Talk:North American Federation of Temple Youth

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[edit] Work Needed

The earlier version of the page was a good start. I added a much-needed history as well as a section on NFTY and music. But since I was in NFTY in the 1980s, I am less knowledgeable about the 1930s-1970s, and only somewhat knowledgeable about 1990s-today. We need both contemporary NFTYites and those with a sense of history (and the resources/information) to embelish all sections. My history was heavily influenced from NFTY's web page. My music section was adapted from Elyssa Mosbacher's great write-up in "The Complete NFTY Recordings 1972-1989" CD booklet.

It'd be great if we could have the location and, as applicable, the theme of every NFTY Convention.

I'll try and hit up my colleagues and friends who are current NFTY/URJ leadership to give-it-a-go, but I expect it'll have to be, as it always has been, an energetic teenager who will find the information and make it real. MKaiserman 03:46, 12 January 2006 (UTC) (former CRaFTYite 1984-1988, currently a rabbi)

[edit] Edits to structure section

I just made a couple of edits to the structure section. Firstly, I took out the link to NFTY-STR's branch of the NFTY site--that kind of thing belongs in an "External links" section on the (currently nonexistent) NFTY-STR article. Second, I took out all of the regions' "former" names (e.g. PAFTY, MAFTY, etc.). There is a reference to those name changes elsewhere in the article, and it is not necessary to list all of their former names since they are no longer called that. There is no reference to PAFTY on NFTY-PAR's web pages, or to the other regions' former names on their web pages. Skiasaurus 17:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not gonna revert that just yet, but... the new names were created very recently and the old ones existed for a comparatively long time. I specifically added those in order to have a comprehensive, encyclopediac (sp?) list, not just a passing comment that "there were older names in a certain style", given that there are many people who know only the old names. DMacks 03:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Was it really "very recently"? When I started with NFTY in 2000, my region was being told that they were the last holdouts on the old name (NELFTY), and that all the other regions had made the switch. My experience at Kutz in 2000, 2002, and 2004 indicated pretty much zero use of the old style names. So I don't think they should be included as prominently as before, if at all. -Joshuapaquin 04:45, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
The regional groups were called XXXTY at least as far back as 1961; the switch to NFTY-XXX began in 1994. Remember this isn't WikiCurrentEvents, it's WikiPedia. Just because you don't call it MAFTY now doesn't mean "what is/was MAFTY?" shouldn't be documented. DMacks 05:31, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merges

I have proposed that the Region articles be merged into the main articles. IMO, the regions aren't noteable except as constituent parts of the overall organization. Also, neither BBYO, USY, or any other similar groups have individual articles for regions or chapters. - pm_shef 21:52, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I reluctantly agree. Regions have lots of things that distinguish them from one another, but not to establish distinct notability. They should be merged here, leaving a trail of redirects to discourage re-creation of the regional articles. -Joshuapaquin 22:21, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I disagree that regional organizations could not be notable on their own; however I do agree for the case at hand. Most of the regional pages are restatements of the regional info from the parent page and/or material that is specific to "regions" (!= NFTY) but not to any one particular region. Therefore, I voted merge&redirect (also reluctantly). Maybe each region should have a header (vs just a list of them), and then if there is interesting or useful information specific to that region it can be included there. DMacks 14:18, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree that any unique information pertaining to the regions should be included. - pm_shef 21:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
  • My freshco was when the national organization decided to drop the "NFTY-MI" bomb on us, and my class stubbornly continued to call it "MSTY" for the duration of our high school careers. I always appreciated the national organization for what it did, but my real youth group was MSTY, the region. I think it's important, so long as we still remember that we have ties to a larger group, that we also don't discount the fact that the time we spent was within our region, and those were the people we spent time with in and out of events. When I want to recall the good ol' days, I don't call up some random person from Florida. We've been having fun trying to update the MSTY (NFTY-MI) old board list and I'd really rather just be able to keep that one page for ourselves. It's a little late now to get me to a convention or kutz; let us have our memories without two hours of scrolling through everyone else's. Misopogon
  • No. That's not how wikipedia works - pm_shef 00:59, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Sorry, Misopogon, but I have to agree with Pm shef. All of us NFTYites may have some great memories of our times spent at events and such, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a message board. If someone started up a NFTY wiki, that would be the place for that kind of thing. (And that's actually not a bad idea, come to think of it...) Skiasaurus 01:26, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
  • The NFTY-MAR article was not very well merged. The rest of the items in the list of regions just have the name of the region, the corresponding acronym, and usually a description of the area it covers (unless the name of the region itself describes the area adequately). MAR has a full description of its events and its board. It is true that before the merge, MAR had the most developed regional article, but all that extra info is not necessarily exclusive to MAR. For example, most regions have the same types of events, though the names may vary. I'm not exactly sure how to handle this... Skiasaurus 14:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a compendium of knowledge. All that was on there was knowledge: history (some of its TYGs pre-dated the national organization) famous MSTYites, former boards, etc. Why throw it out? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Misopogon (talk • contribs)

  • And all that information now has a home in the general NFTY article. - pm_shef 15:30, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] edit by 70.18.93.148

I reverted the edit made by 70.18.93.148. The edit summary read, "got rid of unessesary information (i.e. founded in, events, people's names), that can be put into a different section such as 'events' or 'kallot', and "advisors.'" I see a couple of problems with this edit. First, the information removed dealt solely with subregional divisions and territory, and with none of the items described in the edit summary. Second, the information that was removed cannot be merged into the sections mentioned, because it just doesn't fit. Third, if the user sees a problem with the structure of the article, he or she should perform the suggested merge him or herself, rather than just deleting. Skiasaurus 21:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chart for Regions

Since all the regions are found here, someone might want to put together a nice chart as the USY folk have done for their regions. Easier to read than the list as found here. - JerseyRabbi 16:22, 29 April 2007 (UTC)