Talk:Twin Oaks Community, Virginia

Criticisms of Twin Oaks
The worst criticism that can be made to Twin Oaks community is that the objective of the original community thought by Skinner, Walden Two, wasn't to achieve a good life for a hundred persons only, but global political change, a change in society as a whole, and it seems that Twin Oaks has ceased to search that objective.

-Shevek.

I strongly disagree with your statement that Twin Oaks has ceased to seek large-scale political change. There is no consensus among the members about what the appropriate level of engagement with outside politics is, but the majority of members are politically active beyond simply living in the community. For example, one member sits on several boards of directors of non-profits, has been arrested for political activism a half-dozen times, has organized a campaign to prevent a nuclear power plant from being built in the region, is one of the Western hemisphere's most vocal promoters of polyamory, etc. Several others are active members of Food Not Bombs chapters in Richmond and Charlottesville. Though I not sure what the current status of this is, some of the members historically have been fairly prolific writers in activist publications. The community donates money and labor hours every year to nonprofit and activist groups dealing with women's rights, human rights, gay rights, racism, and other causes. It's true that being an activist is not a requirement for membership at Twin Oaks, but any fair reading of the community would admit that hardly any, or perhaps even no, members of the community think that Twin Oaks's purpose is merely to better its own members' lives. (For more on this, see Kat Kinkade's books' discussions of why people join, or see an article that I co-wrote entitled "A Better World is Possible!" that is available on Twin Oaks' website. If you read the Richmond Style Weekly article on Twin Oaks, take it with a VERY strong grain of salt - the article was written when I was there, and literally every member who read it was stunned by the author's virtually warrantless claim that Twin Oaks was no longer interested in politics.)

(Note: I lived at Twin Oaks for 1 year, about 5 years ago, have conducted formal interviews with a dozen members, have read almost everything ever published about the community, and visit the community about 2 or 3 times a year. These are the foundations for my point of view. Others may disagree, but unless they cite evidence supporting their opinions, are just making baseless assertions.)

-Chicken Soda

One criticism I have of Twin Oaks is that they make no attempt to integrate the youth of the community into their culture, often resulting in teenagers who won't eat community food and only attend parties so that they can laugh at the adults. I've visited the community several times and only on my last visit was it obvious to me that teenagers inhabited the place (and this is because my sister, a member, now lives in a residence with two parent-and-children style families). They go to school, return home, and retreat to their rooms for the most part. I think the idea is to allow the children the freedom to express themselves however they want, but when kids are attending public schools and making friends with townies that think communes are weird, then OF COURSE it encourages rebellion against the lifestyle that they know. It's amazing to meet young people raised at Twin Oaks since they were babies, and these same young people ridicule the culture they were raised in. I'm not saying that the young people need censorship or steering in a certain direction, but that perhaps the founders of the community did not consider youth's tendency to rebel when planning their culture. I'm also not suggesting that I have a solution to youth rebellion, either - it seems to be inherent to western culture to rebel during the teenage years, no matter what social class or sub/counterculture you were raised in. I know of "grown-up punks" whose children are so square, it hurts. - Rashaun 00:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Advert and POV nightmare
To me, this whole thing reads like an advert and a POV nightmare. Would anyone else happen to agree? --Takeel 21:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Yep, well, the criticism is a POV problem, the rest is not as much, but it still reads as if it already expects you to be interested in joining. On a somewhat unrelated note, would the non-violence part exclude communists for their support of revolution? More precisely, would your political ideology have to support non-violence or just your actions? If the former, that would be my criticism.--Fasterthanyou 04:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, this is interesting. Takeel and i just had a friendly and satisfying conversation about cleaning up the vanity aspects of the entry on me.  Now we get to work together (hopefully as effectively) on cleaning up the Twin Oaks entry - which i did have some involvement with, but not that much.  So i will make cuts and changes soon to reduce the POV and Ad-like aspects of the article.  And then, hopefully, i can get some specific pointers on what remains weak.  The first part of the conversation on this page, while interesting (and with some wonderful people i know), is not appropriate for this page.  Paxuscalta 00:41, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I've done some minor cleanup of the first two paragraphs, and I've also added some inline citations. Since I don't usually do major edits, I'm rather wary and I hope that others will also contribute.  Citations and tightening are needed more than anything. --Takeel 03:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Hrm...I'm feeling inspired tonight. I think I'm going to be bold and hack the hell out of this article.  Please feel free to revert or counter-edit as desired because these will probably be very drastic changes and I don't doubt that there will be objections. --Takeel 04:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Well thx, Takeel. The main article is much cleaner now in terms of POV problems. I have made a few cosmetic changes, including trying to get the first citations addressed. I will see if i can get the last section "Critisms of Twin Oaks" adjusted by some editors we have here (at Twin Oaks). Paxuscalta 14:17, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Paxuscalta, I was of the understanding that we at Wikipedia were prohibited from editing articles that related to ourselves. Jeff Vollmer, 12/24/09 (sorry about the ID, I'm new here) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.206.112.32 (talk) 03:46, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

