Talk:Free Hugs Campaign

message: The article makes several mentions of him, but it never says who he is.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.118.89.72 (talk) 11:06, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I just came here to say the same thing! PLease explain.--65.92.124.188 (talk) 15:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  This page is about the Free Hugs Campaign. Juan chooses to not speak of himself directly and therefore embodies this page as the campaign founder. The idea is more important than the person. That is how I interpret him. He lives in Sydney, Australia. Miroj (talk) 12:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Who is Juan Mann?

message: I was doing a google search for Free Hugs and came across a lot of stuff from South Korea.  Does anyone know if it's particularly big over there?
I did come across a youtube video from Korea with over 1 million views. IT was identical to Mann's video, except of course in Korea. Similiar sign, same song, etc.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.192.223.240 (talk) 21:22, August 24, 2007 (UTC) 
:I watched a South Korean film last month on a Korean Airlines flight that had a free hugs scene in it, so I guess so.  Sorry, can't remember the name of the film.  It wasn't very good. 86.143.70.75 (talk) 11:45, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Just googled it: My Love.  Bit like a Richard Curtis schmaltz fest, but even more rubbish. 86.143.70.75 (talk) 11:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: South Korea

message: Even if just for completeness sake, didn't this page ought to mention the Random Huggers campaign? Either that or Random Huggers ought to have their own separate page on Wikipedia. 
The Random Huggers campaign has been going for several years now and has attracted a significant level of media attention.  
Notreallyrelevant 17:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Random vs. Free

message: But where does it come from? http://www.see.com.au/blog/archives/2006/09/free_hugs.html has an extensive background interview with both Juan Mann and Shimon Moore, but doesn't attribute it to anyplace I can cite, so I can't include it right now. -- nae'blis 18:30, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some of it is very closely repeated in this video, but I don't know which news station that is to try to track it down. White "news" on blue background, with two sets of six white lines swooping in from left to right. May be Ten News, based on similarities of logos from this video, and [. -- nae'blis 18:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That video was originally hosted on the Sydney Morning Herald website, and possibly not affiliated with an actual commercial network news station (aside from SMH being owned by Fairfax media which also controls a lot of the news). I believe Ten news simply used the available footage later to put together their own news story - of course, I have nothing to back this up. -Kermitron
Also, what station is the woman in the red suit (probably a reporter) from in the main video? -- nae'blis 18:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  more data 

message: According to the above blog post, JM is still doing this "every Thursday". Can someone from Sydney get a picture for the article? -- nae'blis 18:30, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: photo requested

message: I tagged this section with  not because I think it necessarily is and should be removed, but because it really does need references to be in the article. Normally this kind of thing would just be removed on-sight as original research, but Free Hugs has gotten enough attention that something like this might be documented somewhere. — Saxifrage ✎ 23:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've axed the entire section; feel free to bring it here. If we can find interviews that explicitly back some of that up, great, but for right now it's just OR. -- nae'blis 18:16, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

text: The trouble is that Wikipedia is not a cookbook, guide, or repository for how-tos. We don't teach people how, we teach them what. We also have a rule against publishing original research here. The "Intentions" section could still fit into the article, but only if we have a verifiable source for the material that we can quote when we say that these are the intentions. — Saxifrage ✎ 16:16, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Hi Eric, there is a free book on hugs, supported by this campaign. It includes good hugs and bad hugs. Miroj (talk) 12:12, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intentions section 

message: I cut several references from the Publicity section that were not backed up by citations. I left a few others that were at least specific enough to be tracked down easily, but the following need more detail/references. Remember that YouTube is not generally a reliable source, although the original video is a bit of an exception. -- nae'blis 18:22, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: I'm a big meanie

message: Is it REALLY necessary to include EVERY event that is cited by a local paper?  I understand the inclusion of international spots, but every mall event seems a bit overdone.  I would like to clean up the article and expand the international section, but I wanted some feedback before I aggressively started to cut and paste.--TravelinSista (talk) 02:05, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: I'm a big meanie followup

