Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Human Genetic History/Archive 2

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E3b, North African or Sub-Saharan African

There is an active debate regarding how to frame the presence of haplogroup e3b in Europe. Is is North African gene flow, sub-saharan African gene flow or both. The debate is on the articles Talk:Sub-Saharan DNA admixture in Europe and Talk:Genetic history of Europe. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:20, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I definitely think that this type of edit war can be helped by occasional third parties coming into to give perspective. I am trying every now and then, but if others can help...

But Wapondaponda and others involved please note: there are several articles now where the same editors always turn up and always edit war with each other over claims that certain haplogroups either are or are not African, Sub-Saharan, Asian etc. The same people always take the same position with respect to the words Africa and Asia. If these people were all neutral then it can not be possible that they would always end up on the same side of the argument. Of course both sides say that it is the other side which is biased and "-centric", so the solution is clear: make sure your edits can not be easily portrayed as biased. Don't take hardline positions on every subject. Some of these edit wars are like parodies. I am absolutely NOT saying that you, Wapondaponda or any individual is the cause of this, nor that you are the worst, but you are one of the people always taking the same positions. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:00, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia has grown to almost 3 million articles, the number of regular editors per article has shrunk. This is especially true for some of the scientific articles simply because of the technical nature of the articles. Popular culture articles usually have a sufficient number of editors watching, so it is difficult to make controversial or bogus edits to popular culture articles. There are some editors who take advantage of this shortage of technical editors to push for the addition of fringe material. Because there isn't a wide audience they are able to get away with factual inaccuracies that wouldn't occur if several informed editors were available. This happens quite frequently. A very simple dispute can drag on for weeks simply because there are only two or three editors involved. There's not much that can be done, so one may have to accept living with edit wars as inevitable. Wapondaponda (talk) 13:09, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Wapondaponda, in practice there are some obvious things you are doing which play a role in creating edit wars. Trying to delete all reference to the Chandrasekar article is one of them. It isn't rocket science to see how this can escalate things every time. Having some articles which you don't think fit the conclusions of most other articles is just how life is, and you have to accept it and deal with it. This is a peer reviewed article, and there is no consensus anywhere that it is a "fringe" article. Saying that it is not widely cited is really a very unconvincing justification. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:15, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

The roots of this problem can be traced to Michael Hammer who discovered YAP in the 1990s. He is very respected due to his contributions to genetics and his lab is even named "The Hammer Lab". However, Hammer seems to have problems with out of Africa replacement model of human evolution. He has consistently advocated positions that run contrary to Out of Africa scenario. He has authored or coauthored a number of analysis that claim interbreeding with archaic hominids, such as

• Testing for Archaic Hominin Admixture on the X Chromosome,
• Archaic admixture in the human genome
• Out of Africa and Back Again: Nested Cladistic Analysis of Human Y Chromosome Variation, with Alan Templeton, who tried to disprove the existence of Mitochondrial Eve [1].

While it is legitimate to support multiregional evolution, the Out of Africa and back again article seems like a case of the tail wagging the dog, a way to incorporate multiregional evolution in the face of mounting evidence that favors a single African origin of modern humans. I don't exactly know Hammer's motives, but it is clear that he does not support the replacement model or only reluctantly does so.

Yap is the latest victim of the out of Africa vs Multiregionalism debate. Because of the his influence, he has managed to create the impression that the Asian origin of Yap is a very likely scenario. But when we look at the data, it is equally likely to suggest that haplogroup L3 had an Asian origin and then returned to Africa as back-migration leaving its descendants M and N in Asia, a situation which is not impossible but is significantly less parsimonious. It is the exact situation that relates to Yap, as M is also absent in the Levant in the same way that D174 is only present in East Asia. To summarize, Hammer is a brilliant scientist who has made significant contributions to our understanding of human genetics. But he isn't above politics that occurs in science. Wapondaponda (talk) 06:11, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Wapondaponda, if your real disagreement is with Mike Hammer then I am afraid you have no grounds for any argument here on Wikipedia. He is a valid source, and you have no right as an editor to declare him wrong and try bias editing against him based on your own point of view, even if you are entirely correct. That is the short answer. A longer answer to your remark might include some discussion of how you are misunderstanding the literature.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes Hammer is a valid source. As previously mentioned he did discover the Yap which has been widely referenced. However, his theories on multiregionalism are in the minority as the mainstream consensus favors OOA. His article on the Asian origin of Yap, is supposed to serve as a conceptual framework for some version of multiregional evolution. He states

Thus, the combined data add a new sex-specific component to the conceptual framework of both Brauer’s (1989) African Hybridization and Replacement model and Smith, Falsetti, and Donnelly’s (1989) Assimilation model: the possibility that the Old World female genetic complement was preserved by hybridization, whereas the Eurasian male component was replaced by African Y chromosomes.