What still feels missing is more of the abandonment of behaviorism - a casual reader might think we still embrace it, since the two references to dropping it have been deleted. We are working of line on the Crit of Twin Oaks section, it will be up shortly. Paxuscalta 22:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's definitely an important item to note because it was a large part of the inspiration of Twin Oaks. --Takeel 22:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Last Paragraph
Hey guys, think we can add any more citation needed tags? I think there might be room! Oddly, sentences like "Twin Oaks' commitments to absolute nonviolence and near-absolute equality are obviously unappealing to some people of some political persuasions" don't demand citation, despite the fact that they are completely without meaning.

Just to make my point clearly, for this article and all others: Sticking "citation needed" all over the place makes an article unreadable and is tantamount to vandalism as far as I'm concerned. If an article is lacking citations on the whole, there exists boilerplate for that. It is unnecessary to make the article illegible in the name of comprehensiveness. Ipsenaut (talk) 19:41, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Population
I couldn't find how many people are at TO. The article is kind of long, so it's possible I missed it (reading a screen is not easy). So, please, either add it, or -- if the number is already given -- make it easier to see. Kdammers (talk) 10:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I found the number on the TO home-page and inserted it.Kdammers (talk) 04:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * In an effort to start using non Twin Oaks sources for information I have changed this reference to the Voice of America documentary on the community. Saratansey (talk) 14:26, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Criticisms?
What happened to the "Criticisms of Twin Oaks" section? This whole article seems to have a very pro-Twin-Oaks bias in it's present form, which is not an accurate representation of the wide range of opinion people have, regarding the community. It's as though it was edited into it's current form as a recruiting tactic or an attempt at advertising. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.216.227.186 (talk) 03:11, 5 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree, this article needs much work on references that don't come from Twin Oaks itself. It is unacceptable promotional material and contains too many trivial details from their own literature.  Needs major revision.  Eroberer (talk) 12:29, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Organizing a thesis for this article
I'd like to see alot of the details from Life as a Member go away, ie. is it necessary to list every play produced. Instead I think the article should focus on how the main values are expressed, ie. how is egalitarianism created at Twin Oaks, how is non-violence enforced, how is sustainability practiced, exactly what does happen to the income in a - dare I say it - commune? I think only the most general statements about applying for membership, such as how does the community vote or otherwise accept or deny membership, are appropriate. Eroberer (talk) 02:40, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I want to just briefly stress again the importance, especially for articles tagged the way this one is at present, to start with reliable sources and then neutrally summarize only what is in those. As opposed to starting with "personal experience" or "my friend who used to live there told me..." and hoping to find a WP:RS for it somewhere someday.
 * So, for example, are the questions posed by Eroberer about how things are run at T.O. covered by eg. Washington Post articles? WikiDao    &#9775;  04:48, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * We are getting there, and there is a lot more to do. Certainly i would encourage Eroberer to call us a "commune", it is what we call ourselves.  i agree with WikiDao that some of Eroberer's questions would do well to be answered by this article.  Paxuscalta (talk) 05:42, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

When you think it's ready
Great work you folks have been doing on the article lately! Thanks for putting the time and effort into trying to bring this article up to WP standards.

I'm going to remain neutral myself for now as to whether the tags should come down yet or not. Since ResidentAnthropologist put up most of those tags last December (diff), I'd recommend asking that editor for feedback as to how necessary they may still seem to be, and/or what else needs to be done before they can be removed without objection.

Regards, WikiDao    &#9775;  20:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

communism, socialism, etc.
Paxuscalta, I didn't know East Wind was Democratic Anarchy which sounds even scarier than communism. I think since the Soviet Union broke up people are generally much less scared about the "c" word, and I've always assumed that when talking about intentional communities most people knew that it involved communism with a lower case "c", meaning just involving economic and social/political equality. Not with a capital "C" involving the Communist party, Red China or violent revolution. And I am aware that it was Communists, specifically Koreans, not communards that made brainwashing famous. But that's probably wrong and there's no way for me to know who "most people" even refer to. I guess I was thinking of "most people interested enough in intentional communities to be researching them". But I guess it is a lot to ask of the general population to know the large differences between big "C" and little "c" communism.

