Talk:Mosaic Whispers

Article Importance

Hi, I wanted to start a discussion here because I believe that this article has an important place in Wikipedia and I would like the chance to discuss this here if anyone feels otherwise. The Mosaic Whispers are not only an important part of the St. Louis cultural scene, having collaborated with local schools and government agencies for various music events over the years, they are also an important part of the recruitment process for Washington University in St. Louis (they are paid by the admissions office to visit schools around the US and engage high school students' interest in the university). More generally, they have toured extensively around the United States, have performed on national and local television, and have collaborated with Ben Folds and others for national a cappella compilation albums. For all these reasons, I think an article about the group would be relevant and valuable for a general Wikipedia audience. I will work to add more sources, but I believe there are enough right now to demonstrate the validity of these statements.

Most of the sources provided are completely unusable. Linkedin is not a reliable source. IMDB is notoriously unreliable. Facebook...well, that one goes without saying is unreliable. Link to some local radio station is just photos. CASA is not a reliable source. The link to the WSU magazine is fine. You need to first Read this page for a good overview of how to determine whether a source constitutes a reliable source for purposes of establishing WP:NOTE (another page you should review.) JoelWhy? talk 17:38, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

That Facebook link is to a video recording of a news broadcast. The broadcast itself was done by a local news station. I could pull out an MLA book and give a "proper" citation (I will do this), but evidence of the broadcast seems valuable nonetheless. Context matters when it comes to whether a source is reliable. In this case, I don't think it's enough to say "Facebook is unreliable" (even though that's generally true) since Facebook is simply housing a video recording of a legitimate news station broadcast (which would be all but impossible to forge, given the people in the video).

I reviewed the Wikipedia page on IMDB reliability and based on that and based on the fact that I am simply using it to cite that this person is notable, I believe it is sufficiently reliable. I'm not making specific claims about this person, so I think the threshold needed to claim that this person is a notable member of the group has been met. If you'd like I could provide links to dozens of articles with similar sections who don't provide any sources. I thought that given that sources are generally not given, it can only help to provide a source for context.

I agree that LinkedIn is not great (I will remove it), I added it for the same reason as my previous response, but I can see how its unreliability makes it unnecessary.

I'm confused as to why you believe CASA is not a reliable source, given that a) they are a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, b) they are notable enough to be on Wikipedia, and c) the information on their site is not user-generated.

The "link to some local radio station" is being used as evidence that the group sang for that station at that event. I would think photographic evidence is even better than written evidence (a picture is worth a thousand words and all that). There is context for the photos ("Saturday Boatload of Toys" event) so I think they are valid forms of verification.

Thanks for your help getting this article up-to-snuff for Wikipedia. Puponpup (talk) 20:41, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

In case you don't see my edit comment for removing your notability tag, I'll paste it here as well: "To prevent an edit war, please provide a reason for adding the notability tag. Please note similar groups (Voices In Your Head, etc.) and be fair in your assessment." Puponpup (talk) 20:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC)