Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 18:59, 16 August 2006

Worst holiday ever. Forreals.--70.48.212.94 05:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

We celebrate it in Wisconsin, too.

Error:

If the first Sweetest Day was celebrated in 1922, it didn't have anything to do with the Great Depression, which didn't occur until 7 years later. The "pieholes" comment in the first sentence could be expressed in a more credible voice, also.

The Real History of "Sweetest Day"

The Real History of Sweetest Day:

http://web.mac.com/miracleimpulse/iWeb/Site%203/Sweetest%20Day%20Slideshow.html

Note that someone is editing out all negative comments about "Sweetest Day" and "Hallmark Holidays" on this Misplaced Pages Site.

I wonder who would want to do that?

Go to "Edit History" and read former posts on this topic.

Disputed tag added

I've added a disputed tag to this article per the comments in this edit: . Someone knowlegeable needs to check this out... --HappyCamper 22:56, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

What people do on sweetest day

This article forgets to mention what people do on sweetest day. S Sepp 12:24, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: What People Do On Sweetest Day

On "Sweetest Day" a large group of people (Greeting Card Companies, Florists, Candy Companies, Retailers, etc) attempt to deceive an even larger group of people (Consumers) by telling them a fake story about this holiday in order to guilt them into buying their products in an otherwise slow season. "Isn't Halloween a big enough candy-buying holiday?" you ask. Yes, but people don't generally buy flowers and send greeting cards for Halloween. Hence the fraudulent story of Mr. Kingston and his acts of kindness. The promotion of "Sweetest Day" undermines the credibility of all companies which participate in this 85-year-old scam.

INDUSTRY IS SPINNING WIKIPEDIA

It is obvious from reading the former edits on the topic of "Sweetest Day" that industry is still spinning the story of "Sweetest Day" right here on Misplaced Pages. For example, on the most recent edit the editor states that he "removed scare quotes." The quotes removed were:

"World War Two did not interrupt the promotion of "Sweetest Day." Neither did the events of 9/11/2001. American Greetings, Hallmark, Retail Confectioners International and every retailer who participates in this manufactured "holiday" have promoted "Sweetest Day" five times since 9/11/2001."

These statements are not "scare quotes," they are NEUTRAL FACTS.

If the NEUTRAL FACTS of the history of "Sweetest Day" are disturbing, perhaps America and these industries should reconsider this engineered "observance."

It IS disturbing that while hundreds of thousands of American Service Personnel were being killed and MILLIONS were being exterminated by ANTI-SENTIMENT during World War Two, the Candy Industry never gave up on it's MANIPULATION of American Consumers.

It IS disturbing that American Greetings and Hallmark have elected to spin a fake "holiday" for America 5 TIMES since the events of 9/11/2001 and War on Terror began. Especially given the FACT that they are blocking all patented new greeting card products from the US Greeting Card Marketplace in order to keep their OBFUSCATED MONOPOLY level.

These NEUTRAL FACTS will be re-inserted into the edit; Americans have a right to know and understand and make decisions based on ALL THE FACTS.

(Note: the above comments were added by 24.12.179.210)

Hello, 24.12,179.210. Welcome to Misplaced Pages, and thank you for your contributions, which I agree are valuable to present the complete background of Sweetest Day.

On another note, however, it appears that some of the changes you made to this article do not conform to Misplaced Pages's neutral point-of-view policy. For example, asserting that the histories posited by the candy industry are "contrived" (although I myself tend to agree that that is in fact an accurate description) most likely is an unacceptably loaded form of editorializing. Perhaps it might be more in line with Misplaced Pages's policies to change that section title simply to "The Candy Industry's Story," and let the readers draw their own conclusions regarding the factuality (or lack thereof) of the candy industry's putative history?

Certain other changes also tend to reflect a strong point of view on the validity of Sweetest Day, which probably should likewise be toned down to reduce possible inappropriate non-NPOV issues.

--Ryanaxp 23:37, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Scare quotes

Oh, I forgot to add one thing. In your (24.12.179.210) comments above, you seem to be confused with regard to the meaning of scare quotes. This phrase (scare quotes) does not refer to quotes that are believed to be appeals to the reader's fears, as you appear to have construed in your comments. Rather, "scare quotes" simply refers to putting quotation marks around words (see the beginning of this sentence, for example) in order to convey the author's skepticism or contempt for whatever is within the quotation marks.

So, I trust you understand that I did not remove any actual quotations (that is, words reflecting the statements or writings of a third person) from the article. What I did, however, was remove quotation marks from around the phrase Sweetest Day throughout the article. I did not do this because I disagree that Sweetest Day is a made-up holiday, but because scare quotes are generally contrary to good style (and in this case, represent inappropriate editorializing).

--Ryanaxp 23:48, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV Issues

This article is heavily slanted towards an anti-Sweetest Day point of view. While I tend to agree that Sweetest Day is probably the most blatant Hallmark holiday out there, this article needs to describe the holiday and the critism of the holiday while not using words and phrases like: "cynical", "scheme", "contrived", "cash cow", "guilt citizens into buying candy", "exploitative and engineered", "disinformation bandwagon", etc. I've tried to remove POV words from the first part of the article (though the end of "Origin of Sweetest Day" needs work). However the "Refutation of the Contrived Industry Story" section needs some major editing. It would also be good to cite sources (e.g. Plain Dealer articles). --Transfinite 22:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Now that I read this more, I have to wonder who the "critics" are, exactly. Just calling them critics is a textbook example of weasel words. Name names as far as who is opposed to this holiday. --Transfinite 00:42, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Dear Transfinite,

Editing out the facts is not the way to resolve an NPOV issue. Your edit looks more like an industry spin.

The Herbert Birch Kingston story of Sweetest Day is a fake, and there is no neutral point of view about it. Sweetest day was planned and executed by a committee of 12 candymakers, who spared no effort to influence the buying habits of Clevelanders beginning in 1921, not 1922.

October 8th, 2006 will be the 85th anniversary of the first Sweetest day, which was staged in Cleveland by the Candy Industry on October 8th, 1921.

Here are photos of the 12 real Founders of Sweetest Day, which were published in The Cleveland Plain Dealer on October 8th, 1922:

http://en.wikipedia.org/Image:12_Founders_of_Sweetest_Day_2.JPEG

The names of the 12 Candy Makers who founded Sweetest Day were:

C.R. CANTER, A.E. BARTON, R.T. FULLER, J.J. WILSDON, R.H. SHEEHAN, W.A. KATZENMEYER, A.A. SAROUCH, LOUIS HAHN, W.J. NICHOLS, C.C. HARTSELL (chairman of the "Sweetest Day in the Year Committee"), L. NARWOOD, and L.E. GRUBER.

Note that Herbert Birch Kingston is NOT among them. Herbert Birch Kingston disappeared from the Cleveland Census after 1920 and never reappeared.

The Herbert Birch Kingston Story of the origins of Sweetest Day is NOT verifiable. Although a Google search for Mr. Kingston turns up over 200,000 results, an image search Turns up ZERO results. Unless a photo of Mr. Kingston is published on this site and Mr. Kingston is somehow linked to the origins of Sweetest Day, your edit of this topic is a FRAUD.

Are you sure you aren't an Industry Spindoctor trying to prep this site for Sweetest Day 2006?

Miracleimpulse 18:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)