Talk:Homecoming

message: "Riots" should really be in some other section of the article. By putting it under "traditions" it sounds like riots are an acceptable thing to do. Also it says "schools usually denounce these activities" but has anyone ever heard of a school who's officials encourage vandalism??  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.69.54.202 (talk) 18:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Riots as a tradition

message: CAN WE THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE OTHER THAN PARADES??  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.218.55.118 (talk) 02:48, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have never heard of alumni being involved in homecoming. I really had no idea that was part of the original purpose. It would be nice if the article more accurately reflected current customs. Lagringa (talk) 18:20, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, technically, homecoming is supposed to be about alums coming back. However, considering that alums may haves moved away, and (particularly for high school) no longer care, many alums just don't bother. I've been to the grand total of one homecoming game at my college, and absolutely none for my HS, because I didn't have the time or money to attend more.Wschart (talk) 00:40, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Purpose of Homecoming

message: When does homecoming occur? Is this an annual event? Does it happen at a particular time of year? User:Ianeiloart
Usually, a high school or college homecoming celebration will take place in the fall (late September or anytime in October), and is centered around football.
However, many smaller schools that do not field a football team may have their homecoming during the winter (with a basketball game as the centerpiece event). In other communities that do not have athleteic programs, homecoming often amounts to an alumni banquet or other similar event.
So what is this tradition about? Where did it originate? When did it originate? What should is symbolize? What/who is honoured? What should it express? Where does the name come from? The article is all about WHAT is happening, but not at all WHY this is happening. 85.72.181.161 18:26, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Missing Info

message: To User:85.72.181.161 – Perhaps these missing details – such as the origin of homecoming, etc. – is something you can supply. After all, Wikipedia is "the encyclopedia anyone can edit." If you believe an article is lacking in any way, it should be up to you (or someone else who shares the same opinion) to fix it. That said, I sincerely hope this article does not become an analytical article with details nobody cares about. If you're going to add information you suggest, I'd highly recommend following the KISS principle – "Keep It Simple ..." (you fill in the rest). [[Briguy52748 17:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Update – I guess some bright fella already added info about the history of homecoming celebrations. Thanks to whomever, and yes, you did keep it simple! :-) [[Briguy52748 01:41, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't think it's possible to pin down an exact history without an in depth study of the subject.  University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) claims to have started the homecoming tradition, but I've heard other schools make that claim as well.  I believe Northern Illinois University is one of those schools, but I could be mistaken.  My guess would be that several schools independently started a homecoming like event, and eventually the traditions merged into one common celebration.  That said, this is just a guess, I haven't done any sort of research into this, so I could be wrong.74.134.83.126 20:13, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

text: As recognized by the NCAA, University of Missouri held the first homecoming in 1911.  This occured when the football coach asked alumni to come back to support the team in the rivalry game against the The University of Kansas.  Several sources for this are:
*[School's Website]
*[]
*[]
Grey Wanderer 22:37, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

text: My apologies, I've now got a source for that. It is in the references section, but I'll put it here as well: . Grey Wanderer | Talk 08:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I find the article compiled by the archivists at the University of Illinois to be quite compelling in terms of defining the origins of homecoming.  While it may be fair to state that Missouri has held the most consecutive annual homecoming events, it is not clear to me that this adequately describes the origins of university homecoming events.  It seems to me that the homecoming phenomenon sprang up in several places around the country in varying guises at or around a similar time frame.  It is not surprising that the form and function and frequency of homecoming varied in the early years.  Specific elements of this history that strike me are the idea that it is an event around a central event and several schools have had such events pre-dating Baylor, Illinois, Missouri and the lot.  Further, at least one school actually called their pre-1911 event Home-coming and it was an event that fits the rest of the definition very well other than not being annual.  There are sources that lead you to believe that the school (Baylor) contemplated making it a recurring event in the future.  And it did lead eventually to an annual event.  Personally, I started off wanting to say Baylor held the first homecoming, but after doing some research I think the whole story of the various schools starting up similar, but somewhat varied events to be more interesting and useful to potential researchers and readers than the simple point of pride that we have now or might have with a simple revision to one of the other schools.  I suggest that we add a section on the history of homecoming that describes a more diverse origin for homecoming that includes and cites the information in this University of Illinois archivists' statement and other info that we can find.  As a final point, I believe that the article from University of Illinois is effectively more neutral than anything else I've seen regardless of the connection to the university.  While the NCAA and Jeopardy may report something specific, I think that is too simplistic, and those sources do not impress me much as definitive sources.  The line we have today strikes me more as a marketing claim than a point of fact.  I don't know that the NCAA has a big research staff out verifying these kinds of things.  In the end, the information on this subject is going to be found in university archives and libraries, which is what we have from the University of Illinois paper.IBqwerty 05:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually the photo was already there when I found the article.  There was a caption in the photo and I knew where there was a reference (maybe not a great reference).... and the tag at the top of the article said we needed more citations/references.  At this point I don't much like the short simple approach of adding the Illinois and Baylor claims.  I am more inclined to try to write a new section that tells a more complete story of the history of the development of homecoming (and homecoming-like) events in a number of places. IBqwerty 05:51, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: History of Homecoming

