Talk:Somena

August 2009

This article was created by Meaghan Champion-Williams (nee Walker-Williams), who edits (edited?) Wikipedia as Somena (talk · contribs). She also blogs at http://somenamedia.blogspot.com, but that blog is "open to invited readers only".

When I took a quick look at the article, I noticed that most of the links were to things at http://somenamedia.blogspot.com. So I took a closer look. Of the 19 links present, 16 were to that blog. Of the remaining 3 links:

• http://www.fcpp.org/main/publication_detail.php?PubID=163 is an op-ed which mentions Meaghan Walker-Williams but not the Somena people.

• http://www.aboriginaltimes.com/taxation/prepaid-taxes/view currently redirects to an article on another registered-users-only website

• http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/aboriginalplanet/mission/mcps02august16-22-en.asp is a dead link.

As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia aims to provide good sources for what our articles say. Closed websites and blogs are not acceptable as sources (except in rare cases which do not apply here).

So I tried Googling for various things mentioned in the article. In over an hour of searching, I failed to find anything acceptable as a source. Much more remarkably, every relevant hit was to content created by user:Somena!

It would appear that Ms Champion-Williams put a lot of time and effort into making her family's dispute with the Cowichan Tribes leadership as visible as possible on the Internet, as well as other disputes she has been part of.

So I went through the article and removed everything that was unsourced or badly sourced, keeping only facts from related Wikipedia articles. The result is a much shorter article, so I tagged it as a stub:

The Somena (or S’amuna’) are one of several Indigenous Peoples living in the Duncan region of British Columbia, Canada.

The Somena were one of seven peoples were forced to amalgamate into one "band", forming the so-called "Cowichan tribe" or "Cowichan tribes". The other peoples were the Quamichan/Kw’amutsun (the largest cultural group), Clemclemaluts (L’uml’umuluts), Comiaken (Qwum’yiqun’), Khenipsen (Hinupsum), Kilpahlas (Tl’ulpalus), Koksilah (Hwulqwselu), and Quamichan (Kw’amutsun).

{{Coast Salish}}

{{FirstNations-stub}}

{{BritishColumbia-stub}}

I've also archived this talk page, mainly because it contained multiple WP:BLP violations.

Comments, criticism and corrections are welcome. Cheers, CWC 12:47, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I've tweaked what's left a bit, and had avoided the daring edits/cuts you've made, which were yes necessary. but I think something about the disputed leadership/cultural identity should remain, not sure how to cite it or describe it. "Indigenous sensitivity" means addressing both modern governmental/cultural structures as well as the traditional legacy and resulting disputes; some articles such as the dichotomy between Squamish Nation and Skwxwu7mesh or the way traditional governance has ben included in e.g. Hesquiaht First Nation or Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations do this with much less controversy/invective. This isn't the only case where once-separate peoples were combined into one band council, of course, and it's not t he only one where there are "thorny disputes" over who's in control and who should be. Some brief statement of User:Somena's dispute with the band government is needed; but as noted this is a common theme in FN politics /history so the issue is not limited to this article.Skookum1 (talk) 13:37, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for those edits, Skookum1. I like your version of this article better than mine.

The disputed leadership/cultural identity issue is a toughie. Judging by what I found (or didn't find) using Google, there's a real possibility that it has never been covered by reliable sources. I think I'll wish you good luck and tiptoe quickly away ... Cheers, CWC 21:47, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Somenos

Should there be see also sections, or textual description of some of the Somenos hits? Like Somenos Elementary School, Somenos Lake, Somenos Marsh Wildlife Society? DigitalC (talk) 20:28, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

something like "a variant form of the name of this people is "Somenos" which is found in various place and institutional names in the area...]then list them].". Only material relating to the Somena group of the Cowichan people should be here....Skookum1 (talk) 03:55, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

October 2010

I added some links, catergoys and porthoes to it today!--86.26.74.125 (talk) 09:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I thought the categories Category:Indigenous peoples of North America and Category:Pacific Northwest were too broad, so I've re-categorized the article to Category:Coast Salish, which is a subcategory of Category:First Nations in British Columbia and of Category:Native American tribes in Washington (U.S. state). Is that OK?

Having added categories and portals, user 86.26.74.125 (talk · contribs) then made a lot more changes, after which 82.11.95.254 (talk · contribs), made two more edits. I'm afraid I've undone most of these edits. Guys, the problem is that Wikipedia requires "verifiability" for statements in articles, by which we basically mean links to "reliable sources". Unfortunately, all the links you provided were to items at http://somenamedia.blogspot.com/, which does not count as a "reliable source" because (1) only invited people can read it and (2) it is a personal website created by an involved activist. To add info, you will need links to newspaper articles, academic papers or other fact-checked sources. (It does not matter whether a source is 'reliable' in the sense you or I would use that word off-wikipedia; what matters is that there is a formal fact-checking process in place.) User 86.26.74.125 wrote that

News articles pertaining to the Somena group have been published in the New York Times, National Post, Financial Post, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province, Cowichan Valley Citizen, Cowichan Newsleader, and the Homemakers Magazine, among others.

Do you have links to any of those articles? If so, we can use whatever the linked articles say about the Somena in the article. That would be good. Cheers, CWC 22:48, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I've added some sorces- --Wipsenade (talk) 15:30, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

--Wipsenade (talk) 15:29, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Err ... thanks, but three of those sources (tripatlas.com, nabut.com and answers.com) are not Reliable by Wikipedia standards, and http://cowichantribes.com/ doesn't seem to say anything useful here about the Somena people. So I've removed them, and we're back to 0 references again. CWC 17:16, 24 October 2010 (UTC)