Of course none these hypothesis have received any support with contemporary studies. Underhill et al specifically mention:

Although the initial proposal (Hammer et al 1998) of an Asian origin of haplogroup DE was first neutralized by the recognition of the haplogroup D-M174 (Underhill et al 2001). Wapondaponda (talk) 14:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Multiregional origin of modern humans

Help is needed on improving Multiregional origin of modern humans so that it is expanded, based on reliable sources and is written neutrally. Thanks. Fences and windows (talk) 16:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

There is an anonymous editor User talk:76.16.176.166 who is not trying to seek consensus with his/her edits. I have requested the editor to create an account because it is very possible that he/she may have actually circumvented some of wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Wapondponda

As he has appeared on this page several times, it seems a good idea to point out that User:Wapondaponda has been blocked for maintaining several user accounts and using them the wrong way. More information can be seen by following the links from the User page.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:08, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Call for opinions on a neutrality accusation

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Haplogroup_E1b1b_(Y-DNA)#Conflict_of_interest_accusation --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:53, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

New dates for mtDNA haplogroups

There is a new study out this month entitled Correcting for Purifying Selection: An Improved Human Mitochondrial Molecular Clock. According to the study, the new dates are more accurate as they are based on the entire mtDNA genome rather than just a few sections. The article dates the Out of Africa migration to 55-70kya. The point estimates for the haplogroups are;

• Haplogroup N - 71kya
• Haplogroup R - 66kya
• Haplogroup M - 60.6kya

When the margin of error(95% CI), which is approximately 12kya, is considered these dates overlap significantly with the Out of Africa migration, so it is not possible to conclusively tell whether these haplogroups arose in Africa before the migration or whether they arose outside of Africa after the migration. However the point estimate for haplogroup N at 71kya, is outside the range of the OOA,at 55-70kya, which means that there is a high probability it arose in Africa. R and M are within the range of dates for the OOA. The supplemental materials are available for free. N is on page 87, M page 83 and R page 89. The image of the phylogenetic tree is available here Bakinda (talk) 21:28, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Have you posted on the talk pages for the relevant articles? I know those one are a bit hungry for new information given the African/Asian origins debate (for better or worse).--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:59, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Harris Surname DNA Project

Is Harris Surname DNA Project suitable for an article? It has had a {{Notability}} tag since July 2008, and the only comment on the talk page agrees that the topic is not notable. The article has a large number of dubious references and external links, many of which I believe should be removed. Possibly the article should be made a redirect to Surname DNA project, or some small portion of the article should be merged to that target. Or, should it be nominated at WP:AFD? Johnuniq (talk) 09:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Data articles (tables collecting raw data) for Y haplogroups

My thanks to User:Muntuwandi for bringing this up on my talk page. We already have one "data article" I am aware of for Y haplogroups: : Y-DNA haplogroups by ethnic groups. But note that it is very inadequate. Major haplogroups are not mentioned and some whole continents are missing. I think we are inevitably looking at a future where each major haplogroup may need a data article, and there will probably need to be a network of such inter-locking articles. I know this is not normal Wikipedia procedures, but list style articles do exist.

I think this is yet another manifestation of a problem we've noticed before treating this field in Wikipedia. Genetics sources are mainly primary data from surveys. The secondary sources are usually not up to date enough (and therefore usually only used by fringe pushers), and the commentaries given with the survey articles are often not taking a big picture (and therefore also tend to create edit wars). So we have a controversial situation in the positive sense that a wiki can actually be more informative than anything already published, not via OR, but just because the literature is so hard to follow on its own.

