Talk:YMCA

YMCA and Christianity

How much is Christianity tied to YMCA these days?

Depends on the country. In many European and East Asian countries, the YMCA is an evangelical organization, but in the US and Canada it's quite secular. - jredmond 15:43, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

-Parts of the US are secular, parts are not.

Lodging, Food & Beverage Facilities

In the article, I didn't see a mention about lodging, food and beverage facilities. The YMCA in Singapore, Hong Kong and almost everywhere in the world has this facilities. Could someone add that in. Or is this a seperate entry from the lodging place, YMCA. This goes the same for YWCA. Thanks. --Terence Ong (恭喜发财) 13:39, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Not every Y has residence facilities, but many do; check Google. I'll add something about this. Jordan Brown 07:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Check out this link for YMCAs with residence. http://www.ymca.int/index.php?id=address Some are hostels/hotels while others are student or social housing. This is a listing of many national addresses and those with an asterick should have a residence.User: CS 12:08, 16 December 2006

Hey There - I think the original comment from Terence highlights something of a problem with some of the original article (especially sections: Activities, Parent and Family and Residences), i.e. the bias towards the YMCA in the US. This is in no way a criciticism of the work of the YMCA in the US, nor of the original author/s - but wonder what possibilities exist for making the general sections more inclusive, and moving nation-specific work to separate sections? Cheers for now S J B 15:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Dhodges reorged the article a few weeks ago to move most of the North American stuff into its own section. I just added a few qualifiers on some remaining parts that were US-specific but didn't make that clear. Any suggestions for particular reorgs or rewordings would be welcome. (Or do them yourself, of course.) Unfortunately, us US-centric types don't *have* a lot of information on non-US YMCAs... Jordan Brown 08:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Promotion of Individual YMCAs or Programs

Please note, this is not the place to promote individual YMCAs or YMCA programs, this is an article about the YMCA in general. You are welcome (encouraged!) to add to the article, but please remember the core YMCA values of Honesty and Respect and do not try to hijack the page.

The External Links section seems to be accumulating links to national YMCA web sites and to a few individual YMCAs. Should there be an organized place to put these links? It seems like listing local YMCAs here won't scale. (But see WP:NOT.) Jordan Brown 00:52, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I've added a note requesting that people not add links below the national level. If somebody thinks it worthwhile to create another article listing individual YMCAs, let's talk about it here. Jordan Brown 01:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Swimming

the naked swimming issue should be dealt with by pointing it out to the YMCA itself and asking for historical evidence

I deleted the "The following is in dispute" line in the nude swimming paragraph because it seems pretty clear that there actually was nude swimming (see photo on the skinny dipping page.) The source next to that line wasn't too clear; I think whoever put it there wanted us to see the clothed swimming team in the photo on that page as evidence that nude swimming wasn't necessarily widespread, but it's more reasonable to assume they were dressing up for the camera or something. 151.203.178.253 22:57, 4 July 2006 (UTC) John S.

Funding sources

I'd like some information how the YMCA is funded and how much annual income they generate. These enormous fitness complexes that have been popping up in my city seem like they would cost more to build and operate than what they could ever recoup in membership fees. --Navstar 15:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

As registered charities YMCAs all publish audited financial financial statements. Googling "YMCA annual report" or "YMCA financial report" will bring up a whole slew of them. --Dhodges

Can someone integrate this information into the entry? --Navstar 22:53, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there anything interesting or notable you were thinking of? It seems to me that their funding is pretty similar to other charitable organizations, a mix of membership, charitable donations, and government support. Of course, tax-free status makes things a lot easier.-Dhodges 00:16, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Gay Subculture

I don't see any mention of this, nor of the song YMCA at all here, except for a minor link at the bottom. maybe i'll add a heading to draw attention to the significance. can i do that? Donthaveaspaz 20:46, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

YMCA Camps

I don't see any mention of YMCA Camps here, despite the fact that there are 289 YMCA camps, in most of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and the YMCA has had camps for over 130 years. Find YMCA Camps

Actually, the article does mention summer camp under Building healthy minds and a strong community.-Dhodges 22:30, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

In Sitcoms

It's funny, the general concept in America is that "The Y" is where you go to work out, but in older sitcoms it seems to be primarily referenced as where men sleep when temporarily kicked out by their wives. Was this ever a common practice, just renting a room at the Y for a couple of nights? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.122.63.142 (talk • contribs) 14:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC).

