Talk:Starwood Festival
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[edit] Importance
To answer the question of the importance of the event, I've added the following paragraph, as well as the assertion that Starwood is both the largest festival in the American Magical Movement, and the broadest in scope, serving many other communities as well.
"The Starwood Festival has provided an important interface between different groups and their spokespeople, promoting their working together on projects of common interest, and discovering that their similarities and more important than their differences and their differences are a strength and resource to be celebrated. Many attendees and presenters have reported sunsequent involvement in the activities of other represented groups; for instance, Halim El-Dabh and Gilli Smyth with Timothy Leary in the early nineties. Harvey Wasserman has been interviewed and quoted in books and publicatons of the Neo-Pagan movement, an audience he was unaware of before speaking at Starwood. Halim's work with a Rock group (for the first time), Einstein's Secret Orchestra, began at Starwood, and Stephen Gaskin was able to promote aid for Katrina victims through Plenty International at the festival. Synergistic relationships occur regularly there, and the attendees get the opportunity to interact directly with many authors and artists at once in ways that they could not afford to or arrange for individually." Rosencomet 17:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Gack!
Advertizing puff piece. And so is every article I have run across which links to it. I am cleaning links to the disambiguation page "Celtic (You can help!), and keep running across links to this in "articles" which are flat-out advertisements. --Sean Lotz 09:23, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
- The WP process never ceases to amaze me. With all the editing going on since my previous comment, this may turn into an encyclopedic article. I love this wiki. --Sean Lotz 22:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] citations
From WP:V
Material from self-published sources, and other published sources of dubious reliability, may be used as sources of information about themselves in articles about themselves, so long as:
- It is relevant to the person's or organization's notability;
- It is not contentious;
- It is not unduly self-serving;
- It does not involve claims about third parties, or about events not directly related to the subject;
- There is no reasonable doubt about who wrote it.
So we have one source: the Starwood website, which verifies the names of performers. There is no reason doubt that this this is an reasonably acurate list of names, and many of the names can be easilly verified throuhg a quick google search, for instance [1] independantly verifies that Gilly was at Starwood, [2] independantly verifies Lerry was there. We could waste a lot of time trying to source all this, but there is no need according to above policy.
Whether all these are notable enough for inclusion is a different question. --Salix alba (talk) 15:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with you. This is a reputable, professionally run pagan conference. It'd be nice if they published a Proceedings, but they are pagans, not academics... -999 (Talk) 16:00, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Lead text
The lead-in text is too long. It's four paragraphs and one of them is a long one. MoS (or somewhere) states the lead-in should be three or less paragraphs. If somebody (original editor?) could shorten and move material to other places, it would improve the article. We want to see at least the top of the table of contents. -999 (Talk) 16:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Someone doesn't understand the footnoting process
There are two footnotes on the article page that aren't really footnotes. The object of the footnote is to give the reader enough information to verify the information independent of the authors of the article. This has not been done. For exampe, the word "Krasner" doen't tell you anything. NLOleson 17:17, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
- I think you are not using the correct templates for footnotes. It should not be a two step process to click down to the footnote (which should be the complete reference) and then have to sort through the references.Actually, what you are calling references here probably should be called Bibliography or Further reading. The Notes and References should be the same thing. Wikipedia gives you a choice which you want to call it. It's odd the way you are doing it. NLOleson 17:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
- Then perhaps you could help. I don't understand the templates and don't use them. WP:CITE shows that there are a number of different ways to cite an article. This way is completely understandable, the cited references are listed in full under references. It's a normal academic way of doing things. Making the footnote the complete reference with named reference tags doens't allow for putting different page numbers with each reference, so each reference has to be repeated in full, which is stupid and too much work. -999 (Talk) 17:36, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] New Edits
I've deleted, at least for now, everything for which a citation was requested that has not been provided. References have been added, and I think we're pretty much OK on this listing barring very nit-picky points. Now how do I eliminate the statements at the top of the page saying citations aren't there and so on?
Ad Astra, RosencometRosencomet 15:37, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Make every word a link?
What's up with this edit: 26 August 2006) It looks like Flinders just made every other word a link. I'm getting tired and don't want to mess with it right now, but it looks pretty ... pointless. Is there any possible reason for making a link out of the word "night"? I'm asking because I'm sleepy and maybe I'm missing something obvious. --Sean Lotz 13:35, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
- I reverted it. Be bold! --Sean Lotz 13:59, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Is this a group of 30 friends from Cleveland too?
From Krassner's article:*Krassner, Paul (2005). Life Among the Neopagans in The Nation, August 24, 2005 (web only).
The annual Starwood Festivals have been presented by the Cleveland-based Association for Consciousness Exploration, a group of about thirty friends . . .
