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Archive 1Archive 2
Stale
 – RM rescinded in favor of splitting into smaller RMs

{{requested move/dated}}

Proposal procedurally rescinded; will split into several separate RMs.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:23, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

– Decapitalization per MOS:CAPS: As with other activities like games and sports (or techniques or equipment thereof), we do not capitalize the names of dances, dance moves, folk customs, or musical instruments, except where they contain a proper name. Nor, as with other genres like music, theatre, and other forms of performance, do we capitalize dance styles. There are some other corrections in here, too, like removal of leading "The" per WP:THE, removal of unnecessary disambiguations, and correction of faulty disambiguation format, both per WP:DAB. Most (i.e. thousands of) dance-related articles, e.g. Lindy hop today, Carolina shag, Skip jive, Peruvian salsa, Promenade position, Raqs sharqi, etc., etc., are already at the correct titles. I've trawled the dance categories, and I think I've rounded up every single straggler. See below for some more detailed notes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:14, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

  • Notes:
    • These are folk dances, types or classifications of dance, dance steps, and other non-proper nouns. Specific choreographed works of known authorship, like ballets and shorter named pieces (e.g. "Rosas danst Rosas"), are excluded from this renaming, as they should remain capitalized. So are music festivals and some other proper nouns that turned up in the dance categories. I've manually gone through every article to make sure I'm not proposing to down-case a proper name.
    • A handful of misc. other stuff, like World tango dance tournament (which should be capitalized as the name of an event), and some musical instruments (down-case them), are also in here, just because I ran across them during the same cleanup spree.
    • In three cases, Chicken walks, Crossovers (dance), and Throwouts (dance), they simply need to be moved to the standard singular.
    • Some categories will need renaming after this, including Category:Lindy Hop and Category:West Coast Swing, to fix overcapitalization.
    • The waltzes listed here are dances from Category:Waltz, not musical composition titles from Category:Waltzes.
    • In the case of Samba de Gafieira, the last word is not a proper name, but slang for "honky-tonk".
    • I've excluded dances like Cupid Shuffle that share their names with songs; I can't find any case of us treating the dance and the song in a different article with the exception of Hully Gully and Hully Gully (song) (the dance pre-dates the song), so those would remain capitalized as the titles of works except in the case of Hully Gully. In the case of The Stroll, it's unclear which came first, but if the song and the dance have separate articles at some point, the one on the dance should be lower-cased.
    • In one case, Cotton-Eyed Joe, there's an error of capitalizing after a hyphen against basic rules of English.
    • Some cases (e.g. "Danza de los Viejitos", "So Ben Mi Chi Ha Bon Tempo", etc.) violate the capitalization rules of their own language, as well as MOS).
    • Various dances that incorporate proper names, e.g. Perini Shivatandavam, Neeliyar Bhagavathi, Gending Sriwijaya, Suleiman Aga (dance), Apu Inka, Qhapaq Qulla, Robam Tep Apsara, etc., are left as-is. (This is also why "Lancers" in "Clare Lancers set" remains capitalized; the Clare Lancers were a military regiment.
    • I've left the Morris dances alone; "Morris" is a respelling of "Moorish", an adjectival proper name.
    • Bharata Natyam's text, and the category Category:Bharatanatyam, suggest it should be Bharatanatyam; otherwise use Bharata natyam.
    • The article presently at Aattakatha (performance) is actually the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for Aattakatha, presently a disambiguation page that also lists a couple of films. The main-topic aattakatha is not in fact a form of performance, but of literature; the performance form of which is kathakali.
