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Phrasing for inequality RFC segment.

I had to start this section because the above one falsely labels Ellen's preferred text "RFC-approved" at the top, when the RFC closer went out of his way to say the material was allowed "in some form", clearly not a rubber stamp approval of her phrasing. Also, I proposed the broader, neutral alternative text during the RFC discussion, not after it, and the above section omits some sourcing involved.

Proposal A	Proposal B
Growing income inequality and wealth concentration have resulted in affluent individuals, powerful business interests and other economic elites gaining increased influence over public policy.	The extent and relevance of income inequality is a matter of debate.

References

The sources were consolidated into two references with internal breaks to save space in the article.

I made the alternative proposal as a way to include Ellen's sources while avoiding a POV and niche topical skew, particularly one based on a few avante garde, cutting edge, highly subjective research papers of the type we should always be cautious about using as sources. Proposal B deals with the inequality issue in a broader way more appropriate to this article's detail level, neutrally covering opinions on it from all angles, including from a number of established, notable experts. It also includes Ellen's material in a closed way that requires no further expansion, while Proposal A would spark the addition of counterpoints and other controversial talking points deemed of interest to various editors, leading to dramatic article bloat in a page already deemed too long by most and likely contentious edit warring.

A fair discussion can't take place in the above section, where Ellen admits she was pissed off, which may have warped its construction, so I'll ask EllenCT, C.J. Griffin, Casprings, RightCowLeftCoast, Capitalismojo, Mattnad, and anyone else who has participated in this discussion or wants to to do so here. Let's iron out a consensus phrasing. Do you favor one of the above proposals? A modified version? Do you have an entirely different proposal? VictorD7 (talk) 21:46, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Strongly prefer B and oppose A for reasons given. VictorD7 (talk) 21:47, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

How many times do you think you can keep calling a new vote while you're losing? I propose including the Wall Street Journal's recent graphic. EllenCT (talk) 22:40, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Just establishing a fairer baseline. BTW, how many visuals do you want in the Income section, lol? VictorD7 (talk) 02:44, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Do you know where to get the time series for the data on pages 12 and 13 of [1]? It might also be good to present that along with asset ownership by demographic categories from the triennial FRB consumer survey as we had discussed doing elsewhere. EllenCT (talk) 16:30, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

So you're advocating having at least three and maybe four images in the Income section alone? No, I don't think we should be adding any new images now, especially overly detailed ones on such selectively niche topics. There are multiple editors having a completely separate discussion above about the Income section being way too long and advocating cutting it to maybe a sentence or two. Don't stretch the rubber band too far or you may not like where it lands when you let go. VictorD7 (talk) 17:49, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I prefer A in a copy edited for or this one if not edited. But I also support adding the additional source Ellen provides.

What type of copy editing did you have in mind? And what do you mean by "this one" if not edited? VictorD7 (talk) 02:44, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd prefer to see some slight modification:

Increased income inequality and the concentration of capital have resulted in growing individual affluence and created a select economic force, giving business interests more influence over public policy.[1][2][3]

But I could live with the original text for now if I had to.--Mark Miller (talk) 17:52, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Don't you think Proposal A should at least be attributed as opinion rather than presented as fact in Wikipedia's voice? And would you support other editors expanding the broader inequality discussion to include views like those from the well credentialed experts I cited above? VictorD7 (talk) 17:56, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

No, I believe that statement A is sourced correctly with expert academic journals. It could be expanded with opinion sources like editorials in support (which in turn would need balance of opposing opinion), but how much weight should be given to opinion or editorials can be very difficult in short summary like this. These do appear to be correct and accurate trends recorded and documented in a number of ways. We could add more supporting primary sources such as the CBO reports and a vast amount of work and research by a number of editors on this subject. I once went to DRN over this subject and the way it was being presented. My main concern is the encyclopedic tone, but the facts were well established in the DRN by two other editors.--Mark Miller (talk) 18:54, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Mark, you realize that much of what appears in academic journals is opinion, don't you? This topic in particular isn't hard science, and these aren't long established, consensus expert conclusions resulting from a mature discussion. Have you read these articles? These are tentative, recent, cutting edge articles with conclusions that just happen to line up with the authors' political agendas. They're subjectively constructed (being a humanities topic) and filled with speculative assumptions other researchers don't share. What's more, they acknowledge this. Gilens himself states that (564), "Here—in a tentative and preliminary way—we offer such a test, bringing a unique data set to bear on the problem. Our measures are far from perfect, but we hope that this first step will help inspire further research into what we see as some of the most fundamental questions about American politics." Gilens even acknowledges that much of the empirical evidence and many scholars disagree with his views: (page 565) "..a good many scholars—probably more economists than political scientists among them—still cling to the idea that the policy preferences of the median voter tend to drive policy outputs from the U.S. political system. A fair amount of empirical evidence has been adduced—by Alan Monroe; Benjamin Page and Robert Shapiro; Robert Erikson, Michael MacKuen, and James Stimson (authors of the very influential Macro Polity); and others—that seems to support the notion that the median voter determines the results of much or most policy making".

Bartels even admits that he hasn't proved the causal link asserted in Proposal A (29-31): "It is important to reiterate that I have been using the terms “responsiveness” and “representation” loosely to refer to the statistical association between constituents’ opinions and their senators’ behavior. Whether senators behave the way they do because their constituents have the opinions they do is impossible to gauge using the research design employed here. It is certainly plausible to imagine that senators consciously and intentionally strive to represent the views of (especially) affluent constituents. However, it might also be the case, as Jacobs and Page (2005) have suggested in the context of national foreign policy-making, that public opinion seems to be influential only because it happens to be correlated with the opinion of influential elites, organized interest groups, or the policy-makers themselves." Like Gilens, he goes on to state "There is clearly a great deal more work to be done investigating the mechanisms by which economic inequality gets reproduced in the political realm", and conceded "the significant limitations of my data and the crudeness of my analysis" meant more work is needed.