How odd, odd, odd this ensemble of Association for Consciousness Exploration , Starwood Festival, and WinterStar Symposium is. ABSmyth 19:17, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Odd?
Odder than you can imagine. They began in the mid to late 70s as an undergrad organization called the Chameleon Club, made up of two groups: a bunch of students who hung around the Hillel House at Case Western Reserve University who were into the Psychedelic Experience and Futurism (and Firesign Theatre), and a group of Society for Creative Anachronism members who were into Neo-Paganism and fantasy literature. There were suprising common themes, which seemed to crystalize in the works of Robert Anton Wilson. They became the first group to bring Timothy Leary to Cleveland and some Neo-Pagan "names" as well (like Dr. Raymond Buckland and Jim & Selena Fox of Circle), and had a hit with their creation of the Starwood Festival, first held at the same site as the SCA Pennsic War.
They founded ACE in 1984 as an organization that sounded more "real" for renting facilities (like resorts for the WinterStar Symposium), and became lecture agents for Wilson and others, and the first "Parapsychologists" listed in the Cleveland Yellow pages. In between ghost-busting (just for fun) and running festivals and symposiums, they ran a "mind-spa" with a sensory isolation tank, bio-feedback equipment, and mind-machines for stress management and electronically-assisted meditation.
As time went on, they began producing their own line of lecture & music tapes (now CDs & DVDs) and a few books, created their own in-house music groups, and grew their events to the point that they could afford to bring in bigger-name talent. Their ranks have included many of their favorite authors and performers either on an active or honorary status, and they've become an important networking body between the different communities they overlap. Their events are known to feature more fun than anyone should be allowed to have; people grin until their jaw-muscles hurt, and continue buzzing with energy from weird magical ceremonies, vision-quest workshops, all-night drumming and partying, great music & multi-media events, and so on for weeks after going home.
Of course, I wouldn't post this praise as part of a Wiki article, and I'm far from neutral. But if you get a chance to go to one of their events, do so. Who can't use a few days of naked Pagan psychedelic drumming & dancing & carrying on, with a chance to enjoy a dozen or so top-notch workshops and concerts? Rosencomet 18:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
- Well, I'm quite far from Cleveland. ABSmyth 18:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The Roundhouse
According to the designer, Frank Barney (owner of Brushwood Folklore Center), the Roundhouse is based on a Celtic design, not a Native American design (although looking at it, I can understand why one would make that mistake; it looks kind of like the skeleton of a teepee).
[edit] Links to starwood on other pages
Rather than having lots of debates on various pages about whether there should be links to starwood, it seems sensible to have the debate in one place, where we can build a consensus.
The appropriate policy/guidline are
- Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Undue weight NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a verifiable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each.
- Wikipedia:Spam
- Wikipedia:External links#Links normally to be avoided
For example ArcheDream singles out starwood as the one venue listed out of about 100 gigs. To me this seems to be undue weight. I've change the page to now link to the full tour dates. --Salix alba (talk) 09:04, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Keep track of link spam
Use this: personal attack removed by Rosencomet (talk • contribs) of his articles, by inserting www.rosencomet.com links as so-called "citations". It this moment there are at least 115 links from Wikipedia to his site. This is assuming he is not still inserting this link to a search engine:http://www.freefind.com/. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Timmy12 (talk • contribs) .
- I've removed the list of links. It doesn't belong here. Samir has said that the links are valid citations. The question is whether they are needed in all articles. This should be discussed on an article by article based using standard dispute resolution methods. Thanks. Ekajati (yakity-yak) 18:19, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
-
- Samir said that links on the starwood site are valid citations, but he also siad they cannot be used as an indication of whether including a reference to starwood in the first is notable. The firstfind citations are perhaphs worse than a direct link to a page on the starwood site. WP:EL says avoid Links to search engine results. they also have a lot of advertising and can be hard to find the material which varifies the claim.
- While I agree with Ekajati, in that links should be added on an article by article basis, I think it might be good to have a centralised discussion to establish when its appropriate to mention whether a performer appeared at starwood. In this way we can avoid having lots of revert wars on lots of pages, which only seem to result in people getting blocked. --Salix alba (talk) 19:56, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Encyclopedic
I don't agree with this excuse to cut the copy of an aerticle and say it's more "encyclopedic" that way. I ve read plenty of articles in encyclopedias, and own a Britanica, a World Book, and an Outline of Knowledge encyclopedia, and they don't shy away from complete descriptions or evocative language. None of the content that sme have wanted to cut was non-factual.
The treatment of Wiki articles is very uneven. I don't see these conditions put on the Burning Man listing, and I've seen many others that include purpose of the event, principles, objectives, and variouis activities that take place without being accused of including "non-notable" information, being "chatty" or "too much like an ad".
An encyclopedia is not a dictionary. There is no reason to excise language that adds to the reader's understanding of the nature of the subject, or differentiates it from other subjects based on it's unique characteristics. There is no reason for an article to be terse, incomplete, or boring. Encyclopedias are not written that way.
And I'd like to see less chopping up by people who don't contribute articles of their own. I've created many, and contributed to many more. Rosencomet 19:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] New Age
The terms New Age, Magical, and Spiritual overlap, but none of them completely include the other. Starwood features components of each category that are not included in the other; to simply call it a New Age event would not be an accurate description, nor just a Pagan festival.Rosencomet 19:44, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Rosencomet, please take some thought about what you're doing
Rosencomet, four experienced admins, one of them an arbitrator, have now removed the worst of the promotional language and triviality from the article, and you have added it back every time. You've violated the WP:3RR, and I see several people have warned you about that on your page, so please be aware that in the future you're not going to get away with something like that ever again. Quite apart from the 3RR, please consider the possibility that these people are more familiar with policy than you are. Having all that redundancy and promospeak in there doesn't make the article more "complete", it merely makes it more bad. Wikipedia is not for advertising. If you insist on keeping the article in such a miserable state, I see no other option than to propose it for deletion instead. Btw, your wild guess that these are people who "don't contribute articles of their own" is amusing to anybody familiar with their output. Better not go any further down that road, you'll only embarrass yourself. Bishonen | talk 19:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC).
[edit] PLEASE READ, don't just revert
Please READ the most recent version of the article I wrote. Let's see what I have added in the last time:
I included the topic magical and spiritual, and still state that the phrase "New Age topics" does NOT cover them adequately. Many New Age folks do not accept that magical practice is part of what they do, and there are many spiritual practices that are NOT New Age ones. I also added the topic "mind/body sciences". I included the founding date of the event. I cut the repeat of the phrase "these communities" and just made it "them". I trimmed the third paragraph MORE than the one you keep reverting to. I added an additional type of dance that is featured at the event, then cut a paragraph out.
I created a "Features of the event" section, and cut some of the same other paragraphs that the version you revert to cut. I changed "that can be seen from space" to "visible from space". I added "Sufiism" to the list of spiritual paths featured under the People section.
Otherwise, I have accepted a lot of the cuts that have been made. Gone is the mention of seasonal campers, wood-busters, the line about the intent of the event, the mention of the event being a yearly vacation for some, the "celebrating their diversity" line, and more. In fact, I think I have eliminated most of what has been objected to, while making the description of the event and its components more complete.
I urge you to actually READ the newer copy, and to compare it to such sites as the Burning Man site, and explain why reverting to that one rather than using this one is an improvement. In my opinion, the addition of a History section, a Principles section, a Community section, a Timeline section, and all sorts of other information would be encyclopedic and in keeping with the rest of Wikipedia, along with graphs and photos. I see no reason to harass me over the present content.
However, I apologize for violating the 4-revert rule. It was an accident, and I did self-revert as soon as it was pointed out to me. I'm not sure I did it right, but I certainly did not revert it again until Timmy12 stepped in, and he has a history of staking my articles and reverting them. Rosencomet 21:27, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] To Salix Alba
Please explain to me why the section you excised is "ad like". First, though, take a look at the Burning Man article. (not that I have anything against them)
An ad would say "a spectacular life-changing experience" or "great value at a great price" or "the finest in the world", or some other ad copy. The "Features of the event" section is just that: a list of some of the things you would find there if you, like the author of the encyclopedia article, had been there. It doesn't say why a sweat lodge is wonderful or what its benefits are, it doesn't say "you'll thrill to the pulsing rhythms" or "cool off in the placid waters of the pool" or "your mind will expand, your spirit will soar, and your soul will be nurtured". It just lists some of the structures, the existence of some resources, and adds to a complete "encyclopedic" description of the event.
Look at the Grand Canyon article, for instance. It doesn't just give the length and depth. It presents a history, offers pictures, discusses who comes to it and what they do there; hiking, climbing, endurance runners. Who has been there, why it's unique.
Look at the Woodstock article. The Glastonbury Festival. Renaissance Fair. Does this simple list really constitute making the article into an ad? Does it really not make the description more complete? Rosencomet 22:01, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
- I seriously advise you not to put back the section Salix Alba removed, Rosencomet. The feature of an ad that that section reproduces isn't the kind of explicit praise you're talking about ("finest in the world"), it's the triviality of the information. Sound system? Video support? First aid? It's pure promocopy to mention stuff like that. Work with me here. You sound like a reasonable person, please try to understand what I'm talking about. I agree that there are other articles that need the same kind of attention that I've been giving this one. Thanks for giving me a few names, I'll see if I get a chance to edit them. (Burning Man has far too much how-to stuff about how you get there etc—that all needs to go. Though it has some good sections also, rather better than anything in Starwood Festival, to be frank.) But please note that it's not my job to fix everything on Wikipedia. I'm a volunteer like you. The argument you make, basically that there are other equally bad articles so this one should be allowed to remain bad, is utterly invalid. It's never going to impress any administrator or experienced user, so you might as well save yourself some time and stop using it. Bishonen | talk 23:59, 4 November 2006 (UTC).
