Archive 1

Origin and locations

How come it says at the top that it originated in Hungary, then when you go down to the Huangshan entry, it says it came from China? Which is it? Robin Chen (talk) 15:46, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Such locks exist in many places, I suspect. I've seen them at Huang Shan, for instance. --Fang Aili talk 19:46, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, didn't the reality game show The Amazing Race go to two different areas, one in Europe, one in China that had these?--293.xx.xxx.xx 22:09, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I figured out one location: Mount Hua in Amazing Race 6 was the place that had the locks on the chain.
I think I saw something similar on the Great Wall too. 68.197.164.179 22:52, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Personally I've seen them at Two Lover's Point on Guam. Mostly Japanese tourists have left them there. I have a picture somewhere at home of it. --Timepilot 23:55, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
In Odessa Ukraine, there's a famous bridge covered in love padlocks, the "Mother-in-law bridge".Pulu (talk) 01:23, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, we need a better source then the linked one which is mostly based on our own article. We need to know who said that the tradition originated from China or a reliable source on when love padlocks appeared in China. If noone comes up with a proper source in the next weeks, I will delete that part.--Korovioff 22:34, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

School-locker padlock

When I was in Pecs I was told that the tradition was started not by lovers but by students who would put their school-locker padlock on the railings on the day they left school. Adrian

I'll ask the other Hungarians about this, but school lockers aren't very common in Hungary. – Alensha talk 21:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
That's right, lockers are really not typical, usually keys are used in scools. What is probably true in the story is that students started the whole thing (there are several secondary schools and student hostels in the close neighbourhood). I guess, it's nothing but impossible to find out exactly how and why the first lock(s) got there. They are love padlocks, that's what we know :-) --Korovioff 23:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

This list is getting ridiculous

Okay, so they're all over the world. You can stop adding locations now, it's not even remotely encyclopedic. -91.180.101.115 (talk) 14:25, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Quite agree, also no mention of the cost of cleaning bridges and fences blighted by these items. This does not need to be a list – to be honest the page could quite easily be nominated for complete deletion, it's not encyclopaedic. --94.195.193.43 (talk) 18:25, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I've tried twice now to sanitize the list a bit, but both edits has been reverted by User:WhiteWriter (1 and 2). Currently the list includes 30-something locations in 28 countries and a lot of these are merely directory inclusions (Wikipedia:NOT#DIR) or travelguide like entries (Wikipedia:NOTTRAVEL). WP:N states that "editors may, at their discretion, choose to limit the size of large lists by including entries only for items that are independently notable or already have Wikipedia articles." which in my perspective seems to be the obvious case here, but apparently somebody disagrees. Any thoughts and comments are more than welcome. --Heb (talk) 10:24, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Further to the above I will - unless somebody provides some thoughts - remove listings/inclusions that are basically just "padlock can be found here", without any history or event-chain that makes them special. --Heb (talk) 09:07, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
But i am sorry, in both of your edits, several entries WITH articles have been removed. And what do you think about renaming this into List of Love padlocks? Then we can keep those, and this is already a list... :) --WhiteWriter speaks 10:58, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
It's not about entries WITH articles, but why they are there in the first place (and merely moved not removed any entries in the first edit). But please tell me which deleted entries from my second edit, that are not merely Wikipedia:NOT#DIR or Wikipedia:NOTTRAVEL? Because several (i.e. Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Canada) are in my view only directory listings and others (i.e. Czech Republic, Malta and Serbia) looks like they are cut out of some low budget tourist flyer. Honestly I find it very hard to believe that there is an encyclopaedic need for a long list of places with padlocks clamped to bridges et al. But of course there are some (guestimating like 10 or 15 at the very most), that has relevance and those should of course be included, but right now I can nothing but agree with whoever marked this as a laundry list. --Heb (talk) 14:32, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Hmm, ok. Well, i find it quite useful, interesting and encyclopedic to have list like this, and i dont think that it is Wikipedia:NOT#DIR or Wikipedia:NOTTRAVEL violation. But, anyway, i am open for cooperation. Well, what do you think that we leave those "others" (i.e. Czech Republic, Malta and Serbia), and to mention all of the rest below, (i.e. Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Canada) and not include them in the country sections? Or maybe to remove only those... --WhiteWriter speaks 10:23, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
I'm all for cooperation but thinking more along limiting both the "others" and the "rest" groups to just country-mentions in the introduction (something like "Besides the below mentioned locations, love padlocks are also found in Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Malta, Serbia, Sweden, etc..."). Should something of significance (i.e. a mention in a international newspaper, a conflict of sorts or similar that raises notability for a country/location then occur, then it can be moved into it's own section below. --Heb (talk) 11:23, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
OK, but i don't agree for Most Ljubavi in Serbia. Entire article is about the padlocks, and it is highly relevant. The lowest i can go, as you didn't compromised nothing, while i did... :) I really still think that this is useful enciclopedic article, and that removal is not needed, but if you insist... So, you may move all below, with mentioning, but Serbia's entry should stay. What do you say? --WhiteWriter speaks 11:59, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I actually think I was quite compromising, but I guess that is a matter of taste. As for the Serbian part, I understand you have some feelings in that, which is fine, but I'd like to point out that right now the article only contains one line regarding Serbia:

The Most Ljubavi, meaning "Bridge of Love", is the location where love padlocks can be found. The bridge is in the one of the oldest spa towns in Serbia.

IMO that doesn't promote or mention any sort of information, that raises notability of the item, but when I look at the article Most Ljubavi, there is a lot of information that raises notability of relevance to love padlocks, but this isn't visible on the list. If some of the padlock-information from the bridge article is inserted into this article, I think it definitely falls outside of both the "others" and the "rest" :). --Heb (talk) 13:38, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

  Done :) --WhiteWriter speaks 10:06, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

USA paragraph

Can someone change or delete the USA paragraph? It is terrible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.5.109.34 (talk) 19:47, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

List

Well, this article is a list now. And needs a lot more references. --WhiteWriter speaks 15:16, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

That list looks more and more like people quoting themselves ("Reliable sources report that the couple responsible for this illicit act is unrepentant. Half of the couple anonymously states, Blah blah blah" - hello? How is that notable, Mr. Half-the-Couple "Unrepentant and not very anonymous" 128.135.xxx.yyy?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.113.54.210 (talk) 17:10, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

USA

This article uses terms such as 'now' and 'becoming' without any temporal reference, which renders the article of little value. I nominate for updating or complete removal. LorenzoB (talk)

Instead of annihilating the article, perhaps the criticized parts should be removed if noone improves them, I guess. Love padlocks as an article is needed.--Korovioff 22:24, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Reboot?

What do you think about giving this article a fresh start? I'm thinking organize the entries either in a list (and declare this a list) or a table, with deletion of stuff that isn't referenced or find-able? Kind of heavy-handed, but this "article" is pretty useless as-is. My other concern is that there might not also be a lot of sources for these...

Thoughts?

-nstannik (talk) 14:07, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

There are two things that I would like to see discussed here.
First, and most obvious thing I can think of to make this article useful, are the socio-cultural reactions to this trend. How are the local governments where these occur dealing with them? Which ones allow them, which ones ban them? Exactly how much money *do* cities spend cleaning these off of the bridges? How does the general public feel about them? Why do they appear on some places in town but not others?
Second, something I'm just sort of curious about, do we know for sure that the majority of these locks were placed by couples? What about single people or groups of people who are just doing this for fun? What about students celebrating the last day of school, as mentioned above? 71.13.147.17 (talk) 18:08, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Note that pretty much the same issue, was debated very recently under the headline This list is getting ridiculous just above. Though very few gave comments, the "consensus" was that only entries with some form of significance (i.e. a mention in a international newspaper, a conflict of sorts or similar that raises notability for a country/location) should be mentioned more specifically. --Heb (talk) 13:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Major WP:COPYEDIT of the article

I have given the article a major WP:COPYEDIT (/overhaul) today with reference to the above sections This list is getting ridiculous and Reboot?, though several of the other sections also applies. When I started the article was marked {{Refimprove}} and {{Cleanup-laundry}} and to a large extent resembled a directory or a travelguide. Though some people might feel especially strong for their town/country inclusions, a lot of it in fact only was unsourced inclusions with a reference to an address or similar. I would like to encourage people to reinsert their inclusions only, if they fall into the Controversies or Legends and superstitions connected to love padlocks sections (or of course a new third one if needed) and as such have something that raises them from the "basic mass of places", so this article retain a more encyclopaedic style and doesn't go back to it's previous largely unsourced list style. --Heb (talk) 10:22, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Bravo, Heb, really good job! -WhiteWriter speaks 10:45, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. As you - better than most - know it took me a couple of tries, before I found the right style ;o) --Heb (talk) 14:12, 21 August 2011 (UTC)