Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Archive 9

Archive 5

←

Archive 7

Archive 8

Archive 9

Archive 10

Archive 11

→

Archive 15

Discussion

The following discussion regarding possible action on the part of editors who believe ethnic categories should not exist at Wikipedia, which seems quite significant, was just found at User talk:Carlossuarez46:

Heritage-Nationality categories

Circa 2005-06, several (many) of us spent about 6 months carefully garnering consensus on a fairly limited set of allowable categories. I write standards and practices reasonably well, and was somewhat proud of our resulting text. I thought it was as objective as possible.

Over the years, folks have been ignoring the reasonable restrictions. I'm beginning to agree with you that they should all be removed, as letting the camel's nose into the tent.

You asked me to join you. Do you have a plan?

--William Allen Simpson (talk) 06:07, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I wish. I may still be naive enough to think that more editors would come around if a core group chimes in at every CFD with the radically normal idea that racial, ethnic, and religious categories make no sense. It was a "strategy" I learned about while reading on the US Supreme Court - a couple of justices refused to uphold any death penalty judgments coming to the conclusion that capital punishment is wrong. Eventually they swayed a third member. For a while executions were stopped, basically until the various justices who had been opposed to it died and were replaced by other justices who were more malleable to the political will. We don't have a political will driving people's behavior. What's best for the 'pedia is what drives me and an abiding sense that these categories do nothing to enlighten because there is no objective criteria for inclusion and only divide both wikipedians and people in general. And what makes them definitional? Being of some small % of Fooian descent makes one do what differently, that a small % less doesn't make one do? Laughable. Even Goebels would have a hard time explaining that logic. So, as for a plan - I keep chiming in to delete these at every opportunity, nominating the most egregious ones I come across so as not to be disruptive. If you do as well, and a few other decent people do so, consensus can and will change. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 06:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

As you may have noticed, I've been more proactive. I've got a string of recent deletion precedents now, and am requesting the entire disentanglement of Ethnicity and Nationality. Please bring your thoughts at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 May 28#People not by ethnicity and others on the page. Note that some are delete, others are rename (removing ethnicity).

-- watching this thread here --William Allen Simpson (talk) 15:12, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

British people

Hello WP:ETHNIC,

I'm not a member of the WikiProject, but have been working extremely hard on overhauling, developing and advancing the British people article. The article is nearing full maturity, and I plan to nominate it for WP:GA status in the very near future. I just wanted to run it by everyone here and get some feedback on any areas of weakness. I'm hope this important article can be the project's first European nation/ethnic/cultural group to reach WP:FA. :) --Jza84 |  Talk  17:17, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I've nominated this article for WP:GA status today. It's still got a couple of things I need to do, but given the backlog for GAC is weeks/months old, I'm confident everything will be in place. --Jza84 |  Talk  23:54, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Very important: deletion discussions

Please see:

• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_May_28#People_not_by_ethnicity
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_May_28#Category:People by race or ethnicity

Badagnani (talk) 05:50, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Illyrians

A debate is going in Talk:Illyrians#Sources, regarding how much weight should be given to connection between Illyrians and Albanians. Albanian editors are adamant that Albanians are direct, unbroken descendents of the Illyrians and that this should be mentioned in the lead. They mostly use modern Balkan history books to prove their point, rather than books that focus on the Illyrians themselves. Since the subject of the article is the Illyrians, however, I and a number of other editors maintain that the subject of the Albanians Illyrian origins is a) disputed, and b) peripheral to the subject of the Illyrians and is better discussed in the Origin of the Albanians article. A brief survey on expert sources on the Illyrians (Evans, Wilkes) confirms this. However, the debate has stalled because not enough neutral users are involved, and the Albanian editors are numerically superior and now resort to ridiculous wikilawyering arguments ("Bring sources that prove that Albanians are peripheral to the subject of the Illyrians") to stall the debate. I am thus posting in the relevant Wikiproject pages to try and get a meaningful debate started that is representative of the Wikipedia community as a whole, in the hope of achieving a stable consensus. --Athenean (talk) 07:06, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Africana womanism

Helo everyone! You may be interested in checking out Africana womanism. Thank you! The Ogre (talk) 12:27, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Naming conventions

I've proposed moving Italian Libyans to Italian settlers in Libya because the former name is barely used in any reliable sources.

There's a somewhat-widespread habit on Wikipedia of naming articles about Fooians who settle in Barland as "Fooian Barian". In cases where that name is actually used in reliable sources (e.g. most immigrant groups in Australian, Canada, the U.S., many parts of Latin America), this is fine, but such names are also being used for articles about migrants in the rest of the world. In my opinion, this is a mistake. If you have some comment on this issue, please leave your thoughts at Talk:Italian Libyans#Requested move. Thanks, cab (talk) 03:01, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

UK ethnic/nationality/country-of-birth group templates

You may be interested in a discussion going on at Template talk:AfricansinUK about the categorisation of migrant groups in the UK on templates. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:53, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Jewish surnames category deleted again; see discussion

Please see Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2009_July_6#Category:Jewish_surnames. Badagnani (talk) 22:21, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:ETHNIC template and activity

Is Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups/Template still live? Are we encouraging users to use this still? Are members of the project even aspiring to use this themselves for groups they edit? Is this project still active? --Jza84 |  Talk  00:02, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I haven't found the template that useful, but I mostly edit articles related to diaspora populations rather than entire ethnic groups. There's still editors working in this subject area, but not much activity being coordinated through this WikiProject (besides deletion discussions). cab (talk) 00:26, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I've found it somewhat valuable to have a standard layout set out to aspire to, and noticed that Tamil people uses it, but there have been calls (in my new venture into ethnic groups) that the template be revised slightly, and the Classification section be moved to section 1. I have no opinion on it, other than it should be a consistent approach that we adopt.

Also, it may be worth doing a roll-call and something of an update for this project - ethnicity is probably the most important factor contributing to a person's experience of living than anything else. The project covers pretty much the most important and exciting part of human history, culture and diversity, but I'm seeing little interest and progress. --Jza84 |  Talk  00:36, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Big problems with the Koreatown article

And also with Chinatowns in North America and other articles of this kind; see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Korea#Big_problems_with_the_Koreatown_article and the links through to WP:Canada from there.....Skookum1 (talk) 23:41, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Notable individuals sections

Lots of ethnic and immigrant group articles seem to feature a section with a list of notable individuals belonging to the group. See Macedonian Australian or Pacific Islanders in the United Kingdom for two examples. When I was trying to get British Cypriots to featured article status, someone pointed out in the discussion that the selection of such individuals is arbitrary and hence constitutes original research. I'm now investigating this issue more and I note that none of the articles of this type that are featured articles have these sections. Do people have any thoughts on this? Is it proper for articles to have these sections? Cordless Larry (talk) 22:32, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I think they should be removed outright. 99% are unsourced anyway, and so breach WP:BLP and WP:V. --Jza84 |  Talk  22:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I should also mention that lots of the articles have related images in their infoboxes. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:48, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

--A good point. British people and English people took a long period of reasoned and productive discussion. Alot of these hybrid, dual or hyphenated articles (particularly "British X" it seems) have images of people without any scrutinisation or fact checking (Bob Marley on Scottish Jamaican???) --Jza84 |  Talk  23:16, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I think they should only be included if the person in question has either self-identified, or has been identified by others, as belonging to that ethnicity, in some reliably sourced, notable way. E.g. does the fact that Emma Watson has one French grandmother mean she should be listed as a 'French Briton'? Only if her ancestry has been a big deal in pop culture, which I doubt. But should Michael Portillo be mentioned in the article on Spaniards in the United Kingdom? Probably, because his ancestry became quite a big deal in the 1992 elections.Cop 663 (talk) 22:56, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

That might be a reason to mention his ethnicity in the article about him, and to add him to a list somewhere, but is it appropriate to add him to the group article? There are potentially lots of notable Spaniards in the United Kingdom so selecting some for mention in the article is inevitably arbitrary. Cordless Larry (talk) 23:14, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unification Church and antisemitism Borock (talk) 04:32, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Stop discrimination in Wikipedia

Please see here: Proposal for stopping discriminative practices in writing in Wikipedia and in attitudes between editors written by me in discussion at Discrimination Project page. --SofieElisBexter (talk) 10:20, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Fringe theory

In Japanese people, I have twice reverted this sentence: "Japanese people are descendants from black people."

