Talk:American Boychoir School

message: people were raped there by man eating rape grapesI would like to suggest that, given the hot-button nature of the abuse aspects of the School's history, significant edits should be discussed here first. Mr. Kruger's addition, although it was quite correctly removed, is an important one to have available, and I hope he (or someone) will add it here. I will do so myself if nobody else does it anytime soon. --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 20:40, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello, Marshall Price of Miami speaking! I do now change the heading above to incorporate anything controversial right here, getting it out of the way of less attention-getting, but more serious matters. I'm not interested in tabloid-type nonsense, but the glorious experience of using my voice. So, please put the scandalous stuff right here, where I, for one, will be quite pleased to ignore it. Unfree (talk) 00:45, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello, Marshall Price of Miami speaking again clearly. I'm here to include "sex" in the heading, because it appears in the discussion, and is a very annoying distraction. Whatever suspicion you may have of my motives, if it is other than discussing a school, music, vocal stuff, etc., you're wrong. Our interest should be sex in one place, perhaps, but certainly not everywhere. Thank you for your consideration and considerateness. Unfree (talk) 01:41, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello, Marshall Price of Miami speaking again clearly. Is there anything under the "removed comment" section that should remain here to be discussed any more? It's a darn long section! What is it they say, "full of froth and fury, and signifying nothing"? If it's "rage and fury", skip it. This is froth and scandal-seeking. Unfree (talk) 02:17, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Child abuse, controversy, scandal, sex, etc. 

message: I have removed the two links that Alansohn put back, partly because one doesn't work, and partly because, as I noted above, I feel very strongly that we need to discuss significant edits to this article before they go in. --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 13:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, what I saw was that two links got added and one would not load (it still won't load for me). Also, I did not see the deletion-reversion issue you mention, so I'll accept the status quo for the moment. I personally do not believe either link really serves the article; what is your view on how they do? --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 18:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

text: *My reverts were labeled "restore deleted links" (or variation) and your's had an edit summary of "rv the reversion", so I would assume that there should be little confusion. It would help to take a look through the article's history to see that these links have been present since day one. Given the extensive charges of abuse of students at the school, it seems clear to me that coverage of the abuse claims and a site dedicated to survivors of the claimed abuse would be relevant to the article. Alansohn 19:10, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have been advised by one far wiser in the ways of Wikipedia than I am, to abandon ship...which I am hereby doing, with great sadness. I am convinced of the value of the school and of the danger of prolonging and therefore emphasizing the issue, and wish with all my heart that people could move forward on this deeply tragic situation. Bye. --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 22:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are convinced of the value of the school?  What the heck does that have to do with Wikipedia?  I have no idea of the value of the school, and no intention of looking it up, but I love it dearly.  That's my darn alma mater you're talking about!  I'm not the least bit interested in what you mean by a deeply tragic situation, but get off it!  Situation, my foot! Unfree (talk) 01:24, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latest edit 

message: I just restored some material to the article that had been removed by a new anonymous editor. See the discussion at the Wikipedia:Administrators' Noticeboard, and another discussion at the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. I suggest that inclusion of the current language has been extensively reviewed. It should not be removed without prior discussion here on Talk accompanied by reasons why the information is not correct. We reflect what mainstream publications have said about the issue, per the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Nonetheless, if you believe that something here is wrong, you should make the concern known and explain why you think it's wrong. EdJohnston (talk) 16:49, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On 9 January, per this edit an IP removed a statement about the Nightline interview with John Ellis, the school's headmaster, claiming that the information was 'false and defamatory.'  I can't find any reference to substantiate what Ellis may have said in that particular TV program, but the school's filing with the court is exactly what the article had stated prior to this IP's removal of the text. The New York Times says:"In a court filing, the school accused Mr. Hardwicke of negligence, saying if he had been abused he should have spoken up at the time. The school argued that it was not responsible for Mr. Hanson's behavior or Mr. Hardwicke's well-being, and said that Mr. Hardwicke, then 12, had consented to sex."The school's willingness to file this surprising claim was noted by John Heilemann, in his New York Magazine article, and he asked the school's attorney about it.  "That was very unfortunate,” Jay Greenblatt, the school’s litigator, tells me one afternoon in his office in Vineland, New Jersey. Greenblatt was appointed to the case by the school’s insurance company, which also pays his fees. He came aboard after the reply was written. “It was a boilerplate-type pleading,” he limply explains. “I don’t even know if it was reviewed.”I added a sentence to the article to clarify that the surprising claim that 12-year old Hardwicke had consented to the sex had actually been made by the school. EdJohnston (talk) 16:01, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

