Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Archive 3

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Iyer: help needed

Iyer is a bit of a mess: a mixture of excess Iyer ethnic pride and downright nasty anti-Iyer content accusing the Iyers in general of being racists, fascists, etc. I know very little about the Iyers, but I can spot both boosterism and racism when I see them. Is there someone who knows what they are doing and has some knowledge of the topic who can get in here and clean this up? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:43, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Pictures

One thing I noticed when watching some foreign films recently is that there are many minor ethnic groups around the world with which most people, especially in different geographic areas, are unfamiliar with. And yet when you put a bunch of people in the same group together, the similarities really make an impression. And when you already have an idea in your head about what people in that ethnic group look like, when you see a bunch of them together, you get an appreciation for the diversity of the group and fuzziness of boundaries. For these reasons, I think it would be cool to have collections of faces on ethnic group article pages. It would also create an interesting historical record of what the population of the Earth looked like at this point in time. -- Beland 02:05, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Agree, but in many cases (especially smaller groups) it will be hard to get GFDL images. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:29, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-Class and good B-Class articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles on ethnic groups? FA's like Tamil people will deinitely be considered. Please post your suggestions here. Cheers!--Shanel 05:04, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Numbers

We've been having a lot of contention recently about the number of people of various ethnic groups (see Romanians and especially Talk:Romanians for one very heated example. I think the only solution to this is to work toward a set of standards independent of a particular ethnicity. I doubt this will be "one size fits all" (probably it is a very different matter to come up with estimates of the number of Lakota, the number of Roma, the number of Mizrahi Jews and the number of Bulgarians, but it would be good to get some standards in place as to what is citable.

I want to start with a few propositions that I hope we can agree on:

1. Official census figures are always citable.
2. Official census figures are not the only citable sources, but we need to decide what other sources are citable.
3. When there are a range of estimates from different sources, the article or table should indicate the range, and notes should clearly cite the sources of individual numbers.

-- Jmabel | Talk 06:23, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Just another note: Number of first-language speakers often corresponds to number of members of that ethnicity for African groups. Ethnologue is an invaluable source for this information, though their figures are often quite out of date. It's possible they'd be useful for other groups with a fairly high degree of cultural homogeneity. --Amcaja 12:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Ethnologue is great for what it is. In many contexts, their numbers should be understood as minimum numbers, because (1) they are "splitters" — different dialects are usually counted separately — and (2) they tend not to count much anyone as dual native. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Right. But for most African groups (Bantu anyway), this isn't a problem -- a child is the same ethnic group as his or her father (unless the mother is very, very different, like a white person; then the child is considered a mix). As for dialect splitting, it can be pretty useful, as long as you know what groups fall into a single ethnic group in other literature. Ethnologue's been much more useful on Cameroon-related stuff than the Cameroonian government's official numbers, anyway. --Amcaja 13:01, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes. If you know how to provide the context for the numbers, it's excellent. As I said, "great for what it is." I was just raising a word of caution about the two biggest problems I've seen with how Wikipedians have used it. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:28, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

User:Phaedriel/sandbox|WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America

After giving much thought to the idea, and talking to other users, I've decided to create the User:Phaedriel/sandbox|WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America as a project descendant of this one. At first, I simply considered the idea of joining this project instead, but it is my conviction that Native American in the US are already a vast collective group, with an immense number of resources, and deserving of having a project specifically dedicated to them. With utmost respect, as I see the great work this project has performed throughout two years, it also discouraged me the lack of activity and involvement from most of its members that is currently displaying. As the new Native Americans project is still in the draft stage, I would be most interested to hear the thoughts and input of any members of this Ethnic one; I have much to learn from your experience in the new task ahead. It is also my firm intention to work in coordination with this project, using the proper templates and general criteria where applicable; you don't have to worry about me removing anything that you've so laboriously constructed in these last two years. It is far from me to create anarchy where there is in fact a great previous work to take benefit from. Regards, Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 01:32, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Go for it, and as far as I'm concerned, feel free to refactor material out of the project page as may suit your purpose (including in the table of articles, feel free to create a new status indicating that the particular article is covered by the descendant project). By the way, I believe this project is more active than it might seem on the surface: I see a lot of work going on in this area, and most of it following the standards we've laid out here. I think part of what has happened is that those standards have proven appropriate enough that there hasn't been a lot of need in the last year or so to come back to the project page & discuss.

My only concern is that we try to keep the two projects coordinated and that any ideas you come up with there be at least considered here. One of my motivations in starting this project was that certain present-day ethnic groups tended to be treated entirely anthropologically and historically, with no regard to their present-day situation and self-perception. I think that Native Americans are in particular danger of being written about that way. - Jmabel | Talk 03:57, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Template: Ethnic groups

I'd like to suggest some amendments to the text appearing on the {{Ethnic groups}} template, used on article talk pages for alerting others of the project's aims and coverage. I propose something like:

Any objections, thoughts, or suggestions for improvement?--cjllw | TALK 04:07, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

For reference, the current wording is, "This article is part of the Ethnic groups WikiProject, the team responsible for setting and meeting standards for articles about ethnic groups, nationalities, tribal groupings, etc., and for spearheading development in key areas." I gather that your intent is to de-emphasize "standards". That's fine, but

1. I'm not really thrilled with "purview", which I think is a rather obscure word.
2. I have no idea what you mean by "key development", so I cannot even propose an alternative.
3. The sentence starting "If you would like to help out… seems a little clumsy. How about, "If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project's talk page."
4. I would really like to continue to have an image in the template; the one I selected seemed the most appropriate from among Wikipedia's featured images. - Jmabel | Talk 21:00, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, Joe. My main motivation was to extend the invitation and pointers for centralised discussion, and to avoid potentially implying exclusivity and sole responsibility. mention of 'standards' is fine, but I'm not sure these are well-enough defined as yet to serve as a guideline. Per your points above:

1. fair enough; what about, "This article falls within the scope of..."?
2. re-reading it, I'm not sure myself! Supposed to be a catch-all phrase for any other areas the Project might concern itself with, but too much is probably being crammed into the sentence as-is, so can be dropped.
3. agreed, your reformulation scans better.
4. I'm quite happy with the current image; when constructing the template mock-up above I'd merely neglected to include it - the img, formatting, colour, etc can all remain as-is.