Actually these studies are garbage, full of methodological flaws pointed out by me and others elsewhere in previous discussions, but that's beside the point. It's not about whether they "appear to be correct and accurate" or not to you and me, but whether they represent the expert consensus, and the articles themselves admit they don't. The authors are nowhere near as certain as you're suggesting we be with Proposal A. The material should certainly be attributed if it belongs here at all. VictorD7 (talk) 20:06, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

That was very extensive, and yet it still doesn't come close to disproving the claims or that the sources do not contain the facts being summarized.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:32, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Did you read the part where Bartels says his method can't prove that economic elites have greater influence over public policy, completely undermining the factual claim asserted in Proposal A? VictorD7 (talk) 20:34, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with a lot of what you are assuming and a lot of the direction you are taking in regard to the sources but again, you have not demonstrated that they do not support the claims. This argument about academic journals is old is not entirely accurate or we would be removing every journal used to source facts.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:51, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

You didn't answer my question, and I'm assuming nothing. I'm also not calling for these sources to be deleted. I'm just saying if we're going to use them we should faithfully represent them, along with other good sources. VictorD7 (talk) 22:15, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

A "capitol" is a building in which a legislature meets. EllenCT (talk) 22:08, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Yep. LOL! Good catch. Capitol is derived from Capitoline Hill.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:24, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

• It's 2015. Anyone seriously considering adding the statement "The extent and relevance of income inequality is a matter of debate" to this article is engaging in outright denial. We know the extent and relevance of income inequality in comparison to other countries. This is not seriously in dispute by anyone other than fringe sources. Viriditas (talk) 19:21, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

• This discussion isn't about "income inequality in comparison to other countries." Try reading more closely, including the sources added from experts who don't share your politics. They're certainly not "fringe". VictorD7 (talk) 20:06, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

The discussion is just about improving the article and Viriditas' point seems valid. It would appear like denying facts to use "B".--Mark Miller (talk) 20:28, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

You're saying there's no debate on inequality, lol? How then do you explain all the sources posted by both sides saying there is a debate? It helps to actually read the sources, even the ones your political ally posts. Talk about denying facts....VictorD7 (talk) 20:31, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

VictorD7, you are intentionally attempting to manufacture doubt about inequality in the U.S. We know there is income inequality in the U.S. and we know about its impact. By continuing to manufacture doubt about income inequality you are engaging in denial. Viriditas (talk) 20:31, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Your vapid name calling is a poor substitute for intelligent, substantive discourse, Viriditas. I manufactured nothing. I quoted expert sources. In fact I appear to be the only one here who's even willing to read Ellen's sources all the way through. No one denied "there is income inequality in the U.S." or indeed in every country. Fortunately. Can you imagine how stifling and terrible the world would be if there wasn't any? But that has nothing to do with this discussion. VictorD7 (talk) 22:15, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Describing your edits as an attempt to manufacture doubt and cast uncertainty on income inequality is not "name calling". For the record, you are the only one who has engaged in personalizing the dispute here in this thread, referring to "experts who don't share your politics" when I have not discussed my politics and referring to other editors who don't agree with you as "political allies". Instead of manufacturing doubt and casting uncertainty on the subject, what you are doing is trying to politicize this discussion by casting doubt and uncertainty on the motivations of participating editors. So when you are not busy manufacturing doubt and uncertainty about income inequality, you try to do the same thing to editors. Yet, here you are accusing others of "name calling"? I'm sorry, Victor, but you aren't playing fair nor are you being reasonable. Viriditas (talk) 22:47, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

You engaged in false personal characterizations, and totally dodged the specific substance which I've posted above in abundance. By contrast my description of various editors' politics is accurate, as is my point about you repeatedly not even grasping what this discussion is about (hint: it's a lot more specific than "inequality in the U.S.", and isn't about international comparisons, which are already present elsewhere in the section). I'm being extremely fair and reasonable. Worry less about my motives and focus on actually reading the article, proposals, and sources involved. Think critically about them too. Pay especially close attention to the material I quoted and bolded above. VictorD7 (talk) 00:01, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

• Proposal A The evidence is very clear and backed by multiple sources. The "debate" is similar to the "debate" on global warming. Casprings (talk) 00:31, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Did you actually read the sources? Because, as I quoted above, even they disagree with your assertion here. Gilens explicitly says "many" (his word) researchers disagree with him, Bartels concedes his method can't prove that economic elites have greater influence over policy, and they both describe their methodology as "tentative", and "crude", calling for more research. In short, they don't support the phrasing of Proposal A. Why would any honest, competent editor oppose attributing this claim as opinion to the authors used as sources, while acknowledging the alternative views even those sources admit exist? VictorD7 (talk) 22:15, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

• Proposal B Proposal A, to the extent it's not just a truism, has a bad connotation (that we worry when "business interests" seem ascendant, but not the bureaucracy, academy, etc.), and the sources backing it are insular (two of the three carry Princeton's imprimatur), jargonistic and mathematical (making the argument with labels and mathematical givens, rather than a more accessible historical narrative), and rife with questionable assumptions (that labor unions speak for the workingman, when it's repugnance at labor's tactics—its legal and physical strong-arming, and its corruption—that have cost union jobs, as much as anything). Proposal B is too bland (there is considerable debate on this point) and its sources have their own problems (mockery of liberal academics, but not the authors of the first three papers; aggregation of articles from the Journal, Financial Times, etc., but not direct links to the newspaper articles themselves (probably behind paywalls), and too-laudatory introductions of the authors (this being source 6, Free Beacon something), etc.). But better to say too little than too much that is questionable, and Proposal B does give a more complete array of sources. Dhtwiki (talk) 02:53, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I definitely view B as a lesser evil. VictorD7 (talk) 19:04, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

New source evidence directly contradicting Bartels and co.

Does Less Income Mean Less Representation?, PDF, Brunner, Eric, Stephen L. Ross, and Ebonya Washington, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy: Vol. 5 No. 2 (May 2013), DOI: 10.1257/pol.5.2.53 - Study directly criticizes the methodology used by Bartels and similar researchers and employs its own methodology that contradicts their conclusion; "We assemble a novel dataset of matched legislative and constituent votes and demonstrate that less income does not mean less representation." Study finds partisanship is more important than income in explaining correlation between office holder policy votes and constituent views.

How Poorly are the Poor Represented in the US Senate?, Robert S. Erikson Professor of Political Science Columbia University, Yosef Bhatti Department of Political Science University of Copenhagen, Chapter prepared for Enns, Peter and Christopher Wlezien (eds.): “Who Gets Represented”, New York: Russell Sage Foundation (2011) - While not claiming to directly disprove his thesis, their study failed to replicate Bartels’ findings using a larger sample set and more recent data, indicating the issue is more complex than some may have thought, and sought to correct some methodological flaws in Bartels' work. They found no significant evidence that higher income people are more represented than lower income people, in part because ideology tracked more closely together across income groups within a particular state than in the older data Bartels used.