text: *The New York Times article from 2002 citing the school's claims of negligence and consensual sex had already been in the article. The exact quote cited has already been included in the reference, and the school's claims expanded and fully sourced. Alansohn (talk) 16:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent discussions on the admin noticeboards about abuse claims in this article 

message: I am not a school alum, nor am I a faculty member or a member of the board. I came upon this entry when researching choral music. The American Boychoir is, for those interested in choral music, a national treasure. It is our equivalent of the Vienna Boys Choir. These young men, in addition to preserving a unique musical tradition, respond to a very real need in American classical music. Their work has been heard around the world and is available on numerous significant recordings. To include in the description of the school an individual history of child abuse is little more than sensationalism. To underscore this disgraceful event as part of the school's profile is completely inappropriate. No small number of religious and secular institutions have found themselves in similar situations, yet, such moments are not part of the institutions profile. That these events are factual, likewise do not establish them as elements of definition. Such events are the description of individual persons in specific times and do not reflect the overall definition of the institution. The passage on child abuse should be removed. (Comment posted by TonyArd  20:54, 26 March 2009 and moved to more appropriate place by Peridon (talk) 21:28, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The misbehavior by teachers at the school was heavily reported in the press, including the New York Times. The school fought the charges, and made outlandish claims in its response to the suits. It claimed that it had no duty to protect children in their care from sexual abuse by staff. Should we erase the memory of that just because it is unpleasant? Wikipedia is not censored. EdJohnston (talk) 22:03, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

text: I am one of the individuals who has edited this page. I have reviewed the wording regarding the sexual abuse scandal, and verified that all of the sources are reliable and verifiable. This didn't merely happen at the school, the staff was involved and the school itself made a vigorous justification that it was not responsible. That the event happened in the past also applies to World War II and the Iron Age, all of which we still maintain articles for. This scandal is aspect of many included in the article about the school, and anyone reading the article should know that it occurred. Anything less would not be encyclopedic. Alansohn (talk) 16:02, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia is not censored; the fact that you find these events distasteful is irrelevant. The events did occur, they are certainly part of the history of the school, however sad that fact may make you. The fact that these things could go on while these children were entrusted to the school is certainly a component of "the school as an academic and cultural institution". This article does not place undue emphasis upon the events; but we will not connive in an effort to pretend that they did not happen, or that they had nothing to do with the school. --Orange Mike  |  Talk 16:14, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

text: Because of the obvious conflict of interest, the school is not a reliable source for that kind of information. You seem unable to maintain a neutral point of view on this topic, as witnessed by such biased language as "a national treasure". --Orange Mike  |  Talk 14:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I see only one editor in favor of toning down or minimizing the sexual abuse information. Consensus seems to favor leaving the article the way it is. The value of such institutions should not give them a free pass when misbehavior is reported. A web search for 'American Boychoir School' gets a NY Magazine article on the abuse scandal (published in 2005) as the fifth Google hit, so I doubt that we are exaggerating its relative importance. If this was being written about in a mainstream publication in 2005 it must not be considered ancient history by the press. The New Jersey law in this area was still being revised in 2006, as shown by the references. TonyArd's claim that that past is long gone does not seem correct. EdJohnston (talk) 18:07, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment moved from main article

