Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Fight songs

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Many schools, colleges, and universities have a fight song and it has become common to include details about them in the articles of the establishments. While fight songs can be an important thing for the organisation themselves it is questionable if they are encyclopedic and worthy of inclusion.

This discussion aimed to produce guidance on the inclusion of fight songs.

[edit] Result of the discussion

The result of the discussion was:

• Fight songs do not need special guidelines.
• Some notable fight songs exist, but many of the existing articles about fight songs do not establish their notability.
• Information about fight songs can be included in the page about the institution or its team.
• Fight song lyrics do not belong in Wikipedia articles. If free, they should be in Wikisource; if copyrighted, they should not be included.

Thank you to everyone who contributed. Stifle (talk) 20:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Contents 1 Result of the discussion 2 Proposal by violet/riga (t) (originator) 2.1 Examples 3 Alternate proposal by Caknuck (t) 4 Comment by Crotalus horridus 5 Oppose any proposal - Autiger 6 Alternative Proposal by Jameson L. Tai 7 Comment by Caerwine 8 This is a job for... 9 Comment by AuburnPilot 10 See also 11 Finalization of what we want to do - calling the question

[edit] Proposal by violet/riga (t) (originator)

I think that only the fight songs that are notable should merit inclusion in an organisation's article. That would be those which have a third party source written about them. I do not believe that there is any reason to include the lyrics for a fight song and would like to see the list at fight song removed, with only significantly notable examples being mentioned. I propose that fight songs can be mentioned and named (with history/other details given) but lyrics should not be included and only those that are notable should have their own section. I bring this here because it would be somewhat rude to remove them all without any prior discussion. violet/riga (t) 11:38, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Thinking about it this should really apply to all School songs. violet/riga (t) 22:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Whatever your opinion, please stop removing fight songs from articles with a link to this page as if some consensus exists. I believe the point of this page is to determine the community's opinion, and not to serve as a preemptive strike. If/when a determination is made (remove them/keep them), that will be the time to act. - auburnpilot talk 22:51, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed a batch after awaiting further comments, and have only done a small number. If removing them draws attention to this discussion then great - as it is there's not been a comment here to support their inclusion. violet/riga (t) 22:59, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

If you wish to draw attention to this discussion, find a pump and leave a notice there. Don't simply start acting with a link that implies there is some consensus. - auburnpilot talk 23:00, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I could've done it without starting any discussion. This is a centralised area for discussion that had four editors conclude that their inclusion is not correct. After nearly three days without further comment I decided to test out a batch. Please now discuss your reasons for including them. violet/riga (t) 23:02, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Unless they're violating a copyright, I see no harm in letting them remain. Might as well run around deleting traditions and customs from the school pages as well, as fight and school songs are just as important.~ (The Rebel At) ~ 05:03, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

To further elaborate on my point, what you're suggesting be deleted are integral parts of a university or college. For example, you deleted the Arkansas fight song, which has been sung since the 1920's, thus over a period of more than 80 years. The song is older than the majority of buildings on the campus! Is the fact that the song is immaterial make it any less a part of the information that should be associated with the school, versus say a seventy year old hall? Another problem to borrow from your activity at the University of Arkansas article, is that you deleted a cheer, in addition to the songs present. This shows that you either have little concern for this area of information (blanket deletions of anything resembling what you disagree with), or simply are not very well informed. This in turn suggests that you might not have the best knowledge and background to establish a policy that affects this topics. I know nothing about rugby, and hence, I would make no attempts at establishing policies that affect the subject of rugby.

Lastly, while I would address this in your talk page, you have already directed all comments concerning this topic here. I would like to address your statement in the Auburn War Eagle editing history. You reversed a reversal of your deletion by stating that four editors agreed to this change. One, removing yourself, that leaves three editors. Two, only two of those editors completely agreed with your suggestion, with another offering a different approach. It then seems rather disingenuous to revert someone's edit by claiming four editors support it, when in fact, it is your own proposal fully supported only by two others.~ (The Rebel At) ~ 05:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Please look at the examples linked below. Yes there can be a place for fight songs but I truly believe that they can detract from an article. As for talking about my levels of concern or how well informed I am I would appreciate it if you were focussing on the issue and not bringing it to a personal level - that will not further this conversation at all. As for the four people, all four that had commented here were saying that the lyrics should not be included. And the only revert I did was reversed by myself in the spirit of WP:BRD. violet/riga (t) 10:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you felt it was a personal attack. As I noted, I only mentioned it here because the last person to attempt to discuss your behavior and actions with you was directed to this page from your talk page. You did not, however, address my argument about the integral nature of songs to schools above. ~ (The Rebel At) ~ 15:34, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The song might be "integral" and my proposal is that they can be noted, but I don't think the inclusion of all the lyrics/words is a good idea. violet/riga (t) 16:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

By and by, I went back and reviewed your edits on the War Eagle page, and wanted to state for the record that after you did make the revert (with 4 editor comment), you did go back about ten minutes later and restore the original edit under WP:BRD. I apologize for not clearly representing that situation. ~ (The Rebel At) ~ 15:49, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. violet/riga (t) 16:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Fight songs/examples shows four examples from articles as they stand right now. West Virginia Mountaineers, to me, is the one that has it right while Appalachian State University is a perfect example of the kind of content we should remove. violet/riga (t) 10:47, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't disagree that most of the articles could be better, and we need to be careful of copyvio's on lyrics, but I don't see the need to have either a policy, or guideline. It seems that the regular content guidelines fit what needs doing on these articles. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 17:46, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't appear to be covered well by existing policies/guidelines and, as you can see from this page, there are some that believe the lyrics should be included. violet/riga (t) 18:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alternate proposal by Caknuck (t)

Truly notable fight songs (such as the Aggie War Hymn and On, Wisconsin!) will by nature have their own articles.

As fight songs are traditionally linked with U.S. college sporting events, the place for mentioning in this context should be at the article focusing on the athletic program of the school. For example, Glory, Glory should be mentioned at Georgia Bulldogs and not at University of Georgia.

For schools that do not warrant separate articles for their athletics programs, a brief mention of a fight song would be appropriate in the section of the college's article devoted to athletics. For example, if Texas Wesleyan University has a fight song, it should be mentioned briefly in the "Sports" section of the main article.

In cases where professional teams have fight songs (such as Fly, Eagles Fly of the Philadelphia Eagles), the ideal place for mentioning them is in the section for club traditions and/or history.

Fight songs of high schools are not notable enough for mention.

Reprinting of lyrics may violate copyright laws and should not be permitted. Even in cases where the lyrics have passed into public domain, reprinting them may set a bad precedent. External links to the lyrics (preferably at the college's/team's official Web site) would be preferable.

• I agree fully with this proposal. As long as the songs' use as a fight song has been verified, I see no reason why we can't mention them in the article. We should definitely not reprint the lyrics, but we should at least mention them, as per User:Violetriga's example of the West Virginia Mountaineers. Additionally, any that have passed into public domain should be shunted to Wikisource and linked, as per User:Crotalus horridus' suggestion. If at all necessary, we can perhaps include a single line to illustrate the song, but that should be unusual rather than the norm. ♠PMC♠ 03:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by Crotalus horridus

If the lyrics of a fight song are in the public domain due to age, then they can be kept at Wikisource, and linked from here (perhaps with an infobox). If they are not in the public domain (and aren't otherwise under a license we can use), then we should only link to the official version on the school's own website. Wikipedia generally doesn't store entire source texts anyway.

• Concur, Wikisource them. Strandwolf (talk) 04:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
• Concur per this edit of mine and ensuing disucssion I had with other editor. Daniel Case (talk) 04:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
• yes - of course quoting a portion in an article would be acceptable, if needed in the article. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 17:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oppose any proposal - Autiger

I see no need for a broad policy on the narrow subject of fight songs; any concern about them can be addressed under existing policies and guidelines.

Generally, a fight song is an attribute or part of the university and should be included as a fact in the athletics, tradition or main university article as seen fit by the editors for those articles with as deep coverage as is deemed necessary (since the songs have varying importance for different institutions) so long as any information included is verifiable. A fight song with its own article should establish notability with sufficient reliable sources.

Lyrics for fight songs are covered by normal copyright policies; either the lyrics are covered under restricted copyright and inclusion is a violation prohibited by policy or they are in the public domain or GFDL- (or equivalent) licensed and may be included.

I also am concerned about the location of this discussion and the way the limited "consensus" has since been used. It would seem that some notice should have been made, if not at Village Pump as AuburnPilot suggested, then at some logical Wikiprojects such as University or college football where editors interested in the subject matter congregate.

Per WP:V only things that are verifiable through appropriate third party sources should be included and few fight songs meet that. While I accept that fight songs can be important and historical in the culture of a university I do not see the merit in us including the lyrics. In fact I strongly believe that including the lyrics to school songs, particularly fight songs, detracts from the article.

CENT is an appropriate place for such discussions and it was linked from Talk:Fight song. Yes it could've been included on the VP and I will add a link now. violet/riga (t) 10:30, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you may be surprised by the number of fight songs that are covered by third party sources. Your belief that lyrics detract is just that, your belief; others may, and probably do, believe differently. Creating a discussion about such a narrow issue without notifying editors most familiar with the subject matter smacks a bit of forum shopping. AUTiger » talk 21:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

At no point have I said that few fight songs are covered by such sources. violet/riga (t) 22:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Ummm..."Per WP:V only things that are verifiable through appropriate third party sources should be included and few fight songs meet that."[1] Not that I'm playing "gotcha" as I don't think this is really the focus of the discussion, but these songs are covered frequently by third party sources and easily meet the requirements of verifiability. - auburnpilot talk 22:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't clear at all there - there are plenty of fight songs that are covered by third party sources, but few that are appropriate third party sources. I would expect a fight song to be detailed by students and alumni but I am not so certain that they would be written about in journals or professional media. Please do prove me wrong in this, perhaps with sources for the examples. Still, my main concern is the inclusion of lyrics. violet/riga (t) 22:34, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Autiger. Let existing guidelines and policies be used rather than adding more rules where ample ones already exist. →Wordbuilder (talk) 15:20, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Please clarify our rules for me - should we include the lyrics or not under current rules? violet/riga (t) 23:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I would say no. It would rarely if ever be appropriate to include the entire lyrics of the songs even if they are in the public domain. →Wordbuilder (talk) 01:37, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Autiger and Wordbuilder, there are existing guidelines about songs in Wikipedia. Fight songs are a particular subset of music with crossovers to patriotic songs, state songs, and national hymns. Lyrics are often placed in the song article to help explain the meaning. However, lyrics that are protected by copyright are speedily removed. Arrangements of fight songs typically have been published on sheet music for the purpose of selling in music stores or catalogs. Music publishing companies should be able to serve as legitimate or appropriate 3rd party sources. Deleting of fight songs on judgment of notability might occur on a case-by-case basis, but that happens with song articles all the time on Wikipedia. My opinion is that if a school is notable, and/or its musical organization is notable, then a composition associated with that school or organization is also notable. Thanks, Group29 (talk) 16:35, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative Proposal by Jameson L. Tai

This discussion is very similar to the article guidelines RfC which ended up escalading into an all-out battle between people who found student organizations not notable and those who keep trying to establish their student org in UK as a non-profit (hence notability...which in my book, does not fly). But I digress.

I highly dislike editors who like to do preemptive edits, or tries to desperately grab the attention of others by sabotaging multiple articles just so their little question gets answered by numerous angry editors. user:violetriga, I urge you to establish consensus before starting possible edit wars as well as unnecessary conflict on Wikipedia.

Here's my alternative proposal, which comprises two proposals mentioned above which I kind of like:

• For existing song articles already on Wikipedia who have established proper notability, keep them there, transwiki a copy to Wikisource, and link it back to the fight song's Wikipedia article.
• For existing song lyrics that violate copyrights, link it to the end of the school/university article's external links/reference list
• For existing songs in which lyrics are in the public domain (or no one has claimed them), transwiki then to Wikisource and place proper redirect links.

This guideline should be followed by fight songs, school songs, and hymns of schools and universities.