Updated proposal for text:

"This article falls within the scope of the Ethnic groups WikiProject, a group of Wikipedians interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage of articles relating to ethnic groups, nationalities, and other cultural identities, and who are involved in developing and proposing standards for their content, presentation and other aspects. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project's talk page."

--cjllw | TALK 06:13, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds great. Now, of course, there is the matter of someone taking the time to add it to talk pages. - Jmabel | Talk 04:52, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, after some delay I've gotten round to making the text changes in the template per the above. At a minimum, we can see that it is added to the talk pg's of the articles listed on the project pg (with possible exception of those already earmarked for WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America.--cjllw | TALK 03:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Article naming decision needed for Marinids/Merinids/Benemerines

I've been hoping for some interest in the Marinid/Merinid/Benemerines merging, but nobody seems to give a toss and both articles (Marinid and Merinid dynasty) continue to be edited. If you have a chance, please give your opinion on the name of the to-be-merged article at the Merinid talk page (here). Thanks! Donama 01:55, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Moved all to MarinidsMarinid — Донама 03:48, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually Donama, the article appears to remain at Marinid, while the talk page is at Marinids - ?--cjllw | TALK 04:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

The admin who was helping me convinced me to put it at Marinid instead of Marinids, but then disappeared before they moved the talk page to Talk:Marinid. An admin needs to do this for us. — Донама 05:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, since the stuff about the merge was the only content of the talk page I just lifted it out and put it in the correct talk page. I know it's not the right way to do it, but it's fixed up the talk page/article page conflict. All sorted. — Донама 05:54, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Montenegrins

You're missing an ethnic groups at the list - the Montenegrins. --HolyRomanEmperor 18:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Then by all means, feel free to add them in, HRE. Indeed, there are potentially a thousand and more entries missing from the listing here, both created and awaiting creation. A comprehensive list is perhaps not entirely feasible, but rather a direction in which to aim for.--cjllw | TALK 00:13, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

User Boxes?

Are there any user boxes for this WikiProject lik there are for the "Indigenous peoples of North America" Wikiproject? If not would someone be willing to make one? I might be able to do it if someone could maybe send me in the right direction because I'm not to sure how to go about making one right now. RyGuy17

No, there's not a project userbox for this at the moment. Perhaps the simplest way to go about creating one is to borrow (read:copy) the ones which the above-named project has created ({{User WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America}} and/or {{User WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America 2}}), with some small strategic alterations such as changing the project link and the img, and paste it holus-bolus into a new {{User WikiProject Ethnic groups}} template.--cjllw | TALK 05:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll definitely play around with it and see what I can come up with. RyGuy17 13:26, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Edit: I had a few spare moments this morning and this is what I came up with so far. For right now it's just the message box, since I haven't had the time to make a user box yet, but I'll try to get to it sometime today. RyGuy17 13:40, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

This user is a member of WikiProject Ethnic Groups, a WikiProject which aims to improve the encyclopaedic coverage of articles relating to ethnic groups, nationalities, and other cultural identities. Please feel free to help out.

note: the bolded "help out" is actually a link to this page.

Thanks, RyGuy, looks good to me.--cjllw | TALK 23:07, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I made a User Box for the project, (available here {{User Box WikiProject Ethnic groups}}), and here it is. RyGuy17 01:50, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

This user is a member of the WikiProject Ethnic Groups.

Updates

I've made some amendments to both, standardising the img and colour schemes, and providing categories. They now look like this:

{{User WikiProject Ethnic groups}}, messagebox format, produces:

{{User Box WikiProject Ethnic groups}}, Userbox format, produces:

This user is a participant in the
Ethnic groups WikiProject.

Each will add the User page they are placed on to Category:WikiProject Ethnic groups participants.--cjllw | TALK 02:54, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Michael 04:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Granary COTW

I have nominated Granary to WP:COTW.

Granaries have been important in history, agriculture, society and economy .They are still very important. Very much could be said in terms of the history of agriculture, the different types of granaries and the importance in different cultures (in proverbs, stories, etc...) It is still, at this stage, a stub. Building a image gallery of granaries would also be nice.--Francisco Valverde 17:10, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Latino template

Please help with the Latino template. --JuanMuslim ^1m 18:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Use of Ethnic template

Am I correct in thinking that the ethnic template should be added to talk pages of articles and categories named such as ethnic groups, ethnic groups in the in the US, F00 Americans, list of F00 Americans, F00 American, etc Thanks Hmains 05:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. - Jmabel | Talk 02:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Please answer:

• Do articles such as those found in Category:People by ethnic or national origin belong to this project and should they be tagged with {{Ethnic groups}} on thier talk page? I want to make things ok. Thanks Hmains 21:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• Do articles such as those found in Category:Lists of American people by ethnic or national origin belong to this project and should they be tagged with {{Ethnic groups}} on their talk page? I want to get make things ok.

Thanks Hmains 21:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Generally not. I think it might be useful to come up with a distinct tag for those, but it shouldn't be this one. - Jmabel | Talk 02:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Nationality and ethnicity

There is a discussion that will probably interest participants in this project at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Nationality_and_ethnicity.2C_redux. - Jmabel | Talk 22:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

How to participate in this Wikiproject?

I would like to participate in this project. How do I sign up? Most of my knowledge is regarding ethinc groups and indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia, although I also dabble in South Asian and Middle Eastern ethnic groups.--WilliamThweatt 18:38, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

If you look on the project page, you will see a list of participants. You can simply add your name to the list and get to editing! — Amcaja 12:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Exactly... Michael 09:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I forgot to put this page on my watchlist so I just noticed the responses.--WilliamThweatt 17:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Some more articles

I'm categorising Catholic Encyclopedia articles not yet in Wikipedia, and there are a few articles that relate to Native American groups here:

Wikipedia:Catholic Encyclopedia cat Immigrants

To find the Catholic Encyclopedia article click on "CE" next to the name.