I am thinking a lot about this because I have trying to help at R1a, which was an article that had a lot of edit warring, and problems. What I found was that the situation was greatly calmed by making sure ALL data was represented. I could even start deleting big chunks of much-fought-over text and receive positive feedback from various sides. Some remaining concerns have come from people whose opinions about the subject had clearly been formed by looking at Wikipedia itself. (Comments of the style of: this can not be right, look at the map in the article.) This shows that the concerns of the various sides was not unfair: Wikipedia articles can cause confusion if data is cheery picked in order to make a nice presentation. It therefore seems necessary to find a way to accept some amount raw data for this field, fully recognizing that this is not perhaps usual.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:46, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe if we can have a standard procedure on raw data collection, this also helps people make less controversial frequency maps. As with raw data it seems impossible to deal with this subject without having some type of maps. Editors always keep inserting them and people like them. We had a few articles with 2 maps for R1a frequencies! I know User:Pdeitiker has been trying to make more neutral maps recently, avoiding using contour lines, and finding it difficult. Strikes me that standardized data articles could be the standardized way of making neutral maps, either using pies on countries, or perhaps like Pdeitiker is doing, applying simple colour gradients to whole regions so that the crudeness of the data is clear.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:06, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I think what you have started is probably the way to go. It seems that sequencing DNA is a costly and time consuming affair. So much so that new data arrives in trickles. So far most of the percentages that have reported should not necessarily be viewed as representative of a whole country or ethnic group. Frequently sample sizes are usually small, or geographically restricted. The format that has already been used where data is tabulated per study is workable. This means that frequencies will add up to 100% for each study. We could have a specific marker and a list of studies that have reported frequencies on the marker. The article in question, Y-DNA haplogroups by ethnic groups would like to have a list of ethnic group and their y chromosome frequencies. The problem has been that several studies have sometimes sampled the same populations but have come up with different frequencies. Wapondaponda (talk) 10:27, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The types of policies we'll need to think about:

• We need to make sure people do not cherry pick. If a table is meant to be a statistical representation of R1a in China, we need to avoid people just picking the lowest or highest values. This does not mean you need to show all of China, because most of China is zero, but the idea is that statistics need to be neutrally selected.
• People must feel a responsibility for checking the papers they read to avoid putting in data twice in a table because it appears in several published journals. This is happening wrongly very often.
• All the normal things about reliable sources, and proper citations, only obvious putting together of ideas, and so on.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:24, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Andrew, However, Andrew, in going over the data in Haplozone I noticed a more insidious problem for cherry picking, sometimes 2 or even 3 studies give data on the same people, and yet the data is diametrically opposed. An example is E-M123 and Algeria, or for example excessive data break down, like portugal were they type in single locals, which are basically tiny dots on a graph. I noticed that with the case of E-M123 and E-M293 that some studies on E-M35* did not differentiate these, but some newer studies do, some list E-M123 as E-M64, etc. If one is going to make a data table, such as what does one do to qualify data gathered by different techniques or different standards.PB666 ^yap 13:52, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

As for the wrongly cited. create a small column in the table and <ref name = "Cruciani2004"> Most of the literature does cite in table where their data comes from with lower case letters, so......PB666 ^yap 13:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

• I know this is a violation of NOR policy, however I should point out that according to binary probability distribution, the 1SD or 95% confidence interval for frequencies when observing X occurrences in N selections is well known, it is frequently published in good papers, this is ingrained in the Fisher Exact Test which determines whether X, N1-X in one sample are significantly different from Y, N2-Y in another sample. If Wikipedia tolerated the calculation of these confidence ranges then the stochastic frequencies given by 2 researchers (or one researcher taking two samples) of the same population could be placed in a table creating a context (For example, could the two samples be combined as one set with one average frequency). I should point out that for small X (1 to 5) with large N the frequency versus probability distribution is highly skewed to the left (toward higher frequencies), therefore simply using +/- 1 SD is frequently an error it itself.

I am going to play the devil's advocate here, how can we be certain that the two different samples represent haplotype identification technology, as we have seen with E-M35, missed SNPs can make all the difference, and in that context is not every haplotype a E-M###* waiting for the next deliniating marker to be identified. After all, the TMRCA for Y started off at 25 kya, if more markers are found in the basal branches this may eventually creep up to the TMRCA range for mtDNA. The may be a reason that two different studies achieve two different results, and before table elements could be combined, we would have to be certain that the testing criteria did not warrant separation. IOW those differences in regional values for the same people same haplogroup may have to remain as such.