And socialism is getting lots of negative press lately due to Obamacare. Still don't you think it would be appropriate for the FEC to address these issues/differences somewhere prominent on its website, instead of just refusing to acknowledge it? And would they object to using a term like kibbutz-style communism - and if so, why? Eroberer (talk) 22:34, 13 January 2011 (UTC)


 * i made up the term Democratic Anarchy. East Wind votes on things all the time (Twin Oaks almost never does).  East Wind often values individual initiative w/o any process or group approval (Twin Oaks often gets upset when people do even obviously wise things, without going thru proper process).


 * The problem is that much of the definition of socialism does not fit either. Socialist are generally have an affinity for modern technology and view it as liberating, many communities (including FEC ones) see modern technology as central to the problems which face us and the newest addition to the FEC family is a dark green eco-village which does not use petroleum. Socialism does describe a number of things, but it does not really describe us.


 * I dont think the FEC is refusing acknowledge anything. There are lots of things which are missing from the relatively small FEC website that i would add well before a philosophical discussion on whether we are somehow importantly communist or socialist.  If you had a well written article on how the communities were functionally socialist, they might well consider printing it.  And there is a wide open wiki on the IC.org site, where you can put anything and i have put all types of strange things.


 * Would we object to being labeled "kibbutz-style communism"? That is a good question. We are often told by Israelis who visit that Twin Oaks is more like the (original idea of a ) kibbutz than the kibbutz are themselves now.  But without the hierarchy of communism (even lower case c), without the technophilia of socialism, without community control of all the means of production and some folks doing straight jobs "outside the system" does it even make senses to try to shoehorn these labels on.  Paxuscalta (talk) 05:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll take a closer look at FEC site. Even tho FEC communities don't conform to every aspect or definition of comm. or soc., of which there are many, it seems like the media seek to "fill the void" by using those terms themselves, as they've done with Ganas.  To my recollection that was always a sore point with the FEC, and I still think they could do a better job mitigating that by owning up to what they do have in "common".  For instance, see comment I made on Ganas talk page re: acknowledging one's own problems, which has been source of much struggle in that article.


 * FEC could do better job making clear that Ganas eg. does not share all FEC's values, most notably egalitarianism. This fact is nowhere to be found and so cannot be included in that article, which it should be.  Don't you think? Eroberer (talk) 14:48, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Ganas is not even a community in dialog with the FEC (our closest affiliated classification) it is what is called an Allied Community. Allied Communities share many of the Federation's values but are not likely to consider full membership. From the FEC website.  I dont know, that seems pretty non-committal to me.  The Ganas site does not claim they are egalitarian.  And frankly, i talk to people all the time, i do tours and college presentations and media interviews.  No one knows what egalitarian is, i have to explain it every time.  It is certainly not something that people assume about communities until they hear otherwise.  If anything it is the other way around.Paxuscalta (talk) 20:03, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * But if we are going to start talking about Ganas and the FEC, perhaps we should switch pages again. Still hoping you could look at the footnote numbering.  Paxuscalta (talk) 20:03, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I can see some issues with the references, in terms of formatting and otherwise, but could you explain more precisely what your concern about that is right now, Pax, and what you would like to see done differently about it? Either here or in the section below.  Thanks,  WikiDao    &#9775;  22:22, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Footnote help
So it seems like the footnote numbering in this article is a bit out of control. Can anyone help? Paxuscalta (talk) 05:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I did some reference-formatting earlier today (diff) – what specifically seems out of control at this point?
 * Oh -- yes, certainly 28 in-line citations of reference [4] seems a bit excessive, if that's what you mean! I'm counting three references to it ('ref name="Other American Dream"') in the first sentence alone: that is clearly unnecessary.  Anyone want to go through and remove some of those?  (I've gone ahead and just removed two of them from that first sentence, just leaving one at the end, like this: ).   WikiDao    &#9775;  06:22, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I was hoping to get help with the multiple references (which appears quite different from most articles) but also the sequencing, which is perhaps acceptable, but ti seems like the footnotes numerically jump all over the place, is this normal? Paxuscalta (talk) 19:39, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Is there one (instead of four) source that mentions all core values? Eroberer (talk) 14:25, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Found one with a single reference to all the core values, in a sociology text Paxuscalta (talk) 05:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I think I see what you're asking about now, Pax, and I think WP:CITEFOOT perhaps addresses your question...?

Right now, the article is using just straight named inline citations, which are then listed in the order they appear in the article by the Reflist tag in the References section. References can be named for re-use, so that invoking a named citation in the text (eg. "  ") will cause the numbered-link given to the first appearance in the article of that reference to be superscripted at that place.

