Change Log

for What Is Contra Dance?

21 December 2021

• Nutrasweet Corporation has not used aspartame since 2014, so a link to one of their page was broken. Their current sweetening product is based on stevia extracts.

18 November 2010

• Minor word changes above contents and in Definition 0.

3 November 2010

• Youtube link now makes the recommended search for you.
• Repaired two or three broken links.

2 November 2010

• Re-wrote Definition #0.

14 April 2008

• Added a link for Oliver North. Minor word changes in Multimedia.

28 December 2007

• Embedded the YouTube video sample from an instructional DVD

28 December 2006

• Toned down the stuff about country line dancing.
• Added a link for History of Contra Dance.
• Noted the existence of contra dance videos on YouTube.

29 August 2006

• Changed the link for where to find contra dances.
• Removed Joel's email address. I'm sure the address is not working anymore.
• Added link for Wikipedia's definition.
• Changed the name of one section.
• Another suggestion for dizziness.

21 August 2006

• Removed the link for Sarah Davis paintings as the paintings are no longer there.

1 March 2006

• Added a link for a page about Irish Set Dancing.
• Added a link for a page about Scottish Country Dancing.

13 February 2004

• Added "might have" to the etymology section.

26 August 2003

• Made the credit to Dance Awakening for the graphic more obvious.
• Added ellipses to the Credits and Thanks section.

19 June 2003

• Added a link for Sarah Davis' paintings.
• Updated the pro-aspartame link.
• Added an "About English Country Dance" link.
• Changed some words here and there.

12 February 2003

• Updated the link for Doug Plummer's photographs.

5 September 2002

• Replaced a dead link with a link to Charlie Seeling's Contra Dance Links page.

9 April 2002

• Made it explict that I created the page.

24 August 2000

• Added a boast about the ancientness of the page.
• The word "usually" has been inserted into the sentence, "A caller, usually working with a group of live musicians..."
• Added a link to a discussion on "contra dance" etymology.

17 October 1999

• Heavier promotion of the Contra Dance Primer. It's up at the top now.
• Added some meta tags for the search engines, and an invisible javascript counter. Which means visitors without javascript enabled are invisible as far as the counter is concerned.

30 June 1999

• Added some text to the section on dizziness regarding keeping your head level, and ginger.

18 December 1998

• Added a link to the Contra Dance Primer.

30 October 1998

• Moved the credits at the top to join the other credits at the bottom.
• Added some words at the top of the page.
• Added an attribution to the analogy definition.

30 July 1998

• Updated a stale URL.
• Added links to the "What Is English Country Dance?" page.

7 April 1998

• Fun with style sheets.
• Added a new link for Dance Awakening a little late. It's still more up-to-date than the old link (Kiran's).

7 February 1998

• Fixed a typo made on 16 December 1997 in the Kirchner anchor.

16 December 1997

• Changed the links to Kiran's page to David Kirchner's Contra Dance Indicies page, since Kiran's pages were getting a little long in tooth.
• Added more (mis?)information to the dizziness topic.
• Added a link to Doug Plummer's page of Contra and Square dance photographs.

25 March 1997

• Added a new definition, #0. (I wanted it to be first but was too lazy to renumber the others.)
• Made changes and additions to the Defintion 1 paragraph on eye contact.
• Changed the anti-nutrasweet link to a working one and added a pro-nutrasweet link.
• Added the phrase "full-tilt" before "multimedia" because, apparently, "multimedia" means any medium or media in association with computers, not several different media deployed in concert.
• Added a paragraph at the end of the section on learning to contra dance.
• Subtle word changes here and there.

15 July 1996

• Added a new topic on dizziness.
• Rewrote first paragraph of the section "Why can't I find a multimedia..."
• Reworded the link to Kiran's contradance page.

14 May 1996

• Removed the embarrassing Bob Dylan reference altogether.
• Changed some words about avoiding dizzyness.
• Toned down slightly the slam against line dancing. (Or was that a line against slam dancing.)

13 March 1996

• Changed some plain text to a link. Didn't change the mod date.

5 September 1995

• Slight change to the title of Definition 5.
• Added two words to the section, "Why can't I find a multimedia..."

12 June 1995

• Added Definition 5.
• No longer invoke the cgi-bin code that counts accesses. It's buggy, at least on my ISP's system.

10 March 1995

• Smoothed out the graphic.
• Added words to Definition 2 regarding family dances.
• Added a paragraph to Definition 2 about dancing the opposite role.

2 March 1995

• Definition 1 (an earnest attempt):
  • Subtle and not-so-subtle changes in the first paragraph.
  • Added paragraphs about:
    • walk-throughs, calling, and the phase-out of calling
    • social aspects
    • children at dances
    • family dances
  • Added a gratuitous insult to men.
• Definition 2 (what contra dance is not):
  • Added words about the Nicaraguan contras.
  • Added words about footwear required by some groups.
• Definition 3 (whimsical)
  • Pointed out that it's not always true
  • Added a more prudent, less whimsical, description
• Why can't I find a multimedia...
  • Minor wording changes
• Other Web pages you should know about (new topic)
• Credit and Thanks (new topic)
• Added a link to this new document.
• I now ask readers to reload the page if it looks garbled. There seems to be a bug in the cgi-bin code that counts visits to the page. It sometimes loses a big chunk of text right before the visit count.

8 February 1995

• First edition