Talk:SantaCon

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Description from Santacon wikipedia page in 2008[edit]

I found a copy of the text of this wikipedia page from 2008. This text (which I did not write) is much more reflective of the actual event. I would like to see it worked back into the entry. Source of this is from my site, which has documented and organized Santacon since 2008: http://www.heathervescent.com/santacon/2008/11/what-is-santacon.html

SantaCon, short for "Santa Convention," is a mass gathering of people dressed in their various interpretations of Santa Claus costumes (most, however, are traditional), and performing publicly on streets and in bars in cities around the world. The focus is on spontaneity, creativity, and the improvisational nature of human interaction while having a good time and spreading cheer and goodwill to all they come across. Sometimes known in the U.S. as Naughty Santas, Cheapsuit Santas, Santarchy, Santa Rampage, the Red Menace and Santapalooza, SantaCon events are noted for cheerfully bawdy and harmless behavior, including the singing of naughty Christmas carols, and the giving of small gifts and free hugs to random strangers. In Japan there is more of the "doing good" principle and they have contributed to the community through such activities as Santa litter-picking outings. Some participants see SantaCon as a postmodern revival of Saturnalia, while others see the event as a precursor of the flash mob. For others it is about spreading the real spirit of Christmas in the form of love, generosity, fun and celebration with ones fellows, as opposed to the stressful consumerist competition it has become.

In 1994, the Cacophony Society staged the first American SantaCon in San Francisco. Influenced by the surrealist movement, Discordianism, and other subversive art currents, the Cacophonists decided to celebrate the Yule season in a distinctly anti-commercial manner, by mixing guerrilla street theatre, pranksterism, and public intoxication. SantaCon has since evolved, spawning many different versions and interpretations of the event throughout the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vsnt777 (talk • contribs) 05:20, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Vsnt777, we need an independent source, not one written by you. --NeilN talk to me 05:42, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

NEILN clearly hates Santacon, the free expression of ideas and dissent. That's why he, Jorm and corrtheapple have heavily censored and vandalized thousands of pages and heavily edit warred and violated Wikipedia terms of service for years by removing all neutrality and impartiality from articles that don't fit their narrow controlling worldview. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.77.230.176 (talk) 19:36, 18 July 2016 (UTC) That description was not written by me. It was copied from wikipedia in 2008, for my website and cited back to the wikipedia page. Since then, the wikipedia description has changed. Your revision history will show this. If you read the link I provided, you would have seen/understood this. Check the version of this page for Nov 25, 2008. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vsnt777 (talk • contribs) 06:01, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This has no sources to back up the content you have above. --NeilN talk to me 06:18, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)The event, like it or not, has changed considerably since 2008. To quote the article lead: A December 2014 cover story in the Village Voice recounted how SantaCon had evolved from "joyful performance art" that originated in San Francisco to a "reviled bar crawl" of drunken brawling, vandalism, and disorder in New York City and elsewhere, resulting in fierce community resistance. Would you have the article omit the bad aspects because you don't like the current reputation of the event in New York? clpo13(talk) 06:20, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, but that source is about a specific, individual event. This page is about the event in general. I have no issue with the negative coverage of the NY event. It has significantly change, however, this change, and the NY event experience DOES NOT reflect the event experience in other locations. The NY event needs to be in the context of the NY event, and not in the context of ALL santacon events. Vsnt777 (talk) 18:12, 18 October 2015 (UTC)vsnt777[reply]
The New York sources, naturally, review this from a current-day New York cultural perspective, particularly because it is covered as a public event rather than a serious piece of news. So that means complaining, in a snarky and condescending tone, about the drunken revelry. To maintain an encyclopedic tone we have to take a longer approach, and not engage in recentivism or regionalism. If it was one thing in 2004 and another thing in 2015, we do not exclusively cover 2015. Moreover, a few recent sources calling a yearly celebration a "bar crawl" does not mean it is a bar crawl anymore than a few recent sources calling Christmas a "celebration of consumerist culture" (or whatever the snarky condescending cultural critics want to say). That may be a valid criticism, but it does not identify the subject. - Wikidemon (talk) 08:51, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Removing the reference to it as a pub crawl is not an "abuse" of the sources as you put it in an edit summary but a reflection of the sources from the headline down. For heaven's sake, look at pub crawl. Am reverting. If you insist upon removing, I guess we'll have to go to dispute resolution but it strikes me as a total waste of time. Coretheapple (talk) 12:45, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The event is not a pub crawl. There is some confusion about this term and I'll explain why. 1) Some Santacon events (noteably one of three Portland Santacons, brand themselves a pub crawl. There are also two other Portland Santacon events that do not call themselves a pubcrawl and are not one. In Los Angeles, it is not a pub crawl. The event route is a combination of restaurants with food and drink, activities, interactions with the public, activities in public places and restaurants/bars that have additional activities, e.g. karaoke. Drinking is not required and many attend the event sober. 2) Media has a hard time understanding culture jamming and when writing a story, it's easy to glom onto aspects they understand. For example, if we stop in a bar, calling it a bar crawl. As I mentioned before, some of the events choose to make it a bar crawl, but not ALL. The way the article describes it, it's to be understood all events are a bar crawl and this is blatantly false. For 10+ years I have personally had to deal with people misunderstanding the nature of the event, no thanks to articles like this. Vsnt777 (talk) 18:12, 18 October 2015 (UTC)vsnt777[reply]