My conclusion is this, presenting transitory information in Tables can be misleading in the current state of uncertainty created by recent precedences in Y chromosomal testing. Therefore, should we be creating tables at all?PB666 ^yap 18:53, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I guess to some extent we need to look at real cases, and there will be differences case by case. As it happens I just finished the corrections to the over-sized data collection on the R1a article. It shows us what a real data collection might look like (compare it to the much smaller Y-DNA haplogroups by ethnic groups. Concerning the differences in SNP testing, you'll see that I have been strict about it, making a separate column for data where R1a1 was not tested for. After having made this table I realize it raises questions, but note that even now I could have included more data, and I am absolutely not certain that I've gotten rid of doubled up sampling. The published folk have not always been very clear about how their samples overlap! (This makes any proposal that we be allowed to work on the data ourselves, either to suggest confidence intervals, or even just to add together numbers, problematic. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:26, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, then looking at cases, in the R1a1 table we see 1.2% of Portugal have R1a1 in a sample of 1140 individuals. That translates into a 14 in 1140 or 95%CI of 0.00674 to 0.0205 (0.67% to 2.1%) Down the column we have Midhurst England 1.0% in sample of 80, actually also 1.2% That translates into 1 in 80 or 95%CI 0.00304 to 0.0451 (0.3% to 4.5%) Capelli et al. (2003) looked at other English counties, and found the following: Cornwall 6.0%, Dorchester 4.0%, Faversham 2.0%, Morpeth 2.0%, Norfolk 2.0%, Penrith 2.0%, Southwell 4.0%, Uttoxeter 0.0% OK so what does the wiki reader see: Dorchester 4X higher, Uttoxeter None, but the statistical reality is that only one of these is significantly different, Cornwall, and this corroborates something that was identified by HLA back in 1991, that the peoples of Cornwall, Ireland, NW England and Scotland have a significantly different genetic history compared to the folks in SE England. I however the authors had sampled at 1000 individuals and got the same selection probability, 0.012, then we would consider the levels measured at Dorchester and Southwell different provided that their sample sizes were adequate. As a general rule if one looks at the 1SD confidence intervals and if these overlap, then they are insignificantly different, but if they don't overlap one can consider them significantly different. BTW, I also have to say, according to ANOVA theory, because so many groups were compared, we may not even consider Cornwall significantly different, the difference between Cornwall and the other regions, we don't need to further test the other counties, but for Cornwall we would need to test. But we have seen studies in which one result was 0 and the next result was 10% for the same region.

I must have a point here. For myself, looking at a table of occurrence frequencies and sample size has more meaning than percent, looking at the 96%CI has more meaning than looking at occurrence frequency or percent, and looking at the 68%CI for single selection probability has the most meaning when two or more samples are presented. From my perspective if the viewer is not tuned to following:

1. An occurrence frequency of 0 is not a selection probability of 0 - For a good wiki page see:black swan theory. For a good one-liner 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'

2. low occurrence frequencies have a wide margin of error, particularly if the N of the study is also small.

3. That what appears to be sharply different (even magnitude or greater) really depends on the occurrence frequency and N.

PB666 ^yap 15:20, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Random break

If it wasn't for the amount of effort invested in such an article, I would recommend deleting Y-DNA haplogroups by ethnic groups and starting afresh with some kind of disambiguation or list of data tables. As just collecting data for E1b1b lineages appears to have been a significant task, I don't see how any of the data in the tables is up-to-date or accurate. In addition, legibility is a major problem as the table is so large one needs to scroll up and down to match haplogroups with ethnic groups. In the long run I suggest replacing it with lists and links to specific data tables. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:53, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Indian Genome Variation study

New study Indian ancestry revealed, likely to have important implications for genetic history of South Asia. Some of the material has social political implications related to the Indian caste system. Basically the study suggests an ancient mixing of two distinct populations, one population similar to central and western Eurasians, and another population related to the Andaman Islanders. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:03, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Changing the project banner

I am going to change the project banner to make it more in line with project banners from other groups. I want to add a class and priority setting along with a comment setting.

• Any comments on what needs to be added
• Any objections?

PB666 ^yap 15:12, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Is there any call to change the project logo? I prefer the original more abstract design, without the cartoon animals. But then I contributed it, so maybe my judgment is coloured. Jheald (talk) 17:21, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

For me the old one looks like a football goal post sitting on a piece of DNA, it might be fine for genetics project, but I think we need something more humanized for human genetic history. However, the MolAnth Icon is a little bit large, I think we need a smaller version for the stub and so other versions are possible. Are you still active in this Wikiproject? Almost all the charter members are dormant. There are alot of problems and pages that need to be addressed, there is almost no collaboration between editors on bringing up key pages.PB666 ^yap 19:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Creating a Portal for this Project

I have created a Portal for this project Portal:Molecular Anthropology, it is about half complete, mostly details remain.PB666 ^yap 03:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Changes to the project page

I have changed the banner as to allow ranking and grading of articles, many have been already pregraded, a number are unassessed.