The Macro Polity (especially Chapter 8; also read this PDF with ideas adapted from the book), Robert S. Erikson, Michael B. Mackuen, James A. Stimson, Cambridge University Press, 2002 - Finds that policies largely reflect the views and mood of the median voter, especially over time; Gilens called this work "very influential", and it better represents the established mainstream scholarly view than the three avant garde primary research papers in Proposal A above. VictorD7 (talk) 22:45, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

New proposals

It's also worth noting the quotes from EllenCT's own sources in the above section where Gilens concedes "a good many scholars" (his wording) disagree with his conclusion (he also admits there is significant empirical evidence supporting the other views), where Bartels concedes his method hasn't proved a causal link (meaning actual "influence" per Proposal A's wording) between economic elites and policy outcomes, and where all her sources cop to the "tentative" and "crude" nature of their methods, calling for more research. I'll add that Hayes (her third source, which I didn't get around to quoting above for space reasons) makes these same concessions, and also produces results that contradict those of Bartels (and the AEJ study above for that matter) in finding that Democrats are more responsive to the wealthy while Republicans are more responsive to the middle class (like Bartels, he finds neither is responsive to the poor, a finding contradicted by the new sources posted here).

There have also been numerous criticisms of the methodologies and political biases of Gilens, Bartels, and Hayes in past discussions here, including contrived definitions, cherry-picked poll (polls can easily yield contradictory results with different question wording) and policy selections, skewed interpretations, disputed assumptions, etc., and Bartels calling anyone with an income over $40k a year "high income" (Hayes uses anyone over $75k a year), hardly what most readers imagine when they see the phrase "economic elites".

Given all this, we'd have to either keep the broad Proposal B (with the new sources added), or at least implement only a modified version of Proposal A that includes the qualification that only some academics believe that, with "many" (Gilens' own word) disagreeing. I suppose we can call the latter Proposal C. The advantage of B is that it would be closed off, while a modified version of A (aka C) would likely lead to article bloat through further expansions and point/counterpoint edits on this and related issues.

Better yet would be to simply delete the entire segment as undue weight for this article and more trouble than it's worth. This is clearly not a mature research field with a firm consensus. There isn't even a consensus on how to approach or define all the pertinent concepts on this issue, let alone consensus results. Indeed there are recent primary research papers producing results that are all over the place. If the various views have to be laid out, that should take place on other, more topically dedicated articles and all significant views should be laid out fully and neutrally.

If there's strong opposition to deleting the segment based on EllenCT's RFC, I'll initiate a new RFC. This would be justified given the new source evidence, the fact that her RFC started with a bizarre apples/oranges false dichotomy that confused respondents, and the fact that her RFC didn't include discussion about what the sources actually said. I'll add that her RFC also failed to mention the previous discussions on this talk page soundly rejecting proposals to include this material. While EllenCT's RFC only saw 8 editors participate, two other recent discussions rejecting the proposed Bartels/Gilens/Hayes material in various forms included at least 12 editors in one and 10 in the other. VictorD7 (talk) 22:44, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

• Support RFC outcome -- Victor is simply continuing his campaign to oppose the RFC outcome, and his advocacy of WP:WEASEL wording which has been soundly rejected by senior editors (although there do seem to be editors who have no history with this article suddenly in support of his anti-RFC drive.) EllenCT (talk) 09:59, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

  How do you think we should incorporate the alternative academic opinions in the new sources I provided above? VictorD7 (talk) 02:34, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

By all means add them as additional references saying that the statements agreed to be added are not unanimously accepted, but not as an alternative to the broader results agreed in the RFC outcome. EllenCT (talk) 17:13, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

That would require tweaking Proposal A (the wording of which was not endorsed by the RFC close anyway) so that it's not asserting the views of a few cutting edge primary researchers as unchallenged fact in Wikipedia's voice, to allow room for the disagreement. VictorD7 (talk) 18:00, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Just restore the edits you reverted and add the challenging references, putting the opposing statements in the authors' voices. That is the "some form" you want. However, I noticed that at least one of your characterizations of the references you found is misleading, so we will need to work on the text. EllenCT (talk) 07:36, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Nothing I said is misleading, and your suggestion doesn't work because the text you want restored simply states the conclusion of Bartels and his two friends as fact in Wikipedia's voice, without attributing that view to them. The sources directly contradicting them (which you apparently didn't know about when you crafted that wording, or until I posted them) obviously make that untenable, but so do your own sources, who acknowledge that they don't represent the consensus view. We'd need to make that clear even if we were only using your sources. VictorD7 (talk) 18:03, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

What is the sell-by date of RfC outcomes that are sparsely attended, evenly divided, whose closings are equivocally worded, and where few editors defend, or can even define, the RfC in Talk, other than to say it gives them carte blanche? Dhtwiki (talk) 19:38, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Every attempt to reverse the RFC has resulted in clear consensus that its outcome should be upheld. EllenCT (talk) 17:13, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

You're ignoring the multiple discussions here I linked to here where your material was explicitly rejected in discussions involving more editors than your quietly attended RFC pulled, as well as the fact that the RFC only said the material could be included "in some form", and didn't endorse your wording. VictorD7 (talk) 18:00, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

You are ignoring the vast majority of admins and users who have since endorsed the RFC outcome and rejected your attempts to disrupt it, including with proposal to topic ban you which seems to be quite popular with admins. What is it going to take for you to ease up on the POV pushing? EllenCT (talk) 07:24, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be talking into a mirror here, but since you posted this as a reply to me I'll point out that even fewer people supported your wording in post RFC discussions so far than supported the inclusion of the material itself in the RFC ("in some form"; some of that support even explicitly called for changes to your wording like attribution), and no one has endorsed your wording since I posted the new sources directly disputing your segment. I'll also note that on Casprings' latest ridiculous attempt to have someone who disagrees with his politics topic banned (I've been his latest fixation for a while), there are currently more "oppose" than "support" votes, so it doesn't appear his proposal will gain consensus support. At least one uninvolved person already tried to close it but Casprings reverted. As for POV pushing, I don't even know what to say to that. It's like being accused of irresponsible behavior by Lindsay Lohan. I'm the one opposing POV pushing here. I'm not even the one trying to add items to an already bloated article. I just want to make sure what does get added accurately rather than selectively represents the sources. VictorD7 (talk) 18:16, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I haven't seen the clear consensus supporting the RfC. When I reverted, I did so on the basis of not having seen agreement comporting with Ellen's additions. When I asked to be enlightened as to what the RfC, whose closing found "no consensus to support the reversion" or something seemingly equally equivocal, was meant to authorize, I received no clear direction as to what inference I had not fathomed. The follow-on discussion hasn't indicated that there was a consensus to do much of anything. Dhtwiki (talk) 22:37, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

You just completely made that quote up out of wishful thinking, didn't you? Some of us care about accuracy. EllenCT (talk) 07:24, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Here's the quote verbatim, from here:

There was no consensus at Talk:United States/Archive 67#Proposal to revert section Income, poverty and wealth to to 13 January version for this revert making the following change, because seven editors supported the 8 February version but only three supported the revert.