The 2008 santacon page, as NeilN posted, has several relevant sections that are missing from the current one. Significantly, Santarchy around the world, which speaks to the global activity of this event, which has grown since 2008. This has been stripped away, despite the documentation of many events in the form of pictures and peer-to-peer organizers. Due to the nature of the event, many media outlets cover the event from a sensational perspective focusing on negative aspects. The way the current article is written is biased to the recent New York event experience. The NY event was not always the way it was described in 2013. The current article focuses on the current NY view, not a longer view, that spans back to the beginning, or is reflective of the many different expressions of the event.

I absolutely disagree with calling the event generally a pub crawl. That is not to say, some Santacon events may have pubcrawl like activities, but this is up to the individual location organizer. I object to applying the NY coverage and experience to ALL Santacon events - which does not match the experience of these different events. The description and criticism of the event from the NY perspective with the NY citations, should go in it's own section about the NY event. Or start a fresh wikipedia page about the NY event and it's experience. The NY event, however, is significantly different from other Santacon events. I know from directly experience, being part of/organizing/attending events in Portland, SF, Las Vegas and LA for 10+ years. I have also attended NY, and the vibe there is very different - and this is a reflection of the aspects of NY, the personality of people who go to NY and the landscape of NY. For example, NY has a lot of public transportation, something that Los Angeles do not have. The event in these two cities is very different and part of that has to do with the infrastructure of the city.

I ask to remove the categorization of the overall event as a pubcrawl - it can be used to describe the NY event. I ask to bring back the section "Santarchy Around the World" I ask to move documented criticism about NY to a section about the NY event. It is relevant, but in greater context. I ask to have images from non-NY based Santacons returned to the event page. I ask for the "In popular culture" section to be returned.

Due to the nature of this event being a cacophony society event, mainstream press is not encourage, thus mainstream coverage is not necessarily the most authentic or correct information. I understand the need to balance personal opinions. However, this article is written from an opinionated perspective and citing sensationalist media to "prove" that view. In the case of this particular event the sources are biased. I must think there are other wikipedia topics where mainstream media is extremely biased and covers a limited perspective.

I appreciate wikipedia's dedication to as unbiased articles as possible, and that is why in this case, I challenge the current version of the post. Thank you. Vsnt777 (talk) 18:04, 18 October 2015 (UTC)vsnt777[reply]

A final comment. In a previous (denied) request on this page by NeilN, was to include news coverage about arrests in San Francisco. The request was denied stating wikipedia is not news. I then question why so much of the NY event news coverage is included and the more general information about the event around the world was removed. Vsnt777 (talk) 18:20, 18 October 2015 (UTC)vsnt777[reply]

There's a difference between stating how the event is generally viewed and reporting on two citations. For an analogy, see Compton, California#Crime. It contains broad views, not things like two assaults were committed in December 2012. --NeilN talk to me 20:30, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So in this case you're fine with biased news reporting about a instance of the event in a specific city (NY), despite it being an outlier to the general experience. Yay for negative biases, and hiding behind wikipedia's "reliable sources" requirement! This experience has caused me to question to validity of all wikipedia entries now. So much for being unbiased. 66.27.154.244 (talk) 17:00, 19 October 2015 (UTC)vsnt777[reply]

Funny that this should be the page where you discover this. It's not Wikipedia specifically, it's the nature of news coverage and other sources in the world. That's all we have to go by, so when they're biased, inaccurate, unclear, incomplete, opinionated, written in a different tone than an encyclopedia's, etc., any article that simply repeats will also have that problem. Wikipedia is built on a thesis, that mostly bears out, that volunteer editors neutrally compiling sources is the best way to get a decent article out of imperfect sources. When you think about it, any other way like appointing subject matter experts or letting people write from (claimed) firsthand knowledge is going to have much worse bias problems, short of the old style encyclopedia way where an editorial board oversees panels of scholars and professional journalists to write, which brings its own risks of cultural bias and being co-opted and nobody can afford anyway. So in the case of a silly countercultural phenomenon like this that respectable journalists don't understand or take seriously, we're left with a bunch of low quality sources reporting in sensationalist or judgmental fashion. This in turn requires an extra degree of sophistication and judgment from editors, rather than blindly counting references or accepting news stories from publications however esteemed that are clearly not very helpful. For making articles, sometimes you can make lemonade out of a batch of lemons, but you can't make caviar out of lemons. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:51, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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