Talk:Spring Holiday/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

NPOV and original research

I think some sources are needed, I think this is verging on the point of original research - see Wikipedia:No original research.--A Y Arktos\talk 23:32, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

There are external links at the bottom; if you like I can attribute these directly in the text for in-text citations? This is not original research, it is a real event occuring in a lot of places across the US. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 23:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

This article breaches NPOV with such words and phrases as overzealous political correctness, undesirable, taken the liberty ... The extended Christmas vacation is indeed a winter holiday or in the southern hemisphere a summer holiday. The assertion that it is renamed for the sake of political correctness is unverifiable because it is a seasonal overlap.--A Y Arktos\talk 23:47, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

These are euphemisms for Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, etc. City officials have notified me personally that "Spring holiday" or "Winter holiday", as well as "Spring Bunny", etc. are used in order to not enforce establishment of religion, thus being a euphemism and act of political correctness. You may edit out what you find to be POV statements, but this article should not be deleted as it is merited information. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 23:49, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Don't forget that "City officials told me so" isn't a verifiable source, per WP:NOR. Powers 15:01, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Of the four external links in the Spring Holiday page, none of them refers to renaming the easter weekend spring holiday. They do refer to the Easter bunny being renamed, pointing out that its link with christianity is tenuous. The fourth link which refers to a spring fair "this Saturday" is dated 4 April ,meaning presumably that the Saturday in question is the 7th, the Saturday before Palm Sunday is not a Saturday noted in the Christian calendar in this part of the world and I think the advertisement is not evidence of the renaming of the weekend. I do not believe there is any evidence of an Easter euphamism.--A Y Arktos\talk 11:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Public Holiday?

  • Just a question - do you have a public holiday associated with Easter in Canada and North America? In Australia we have a national holiday for good Friday and Easter Monday. Good Friday is one of two days when Australia shuts down quite thoroughly, not even the rubbish tip is open! See for example the New South Wales Banks and Bank Holidays Act 1912 - there is similar legislation for each of the Australian states. As the days are named in the legislation, I am wondering if that means that despite the increasing secularisation of the society, there is no ambiguity that it is Easter we are taking a break for.
The UK also seems to have a public holiday associated with Easter - eg [1] --A Y Arktos\talk 11:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
    • There are ten federal holidays in the United States: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. However, the individual states can designate holidays of their own; many states, but not all, have Good Friday and/or Easter Sunday as official state holidays. Powers 12:33, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
      • I live in Canada, and here there are several federal holidsys, of which include Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday (in certain provinces, including mine) and as well as Christmas Day. We don't secularize Easter or Christmas to the extent of the Americans as documented at this article, but we certainly tend to fall in their footsteps and Christmas is increasingly referred to as "Holiday" by the media and government. However, in Canada, it is ridiculously used within a sentence, to a point in which the sentence makes no sense whatsoever, probably because there is a need to "copy" the United States but they aren't doing it correctly. Here you'll see grammatical disasters like "It wouldn't be Holiday without a turkey dinner"—note the capitalization of "holiday" as if it were a proper noun. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 19:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your responses. I think the article needs to be updated to the effect that there are public holidays in Australia, the United Kingdom, many states of the US and Canada designated as Good Friday and Easter Sunday or Monday. They are offically known by their Christian terms in designating them as holidays. I think the article also needs to be reviewed in the the absence of any citation for "Spring Holiday". There may be Spring bunnies but there is no documentation of the term spring holiday - see my comment immediately above this section. Regards--A Y Arktos\talk 19:37, 12 April 2006 (UTC) (where it is already Maundy Thursday)
    • I understand your concern about the need for citations, thus I will insert a few citations of American Universities that use the term "spring holiday" and "winter holiday". — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 19:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Your example above of the church fair did not appear to show that spring holiday was a euphamism for Easter since it appeared to refer to the saturday before Palm Sunday. I would not accept that any reference to days off which were other than limited to Good Friday and Easter Sunday as proving secularisation. The Australian Nationall University is on holiday here - and so are the schools - for a fortnight that covers Easter and Anzac day. If they refer to those holidays as the April holidays it does not show secularisation it shows that the holiday period is broader than the Easter and Anzac day long weekends.--A Y Arktos\talk 19:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
        • I just inserted several citations, one at the "External links" section and quite a few at the beginning next to their respective categories (i.e. - universities, city government, etc.). I'm sure you'll agree about the "Spring holiday" replacement for Easter/Good Friday and the "winter holiday" replacement for Christmas Day when following these links. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 19:55, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I would like to see the statement in the article that this is not a universal approach in the western world, nor even a trend observed elsewhere - viz Australia, UK, etc. (Hard to provide a citation of an absence of something) A ref for world wide practice is this page and similar pages - this ref is a worldwide holiday schedule from The Hatch Group (never heard of them before) but they seem to be international and list out where their offices might be closed. I note that they are observing Good Friday in the US, Canada, Australia, Europe, South Africa, Brazil and Chile. They are not observing that holiday in Asia or Russia.--A Y Arktos\talk 00:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Is this a response to my edit below? I am confused as to whether this is a response or if you saw my edit yet concerning the US/Canada usage?. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 00:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Edit tagging - recent changes noted :-) --A Y Arktos\talk 00:01, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Citations

I have looked at the citations researched by user:CrazyInSane and am convinced! Yet more bemusing antics from the yanks(:-) ). I acknowledge that the article states the United States. I would like it to state clearly that other parts of the world have not (yet?) adopted this trend at all and their public holidays are indeed observed as Good Friday and Easter Sunday/Monday. Because the references are so important to assure Wikipedia:Verifiability it would be much better if they were cited in the form using the relatively new <ref> element

<ref name="???">{{cite web
 | last = 
 | first = 
 | authorlink = 
 | coauthors = 
 | year = 
 | url = 
 | title = 
 | format = 
 | work = 
 | publisher = 
 | accessdate = 
}}</ref>
then to call on the same note later use in text:
<ref name="???"/>

For alternate citation templates see Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles/Generic citations

I will do at least one citation in this form and set up the footnotes section--A Y Arktos\talk 23:17, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Your assistance is appreciated, AYA. I have also clearly clarified that usage of these euphemisms are limited to the United States and periodically Canada. Any further edits you find neccesary to make would be appreciated. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 23:53, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Continued POV problems

I attempted to revise the first paragraph (now two paragraphs) to eliminate some of the POV wording, but CrazyInSane has restored some of it, claiming (in the edit summary) that the text is still NPOV. I disagree, and suggest that CiS might be too emotionally involved in this issue to see how his POV is leaking into his edits. Everyone, not just CiS, should take a step back and make sure we're coming at this as neutrally as possible.

I'm putting this here because I don't want to get into an edit war with CiS over wording, and I wanted to get additional input from the other editors. Powers 18:07, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