    • The thing presently at Maddalam and Chenda Keli is kind of a non-article, trying to address both a drum and a kind of song on the same page; it should probably be deleted or split, or something. It appears to be redundant at least in part with both Madhalam and Chenda.
    • Indian nutcracker and List of lindy hop moves are capitalization errors in the other direction (both "Nutcracker" and "Lindy" are proper names in these contexts). Gita milindam should likewise be both-words-capitalized, as the title of a work.
    • In a handful of cases, diacritics are being added to match the text of the article.
    • In a few other cases like Chamrieng Samai -> Jamrieng Samai, a move is being made to agree with the text of the article in other ways.
    • In cases where a move like Tippani Dance → Tippani is proposed (i.e., not to Tippani dance), it's because there's no indication in the article that the name without "dance" is anything other than the name of the dance. Where there is such an indication, as in the case of Chari Dance → Chari dance (where "chari" means 'pot', and the dance involves pots), the "dance" is retained (lower case).
    • Vishnumoorthy Theyyam might really be better at Vishnumurti theyyam. We don't even redirect "Vishnumoorthy" to Vishnu like we do with Vishnumurti; it seems a non-standard transliteration. I haven't directly proposed that move, in case it really is called "Vishnumoorthy" theyyam in sources for some reason. Raised this issue on it talk page already.
    • In cases where "dance" appended to the name appears to make sense, it has been left as-is, e.g. in Topeng dance (topeng is the famous mask style used in the dance, about which we could have a separate article.)
    • Fann at-Tanbura should eventually be at either Fann aṭ-ṭanbūra or Fann aṭ-tanbūra; usage in the article is inconsistent, and I don't speak Arabic. I asked on its talk page.
    • The article presently at Balinese Topeng is an apparently accidental WP:CONTENTFORK from Topeng dance, and they should be merged (I've already merge-tagged them).
    • Jarabe Tapatío should maybe go to Mexican hat dance not Jarabe tapatío, per WP:COMMONNAME. I did not post about this on its talk page.
    • It's possible a few of the non-English names do contain proper names (probably in adjective form), but nothing in the WP article in question indicates this. If this turns out to be true for a particular article, it can be struck from the list. Cite sources. MOS:CAPS is clear: When in doubt, do not capitalize. So, we'd need an absence doubt.
    • That said, some of the ones capitalized as containing proper names in adjective form probably should not be; this should only be done when we know the language in question capitalizes proper adjectives like English does, which is actually pretty rare. A bridge to cross on a case-by-case basis some other time, probably.
    • Many dance articles are in bad need of copyediting, with overcapitalization running rampant, and often being wildly inconsistent, even in the same sentence, presumably because most editors follow MOS but some dance editors do not due to their off-WP specialized-style habit.
    • Many Indian dancer bios that I've run across (often miscategorized in dance rather than dancer categories) are also in bad need of cleanup, and are full of WP:PEACOCK wording like "world-class artiste", "unique artist", and (I couldn't make this up) "epoch-making ... danseuse".
    • Finally, I'm suggesting we treat "Lindy" in "Lindy hop" as a proper name. While the Lindbergh derivation isn't proven, it's a popular theory, and otherwise we don't know what the etymology might be. If we get proof later that it's some obsolete slang term of some kind not related to a personal, family, or geographic name, it can be downcased. Or if most general-English-language sources write it as "lindy hop", then we should, too.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:14, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Comments