Is that not the RfC you're talking about? What were you defending there? Your additions seemed to be outside of merely enforcing either of the texts listed below the closing statement. Dhtwiki (talk) 17:41, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but that was the opening statement, not the closing. Each of my inclusions was and has since been discussed above. EllenCT (talk) 17:59, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

• Specific excerpts from proposed new references: It took me a long time to read Erikson and Bhatti (2011) and Brunner et al. (2012), netiher of which contradict the existing sources. Erikson and Bhatti's book chapter was not peer reviewed. They say, "Bartels finds that rich constituents are substantially better represented by the legislators in the US Senate than their poorer counterparts. In fact, the poorest third of the population is not represented at all. While we do not find evidence directly contradictory this result, we add some complications." The complications agree with Bartells and the other sources from the RFC, too. Erikson and Bhatti went to great lengths to pose arbitrary hypotheses which came in just over p<0.05 significance, so that they could say that they can't find "statistical evidence." For shame! Brunner et al say, "Republicans more often vote the will of their higher income over their lower income constituents; Democratic legislators do the reverse," which is in contradiction to Hayes (2012) which states, "the major political parties seemed to have recently switched roles as the Democratic Party has become responsive to the wealthy, while Republicans are responsive to the middle-class." While I propose inclusion of those two excerpts on Politics of the United States, they do not rise to the level where they should be summarized in this article. Gilens and Page (2014) address all of the points raised in the 2011-2 papers. Therefore, I continue to support the verbatim RFC outcome. EllenCT (talk) 19:59, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

• False. First, your own Gilens source cited Macro Polity as representing what it calls the views of a good many scholars who disagree with his thesis: ""..a good many scholars—probably more economists than political scientists among them—still cling to the idea that the policy preferences of the median voter tend to drive policy outputs from the U.S. political system. A fair amount of empirical evidence has been adduced—by Alan Monroe; Benjamin Page and Robert Shapiro; Robert Erikson, Michael MacKuen, and James Stimson (authors of the very influential Macro Polity); and others—that seems to support the notion that the median voter determines the results of much or most policy making." So you're essentially attacking the reliability of your own source here. And that and your other two sources emphasize that their own work does not represent the established scholarly consensus, but rather is "tentative" and "crude", the issue requiring much more study before firm conclusions are drawn, as I quoted in the above section.

Brunner's peer reviewed journal article most certainly does contradict Bartels, and does so explicitly: (intro) "We assemble a novel dataset of matched legislative and constituent votes and demonstrate that less income does not mean less representation.... Differences in representation by income are largely explained by the correlation between constituent income and party affiliation." (2, 3) "Bartels (2008) regresses the DW Nominate score, a summary measure of the liberal/conservative leaning of a United States senator’s voting record, on the mean liberal/conservative leaning (seven point scale) of lower, middle and upper income survey respondents in the senator’s state. He finds that the ideology of the highest income group enters with a significantly larger coefficient than that of the lowest income group; he concludes that higher income state residents are better represented than their lower income counterparts. Bhatti and Erikson (2011) revisit Bartels’ analysis to address a weighting issue and sample size limitations. While in most specifications the authors find that the liberalness of higher income voters enters with a larger coefficient than that of lower 2 income voters, the difference is not statistically significant. In contrast to Bartels, these authors conclude that higher income constituents are not better represented.1" They go on to conduct their own study also contradicting Bartels' findings.

As I said above, the scholarly book chapter (by Erikson and Bhatti, Columbia and University of Copenhagen political scientists, published by the Russell Sage Foundation) stated that they failed to duplicate Bartels' findings. You left out the portion almost immediately following: "Second, we replicate Bartels’ findings in two recent datasets with larger sample sizes and hence less measurement error. We cannot find statistical evidence of differential representation."

Whether you feel that Bartels has adequately addressed the various criticisms (not that you've made a convincing case for that, or much of any case for that at all) is beside the point. The methodology of Bartels, Hayes, and Gilens has been ripped to shreds by knowledgeable editors here who point out even more fundamental flaws than these contrary sources do. What matters here is that there is strong disagreement among the sources, with even your own three sources conceding that they don't represent the established scholarly view. Frankly none of them belong in this article at all, since we're supposed to be reflecting stable, mainstream, scholarly positions, and not cutting edge recent research involving high degrees of subjectivity and controversy, but I respect the RFC closing, despite it being barely participated in, poorly framed (with a false dichotomy), and introduced with virtually no discussion or attempt by you to find opposing views like those I produced above. However, that RFC closing was intentionally vague, only allowing the inclusion of the material "in some form", which means it was not an endorsement of your wording, wording which the new evidence produced here clearly shows is untenable. Your wording would violate core Wikipedia policies that trump a single RFC outcome anyway. The current sentence is an appropriately broad summary for this article's detail level, referenced by sources from both sides. Best to just be happy that you got your sources and the debate into this article at all, and stop pushing to purge disputing sources or alter the wording to make specific, unattributed claims in Wikipedia's voice that fail to acknowledge the dispute. VictorD7 (talk) 01:13, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

