Talk:City Choir Dunedin

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It is true that the City of Dunedin Choir is the most significant choir in Dunedin in the classical choral genre. It is hard to provide external verification of this fact since reviews of performances, which usually appear in the Otago Daily Times, are often not publicly available online, so a link to such reviews cannot be provided and even if it can, it will be of short-lived nature. Extracts from recent reviews are published here: Reviews

It is also true that the choir has been growing in membership over the past ten years and the quality of its performances have improved significantly over this period, as is evident from the accolades received in recent reviews. The City of Dunedin Choir has been approached by other choirs such as the Auckland Choral Society and the Christchurch City Choir to join with them in performances in recent years, in order to lift the profile of their own performances.

The City of Dunedin Choir has an excellent relationship with the Southern Sinfonia, Dunedin's only professional symphony orchestra. The Southern Sinfonia supports the City of Dunedin Choir in all its major concerts and so it is the only choir in Dunedin able to offer large scale works to the citizens and visitors to Dunedin.

The Dunedin City Council now regards the City of Dunedin Choir as the main city choir and engages the choir for events such as the annual Mayor's Carols and in 2008 for the singing of the national anthems at Carisbrook when the All Blacks played against the South African rugby team. The Dunedin City Council supports the City of Dunedin Choir by way of a small annual grant, as noted in the published Annual Community Plan. Photographs of the Choir, commissioned by the Dunedin City Council, has been used to illustrate the cultural pages of the council's community plan and related publications.

The Choir has recently been listed on SOUNZ, a submission process which includes scrutiny of the Choir's histroy of performance of works by New Zealand composers. Only about 13 choirs in New Zealand have been awarded this honour.

If anyone can suggest ways in which to strengthen this article I shall appreciate it very much. This comment is from Leta Labuschagne, Secretary of the City of Dunedin Choir. —Preceding signed comment added by Goosetree (talk • contribs) 10:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WTF

WHO THE **** PUT THAT CITY OF DUNEDIN CHOIR HAS PERFORMED PITONI'S CANTATE DOMINO? THAT'S BULL****! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.154.138.141 (talk) 03:29, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see from the choir's blog that there was a Southern Consort/St Paul's Cathedral Choir performance of the work in October 2008 which included some members of the City of Dunedin Choir 'to make up numbers'. I'm removing it from the list and it can always go back in again if anyone can find a reference to another performance. --121.74.230.77 (talk) 01:09, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notablity and referencing

The article still needs work but I have taken a stab at improving it. I've added some secondary references which support both the text as it stands and the case for notability. The strongest support for notability seems to me to be the space given to the choir in the Oxford History of New Zealand Music. The article seemed too short for footnotes (or is it?). I have also rewritten some content which was not in neutral language or was original research. I've rewritten much of the history too. Apologies if I ballsed anything up as I don't have much wikipedia editing experience. --Mevad (talk) 07:27, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Inline citations ("footnotes") are pretty much the standard as they make clear the origins of the various claims in the article. I've added a header that links to a guide on citing souces. Thanks! - SummerPhD (talk) 19:22, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Content re abuse, neutrality and removal of members

Recent details added regarding dismissal of choir members on the sly and silent by committee, gangs of anonymous members etc. Can't believe this **** is happening in City Choir!!!, but am adding as is relevant to the overall history of choir, current events and politics within (as well as tossed members, one of whom is close friend considering legal action).

Have copies of official correspondence from Committee on the issue for verification purposes - does anyone know how to ad these to Wiki for source content? UltraZit (talk) 01:15, 1 October 2011 (UTC)UltraZit[reply]

Unless/until these alleged events are discussed in independent reliable sources, it simply does not belong in the article. As evidenced by your note here, anyone close to the events (whatever they may be) is likely to -- intentionally or not -- put a "spin" on their reporting. Also, without such sources, there is no indication of any significance. - SummerPhD (talk) 01:49, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the section. The only independent reliable source (Otago Daily Times) discusses dismissal as director of music at St Paul's Cathedral, with a passing mention that he would remain in his role with the Choir. The rest is unsourced and a heavily POV discussion. - SummerPhD (talk) 01:59, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Independent content is available and am willing to publish, having obtained copies of official docs and letters from three affected members. Content is not pleasant. Agree the topic is "hot" one, but also question the removal of content and neutrality query.

Am re-installing content for present, and requesting third opinion from non-involved Wiki editors. Am concerned that removal of subject may be another attempt by biased persons obviously previously involved in choir to bury evidence and promote a more "sanitary" image of the choir than neutrality would give it.

Re citation of content being poorly sourced, the entire page is poorly sourced, and new content is more fully sourced than rest of document.

Also questioning whether page on this choir is merited at Wiki at all, as is of low importance and little significance to NZ history.UltraZit (talk) 03:11, 2 October 2011 (UTC)UltraZit[reply]

We do not need sources that are merely "independent" (i.e., not connected in any way to the Choir or the incident), we need coverage in independent reliable sources directly relating it to the topic of this article. The one source we have is independent and reliable, but merely mentions the Choir in passing. Nothing changed about the choir, per the article, so that fails. "Official docs" and "letters from...members" are not:

Verifiable - We cannot determine that they say what you tell us they say, nor can we verify that they are what you say they are.
Independent - "affected members" are clearly not independent of the Choir or the events discussed; "official documents", from the church or the Choir are not independent of the Choir or the situation
Reliable - The "affected members" and the church/choir are not "third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", they are involved parties, unpublished and have no reputation for fact-checking.

The only portion of the sole source that has to do with the Choir merely says, "However, he confirmed the dismissal would not affect his role as musical director of the City of Dunedin Choir..." This is, at best, tangentially related to this article. It's placement in St. Paul's Cathedral, Dunedin, if any, is currently being discussed on that article's talk page.

To request a third opinion, you need to add a request at WP:3O. As the material is poorly sourced, off-topic and contentious, I am removing it until additional editors have weighed in on this. - SummerPhD (talk) 03:49, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I saw the request about the church page listed at the Third Opinion project, and came here by way of Talk:St._Paul's_Cathedral,_Dunedin#Third_opinion_requested. While I am a Third Opinion Wikipdian and while I am a neutral in regard to these disputes, I'm not sure how I feel about the undue weight issue there. But I do want to at least note that:

the pew sheet mentioned there,
the part of the Otago Daily Times article which merely repeats what was in the official statement from the bishop,
the official correspondence from the Committee, and
the letters from individuals

cannot be used as sources for any information about any living person other than the individuals who wrote the individual letters. Each of those is a self-published source and WP:BLPSPS, part of the Wikipedia BLP policy, forbids the use of any information, negative, positive, or neutral, about a living person from a self-published source unless the living person is himself or herself the self-publisher. Moreover, whatever is left in those sources after all references to living persons other than the self-publisher has been removed will likely also not be able to be used due to the WP:SELFPUB policy which says that information from self-published sources cannot be used if it involves claims about third parties. I do not know whether I will issue a 3O about the undue weight issue at the other article, but I wanted to at least clarify this much. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 23:43, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality

Another editor has tagged the article as potentially not presenting a neutral point of view. As there has been no discussion to this end, I am asking for discussion before removing the tag. (I am unsure if the weight/BLP issue above is what the editor has in mind. If so, I do not believe this dispute represents a POV problem. If we discussed one side of the issue, we would have an POV problem. Not discussing an issue is a question of depth. Comments? - SummerPhD (talk) 01:49, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]