  • This should be split apart into several separate move requests. There are a bunch of different types of moves bundled up here. The capitalization change only should be separate from changes such as Bharata Natyam → Bharatanatyam or deletion of terms such as Skitting (Stepping) → Skitting or conversion of terms such as Mahari dance → Mahari (dance) and especially the PRIMARY TOPIC CHANGE described as Aattakatha → Aattakatha (disambiguation) Aattakatha (performance) → Aattakatha -- 70.51.203.69 (talk) 09:26, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Strong procedural oppose a grabbag of several unrelated changes. Especially discussing a primary topic change should not be bundled up in mundane changes so that it is lost in the traffic. And removing or addition disambiguatory terms should not be treated in the same group as changes in capitalization. Similarly renaming articles to add or remove terms should not be treated at the same time as captialization changes; you should resubmit with separate requests ; and the primary topic changes should all be separate requests. -- 70.51.203.69 (talk) 09:29, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose partially for the reason given above. Some of these are probably reasonable moves, but some might not be, as Jonathan A Jones notes below, for example. To clump them all in together promotes a rushed summary move, rather than looking at each on its merits. Some can clearer be grouped together, but not this many of different formats. Harrias talk 10:16, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose for reasons similar to the above. Firstly, this proposal combines too many different types of move, and should be split up into groups which are genuinely similar. Secondly, I have already identified two articles where I disagree with the proposer, leaving me unconvinced that each move has been properly considered. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:06, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose the wholesale change. while I applaud the intention to make an order. named dances have names, just like any works of art. and these names are proper names themselves. some dances, like polka or waltz became generic terms and probably must be decapped. othrs i am not so sure. every dance must be discussed individually. -M.Altenmann >t 15:40, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
    • Social activities that people engage in are not like works of art at all, but are analogous to games and sports, which we do not capitalize (in absence of a trademark). This list already excludes specific works of choreography by known artists, which are analogous to plays and other forms of performance art. They're not comparable to social dancing in any way other than involving rhythmic motion.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:27, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment Ngrams favour "Lindy Hop" over "Lindy hop". GregKaye 16:22, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
    • We've been over this many times before. WP:COMMONNAME analysis does not affect capitalization, or virtually everything on WP could be capitalized, because specialized sources on ever topic have a strong tendency to capitalize everything that is topically important in their field, while general-audience materials do not.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:23, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Commonname is commonname and it is generated by influence including both specialized sources and general-audience materials. GregKaye 03:41, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
There are dozens of articles up there. Just because SmC missed something doesn't mean that the claim about going through the articles manually is false. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:48, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, out of almost 200 entries one oversight, which has already been struck, is a pretty good error rate. I'm going to close this procedurally, given the firehose of wikilawyering, and sadly have to waste time splitting these up into a bunch of redundant smaller RMs. [sigh].  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:41, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose, on a procedural basis and without prejudice on individual move requests. Each needs to be evaluated separately. GregJackP Boomer! 17:59, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose - too many articles in this list just don't fit here, and naming should be by consensus of people who are familiar with the subject of that specific article. At the very least, Native ceremonies that happen to include the word "dance" need to be removed from this. I went into this in more detail in a comment below. - CorbieV☊☼ 19:01, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Procedural oppose Way too many unrelated move requests to group together. As already seen from the comments below, these really need to be examined individually, so that proper care can be given to actual usage in sources, not treated categorically without more careful examination; there are exceptions to every rule, and only by actually looking at sources can those be properly determined. It's overwhelming for any attempt at proper research and consensus to have this many at once. Not everyone else has gotten to look at these, and to assume that one person is just right is non-collaborative. This needs to be closed and broken up. oknazevad (talk) 19:03, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Procedural oppose: separate and resubmit Divide these articles up by reason for requested move (de-capitalize these twenty because they're dances, capitalize these six because they're specific events, de-capitalize these three for other reason X, change these four from singular to plural, etc.) and resubmit as completely separate requests. I do not object to long lists of move requests so long as they all have the exact same rationale. The capitalization of "Lindy" should also be addressed by itself. BTW, SmC's belief that the names of dances should not be capitalized is supported in the Baylor University style guide and others: [1] [2] I would feel very confident supporting a proposal that specifically affected such articles. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:05, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Procedural oppose for previously cited reasons, and observation that submitter has not done due diligence on the entire list. "Jacob's Pillow Dance" is a place, not a dance. Magic♪piano 01:12, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
    • I didn't say it was a dance. Jacob's Pillow is a place. It is not called Jacob's Pillow Dance. That was someone's incorrect attempt at a disambiguation, but no disambiguation is needed. My notes already made it clear that the list included a few non-danced flagged for cleanup along the way. In what was was that confusing, and how?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:37, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose for Dances of Universal Peace , this is a widely used name of an organisation as well as for the dances. It is always rendered in UC. Lumos3 (talk) 14:19, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Lindy Hop is not the same as Lindy pants. While 'pants' are generic and 'Lindy pants' is pants of brand Lindy. Whereas "hop" in "Lindy Hop" is inseparable There indeed was 'Lindy's hop', where 'hop' is properly lowercased. If you don't know this, you should not be editing the article. Once again, without knowing the history of the subject a bunch of random wikipedians cannot rename everything without doing any research. -M.Altenmann >t 16:45, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
    • No one said anything about pants. What makes you think I know nothing about the subject? Your assumption of bad faith and ignorance here ought to be punishable by you having to cover the cost of all the swing lessons I've taken. >;-) There's nothing "inseparable" about these words. The article itself points out that the Lindy hop is often referred to simply as the Lindy.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:23, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
      • People tend to abbreviate terms, while I am talking about the specific etymology. I don't think you paid more than me for dancing lessons :-) To those who don't know history, there is an anecdote that the dance was named after Charles Lindbergh's "hop". And the proper name of the dance comes from the common phrase. You write elsewhere that dance books like to capitalize dance names. But exactly these books by the experts in the subject are the ultimate authority for wikipedia. We don't invent rules, we take them from common usage. -M.Altenmann >t 17:42, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
        • That's the WP:Specialized-style fallacy. We not very long ago had a huge RfC firmly establishing the obvious fact that while specialized sources are usually the most reliable for particular facts about a subject they are not authorities on how to write English for a general audience and that WP does not depend on them for this. It's going to be exceedingly disruptive for WP:LOCALCONSENSUSes to try to re-fight against that site-wide consensus on every single topic just because some editors who focus on the topic want to overcapitalize.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:19, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I disagree on the Furry Dance. This is not a type or classification of dance, but rather a specific annual event which includes a number of dances. It's more analogous to a dance festival than to a dance, and should remain capitalised. Note also that "Furry Dance" greatly outnumbers "Furry dance" in reliable sources. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:34, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Should "Coast" remain capitalized in "East Coast swing" and "West Coast swing" as shown in the proposal? A priori, it isn't clear to me that "west coast" would be a proper noun. Googling an arbitrary phrase, "lives on the west coast", I find it to be about even odds whether someone will write it as "west coast" and "West Coast". For what it's worth, the redirects east coast swing and west coast swing already exist. —Largo Plazo (talk) 10:31, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
    • this is an example exactly why people who don't know what's up should not move pages on a whim. Yes, West Coast is a proper noun. and yes the dance is derived who this proper noun, not from random "west coast" and yes the whole dance name is a proper name. -M.Altenmann >t 15:45, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
      • Yes, "West Coast" and "East Coast" should remain capitalized, per East Coast of the United States and West Coast of the United States. In the American context, these are proper names, of regions. East Coast swing is swing dancing (note, not Swing Dancing) associated with the US East Coast, not dancing along shores in an easterly direction. :-) No a dance is not a proper noun, any more than any other non-trademarked activity (game, sport, etc.) is. The fact that dance manuals like to capitalize dance names is not relevant to Wikipedia; specialized publications of all sorts tend to capitalize topically important things within the field in question, while generalized publications like encyclopedias do not.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:11, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Apparently Black Bottom (dance) is named after the Black Bottom Stomp, which is itself named after the district of Black Bottom, Detroit. So that should stay capitalised. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:36, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