"Ripped to shreds" how? And by whom? The results of the RFC have been confirmed four times now. EllenCT (talk) 02:45, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Even before I posted scholarly sources disputing it, your proposal to include the Bartels and friends material was rejected on this very talk page twice (at least 12 editors participated; at least 10 editors participated), and despite that you ignored these results and kept pushing the material over and over again. Your RFC finally got it into the article (despite only 8 editors participating and there being no preliminary source or other discussion), but since I posted the scholarly sources disputing yours no editors have supported your particular wording (which is untenable given policy) and multiple editors have opposed it. And I and others have posted more detailed criticisms of the methodology employed in your sources on other talk pages, though I won't spend time digging those discussions up now since it's beside the point. VictorD7 (talk) 22:36, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Your "scholarly" sources aren't in disagreement with the original three sources. If you say water is wet, and I say I don't have any information to the contrary, but by including ice and steam in sampling I can't confirm your findings statistically at the p<0.05 level, do you think I have somehow disproved you? Or even added anything worthwhile to the conversation? EllenCT (talk) 00:54, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

One explicitly stated that it contradicted your source's findings while another criticized your source's methodology and failed to replicate its findings using what it considered to be a superior methodology. And it's amusing that you place "scholarly" in quotes. VictorD7 (talk) 19:19, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

On the contrary, the peer reviewed literature reviews on the topic are in agreement, opposed to your non-peer reviewed book chapter and article with it's cherry-picked data set. The subsequent peer reviewed literature addressed and disposed with all of the issues they raised. Why do you constantly suggest that Wikipedians should consider your paid advocacy, non-peer reviewed, and primary source original research to be scholarly? That has never been the standard on Wikipedia, but it is often if not usually the standard of those who wish to introduce bias to advance their personal positions. EllenCT (talk) 19:48, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

To what "paid advocacy" and "original research" do you refer? Not only did I introduce you to peer reviewed articles that dispute your sources' findings, but I showed that even your own sources cite numerous scholars who disagree with their conclusion and make it clear that their own "crude", "tentative" methods don't represent the established expert consensus. Even if we just used your own sources your wording would be untenable because it fails to faithfully represent them. VictorD7 (talk) 20:08, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

The several advocacy organizations you repeatedly cite expressing opinions in favor of supply side and trickle down economics. You can't find any support for them in the peer reviewed literature reviews, because they are wrong, so you try to pretend that ad agencies are "scholarship." EllenCT (talk) 01:36, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're talking about. "Ad agencies"? Name them. Nothing I linked to above has anything to do with ad agencies. Also, you should refrain from referring to sources as "paid advocacy", since on Wikipedia paid advocacy refers to paid editing, which actually your posting history shows you already knew (e.g. - you participating heavily in the policy discussions on paid editing, and repeatedly using "paid advocacy" to refer to editors being paid to edit [2], [3], [4], [5]). I'm sure you'd hate for any observers to mistake your meaning, conflate the two accusations, and think that I was being described a paid editor, given the seriousness of that charge here (illustrated by your own strong sentiments in the linked quotes). VictorD7 (talk) 21:13, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Whether you personally are paid to edit or not, you know full well that the so-called think tank sources you try to insert as authoritative scholarship are paid to represent their point of view. That is their only reason for existing, to advocate the positions of their donors. Because one of their most prolific and incorrect topic areas is supply side trickle down economics, they belong in the encyclopedia just as much as homeopathy. They are WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE in almost any encyclopedic context, other than that of describing them and their activities. By constantly championing their fully discredited views, you play the role of a paid advocate whether you are one or not. EllenCT (talk) 01:22, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

You failed to name any sources, and certainly none of the sources I've supplied above are "ad agencies" or "think tanks" (two very different things, btw), so this appears to be a pointless diversion. Your contention that I "play the role of a paid advocate" "whether (I am) one or not" shows you're happy slapping that label on me even if it's false (as you did with your earlier blunt, unqualified assertion above), a clear violation of WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL, and WP:HARASS policies. Again, for the record, as I've told you many times before, I am not a paid advocate. I suggest you drop insinuations otherwise. VictorD7 (talk) 08:34, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The Heritage Foundation content supporting supply side trickle down economics which you've repeatedly relied upon and have been trying to insert is worse than the vast majority of paid advocacy. Attempting to insert or rely upon it here is equivalent to a direct attack on the reliability, usefulness, reputation, and quality of the encyclopedia, is equivalent to an admission of a lack of WP:COMPETENCE in creating an encyclopedia, and is equivalent to an admission that the editor repeatedly trying to insert it after being informed of their mistake is WP:NOTHERE to write an encyclopedia, choosing to use Wikipedia as a political forum instead. EllenCT (talk) 15:00, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Nothing I posted above is from the Heritage Foundation or any other think tank. I cited a peer reviewed journal article, a scholarly chapter prepared by multiple academics that includes a study they conducted, and an academic book cited in your own source as being "very influential". That said, The Heritage Foundation is one of the nation's most prominent think tanks and a perfectly legitimate source in many circumstances (RS is context specific). You again failed to link to an example, but if it's the home size fact currently sourced by Heritage in the article that's based on easily verifiable government stats and isn't disputed. Think tank sources, mostly leftist ones like Think Progress, CBPP, Brookings (which I've also added), and EPI (featured prominently in the same section you're alluding to), litter this article and others. You've personally sought to add a wide array of much lower quality sources to this and other articles, like this obscure advocacy group called Insight: Center for Community for Economic Development ([6], [7]), a lobbying group seeking special benefits for minorities, and of course hotly disputed tax rate charts from the lobbying group Citizens for Tax Justice. Given all this, perhaps the rest of your paragraph is a simple case of projection. VictorD7 (talk) 18:40, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Courtesy section break

If we ban the pro-homeopathy advocacy organizations, does NPOV require that we also ban those opposed to homeopathy? EllenCT (talk) 22:29, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Since I've never supported including anything about "homeopathy", I assume this is an abstract hypothetical question. Your "advocacy organizations" are the fringe ones, though I never suggested banning them per se. RS is always context specific. The problem with your specific proposed inclusions have been that they were inappropriate for a particular article or section, misrepresented the sources, and/or were contradicted by all the other (more) reliable sources. I only mentioned your own inclusion of "advocacy" groups to drive home how bizarre your off topic complaints about me here are. VictorD7 (talk) 22:40, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Let me put it in concrete terms for you. If we exclude sources with no support in the peer reviewed secondary literature, does NPOV require that we also exclude sources with peer reviewed secondary support? EllenCT (talk) 23:03, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I already answered in concrete, far more pertinent terms in my last post. The sources aren't as you characterize them. VictorD7 (talk) 23:10, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

So are you claiming that there is support for supply side trickle down economics in the peer reviewed secondary literature, or that the Heritage foundation isn't paid to push supply side trickle down economics? EllenCT (talk) 00:58, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

