Talk:Baby sling

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Large parts of this article are promotion talk. Should be cleaned up. Philippe 12:50, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed reference to attachment parenting. Wearing a baby is as old as mankind, while attachment parenting is a to be a contemporary principle, coined by a single pediatrician.

Contents 1 External links 2 Concerns 3 Merging with Babywearing 4 References required 5 Trademark

[edit] External links

I am adding mamatoto.org to the external links. It provides many free video resources on a variety of baby carriers, and therefore provides a unique resource that cannot be included in the wiki.

People seem to be forever tempted to add their favorite how-do-I-make-may-own baby-sling websites to the external links. There are hundreds of sites on this subject, and we do not want to list them all. Please refrain from spamming the external links section.

Discuss before you add a link!

Philippe 12:52, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I would like to add a link to some fun baby sling extras -- a baby sling cartoon avatar maker and a baby sling wearing celebrity page. I tried to add them before but they got taken out as spam. While they are indeed on my site, they're both free. (http://www.mammasmilk.com/pages/celebrities.php and http://www.slingdirectory.com/dollmaker/dollmaker.html). Is this possible? -Jude

We're writing an encyclopedia, not a pop magazine article, so fun isn't a primary aim, and accurate, non-commercial content is. If people want to find stories of celebrities wearing babies, google should handle their needs nicely. Incidentally, if you'd like to upload a public domain or GDFL image of a baby-wearing celeb and add it to the article, it would be far less likely to be reverted. We're looking for content in our articles, not links to other sites. -- Mwanner | Talk 23:10, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I updated the external links to exclude a link going to a "for-profit" business website selling these products. I replaced it with a link to the non-profit organization that is responsible for continuing research in this area. November, 9th 2006, -Kristine

Yes, but that "not for profit" site is engaged in direct retail sales, so I have removed it along with another commercial site. See WP:EL. -- Mwanner | Talk 18:48, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The Babywearer does not sell slings. The only stuff they sell directly is advocacy gear, which many, many organizations linked elsewhere in Wiki also sell. For example, La Leche League has many different kinds of things they sell, ranging from memberships and books to breastfeeding products. Yet talking about breastfeeding without mentioning La Leche League in an encyclopedia would be bizarre and wrong, as it has had a historical role in the modern resurgence of breastfeeding. The Babywearer has been instrumental in helping change the face of modern baby carrying around the world. It is *the* English language online central meeting point for the babywearing community worldwide and provides huge numbers of useful articles, resources and networking for people looking for more information. It is completely remiss for an english-language article about baby slings to NOT refer out to The Babywearer. Leave it alone. On the other hand, thank you for kicking Nifty to the curb, the repeat spam they do is ridiculous and inappropriate. Jenrose 08:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

My suggestion is to educate yourself on the topic before assuming anything, with all due respect I must disagree. In reference to NINO (http://nineinnineout.org). I believe the other site you removed was mamatoto.org(?) which is another site that is instructional only and is not a commercial site.

[edit] Concerns

I put "Risk of spoiling" back in the concerns list. I know proponents claim this is not true, but allmost all opponents claim this. Please discuss before removing again. I can live with rephrasing, but it is not fair to leave this concern out. Philippe 07:21, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

References please? If not, take it away. (The whole article is in dire need of references anyway). --J-Star 12:53, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging with Babywearing

I agree that this page could be merged with Babywearing, since the term "babywearing", per se, is also a term coined by a single pediatrician, Dr. Sears. Zeilermom 03:18, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that is a reason to 'not' merge both articles. Babywearing may document Sears' vision on carrying an infant in a sling, but the concept of slings may be as old as mankind. I do agree that both articles overlap too much and should be cleaned up. Philippe 16:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you make a good point. Perhaps "babywearing" should remain separate, but then it requires heavy editing to clarify that it is part of a particular philosophy of parenting.

I have edited both sections extensively. I have done my best to be balanced. I have removed several commercial product names and external links. I would like to link to www.thebabywearer.com (which, while it does sell some advocacy products, does not sell carriers and serves as a central meeting place for parents and many vendors.) I have not added that link yet although links to articles are present that were placed before. The Babywearer website has extensive citations to research in many of the articles. I have not added that link yet and will wait to do so.

Babywearing and Baby Sling should not be combined, but I would strongly recommend changing Baby Sling to Baby Carrier, removing Child Carrier as redundant, and forwarding the Baby Sling link to Baby Carrier. "Babywearing" may have been coined by Dr. Sears, but use of the phrase has extended well beyond attachment parenting and it is not required to be an attachment parent to "babywear". To reflect this, I have expanded the section on breastfeeding to encompass multiple modes of infant feeding and to recognize that babywearing and breastfeeding are not always easily done simultaneously.

I have not done extensive citations, as most of my writing is easily and quickly verifiable through google, and much is based on my 13 years of experience in the babywearing community. My credentials, if it matters, are that I helped found Nine In, Nine Out, have used and reviewed at least 100 different carriers in just about every category, and coordinated the first international babywearing conference. My writing on babywearing and baby carriers has appeared in books, magazines and on a number of web sites. Although I have designed several carriers, I do not advocate them or mention them in these articles. I tried to maintain what I could of the existing pages, but did edit them heavily to reduce the promotional nature and balance the presentation. I have not yet touched the "benefits/disadvantages" bulleted lists. Jenrose 00:24, 11 Nov 2006

[edit] References required

This whole article is in need of references. Expecially the "Practicality and use" and "Concerns" sections contain totally unreferenced statements.--J-Star 12:54, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

This whole articel, is just a junk page linking to commercial sites.

Its pages like this, that are turning wikipedia into a big joke, commercial adveritising, internet marketing tool —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.206.163.32 (talk • contribs).

The article has been substantially edited, commercial references removed, references and content added. Jenrose 07:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trademark

I just found out that "Baby sling" is a trademark used in the 1990s for one particular type of baby carrier. I will remove most of what is written in this page and start a stub refering to the _actual_ baby sling. If we need an article on other cloth-like-baby-carrying-devices, we need another name. --Philippe 07:33, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Whoa, whoa! Hold it! First of all, check to see that "Baby sling" is trademarked and that it's a valid trademark. Second, this doesn prevent anyone from calling a baby sling for just that: baby sling. I mean just because there is a franchise called "Target" doens't mean we can't call a paper dummy at the shooting range a "target". Be bold... but not rash. Check first if we actually need to rewrite the article. --J-Star 08:03, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I believe we _do_ need to rewrite for reasons stated on this talk page. This page has hardly any references and is very spam-prone. Moreover, I'm not convinced about what the words "baby sling" mean in the English language. As I understand a _sling_ goes over one sholder, while the baby carrier depicted in the article is something totally different. Point is: I just think this article has the wrong name. Perhaps we should rename the article as it is and create a new Baby sling(tm) article. We would _still_ need to rewrite the existing article. --Philippe 11:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

There are a lot of people who use the term "sling" to mean a baby carrier that has rings, and "baby carrier" to mean ALL carriers like the ones dissucssed in this article.