Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/A Cappella


 * The following discussion is an archived proposal of the WikiProject below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or the WikiProject Council).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The proposed WikiProject was created at WikiProject A Cappella

Description
This proposed WikiProject would cover all articles related to a cappella on the English language Wikipedia.

Scale and Scope
There are thousands of a cappella groups in the United States, the United Kingdom, greater Europe, and around the world. There are both professional a cappella groups and collegiate (and high school) a cappella groups. Indeed, many of them are not notable— but many others are! They've won international a cappella championships, they've won a cappella recording awards, or they're the Pentatonix and they've won 3 Grammys and they have one of the best-selling Christmas albums of all time.

Beyond a cappella groups, there are a wide number of a cappella-related subjects, such as the film Pitch Perfect, the television competition show The Sing-Off, the organization Contemporary A Cappella Society, the YouTube musician Peter Hollens, a cappella promoter/pioneer Deke Sharon, the competition International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, Billy Joel's song "The Longest Time", the platinum-certified a cappella album A Pentatonix Christmas, a Grammy award for a cappella arrangements, and on and on.

Interest
Many collegiate a cappella group pages are started (probably) by members of the groups who care deeply about them. Many of these pages are deleted because an editor's first work is of poor quality (likely failing both WP:NPOV and WP:COI). But I believe that passion is an opportunity to teach good editing practices (potentially turning fancruft creators into stewards). Further, this WikiProject could serve as a good source of information and advice about how to turn that passion for this particular subject into high quality Wikipedia articles.

Need
Finally, many a cappella-related articles of poor quality and are in need of help. Article quality is sometimes even bad despite high importance to the subject: For example, the SoCal VoCals, the most championship-winning a cappella group, has a bad, largely unsourced, editorialized article. A dedicated group of people interested in the subject of a cappella, and its accurate description, could significantly improve article quality for a huge number of Wikipedia articles. Additionally, a centralized group like this WikiProject could develop a cappella-specific guidelines for high quality page creation, which could help guide good-faith new editors.

List of pages and categories relevant to this proposed group
A handful of prototypical articles for this WikiProject: Relevant lists: Relevant categories:
 * Straight No Chaser (group), a professional a cappella group that began as a student group at Indiana University
 * Out of the Blue (British band), collegiate a cappella group from Oxford
 * Peter Hollens, American YouTuber, a cappella singer
 * Pentatonix, professional a cappella group, winners of three Grammy awards
 * SoCal VoCals, the only a cappella group to win five titles in ICCAs
 * Voices (A cappella group), well-known collegiate a cappella group from U Chicago
 * BYU Vocal Point, award-winning male a cappella group from BYU
 * The Whiffenpoofs, the oldest a cappella group
 * Pitch Perfect, the 2012 film about collegiate a cappella that spawned two sequels
 * Deke Sharon, a cappella promoter and entertainment producer
 * International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, the competition for live a cappella performance
 * Contemporary A Cappella Society, the organization for a cappella work
 * List of professional a cappella groups
 * List of collegiate a cappella groups (in the United States)
 * List of university a cappella groups in the United Kingdom
 * List of alumni of collegiate a cappella groups
 * a cappella musical groups (number of pages in the category: 168)
 * professional a cappella groups (number of pages in the category: 93)
 * collegiate a cappella groups (number of pages in the category: 87)
 * Potentially: american vocal groups (number of pages in the category: 195)
 * Potentially: barbershop quartets (number of pages in the category: 95)

Because of the generally low quality of articles I've encountered that belong in this WikiProject, I suspect there is a relevant degree of under-reporting for article that should be in these groups (but which aren't).

List of WikiProjects currently on the talk pages of those articles

 * Please invite these and any other similar groups to join the discussion about this proposal. See WikiProject_Council/Directory to find similar WikiProjects.


 * , task force: student affairs
 * Collegiate groups are almost all in their respective university's WikiProject
 * , task force: Musicians
 * , task force: Musicians
 * , task force: Musicians

Why not use an existing WikiProject
The quantity and breadth (and lack of detail) of the above WikiProjects speaks to how editors have struggled previously to identify good-fit WikiProjects for these articles. There exists a community of people passionate about a cappella. We just need to create the space for them to organize so they can collectively lift the quality of related articles (many of which are in dire need of help).

Support
Also, specify whether or not you would join the project. Meeting the minimum support, we'll go ahead and begin this project! As additional interested editors come across it, they may join a project and find support from other editors and what documentation we can assemble. —Shrinkydinks (talk) 01:33, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) Support. I believe this WikiProject is aligned with the passion and interest of a relevantly-sized community and it can work to improve the quality of Wikipedia. I would join it. (I created this proposal—and I'd love to hear thoughts on it!) — Shrinkydinks (talk) 03:19, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * 2) Support. A worthy idea. I don't have a lot of time to write new articles though. Yoninah (talk) 11:30, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * 3) Support. Good idea. I started a couple of pages regarding UK A Cappella, and would be happy to contribute where possible. MrMarkBGregory (talk) 12:51, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * 4) Support. Great idea! I am a great a capella fan and have been adding small stuffs on different a capella pages (mostly on Swedish Wikipedia, but also in the English one). I would like to contribute in the way I can. Ajbp95 (talk) 13:50, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
 * 5) Support. I will join and support this project if approved. It would likely have helped several articles I've edited in the past. —ADavidB 15:31, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
 * 6) Support I can write updates/newsletters/Main Page that sort of stuff, that's what I have experience with. I think this is a fantastic idea! Puddleglum  2.0   19:51, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Comment: I've added a notice about this proposal to the talk pages of a handful of related articles (as recommended in WikiProject Council/Guide § Proposing a project). I tried to identify articles on the more active side. Hopefully people see the notes! —Shrinkydinks (talk) 07:07, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: There doesn't appear to be a WikiProject for choral music in general. I came here to try and start a Choral WikiProject, as the articles on particular voice types (see for example Counter Tenor) are horribly biased towards Opera as a result of the existence of an Opera WikiProject. Could we not create a Choral WikiProject and take A Capella under it aegis? Bmcollier (talk) 13:40, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: I added a notice to a second batch of talk pages, this time focused on professional a cappella groups and pop culture portrayals. The total is now ~80, so the net has been widely cast, although most of these pages see very little traffic. I'll check back in in a few weeks to see if we've mustered enough interest to formally begin! —Shrinkydinks (talk) 00:27, 10 December 2019 (UTC),
 * You want to get started? I think we've met the minimum requirements, and I can also get a message sent out to people I think would be interested after we've created it. 😀 Puddleglum  2.0   05:40, 7 January 2020 (UTC)