Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession

See Wikipedia talk:Lists in Wikipedia for the related proposed Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process talk page.

/Archive -lists by religion-ethnicity and profession debate to January 11th

The archive was carried out by me following the comment by Durova below. Hopefully the present page can be used to debate Durova's proposal on the basis of my response of 09.45, 11th January, below. - Smerus 19:55, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Original proposal (short version)

Wikipedia policy forbids random collections of information. Some lists by religion/ethnicity and profession are obviously related. Some are unrelated and don't belong in Wikipedia. In between are some lists that can be edited for relevance and kept. The rest of the proposal deals with details. This proposal leaves who belongs in this group up to the list editors and encourages them to communicate their decisions to the reader. Durova 15:54, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, as the enormous correspondence shows (see Archive), there seems to be aggressive disagreements by a vociferous few (naming no names) on which religion/ethinicity/profession lists are 'obviously' related, specifically where the word 'Jewish' is involved. These few are holding up the debate, and it seems will continue to do so. Their only interest seems to be to restrict the intepretation of the word 'Jew' and its cognates to a small part of the exisiting Wikipedia definition. It seems to me however thast Wikipedia is, or seeks to be, a 'broad Church' or for that matter a 'broad Synagogue (or Mosque)' and that we should not allow presentation of information to be inhibited by partisan feelings of this sort. I might add that in twenty-five years of local politics in the UK, I discovered that those who shout loudest generally have the weakest cases.

There is a second, rather more important, area of debate, as to which lists belong by virtue of their information-content in Wikipedia and which don't, which it seems can be solved (or, rather, resolved case by case if necessary) by rational argument (e.g. dare I mention it, the case I have raised with Durova about 'Jewish chess players'). If we can get a vote on Durova's 'short version' with those voting and commenting undertaking not to bring in the 'Jewish question' (and I for one am willing to make that undertaking) - might we perhaps make some progress? - Smerus 09:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I hope so. Perhaps the solution would be to archive the existing debate. Someone might construe that as POV pushing if I do that, since the original proposal is mine. Durova 18:57, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• comment It may well be that people don't find some lists interesting or useful. There are plenty of things that are in published encyclopedias that I and many people wouldn't personally find interesting. The whole point about Wikipedia is that it's not meant to be governed by such strict rules as other encyclopedias. We are spending way too much time on this in my opinion when we could actually be doing something useful like reverting vandalism, mediating in disputes or making good articles. If a list is verifiable and it's contents are deemed to be conforming to the inclusion requirements stated at the top of the article I really have no problem with it. Arniep 20:08, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• comment I am broadly in sympathy with Arniep's views as above. A list should be evidence-based and non-trivial. Lists not conforming to these characteristics (for example 'random collections of information') can be individually proposed for deletion like any other Wikipedia article if they are inaccurate, derogatory or trivial, and there are established procedures for this. Editors of/in lists have the normal Wikipedian responsibility of keeping them in order. To create for lists as a whole separate processes from those for articles seems superfluous. There are many things in Wikipedia that I find uninteresting, but one Wikipedian's meat is another's poison. Therefore, Let it be..... which I suppose means I am against Durova's proposal - Smerus 22:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Can you offer a consensus definition of "non-trivial?" Wikipedia doesn't seem to have a working agreement in this regard. Durova 03:16, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
    • As in math, I would say. Very, very strict. "List of people whose names' MD5 hashes begin with the characters A5" would be a good start. Arranging people by any characteristic that anyone would conceivably be interested in looking for them under should be fine. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 06:32, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Should this discussion continue?

I offered this proposal after the principles behind it gained acceptance on a number of AfD discussions. It seemed like a good way to move toward consensus and consistency on a gray area of official policy. During the first two weeks the discussion looked promising, although a bit thin in attendance. I didn't log on for three days, and when I returned - boom - counterproposals had appeared and a very hot button debate was ongoing about topics I considered outside the scope of the former discussion.

