Talk:Dreadlocks

Jeeze! Why the photo of the white guy with the disheveled looking, unkempt dreads? I think a photo of the real deal would be far better. Find someone with coarse, naturally nappy, well-groomed hair, please! deeceevoice 15:17, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Deleted passage about dreads being low-maintenance. If you've got long nappy hair, dreads can be pretty high-maintenance (and heavy). Removed the backshot (

Woman with braids

) of the woman with braids. They're not dreads, so they're not applicable to this article. deeceevoice 19:54, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Caucasian

I do not like the term caucasian, so I changed it to whites to refer to people of european descent. I am not sure about the Wikipedia policy on this…

There is no set policy. Whites are Caucasians; the two words are interchangeable (but it is capitalized). But, hey, whatever floats your boat. deeceevoice 11:44, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There's a problem in a fundamental premise

The article says: "For locks of fairly uniform size and neatness, most blacks will begin the process by oiling and sectioning off the hair into small braids or tightly twisted tufts."

This is factually incorrect. It's well known that oiling the hair that is to be locked will actually slow down the locking process for black people with 'black' hair. It's fine to oil the scalp, but not the hair. In fact, one MUST oil the scalp for general scalp health.

The basic way to form dreadlocks in 'black hair' is simply to not comb it. The person who wishes to wear locks can oil their scalp regularly, should wash frequently (in salt water if available) and do all general forms of hair upkeep. The two things that should not be done are combing and cutting.

It's as simple as that. I can't speak authoritatively on how it occurs for people with straighter hair, but there's how black folks make it happen in the Rasta tradition. There is no twisting or braiding involved. In fact, anything that makes the locking process easier or faster is regarded as something akin to sacrilege among the Rasta faithful.

Of course, there are other locking methods and traditions that have emerged. They are alternately called Nubian Locks, African Locks, etc. (eschewing the negative connotations of 'dread'). These other traditions may employ different methods to start or maintain locks, but the fundamental fact is that oiling the lock itself retards the locking process. --Adisa 06:29, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

This page is terrible

I don't think I've seen a worse page. I'm not really informed about dreadlocks, a fact I was trying to remedy by looking to this page, so if anyone is, please help me out here. I removed the list of celebrities with dreadlocks because that was the fecal topping to the whole ordeal, but other things may need some informed editing. --TheGrza 23:03, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

Besides the removal of the pointless celebrities, I have also removed some of the more pointless information. I would suggest that whoever edits this page next remove all the information pertaining to "How To" and include, maybe some actual information. I fixed it about as much as I am informed enough to do, but it needs a lot more work.--TheGrza 23:21, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

Well, well! lol Don't be afraid to speak your mind. If you thought this page was crap when you got here, you should have seen it before.

Yeah, I know you don't oil black hair before you start dreads. I was thinking about oiling the scalp. Such cognitive slips, incomplete/screwy edits happen when people compose and type at the same time. Not a big deal. If you see an error, then correct it. But you didn't. So, I went back and did it.

Yes, the business about hair care, arguably, can be omitted. And while you may disagree with its inclusion, it is "actual" information. As far as the list of people with dreads -- obviously, someone thought it important enough, or of interest enough, to add. (It seems that articles on Wiki are replete with such lists.) The same is true of the links. I am inclined to leave them. I think your criticisms are a lot of bluster without much substance, frankly, and consisted primarily of deleting information you deem extraneous. It's likely others who may have included the info in the first place will come behind you and restore it. I did revert a split verb you edited into the text, but left much of your edits untouched. I'll leave that to others who may feel strongly about one thing or another.

One thing that would be extremely helpful if you have the time, however, that I think we may both agree on is the need for a decent photo. There was one earlier of a white guy with some fairly nasty-looking dreads -- hardly the example one reasonably would expect in such an article but typical of what kind of crap one sees on Wikipedia all the time. Someone deleted it, thankfully. And I deleted the photo of a woman with braids as irrelevant. But now there's no pic at all. If you have access to a decent photo of some real dreads (read "black" and "nappy" and preferably beautifully groomed) without copyright problems, it'd be great if you'd add it. deeceevoice 01:09, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

To your response- The only posts I made were under this heading so I made no reference to "oiling" or any such information. Like I said, I am not really informed on how dreadlocks are created and I am in no position to make such comments. To your second point, which was the list, I thought the reasoning behind deleting it would be obvious to all, but apparently it is not. The list of "People with dreadlocks" is both infinitely incomplete and doesn't actually give us any information about the dreadlocks. If you feel the list is necessary, why not include everyone who has had hair on the Hair page or all the famous people with tattoos on the tattoo page. Also, the links were all "How To make dreadlocks" links. I really don't think there needs to be seven links to the same type of webpages. If someone thinks that there should be more, put them back, it isn't that big of a deal. They're just incredibly repetative. Perhaps someone would consider posting a link about Dreadlocks themselves, that might be interesting after all. To the picture, I'll try to find one. I'm not sure why it needs to be black, but I'll see what I find. And yes, I did say what I thought. The page was and still is crap and needs to be fixed a lot. --TheGrza 02:34, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

Nope. I never said the list was necessary. I said I have no strong feelings about it one way or another -- merely that others might. After all, I've seen such lists attached to all sorts of articles on Wiki, so that seems to be a Wiki peculiarity. With regard to links, I think I added one to the list -- only because there was no decent photo available, and the link I provided had a few pics of black folks with dreads. And, yes. The dreadlocks photo should definitely be of a black person -- for, I think, fairly obvious reasons, which I will not debate. deeceevoice 08:03, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)