That is how things are done most often in WP articles in my experience. I've certainly seen it done in other ways, too, though, and the Template:Reflist documentation discusses briefly how to use that template to get either footnote-style, bibliography-style, or a mixed-style of reference-formatting. My experience is mostly with the way things are done in this article, but I'd be happy to try to help you get it into some other style if that's what you would like to do and run into any trouble implementing it, Pax, just let me know. :)

In any case, I would just like to point out again that it is not necessary to cite the same reference multiple times in the same sentence! Thanks to Eroberer for helping prune some of that down recently; more work could be done that way in this article, though – could you help out with that too, maybe, Janelmarie...? WikiDao   &#9775;  20:46, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * So this is what i think is happening. There are a number of tags on this article, including ones saying that it is poorly referenced.  People who are not especially experienced with Wikipedia editing who are trying to fix this legitimate problem and are going a bit overboard - and thus multiple references in a single line.  It also seems like it is easier to cut back on references once they are in place, so this is (if you will) the right kind of error to make.


 * As for the style of footnoting, i just want to make sure that even tho it looks confusing with the numbers jumping around, that this is a wikipedia approved format. I will check out WP:CITEFOOT as per WikiDao's suggestion.  Paxuscalta (talk) 04:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The current basic citation style is acceptable (and fairly standard at WP), but excessively citing the same sources is unnecessary, distracting, and not likely to convince anyone that the article is "better sourced" as a result... ;) WikiDao    &#9775;  12:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Note about removal of a WP:SYNTH violation
This text was removed recently by Janelmarie:"'Lastly, although one of the community's stated values is sustainability, the community's hammocks are made with plastic, non-biodegradable rope.'"That statement is an excellent example of a WP:SYNTH violation. It independently made a connection between separately-published pieces of information to arrive at a conclusion that was not published in either source. That is WP:OR, and all violations of that policy should be removed on sight. Good removal, Janelmarie – and note that that sort of thing ought to be removed even if it's true. WikiDao   &#9775;  17:40, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Tags removed
I took down some tags, please comment or discuss objections to that here. WikiDao   &#9775;  04:42, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think these changes are fair and reasonable, and i live at Twin Oaks and can not see my home especially objectively. Paxuscalta (talk) 05:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

The Self-pub policy
Another applicable policy, in addition to WP:PRIMARY mentioned above, is WP:SELFPUB, which says that self-published material may be permissibly cited in articles so long as:


 * 1) the material is not unduly self-serving;
 * 2) it does not involve claims about third parties;
 * 3) it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;
 * 4) there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity;
 * 5) the article is not based primarily on such sources.

All of which conditions I think are met for the self-published material cited in this article right now. Until I or someone else without a COI can go through and make sure that all citations of self-published material meet all five of those criteria -- then the Self-published tag should stay up. WikiDao   &#9775;  16:45, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

i certainly dont qualify as not having a COI but can we talk about the self references for a moment? Currently, the article contains 3 references to Kat Kinkade's books. The first two (sited in two locations each) are simply stating that these books exist. This does not seem to be in violation of self publish requirements, but if it helped we could change the reference to Amazon or some other source which has information about these books. The final reference does make the following claim from Kinkade:


 * According to Kinkade, the community avoided the problems stereotypically associated with communes (particularly laziness, freeloading, and excessive lack of structure) by adopting a structured, but flexible, labor system.[10]

I think we make all 5 criteria listed above, except possibly this is unduly self serving. My question is, if we pulled this last reference out, could we get out form under the Self-published tag, since there are no other self published references that are making claims that can be disputed? Paxuscalta (talk) 04:50, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, the Kinkade cites all seem good enough to me as-is. [13] and [14] also look ok per the above criteria.  And I think that's it as far as self-pubs, right?  Let me have a quick look over it again and if that's it then I'll take the tag down... :)  WikiDao    &#9775;  11:07, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, I took the Self-published tag down. Kinkade's Walden Two Experiment does not seem to have been self-published, so only WP:PRIMARY applies to that one (both Primary and Self-pub pertain to Is It Utopia Yet? since its publisher is given as "Twin Oaks Publishing").  I'm not sure what category Spalding's paper belongs in, but in any case I don't see a problem with how it is being used.  I think there could be still fewer multiple-cites of the same source.  But otherwise the article looks pretty good! Cheers,  WikiDao    &#9775;  22:44, 26 January 2011 (UTC)