I don't take "ownership" of the matter, yet I've honestly come to wonder if my former hope for productive consensus was misplaced. To the other editors who remain after the storm: do you consider this a useful starting point for a Wikipedia guideline? Durova 03:41, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Is the storm really over? I have to admit to some discouragement. —Wahoofive (talk) 05:20, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I had a big thing written, but it wouldn't post so vanished. Anyway I think on its own it was on the road to working out as something. I didn't entirely agree with your initial idea, but I thought it was getting somewhere. However there really are more disputed groups which makes dealing with this very difficult. In principle there are several ethnicities and religions that cause dispute this way. For example Who is an American Indian? is the subject of numerous papers. However in practice there aren't that many in Category:Native American Wikipedians and there is no article on this issue the way there is for Who is a Jew?. The Category may not be reflective, but I'd imagine that socio-economic factors do cause indigenous peoples to be underrepresented here. (Bearing in mind that tribal nations vary widely in their economic circumstances just as European or Asian nations do) Anyway in practice things linked to Category:Lists of Jews is probably going to be the main debated area for a good awhile. I think it was a good effort, but although I'm uncomfortable with this I think the Jewish lists will have to be dealt with using a different policy.--T. Anthony 06:13, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Would you agree to a statement like, Individual listings and group inclusion standards may be subjects of editorial dispute. It is outside the scope of this guideline to determine "Who is a Jew?" or who is a Lutheran or who is a Native American, etc. This rests with WP:Verifiability, WP:NPOV, relevant Wikipedia precedents, and list editors. An introduction on the project page should explain inclusion guidelines to the reader. One possible compromise might be to list all verified claims for inclusion and annotate disputed items as appropriate." Durova 06:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh probably. I'm just not sure what I'd agree to is the only issue here. I think many would not agree to that judging by past discussions.--T. Anthony 06:54, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Have we really seen a representative discussion? This sort of compromise can't satisfy hardcore inclusionists or hardcore deletionists. Nor can it satiate other extreme appetites, such as the wish to devour all Jewish lists and categories. If we let that stop us then we might as well concede the effort now. Fortunately we are discussing a proposed guideline, not a proposed policy. People will remain free to disagree. Durova 07:10, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

In case it is relevant, I always felt uncomfortable about the lists of Jewish ____ on Wikipedia. Firstly, there is the whole historical echos thing. Secondly, they seemed extremely non-notable and ridiculous. Like having a list of red-haired authors or somesuch. It seemed silly and potentially dangerous (in terms of encouraging conspiracy theories) to have such lists. And that was before I knew about Jewwatch and other related sites.Skittle 18:32, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