  • You cannot move without establishing scholar's opinions whether dance names should be decapitated. -M.Altenmann >t 15:45, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
    • What's that supposed to mean? We regularly apply MOS:CAPS to thousands of articles per year without consulting any specific "scholars". This is a stylistic language usage question.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:11, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
      • @Altenmann:, you are a wikieditor after my own heart. Here are two RS that state that the names of dances should not be capitalized: [3] [4]. Because our audience on Wikipedia is general readers, then style guides and other RS that target general-audience writing should take precedence over specialist style guidance. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:13, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
    • @SMcCandlish: re: "What's that supposed to mean?" That's supposed to mean the most basic wikipedia rule: when in disagreement, look for reliable sources. You ignored my earlier question below, which exactly MOSCAPS rules do you apply? -M.Altenmann >t 14:33, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
      • I didn't ignore anything, I just didn't get around to it yet. We've already covered this WP:SSF stuff: Reliable sources on dancing are not reliable sources on English language usage, or vice versa. The entire message of MOS:CAPS as a whole, is lower case by default, and when in doubt do not capitalize. We don't capitalize music genres, games, sports, religious practices, movements, or other human activities generally. If you think there should be some new exception for dances, alone out of everything for some reason, go propose that at WT:MOSCAPS. PS: As noted earlier, this is about dances in the general human activity sense, not about specific, individual works of choreographic performance, which are capitalized like other performance works such as plays and operas.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:19, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
  • PLEASE remove Native American ceremonies that happen to have "dance" in them from this. I will work on the categories, but private, sacred ceremonies that happen to involve some movement are not the same as dance styles done for social or performance purposes. If it's not clear which ones these are, I will help remove them from this list. Also, on articles like Sun Dance, we've gone through discussion and consensus on the naming already, and it's not helpful for folks who are focused on performance dance styles to go against that consensus. Thanks. - CorbieV☊☼ 18:58, 27 June 2015 (UTC) P.S. Looking this over, this is a Snow Oppose. Rather than edit this list, I think it's clear this proposal list needs to be dropped entirely, and any issues with the article names should happen at the individual article talk pages. - CorbieV☊☼ 19:20, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
Actually, while three people including yourself have expressed a preference for individual article talk pages, five of the ten comments above include some reference to dividing up this list into smaller lists and giving it another go. That's not unanimous, but it's not WP:SNOW either. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:17, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
It's a SNOW that this list is badly-formed and unusable. I've removed a few of the ceremonies from the list. This is not the place for them. If someone prefers to strike them instead, whatever, but those articles are not about dance styles and many traditional people would prefer those articles not even be on the 'pedia. - CorbieV☊☼ 17:45, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
  • It wasn't badly formed or unusable, behavior just turns WP:POINTy and bureaucratic when feathers are ruffled. Obviously, if any specific cases are objected to, they can be struck and should be examined in separate RMs, but this entire thing's been derailed in a flood of umbrage and panic, so it's kind of a moot point now. Application of calm reasoning rarely goes amiss; let's have more of that in the subsequent narrower RMs, please. Secondly, WP:Consensus can change and we have a a policy against forming "local consensuses" again site-wide rules, so the fact that at some time in the past a discussion was held about some article's name doesn't mean it is set in stone, sorry. In the case of sun dance in particular, that's a general anthropological term, not a specific ceremony of a specific culture. The same goes for several other dances on this list that happen to (sometimes) be Native American. Just because it is conceivable to write an article about, e.g., a specific Navajo or Trobriand Islander sun dance does not mean this has happened yet, and certainly doesn't mean that an article on the general concept would be capitalized. PS: The idea that all Native Americans can be lumped together into on culture is absurd and ignorant. They're not even all in the same language family; it's like treating Koreans, Irish and Namibians as all one "Old World" culture.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:19, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Why Lindy Hop was renamed prior the discussion?