The number of articles in this project is already close to 300 and is growing every day, However no article core to this group is of B-class or higher. We have been very focused on creating new articles, but it seems that we have little interest in promoting our articles or making them ready for Good Article of Featured article status. As I have been working on creating some order within our project, I have run across and continue to run across very inaccurate, very opinionated and unencyclopedic articles. We are way behind in this regard.PB666 ^yap 04:14, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

To facilitate this process I am going to make some changes to the project page so that we can easily link to certain pages. I am going to create subpages on the main page so that we will have more direct access for more topics on the main project page.PB666 ^yap 04:14, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Y-chromosomal Aaron

Third opinions requested regarding POV/NPOV treatment of coalescence dates in the article lead.

I've proposed this [2] which I think is reasonably NPOV, but I keep getting reverted - without any specific discussion - to a version which in my opinion does not even attempt to be NPOV.

Input from fresh sets of eyes therefore requested. Jheald (talk) 16:46, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Excessive splitting of articles with every new mutation discovered

There seems to be a trend to excessive splitting of articles in our field, leading to articles which are stubs, or essentially holding the same information as other articles. For example, there seems to be a rapid inflation of articles for EVERY level of Y haplogroup clade, even if they are extremely rare and there is nothing special to say about them. I have two cases affecting my watchlist, both done by User:Cadenas2008: E1b1b-E1b1b1 and R1a-R1a1. There may be a misunderstanding of Wikipedia policy. I want to draw attention to Wikipedia policy about this, which is really very clear.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:13, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

From WP:MERGE, under rationales for merging: - Overlap – There are two or more pages on related subjects that have a large overlap. Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there does not need to be a separate entry for every concept in the universe. For example, "Flammable" and "Non-flammable" can both be explained in an article on Flammability. Text – If a page is very short and is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic. For instance, parents or children of a celebrity who are otherwise unremarkable are generally covered in a section of the article on the celebrity, and can be merged there.

This is a classic case of lumpers versus splitters. There are no guidelines regarding when to split off an article. I believe if there are enough publications that specifically address a subclade sans the parent clade, then a separate article is warranted. Until some kind of guidelines are created, WP:CONSENSUS should apply. At least for E1b1b, I wouldn't support a split, because the publication that identified M215 decided to redefine e3b by the M215 mutation, and so the emphasis was on the history of the whole M215 clade. Especially since all subclades have been associated Afroasiatic. Another guideline that can help is WP:Article size. Initial recommendations for article size were in the range 32-50kb or 6,000-10000 words of readable prose. Though much these initial recommendations reflected technical issues such as people using screen readers, mobile phones or those on dial-up speed connections. Wapondaponda (talk) 13:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

There are guidelines. I just posted some of them. Of course there are grey areas, but I am not talking about grey areas. I am talking about cases which would lead to the creation of:-

• articles which are essentially identical to part of another article.
• articles which are stubs
• articles which can not be easily understood without flicking between several articles in order to compare.

Such cases are clear cut as far as I can see?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:44, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree, if there is not enough new and independent material, then there is no need for a split. However E1b1b1a was split from E1b1b, a split which I am not necessarily in support of. The issue at hand is one of consistency. Wapondaponda (talk) 13:51, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I also meant to imply that the WP:HGH has not created any specific guidelines concerning haplogroup articles. Of course there are general guidelines for wikipedia. But if this project chooses, it can create its own guidelines to deal with such issues in the future. Wapondaponda (talk) 13:55, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I guess I am wondering what is wrong with sticking to normal Wikipedia guidelines?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:01, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Normal wikipedia articles are general and may not be tailored for specific subjects such as haplogroup nomenclature. I have seen some projects come up with their own guidelines for articles. For example Wikipedia:Reliable sources (medicine-related articles) is specifically tailored for medical articles, and what is considered a reliable source in a normal article, may not be reliable for medicine. Anyway I digress. I was just suggesting, there are two ways of solving such problems, one is to handle lumping and splitting of haplogroups on a case by case basis. The other would be for the project to create some guidelines for regarding when to lump subclades into one article or when to split a haplogroup article into several subclade article. Since subtyping of DNA variants is ongoing, it is likely that this issue will arise again. Wapondaponda (talk) 20:26, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