There's been a request for clarity. Yes, I feel the same about spurious lists of athiests, muslims, etc. Making lists of sports stars and soldiers by ethnicity or religion seems a little strange if they aren't notable for the two aspects together. But the lists of Jews made me feel more so, because there seem to be so many of them. It looks like they're being singled out to be recorded, watched.Skittle 20:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I fail to understand (as a Jew myself) Skittle's paranoia, supposedly (disingenuously?) on behalf of myself and my co-religionists. What's with this 'so many of them' as regards lists of Jews? If anyone is 'singling' them out, it is Skittle and those who have put up similar postings during this discussion, thereby consistently skewing the debate (some might say, attempting to railroad it). The more Skittle and similar writers go on about numbers of categories of Jews, the more it is they in fact who give fuel to the racist goons they claim to deprecate. The 'historical echos thing' (sic)? What could be more of a historical echo than to make Wikipedia Judenrein (free of Jews)? Now can we please call a halt to responses of Skittle's sententious nature and concentrate on building an encyclopaedia - Smerus 10:32, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I think Jewish lists are overrepresented when you consider their/your position in the world. Although on investigation I think Canadians are more overrepresented. Category:Lists of Canadian people is fairly huge when you consider they represent less than 1% of the world's people. Ideally I'd want a Wikipedia where Category:Lists of Hindu people exists and is larger than the Jewish list category. Not because I have any ill will towards Jewish people, but out of a sense of fairness. I think there really are more notable Hindus in history than notable Jewish people. I mean there are hundreds of millions of Hindus and they have also been around for thousands of years.--T. Anthony 03:09, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I am struggling to grasp your point when you say "Jewish lists are overrepresented when you consider their/your position in the world". Do you mean that the number of lists (sic, not even persons on the list) devoted to a certain nation in Wikipedia must be proportionate to the share of that nation in global population? But why? I see absolutly no reason why it should be so. No Wikipedia policy prescribes ethnic quotas or affirmative action. Wikipedia is a work-in-progress, so some categories of lists are more developed than others. We should expand the currently undeveloped lists, instead of reducing everything to the lowest common denominator.--Pecher 08:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a valid criticism. I'm not in favor of affirmative action, but the way I phrased it indicates otherwise. It is a flawed paragraph, I'd agree. However what I believe is that going simply on merit there are as many or more notable Hindus as there are notable Jewish people. I can not prove this, but I would be baffled if this is not so. Because for it to not be so it would mean that per-capita the Jewish population produces 40 times more notable people and the idea of the Jewish people as "super-people", or Hindus as losers, makes me strongly uncomfortable. That said I recognize that Hindus are per capita a poorer and less literate people. So I'm not thinking in quota terms. If I were thinking in "quota" terms there should be roughly 40 times more Hindu lists than there are Jewish lists, but that would clearly be absurd and unjustified. I also never said anything like that. India's "Internet users per thousand people" is only about 3% the US's[1] and its literacy rate is about 62%.[2] So they likely do produce less noteworthy people per capita. However not to the extent these lists make it ouy. Do you really think it makes sense to have almost 60 things in Category:Lists of Jews, but haveno Category:Hindus whatsoever? To have one List of Hindus(correction again four, I found a List of Hindu gurus and Hindu Gurus and Saints. List of people who have been considered avatars, which I worked on, I suppose could also count although almost half of them aren't Hindu. I've found 11 Hindu related lists in all, but the rest are of denominations or organization, not people.--T. Anthony 09:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)) , but over 60 Jewish related lists? You really think that believing there are as many notable Hindus as there are Jews is PCish quotaizing?--T. Anthony 09:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Not yet, but it's the first step to quotas. Once people come up the idea that a number of notable people of one nation must be equal to the number of notable people of another nation, they usually proceed to concluding that any deviation of practice from their theory reflects injustice or oppression and seek to remedy it. One of the ways to remove such sort of "injustice" is by impsoing quotas. Note, however, that this sort of thinking is a mockery of science: instead of developing a theory that fits the facts, people first develop a theory and then they bend the facts to suit their theory.--Pecher 11:00, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Please don't imply motives to me that I reject categorically. It's insulting and annoying. Wikipedia doesn't deal well with Hindus or the Third World not because they lack merit. You can't honestly believe Joey Serlin[3] is more notable than "Indra Nooyi."[4] I'm talking about what has merit and right now Wikipedia often fails on that when it comes to Third World peoples. You honestly believe otherwise, ever read Criticisms of Wikipedia?--T. Anthony 12:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I did not imply any motives to you, nor did I intend to insult you. I simply tried to answer your question on "PCish quotaizing". As you can see from my post, I described my observations on how quota systems develop nowadays. Nothing regarding you personally.--Pecher 12:39, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what the proportion of notable Hindus to notable Jews is, nor do I care. I do not believe any person in the world knows what this proportion is either. Your belief that "there are as many or more notable Hindus as there are notable Jewish people" is entirely a matter of your personal faith. I do not have any problems with your private beliefs, but in Wikipedia we must stick to sourced and verifiable information.--Pecher 11:00, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I had a long thing on this, but essentially you're wrong. IMDB has 18911 films and series from India.[5]. This likely means thousands and thousands of Hindus, not that all Indians are Hindus mind you, of note to a billion of the world's people. Add to that three thousand years of history and a following of 860 million Hindus. My personal beliefs are only a small part of it. I'm going by basic mathematical logic and merit. If there aren't more notable Hindus than Jews than Jews really are super-people or Hindus are losers. Either way the burden of proof really should be on you. My statement on this is the more defensible one mathematically and by simple history. Prove me wrong. Still if quotas are the only way to have this place consider say Category:Sudanese people to be as important as Category:Star Trek: Voyager then maybe it's worth considering.--T. Anthony 12:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