Serial edits at Sakanoue no Tamuramaro and Sakanoue no Karitamaro assert that these 8th-century historical figures have an Afro-Japanese heritage. I've reverted them all.

This is outside the scope of normal editing issues; and I expect someone at WP:WikiProject Japan will be able to resolve the problem. To me, this seems so strange. I wondered if simply posting this novelty on this page could become constructive in some way? --Tenmei (talk) 18:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Religion entries in ethnic group infoboxes about migrant groups

Have a look at:

• Filipinos in Libya
• Filipinos in Ireland
• Filipinos in Egypt
• Filipinos in Nigeria

There's a dispute over what is an acceptable source for listing religions in the ethnic group infobox --- whether or not the US Department of State Freedom of Religion report for the Philippines (which doesn't specifically address Filipinos in Libya, Ireland, or any other country) is an acceptable source to list "Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam" in the infoboxes in each of those articles in that order.

Find below also the previous discussion which was conducted at user talk pages. Thanks, cab (talk) 01:18, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Recruitment of migrant workers is not an undifferentiated process in which every single destination country draws from all over the Philippines among every ethnic and religious group. Different countries have different recruitment agencies or government bodies which prefer to recruit in one region or another and to pick and reject migrants based on a variety of criteria. Similarly, migrants may choose to pick one country or another based on any number of factors --- wages might be the most important, but social factors are another. Migrants may convert to another religion after their arrival in a destination country (even if they came with no intention of permanent settlement and thus feel no interest to adapt to their host country, their intention may change after arrival).

Network/founder effects are another reason why the religious profile of migrants might differ significantly from the source country --- completely independent from the religious environment of the destination country. (The most common example of this is how Korean Americans are 70% Christian, even though South Korea is no more than 25% Christian --- what happens is that new Buddhist or non-religious immigrants begin attending church simply as a social activity, to access support networks).

In short, it's extremely faulty to assume that Filipino migrant workers in any country will exactly reflect the religious demographics of the Philippines --- which is what you are implying when you list all those religions in that exact order in each of the infoboxes. cab (talk) 00:41, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I think you should read Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (of which the Philippines is party to) and similar provisions which pretty much states that the state and government has no right to discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity and the like. Given the OWWA government agency facilitates much of the activities of migrant workers, working abroad is pretty much open to anyone regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, and culture, as a result of the previous statement, which in turn will obviously result in the mirroring of the demographic inside and outside the country.--23prootie (talk) 00:57, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

All recruitment agencies may be open to people of any religion, but that does not mean that all countries are going to get members of all religious groups. OFWs can choose to accept a position in a destination country or not. And similarly, destination countries have absolute control over visa issuance and deportation --- power which in practise will be exercised in a discriminatory fashion. This does not "obviously result in the mirroring of the demographic inside and outside the country". To assume this is the exact example of original research.

One type of source which has been useful in other articles about migrant groups is directory listings of expatriate religious services and groups. These are published by embassies, migrant associations, foreigners' newspapers, expat life guides, etc. These aren't perfect sources, since they still can't be used to draw conclusions about what religions predominate, but at minimum they establish what religions are practised in reasonable numbers among the migrant group actually in the country in question, which the Department of State report absolutely does not do. cab (talk) 01:05, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

OR/Synth/Directory problems with Chinatowns in Canada and the United States et al.

Please see Talk:Chinatowns_in_Canada_and_the_United_States#More_accurate_name_-_Chinese_settlement_areas_and_commercial_districts_in_North_America and note preceding sections, also various items on Talk:Koreatown.Skookum1 (talk) 15:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:07, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

• I just added this alert feature to the project page, per the instructions for article alerts. Hmains (talk) 14:49, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Ethnic Groups Template

Does anyone have any objections to an alteration to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ethnic_Groups/Template? At the moment the classification section is at the bottom of the article, yet in my view on those articles where it is needed this provides vital information which should belong at the top of the article after the introduction, rather than the last thing people read. Its certainly more important than things like culture / sport.BritishWatcher (talk) 21:11, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this change (I have raised it here before). --Jza84 |  Talk  21:17, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject logo

I've long been confused about the photograph of the girl with a jar on her head used by WP:ETHNIC as a logo. Surely some kind of mosaic of humans of various cultures would be a more obvious and befitting choice for the userbox and project banner etc? --Jza84 |  Talk  23:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The selection of the picture seems arbitrary. That the woman appears (to me) to be non-Western probably also reifies the mistaken idea that ethnicity is something only relevant to minorities in a Western context. It smells of Orientalism to me. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Non-indigenous & Ethnic group

What is the difference between Non-indigenous, Ethnic groups and Diaspora belongs to a specific country and what kind of basic information or content, an article do required related to Ethnic groups or Diaspora? --Gaikokujin  talk  18:29, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Race and crime in the United States

My attention was recently drawn to this page. Could some experts here weigh in on its talk page? I have the sense that a great deal of synthesis (and perhaps original research as well) is has taken place in its composition. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:14, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

And could those wishing to join the discussion please review the literature in the bibliography before forming an opinion on this issue? Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 11:08, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Judaism?

Has there been any discussion about whether or how much Wikipedia:WikiProject_Judaism should be treated as part of this project? Most of the other American ethnic groups are now linked to the Ethnic group project, but I don't see anything related to Jewish people as an ethnic group. I thought the Jewish Culture project would be appropriate, but it has been disabled. Has this topic been addressed before? Aristophanes68 (talk) 01:56, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Template doesn't direct to category stated

The page currently says: "Adding this template to a talk page will automatically place the article in Category:WikiProject Ethnic groups." But as best as I can tell, it doesn't place the article on that particular page, but on the "Category:WikiProject Ethnic groups articles" page. Should the reference here be corrected? Aristophanes68 (talk) 03:10, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Black people in Europe/Afro-Europeans

You may be interested in a discussion here about whether the article about people of sub-Saharan African descent in Europe should be called "Afro Europeans" or "Black people in Europe". Cordless Larry (talk) 10:32, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

RFC for French people

I have asked for an RFC for French people. In my point of view the article is a masterpiece of the ethnic hypocrisy so typical of the French: it includes all French citizens, not those, which the article claims to represent, the ethnically French. This unhappiness has been raised before, I want to finish with it one and for all (so the RFC). Any contributions would be welcome. ChrisDHDR 18:40, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Aboriginal peoples C/E Assistance requested please

The high importance article Aboriginal peoples in Canada needs some grammar and copy editing assistance. One of several points is that "the notable people section is very long relative to the other sections of the article". There was a pre-requisite that the lead section images are discussed in article, and the title lends itself to highlight some of the more notable Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Many notable Aboriginal peoples have been cropped from the list format when the section was converted to prose format. How can the article be improved, and this section again be cropped without conversion back to list which is eliminated for GA success? Thank you.SriMesh | talk 22:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest List of notable aboriginal people in Canada or something along those lines, with a "main" template leading to it, rather than cluttering up that page - which is about peoples, not about individuals, or that's what it should be....Skookum1 (talk) 18:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate use of "Chinatown"

Please see Talk:Southern_California_Chinatowns and Talk:Chinatown, Talk:Chinatowns in Canada and the United States and related article talk-pages. Either citations for actual common-use (not promotional use) of places like Rowland Park as "Chinatown" should be provided or the article in question should either be deleted or renamed.Skookum1 (talk) 18:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of Jewish-related category

See discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2009_October_26#Category:Jewish_inventors. Badagnani (talk) 06:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Project tag for Multiculturalism?