  • From my perspective the article must make it clear that the trend is observed in the US - that is the only support the current citations offer. Today (it is already Friday here) is one of three days the nation closes down (the others being Christmas day and Anzac day) - shops are almost all closed, the rubbish tip is closed, art galleries are closed. The day is called by everyone Good Friday including legislation. It is also of course not spring but autumn here in the southern hemisphere - and that seasonal difference does make a difference to perceptions about Christian customs. The edit by User:LtPowers of 13:54, 13 April 2006 removed the substantial qualification concerning the location of the euphamism; that is "As of April 2006, these euphemistic means have only been documented to be occurring within the United States, and to a lesser extent in Canada." It is POV to allow it to continue as potentailly being a world wide phenomenon. I suspect it is not a phenomenon in Brazil, Chile or Europe where the public holiday is observed.--A Y Arktos\talk 21:18, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
    • I certainly agree that other users putting their input on the situation is a good idea and appreciate LtPowers resorting to the talk page rather than simply reverting my edits. The reason I reverted his edits was because since I am so emotionally involved in the project, I happen to know more about what are facts and what aren't. For instance, LtPowers added some Jewish holidays in the list of examples, but I removed them because given all the references and external links there is only evidence saying that the euphemistic means are targeted only at Christian holidays. Although he may have mistaken this as "my personal POV", it isn't. Also, he reworded the opening statement, removing references to the fact that these generic terms are replacing specific holidays exactly (i.e. - (the) Spring holiday is April 14, 2006) not just week-long breaks surrounding a holiday (i.e. - Spring holiday is April 14-17, 2006), so I restored the paragraph there. Also, he seems to even have perhaps inserted his own POV when adding some support for the generic terms in the second paragraph, without adding opposition for balance. As said by AYArktos, there were also references removed concerning that this event is only documented to be occuring in the USA, and to a lesser extent in Canada. I simply have restored the truth, I do not think I am being biased in this situation. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 22:11, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Look more carefully at my edit (AYArktos, too, please). I did NOT remove the information about the locality of the phenomenon. I moved it to a new paragraph. It's still there, right where I left it. =)
        CiS, you admit you're too emotionally involved in this situation. I will agree that my version wasn't perfect, but it was an improvement. I'm open to discussion on the non-inclusion of Jewish holidays, but I still don't like the overall tone, which strongly implies that there's something special about Christianity causing it to be persecuted by having its holidays subsumed. That's the POV I was talking about.
        Also, I didn't feel I needed to add an opposing position for balance (which, I must point out, is just as unsourced as you complain my statement was) because the opposing position (that these are euphemisms designed to secularize the holidays) is clearly stated in the opening paragraph. Right now, the new statement in paragraph 2 is redundant -- and horribly POV to boot (since it presumes that offending a majority is inherently worse than offending a minority).
        Powers 22:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
        • Okay, first, LtPowers, in this edit you changed what was initially
"As of April 2006, these euphemistic means have only been documented to be occurring within the United States, and to a lesser extent in Canada."
to
"As of April 2006, these terms are used as euphemisms primarily within the United States, and to a lesser extent in Canada.".
The subtle changes that you made removed the assertion that these events occur only within the United States and Canada, you offer the possibility that they are used to a lesser extent in any other countries. I know AKArktos disagrees with this as well because he is from Australia and wants to ensure that the article asserts that this phenomenon is only documented in the USA and Canada. Also, there is something special about Christianity so that it is being persecuted by having its holidays subsumed. Not only is it the majority of population (80%, 2001) in the USA, which makes the minorities feel, well, "minor", but Christianity — as opposed to Judaism or any other religion — has religious holidays that are also secular in certain ways. If Easter and Christmas were completely religious we wouldn't even have this issue because there would be no federal recognition of these holidays. This is evident in the fact that Christmas is a US federal holiday but Easter is not, but Easter is much more important when it comes to the Christian calendar. The basis of Christmas' position as a federal holiday is obviously its secular aspect. Also, I don't think my replacement of your support with my countersupport is POV because there needs to be balance between sides. Though I admit I cannot cite the source for the fact I posted (I know it is a fact), there needs to be a counterargument present. If you wan't to change it to something else feel free, but if you remove it I think the support should also be removed for balance. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 23:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
User:CrazyInSane has articulated my concerns with the euphamism being only documented in the USA and Canada. Further we are on holiday on April 14th becuase of the moon's cycle and its relevance to Christianity - as far as I now there is no other reason for the significance of Friday 14 April 2006. To suggest that Friday 14 April 2006 is a spring holiday without reference to its significance is just weird and why was it that the University of Tennessee was on holiday in 2005 on March 25 instead - hypocrites! The answer in Australia is that if you want to make a noise about the religious aspects of the public holiday, feel free to go to work :-) There is seen to be a tension in declaring religious holidays as national public holidays and the issue of the separation of church and state.--A Y Arktos\talk 23:37, 13 April 2006 (UTC)