JASpencer 21:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Parsis

Hello, I'm a new member of the Ethnic groups WikiProject. I usually like to work with ethnic groups living in the vicinity of South and Central Asia, consisting of the nation states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, western China, Afghanistan, Iran, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The first ethnic group that I would like to bring to the project's attention, however, is the one regarding the Parsis of South Asia. This article is outright poor in it's coverage of their history and their customs. This is pretty much what it consists of: a bare description of where they came from in the intro, a description distinguishing them from Persian Iranians, a paragraph and a half on their history, a huge description of the legal definitions and precedents regarding Parsis, and huge list of famous Parsis, with a picture of Freddie Mercury as an example of the extent of their influence. So much more could be said indeed. In fact, Sooni Taraporevala's comprehensive book about them can be found online, text and all (or the most important parts of the text). Also, Vohuman.com is also a good site to study Zoroastrian affairs. I just strongly suggest adding this article to your list of articles that need better work. I will provide you with all I know (which is quite a bit) just ask for a specific category. Thanks! Afghan Historian 23:52, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Ethnic groups in the Philippines

Hello,

May I ask for someone to look at the Ethnic Groups in the Philippines article? It would be great if you could give guidance on what we should work on.--Nino Gonzales 05:31, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Guidelines on choosing pictures of people to represent Ethnic Groups

Are there existing guidelines on the above? In particular, is the selection the same as any other votation? Because I feel that members of an ethnic group should have more say in selecting the person to represent them. Does this contradict any Wikipedia guideline?--Nino Gonzales 05:31, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I am unaware of any guidelines. If you think you have a better image for a particular ethnic group, upload it (preferably to Wikimedia Commons)and raise the question on the appropriate Wikipedia article's talk page. — Amcaja 12:43, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

It would be nice to say something about choosing images that can be said to represent the natural facial looks and colors of the group involved. Some of the images currently used look very artificial: made up, made over, unrepresentative in any case. Thanks Hmains 00:33, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

We're having a really long talkpage about this: Talk:Ethnic_groups_in_the_Philippines and I'm proposing some guidelines (e.g., equal number of men and women) to make our job easier. I hope you could also give your inputs: Ethnic_groups_in_the_Philippines/Pictures--Nino Gonzales 03:37, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Some suggestions:

1. Cultural figures are to be preferred to political figures, unless the political figure is strongly tied up with ethnic/national identity (e.g. Vlad III Dracula makes it for the Romanians, but he's accompanied by a painter, a biologist, and a playwright).
2. There is little excuse for fair use images, unless the image is absolutely iconic (see the leftmost image at Pashtun people for an example of that.
3. If there is a broad range of physical types, it is good to represent that.
4. I personally like to see a mix of male and female, but I doubt we could get a consensus on that being important.
5. Famous people are generally to be preferred to people someone just happens to think "look right". Those famous people should be people indisputably of the ethnicity in question: thus, not Che Guevara for Basque people or Jorge Luis Borges for Danish people.

I think it would be great if we tried to come to a consensus here and hammer out some guidelines.- Jmabel | Talk 02:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Bisaya

How can an article be added be added to this project? Could Bisaya be included?--Nino Gonzales 05:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

There isn't really a system for adding articles to the project; basically, every article about an ethnic group is automatically part. However, you may want to take a look at some of the formatting guidelines we've established; these help make all ethnic group articles on Wikipedia more standardized. See, for example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups Template for a suggested layout for these articles. You should also familiarize yourself with Template:Ethnic group. See Azerbaijani people for a good example article. One last thing is that you can add {{Ethnic groups}} to the article's talk page to add the standard project disclaimer. And please let us know if you have more questions. — Amcaja 14:28, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I've now added {{ethnic groups}} to the article. Feel more than free to add it to the grid on the project page, which is probably not even 30% complete. - Jmabel | Talk 02:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

User-friendly categories

There's a big unresolved problem (did I miss the discussion?) about some large categories that are overflowing to multiple pages. Notably Category:African Americans is not user-friendly. The root cause seems to be its non-hierarchical use, so that sub-categories about aspects of the ethnic group are fighting for screen space with articles about individual people. Of course every individual is entitled to their group identity, but there must be a way to clean up the practicalities. Would it be a mad or bad idea to head towards a convention that, at least for well-populated multi-page ethnic categories, all articles about individual people go into a subcategory of the ethnic group??--Mereda 10:51, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

• I propose a strictly enforced rule that inclusion in a race + profession cat eliminates need for inclusion in the main race cat.--M@rēino 22:59, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
• The guideline that discusses this issue is Wikipedia:Categorization/Categories and subcategories but the short answer is that in most cases an article should be placed only in the lowest category that applies. --JeffW 16:46, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
• Some of the categories so created would be very short, so I don't think we want to say that all people should be in a subdcategory (and besides no one in Wikipedia has any police powers to keep things a certain way). It would be good to encourage subcategories and the use of them and to encourage editors to place people in the subcategor(ies) that apply and remove them from the main category. I can attest, however, how much (boring) work this takes to accomplish by cleanup editors like me Thanks Hmains 00:39, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
• By the way, our page lacks suggested naming conventions for 'people categories' and 'lists of people categories'--it only provides naming conventions for articles on the ethnic groups themselves. This oversight should be corrected. Hmains 00:39, 24 June 2006 (UTC) Thanks

Thanks, I've now put a few words at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ethnic_groups#Categories_and_subcategories to make the position clearer. This also draws on a parallel discussion I started at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization_of_people#By_race_or_ethnicity. --Mereda 08:07, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Categories within categories

