Talk:Lindy hop today

message: This is only a first draft of this article. I have yet to cut the sections from the original lindy hop article which i've copied to make this article.
Please edit - I'm sure there's some nasty stuff in there, and this article is too long.
I'd like to cut all the technique stuff (which isn't really edited properly at all) and put it in another article - perhaps the swing dance book.
Comments, feedback, advice? PlainJane 05:53, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the "History" section entirely (but couldn't resist putting a "See also link to Lindy hop history").  My reasons are a)there's an entire article on lindy's history, b) readers will probably get here throuth the "lindy hop" article which means they'll just skip the history anyway or go to that specific article, c) it shortens the article by quite a bit, and d) the historical influences on today's lindy are scattered throughout in the text anyway. Any objections?--Koeppen 03:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Sounds good to me. I've been using the African American articles as a reference for dividing up big articles, and they handled it this way. But I don't mind either way. Good work on all these lindy articles btw. PlainJane 09:45, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

text: My preference would be to include a short summary of each spin-off ONLY on the main "lindy hop" page.  It's not explicitly said that way (I don't think), but there is a guideline in the  Guide to writing better aricles guideline that suggests something to the effect of "the mainpage is where all the summaries of subtopics should go".  It cites the Cricket article which has lots of subtopics (e.g. History of cricket) which don't include summaries of other subtopics or the main page.  Of course this is only a guideline.--Koeppen 18:55, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 1st draft 2006

message: I was afraid this might be controversial, so I decided to follow the saying "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission," (or, as Wikipedia calls it, "Be bold") and remove this article from the swing dances category. I have two reasons for doing so. 1) Based on the other entries in that category, its purpose seems to be to include the articles about the dances themselves, not the subarticles that further describe dances. Part of the reason the lindy hop subcategory was created was to hold those subarticles. 2) The normal guideline is that articles in a subcategory should not also be placed in its parent category (with few exceptions, which the lindy hop article falls under). Since the lindy hop category is a subcategory of the swing dances category, articles should not be placed in both. If anyone objects, feel free to put the category back. --Cswrye 04:33, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure - your reasoning makes sense. So long as the primary lindy hop article is in the 'swing dance' category... Any other comments?
PlainJane 09:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorization 

message: With all this stuff going on, I've been thinking about the demographics  of Lindy a lot.  Perhaps the thing to do is copy the paragraph off the page and put it here on the discussion page, for perusal and comment.  (I can't help it, I love to peruse and comment.)--Will.i.am 01:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For me, I questioned the causality of the demographics of Lindy outlined in the article.  I follow the logic presented, but I realized that I have no idea what economic class encompasses most people in my local scene (where the main question is "do you want to dance?", not "what is your socio-economic status?").  Additionally, I found the argument about the high cost of U.S. universities prohibiting lower-class dancers from learning Lindy interesting.  Does this mean that ALL dancers are predominantly middle class?  Lessons are expensive no matter what dance it is.  But if Lindy does seem to cater to a specific  demographic, is it really only based on economic status?--Will.i.am 01:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To me, the demographics appeared to be complete WP:OR, not appropriate for Wikipedia unless it can be attributed to a source, so I removed it.  Anyone curious about what it used to contain can see my diff here. -Verdatum (talk) 22:03, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Demographics coffee shop

message: I [finally] got around to adding a few photos to the page, but I'd love to see many more.  Please move these around (or delete) if you think they'll work better elsewhere.--Will.i.am 23:31, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images 

message: Removed text:
*Minnie's Moochers, Ithaca, New York
*Loose Change, San Francisco, California. Blends Lindy Hop with hip hop and African-modern dance.
*Silver Shadows - American/Swedish troupe comprised of young dancers performing historical African American lindy hop.
*23 Skidoo - American troupe based in Denver, Colorado.  They are consistently ranked top 5 in the competition world and have helped popularize recent Jazz and tap variations.
I removed the above text from the Performance dancing section as it is highly contestable.  Is there any reference that would back-up the above as having an impact on the development of Lindy Hop?  –panda 19:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Performance dancing - Removed text

message: The competition section seems significantly out of date on a number of points:
* I can see how having a "no rules" section made sense when rules were the norm, but my understanding is that competitions based on rules are now relatively rare - or at least the rules are very minimal and do not characterise the competition. The way this section characterises No-Rules as being explicitly influenced by audience reaction, and thus relying on comic moves and aerials is no longer representative.
* "Strictly Lindy" is a term very widely used to refer to a partnered showcase competition - it surely deserves to be on this page.
* A word on judging systems might be relevant: Crowd cheering (ULHS, Herräng) vs relative placement (Most competitions, including ILHC?) vs points-based scoring (WRRC competitions?)
* There are a wide range of competition formats of varying degrees of popularity which are possibly worthy of a mention:
** A distinction between showcase competitions which do and don't allow aerials (e.g. the 'Classic' at ILHC)
** Team showcases vs couple showcases vs cabaret
** Pro/Am showcases - though that's maybe Only ILHC
** Particularly for Jack and Jills: Phrase-based Spotlights (ULHS, ESDC, Snowball and most european camps) vs Extended shines (ILHC, Lone Star)
** Couple-on-Couple battles - no strict phrasing (ULHS, Herräng)
** Short Showcase - (Montreal Swing Riot, used elsewhere as an encouragement for newer dancers to explore choreo)
** Jedi - where one or more couples are blindfold - often used in J&J's (Crazy Swing - Belgium, more usually used as an informal competition)
** Crossover competitions - Two songs to different styles - often lindy and West Coast Swing - (MXDC, Canadian Swing Championships)
I can have a look into this myself, but I'm new to editing so would appreciate some guidance e.g. on level of detail: this could easily amount to a separate article!
I'd suggest a structure broken into Improvised and Choreographed competition formats, with a third subsection on Judging. The Improv section should reflect that competitions are commonly made up of different segments and might include a description of a common format for both strictly and J&Js: judged all-skate prelims, unjudged all-skate warmup, 8 8's of spotlight twice through, judged all skate where commonly all the dancers swing out towards the audience. Swingoutlondon (talk) 10:04, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updating the Competition section