You mean like how your Citizens for Tax Justice and CCED sources are paid to lobby for tax increases and for special benefits for minorities, respectively? Of course there's enormous support for supply side economics in scholarly literature (e.g. like numerous studies showing lower tax rates boost growth), but that has nothing at all to do with this discussion. I don't even recall if I've ever mentioned "supply side economics" in a Wikipedia edit, and "trickle down" was a partisan Democrat epithet from the 80s. VictorD7 (talk) 01:36, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

If you are referring to the OECD, yes, those sources have support in the peer reviewed secondary literature and thus should be favored. The Heritage Foundation and other proponents of supply side trickle down economics should be excluded from any encyclopedia to the extent it is reliable, except to report on their activities. EllenCT (talk) 02:09, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I said nothing about the OECD. You pulled that non sequitur out of the blue, unless you confused that with CCED, the abbreviation for the Center for Community for Economic Development advocacy group you've used as a source in articles that I just referred to. And no, your material was not "peer reviewed" and has nothing to do with peer reviewed literature. As for you wanting to exclude sources you politically oppose while adding far more obscure sources (like CCED) you politically agree with, I guess you'll have to fight that battle next time it comes up. BTW, it's fascinating that while you're carrying on this discussion you're simultaneously pushing in another section for the inclusion of a column citing a "study" by the Hamilton Project, a subgroup of the left leaning Brookings Institute (a think tank within a think tank) launched in 2006. Barack Obama spoke at the group's launch and most of its leaders have worked for the Obama administration and/or his campaigns at some point. So much for "peer reviewed secondary sources". VictorD7 (talk) 02:33, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Do you mean the "Insight Center for Community Economic Development" in Oakland? They also advocate demand side economics and thus have support from the secondary peer reviewed literature, unlike your supply side trickle down POV pushing. Again, Brookings is centrist and the largest think tank in the world. EllenCT (talk) 06:03, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

All major economic schools of thought have support in the peer reviewed literature. Heck, the Austrians you always rail against have even collected a boatload of Nobel Prizes, solidifying their "expert" status for Wikipedia sourcing purposes. Wanting special benefits for minorities has nothing to do with peer reviewed analysis. It's just a subjective political preference. And the CTJ tax chart you tried to introduce throughout Wikipedia has no corroboration whatsoever, and direct contradiction by other, more reliable sources (e.g. the CBO, Brookings' Tax Policy Center, the Tax Foundation). My expansive reply to your misleading Brookings claim is in the other section. Its ideology is irrelevant to the fact that the study you're pushing isn't "secondary peer reviewed literature", undermining your purported fixation on that sourcing requirement, but I'll point out here that Brookings is liberal and between 2003 and 2010 97.6% of its members' political donations went to Democrats. However, I'm glad to see that you're now a fan of the think tank, and no longer label it "right wing" as you used to when I cited its TPC tax chart to refute your CTJ figures. VictorD7 (talk) 19:54, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Not all major economic schools of thought have support in the WP:SECONDARY peer reviewed literature. Most are firmly opposed by the peer reviewed literature reviews and meta-analyses. My "purported fixation" is due to the fact that as tertiary sources, encyclopedias are required to defer to the secondary literature over primary and original research. If your claim had merit, it could be a lot less expansive. You don't need to convince me that you are far enough to the right to think Brookings isn't centrist. EllenCT (talk) 16:48, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

As much as I'd love to debate the nuances of economic theory with someone who just claimed elsewhere on this page that Obama was president in 2006, none of this has anything to do with this talk page section. VictorD7 (talk) 16:52, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I said it's not surprising that a President would speak at the most oft-cited think tank in the world, not that he was President when he did. EllenCT (talk) 16:54, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Well that makes a lot of sense. VictorD7 (talk) 16:56, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Strongly prefer A B is a non-statement that says nothing, and it violates the previous RfC close. Darx9url (talk) 13:13, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Article clean up

Much of the content in this article strays from the topic of the United States. The article should be limited to the Unites States as a political and geographic entity. It should not go into great detail about history, political parties, crime, and several other off-topic issues. In almost all cases there are separate articles to discuss any historical, economic, sociological, demographic and other topics. Sections for these topics should include only a paragraph or two summary following the main, details or see also templates. Also, the lede is too long.Phmoreno (talk) 23:21, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

That's not the policy taken at any other country's article; I see no reason it should be the case here. Better to err by providing the reader too much information than too little. Rwenonah (talk) 23:38, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Regardless of what other country articles say, this is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a book. And most importantly, this is not an appropriate place for political and social commentary. I would rate this article as low quality for style and content. No doubt some other country articles deserve the same low rating, but let us focus on improving this one.Phmoreno (talk) 23:57, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

You haven't presented any reason not to include "historical, economic, sociological, demographic and other topics" in detail, or presented any evidence other than your opinion that the article is less effective as a result. Any understanding of the US (or any country) as a "political and geographic entity" will inevitably be impaired if readers are not provided with the historical, economic, sociological and demographic context. Wikipedia's strength compared to conventional paper encyclopedias is that it isn't bound by the space constraints enforced by books. Statistics have shown that readers are significantly less likely to look beyond an initial article for information by clicking on links; by not providing information in a widely-searched-for article like this one, we impair their ability to get information and thus their understanding of the topic they searched for, directly in contradiction of Wikipedia's goals. Your opinion of this article as "low rating" isn't justification to drastically rewrite it.Rwenonah (talk) 00:13, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Some of this is amateurish garbage based on a very limited understanding of the subject matter and supported with low quality references.Phmoreno (talk) 00:33, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

If we exclude historical, economic, sociological, demographic and other topics, what should we discuss? TFD (talk) 07:12, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Exclusion is not the proposal. Quote: "Sections for these topics should include only a paragraph or two summary." In other words, instead of spending, at this point in mainspace, ~850 words in the population-subsection of United_States#Demographics, followed by a medium chunk of text about languages, a big chunk about religions, and a relatively-small chunk about family structures (itself ~238 words), we should be able to condense that *entire* demographics section down into a two-paragraph-summary of the demographics-related material. Here's a shot at cutting the first big chunk down to size: "The population is over 320m today, up from 75m circa 1900, and is still growing relatively quickly." "37 ancestry groups have more than one million members: 13% African American, 5% Asian, 1% American Indian and Alaska Native, and 2% multiracial. (Orthogonally, 17% identify as Hispanic/Latino.)" "Something about racial-percentage trends." "Something about immigration patterns, maybe just a wikilink." "Two sentences on sexuality and family structure, respectively." "Two sentences about major cities and percent urbanization and such." That's under 100 words, but includes some handwaving; it would probably still be under 200 words once fleshed out, and once wikilinked, it decently summarizes the topic of United_States#Population (that currently burns up 850 words).

