Talk:Elaine Summers

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[edit] Biography assessment rating comment

WikiProject Biography Assessment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Yamara 21:50, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestions and assessment. I've rewritten the section on Kinetic Awareness(tm) as the most urgent, cutting out comparisons to other approaches of bodywork. Hope that the label of advertising will be removed soon. Further updating is not possible right now due to time-constraints. In August of this year I will meet Elaine Summers personally in New York and hope to find time to work more on the suggested improvements, including getting permission for including free photos. -- Thomas Körtvélyessy 12.27, 9 June 2007 (CET)

[edit] removal of section on Kinetic Awareness June 2007

I have removed the section altogether, as it served as a coatrack to advertising kinetic awareness. AecisBrievenbus 11:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Dag Aecis,
Why did you delete this section and after I had just asked for more time to correct it, yesterday? I've re-read IT again and cannot agree with your classification as a WP:COATRACK - which on the User:Weregerbil/Coatrack article is (self-admittedly?) said to be "the official policy of absolutely nobody".

Summers' choreography is closely linked to Kinetic Awareness and as such I argue that it has a right to be mentioned in an article about her.

I had just re-written it yesterday since Yamara had pointed out to me that in its previous form it was more like an advertising than an objective encyclopedic text. I've cleaned all, to what I thought was to the absolute bone. To then have the entire section removed by you, not Yamara, without further advance notice and especially after I've just requested to give me time for re-writing by inserting a "hangon" mark, is a quite a stunt.


Here's my argumentation against this section being covert advertising: This specific kind of body work has been around since the 1960s. It has been written about by others than me, and others than Kinetic Awareness practitioners (although admittedly not many) These are a.o. Sally Banes and Anne-Sargent Wooster. Given that I have correctly understood the guidelines, the writings of these two women are qualified as secondary research, and I have mentioned them in the sources. In these articles you will find the historical information from which sources Summers developed this body work, about how the work is structured and what its goals are. The approach to exercises in this body work is a characteristic, other body work has very different strategies. I fail to see how the listing of these items still qualify as hidden advertising. The one thing I could have done, on re-reading is to change the in-text weblink to the Kinetic Awareness Center and put it down to the links at the bottom.

When you find time to respond I'd appreciate it, also if you'd leave a mark that in any case you've read this. Thomas Körtvélyessy 23:54, 9 June 2007 (UTC)


Hello Thomas. I have removed the section on Kinetic Awareness because it was neither about Elaine Summers nor about her involvement in Kinetic Awareness. It used the role of Summers in Kinetic Awareness to promote Kinetic Awareness itself. And while WP:COATRACK itself has no official status within Wikipedia, the points raised in it are consistent with many policies and guidelines. The section closely matched the first example of WP:COATRACK: "Joe Q. Random is a journalist. One day he wrote an article about Conspiracy Theory X. The main points of Conspiracy Theory X are as follows ... followed by page after page about the conspiracy theory." The first paragraph had no problems, it simply spoke of Summers' involvement with Kinetic Awareness. The "coatracking" was what followed: an elaborate explanation of the five phases of Kinetic Awareness, without any explanation of Summers' role in this, followed by an advert regarding the beneficial aspects of Kinetic Awareness. That is irrelevant to Elaine Summers and violates Wikipedia:Spam ("advertisements masquerading as articles"). If you can rewrite the section, you can be bold and do so. But please be reminded that the article should be about Elaine Summers, not about Kinetic Awareness. For future reference, the {{hangon}} should not be placed on talk pages. Please remove it and place it on the content page. tag is not the appropriate template for what you had in mind. {{hangon}} should not be placed on talk pages. Please remove it and place it on the content page. is used to contest a nomination for speedy deletion. If you wish to indicate that the article is undergoing a major edit, you may want to use any of the templates in Wikipedia:Template messages/Maintenance#Articles undergoing major edits. AecisBrievenbus 00:04, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


Dear Aecis! Thank you very much for your quick and detailed answer. I appreciate your points and line of argumentation as very clear and logically well-reasoned. I will try to respond accordingly by giving it a second try, now having quite a bit more clarity about your points of objections. Thank you again for being specific and to the point.

My plan is to be more tight with the references on which I base my content in this section, especially where it concerns validation of reliable secondary sources about Elaine Summers as the originator of Kinetic Awareness, and being very sec about the work itself, indeed presenting its proclaimed aims and perspective as exactly that, not as facts. I will also try to get this done for the entire article.

It may be a long way before I will reach the detailedness that I find in the comparable article on Moshe Feldenkrais, but I will go for it. I will notify you when I have the section ready. Once again thanks for your prompt sincerity. best wishes, Thomas Körtvélyessy 22:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)