Talk:Behalt

Copy edit question

@Valereee: I am reviewing this article at your request to the GOCE. A question, you quote Susan Biesecker-Mast who said Behalt is "an effort to exceed the tourist economy of Holmes County by offering a transformative rhetoric for its visitors." This is an unclear statement. I tried to read the original source, but there's a paywall of sorts. What does "exceed the tourist economy of Holmes County" mean? Does she think Behalt will generate more ticket revenue? More people will travel to Berlin? Thanks. It's a fascinating article; I've never seen Behalt, maybe I'll go this summer. Cleveland Todd (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

@Cleveland Todd, thanks! My interpretation is that she's talking about making a visit to Amish country not simply be an opportunity to eat homecooked meals and buy quilts and take photos but to actually become knowledgeable about the area you're visiting. Rather than treating the area like it's some sort of ersatz theme park, realize that it is actually where real people live real lives. But I don't want to interpret her, which is why I quoted her. I think it's okay that this isn't 100% clear. valereee (talk) 16:55, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Oh, and absolutely worth seeing! The whole center is great. valereee (talk) 16:55, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

@Valereee: OK, I understand your explanation, so I'll just leave the quote a tad unclear. One more question (like Colombo). In 2006, an editor added a "stub" tag to the article. Without intensive review of the way the article has grown, it certainly doesn't seem like a stub to me. Should I remove the tag? Cleveland Todd (talk) 17:10, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

@Cleveland Todd, yes, once you believe a tag is no longer needed, you can remove with with an explanation in the edit summary. I agree it's no longer a stub. valereee (talk) 19:35, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

@Valereee: OK.I hope these are my final questions. (You probably do too)

1. In the Funding secton, Helen Smucker offers funding of many things. But something must have happened as she ended up owning “shares” which were purchased by investors. What happened? Did they incorporate? Develop a partnership? Did the shareholders own the painting? Did Gaugel own shares? Anyone else?
2. Citations. I’m pretty sure these references are accurate, but they are not confirmable. References 5, 7, 8, 9, 11,12, 13, 14, 16 all link to non-existent Wikipedia articles. I’m sure certain if this is important or not. To check these citations, someone would probably need to go to a library in Holmes County. Cleveland Todd (talk) 19:50, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Hey, @Cleveland Todd, ask as many questions as you like. The funding issues are incredibly complicated, and I decided the details weren't important enough to try to get into. (Basically as far as I can determine: Smucker died, her heirs maybe wanted to sell the painting to the highest bidder (?), someone accused the artist of delaying things for his own reasons, the painting was seized by the sheriff and locked in a jail cell in Holmes County, a judge ruled that Gaugel could have it back but couldn't call it Behalt or work on it/display it in Ohio, Gaugel moved with the painting to PA, a group of Holmes Co Mennonites were concerned that the painting was being controlled by non-Anabaptists, and over a period of multiple years they came up with a plan to buy the painting (from someone in a way that would address the court ruling), Gaugel moved back to Ohio and completed the painting. It's all very complicated.)

The citations, yep, were from actual browned newspaper clippings in a manila file, as I visited the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center a couple weeks ago for several days and expanded this article from their files, some of which may not be available online/yet/ever. When we find such citations in a WP article, we accept them per WP:AGF unless they seem iffy, in which case we may add a tag marking them as unverifiable or dubious. We do accept offline sources, though, and we don't consider the fact a source isn't available online as intrinsically a problem. Only if something seems controversial or otherwise iffy, really. valereee (talk) 20:14, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

@Valereee: Thanks, Valereee. I'll probably just clean up the funding section a little bit. I'm also almost done with the copyedit. I like to finish, let it sit a day, then see if I like it. You had some very nice prose in the Description and Critical Commentary sections on some complex descriptions and interpretations. Thank you. Should I remove the links to the non-existent Wiki articles? I don't think Orrviews is ever going to get its own article. Or just leave it? Thanks for your patience and response to all my questions; I really enjoyed working on this article and will go to Berlin some day Cleveland Todd (talk) 20:29, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

I prefer to leave the redlinks in the references, as I think it provides information (how important is this source? How influential?), but you can use your own judgement. When you respond to a post, insert one more colon than the previous response in order to get the right indentation.

I'm glad you enjoyed the article! :) valereee (talk) 20:33, 1 March 2022 (UTC)