    That is what Phmoreno is proposing, as I understand it: slash the verbiage, and just wikilink to the main articles, for the small slice of the readership that wants all the details, such as the exact number of millions of people in the United States with "exclusively native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry". It's 0.5 million, mainspace currently claims. But who is checking that summarized-figure stays up to date? Who comes to the United States article seeking that particular factoid, is also worth asking? We give that factoid in the subsidiary article, Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity, and *there* we say the exact figure is either 481,576 or maybe 540,013 ... with roughly 58,437 of those (we don't say which estimate is "those" unfortunately) identifying as Hispanic/Latino. I'm reasonably certain somebody is keeping up with *that* exacting census-data. I'm not sure the parenthetical 0.5m factoid-estimate at United States is getting anywhere near the same amount of scrutiny. Better to send the readership to the dedicated article, where they can see the exact figures (and the conflicting sources!) for themselves; rather than have it here in this article, just link to the article that properly covers the datasets in question. It is not just a question of whether this article is too long to be read comfortably, it is a question of whether this article is too overly-detailed to be reliably maintained. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 16:32, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

There is notability to the content about the Hawaiian population and a good amount of readers may well be coming here for basic information in regards to the US State Department's recent declaration and it's actual efforts to regain a government to government relationship to the nation of Hawaii. Of all the states, Hawaii is still considered a stand alone nation, even among the US government officials. The content seems relevant to that section to me.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:01, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not arguing the wiki-notability of the government of Hawaii (either the state-of-the-union government or the quasi-independent-royalty-one), nor the population-demographics of Hawaii, I'm arguing that we don't need excruciating detail in this top-level article. Broad strokes for the top-level article, not pointillism. I picked the 0.5 million-exclusively-native-Hawaiian-or-Pacific-island-ancestry number on purpose as an excruciating level detail inappropriate for a toplevel article. Here is the full sentence mainspace has: "In 2010, the U.S. population included an estimated 5.2 million people with some American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry (2.9 million exclusively of such ancestry) and 1.2 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry (0.5 million exclusively).[213]" I'm suggesting that the particular factoid at the end, the parenthetical "...(0.5 million exclusively)" factoid, is excruciatingly detailed. There are 1.2 million Hawaiian-or-other-islander people, so presumably they'd make the cut at getting a mention in the list. But of the 37 ancestry groups with more than a million members, we don't need to list them all, in the top-level article; the exact percentages of German-stock-population, et cetera, are not something that the usual encyclopedias will cover the the thousandth decimal place. You are suggesting that Hawaii is important, and deserves at *least* as much coverage as we already give it in mainspace at the United States top-level article, right? So you want to mention the 1.2 million figure mixed figure, and also the 0.5 million pure figure. But why stop there? We could actually mention what percentage of that 0.5 million is directly descended from specific famous families, and mention notable members of those families. We could do the same for all the other states in the United States, mentioning all the wiki-notable people and families that make up the population of those states, because what is the United States, but the sum of all her citizens? But then the article would be a hundred times longer than it already is, and it would contain duplicative content, that better belongs in subsidiary articles, and is not helpful in the toplevel article. You have to draw the line somewhere. Currently, the article draws the line at 850 words on population-demographics, including the 1.2-million-but-also-0.5-million bit about Hawaiian-and-other-islander ancestry (we need both numeric factoids?), the recent growth of San Bernardino (and four other cities?), the average number of of children per woman in the 1800s (a good statistic for a toplevel article but do we really need that factoid to a precision of two decimal places?) ... and a bunch of other stuff. We have lost sight of the forest, for all the undergrowth. The suggestion that we cut the verbiage by half, is a suggestion that we cut out the details that are better and more accurately left to subsidiary articles, rather than maintaining them imprecisely, twice. p.s. Technically, WP:OR strongly suggests Alaska is more-standalone than Hawaii, no matter what "many" politicians say; Alaska has more oil, and more assault-rifles-per-citizen, than Hawaii.  ;-)    75.108.94.227 (talk) 03:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Statistics are less likely to be updated on a much less high-profile, less edited article like Demographics of the United States, meaning that the problem you mention is just begin shifted off to another article where it is less likely to be solved. There's no objective reason an 850-word section is worse than a 100-word one. In fact, given that most readers don't click links, it's better that we provide more detail in the main article than less. Wikipedia isn't a paper encyclopedia limited by page space; as long as the article is fluid, readable and easy to navigate, we should include as much detail as possible, rather than removing things for the sake of removing things. When we cut detail, we aren't "sending readers to the dedicated article"; we're effectively denying them information for the sake of unnecessary brevity. Rwenonah (talk) 16:55, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Disagree that having two sets of statistics, in two places (at least!), is somehow making both sets more likely to be updated, and more likely to stay in sync. Having one set of detailed statistics, and on overview-which-elides-most-details, is the correct way to achieve one reliable set of statistics: put all your eggs in one basket, and then Watch That Basket, is what I'm advocating doing. The reason that readers don't click into another article, is because they believe what they see in this article. But as Phmoreno ... albeit with a rather pointed lack of tact unfortunately ... was pointing out, the problem is that this top-level article has Too Much Information^TM to be completely accurate, the sheer bulk means *some* small bit of it is going to be outdated, at any given time. There are 331,360 bytes of wikitext at present; even if only 0.01% of that is wrong, we're still talking 33 bytes of inaccuracy, aka six wrong words. Whereas for my own argument, per my reply to MarkMiller above, I'm pointing out that this article has too much *excruciating detail* to be completely accurate. Specifically, when we give the rounded mini-factoid "...(0.5 million exclusively)" we are glossing over the *actual* status of that figure -- one source estimates 480k and another source estimates 530k, if memory serves. Sure, those both round to 0.5 million ... but doing the rounding, and conflating the two sources together, to cram the factoid into this already-bloated toplevel article, means that readers don't get informed of the fact that the sources are not in agreement with each other... and their disagreement is fairly significant, tens of thousands of people, is the differential. Anyways, significant pruning like what is being proposed here needs strong consensus, and from the look of EllenCT's push to add more and more details, and other bits of this talkpage, the article is likely to grow even more gigatic than ever in the near term, rather than experience the drastic verbosity-lossage I'm advocating. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 03:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Explanation for "Very long" template?