As noted above, some Ys still offer lodging. According to the YMCA history page, in 1940 there were 100,000 YMCA rooms, more than any hotel chain. Jordan Brown 07:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Header material

20:42, 11 November 2006 218.167.175.17 added some historical material, references to YMHA, YWCA, et cetera. While I've never heard of the YMHA, I've certainly heard of the YWCA and the rest of the material seems correct so I WP:AGF that the stuff I don't know about is correct too.

20:22, 12 November 2006 71.36.101.184 added some commentary about sex which, whether or not it's true, seems like an inappropriate presentation.

22:06, 12 November 2006 69.159.6.101 reverted (without comment) both of these changes. I'm assuming that the real intent was only to revert the latter change, so I've reverted it again to achieve that goal. We can talk here if that wasn't the intent.

Jordan Brown 17:51, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

My bad, you are correct, I meant to only revert the latter change, thanks for catching.

YMHA is indeed an organization as to the YMBA i would WP:AGF that it also exists, but I'm assuming it's obscure. As well, the YMCA might have been an evangelical parachurch organization 125 years ago, but it really isn't in most countries today as far as I can tell. Perhaps these references should move to the history section?

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.223.91.26 (talk • contribs) 03:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC).

Perhaps, no strong feeling. My only real opinion was that the "productive" content shouldn't be removed without comment, and since we've established that that was an error that's not an issue any more.

Jordan Brown 05:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

History and Mission

I made some changes to the page, specifically relating to the history and mission. I also added some additional information about YMCAs in other countries and the World Alliance of YMCAs. I found that most of the content centered on YMCA programmes in the US. While it's true that the US YMCA is the largest, it is fairly unique in its programming. Most of the 124 YMCAs worldwide do not have the same programs. YMCA programming is reflective of the community in which it serves, and the realities in most countries are very different than that of the US. So, I hope the changes are acceptable to those who have been posting to this page and that I haven't removed/changed/moved anything so as to be offensive to anyone who posted it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wa communication team (talk • contribs) 21:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC).

Your changes look mostly good to me. (Some of the US-centric stuff was mine... sigh.) The History section seems a bit awkward. Perhaps there should be a prose section describing the history of the Y in a couple of paragraphs, and a timeline section showing notable events in bullet form. Regardless, the timeline part should be consistent - the current text has some "in 1937, ..." entries, some "1950: ..." entries, and a few "1950 ..." entries. I could take a whack at separating the two, but don't really have the time to do it right.

Jordan Brown 07:57, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I agree. Unfortunately, it looks as if someone reverted back to the page as it was prior to any changes I made. All of my information was accurate and taken from the global YMCA archives in Geneva, Switzerland. As the page stands now, it has good information about the US YMCA but does not accurately reflect the YMCA as a worldwide movement. Moreover, some of the information is actually incorrect (for example, there are 124 National Movements rather than 122). The comment that the triangle logo is only used in the US and Canada is also incorrect. I am not interested in having an editing war, but I feel strongly that this page could better reflect the scope of YMCA work and its presence in the global community. Any ideas what I should do? I don't know the Wikipedia etiquette on reverting back to a prior page. Also, I have photos to support much of the historical section that I added previously, but I am not sure how to upload them. Do you have any advice? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.14.100.36 (talk) 17:57, 16 December 2006 (UTC).

Sorry, forgot to log in/sign. I am C.S., a volunteer for the WA communication team —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.14.100.36 (talk) 18:01, 16 December 2006 (UTC).

Check again; I don't see any reversion. You had four revs, then Dhodges fixed your bullet list, then I did a little cleanup in the External Links section. Jordan Brown 20:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

How strange. When I type "YMCA" into the wikipedia home page, it pulls up the original text. Then, if I change tabs to "discussion" or "history" and go back to "article" the text is as I revised it. I've tried it 3 times. I think I'm going crazy. Anyway, I will work on the history and standardizing the timeline as you suggested. User: CS

Sounds like a browser cache or caching proxy issue. Try searching, so that you end up at the "old" version, and then shift+refresh to force the caches to be flushed. Jordan Brown 22:50, 16 December 2006 (UTC)