Talk:Shaker Village Work Group

Initial development
This is a start on an article titled Shaker Village Work Group. When the page is added to the Wikipedia main body of articles, a redirection page needs to be created for Shaker Village Work Camp that points to this page. --MouseRancher (talk) 09:15, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

The article is nearly ready for public release. Note that it is not a complete history and detailed description of everything that happened at the Shaker Valley Work Group. Following Wikipedia policies of notability (WP:N), verifiability (WP:V), and citation/source guidelines (WP:SOURCES), it emphasizes those aspects of the operation that were notable enough that they got onto the public radar through third-parties writing about it. -- MouseRancher (talk) 18:45, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, the article has been moved out of my personal space and into the general encyclopedia space. I would still like to add a few things. (1) Some photos. I have contacted some folks with what I believe would be appropriate photos, and will work with them to place those on Wikimedia. (2) Expand the paragraph beginning "Robert C. Opdahl and Viola E. Woodruff Opdahl provide some detailed descriptions" in the "Preservation of Shaker architecture and culture" section. I am missing some pages from that book and want to read the whole thing before writing that paragraph. My local library has a copy, so I'll get to that soon. (3) Contact Tony Saletan and have him review what was written about him for accuracy. (4) Let the SVWG community on Facebook review the work. -- MouseRancher (talk) 19:43, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Expansion
Two areas I'd like to expand are to:

(1) Turn this sentence into a paragraph with examples quoted from the Opdahls' book: "Robert C. Opdahl and Viola E. Woodruff Opdahl provide some detailed descriptions of the Work Group's activities under Shaker tutelage, with an emphasis on Shaker music, but also including crafts, dance, and even the performance of a Shaker prayer service." I will do that once I get copies of the pages on the SVWG's history that I'm missing.

(2) The role of the SVWG in 60s counterculture. I think an interesting perspective on that would be to explore the unusual degree of autonomy the Villagers had. I haven't found any good published resources yet for exploring that. -- MouseRancher (talk) 07:05, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

First stable draft
The article is nearly complete for now, and has been reviewed by a professional book editor whose recommended changes have been incorporated. There are still a few things that I feel need work. (1) I am waiting on a couple photographs that I can add. (2) The sentence beginning "In their 2004 book A Shaker Musical Legacy" is going to be expanded a bit once I finish reading the book. (3) The section on folksong history needs a better description of the fact that there were lots of people who would go on to be famous folksingers who spent their summers earning money by traveling throughout the Northeast singing for a week or two at various summer camps, and trading songs with the local song leaders. A lot of now-famous songs got disseminated that way. (4) I am hoping to find further descriptive documentation of the unusual autonomy of the campers, particularly in the 1960s. -- MouseRancher (talk) 17:12, 4 September 2010 (UTC)