 * WikiDao, thanks for all your help and guidance. This is the first time in 4 years that this article is problem tag free.  That feels like something of an accomplishment. Paxuscalta (talk) 08:22, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Gender-Neutral pronouns experiment at Twin Oaks
Any interest in covering this? With some current discussion in the world at large about these matters in relation to gender, few seem to know about how Twin Oaks experimented with the use of gender-neutral pronouns among community members. I read an article about this in 1980 or '81, and I think it was in a newsletter published by the community; it may have also received some coverage in other alternative periodicals in the 1970s. IIRC, they tried "co" and "cos" as the pronouns, but it never took. I don't *think* I have the requisite sourcing materials at hand. But if there's sufficient interest I'm sure someone could dig some up. - Co rb ie V  ☊ 21:40, 9 September 2014 (UTC) P.S. Found some sourcing, even on-wiki: Gender-specific and gender-neutral pronouns and directly from Twin Oaks: '"co" is our gender-neutral pronoun that means "s/he"' - "Egalitarianism" from the Twin Oaks FAQ, and Bylaws: Twin Oaks. - Co rb ie V  ☊ 21:51, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * FYI, it did "take", at least for several decades. I first visited in 1975, and lived at T.O. 1978-79 and 1986-1990. In those years, we all used "co". We did think it somewhat awkward at times, but we embraced the usage as promoting our dedication to a non-patriarchal (some could argue even anti-patriarchal) society. Paulmlieberman (talk) 16:38, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Someone with a citable source, please add this topic to the article. 199.127.133.181 (talk) 21:49, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Longest-lived non-religious communes
Does anyone have sources on the longest-lived non-religious communes? See Talk:Icarians Sondra.kinsey (talk) 17:22, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Additonal info for the "Media Coverage Section"
Hello, I'm old and not so great with computers, so I thought I'd mention this here and leave it for the experts to decide if it's worth including. The PBS show, Nova, Season 6, Episode 3 ("A World of Difference") which originally aired January 18, 1979 covers Twin Oaks extensively, including while B.F. Skinner was touring the community. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.237.146.216 (talk) 21:14, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute
Much of this article seems to have neutrality problems. The entire article just feels like it has a bit of a slant in the way in which it is written.

AllTheMegahertz (talk) 23:10, 27 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Sundayclose will not let me publish the warning from a Twin Oaks member: Understanding Utopia. Reasons: Not a reliable source, Single opinion piece, but this is not one person's opinion. People who are interested in moving to Twin Oaks deserve to know how tricky and abusive these people are. Why is The Anarchist Library an unreliable source? Frenzyface (talk) 00:31, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * It's written by one person, Wortley Clutterbuck, and originally published on his blog. Regardless of whether the article has neutrality problems, self-published opinion pieces are not reliable sources. It's not me who "will not let you publish"; it's Wikipedia's policies. As for whether Wikipedia should be telling people that Twin Oaks is "tricky and abusive", Wikipedia is not here to right great wrongs. If there are problems at Twin Oaks, find reliable sources from mainstream media, not opinionated blogs written by one person. Sundayclose (talk) 00:38, 16 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia’s lamentable practice of emphasizing corporate media verification of ‘facts’ over first-person witness enables the ruling elite of Twin Oaks to control its narrative and reputation. Most corporate journalists visit Twin Oaks for one afternoon and receive complete supervision; hence the unerring similarity of every (glowing) article for the last 50 years. The Clutterbuck statement required over a decades’ research — yet, predictably enough, gets quashed like every criticism within and outside Twin Oaks. Paxus’ presence on this page is brazen evidence of bias; he has managed TO recruitment for almost 20 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wortley H. Clutterbuck (talk • contribs) 21:18, 11 June 2020 (UTC) — Wortley H. Clutterbuck (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

redundant
This information: "The BBC Four television series Utopia: In Search of the Dream, broadcast on August 15, 2017, devoted an 11-minute segment to Twin Oaks. Members and one former member (the founders' daughter), interviewed by Professor Richard Clay, expressed concerns about the inability to build savings, complex interpersonal relationships, limited privacy, and lack of autonomy. Clay observed that 20 percent of the membership turned over annually." is given twice in the article. it needs to be cut down. 199.127.133.181 (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅. Thanks! There was a slight difference, so I combined the two and removed the redundancy. Sundayclose (talk) 18:46, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Government
I don't know anything about the group, but I found myself wishing for some information about how group decisions are made. There are a few hints that there are some rules, e.g., waiting list and expected work. So how are those rules modified or prevented from modification? Benevolent dictatorship? Constitution with amendment procedure (like the USA version that all political parties ignore when they can get away with it)? 伟思礼 (talk) 16:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)