Resolved

please revert, both move and text. -M.Altenmann >t 15:41, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

  • Nothing to do with me. Obviously others understand the difference between proper names and common nouns; someone else moved this literally while I was writing the RM. They probably should have done so via RM themselves, but it's unconnected in any way to this RM discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:11, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

    I was able to move it back, as a procedural matter, and have edited the redirect so it can't be moved to lower case again without an admin. I'm not changing the text to violation MOS:CAPS, though.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:32, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

For a meaningful discussion, please cite which exactly rule from MOSCAPS you have in mind. WP:AGF and all, I suspect you are interpreting it differently from me. -M.Altenmann >t 17:47, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
I moved it because I thought it would be uncontroversial, and I didn't like the fact that the text had a different capitalization to the article title. Graham87 08:11, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Common name or proper name

Judjing from the scraps of MOSCAP and references to external authorities, the decision boils down to the following options:

  • whether the name of a particular dance a common name or a proper name
  • whether there any exception which overrides the generic rule above.

In my judgement,

  • the name of a dance that does not have a fixed choreography, just a set of "steps" or "patterns" is a generic name for basically a range of dance activities with something in common, i.e., a common name. Such are waltz, minuet, polka, jive, etc.
  • A dance with fixed choreography I would consider to be a Work of Art and its name being a proper name, i.e., capitalized. I would put in this category various novelty and fad dances which failed to lose their "trademark" (unlike "velcro", despite the efforts of the company), so to say. Especially the "signature dances" of various pop starts who "invent" "new dances" all the time. In our list, an example would be Tranky Doo.
  • In one reference cited above, the Chicago Manual of Style" suggestion is as follows: when the term is widely used both capped and decapped, use the decapped version. IMO this is a very reasonable tie-breaker. Wikipedia MOSAP phrasing in this respect is more vague: "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization".
  • MOSCAP: "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is a proper name; words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Wikipedia."
  • Someone suggests that Sun Dance is an exception, but the term is not consistently capitalized in sources, even in wikipedia itself :-)

-M.Altenmann >t 14:55, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

I think we should follow general-English guidance and capitalize only those specific dances that can be shown to be proper nouns. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:00, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
In case you didn't notice, the whole problem is to conclude which ones are proper nouns. -M.Altenmann >t 06:20, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
Which is nearly none of them, they can be easily struck (as I was already doing and as anyone can do in later RMs), and when there's no proof they are the default assumption per both "WP avoids unnecessary capitalization" and external sources like CMoS (which is not nearly alone in that; all major style guides take the same approach, as I've been over many times before in previous RMs and RfCs). To address those bullets point-by-point (not to continue the moot thread above, but prepare for later, narrower RMs):
  • Agreed.
  • Only where the "dance" name itself includes or coincides with something WP recognizes as a proper name, such as the pop star's name, a song name that pre-dated it or was released at same time, a geographical location, etc. (thus "Cupid Shuffle" a song title the novelty dance is named for, but "hully gully" which is sourced to come from a folk game). Some hip-pop line dance as a supposed "titled work of choreographic art" fails WP:N, categorically, and will fail MOS:TITLE as an actual work, because no RS can be found that treats a series of a dozen routine, centuries-old beginner dance moves as "choreography", certainly no preponderance of such sources. When such a dance phenomenon is notable, it is notable not as work by a performer/writer, but as a public activity engaged in by bazillions. I've already seen articles on pop line-dancing as a phenomenon that cover this "make it your own" aspect of it, the rapid variation that develops, so it'll be trivial to source if that comes up).

    More to the point, the entire concept that such modern-folk behaviors are some form of authored artistic work beyond the instant they were announced is a very extraordinary claim, which requires extraordinary sourcing; the burden of proof is on the other side. Our articles on things like this are sourced to references (when there are any at all) that are writing about the social phenomenon, not the choreography as a work of art (except where tied directly to hit songs of the same name, then coverage also covers the single as a published work, and may focus mostly on it and its chart position, etc.) I also intentionally weeded out those that were "signature" novelty dances named after (not just named by) "pop starts" as you call them.