Here is the structure: a category, such as 'Danish Americans' exists in the category 'European Americans' and in the category 'American People by ethnic or national origin'. The category 'European Americans' also exists in the category 'American people by ethnic or national origin' Americans'. This makes for double level categorization, which may be uncommon. After trying to eliminate this and facing opposition, I quit. What sort of explanatory note should be placed in which of these categories? Thanks Hmains 05:35, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It could be worse! The pattern at the moment is that articles themselves are subcategorised as 'nationalityoforigin-Americans' while Category:European Americans holds the subcategories, not the articles. I've tried changing the words there to make that clearer for the European set. What do you think? --Mereda 07:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

hyphens

There is a discussion in the July 3 'categories for delete' list whether to use hyphens or not in ethnic named articles and categories, such as 'English American' or 'English-American' article, English Americans or 'English-Americans' category, 'List of English Americans' or 'List of English-Americans' article. While the question is narrow, the comments on what to change are more broadly based. So far, most of the editors want hyphens or at least do not want to delete existing hyphens until there is some policy on subject. Is there any position that this Project has on this? Or which project members have? Thanks Hmains 20:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

My personal view of this is that someone must have far to much time on his or her hands, or loves wasting other people's. Not to suggest that the someone is you, I presume you didn't start this. - Jmabel | Talk 03:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

duplicative emigrant/descent categories

In Category:People by ethnic or national descent, there are mostly sub-categories named 'People of Foo descent'. In Category:Emigrants by nationality, there are mostly sub-categories named 'Foo emigrants'. Looking down further into these sub-categories, they are both populated with sub-sub-categories named 'Foo Goo', where 'Foo' is the origin country and 'Goo' is the destination country. Examples: see Category:People of Canadian descent and Category:Canadian emigrants, having Category:Canadian Americans, Category:Canadian Australians, etc. Sometimes, in the matching sub-categories, the sub-sub-categories are the same; more often, there is partial or even no overlap.

Is something wrong here?. Should there be either be categories named 'People of Foo descent' or 'Foo emigrants', but not both. Is there some naming decision somewhere that makes states what we should be using? Was the decision never implemented or, worse, partially implemented? What is happening here? Thanks Hmains 01:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that any discussion about this has been entirely among the people focused on categorization, not here. And I think they have a very hard time developing a real consensus on anything, although it is a lot better than a year ago. - Jmabel | Talk 03:05, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Orcadian

A new user, User:Mallimak, is trying desperately to invent a new ethnicity (or perhaps nationality, it is unclear) called "Orcadian". Could some of you guys please look at his contributions, and especially his creation from a Redirect: Orcadian. Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Orcadian. --Mais oui! 09:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Interesting...Michael 10:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

List of irish American Musicians

The List of Irish American Muscicians that is derived from the list of Irish AMericans still contains the "Articles for Deltion" Notice . I understand that the decision to Keep the List of Irish Americans that is the source for this and other lists that are linked to it was made - therefore the Articles for Deltion Notice should be removed from this article and other linked articles86.12.253.32 09:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, it should. Have you done so? Michael 04:36, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

You should remind an admin at CfD to remove it since it should be replaced by a notice on the talk page of the result of the discussion. --JeffW 13:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll actually try to do that. Michael 09:51, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I did it. Michael 10:10, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm...Do we only have the singers category now? Michael 18:02, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

U.S. census numbers

Those who've been discussing U.S. census numbers on various pages may find the following interesting. This is the U.S. Census Bureau's paper on their microsampling PDF, which is how they estimate ethnicities. And here is their ethnicity coding. - Jmabel | Talk 04:46, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for posting that! Michael 10:12, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Korean name

Korean name is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 14:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Dispute about black people

Any input that may help resolve the issue at talk:Black people would be welcome. --Ezeu 23:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I have expressed my views on the matter. Michael 06:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Asia-ethno-group-stub

Hello guys. Have you considered creating a {{Asia-ethno-group-stub}} ?. "Africa-ethno-group-stub" is already in use. I don't want to count it but I bet more than 150 articles will fit to this stub. - Darwinek 13:24, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Feel free. Please mention it on the project page if you do.

It is now proposed at WP:WSS/P . It needs a few support votes before it will be created.- Darwinek 09:16, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

"individual nationalities"

Who examines & rates the pages in this section? How does one volunteer to rate pages? How does one request a page that one is working on be checked by another participant?

Tks, Ling.Nut 16:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing very systematic. I've probably done more of this than anyone else. I occasionally cross-check what someone else does. I haven't seen anyone go seriously wrong yet. - Jmabel | Talk 22:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Black DNA admixture in Europe

What do project members make of this article?

• Black DNA admixture in Europe

It has just been renamed today (from Sub-Saharan DNA admixture in Europe‎). Since creation it has never had categories, so I have just given it some, but I would appreciate it if project members could review these, and indeed the whole topic. --Mais oui! 19:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks a bit undercited for an article that will inevitably be controversial, but I suspect that it is approximately correct. - Jmabel | Talk 22:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Irish, Irish-American

August was my first month at Wikipedia. Only recently I have tried to understand what 'pedians hope to do with categories and with wikiprojects.

Last fortnight I wrote the stub Andy Leonard (maybe too long and full to call a stub).

• The first sentence does not identify Leonard as American or Irish or Irish American, perhaps only because other editors haven't discovered it yet. Even if nothing else is quickly revised, I expect that others will push the entire article down one sentence, preceding it with "- - Leonard" (- - -) was an American professional baseball player" or ". . . Irish American professional baseball player". What do you folks think those editors should say when they write that new opening sentence?
• The second paragraph discusses Leonard as a native of Ireland (my term). Note that his nativity is relevant because he comes up top of some database queries today, and probably in some trivia quizzes. There is a baseball significance (such as it is) to his being from Ireland --"Irish" in a sense.
• The article is in Category:Irish baseball players because I put it there, but only because it seems to be part of the job; the category is well-established. In my own words, "Irish" baseball players are the few people in Ireland who took up baseball after a promotional tour by two American teams in 1874.

I also wrote the stub Bud Fowler (truly a mere stub). So far that is in Category:Negro League baseball players but not in any African American category. --P64 23:54, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not going to get into the categories thing here, but Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)#Opening paragraph is pretty specific that the opening paragraph should include "Nationality (In the normal case this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen or national, or was a citizen when the person became notable. Ethnicity should generally not be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability.)" So for Andy Leonard, assuming he was eventually naturalized, I'd be inclined to say something like "Irish-born American baseball player". - Jmabel | Talk 20:25, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
• Oh, and you will notice that Category:Negro League baseball players is a sub-category of Category:American baseball players, so that is very much covered. - Jmabel | Talk 20:27, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I understand that this project focuses on ethnicity-talk in articles, not in category names.

That manual of style does say opening paragraph, not necessarily the third word following FName LName (Bdate-Ddate), so I will take that to heart and try to say it in a sensible way rather than wait for someone else to insert "American", "Irish", or "Irish-American" as the third word. --P64 23:40, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Distorting History

The problem with these ethnic pages there are a lot of propagandistic distortions of History. A lot of people use this opportunity to write what they like....without thinking in the offence of other nationalities. There is no way to correct these "mistakes". Has anyone else noticed this?? Csabap 4:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

There are certainly pages with that sort of problem. There are others that are really excellent. But I don't know what you mean by "There is no way to correct these 'mistakes'." There is the same way as on any other Wikipedia page. - Jmabel | Talk 06:58, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I ment that if u try correcting things as they are ment to be...they are changed over and over.... Csabap 19:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to the world of wikis. - Jmabel | Talk 04:56, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Concept page detached from project

The motivation for this project begins "Ethnic groups have only slightly more epistemological validity than races, and the concept is possibly even more subject to hijacking by extreme nationalists than the concept of a nation itself. Nonetheless, it crops up constantly and it would be very helpful to have some standards for dealing with it."

However, the actual entry Ethnic group does not reflect the skepticism expressed above about "epistemological validity", or at minimum, common and consistent understanding, at all. Moreover, it appears that the editors who work most on that entry and also on Tribe are not part of the WikiProject. I do not see how there can be any coherence to dealing with ethnicity under these circumstances.

The "talk" about this project also often troubles me. One big issue: The idea that one can put up "representative" images of individuals is laughable and frankly racist.

A more limited issue, but illustrative of potential problems, can be seen in the remarks of Amcaja about African and/or Bantu(-speaking) ethnic groups in Africa. In fact ethnic groups historically have not been clearly bounded, but formed continua along linguistic and kinship lines. There is a huge amount of historical dynamism in ethnicity, ethnic identification and grouping, and the cultural and social content and practices attributed to ethnic identities.

One underlying issue that seems to affect both "ethnic group" and "tribe" is the presumption that anthropology is a methodologically and conceptually unified field around the world. In fact there are great differences in anthropological traditions among national-ethnic-linguistic groupings (e.g. Anglophone vs. French vs. German vs. Russian), national differences within linguistic groupings (U.S. cultural anthropology has been quite different from British social anthropology, e.g.) and then theoretical evolutions within the field. As a result the meanings attributed to terms like "tribe" and "ethnic group" by anthropologists have and do vary in place and time. U.S. anthropologists tend to want to make "tribes" pre-state and "purely" kin-based is a social evolutionary way, with affinities to "bands." For southern Africa, Max Gluckman argued in the 1950s with considerable persuasiveness that the only remotely coherent definition of a "tribe" was a grouping defined by political allegiance, *not* kinship -- chiefdoms, but the boundary between chiefdom and state gets blurred historically; chiefdoms required multiple kin-groups due to rules of exogamy.

A further complication gets introduced when such relatively arcane anthropological uses interact with popular uses. When I ask students at the beginning of an introductory African history class to write down the name of an African tribe, what I tend to get most often are Zulu, Maasai, Yoruba and Ashanti (sic); since 1994 also Hutu and Tutsi, also perhaps !Kung or "Pygmies", with unpredictable others from the relatively few students with direct African experience. None of these are remotely "tribes" in the anthropological sense offered under WikiPedia's Tribe entry, except maybe the !Kung (though probably they'd be a band under the somewhat outdated U.S. American anthropological categorization employed in the article) -- rather they are ethnic groups or nations; were nations prior to colonial & post-colonial states. But even in official colonial usage they were often called tribes; in South Africa, you had the edifying sight of the Zulu tribe being composed of several hundred other tribes.

In my view there is a need for a more internally consistent and systematic overview perspective on these concepts than currently is reflected in WikiPedia. The only way to achieve that within WikiPedia's definition and strictures on NPOV in my view is to begin with the fact of irreconcilable multiplicity of meanings. The current definitions are entirely inadequate and it is a travesty that the "Tribe" entry is considered of high enough quality to be included in the hard copy version of Wikipedia. Ngwe 06:25, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I sort of agree, with the caveat that not all editors are operating on the same level of sophistication (specifically, not all have an anthro or other "socio" type of class or two under their belt.. belts?.. whatever). So be easy on folks; many if not most of those laughable pictures showing people presumed to represent an ethnicity (or a reified tribe) are definitely WP:Good faith. Ditto for others' remarks about various groups. If the current definitions are inadequate, as you say, then change them. Be WP:Bold. But be gracious with the folks who put them up on the board. Assume good faith. Cheers --Ling.Nut 10:06, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I've been away. Thanks for the advice. If I've called into question anyone's good faith I didn't mean to do so. Actually I've avoided boldness in editing specific things partly out of desire not appear to questioning good faith. Please assume my good faith on that point (I assume you do) ;-). If I've gone wrong on tone it's because I was trying to indicate that I think it's a large problem. My assumption is that the situation arises from multiplicity, of experiences & extent of study, and also of viewpoints even among relatively sophisticated editors.

Yet tone & lack of boldness also probably reflect a stage or phase in engagement with Wikipedia, to wit a perception of a problem which is that editing individual articles isn't going to change the basic issue of coherence, just shift the locus fault lines. In reading various unedifying edit wars etc. it seems that the advice is to take things to talk pages before (or as?) one makes large edits; how experienced high quality editors combine boldness with such diplomacy I am still trying to discern (now that I've read your remarks below I won't hold my breath for sudden enlightenment :-)). The WikiProject Ethnic groups talk seemed like it might provide a sort of meta-talk situation for trying to work out a common approach. Ngwe 18:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with both of you here.

First a brief aside on pictures: it is reasonably straightforward to choose appropriate pictures for ethnic groups that have played a major role on the world historical stage. Something like the pictures in the Infobox for Romanians or Serbs that depicts a few people who figure prominently in an ethnic national identity is probably relatively uncontroversial. But I agree that the problem is far greater when someone is trying to find representative types. Or there is another phenomenon, such as at Roma people, where the intent seems to be to lead with a sterotype-busting picture.

Yes, this all makes sense. I agree that portraits of historically significant persons is a good way to go. The other difficulty is that for understandable reasons there may be an interest, a la National Geographic, in portraying persons in striking or colorful "traditional dress" or "national costumes" or other adornment which even historically may only have been worn on special or formal occasions, and are uncommon except perhaps on such occasions today, and even then often subject to massive adaptation / innovation with new imports. There's nothing wrong & sometimes something useful about showing such clothing & adornment identified properly, perhaps ideally with a contrasting image or two, but there is a problem with saying it represents the "true" culture or identity. (I just followed Ling.Nut's link to the Taiwanese aborigines page and it seems to be a model of how to do it right.) Ngwe 18:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

On the larger issue. I largely started this project in, I believe, February 2004. At that time the handling of ethnicity in Wikipedia was truly appalling. A few other people have, in various degrees and almost uniformly in positive ways, collaborated in moving it forward. Unsurprisingly, most have had a focus on some specific part of the world, or on some one ethnicity and its subgroups. One apparently well-focused project seem to have spun out of it (Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America). At other times, it has provided an impetus and a structure for talking about a narrower topic, such as ethnic divisions within Jewry. But overwhelmingly, the focus from this project has been on articles about particular ethnic (etc.) groups, not the articles about ethnicity (etc.) as such.

The things that I can confidently say we've accomplished are:

• The adoption of a good InfoBox and (to a lesser extent) a reasonable proposed structure for what a good article about an ethnic group (etc.) should look like.
• An increased acceptance that various tribes, bands, ethnic groups, nations (in the non-state sense of the word), etc. need to be handled in a reasonably parallel manner.
• An increased understanding that in cultural matters, ethnicity and national identity is often more relevant than statehood or aspirations to statehood. That, for example, it is much saner to talk of Pashtun culture than the culture of Afghanistan, and that Jewish secular culture is by no means interchangeable with Zionism.
• The creation of a space where people can come ask for help and advice on issues related to ethnicity etc.

That said, we've never gotten the critical mass of a truly strong project. A year or so ago, I had to argue against declaring this a "dead project" because there had been no edits to this page for a month or so; I pointed out (and it was accepted) that this project had laid down some standards that many people were finding useful, and that periodically in various degrees, it comes back to life (as it continues to do).

I'd love to see this pushed up to another level. I'm a bit overwhelmed with my load on various aspects of Wikipedia (have a look at my contributions list for any day or so and you can see that I'm spread a bit thin) so I'm not sure how much I'll bring to it.

Articles like tribe tend to be awful for the same reason that articles like liberalism or free market tend to be awful. It is one of those areas where, often, people who know almost nothing (and/or who have extremely essentialist views) believe thenselves to be experts, or at least to know everything important about the topic. And it can be sheer hell for actually knowledgable people to wade into these articles. It's very frustrating to try to discuss things with a person who has read exactly one book, or taken exactly one class, and has received a homogeneous view of something where, in fact, there is enormous diversity of opinion and even of models.

That said, there are basically two ways we can go if we want to take this on, and assuming that we have, at least temporarily, the critical mass to do so. We can either target, one by one, several encyclopedia articles that need overhauls, on a sort of "improvement drive" approach, or we can (probably less controversially, but also with less impact) work in project space to expand our own exposition of the complexity of these topics; if that is done with the same standards of citation expected now for articles, we could eventually try to move some of that work into articles, using the project as an incubator. Or we can try to do both at once.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? - Jmabel | Talk 23:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Issues of ethnicity are issues of identity. I suspect this will greatly complicate collaborative efforts like the ones you see on dab page link disambiguation, page merging, etc. Many pages are hovered over by Wikipedians who identify with that particular ethnicity. That's what makes me approach various pages with fear and trepidation, even tho we are supposed to be bold. No one is supposed to own a page, but I wonder if in reality there would be a ruckus if a group of well-intentioned outsider-Wikipedians started moving things around, moving or deleting questionable sections, etc. on page that is watched by several such insider-Wikipedians. I admit I haven't tried it; I'm speculating. But human nature gives me reason to believe I'm right.

I've tried to kick in some reviews in the review section of this project recently, and I try to go to talk pages and leave comments on various pages related to particular groups. I'd be tickled pink to work on collaborative projects, as long as the articles do not have dedicated doorkeepers opposed to such activity. I also often wish I had more time to do stuff on my own; just find a quiet page and bulk it up. But I don't have tons of time either, since the semester has started & is now in full swing.

And for the record, my pet project is Taiwanese aborigines. --Ling.Nut 01:22, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

No question this area can be a minefield. - Jmabel | Talk 06:08, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Ling.Nut, your identity point is crucial. The thing I wish some "owners" understood better is that trying to fix such identities too specifically ends up denying the identity-holders their agency in adapting to new circumstances in connection with their inherited understandings; or perhaps it's just hiding the agency from readers' views, since the people go ahead anyway. Apartheid "separate development" in South Africa was the tendency in its external variation taken to an extreme, backed by violence: "Bantu nations" were to develop "along their own lines", and the National Party was going to make damn well sure they knew what their lines were and didn't get off of them. There is a different "insider" version, which may be even more difficult as it can reflect struggles within an identity group.

Thanks for mentioning the review section. I will have to look at it & try to understand how it fits in the WikiProject scheme of things. Ngwe 18:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Jmabel, I like the way you describe what the project has accomplished (it is an education to me as a new Wikipediast)(Wikipedian?), and think you've helpfully summed up key problems. That, your suggestions, and Ling.Nut's remarks on frustrations & trepidations with ersatz "owners", gives rise to a variant on an older thought.

The older thought was to work collaboratively to strengthen the conceptual entries and then try to use them as reference points for specifics. That still might be worth doing. The newer thought is to wonder if the project could do up some mini-versions of the "WP" process concept links (such as those like bold embedded in Ling.Nut's comments -- they probably have a WP jargon term but I haven't learned it yet :->), but at a lower level specifically focused on ethnic identity / nationality / peoplehood issues rather than Wikipedia issues. Is there such an animal? Can we put something like that into an extant form? The idea would be to identify or diagnose recurrent trouble patterns and suggest commonly well-regarded conventions for handling them, to which editors could then refer in hashing out debates as a tool towards civility. Getting to "commonly well regarded" implies recruiting participation or commentary. I guess this is a version of your second option. Maybe before starting in on a "quality drive" we should attempt a something like a survey of what's out there? I guess that could be huge in itself. Ngwe 18:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest that generating a set of "best practice" principles first and then putting them into practice by using them to drive improvement initiatives would actually be the wrong way to go. It sounds good in theory, and theory is in theory the same as practice, but in practice it isn't. I think that an intiative to generate Best Practices for ethnic pages would stall quickly -- if it ever even began -- for lack of concreteness.

A better option would be to simply start an improvement drive and keep track of everyone's comments as it progressed, then debrief & process after three or four or five or six have been accomplished.

It might be OK to list some "rules of thumb that may or may not be useful" somewhere -- not as principles to drive the effort, but rather as hypotheses to be checked against the facts as time progresses. I would suggest doing that on a subpage of someone's user page, using it as a scratchpad. I dunno, it could also be the talk page (here), but I would want a specific place for that specific purpose.

But -- and it's a big but -- first you'd have to gather a core group of people who are willing to work on improvement drives.

Cheers --Ling.Nut 15:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I came across these, and to some degree I stand corrected:

1. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Arabic)
2. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (China-related articles)
3. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ethiopia-related articles)
4. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Indic-related articles)
5. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles)
6. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)
7. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Korea-related articles)
8. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Latter Day Saints)
9. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Philippine-related articles)

--Ling.Nut 19:44, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Evaluations

I have quite a few suggestions moving forward:

1. The "evaluation" mechanism that was started here is nowhere near as good as what has since developed in several other WikiProjects. It's good to have a scorecard here, but we probably should work toward getting this evaluation into templates on article talk pages, much as has been done for biographical articles.
2. The "evaluation" mechanism has really only been applied to articles on individual ethnicities. I'd love to see someone come up with a list of other articles that would fall within the scope of this project.
3. Before we propagate out that mechanism beyond this page, though, I'd like to see more of a real consensus on defining criteria for determining quality levels. Much of what is in here so far I did about 9-10 months ago when I happened to have some free time. I didn't really work that much with anyone else to do that.
4. If there is a suggestion of more project pages that would be useful, I'd love to see a list. As an abstraction, it doesn't say much to me.
5. I would actively welcome someone else putting some "oomph" behind this project, especially because I really don't have the time to do it and don't expect to for at least the next several months. I will certainly participate, but am in no position to lead. - Jmabel | Talk 04:32, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm supposed to be busy. I can help, but not lead.

• I can make templates, but I suspect you can as well.
• I'll think about the quality-level question...some things are obvious, others less so. Will think about other questions too. Gotta go to sleep now.

Cheers...--Ling.Nut 08:44, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

PS I looked at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography. It's beautiful. I'm afraid... that writing bios is a much less involved process than writing about ethnic groups. It's purely a matter of scope. Bios can really be written by one dedicated editor. The same is far less true of articles about ethnic groups. My theory is that this fact explains:

• Why people seem to cluster around 1 article instead of embracing the project as a whole.
• Why Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography seems to have garnered so much enthusiastic support. I don't mean that in a negative way. It is purely a matter of dynamics... many people flying around working on different projects for a short time, interacting with each other, collaborating in different groups etc. can get far more done than people who are forced by issues of scope to focus on one project or a set of related projects. The latter groups tend to clump in ways that make communication difficult. The former is more efficient. See Network effect.

Later --Ling.Nut 16:19, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Project proposal:networking initiative

Read my comments (immediately above) about Network effect. I propose that the first project be a way to improve networking; this talk page may not be sufficent. All in favor say "ethnographer." --Ling.Nut 16:25, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

More thoughts occurred to me. People involved in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography may draw their sense of community (or identity.. in a lesser sense) from the task. OTOH people involved in Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups may get their -- focus? identity? -- from identification with the group that is the topic of a particular page. So the conclusion is, this project needs to consciously/proactively reach out to people who identify with the task rather than a specific group.. erm... anthropologists, linguists (ahem), etc etc ... uh.. socio-geeks. Like me. All that in addition to reaching out to the communities clustered around a topic, of course..Let me know if I'm making sense or babbling. --Ling.Nut 17:44, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

sugggest merge...?

I'm not gonna slap a Merge template atop a Project page. But I seriously suggest merging Wikipedia:WikiProject Culture into this project. There seems to be a huge overlap. --Ling.Nut 18:56, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. It would probably be good to compare and contrast the goals of the two projects. As far as I can see, WikiProject Culture has not been working on infoboxes or article templates to handle individual ethnicities, etc., nor have they been focused (unless I'm missing something) on trying to get parallel treatment of different groups.

Also, of course, there are aspects of ethnicity that are not cultural. Some people argue that ancestry is the primary determinant of ethnicity. Certainly a white American with no African ancestry, no matter how much he or she may immerse him- or herself in African American culture, cannot become an African American, nor can his/her descendants (unless they are also a descendant of an African American). Other ethnicities are more permeable: Jews traditionally/religiously count converts as full Jews; many tribal cultures have processes of adoption into their kinship systems. - Jmabel | Talk 22:39, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

...and we have outliers like George Psalmanazar and Ward Churchill, who... for whatever personal reason... assert membership based on no evidence other than the assertion itself. --Ling.Nut 13:08, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Project proposal #2: FA Drive

Erm, just a way to increase visibility. Plus I have ulterior motives. I suggest a Featured article drive. Of course I'm nominating Taiwanese aborigines as the page. I have put aeons and decades of work into it, but it needs more. It has the added attractive feature of being pretty stable.

But the main point is the suggestion for a group FA drive. --Ling.Nut 19:00, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Project proposal #3 ..erm... Portal:Ethnic groups

Project proposal #3 ..erm... Portal:Ethnic groups .. but wouldn't that clash with Portal:Culture ..--Ling.Nut 19:15, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Desperate help needed at the Black people article! Please get involved!!

This article is an absolute mess. It provides no coherent well sourced definition of a Black person and just rambles on and on about various people who were labled Black in different times, places, and languages, and tries to merge them all together as a coherent ethnic group. It would be like trying to merge Native Americans and people from India into a coherent article called Indian people. It makes no sense. We had requested mediation and the mediator said we should use the census as our source. Here's what the U.S. census says:

A Black is “ a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro,"or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian.”

Black Africa is a synonym of sub-Saharan Africa and all of the non-African groups mentioned (i.e. African-Americans, Haitains) are descendents of the recent African diasporas. And yet we * still have editors insisting that South Asians be given equal weight in the article and be considered Black. These people provide no cited definitions or census classifications to defend their assertions, instead they cherry pick from different sources in different countries for examples of South Asians being labeled Black, often in different languages. But by the same logic, I could argue that the Black Irish are Black, and yet they're not allowed in the article. The point is the people editing that article need to be forced to adheare to a coherent sourced authoritative definition of a Black person, or the entire article should just be deleted as POV and unencyclopedic.

Dictionary.com[[1]], the free dictionary online[[2]]., the U.S. census[[3]], and the British census[[4]] all emphasize the idea that Blacks are of African origin-in fact it is against the law for a dark-skinned person of South Asian or Australian origin to claim to be black in the census. An article by the BBC makes a clear distinction between Blacks and the dark skinned people of South Asian ancestry[[5]]. This article about race in biomedicines says “The entities we call ‘racial groups’ essentially represent individuals united by a common descent — a huge extended family, as evolutionary biologists like to say. Blacks, for example, are a racial group defined by their possessing some degree of recent African ancestry (recent because, after all, everyone of us is out of Africa, the origin of Homo sapiens)."[[6]]. I really need help getting the editors of that article to stick to a coherent definition, instead of just pushing their own POV. Editingoprah 06:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

HI Editingoprah,

I sincerely want to acknowledge your request, and the validity of your desire to find some sort of answer to these questions. I hear your frustration and sincerity, believe me I do. [As I'm looking at the words I just typed, they sound like BS.... because I know you can't see my face or hear my voice as you would if we were talking. But I really do mean what I say (or.. uh.. type).]

But I went to Talk:Black people, and all I can say is: Wow. I do mean wow. It would take me days, maybe weeks to sort out all those arguments.

I would like to caution any of my other colleagues who read this from jumping in to the debate too prematurely -- without investing some time to read the talk page. I think the debate as it stands is probably irreconcilable, and adding more input to it may not be helpful.

• I think the debate as it stands is probably irreconcilable, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Good things can come out of irreconcilable differences.

• I think both sides of the debate should call a temporary cease-fire. By "temporary" I mean weeks or months, not days.

• I think both sides should agree to disagree, and agree that the goal is to start from word one and add reliable secondary sources to as many passages as possible. All of this should take place without coming to a resolution on the ultimate question.

• I think the passages should be linked to their sources with Harvard-style links.

• I know this is probably not a satifactory answer to you, but I think it is the only way to move forward in a positive manner.

• I know both parties will challenege the validity of each others' sources, but that is a more subject question and can be decided by conseensus or appeal to Wikipedia guidelines.

I sincerely hope that helped... --{{subst:User2|Ling.Nut)) 16:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your reply. I understand your fear of getting involved because you feel you may not know much about the topic, or you fear the emotional personalities that dominate the article, however as a reader, as an editor, you don't need to be an expert on the topic. What the article needs is people who will watch it like a hawk and make sure everything single statement is well verified by a reliable MAINSTREAM source. If you see anything that isn't well cited please don't hesitate to remove it immediately. Don't worry about the nonsense on the talk page. A good article just stand on its own merrits and its own citations, and people shouldn't worry about reading all the ideological rants. The people currently editing the article are too emotional and too invested in the topic. I want outsiders who wish to maintain consistent high quality standards in ethnic related articles to get involved and enforce those standards. Editingoprah 17:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I owe you a follow up, so you won't think I forgot you.. I took a hard look at my semester and decided I am way behind in my classes. I'm declaring a wikibreak. I'll probably make one or at most two minor edits per day for the next six weeks or so, but have nowhere near the time it would take to fix the Black people article. Most I can do is drop by and fix a line or two per week. Sorry. Later --Ling.Nut 00:57, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, editingoprah:

I gotta tell ya. Because you sounded a more than a little concerned, and because I'd like for folks at WikiProject Ethnic groups to help each other out, I took about an hour and a half to try to investigate your concerns. Since I'm mainly interested in Taiwan, I went to the nearest thing that I could find in a quick scan of the the Black people article -- Australia.

What I found is that there are enough books and articles about Black Australians to fill at least a small section of a library. A trip to google scholar is enough evidence for me; but I looked in my (smallish, Midwestern U.S.) university library and found three books whose title addresses the topic, and several others that have some mention or discussion of Black Australians. The same appears to apply to Torres Strait Islander people.

Forgive me, but if your position is that Black people are all and only the people of Sub-Saharan ancestry, then speaking as a completely disinterested scholar, I think there is sufficient evidence to conclude that your position is too restrictive. I'm sorry; I know my categorical tone will seem impolite. I sincerely hope you won't take offense. But I simply cannot escape the above conclusion, nor can I find room for disagreement based on the literature.

I am not stating that the article Black people is devoid of factual inaccuracies. I don't have anywhere near the time to check that. In fact, I would kinda guess (just based on the sheer size of the article and the relatively large number of uncited assertions) that there are some inaccuracies in the article somewhere. I'm saying that the overarching assertion limiting Blacks to Sub-Saharan ancestry does not seem supportable.

--Ling.Nut 14:22, 4 October 2006 (UTC) Category:African American sportspeople