message: OK, why should this page be moved to "Homecoming"? [[Briguy52748 14:05, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: OK, why the move

message: This article redirects from homecoming queen but doesn't explain the concept. For me as a foreigner who never has been to the US and knows the word only from the refrain of a song, a lapidary sentence mentioning a coronation of queen and king does not suffice to explain it. What is a homecoming queen? I.e. who elects, by what criteria, how? --Ben  T/C  11:37, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Queen/King 

message: Does anybody else think that the portugal section is out of place and bears little resemblance to "homecoming."  I'm suggesting creating Festa Das Latas(The Tin Can Festival) as its own article. Grey Wanderer | Talk 13:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There was already a Festa das Latas article that was prodded and merged here per this discussion. I think all the unreferenced material needs to be seriously trimmed. -- VegitaU 13:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Oh, you're right about that. My mistake. Maybe it should be cut. -- VegitaU 13:48, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In case it's useful to anyone who writes further on Festa Das Latas, I just deleted this link *Some pictures and a description of Festa das Latas (Coimbra) - travelblog.org while cleaning up some asbdirector.com spam.  It's a blog, so while not a reliable source, I didn't want to just eliminate it while you were all discussing how and where to cover the subject properly.  -- SiobhanHansa 13:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

text: I went ahead and moved the section to University of Coimbra. --Apoc2400 19:50, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Portugal

message: The article currently opens with:
Homecoming, welcoming back of former residents and alumni, is a tradition in several universities, colleges and high schools around the world.
At present though, only two countries, both of them in North America, are covered in the article. Can anyone add more info? I know "homecoming" isn't a tradition in the UK: I came here to find out what it means after a quarter-century of ignoring my puzzlement at pop-culture homecoming references! Casper Gutman (talk • contributions) 15:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  ...around the world? 

message: Just throwing this out there, there are some specific American-English words used in this article that might make it slow to read for those living outside of America and Canada. Since the page would probably be read by international readers more often than Americans, a shift away from the American only words might be a good. idea.60.229.67.61 (talk) 13:03, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Care to share any examples of the words you are referring to? BlueGold73 (talk) 00:22, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language 

message: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-no-date-04oct04,0,5174976.story
 
seems to no longer link to the story about going to homecoming in groups.  I added this section because I don't know how else to handle this.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.144.218.157 (talk) 21:21, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dead link 

message: "Homecomings are not popular among Canadian high schools, and it is rare to find one that celebrates homecoming. Newmarket High School and London South Collegiate Institute are the only known schools in Ontario to arrange homecomings"
Umm... my high school has homecoming dances and so do many others.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.54.25.21 (talk) 21:02, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think perhaps it is more of an eastern Canadian thing. I had only heard of it in Archie comics, and therefore assumed it was a purely American thing, until I went to a university in Nova Scotia where they celebrate homecoming. But where I'm from originally (southern Alberta), it is almost unheard-of. I don't know where to find information on geographic distribution of Canadian homecoming celebrations, but if someone could find that, it should definitely be added to the article. Because I was just as surprised to see it listed as "common" in Canada as the OP was to find it listed as "uncommon." 70.65.141.58 (talk) 12:11, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've further modded the wording, which listed them as common in Eastern Canada. It now says they're mostly in eastern Canada, but nevertheless uncommon.  --  Zanimum (talk) 11:31, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canadian homecoming's at highschool uncommon? 