  • Yep, though if you check MOS archives you'll find that CMoS and others (Harts' Rules, etc.) are why MOS has that default-to-lower-case rule. I agree it could be worded more emphatically, but it is not actually ambiguous at all, and the "consensus-legislative history" for it makes it clear what the intent was. I'm sure someone(s) would try to wikilawyer about a literal [mis]interpretation, but I've been editing MOS for something like 8.5 years, I remember, and I can prove they're mistaken. Heh.
  • None of these things (unless another real proper name slipped through) are consistently capitalized. Several of them tend to be capitalized in specialist dance sources (as well as non-RS dance blogs), but the community has already rejected the argument that jargonistic style in non-general-audience works determines how Wikipedia will style for a general encyclopedia audience.
  • Ghost dance: Yep, I knew that before I added it to the list, and expected someone to come in with an "everything to do with my ethnicity" or "everything to do with any culture must be capitalized" silly argument. I just didn't get to address it before the entire thing turned into a morass. Some of the non-English-language dances might turn out to be proper names. I already did a lot of reading, and translating, and asking my Hindu housemate, and thereby weeded out some Indian ones that were. But the default, absent RS proof that the dance is or incorporates or is derived from a proper noun, is to use lower case.
  • Free-form notes to organize later: MOS:TITLE does not recognize dances as capitalized works, and an RM that refused to decapitalize one isn't going to change that, it'll just be a temporary WP:LOCALCONSENSUS quirk. MOS does treat specific works of choreographic art as works with capitalized titles; I included the Tranky Doo as iffy, but I'd still argue against capitalizing it on this basis: It's not notable as a performance or a work of choreography (no matter what its lead says) that is performed as such, like the highly specific and long-form dances used a musical like Cats or whatever. It, too, is a folk dance adopted then individually and regionally adapted by swing dancers. The fact that this one, nearly alone out of all Lindy hop dance routines, has an identifiable originator doesn't change that. The key thing is that it is not a work that people perform by rote, it's just a series of steps people like to work into their own dancing often to a particular song not really even associated with the film in which the dance appeared. There no MOS-cognizant basis for treating that as a proper name. The tactic that it must be a work of choreography because it was in a film doesn't fly. That would mean every movie/TV fight scene would be treated as a proper-named work of choreography if someone stuck a name to it, and so would every long single-take shot in the history of film, and ... Segements of movies aren't proper-named works, even if a cinematographer or producer gives a scene a name (almost all major scenes do in fact have names; that's how they keep track of the footage, daily scripts, etc., but WP would never treat them as discrete works) Ironically, the article presently at Tranky Doo says it is "like the shim sham" (lower case). And it's not competently written; "is a jazz dance choreography" doesn't appear to be grammatical (am I going to get "a dentistry" when I get my teeth cleaned?). The article has zero sources. And it randomly veers back and forth between capitalizing and not capitalizing dance moves. Etc. LOL
Anyway, yakkin' your eyes out isn't my goal, I'm test-driving some arguments. May not bother to approach the re-RMs for days or weeks or longer. No hurry.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:20, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

References

Currently there is only one reference in this article. Can that be increased? Especially in the history section we should be able to add some citations. I can help put them in the text given the reference info.--Koeppen 08:17, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I had meant to add more, but haven't gotten to it. I'll add them to the end of the article now, and we/you/someone/I can perhaps insert them into the article later on if necessary. PlainJane 11:30, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

At the moment there are no citations for any information presented in the first three paragraphs. While the references are ample in certain sections, some references are missing throughout. For example, the third paragraph under "Swing Era" has no references whatsoever, despite the several quotes present. Immcarle43 (talk) 20:45, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

What to do about these articles?

Working on Cleanup Listings for Wikiprojects can be an eye-opening experience. One sees poorly done articles that have been barely touched in 12 years. It makes Wikipedia look bad. It makes everyone look bad. I don't know anything about dance, and I wish people at Wikiproject Dance would help with this. There are many Lindy hop articles on Wikipedia:

There are also articles about Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, a section about Lindy hop in Dance improvisation, Lindy exchange, Jazz dancing, Prairie Lindy Exchange, Swing dancing, East Coast Swing. You get the point. Some of these articles are unsourced, some poorly sourced. None of them are worth bragging about. Given the common subject, these articles can be consolidated, merged, and some of them can be deleted. Now I don't want to hear any bullshit about how they are too precious to be deleted. If they were that precious, people would have shown an interest by now and improved them. Turning on the firehose and releasing a flood of information (unorganized, contradictory, poorly sourced, poorly written) does not help readers. Therefore I suggest we take action. Constructive ideas are welcome.
Vmavanti (talk) 18:53, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest a merger of Lindy Hop, History of Lindy Hop, and Lindy hop today and potentially deletion or merger of some other tangential pages like Lindy exchange. It seems to me that discussing the History and Current State of a thing are pretty major purposes of the article about that thing, so I'm not sure why these pages were split off. There appears to be a large lack of references and a troubling tend towards self-promotion in the "Lindy space" (i.e. the various articles relating to the dance and scene) so I think some merging and deletions could be a good start here.

I also think that at the very least, the styles of Lindy such as Hollywood-style Lindy Hop and Savoy-style Lindy Hop should be included as sub-sections of the Lindy Hop article, much the same way that the Ballet article has done with its styles. In the case of at least the former, it doesn't look large enough to warrant its own article, so I'd sub-section it and redirect the link. Jelleecat (talk) 04:57, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for contributing. Those sound like reasonable suggestions.
Vmavanti (talk) 19:00, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
It's been several years since they've contributed, but there were several others very vocal on this topic, so in case they're still Watching, I'd like to give them a week or so for feedback. If we don't hear back, I'm happy to merge those pages into sections of the main article. I don't know that I have the time to source, which is what is really needed, but I'll see if I can find it. I suggested Prairie Lindy Exchange as a candidate for deletion, as it appears to be just a list of social events. I'd suggest we tackle the others one-by-one. Jelleecat (talk) 19:42, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

@Jelleecat: I've tagged the articles in question that you asked for at WP:PM, let's see if you get more input for your proposals. Richard3120 (talk) 22:09, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Awesome, thank you @Richard3120:! It's helpful to see how you tagged them. Is there a consensus around how long to wait before actioning a merge proposal if there doesn't happen to be any discussion? And if merging, am I okay to merge content that isn't properly cited, knowing that I may not be able to find citations? Jelleecat (talk) 02:08, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
It's usually considered that two or three months is enough time for a discussion to run. I guess there's no problem merging unsoured content – someone can remove it if they can't find sources either. Richard3120 (talk) 02:15, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
They are and have been being merged. The Lindy hop today is wholly unsourced and an un-announced 2006 split from the Lindy hop article. I plan to re-merge it to the latter soon — if there are no objections. Also, the List of lindy hop moves article will be nominated for deletion. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 12:43, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
@GenQuest: Looks like there are no objections ;) Klbrain (talk) 08:09, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Merges

Merged Hollywood-style Lindy Hop and Savoy-style Lindy Hop into Lindy Hop.
Vmavanti (talk) 19:45, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

about Andhra Natyam dance form

Added a reference to the article, can we consider removing of the template. Regards, Nagsail (talk) 05:49, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Lindy hop today

I would like to see something done about the unsourced Lindy hop today article as soon as possible so I can remove the twelve-year-old template. Yes, twelve. Would anyone like to work on it or suggest what to do? Preferably someone who knows about dance.
Vmavanti (talk) 01:59, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Merging these pages seems like a good idea, and I'm happy to start working on it (and I am someone who does Lindy hop), but it might take a little while. KBuxton (talk) 05:38, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Ye gods, Lindy hop today is awful. I just tossed out a bunch of vague, badly written, original-research synthesis. A whole bunch more could be erased or condensed, which would make it easier to merge the useful bits into Lindy hop. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 20:16, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
Given the problems with Lindy hop today identified in this section and earlier, including the fact that it's completely unreferenced, redirecting and applying WP:TNT. Klbrain (talk) 11:21, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Resolved

Images

"The Lindy Hop is an American dance which was born in the African-American communities", therefore the accompanying images and videos should be of, or at least include, African-American people. Not to do so is inappropriate.

Graham See (talk) 01:30, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

An excellent idea. I look forward to your contributions. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 11:32, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
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