I have posed a question to Salix Alba, but have not heard a reply. I have not put that section back at this time, since I am hoping for a real discussion of the issue rather than just rocks thrown from a distance, as you seem to favor. First you argue that it's "not encyclopedic", then that it's "too ad-like", and now that it's "trivial".
I think you are missing the point. I disagree with your assessment of my argument. I was NOT saying other articles are just as bad. I was quite clearly saying that a list of the features of an event IS part of an encyclopedic article about that event. As both an event organizer and attendee, I do not agree that they are trivial, nor that it is "promocopy". Many events in the Neo-Pagan movement, for instance, have none of these features. Starwood is unique in both the production values of their stage offerings, how generally well known and cross-genre' their entertainers and speakers are (especially outside the usual audience of such events), and the degree of family-oriented programming and support and safety arrangements. Frankly, I would not only consider this list acceptable (though I'd be happy to delete the times, as Apostle12 suggested), but would see nothing wrong with a "History" section, a "Principles" section, a "Demographics" section, and other items (photos, for instance)that would make the article about this ground-breaking 26-year-old major event in its community more complete.
(You also seem to have quite an attitude; this sounds like threats, scolding and insult, and I don't see where you get the right, especially if you are just a volunteer like me. I have not had any problem with administrators; they seem to agree with my arguments generally.)Rosencomet 17:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
- Bishonen comments ptetty much sums up my response.
- I've not take things to the mediation cabel and an independent mediator has agreed to work on the case. I'm not quite sure what the procedure is, so its probably best to wait for the mediator to get the process working Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-11-03 Starwood Festival. --Salix alba (talk) 17:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Food for thought?
Hmm. "As both an event organizer and attendee, I do not agree that they are trivial, nor that it is "promocopy"." And you really don't see that a neutral outsider, who has no dog in the fight, is better placed than an organizer and attendee to evaluate these things? Whatever. How about this, then: after you'd told me and Salix Alba several times that it was unfair to remove Starwood Festival's how-to sections and let Burning Man keep theirs —which is actually no way to argue on a volunteer website, as I said— I took my red pencil to Burning Man and did an encyclopedic cleanup on it. I removed a lot of text. See how nobody reverted me? This was the only talkpage reaction I got. I get the impression they were pleased to see the article improved. Food for thought? Bishonen | talk 18:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC).
Of COURSE I don't think that someone who is not an event organizer and attendee is better placed (whatever that means) to decide what is or isn't trivial about an article about an event, any more than a musician isn't suited to make such judgements about a musical article, or a mathematician about a math article, or a teacher about an education issue... I think you get the idea. And I get ABSOLUTELY NO SATISFACTION in the knowledge that I may have caused you to make cuts in the description of another event. I feel sorry if I have in any way made that article a target for your "red pencil". Nor is it logical to assume that if you removed something from another article and did not get an objection that this means your actions on this one had merit. (And stop talking for Salix Alba.)
Again, my argument was that the claim that the inclusion of this simple list of features of the event neither was "not encyclopedic" nor "ad-like", but that they made the description of the subject of the article more complete.Rosencomet 19:24, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
- Sorry but I think you misunderstand the point that Bishonen is making. You have too close an involvment with this event to make unbiased judgments. That is the reason that users are encourage to not edit events that are close to them. Other users are better able to make judgments. No special expertise is required to do this. The best judges are Wikipedia users that understand how to make an article be encyclopedic. --FloNight 20:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
-
- I might agree if this was a trial and these were judges. But these are articles, and the best people to either write or edit them are, IMO, people with knowledge and experience in the field of the subject. I'm not talking about grammer, formatting, or similar aspects of the article, but whether the content elements are "trivial" or not.
-
- For instance, Alan Shockley is best known, among didgeridoo players and crafters, for being the first to make didges out of Agave cactus, which is not indigenous to Australia. You might not care, but to someone in the field this is important. Gene Krupa is known to have pioneered the trap set as a solo instrument in jazz. Badal Roy introduced the Indian Tabla to jazz music. You might not care, but a drummer or jazz buff would. Important innovations by an artist or unique features of an event as compared to others of his/its kind are notable, but perhaps not to someone unfamiliar with the genre. I'm sure you could come up with many other examples in fields I am not familiar with, and perhaps not qualified to write or edit articles about. Encyclopedias like Britanica and World Book hire experts to write and edit their articles. Rosencomet 18:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
