Talk:Broadway by the Bay

History

Given its long history and major productions, Broadway by the Bay has become the most important semi-professional community theatre organization in San Mateo County, California. The quality of its productions has been widely praised in the San Francisco Bay Area. A number of other theatre groups have come and gone since BBTB was first established in 1963 as the San Mateo Community Theatre. I was a member of the San Mateo Community Theatre from 1963 to 1966 and then the Capuchino Community Theatre from 1982 to 1985, even serving on its board of directors. Capuchino tried to stress the "community" aspects of its productions, while San Mateo strived to become more professional and eventually eclipsed CCT and other local theatre groups. Sallyrob 13:41, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Reliable Sources

None of the references given in this article are WP:Reliable sources such as are permitted by Wikipedia guidelines, and large parts of it are unreferenced. I am sure that this theatre company has reviews and some feature articles in newspapers. Those should be researched and added as references for the appropriate parts of this article. -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:52, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Three years later and still no clean up has been done, which is a shame. The "eye witness" used as citation, some random interview with no publication history noted and citing their own website all seem inappropriate for this article. --Joojay

I agree that the stuff that was sourced to "interviews" should be deleted. Instead of complaining, why don't you do some research and try to help out. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:08, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I am sorry Ssilvers but I think you are misunderstanding my statement, I was trying to research these existing citations someone added and that was my note about them. As I said below, I am ready remove all of the uncited history. There is no need to be rude here. Jooojay (talk) 22:12, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I was not rude. I merely suggested that a person make a serious effort to try to find sources before simply driving by to delete material. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:18, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Ssilvers - Thank you for doing some of the clean up. Directing other people online what to do can be perceived as rude, I apologize if I misunderstood you. Jooojay (talk) 22:21, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

History and notability

The parts in this article about the history of Broadway by the Bay seem to be conflicting, I don't see a start date for the establishment of the company and there are a serious lack of citations. Jooojay (talk) 21:49, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

You didn't look very hard for the start date, but I just made it clearer by moving the date to the beginning of the sentence. Yes, the article needs more citations (and better quality citations. Feel free to look for them. If someone suggested deleting this article, I would agree that it, and most community theatre groups, should not have Wikipedia articles. I would probably vote to delete the article. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:55, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I think this theatre group is notable, but you really won't know that from this article in it's current state. I would suggest removing most everything without citation (including the history portion which is poorly sourced if at all source) and make this a stub. Jooojay (talk) 22:00, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

The SFGate article does reference most of the history. As I said, if you want to delete this Wikipedia article, I would support that, since amateur theatre companies are usually not of encyclopedic interest, but I would oppose stubbifying the article without any serious attempt to source it. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:03, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

The SFGate link is not an article, but rather it is a business listing. Something newspapers no longer do, which is why it was archived and no longer searchable on the internet or on SFGate. Jooojay (talk) 22:09, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Nevertheless, it is an acceptable reference per WP:SELFPUB. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:13, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

BTW, what is your basis for concluding that this article satisfies WP:GNG, WP:ORG, WP:ENT or any other notability guideline? -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:21, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

IMO, this article fulfills WP:ENT, #2, #3, after over 50 years of theatre obviously the notability is not temporary, there is a following (in this case a cult following since its a smaller, community based), also well-known with world famous stage performers that have graced their stage. There is coverage in news, this is one example of a query- http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&firstRequest=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22Broadway+by+the+Bay%22 - but someone needs to sort through deeper to find the Wikipedia appropriate links. I will revisit this at a later time and hopefully help. Jooojay (talk) 22:31, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I believe you are setting the bar for WP:ENT, #2 and #3 at an unreasonably low height. It doesn't matter that the organization existed for 50 years, as it has never been notable, and is still not notable. It is certainly not one of the oldest amateur theatre companies in the country (some are over a century old). Also, there is no claim that, for example, a large number of notable performers began their careers there, that the organization tours widely, has unusually long seasons or has been accompanied by notable orchestras, directed by notable directors and music directors, etc. In fact, it appears to be absolutely an ordinary amateur theatre company. Nevertheless, I will not move to delete the article on my own initiative. Any actual help with sourcing the information in the article would, however, be welcome and appreciated. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:41, 29 March 2017 (UTC)