Any explanation?Ernio48 (talk) 08:25, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

That was just added here. I don't remember any discussion, so can't explain why it was placed; but I can't say that I disagree. However, if you want a discussion, I think you should come up with a less-cryptic section heading, as well as posting more fully as to why an explanation is needed. Dhtwiki (talk) 18:45, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I spot checked over the last six months, the page is saved as File size 66 kB including yesterday, but it shows on the current page as 1174 kB. Otherwise the page size is "readable prose size" in all cases, since April up 1 kB in prose size, up 1 kB in references, up 98 words. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:47, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I've changed the section heading again, to something closer to what the OP's concern was. While loading time isn't complained of here, that is my complaint; and my problem may be due to the unusual number of references generating tooltip javascript on my computer that doesn't have a dedicated GPU. Not at all sure of that, but slowness in loading is my complaint, not just length of the article, which is reasonably coherent and navigable by me. Dhtwiki (talk) 02:28, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I too think that reference-list might be the reason for network congestion here. Even though the list is already divided into 3 columns it takes about 1/4 of the article space. -- Chamith (talk) 04:18, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I've removed it. Drive by tagging is discouraged. Calidum 04:29, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Proposal: debt owed to Haiti

https://ccrjustice.org/home/get-involved/tools-resources/inside-ccr/why-us-owes-haiti-billions-briefest-history-bill

Haiti is a special case which should be reported in a general article such as this one. 184.99.206.71 (talk) 03:21, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Not per WP:UNDUE and WP:NOTNEWS. -- Chamith (talk) 03:25, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

That article could help improve Haiti–United States relations. EllenCT (talk) 16:30, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Redundant

Not all immigrants came from Europe in Ellis island, did you know you also had immigrants from other parts of the old world?????. The word "European" in the image caption wrongly narrows a wider concept. It's better to keep it general because keep in mind that people came from all over at that time and it would be imprudent to say that Ellis island was a European-only gateway of immigration because of the major influx of immigrants in the island. Taking away European would sound more fitting due to the uncertainty of the possible origins of immigrants to Ellis island. Yes, there were many immigrants from various parts of Europe but also from other parts outside Europe. Many tend to hear of Europeans in Ellis island and wrongly associated Ellis island as a gateway for European immigration and miss that it also a gateway for other immigrants but due to associations to European immigration, tend to think only about the European immigrants and not other groups, cultures, ethnicity and so on. I had people who constantly reverted my edit without saying a "concrete" why. Nevertheless I hope someone will join. (N0n3up (talk) 21:32, 6 September 2015 (UTC))

The image caption in question says Ellis Island in New York City was a major gateway for European immigration., which doesn't say that it handled only European immigration, nor that it was the only place European immigrants came in (the large influx of German and Irish immigration for which the 19th century is famous must have happened elsewhere). So, the caption isn't in error. The question then becomes is the caption somehow unduly misleading. Ellis Island has become associated with European immigration. If the percentage of non-European immigration is statistically large enough to show that that is an erroneous impression, then the caption probably should be reworked. Dhtwiki (talk) 21:49, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Dhtwiki Right, but then you had immigrants from all over. Even though most of them came from Europe, they also came from other places. So it would be prudent to be a bit more general in this type of description. Because you also had Immigrants that came from the Levant such as Lebanese and Syrians who would have taken the same route as Europeans to the US. An example would be New York City's famous associations with Italian immigrants due to famous interpretations (e.g The Godfather), but you also had Greek-Americans in New York City, where their population is the largest in the US. So letting the redundant "European" would give an idea of the European migrants but not the wider image if you know what I'm saying. So why not be a bit general in the caption.

[8] [9][10] [11] [12] Here's something to look at. (N0n3up (talk) 22:13, 6 September 2015 (UTC))

It is true that it was not just Europeans that came through Ellis Island. However it is wildly known and The gateway for European immigrates. "Immigrants sailed to America in hopes of carving out new destinies for themselves. Most were fleeing religious persecution, political oppression and economic hardships. Thousands of people arrived daily in New York Harbor on steamships from mostly Eastern and Southern Europe. The first and second class passengers were allowed to pass inspection aboard ship and go directly ashore. Only steerage passengers had to take the ferry to Ellis Island for inspection." http://www.powayusd.com/online/usonline/worddoc/ellisislandsite.htm Reb1981 (talk) 22:14, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

DhtwikiReb1981 aight guys Thanks. (N0n3up (talk) 00:11, 7 September 2015 (UTC))

Ellis Island only operated from 1892 through 1914 at high-capacity; prior to that it was an arsenal, and both during and immediately after WWI immigration was greatly restricted (especially after 1924). Here is the breakdown of the country-or-religion-of-origin during the ~1895/~1903/~1911 centerpoints:[13]

• ~#1, ~#1, ~#1, italian
• ~#2, ~#4, ~#4, german
• ???, ~#2, ~#3, jewish (not sure if this was tracked the same way prior to the 1900 re-opening of Ellis)
• >#8, ~#3, ~#2, polish

Those are the major groups. There are also several second-tier groups:

• ~#3, >#8, >#8, austro-hungarian
• ~#4, >#8, >#8, russian
• ~#6, ~#5, ~#6, scandinavian
• ~#5, ~#7, ~#7, irish
• >#8, ~#6, ~#5, british

These figures are not broken down in any exact fashion, and in particular, I don't know how accurate the rankings are. Generally speaking, though, during the main years when Ellis was a major immigration-processing-facility, the top dozen-or-so groups (with slovak probably being tenth place followed by croat at eleventh, and then scotland/france/greece/spain shooting upwards following the end of WWI when throttles were put in place) were European, broadly speaking. Since no percentages are given, and smaller ethnic groups are not enumerated, I don't know if that is good enough for wikipedia. But to a rough approximation, it seems fair to say Ellis was mostly processing European (and Jewish -- we cannot say they were specifically-European-Jews without engaging in WP:OR here) immigrants, primarily. As was mentioned by User:Dhtwiki, this is a question of percentages, which my source does NOT give us: does anybody know what percentage of Ellis Island processing was for European-origin immigrants, and what was not? 75.108.94.227 (talk) 22:09, 11 September 2015 (UTC)