Should Multiculturalism be tagged for this project? Aristophanes68 (talk) 01:21, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Italian settlers in Libya

if i were you i would not use wikipedia becouse all of it is rong and annyone can edit thispage like myself —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.69.136.33 (talk) 20:56, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

See Talk:Italian settlers in Libya#Italian Libyans. Need a third opinion on the title of this article. This probably also affects Italian Somalians, Italian Eritreans, Italian Egyptian, all of which have been named by analogy to Italian American without any evidence that reliable sources use such names. Thanks, cab (talk) 02:16, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I sincerely don't understand why Italian Libyans cannot be used as a title, like Irish Americans or German Australians. Furthermore, German Namibians is related to colonial times like Italian Libyans, but it is accepted without problems. Just see the Template:European Americans. Sincerely.--Triasm (talk) 03:21, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

That is because the name "German Namibians" is actually used in the scholarly literature unambiguously to refer to them: Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL. This is in great contrast to "Italian Libyans". Libya is not America or Australia or Brazil. We don't generate names by analogy like this. There are too many competing conventions. Some countries say it one way around: Indian American, Malaysian Australian. Some countries say it the other way around: British Chinese, Burmese Indian. Some countries say it neither way at all: Hindoestanen, Koryo-saram, etc. We don't just take one pattern and try to apply it to the whole world. cab (talk) 03:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

No, my dear CaliforniaAliBaba. Italian Libyans is used -as you know- in scholarly literature like in the example of International Law [1], from a google book ("International Law Reports" of E. Lauterpacht) about an Italian Libyan named Kemali (born in the 1930s in Libya from Arab father and Italian mother). And I have found, reading this google book, this sentence: In the absence of any such express provision all Italian Libyan citizens, and thus the respondent in the present case, retained Italian citizenship... To me this is a legal confirmation of the existence of the term Italian Libyan citizens. It say clearly Italian Libyan, yes or no? And what is all your comments about the fact that Libya is not Brazil or the USA: it is a country and that it is what matters to all of us or to the ONU. It is a country like Namibia, where we have the colonial community of the German Namibians.BTW, find me an evidence (like the one above about Italian Lybians) from an international law book about the use of the word "German Namibians"......IMHO you cannot decide what is right or wrong by your own opinion without evidences, and so decide that German Namibians is right while Italian Libyans no (even if there are clear and undeniable evidences about the scholar & law-diplomatic existence of "Italian Libyans"--Triasm (talk) 04:05, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

And still you are going everywhere repeating your fallacies. "Italian Libyan" = "Citizen of Italian Libya", who may be Arabs (as discussed in your source) or indigeneous Jews, but are a different category than citizens of the Kingdom of Italy who resided in Libya [2]. That is different than "Libyan with Italian ancestors". cab (talk) 04:39, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Mine are not fallacies: an "Italian American", for example, is NOT different from an "American with Italian ancestors" (I am one of them)....and a "German Namibian" is NOT different from a "Namibian with German ancestors"....and so on and on with all the examples you want (again, just see Template:European Americans). Why only "Italian Libyans" should be different from "Libyans with Italian ancestors"?--Triasm (talk) 00:01, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Issue at French people

There's a long-standing debate regarding the French people article. By law and custom in France, French people are defined by culture, language and citizenship rather than ethnicity (see the article). So, should the article French people be taken off the list of ethnic group articles? If so, is the expression "X people" solely reserved for ethnic groups in Wikipedia and so should the name of the article be changed (it should be noted that the French form a people, just not on ethnic grounds)? Advice would be welcome.--Ramdrake (talk) 17:48, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

For me, this points to a wider problem with the classification of ethnic groups on Wikipedia. I would say that the French are a national group rather than an ethnic one, even leaving aside the issue of citizenship. As a number of editors have pointed out on the article's talk page, the "native" French are themselves composed of multiple ethnic groups. On the wider point, take a look at Category:Ethnic groups in Europe. It includes such diverse articles as Black people in Europe, Germans and Anglo-Norman. These are clearly not all ethnic groups if that term is defined the same in each case. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:45, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Major Issue with Moroccan Diaspora Articles

I edited the article Moroccan Americans quite recently, simply for grammatical errors and unencyclopædic language. I returned to the article today, and found a comment that had been posted on the article's talk page, which pointed out that much of the article's content was identical to that of Moroccans in Sweden.

After looking over the article again, I realised that this was indeed correct. As perhaps the most obvious example, the first sentence of Moroccan Americans states that "Migration of Moroccans to America is a part of Moroccan migration to Western Europe". In addition, the article Moroccan-Dutch shares the same introductory paragraph as the first two articles. Moroccan Americans and Moroccans in Sweden both contain identical unsourced statistics on Moroccan immigrants in buisness, and cited no references whatsoever until I revised the population statistic for the American article using cited Census data.

I noticed that these articles fall under the scope of this WikiProject, and was wondering if anyone would be interested in helping me sort out what goes where with regard to these articles, and in helping add some relevant, verifiable information. --Whytecypress (talk) 22:32, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't really have time to help right now but a while back I had to deal with a similar issue with a number of "X people in the United Kingdom" articles which mixed the groups up. I recommend paring the articles back to a bare minimum of content and then to re-add material as and when it can be verified. Cordless Larry (talk) 23:51, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi, working on Moroccan-Dutch. Cheers, cab (talk) 00:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Update: I've done as you have recommended, and reduced Moroccan Americans to only verifiable content, and will move on to Moroccans in Sweden soon. My regards to cab for his help with Moroccan Dutch. --WhyteCypress 01:28, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Problems with Turkish diaspora articles

I don't see any hope for the following articles:

Turks in South Africa, Turks in India, Turks in Argentina, Turks in Chile, Turks in Uruguay, Turks in Liechtenstein, Turks in Luxembourg, Turks in New Zealand, Turks in Poland

All part of a series of mass-created stubs based on a population table. Unless anyone knows of any sources that can be used to improve them, I'll be nominating them for deletion over the next few weeks. (I already nominated one such article, Turks in the Czech Republic.) There's also some others that are currently in a bad state, but can probably be improved (e.g. articles about Turkish people in former Ottoman territories like Turks in Egypt or Turks in Croatia); those I won't be nominating.

BTW, some caveats if you plan to look for sources for the above articles

1. Turks in Latin America: local sources, especially older ones, often use the term "Turks" to refer to Syrian/Lebanese Christians whose ancestors came on Ottoman passports; they identify as Arabs, not Turks. The Arab Chileans article has more discussion of this point.
2. Turks in India: books like [3] aren't valid sources. The Turkish diaspora series is supposed to be about expatriates from the Ottoman Empire or the modern Republic of Turkey, not the Timurid dynasty's conquests.