How does this sound? For something this big, I really want a lot more people voicing their opinions on this issue. A mere 5/6 editors will not be enough in this case. Please let me know how you feel about this. Thanks! - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 08:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how editing a few articles is "sabotage" and remind you that discussions don't need to happen at all before such editing, so it's a bit rude to have you say such things when I've already initiated discussions and merely trialled the edits three days after no further comments were made. violet/riga (t) 10:18, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

If you had placed a series of notices on University Talk pages, you probably would have alerted more even minded individuals to your concern on the issues. I noticed you did go to the talk page of the Fight Song article and place such a notice. However, after only garnering three responses, only two of which fully supported your own proposal, you went and altered 16 articles as if you had a mandate. For such an important topic, you should have waited for more feedback from your original discussion, rather than make a slew of deletions. It appears, at least from my perspective, it was an attempt to garner attention to your proposal which had failed to attract much more than three other editors after three days (and all of those three on the first day, no more until your series of edits). Frankly, it appears your proposal is simply not popular, nor garnering attention until you decided to throw fuel on the fire and draw people out via deletions. It would be much better for your position to go back, correct the deletions that have not been reverted, and post notices on the talk pages of the articles which will be affected on much, much larger percentage of the university articles. Thanks. Rebel At 15:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

You say that the "proposal is simply not popular" but there wasn't a single opposing comment and I acted after three days of silence. I could have gone around and removed all the fight songs without posting this at all so I find it somewhat frustrating to have people moan when I have gone to the trouble of initiating discussions. I did not want to advertise this on the talk pages of those articles because that would clearly produce a bias. violet/riga (t) 16:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

But that's the trick, though, isn't it? You're saying the editors this change will impact the most shouldn't be actively drawn in, because they'll not like it. I think your position would uphold better if you had gotten a large number of editors agreeing with you to the change, and then after a period of days with no opposition, to go forward with your plans. This didn't happen. There were only three editors, only two of which who fully supported your plan. You need to draw in more editors from the articles to be affected, rather than get fewer editors than fingers on the hand, and use the claim of consensus as validation for later, mass article affectation. Not to mention, this is a rather busy time for many people around the world. ;) Thanks. ~ (The Rebel At) ~ 18:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

As said before there was no need for consensus and I never claimed one anyway. The edit summary was used to inform people of what I was doing and gave a link for people to discuss it should they wish. Many university articles are in a bad situation and attract highly biased editors - they are not the ones that should be making decisions about the interpretation of our policies/guidelines. violet/riga (t) 18:31, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by Caerwine

As a general rule, I'd say that the fight song lyrics themselves should be on Wikisource (if eligible to be placed there), with inclusion in the athletic department article itself only if some commentary on the history or meaning of the lyrics are provided. Caerwine Caer’s whines 18:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This is a job for...

It seems to me that this whole issue should be turned over to Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities for them to articulate an informal position on this issue. It's too specific a thing to require an independent rule and requires judgment as to whether a song is notable, so it's a job for an editorial committee, not a guideline.--Father Goose (talk) 19:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I have written onto the talk page of WP:UNI regarding the subject. Hopefully I can gather a couple of people and discuss what should be done about this issue. Regardless, Happy New Year! - Jameson L. Tai ^{talk ♦ contribs} 01:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by AuburnPilot

Whether or not the lyrics of a fight song should be included in a university article should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I certainly understand the opposition to including lyrics in the main university articles, although I disagree with it, but there is certainly no reason to remove the lyrics to fight songs from articles such as War Eagle (note there is content discussing the fight song rather than just the lyrics alone). Article such as this, which describe the traditions associated with a university, are a perfect place for such content. Unless there is a copyright issue that would prohibit the lyrics from being included, our current policies do not prohibit their inclusion. WP:NOT#LYRICS simply states that an article may not consist solely of the lyrics. It does not say articles may not include lyrics, but that there should be additional content. WP:NOT is policy and should not get into specifics such as fight songs. All in all, I do not believe a guideline or policy needs to be created to deal with fight songs. I do not believe they detract from articles, and in fact believe they improve articles such as War Eagle. The fight songs should not be removed unless there is a legitimate reason such as copyright infringement. - auburnpilot talk 20:47, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] See also

• WP:NOT#LYRICS
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Maroon and Gold (from October 2007 - commented on by only a small number of people; result: keep without lyrics)

[edit] Finalization of what we want to do - calling the question