If we are a special case, please explain why we are a special case, with a special explanation. The fact that we might be in theory a special case is not all that important.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:29, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

An example I found: every major L clade within mitochondrial haplogroup L has a stub article. I think that the history of their editing shows that all the present L clade articles are pretty much stubs, and are not likely to change soon. Of course they might one day be subject to a burst of energetic editing, but for the time being it appears one article would be much more appropriate? See Haplogroup L1 (mtDNA),Haplogroup L2 (mtDNA),Haplogroup L3 (mtDNA),Haplogroup L4 (mtDNA),Haplogroup L4a (mtDNA),Haplogroup L5 (mtDNA),Haplogroup L6 (mtDNA). I have proposed merging to Haplogroup L (mtDNA)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I would have to disagree about merging haplogroup L lineages. Though they are all called haplogroup L, they are only named so because they were discovered in that order. If anything the haplogroup L lineages are mutationally more diverse than the all non-African lineages, but little is known about them. This is because the L lineages have had more time to evolve, from the time of mitochondrial Eve, which is 200-150kya to the out of Africa migration, which occcurred 50-80kya. At the extreme end of the range, haplogroup L lineages would have been evolving for 150,000 years before the OOA, whereas all non African lineages have evolved for only 50,000 years after OOA. The only difference is that populations expanded much faster after the OOA migration, so much that it would have accelerated mtDNA evolution outside Africa. Nonetheless the MRCA of the two non-African lineages, M and N is approximately dated to 50-80ka, whereas the MRCA for L1 and L2 is dated to 140 kya and for L1 and L0 (mtEve) 150-200kya. Unlike the Y-Chromosome Consortium, those looking into mtDNA nomenclature don't seem very organized, because it seems the haplogroup names should be due for revision. Thy YCC has haplogroup names in approximate branching order, ie haplogroup A, B, CT, DE,CF, C, D and E. This is not the case with mtDNA, but if it was, A would be L0, B would be L1 etc. In short, though these lineages are all named L, it is an artifact of early nomenclature systems, each L lineage, and indeed many subclades, would be deserving of a unique name, if the same standards that are applied to non-African haplogroups are applied to L lineages. Indeed Metspalu et al. 2004 refers to haplogroups M and N as L3m and L3n. Wapondaponda (talk) 14:21, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I see no connection between the question of whether to split or merge articles, and any of the points you raise. I see it as a purely practical question depending only on how much there is say about a subject and how much overlap there is. What you seem to be concerned about is the "justice" for want of a better word, whereby old haplogroups "deserve" more articles. (There is a technicality here also because the term old is always confusing in these discussions: some haplogroups which have very early branching are nevertheless represented today by groups of modern people with a very recent common ancestor.) Most importantly I think important articles can often be short just because there is nothing much known about the subject yet, or else because no editors have yet come along to do the job. BTW, perhaps, you'll re-post some of this on the merge proposal?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:34, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that at the moment, there is only moderate information about L haplogroups. It seems that only enough information was obtained to construct the global human phylogenetic tree. But not much has been collected regarding sub-structure within haplogroups, but sub-structure is known to be quite diverse. The main reason why a merger is problematic is that in future, many more mutations and subclades are likely to be discovered, and I do believe there will be a reorganization of the nomenclature for Haplogroup Ls because they are so diverse. Once the information becomes available, then we would be looking at splitting the lineages rather than merging. One of the problems with L lineages is that they have been in Africa for the last 200kya, compared to the Y-lineages which have a much younger MRCA at 60-90kya. This period is long enough for gene flow to take place several times accross the continent for L lineages. This makes it much harder to apply any specific demographic event with L lineages, as is the case with Y lineages, as you have stated, female lineages tend to stay put. Unlike, E haplogroup which wiped out much of the Y diversity in Africa due to gender mediated gene flow, it is common for two people within the same ethnic group, city village etc to have widely divergent mtDNA but similar y. In short there is potential for sub-articles within L lineages, based on sub-clades. There will be some demographic correlations, but there are unlikely to be as exciting as the spread of Afro-asiatic or Indo-European lineages as is the case with Y-chromosome. However there is already an abundance of raw frequency data, and some of the information is present in African admixture in Europe for L lineages in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe.Wapondaponda (talk) 17:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, of course once more information becomes available, or once someone has time to gather enough, new article splits can be justified. I do not however see how this justifies the current state where we have maybe 100 stub articles. Do you think knowledge of L haplogroup is being helped by this format of information (lots of stubs, no single article) for example? This is just a practical presentation question.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:06, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

In the long term, I have been thinking of creating a specific "Genetic history of Africa" article, that can combine information from all the haplogroup L lineages into one article. As for the data, it is just a question of the will to add information, these articles have enough data to populate the L articles to move them beyond stub status.