message: Marshall Price of Miami here. Precisely on which date in 1960 did members of the Columbus Boychoir, and which ones, appear on The Bell Telephone Hour, along with Maureen O'Hara and John Raitt, directed by Donald Bryant and the show's director Donald Voorhees? And what went wrong, and who else remembers who was there (besides me, Marshall Price, and them)? As I seem to recall, the first performance was a run-through, and the second was recorded on tape, but we just barely finished in time, because the tape had to be broadcast, almost as soon as we finished, and this was all known by both Donalds though there was some confusion about it, about an hour before airtime, when there was something that scared us all. What was it? Everything went without a hitch, Maureen O'Hara and John Raitt both knew who I was at the age of fourteen, but I didn't know them, except as familiar faces, and I told Mr Raitt how much I liked him in Oklahoma!, in which somebody else who was often mistaken for him--he was a great star and should have gotten that role, but he couldn't blame me! I think the issue was whether we should do the show live, in which case, we had nothing to do for an hour, or whether we should hurry up very fast (for what?) and get it on tape, for the airing. Nobody could reason clearly enough to figure it out, and there could not be two shorter tapes made, or one short one (the rest performed live), because the mandate was either it was all on one tape, or it was live, and no other solutions could possibly work. So we rushed it. Unfree (talk) 00:17, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Bell Telephone Hour

message: As it now stands, the prefatory remark is as follows: "The American Boychoir School is a music boarding school located in Princeton, New Jersey. It is one of two boychoir boarding schools in the United States. The other is the Saint Thomas Choir School. The school has grade 4-8 and students from all over the United States as well as internationally, including, Colombia, France, Switzerland, Brazil, and Korea."
As was once true of "boychoir", coining a new word, for all the world to marvel over!, it is true with "music school" (but not of "musical school" for no reason). When we use "boychoir" in contexts familiar with the word, we must be very careful to distinguish them from "ordinary daily" speech, in which "choir comprised (or composed) entirely of boys" makes better sense, because "boychoir" is strictly applicable to one, or several, perhaps someday more, particular schools which are pleased to use the coined compound word. It is not a universally acceptable substitute by any stretch of the imagination, though used by some people a lot.
So you see the problem in the second sentence above!
I doubt that "grade 4-8" is a range cast in concrete, because when I was there, seven of us were invited to form the ninth grade, which might occur again, otherwise "has grade" sounds fishy to me. Is "4-8" accurate? Naming five countries seems to me an exercise in nonsense, as does the emphasis on where students come from. State it simply. "Music boarding school" is utter solecism. Nobody takes their music there to have it boarded. Whether it provides boarding is very important, but shouldn't divide "music" from "school", but I ask you, is it a "music school" at all? Surely Herbert Huffman, Donald Bryant, Dr. Basset, and many trustees have considered "music school", but since it was rejected in favor of "boychoir school", which, as we all can acknowledge, means "boys' choir school", that is, a school having something to do with "boys' choirs", let's just make it clear, okay? It's a school of boys' choirs, period. Unfree (talk) 01:14, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Prefatory sentence

message: I'd like to move the mission statement out of the way. Can I put it under the school section? Or should I just delete it? Aside from the mention of the founder's name and reminding us vocabulary nuts we can use "chorister" to our heart's content, it's crap. Unfree (talk) 02:22, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've taken it out; but there's still a tonne of recruiting-brochure garbage in the article (I purged a few of the most shameless peacock words, and tagged boasts source only to the subject's own website for citations needed. --Orange Mike  |  Talk 17:08, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Mission statement placement

message: The final two sentences in the History section, pertaining to the allegations of sexual abuse, could use some attention.  First, as to the phrase "from 35 years ago"... from when?  An exact date would be better (i.e. "from 1977"), although I myself don't know what year it refers to.  Second, the wording "both parties" is ambiguous as to who was the plaintiff.  Because this has proven a hot-button issue, it shouldn't be left to assumption.  Third, "resolved to the satisfaction of both parties" is tricky; it might be more appropriate (meaning NPOV) to describe it simply as being "settled out-of-court".   05:45, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Imprecise sentences in History section 

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I have just modified 7 external links on American Boychoir School. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130816164702/http://www.americanboychoir.org/ to http://www.americanboychoir.org/
*Added  tag to http://www.americanboychoir.org/about/mission.php
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*Added  tag to http://www.educationlaw.org/images/PDFs/Nov06SLR.pdf
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130816164702/http://www.americanboychoir.org/ to http://www.americanboychoir.org/
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050529232656/http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/features/12061/ to http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/features/12061/
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thread_title:  External links modified