message: I have added a snapshot I took in august 2004 in Sydney's CBD. BTW, written sources (i.e., the Morning Herald articles) only prove free hugs were happening aroung november, so mentioning "august" looks like "an original research"; yet it is quite reliable because I only had one honeymoon insofar :-). Of course, if you want to get rid of the "august" indication as "unreliable", I won't take it personally. In any case, notice that the sign in the pic looks like exatly the same as that in the video. At the time, there was a small bunch of youngsters taking turns in holding the sign and hugging people, they were wearing school uniforms. I'm not sure what street was that, I only know it was in Sydney's CBD (might actually be Peet Street Mall). Perhaps a Sydney inhabitant might tell for sure based on the pavement and the shop signs behind the girl. Moongateclimber 04:23, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I found sources pin-pointing the start date to Jun 30, 2004. The mall is Pitt St Mall, not Peet st. (I eat my lunch there every day) :) Manning (talk) 12:20, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Picture added

message: I've removed the following from the article:
:The concept was first introduced in 2001 by American Jason G. Hunter who was inspired by his mother's death and "her mission to let every single person she met feel significant and loved." (ref) Free-hugs.com Homepage Letter(/ref).
:It involves individuals who offer hugs to strangers in public settings. The campaign is an example of a random act of kindness, a selfless act performed by someone for the sole reason of making others feel better. The original organizer has stated in interviews that the purpose is not to get names, phone numbers, or dates.(ref name="smh")Sydney Morning Herald article, September 28, 2006(/ref)
The guy at free-hugs.com has been trying to change this article to say that he started it all for a while. Since there is no reference for this except his own website (which is therefore not a reliable source) this can't go in the article. Can anyone dig up an independent source that can confirm this claim to fame?
Apart from the lack of source to the claim, this article is about the current phenomenon which was kicked off by "Juan Mann", so just because someone else had the idea first doesn't mean it deserves primary mention in the article. If we find a source that confirms that Hunter thought of it first, then we should mention that this isn't the first time the idea has come up. However, this article should still be primarily about documenting the current phenomenon and its beginning. Putting the Hunter information first or representing it as the origin without talking about the origin of the current phenomenon would be misleading and disinformative for our readers. — Saxifrage ✎ 20:06, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, using archive.org is probably considered original research on our part, which is prohibited by the no original research policy. Unless it's got press or someone reports about the fact that it came first, we have no reliable source from which to write about free-hugs.com, so we can't mention it. For the same reason, we're not even mentioning any of the many so-called "official" sites, because we don't do original research and nobody else has done any reporting/research on them in connection to this phenomenon. — Saxifrage ✎ 07:59, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Looks like! — Saxifrage ✎ 17:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  FreeHugs.com predates FreeHugsCampaign.org. Freehugs.com is a registered business in the USA. As a business it did not initially interact with the public directly. Jason Hunter has no business relationship or commercial agreement with Juan Mann. Because of trademark law, Free Hugs Campaign now depicts Juan Mann in websites holding up his own name and not a Free Hugs sign as he does in real life. This is to comply with the legal rights of Jason Hunter. However, it is clear that the YouTube video and the public activity was invented by Juan Mann and his close friendsMiroj (talk) 12:23, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  free-hugs.com 

message: I was looking through the external links for this article and I have noticed that the Free Help Campaign link does not appear to be working anymore. I wanted to bring this up before I removed it from the page because maybe it is just a problem on my end or a temporary problem.
Reazonozaer 14:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Free Help Campaign 

message: as you can see from the history.
why? because the international free hugs day is not on a determined day of the year (07/07), but on a recurrence (first weekend after 30th june).
My proof is 
 let's make International Free Hugs Day the first weekend after the 30th of June, every year. 
a quote from a thread made by the original juan mann on the official forum of the campaign.
Hope i explained correctly and completely what i've done and why.
cheers
--81.208.74.182 22:27, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  i corrected the "international free hugs day" part 

message: Hello, This campaign being a video campaign I think it may be good to put links toward the Youtube's videos. I propose the following format since it's really consise (use one line), link toward videos of the campaign (the core of the article), links are not promoting any local website, they simply use youtube, the place where all started (-> neutral). I think we need one from each major country and if possible one from each continent (so about 5 to 10), no more.
Videos by country : Sydney ; New-York ; Korea ; Peru ; etc.
Yug (talk) 13:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links toward Youtube video 