You're essentially arguing that there are "should be" more notable Hindus than Jews. Yet, I do not think this subject is worth discussing, not least because any conclusion at which we may arrive will not have any practical conaequences. If you know notable Hindus who are not included in Wikipedia, create articles about them. If you know notable Hindus with article in Wikipedia, but who are not included in lists of Hindus, put them on the lists. If you think some Jewish people with articles in Wikipedia are not notable, nominate the articles for deletion. That is a constructive approach to improving Wikipedia. Arguing in general terms that there should be more notable Hindus than notable Jews is hardly constructive.--Pecher 13:20, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Hindus are mostly a "for example." An example you haven't managed to refute in any remotely meaningful or credible way I have to say. Basically you say this is just my feeling, which is again is making it as if I have to prove my point. I don't accept that at all, not a bit. Prove why Jewish people are more notable than a people 40 times larger than them. This seems the harder case. As mentioned though it's just an example. I really don't know Hinduism or Hindus well enough to start creating articles willy nilly. That Hindus are not as notable in the United States is also not something I'm denying, but there are countries besides the US. Still this seems to confuse you so much, when it should be obvious or bland, that I'm thinking I'm up to late and poorly communicating. Also I was and am being a bit snotty on it to some extent. No hard feelings.--T. Anthony 14:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Not only did I not manage to refute what you are saying, but I also never tried because I see no point in discussing issues like "are there are more notable Jews than Hindus" or "are there are more notable Poles than Germans". Such discussions will not produce anything tangible. If you believe that there are more notable Hindus than Jews, that's fine, but what's next? What shall we do if your belief is true?--Pecher 17:34, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Well for starters this is not simply my belief and the way you keep saying this is grating. It is a hypothesis based on the existing mathematical and historical data. Hinduism is 3000+ years old, India produces more movies than anyone, and there are 860 million Hindus. That there are more notable Hindus seems like a logical notion to me and the alternatives strike me as repugnant. (The alternative being that per capita Jewish people produce 40 times more notable people than Hindus do. Even factoring in disparities of wealth and education this seems odd at best.) Now how do I test this hypothesis? Well the Internet seems to indicate evidence against it. "Hindus"[6] only gets about 8.7% as many Google hits as "Jews."[7] Hinduism[8] gets only 6.4 million hits, compared to 15.6 million for Judaism.[9] So this could argue that I'm in error. However "Hindu" got 17.2 million hits while "Jew" got only 12.3 million. Also the Google hits measure isn't a good judge for Third World topics. I guess there's no way I can prove to you it's more than a mere belief at the moment, but it is more than one nevertheless. This seems pretty obvious to me and I'm not sure what more to say on that. Still several existing Jewish lists are scant and could likely be merged. Likewise List of Hindus is very large and also incomplete. It could be broken up a bit so individual areas could be expanded.--T. Anthony 23:58, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

You have produced a fine piece of original research to prove the point I persistently refuse to discuss. Note that I do not refute what you are saying; I just see no reason in discussing it. However, as you were expanding your proof, you failed to answer my question: "So what?" Assume that what you're saying is true; what are the practical implications? Please observe that your last proposals that some lists of Jews may be merged and the list of Hindus be split are completely unrelated to your contemplations above on the numbers of notable Jews and Hindus. You do not propose to do so because there more notable Hindus than notable Jews, but because "several existing Jewish lists are scant", while "List of Hindus is very large".--Pecher 08:38, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