Cheers cab (talk) 00:55, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Update: found some sources for Turks in South Africa --- not particularly good sources, just discussions of individuals rather than the "community as a whole", but probably the article can be merged somewhere rather than being deleted. Nominated a bunch more for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Turks in Latin America. Appreciate everyone's opinions. Thanks, cab (talk) 03:04, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Second opinion: Asian Americans

I am seeking a second opinion on gender-equality regarding the images in the infobox. I have requested the inclusion of certain additions that would help balance that, particularly for the representatives for Bengali (both genders) and Indonesian (female), but one of the editors keep rejecting that. I believe that their reason is valid although I doubt that pushing it in this case is unnecessary. Could anyone please help?--124.104.45.106 (talk) 10:48, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Aru'kiruna & La'kalai

The creator of these articles also created some nonsensical mathematics articles so I thought it would be a good idea to check on these as well. I'm not an expert but they appear to be hoaxes; I couldn't find any hits on Google books for Aru'kiruna and the ones for La'kalai all seemed to refer to a different subject. From what I can tell online the books cited don't mentions these subjects but you'd need to look at hard copies to be sure. Some of the claims made seem dubious at best, for example there is something about their grammar being so complicated that the native speakers prefer to speak English. This isn't my area but these articles seemed suspicious enough to raise a red flag.--RDBury (talk) 15:03, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Requested move of Armenian Iranians to Iranian Armenians

The article in question has been moved back and forth between various titles for a few years without any attempt at discussion from those who move it. I've opened a formal move request in an attempt to get a consensus on what the article title should be. Appreciate your comments at Talk:Armenian Iranians#Requested move. Thanks, cab (talk) 06:12, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Ethnoreligious group

I'm posting this note here to request help with the article at Ethnoreligious group, that has a template from this Wikiproject on the talk page. The article currently has no sources for the definition of the term, and there is talk page discussion about a possible merge with Ethnic religion. If anyone here is interested in this topic, please join the discussion or add sources to the page. Thanks. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 00:04, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Discussion about categorisation of British people by ethnic or national origin

Please see here for discussion regarding a possible merger of categories of British people by ethnic or national origin. Cordless Larry (talk) 10:40, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Bad project

I disagree with this project As I observed many absolutly not logic articles> example: number of people from each nation(english,britton,french,latin...). We are all cousin within the last 20000 years(not only white...). how can you define a nation in term of time? ...bad way...time to retract —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.24.254.65 (talk) 21:20, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Syrian American

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. You are being notified as this project's banner is on the talk page. I have found some concerns which you can see at Talk:Syrian American/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 03:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Missing topics list

I've updated my list of topics related to ethnic and other groups - Skysmith (talk) 12:48, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment

I have proposed merging Ashkenazi intelligence to Ashkenazi Jews. Weigh in at, Talk:Ashkenazi intelligence. Also in particular, weigh in on one user's points, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ashkenazi_intelligence#More_sociology.2C_less_biology.21 I thought his line of questioning needed more discussion. ScienceApe (talk) 19:23, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion: Meaningful distinctions

I have noticed on some less developed articles about specific immigrant ethnic groups (e.g. Maltese American, Czech American) a tendency to want to be as inclusive as possible. In particular there is a tendency to want to hunt for famous people to include in as examples. IMHO this practice tends to make these articles fairly meaningless. All of us are descendants of multiple groups and, as has been pointed out, if you go back a millenium or two, we are all related.

I would like to suggest that this Wikiproject should adopt some more concrete guidelines on these articles so that they can be brought closer to some meaningful norm.

Suggestions:

• Statistics - Should generally only be included if they give a meaningful indication (regardless of whether they come from a reliable source). For example, giving a population count of British Indians which includes everyone with an Indian ancestor would be pretty useless. Perhaps a standard like the following should be used. Population statistics should be restricted to those falling into one of the following categories.
  • Persons who self-identify as belonging to the ethnic group in some formal survey.
  • Persons whose ancestry is at least 1/4 in that group.
• Famous examples - Obviously mentioning famous people should not be the primary purpose of these articles. To the extent that famous people are mentioned, IMHO, the standards for inclusion should be even higher than the statistics, in order for their inclusion to be truly meaningful and representative. Suggested criteria: Only include people who are either:
  • First generation immigrants (e.g. British Indians who actually grew up in India).
  • Second generation immigrants who have traveled regularly to the homeland and/or speak the native language at home and/or maintained other major connections to the culture (i.e. simply hanging out with other people who have the same skin color doesn't count).
  • Descendants who grew up in a community that primarily spoke the native language and maintained the culture apart from the culture of the new country (i.e. the fact that some community is simply closed doesn't count; that may constitute a separate ethnic group but not an immigrant ethnic group).

Thoughts?

--Mcorazao (talk) 14:27, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposed move

User:Andres rojas22 has proposed that Russians in China be retitled to Russian Chinese. If you have any comment on this matter, please discuss it at Talk:Russians in China#Move to Russian Chinese, keeping in mind Wikipedia:Article titles and similar guidelines. Thanks, cab (talk) 21:41, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Categorization of immigrants

Please see Category talk:American people by ethnic or national origin#Emigrants who landed in America after long travel. If there any other pages where this discussion may be announced, please do so. Ralph Saroyan (talk) 20:35, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Notice: Chinese Indonesian rewrite project

Good day! This message is being cross-posted on WikiProjects which consider the article on Chinese Indonesians of moderately high importance. Earlier this year, I began a project to rewrite the article because there are glaring issues currently with the article that cannot be corrected with just a simple edit. The difficulty of this subject can be glimpsed at an archive of the article's talk page. I believe that I now have the sources necessary to complete the rest of my rewrite and am seeking help from other contributors in the following ways:

• Review of available media: Determine photos, maps, graphics, etc. that will significantly contribute to the article. The recent donation from the Royal Tropical Institute has greatly increased the amount of material to work with.
• Review of infobox: Determine whether it should include Indonesian, Chinese (and perhaps Dutch) equivalent names. Determine the appropriate image(s), with the option of selecting only one generic image or several notable figures. Determine how the population figure should be described, given the issues surrounding "accurate numbers".
• Review of related material: Determine which related articles, external links, material in other projects (Commons, WikiSource, etc.), and portals should be included.

Though I do appreciate offers to help me in writing the article, I hope that you will find another way in which you can contribute at the moment. This is in the interest of avoiding conflict and hasten the writing process. Of course, in keeping with the policy on ownership, the article will be fully open to contribution once it has reached a mainspace-worthy version.

Please direct all comments regarding the project the special discussion page I have created. For other comments not directly related to the project, please use my talk page. Thank you. Arsonal (talk) 20:55, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Dutch people

A Request for Comments which may be of interest to this Wikiproject is waiting for your input at Talk:Dutch people#RfC on how to define the Dutch as an ethnic group, and what to include. Fram (talk) 07:08, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

article dabs

I've started moving articles from "X" to "X people", parallel to "X language". I wasn't as sure what to do with tribes & clans, but have used "X Somali clan" etc. If there's a problem, please drop me a line. So far I've just done Tanzania and Kenya. — kwami (talk) 13:03, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure it was necessary, as in many cases (Abgaal, Leelkasa, Hawiye etc.) there is nothing to disambiguate. Otherwise I think "Leelkase (Somali clan)" would have been preferable to "Leelkase Somali clan" but, again, I don't see the necessity. Also, I'm not sure anyone refers to Oromo groups as "clans." Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 14:15, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Easy enough to go through the cat 'ethnic groups in Kenya' to change again, if anyone feels the need. What do people feel about "X (Somali clan)"? And I don't know anything about the Oromo; should they be "tribes"? Or are they distinct enough to be "peoples"?

My understanding was that "X people" is preferred over "X (ethnic group)".

For languages, we always append "language" unless it's s.t. like Latin or Esperanto which has no other meaning, even if there's no other article to disambiguate. Most of these ethnic groups are ethno-linguistic, so there's a potential language or dialect article to dab even if we don't have one yet. Also, the logic behind the "X language" format is that if the name is a common one, it needs to be disambiguated, and if it's an uncommon one, perhaps without its own ethnicity, the -language tag helps orientate the reader. I would think the same about ethnicities: a simple name could also mean the language, but even without that, many are so obscure that a -people tag would help orientate the reader. A format found with many ethno-linguistic groups is that "X" is a dab (lang, ethn, district, etc), with "X language" and "X people" as the articles. I've been leaving "X" as a redirect for now, but that was the ideal I was aiming for. (Since languages are dependent on people, IMO if we don't use "X" as a dab, it should be a redirect to the people article rather than the language article, unless maybe the language article is much better developed.) — kwami (talk) 20:24, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Most of these articles should not be moved, in my opinion, as either there is nothing to disambiguate, or, as you rightly point out, languages are dependent on people, so that the people will usually be the primary topic of an ambiguous name. WP:PRECISION recommends article titles be precise, but only as precise as necessary. In most cases, it is better to have a shorter title, when it is correct, because it is easier to link to and search for. If "X" is left as a redirect, there's no real benefit to moving it in the first place, and if "X" is turned into a dab page unnecessarily, it inconveniences readers who are expecting to land on a primary topic; dab pages are generally not recommended for only two topics. Besides being of no benefit, if "X" is left as a redirect and should then be edited, it makes it impossible for a non-admin to move it back. There is also the issue of NPOV: Should it be "X people", "X nation", "X tribe", "X First Nation", "X clan"? Putting the article at "X" avoids that issue. Station1 (talk) 04:59, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

There are quite a few "X" articles which are dab pages, redirecting the reader to either "X people" or "X language". I've never heard anyone object to that arrangement before.

As for the form of the ethnos articles, I thought there was broad agreement on "X people". ("X nation" would imply a national consciousness which might not always be present, and the other words are factually incorrect.) I've moved quite a few that were at "X (ethnic group)", which in the discussions I've seen people have agreed should be replaced with "X people". There were also some at "X tribe" which were not about tribes. I've only moved articles to "X tribe" or "X clan" when they covered a tribe or clan instead of an ethnicity. One problem are the Somalis, where in the press "clan" is used for "tribe" and "sub-clan" for "clan", which screws things up. I'm sure there are other cases where someone familiar with the people in question would point out I made the wrong call, so I don't plan on objecting if any of these are challenged.

I've been finding a lot of duplicates both within the language and ethnic articles, and often the two are not linked to each other. The language articles are much more organized, as we follow iso3 coding unless there's an expressed reason not to, and many language articles have the family affiliation and are linked up the classification for easy traceability, and by linking the ethnic articles to them (at least in the case of ethnolinguistic groups), that will bring order to the ethnicity articles as well.

Anyway, I've gone back to the language articles, where we seem to have more of a consensus on a "X language" or "X dialect" format, and have left off the ethnic articles pending further input. I went through the categories for TZ, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, and Madagascar. — kwami (talk) 06:34, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I generally agree with the point of your edits, but I don't think it was necessary where the Somali- or Oromo-related articles were concerned (i.e., the only disambiguation needed, for the most pasrt, was at the top level – Somali, Oromo disambig. pages – and this is already in place. The only other instance I can think of is Ogaden (a place) vs. Ogaden (clan), and this is already disambiguated). Anyway, User:Middayexpress has moved most, or all, of these back like they were. Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 15:31, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

A "big discussion" on the talk:Turkic peoples

Greetings guys.

The article is nt in the scope of the project but I think it is necessary to add it, don't you?

I'd like to invite you to participate in the discussion titled "The Turkic ethnicities, Turkic languages and the population data in the article". I do really think the article is in a mess and everything is mixed up. I'd appreciate your contributions to the discussion Aregakn (talk) 02:18, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated Iranian peoples for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Dana boomer (talk) 01:31, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Taiwanese aborigines FAR

I have nominated Taiwanese aborigines for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. JJ98 (talk) 05:38, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Ethnic cleansing

Please take a look at Category talk:Ethnic cleansing. We are currently discussing if that category should be deleted, and in the process I created a table that includes many of the related categories that might be of interest to this project. — Sebastian 04:20, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Naming conventions

Members of this project may be interested in this discussion regarding the appropriate name for the article currently titled Britons of Latin American origin. This might have important implications for the names of other, similar article on Wikipedia. Cordless Larry (talk) 13:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Please help (Taiwanese aborigines)

• Need someone to get a copy of this book and verify that two images in the FA article Taiwanese aborigines are in it. If the book is in your library, please check it out and contact me:
• (Tanxian taiwan: niaoju longcang de Taiwan renleixue zhi lu 探險台灣: 鳥居龍藏的台灣人類學之旅 (Taiwan Expedition: Tori’i Ryuzo’s Travel of Anthropology in Taiwan). Translated by Yang Nanjun 楊南郡. Taipei: Yuanliu 遠流.) • Ling.Nut 00:45, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Ethnic groups articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Ethnic groups articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 22:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Turkish community of London merge discussion

Input into the discussion here about merging Turkish community of London into Turks in the United Kingdom would be appreciated. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Move/content issue List of named ethnic enclaves in North American cities

Please see Talk:List_of_named_ethnic_enclaves_in_North_American_cities#Name_-_move.3F.Skookum1 (talk) 17:45, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Non-English characters in dab page, article page, redirect page names, up for RfC

See WT:Article titles#Non-Roman characters in redirects to articles, where an RfC has been opened on the use of non-English characters in page titles for disambiguation and redirect titles (and there appears to also be discussion about article titles) 76.66.203.138 (talk) 09:36, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Relevant RFC

A RFC about BLP categorization and ethnicity has been proposed to the attention of the community. Your input, being the wikiproject directly concerned, is particularly welcome. --Cyclopia^talk 00:27, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I need some help with White Argentine article.

Hi, I come here asking for someone who can help me. The trouble is this; there is an article named "White Argentine"; both the term and article comprise all Argentinians of predominantly European/Middle Eastern ancestry (It doesn't include, for example, Mestizo and Mulatto Argentines). The article was created in July 2007, and I found it and first edited it in April 2010. I greatly expanded it creating a History section with data about European immigration to Argentina, and the influence of the descendants of those European immigrants in Argentina's culture, music, literature, entertainment, etc. Suddenly, several users appeared criticizing the article of "Original research" and violation of BLP policy, etc, so they tearing the article to pieces, erasing entire sections at will. They allege that there is no such group, that it needs self-identification to be acknowledged as such; the problem is that Argentina's Census Bureau (INDEC) does not conduct racial/ethnic censuses (except for the Afro-Argentines and the Amerindians), and so "Argentino blanco" is not a label or umbrella term used in Argentina. But I know that White Argentines really exist and comprise a majority of the country's population -all sources agree in 85%-; and I know it because I live in Argentina, and I am one of them. I need an expert on the matter to guide me where I can search for better sources: bibliography, data, censuses, etc. Can anyone help me, please?--Pablozeta (talk) 03:43, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Can I ask anyone wishing to become involved in this issue to first take a good look at (a) the talk page, and (b) the article itself as it was before the gross violations of WP:BLP, WP:V, WP:OR and the rest were first noticed by editors who didn't 'own' the article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:47, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

List of states with limited recognition at FLRC

I have nominated List of states with limited recognition for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Nightw 15:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

'Fooian American' and 'List of Fooian Americans' articles

These articles (found in Category:Ethnic groups in the United States) and thus their lists (found in Category:Lists of American people by ethnic or national origin) are a mixture. Sometimes the articles are about specific ethnic groups and their people who came to the United States and their American descendants. In other cases, the articles are about people who came to the US from a specific country (regardless of ethnic group) and their American descendants. Without discussion or consensus, a single editor (User:Bulldog123) is trying to change these articles by changing the text that describes their purpose and/or deleting people from the articles. The objectives of this editor seem to be: 1) make such country articles into ethnic only articles; 2) remove descendents from the articles; 3) remove people who do not personally claim the came from such and such ethnic groups; 4) other unexplained/obscure reasons. Examples include: List of Estonian Americans, List of Macedonian Americans, List of Romanian Americans, Hungarian Americans, List of Hungarian Americans, List of Austrian Americans. Most of this editor's edits are tossed out by some editor or another, but this is unproductive and a waste. Your review of this situation (the edit histories and the talk pages) and possible solutions might be helpful. Hmains (talk) 05:50, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

This thread should really be renamed "How Hmains misinterprets Bulldog's edits"

• 1) make such country articles into ethnic only articles ---> Facepalm Not make but "maintain." They've always been ethnic group articles unless described (by secondary sources) as otherwise (like Belgian American)

These are not "country articles" (whatever that means), they are ethnicity articles because of their very titles. An X-American is an ethnic denomination as defined by Harvard encyclopedia of American ethnic groups By Stephan Thernstrom, Ethnic Groups USA By Benjamin J. Patterson, and The US Friggin' Census. Any other definitions are ORIGINAL RESEARCH.

• 2) remove descendents from the articles ---> NOPE

I've never removed anyone from a list purely because they are not first generation. Try again.

• 3) remove people who do not personally claim the came from such and such ethnic groups ---> NOPE

I've also never removed anyone from a list simply because they didn't personally identify as part of that ethnic group... though I wouldn't disagree if that were to be made into policy.

• 4) other unexplained/obscure reasons.

Read please.

• Most of this editor's edits are tossed out by some editor or another ---> NOPE

Most of this editor's edits are reverted by you and exclusively you (since 2008, in fact).

And just to point out the nonsense reverting you continually engage in:

• Here is Hmains from 2009 removing two names from an X-American list that do not meet WP:V or WP:BLP in the same manner I had done earlier without Hmain's objection. Here is Hmains from 2010 re-adding three names to that same X-American list (that don't meet WP:V or WP:BLP) only because I removed them. In other words, he's reverting for the sake of reverting. Bulldog123 08:41, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Without looking at the details, I won't comment beyond pointing out that (3) is in line with BLP policy - we should not be categorising people by ethnicity unless they have explicitly self-identified as belonging to said category. Frankly, I think the best solution to the general problem is to stop categorising people by ethnicity at all, unless there is a specific reason to do so in relation to their notability. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:33, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

However, (a) these are lists, not categories, and (b) BLP policy does not require self-identification for listing or categorisation by descent (as opposed to ethnicity). I don't see why being an American of Hungarian descent (for instance) should be such sensitive information that it would require relevance to notability to include it. --Avenue (talk) 00:25, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

(a) WP:BLPCAT does. (b) That's true but that's not what's happening on these lists. (c) Maybe because a lot of those people actually aren't of Hungarian descent. Bulldog123 08:41, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

• In the meantime, the bulk deletions to repurpose these articles and more continues daily, based entirely on User:Bulldog123 assertions of what the articles should and should not contain. Hmains (talk) 06:14, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

• Yup, and will continue until all unsourced material is either removed or moved to the talk page... as has been standard procedure since 2006. Your entire claim of "consensus says differently" is disingenuous, especially since you can't even point to the discussions where that "consensus" supposedly happened. User:Jack O'Lantern has been trying to maintain these lists with the "X-American" and "X" brand of sourcing since 2006. He's since left and the articles fell into disarray. I tried doing something in 2008, but was reverted by Hmains again (with the same stock excuse - "no consensus"). It's 2010 now... only User:Hmains appears to be reverting again. I think it's about time to move away from the WP:OWN-attitude that's been hounding the lists since 2008. Bulldog123 08:41, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

• Anyone who wants to read up on facts and not rants should read the articles, talk pages, edit summaries involved, BLP discussions (where ethnicity was rejected as a special concern of theirs), and so on. You find the multiple editors involved, you will find articles that discuss people from a named country and never mention an ethnic group that happens to match the coutry's name, you will find changes made without discussion, you will find blank edit summaries. As far as WP consensus goes, consensus if whatever an article says at a given time: it is not documented elsewhere. Consensus can and does changes though normal WP editing and discussion. It is purely offensive for a single aggressive editor to decide that only he will be the one to decide what should or should not be in articles and to attack anyone and everyone who disagrees with that supposition. No one is benefiting from this; WP is not improving from this. Hmains (talk) 04:47, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

• There are no "multiple editors involved"... There's you and me. That's it. You're maintaining this unbacked claim that since 2006 there has been a consensus-change to no longer include individuals only if they are described as "X or X-American." I'm maintaining there hasn't and either way it really doesn't overshadow WP:NOR, which says "This means that all material added to articles must be attributable to a reliable published source, even if not actually attributed." It's not our job to determine how much ancestry makes somebody an X-American, or whether someone being born in a country X makes that person an X-American. Bulldog123 18:18, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

• I've read up on the articles and talk pages, and agree with Hmains. Bull has been engaging in tendentious slow-motion edit warring here, against consensus, across a number of articles. His disregard for consensus is notable.--Epeefleche (talk) 18:20, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

• Note: This user has read up on nothing. User:Epeefleche regularly wikihounds me, jumping from article to article to voice his opposition for anything I support, and then goes to deletes any comment I leave on his talk page. His opinion is about as genuine as a bag of hammers'. Bulldog123 18:33, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

• After loudly making certain assertions above ("It's 2010 now... only User:Hmains appears to be reverting", and to Hmains: "There are no "multiple editors involved"... There's you and me. That's it"), Bull now loudly asserts that his own above assertions were false. He also both lies blatantly as to what I have done, making a personal attack at the same time by stating that I have lied, writing "This user has read up on nothing" -- I would ask him to revert his lie.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:03, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

• Seriously, go troll somewhere else. Anyone can take a look at your contribs and see you've been hounding me. Your position on these lists consists only of "I agree with User:X who disagrees with Bulldog." You've made no other statements relevant to the topic being discussed here whatsoever, so naturally I exclude you. Bulldog123 19:20, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

• Again, I respectfully ask that you revert your lie and your statement to the effect that I have lied (as indicated above).--Epeefleche (talk) 19:57, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

• Fine, I admit I don't know whether you truly have an honest opinion on this content or not. It doesn't seem like you do, but I can't read minds so I struck that part out. Everything else is true though. It would be more convincing if you actually told me why you believe this brand of sourcing is appropriate on List of Jewish actors but inappropriate on all other X-American lists... to save from appearing hypocritical. Bulldog123 20:02, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

• Pushing other editors around changes nothing. Take the example of Romanian American. This article was created on 14 July 2004. In that original article is the statement: "A Romanian-American is a citizen of the United States who has significant Romanian heritage.". This has little changed to the present article, which reads "A Romanian American (Romanian: Român American) is a citizen of the United States who has significant Romanian heritage." Note that it uses Romania as a country. It says nothing about Romanians as an ethnic group. A different and possible article would be Ethnic Romanian American, which I suggested Bulldog might want to create. Instead, he proceeds to take over and repurpose this article, List of Romanian Americans, based on his personal theory that it should be just about ethnic Romanian Americans. This is solely based on his personal agenda, having not asked for or obtained any consensus to change. Pushing other editors around is not a consensus and achieves nothing useful in WP. Oh, by the way, good work in the citations for the names you did allow to remain on the list. Hmains (talk) 04:13, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmains, as it's been pointed out to you in places like Talk:Russian American, it doesn't matter what definitions Wikipedia editors may come up with for any of these terms, and it doesn't matter if Wikipedian-invented definitions have been on the page since 2001 or yesterday; these definitions violate policy. What matters is how reliable sources define these terms. For any given group, that may be a by-country standard, a by-language standard, a by-descent standard of one great-great-grandparent or all four grandparents, or any other combination. And what applies to one group does not by magically extend itself to another group by analogy.

A Tibetan American will quite likely punch you in the face if you insist that he is a Chinese American by virtue of Lhasa being under Beijing's rule. This is certainly not true of other minority groups form China; you'll note the complete absence of such terms like "Manchu American" or "Zhuang American". It differs by what country you're in too; Hui people in America don't have any separate "Hui American" identity, whereas Hui in Burma do (Panthay, as opposed to Burmese Chinese). On the other hand a Cantonese-speaker from Kuala Lumpur may well laugh at the idea of any unified Malaysian identity let alone "Malaysian American" identity, and instead identify as a Chinese American on the basis of language and culture.

The definition of the group, and whether an individual fits that definition, is not a simple matter; it is a judgment call that for any given individual may take into account different factors with different weights. By definition it's original research for Wikipedians to be arguing about what factors and what weights make a person a "Fooian American". It's up to the individual or scholars and journalists who write about the individual to decide, not up to Wikipedians to assign him to a category based on some flimsy logical argumentation. cab (call) 04:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I do not disagree with what you say about individuals. I do not disagree with your statement: "For any given group, that may be a by-country standard, a by-language standard, a by-descent standard of one great-great-grandparent or all four grandparents, or any other combination. And what applies to one group does not by magically extend itself to another group by analogy." This is obviously true. I am here only talking about the specific Romanian American article and the List of Romanian Americans which uses the Romanian American article as its inclusion criteria. The Romanian American article states that it is discussing people from the country of Romania. It says nothing about limiting itself to ethnic Romanians. This has not changed since the article was first created. Now WP may choose (through its discussion and consensus process) to change what the article (and thus its list) is about (re-purposing it), but that has not been done. Instead, one editor is removing all the non-ethnic Romanians from the List of Romanian Americans based solely on his assertion that this is what the article ought to contain. I say this is not right; there has been no consensus to change this. Please check the facts and what I am actually saying here. (But, by the way, through consensus, the Russian American article is still about all Americans with Russian (country) ancestry and says so very explicitly. Many others than I were involved in this--as it should be) Thanks Hmains (talk) 06:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

removing all the non-ethnic Romanians from the List of Romanian Americans - An outright lie. Vladimir_Tismăneanu, Andre Codrescu, Norman Manea etc..etc... all remain on the list even though they are, by no means, "ethnic" Romanians. However since they are "cultural" and "linguistic" Romanians - and sine they identify themselves and have been identified as "Romanians" - they remain on the list. Bulldog123 00:31, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, that is a relief to know. It is hard to tell when you do not provide edit summaries or just provide them in anger, which might not be the words you really mean. And I am not counter checking your work; I happen to have all these articles on my watchlist. Regarding 'self identification': where does that come from for lists? I see it mentioned for categories, but specifically not included for lists. This has been in n BLP discussions, I think in the discussion where there was no consensus to add ethnicity as an item of concern to BLP editors. It would also help if entries deleted for cause were moved to the talk page where other editors could work to improve things when they have time. In this way, editers might not be so put out with the large changes you make and be more accepting of pleasantly working with you on these lists. Hmains (talk) 05:11, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Need you to watch!!

I have made a new article on genetics... could i get all to add the article to your watch list! Indigenous Amerindian genetics we need to watch for vandalism..as this is the core article on Indigenous {American) genetics and is new with no watchers ..Moxy (talk) 05:25, 31 December 2010 (UTC) Tks guys!!!!!

InfoBox Images

I'm thinking of opening up an RfC regarding the use of ethnic group "representation" infobox images on X-American pages. It's been going on unchecked for years now and has only escalated into a competition to see who can put more famous people in their infobox (painfully exemplified by Norwegian_American). In addition to being original research - in most cases these people are not held as "quintessential examples" of that group by external sources - it's also a WP:BLP issue, as there's no evidence many of these individuals would, could, or should be identified as members of this group. That last comment may be met with responses like, "Why would anyone find offense at being called a German American?" It's not merely about finding offense but about being misrepresented. Given, I doubt leading members of the German American community would appreciate having Leonardo Dicaprio (an individual with 1/4th ethnic German heritage who doesn't speak German or seem to have much association with German culture) seated next to a more authentically German German-American like Werner von Braun -- so that's where the "offense" part might come into play. By and large though, the "finding offense" thing is irrelevant. The main point is that it's not our job as Wikipedia editors to choose who best represents members of a certain community. Right now, the infoboxes are turning into Facebook Interest groups and ethnic-pride/cultural-promotion articles. My proposal is to find consensus at RfC to simply not put any images there and have that apply to all X-American pages. There's a similar issue with population numbers (which German Americans seems to have already implemented), but I'm not going to get into that now. Anyone here would support the RfC? Bulldog123 18:34, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd be happy to support it. The selection of these images nearly always seems to rely on original research. I would like to see any consensus apply more widely than American articles, however, and to include all ethnic group infoboxes. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:07, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this needs to be considered as general policy. I've seen (not saying where, as it might look like canvassing), a justification for inclusion that amounted to 'he looks white to me!', and likewise a removal based on 'he doesn't look white at all!'. Not exactly encouraging. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:51, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Think i will jump in on this talk (as i just created File:Canadians of differnt ethnic backgrounds.JPG) for the article Canadians i have developed recently. I would also support the proposal of No pictures for infoboxs. I did add the picture and there was a bit of work involved (did it to match the rest) - however i dont see Y ethnic group pages that do not mention the peoples pictured in the article should even be there. I also created the page Notable Aboriginal people of Canada and was going to consolidate those images in the infbox into one pic (but would love to simply remove them even though they are mentioned in the article, just find it distracting). I do see a problem that will be mentioned if a wide talk is started - that is many of the people in this boxes self identified as part of a particular ethnic group as referenced in some the articles and its Y they are there. Moxy (talk) 05:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Pinyin in non-Mandarin articles

See the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(use_of_Chinese_language)#Inclusion_of_Mandarin_in_HK.2C_Macau.2C_and_overseas_Chinese-related_articles over the relavancy of Mandarin Pinyin in articles where the local Chinese population does not use Mandarin. 184.144.166.27 (talk) 04:35, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

What the...

Non-Hispanic_Whites! AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:14, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Alternatives

I want to remind everyone that this is an RfC not just a "vote-and-dash." I doubt any of the supporters are exclusive to the "blanket ban" idea, so if you oppose it, please suggest an alternative. Right now the "infobox montage" is sucking up a lot of people's time and adding a lot of OR to this encyclopedia. If you have another idea, perhaps for specific guidelines on how to manage an infobox montage so that it's not OR, propose it. Bulldog123 07:34, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. A lack of participation seems to be a large obstacle to progress in your disputes (although the same can't be said for this discussion). Having opposed a blanket ban on montages above, I'll make a start for an alternative proposal. Hopefully it can reduce instances of OR in infobox images without detracting from articles that do not contravene this policy.

The infobox may contain one or more images, but there are strict requirements regarding their inclusion. These requirements are aimed at eliminating original research in infoboxes, while allowing the use of images where it does not conflict with existing policies.

A single image relevant to the ethnic group may be used as long as its relevance is uncontroversial and verifiable. Alternatively, some infoboxes contain montages of people who are members of the ethnic group. The compilation and use of montages in the infobox has been the subject of much contention in the past, particularly regarding the inclusion of some people whose relation to the ethnic group is contentious. If a montage is used, it should be the result of consensus established on the article's talk page. All images in a montage must be of people whose relevance as members of the ethnic group is notable (widely acknowledged and substantial, beyond mere in-passing descriptions), verifiable in reliable sources, and uncontroversial.

Images included in an infobox that do not meet these requirements should be deleted on sight as potentially original research. They should not be reincluded until it is demonstrated that the relevant requirements above have been met.

Feel free to comment on the general idea behind this alternative proposal and/or the specific wording. Cheers. – Liveste (talk • edits) 05:05, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Village Pump

AndyTheGrump has started another discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Ethnic_over-classification that I think editors at this project might be able to help resolve. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:38, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikiproject Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Hi! I'm proposing the development of a new Wikiproject for indigenous peoples of all of the Americas, from ancient times to present at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Indigenous peoples of the Americas, which would be a descendant wikiproject of WP Ethnic groups. This would tackle indigenous articles in the scope of the Americas and coordinate areas not looked at by WP:WikiProject Mesoamerica and WP:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America. If you have any interest in this group or thoughts, please feel free to commment on the proposal. Thanks, -Uyvsdi (talk) 02:21, 8 February 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Ethnicity, percentages and numbers across Wikipedia articles

From article "Ethnic group"

An ethnic group (or ethnicity) is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture (often including a shared religion) and an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy.

Ethnicity in European countries

If you don't want to read the whole text, the issue is simply that the sourced figures given in the articles are equating citizenship to ethnicity. This is an issue of the WikiProject Ethnic groups articles and of the section Ethnicity in the information boxes of many European countries. Is a person with African ancestry from European country X an ethnic X or an X citizen? What is an ethnic X? Does this country keep statistics on how many people of each ethnic group X, Y and Z there are? Most European countries don't keep track of this, that doesn't mean that the number of citizens should be put there as a substitute. Many people use Wikipedia for reference and this is misleading.

Germany

If we look at Germany for example we can see that it says:

91.5% German, 2.4% Turkish, 6.1% other

The problem is that if we take racial, cultural and religious grounds, in that 91.5% there is a significant part who is actually Turkish. A group of naturalized Turkish people in Germany will identify more with Turkish people in Turkey than Germans with European ancestry, even if this weren't true for each individual, the percentages for Ethnicity is not real since the country doesn't keep track of it.

Looking at this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Germany#Demographics one can see that the figures in the section Ethnicity of the article Germany in fact refer to citizenship.

Germany has been accepting immigrants since the 1960s, in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nationality_law one can see that it doesn't take much to become a German citizen. During the past few decades many different ethnic groups have been arriving to Germany, they and their descendants have obtained citizenship. Therefore one can't equate citizenship to ethnicity but this is what is done across many articles. Unless according to Wikipedia's definition of ethnicity a person who has just acquired German citizenship immediately becomes an ethnic German.

Spain

87.8% Spanish, 12.2% other (Romanian, Moroccan, Germans, Ecuadorian, British) (2010) See discussion page.

Sweden

81.9% Swedes[1][d] ~5% Finns[2] ~13% other (2009)[3][4]

d. ^ As of 2008, 18% of the population had foreign origins (13% if excluding Finns and 9% if also excluding other Scandinavians), with 14% foreign-born and another 4% born in Sweden of two foreign-born parents.[11]

Clarified in small print but very misleading, after all the section is called Ethnic Groups. The article Swedes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedes) refers to the ethnic group but the figure provided is for citizens.

Italy

The article Italians is about the Italian ethnic group. Even though in the article Italy it doesn't have an ethnicity section in the infobox, it says this about the percentage of immigrants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy#Migration): "These figures include more than half a million children born in Italy to foreign nationals—second generation immigrants are becoming an important element in the demographic picture—but exclude foreign nationals who have subsequently acquired Italian nationality; this applied to 53,696 people in 2008 "

All the ones that have acquired Italian nationality in previous years are being excluded as well from the 7.1% figure on which the number in the article Italians is based.

Portugal

96.87% Portuguese and 3.13% legal immigrants (Cape Verdeans, Brazilians, Ukrainians, Angolans, etc.) (2007)

Same problem as before, Portugal doesn't keep track of ethnicity and that refers to citizens with Portuguese nationality. Looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_nationality_law and considering when immigration to Portugal started, that figure probably isn't right. At best it's a good guess.

Netherlands

In the article Dutch people it says there are 15,186,600 ethnic Dutch in the Netherlands without citation. Yet in the article Netherlands it cites an estimation from the CIA factbook that there are 80% Dutch people from a population of 16,648,800 which would be 13,319,040.

More articles are affected by this issue. I suggest a huge revision and for starters a removal of the figures for countries that don't keep track of this.

Inconsistency

There is also an inconsistency across articles about the peoples of each country.

Swedish people (redirects to Swedes): about Swedes of Swedish ancestry

French people : it states that it's about French people regardless of ancestry (yet with the WikiProject Ethnic groups logo)

German people (redirects to Germans): it states that it's about Germans regardless of ancestry (yet with the WikiProject Ethnic groups logo)

Italian people : about Italians of Italian ancestry

and so on.

Question

What does ethnicity mean for Wikipedia? Do people belonging to the same ethnic group need to share ancestry? (Depending on the answer, the WikiProject Ethnic Group logo may need to be removed from many articles who talk about citizens of each country regardless of ancestry. Also it should be clarified in each article that it doesn't refer to ancestry. Also the definition of ethnic group can't vary from article to article)

--Grondolf (talk) 17:08, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Definitions of ethnicity can vary depending on the context. There are also several ways of gathering data on ethnicity, with various countries using different approaches (or none at all, e.g. France[4]). So some variation between articles is perfectly legitimate. Some methods do not explicitly involve ancestry (e.g. self-identification), and I don't think it's necessary to explicitly note this in every case. Having said that, I wouldn't expect citizenship figures to be a good measure of ethnic populations (at least in western Europe), so I share your concerns about some of the above examples. If the heading in the infobox could be changed from "Ethnicity" to "Nationalities" when appropriate, this might help solve the problem.

According to this WikiProject's talk page notice, "WikiProject Ethnic groups [is] a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles relating to ethnic groups, nationalities, and other cultural identities on Wikipedia". Nationality might have almost as many meanings as ethnicity, but at least on the face of it, articles on nationalities (such as Germans) do seem to be covered by this project. --Avenue (talk) 10:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Alright, then we agree the figures are wrong and should be changed. As you say about gathering data on ethnicity, most western European countries use no approach at all, they don't ask citizens to identify their ethnic group nor do they define what it is to be an ethnic German, Spaniard or Italian. This is independent of whether it's about ancestry or not, I'm not aware of any approach used in these countries. The CIA fact book is frequently cited but this uses data of citizenship.

I wasn't aware of the many meanings of ethnic group, in daily vocabulary ethnicity is assumed to be related to ancestry, most readers won't know its many meanings and since it changes from article to article, I think it should be noted when it isn't about ancestry. The concept of ethnicity depends on the country, France has no concept at all, then shouldn't it be up to the constitution of that country to decide what it means to be an ethnic French? The French constitution doesn't say what it means to be an ethnic French, it says what it means to be a French national but it doesn't say that a French national is equal to an ethnic French, why are we making up our own definition of ethnic French equating it to nationality? Same for the other countries.

I'd welcome more editors to give their opinion so I can start renaming Ethnicity to Nationality as you said or remove the section altogether. As well as change the numbers in the article related to the native ethnic group of each country where appropriate.--Grondolf (talk) 11:32, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Chinese people in Burma

Chinese people in Burma has been requested to be renamed, see talk:Chinese people in Burma. 65.95.14.96 (talk) 00:43, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Japanese immigrant generations

The merger or reorganisation of the Issei, Nisei, Sansei, Yonsei (fourth-generation Nikkei), and Gosei (fifth-generation Nikkei) articles is being discussed at Talk:Japanese diaspora#Merger of Nikkei, Issei, Nisei, Sansei, Yonsei. We welcome opinions from WikiProject Ethnic groups participants. Regards, cab (call) 01:18, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Diaspora

Additional input is needed over at Talk:Diaspora on what is devolving into a very unproductive conversation about the lead. Basically, due to two related AfDs there has been spill over to this entry with the basic definition of the concept now being contested.Griswaldo (talk) 19:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)