message: There's no mention in the article of the video for the Dave Matthews Band song "Everyday," but it came out in 2002, which means it predates Juan Mann's campaign by two years, and is clearly the same idea.  Worth including?
Charolastra charolo (talk) 18:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dave Matthews Band video 

message: I have changed the article to reflect the fact that the freehugscampaign.org website is currently offline! Does anyone know why this site is offline or if it will ever be coming back??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.73.76.48 (talk) 21:06, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Official Website offline??? 

message: Who is Juan Mann and what is his importance? This article is frequently incomprehensible. --S.dedalus (talk) 02:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Huh?

message: I've just completed a solid attempt at a clean-up. Nothing unreferenced was kept (the article was littered with a lot of "we had a free hugs day and we hugged 200 people" nonsense) and I've tried to create a meaningful narrative of how the campaign came about. I've greatly improved the article's explanation of who Juan Mann is. 
However the article is still weak at explaining how the movement spread to other countries and what level of organisation exists around it. I'll come back to it when I have time, or someone else can research and improve the article. Manning (talk) 13:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  First attempt at a clean-up, article still has weaknesses 

message: For all the crap that Wikipedia minions delete for not being noteworthy or encyclopedic, this tripe merits inclusion?  Are you friggin' kidding?  98.232.219.86 (talk) 13:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not for us to determine what should be newsworthy, merely to acknowledge it. This campaign has made an impact on the social consciousness, as indicated by wide-ranging media coverage. This is why Susan Boyle also has an article. Manning (talk) 06:14, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: So, explain why Steak and a BJ day is refused acknowledgement?  98.232.219.86 (talk) 23:05, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Encyclopedic how? 

message: Edit made at end of June added "in Mumbai started by Vinit Mehta" shortly before lifeisdelightful.com ref, but Vinit is not mentioned in the ref. Remove that addition? There a ref saying the song was inspired by Free Hugs in Mumbai? --EarthFurst (talk) 04:54, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mumbai 

message: I could swear I had seen some people doing this with 'Free Hugs' signs well before 2004. Is there any earlier information on where this may have initially started? 
--------------------- 203.131.210.82 (talk) 05:46, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "In its present form" 

message: I watched Rude Tube on channel 4 and they said that free hugs started when the founder got back from somewhere (forgot) and had no one to greet him in the airport.
Which version is corrct?
--Sghfdhdfghdfgfd (talk) 13:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: http://www.juanmann.com
It looks like the original Juan Mann is back, this site should be included as it seems a relevant resource.
Maerstk74 (talk) 02:53, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Juan Mann's website 

message: I was at AJ2004, which was several months before Juann's campaign started, and there were free huggers there. I think the random who hugged him probably knew someone at Jamboree or went themself; unfortunately, I can't find any sources to prove this. If anyone has any issues of 'K.E.V.I.N', the newspaper published for the Jamboree, could they write it into the article and reference it?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.38.209.13 (talk) 10:55, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Australian Jamboree 2004 

message: Wherever there is a popular movement that is not allied to one of the powers-that-be, there are those who would hijack its energy for their own purposes.  I just walked in from the UCSB commons where a religious campaign was holding a sign "free hugs", offering to pray for the person as soon as they were within their arms, and then handing them religious literature.
The hijacking may be a result of the institutions of oppression which cause our initial separation identifying themselves with the movement: http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=D6G7PNNX Here this link suggests that the free-hugs campaign is a Christian movement.  Which it wasn't, isn't, and never will be.  128.111.95.39 (talk) 20:17, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Offshoots and hijackings 

message: I wonder whether other editors would like to add the following website to the EXTERNAL REFERENCES page of FREE HUGS CAMPAIGN. The FREE HUGS VIENNA website is an organized group carrying the FREE HUGS message in VIENNA, AUSTRIA and even ABROAD. The official page is: FREE HUGS VIENNA  Avohana (talk) 09:56, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Free Hugs Vienna in the External References 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified