hanging on a page break, and use common sense. In the first case,  I would use one nbsp, after the 15; it's ok if the word "album" wraps to the next line. I would also use one only to connect the of with the 1993.  When you have a longer construct that needs to stay together, it is better to use  for the whole thing.  Compound nouns, no. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  21:46, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. Thank you for the additional insight! Updated the article to reflect these uses :) —Shrinkydinks (talk) 23:26, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. I'm a little confused about just how many of these nbsp's I should use. The MOS seems to say it goes between numbers and their unit of measure... But does "15 original albums" get two, one, or zero? In the case of "class of 1993", "class of " seems to be the unit of measure for the year..? Do compound nouns get nbsp's? My assumption for the last one, at least, is no. Just a couple of questions! —Shrinkydinks (talk) 21:41, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Think about where it would look weird if something was left hanging on a page break, and use common sense. In the first case,  I would use one nbsp, after the 15; it's ok if the word "album" wraps to the next line. I would also use one only to connect the of with the 1993.  When you have a longer construct that needs to stay together, it is better to use  for the whole thing.  Compound nouns, no. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  21:46, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. Thank you for the additional insight! Updated the article to reflect these uses :) —Shrinkydinks (talk) 23:26, 30 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Prose
 * Notable alumni is listy, and could be converted to prose in a way that will help prevent it turning into a typical WP:TRIVIA section. For example, paragraphs could be grouped by era, or by what industry the alumni eventually became notable in, or any other grouping that will avoid listiness. For example, paragraphs might be grouped as in the lead (Alumni of the group include technology executives, academics, Broadway actors and comedy writers.) Also, if all of those alumni meet notability, they should be WP:RED.
 * about a Star Wars themed computer-animated short film ... Star Wars-themed needs hyphenations.  Which results in too many hyphens, so the sentence should probably be re-cast to avoid so much hyphenation.
 * Spell out UC Berkeley for those who don't know the full name of our rival, and to avoid informality in prose: University of California, Berkeley
 * which earned them renown within the community.[6][1] Fix the ref order, 1 first, 6 next, and I wonder if an "according to" or some other qualifier is needed there, since the text is cited to the Daily.  Perhaps by attributing the statement and making it more specific, it can be clear to the reader that a (somewhat) impartial (Stanford) source is the holder of this opinion.
 * Question about reference order. Currently I have the whole article organized such that references are in order of importance/relevance for the content they’re supporting. My theory behind this was it would make content easier for readers to verify, as I would assume they’re most inclined to click on references in order. I would also be concerned that numerical order references quickly become messed up as editors edit the article (as they should!). On the other hand, I appreciate that ascending numerical order would be more aesthetically pleasing. I searched hard for an MOS on reference order last month and couldn’t find anything. Any advice? —Shrinkydinks (talk) 21:54, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * There may not be anything in MOS (not sure?), but reviewers will call this at FAC, because it looks awful. Theoretically, by the time an article comes to FAC, the text is stable enough that the ref order should not be moving around a lot. If you are still moving text around, it is something you can do last, before approaching FAC. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  21:59, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. Thank you for the perspective! —Shrinkydinks (talk) 00:06, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅. Thank you for the perspective! —Shrinkydinks (talk) 00:06, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Fleet Street broadened their repertoire, becoming well-known ... same problem as above. This is cited only to Stanford Daily, so "becoming well known" is a bit of a stretch without more specificity and attribution.  Not sure why well-known is hyphenated there.
 * s part of the 1990s' repertoire expansion, Fleet Street also began writing and releasing, redundancy. See all writing exercises at User:Tony1.
 * Why "however"? release, however, its studio engineering polarized ... See discussion of "however" at User:SandyGeorgia.
 * ❌. I took a look through the resources linked on your page—thank you so much! I've learned more about the use of the word and I've now tried a number alternatives, but I still believe "however" is the best word to use in this case. Here's a newly-educated sweet of reasoning on its use in this one particular case:
 * In this use case, "however" functions as a contrastive link: a conjunctive adverb that emphasizes a shift in what comes before and what comes after. The paragraph before discusses the album being generally well-received and, in the long view, featuring audio effects that would define the sound of recorded a cappella. But, the paragraph beginning with the sentence in question adopts a short view (in particular, considering only at the time of the album's release), and discusses how the engineering polarized critics in that time. It's positioned as recommended: just after what needs emphasis (the change in timeframe considered, or the shift from a long view to a view frozen in time after the album's release).
 * I checked it against the common errors outlined in the linked guides. It could not be replaced by a coordinating conjunction in the same place, so it hasn't been confused for one 1:1. It also isn't facilitating a comma splice. That said, I'm open to the idea that a coordinating conjunction might improve the sentence; here are five alternatives I tried, based on the coordinating or subordinating conjunctions Stan Carey argues "however" too often replaces (but, yet, still, though, and although)! I didn't like any of them better (hence my belief outlined above that "however" remains the best word), but I'm open to substituting one of them in if you feel it's an improvement!
 * But at the time of the album's release, its studio engineering polarized a cappella critics
 * Yet, at the time of the album's release, its studio engineering polarized a cappella critics.
 * Still, at the time of the album's release, its studio engineering polarized a cappella critics.
 * At the time of the album's release, though, its studio engineering polarized a cappella critics.
 * Although the album was generally well-received (and its studio effects would become standard for the industry in the years after its release), its studio engineering polarized a cappella critics at the time of its release.
 * —Shrinkydinks (talk) 23:13, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
 * —Shrinkydinks (talk) 23:13, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I'll stop there; overall, an extremely good start, and you should do well at GA. This is just to give you some ideas of things to work on, and things that would be looked at at FAC. Good luck ! Sandy Georgia (Talk)  19:59, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Reply

 * Thank you so much,, for your in-depth review! I'm blown away. Thank you so much for taking the time and for giving the article such a thorough look. I'll get right on these things in the next ~48 hours and I'll ping you when I have an update :) —Shrinkydinks (talk) 20:13, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * No need to get back to me ... just things you can work on. Unwatching now, ping me if there is anything you don’t understand.  Other than that, I hate that pingie-thingie!  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  20:20, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Sources to incorporate
It seems Rudy Galindo's autobiography, Icebreaker: The Autobiography of Rudy Galindo (Google books) mentions "Fleet Street" and "Ave Maria" each once—according to the google books text search... although it doesn't offer snippet preview. My local library also doesn't have a copy, but I'll keep looking! If anyone has access to this book, I would love to hear from you! —Shrinkydinks (talk) 20:05, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Male
Is there some reason that the lead doesn't describe it as a MALE singing group? Or even mention the fact that its membership is guys, anywhere in the lead or article text, except for the list of prizes which are always for "best male singing group?" That seems to be to be enough of a defining characteristic to be at least worth mentioning. Especially if this is rated as a Good Article. (And congrats on that by the way.) -- MelanieN (talk) 22:05, 10 May 2020 (UTC)


 * In recent years Fleet Street began accepting female members. Robertakarobin (talk) 00:07, 17 May 2023 (UTC)