This conversation has gone on way passed my interest in it. I'm re-evaluating the idea I was snotty before as I think my irritation was perhaps justified. Anyway I give up. Although criticizing me on original research at a talk page strikes me as immensely silly.--T. Anthony 11:27, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

And now I've created Category:Hinduism related lists to find any I missed. I also realized three that I was counting as lists were in fact not lists.--T. Anthony 09:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you can really equate Hindus with Jewish people. Hindus pretty much had a state identity, Indian which Jewish people had not had for c.2000 years, and Hindus have not really suffered the enforced dispersal that Jews have suffered. Arniep 03:32, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not really equating. However I kind of see what you're saying as a non-sequitir. Are you saying that because Jews were dispersed each of them is of more value, as a list or category, than Hindus? Why? If so does this mean Armenian, Maya, or Romany-related lists and categories are everywhere? They faced genocide and of those only the Armenians have a nation, but that nation is recent. I'm trying not to be insensitive, but I don't get this.--T. Anthony 04:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

T.Anthony I think you are somewhat confused on this Hindu vs Jew issue. The reason there are not many lists of famous Hindus is that they are likely listed under Indian, because Hindus have pretty much been tied to this country for an extremely long time, whereas Jewish people have been dispersed amongst many countries and have not had a state to tie to their identity until recently. Regards Arniep 14:56, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I feel uneasy at Skittle's equating being Jewish (or belonging to any other ethnicity or religion, as Skittle hurried to correct themselves) with being red-haired. If anything is "silly and potentially dangerous", then it's precisely just this sort of equivalence.--Pecher 17:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

You folks should be a little kinder to Skittle. This is his (her?) first post on this page; it's others who have attempted to hijack the page to unrelated topics. I went to his user talk page to ask for a clarification of whether he was singling out Jews in particular, and as you see by his second post, he isn't. Back off, already. —Wahoofive (talk) 18:07, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