message: I restored and reworked an older version of the origins paragraph.  I mentioned Missouri first since it is the best documented and supported by the NCAA.  Baylor and the Universtiy of Illinois strong claims are also mentioned in the lead. Grey Wanderer (talk) 21:44, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Origins of homcoming

message: Based on the primary-source references in the version that was removed by Grey Wanderer on 2009-12-28, it seems that the University of Illinois has at least as much documentation as the University of Missouri, if not more. In addition, Missouri's first "homecoming," per se, occurred in 1911, one year later than Illinois' first homecoming—and Illinois has celebrated what it calls "Homecoming" annually since 1910. Finally, given the several claims, a chronological approach seems to make more sense than elevating one school to the primary position simply because the NCAA (or Trivial Pursuit, for that matter) declared it so; we have no record of how rigorously the NCAA pursued the matter. Let's let the historical record hold sway. PlaysInPeoria (talk) 23:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin: Observations on Change to "Origin" Section 

message: The whole who was first issue came up again in recent edits.  I added an intro to the origins sections Several schools claim the first Homecoming[1]. Baylor, the University of Illinois, the University of Indiana, and the University of Missouri all have strong claims.  This is ABC order.  I then reversed it in the list to be fair.  Of course, it's not up to us to decide who was first, that for the historians.  We just cite what they say & in this case they don't agree.  I hope this calms the waters for a while.  Let me know what you think or if you have other ideas.  Thanks HornColumbia talk 21:16, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who was first? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Found this...
https://bluestreaknewsonline.net/5671/opinion/homecoming-queen-an-outdated-and-sexist-tradition/ 149.20.252.132 (talk) 17:49, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems like WP:Undue emphasis to me. Opinion articles arn't WP:Reliable sources. The link you've provided is the opinion of one teenage girl in her high school newspaper. My thoughts are also colored by a high school in Missouri where a gay guy was elected homecoming queen; he attended in drag. Seems to me that homecoming's level sexism/outdatedness is dependent on the quality of the people celebrating it, not something innate to the tradition. But this is just my personal opinion, which carries no weight on Wikipedia. If you found multiple reliable sources perhaps something could be included, but they shouldn't be opinion articles.Grey Wanderer (talk) 21:13, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about Criticism? Or am I missing something? 

message: I graduated from San Dieguito High School, Encinitas Calif. in 1963. I remember a certain amount of fuss in anticipation of Homecoming. From what I read in school yearbooks, the school paper and what I heard said, the purpose was to welcome alumni to return to the school for a celebration. I gathered from the conduct of the celebration that the little more than handful of alumni that showed up were not the object of the celebration, but rather that the homecoming celebration was celebrating itself! Since there was nothing different about the football game from any other except maybe the halftime appearance of a "queen" and her court and maybe a few alumni standing up in the bleachers, the game did not require much special preparation, just some ballyhoo announcing it in advance. There was a dance with a few of the alumni trotted in if they wished to stick around. Yet these "celebrations" were regarded with solemn awe, indeed effusive displays, e.g. the picture of a girl with tears in her eyes, in the Homecoming page in the yearbook. The gymnasium/auditorium used for the dance was decorated with the usual crepe paper and balloons. The detritus swept up the next morning by the school's maintenance staff. This time-honored American tradition boils down to "Much ado about nothing". 75.172.109.121 (talk) 04:44, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I tend to disagree with you, but never-mind that. This is a place to discuss improvements to an encyclopedia article. Wikipedia uses WP:Reliable sources to construct articles. This is not the place for personal opinions on the topic of the article. Consider that your personal opinion is based on an experience you had nearly sixty years ago as a teenager. Seems an unreliable way to source information for an encyclopedia, wouldn’t you agree? Grey Wanderer (talk) 21:28, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nebulous at best, or just plain bogus concept? 

message: The number of inline citations and references are very sparse for a majority of the sections of this article. (For all sections except for "Origins.")
There needs to be proper sources to fact-check this information. Resukalt (talk) 15:22, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lacking Citations 

message: San Dieguito H.S. Encinitas, CA Class of '63
At my high school, a big fuss was made about Homecoming by a small select portion of the student body. The main events consisted of a football game, dance, and, I believe, a tour of the campus by returning Alumni. There was no parade nor festivities around town. While the purpose of the whole thing was ostensibly to honor returning alumni, someone apparently neglected to notify what must have been a couple of thousand alumni because very few showed up. This might have been embarrassing if it the appearance of the returning alumni were really important. Everything went well though, and I suspect nothing has changed in the intervening years, the actual participation of any alumni being pretty much superfluous. Homecoming gave the homecoming committee and all the participants something to fuss about and brought a few of the girls involved to tears, which, if they needed a good cry, made it all worthwhile. 67.40.177.215 (talk) 08:41, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  My high school experience