This is what Skittle contributed on Talk:Israel: "Official discrimination: how about the fact (I was shocked) that only orthodox Jewish weddings are recognised as marriages officially"[10]. The comment was unsigned.--Pecher 19:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, from this comment it seems there may be a question as to whether we can regard Skittle as being WP:NPOV on this subject. Arniep 23:27, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Why did you say that, Arniep? We all have our own opinions. You'd better read WP:NPOV again. It says nothing about editors needing to be unbiased, especially on talk pages. Are you going to search through my edit history to see if I'm perfectly neutral in my opinions? It might take a long time. —Wahoofive (talk) 00:21, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Well Skittle's comment perhaps indicates a dislike for Israel and I don't think we can regard that dislike as being mutually exclusive to acknowledging the existence of a Jewish people, and the right to acknowledge people as part of a Jewish community in the form of lists or categories. Arniep 01:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment This talk page is to dicuss the issue at hand, not any user's beliefs. Please also note that Wikipedia's goal is not to acknowledge people as part of a Jewish community in the form of lists or categories. It is to present information of encyclopedic value to our readers. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of items of information. I would suggest it is better to leave this issue alone for a while and return after a period of cooling off. Hiding talk 12:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the discussion should be suspended at this point. It has gone off on tangents too often. To show an example of self-restraint, I will not argue against the statement above, which implies that lists of Jews serve "to acknowledge people as part of a Jewish community". See Wp:lists on what purpose lists actually serve.--Pecher 13:25, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I find myself obliged to clarify a misunderstanding. I must point out that it implies no such thing. Rather it is something you have mistakenly inferred. My point is rather that if the purpose of Wikipedia is to acknowledge people as part of a Jewish community then we would have to add every single Jewish person to such lists. Since that is, quite correctly, contrary to what Wikipedia is, one can quite correctly deduce that it is not Wikipedia's goal to acknowledge people as part of a Jewish community. I would also point out that self restraint can not be demonstrated in public; in such instances it becomes counter productive. Hiding talk 14:09, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Listing people as being part of a Jewish community is useful for those researching Jewish history as User:Smerus is doing (a PhD on Jewry in music), therefore it is no way an indiscriminate colllection of information. Arniep 15:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I really do seem to be having trouble communicating today. What I am saying is that our goal is not to include information indiscriminately, and there should be some guidelines as to what discriminatory factors we take into account. One person's phd does not make a list of information related to that phd any less indiscriminate; anybody can find reason to justify any particular list. Were I to initiate a phd into the colouring of ladies undergarments on any given day it would not by de facto make such information encyclopedic. Each list and category should be debated on its own merits, and nobody should prejudge the debate based on their own personal preference. There should also be some basic guidelines on what makes a list or category worthy of inclusion within Wikipedia. It would be nice to get agreement on those issues rather than see debate sidetracked into discussion on the merits of any one subset of information. No guidelines should be drafted in an attempt to deliberately include or exclude specific subjects. Hiding talk 16:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Hiding, I agree we should suspend. But may I ever so gently point out that you yourself fell into the trap which has caused so many problems. If you had simply written, in your first posting, 'Wikipedia's goal is not to acknowledge people as part of any particular community in the form of lists or categories' then the last blip in the discussion could have been avoided. You may also care to note that the issue stirring up many correspondents was not 'to acknowledge some people as part of a specified community, but to disacknowledge them, on grounds of doubtful (at the very least highly debatable) encyclopaedic validity. - Smerus 16:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

In my defence I can but offer the fact that I was directly quoting Arnie. That said, fair play, I apologise for any and all offence anyone may have perceived in my comments. I can only ask people to accept such offence was not my point, and hope people will assume good faith on my part. I now humbly withdraw from the debate to prevent it being sucked into an ever decreasing circular side track. Hiding talk 16:51, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Hiding has stated that he was not denigrating User:Smerus' work, if User:Smerus believes that to be the case, I accept his judgement and Hiding's apology. Arniep 20:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

OK I agree, enough already! (And the equivalent phrase in Hindi!). Somebody please archive this lot and we can all get on with life. - Smerus 18:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

PS I hadn't meant to come back here EVER but I have to say that I did not take Hiding's comments as an attack in any way whatever. I would exonerate him, - except that I don't think he has done anything wrong. :-} - Smerus 19:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Ready to close discussion

It's become very clear to me that this isn't working toward resolution. I'll let someone else actually close the discussion. There are a few people who still want to chat here. Regards, Durova 22:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

My name is Exsquzme, and I added my name to the page, because I felt that I fell under both categories of the headline: Jewish & Entertainer, even though I'm still in college, I feel as though I am an actor already, all acting is, is responding to another person, in which every human being already does, so therefore, it should come naturally to everybody, but I really am studying Acing as a major. I am also Jewish, if my mother told me correctly, I am a direct descendent of the Kohan tribe, through my mother's father Albert Deutsch. Therefore, I was taught that you should always listen to your parents, so I trust my mother to give me the full story. In conclusion, I think that if you, meaning the person reading this falls under both categories or however many categories, they can realte themselves to, then they have the right to add what they want, all we need to do is go by the trust issue, but you can't move on if you can't trust.......

I think Kohen is actually the priest class of the Hebrews, not actually a tribe. It's my understanding that, of the twelve original tribes of Israel, only Levi and Judah remain. So if you're a Kohen you're probably still a member of either the tribe of Levi or Judah. Badagnani 07:51, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Now that I checked on this, it looks like all Kohen are a subset of Levi only, since the time of Aaron. Badagnani 07:53, 13 February 2006 (UTC)