• Salas; et al. (2002). "The Making of the African mtDNA Landscape" (PDF). PMID 12395296. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)
• Behar; et al. (2008). "The Dawn of Human Matrilineal Diversity". American Journal of Human Genetics. 82 (5): 1130–1140. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.04.002. PMC 2427203. PMID 18439549. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)
• Gonder; et al. (2007). "Whole-mtDNA Genome Sequence Analysis of Ancient African Lineages". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 24 (3): 757–768. doi:10.1093/molbev/msl209. PMID 17194802. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)

Wapondaponda (talk) 19:28, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, you could put it this way as a practical approach. What is the best way to present L here (a) in the short run, without much effort and (b) in the long run, when someone has time to make special efforts. Note that answers beginning with the words "a is not necessary because someone else just needs to..." are missing the point.

It would be great if you would go out and create some super-duper new articles. If you do not YET have time though, it might be possible to make some quite reasonable articles, better than stubs, just by merging a few?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

At least for raw data, it is something that I could start working on now. Its a tedious work, because of unfriendly formats( pdfs etc) but within a few days we can at least include raw data. Wapondaponda (talk) 21:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I am proposing a merger of the articles for the different branchings within the top of the tree structure in Y haplogroup MNOPS. In other words, there are currently several basically identical articles, which no one seems to know or love, for MNOPS, P, R1 and R. The difference between them in real terms is that they are one node away from each other in a part of a family tree which is well covered by articles concerning all the main branches leading away from them.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

R1a article

The R1a article has had a lot of good faith improvement editing in recent months, but in recent days the editors working on it have hit some walls of disagreement. It is the type of situation where new eyes might be extremely helpful.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I think its an interesting topic, I haven't yet been able to read the Underhill article because it is one of those subscription only publications. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:14, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Problems remain in securing the progress that looked like it was going to be keep flowing without effort only a short while ago, and honestly they are of a type which will probably be fixed very easily by a small number of outsiders coming by and giving some perspective. But without this simple remedy things are not de-blocking very well. A few second of time please?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I have tried to make it easy with a diff, so that you can compare two proposed versions of the R1a article, after the recent edits in two opposed directions. See [3].

Most differences of opinion have been to do with wording, and the question of what is encyclopedic. However most of these have general application to haplogroup articles, and could come up now again and again if some sort of consensus is not achieved. For example:-

• Should the word "haplogroup" be removed from as jargon this article about a haplogroup, based on the advice of MSWORD? [4]
• Can we say that WP:MOS demands that we use mutational nomenclature for sub-section heading (R-M17 for example instead of R1a)? I would have thought it was something MOS has nothing to say about.

...and so on. The editor making these claims has expressed has high confidence in his opinions and authority (though he only recently learnt about R1a, indeed has been learning while edit-warring, he has a genetics related background), and sees Y haplogroup articles generally as having "disturbingly" un-encyclopedic style.[5]

The diffs will also show why my intention right now is to move away from this article a bit and let others handle it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:35, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Y-DNA haplogroups by ethnic groups

I have listed the above article for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Y-DNA haplogroups by ethnic groups. I don't believe a single article is feasible, and as a result the current article is contains misinformation and is a WP:SYNTH. Wapondaponda (talk) 00:49, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Genetic history of the British Isles

Some expert input would be greatly appreciated in updating and cleaning up this article. Thanks.--Pondle (talk) 23:25, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

New study by Chiaroni, Underhill and Cavalli-Sforza

• Chiaroni; et al. (2009). "Y chromosome diversity, human expansion, drift, and cultural evolution". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106 (48): 20174–20179. Bibcode:2009PNAS..10620174C. doi:10.1073/pnas.0910803106. PMC 2787129. PMID 19920170. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)
• Chiaroni; et al. (2009). "Y chromosome diversity, human expansion, drift, and cultural evolution, Supplementary materials" (PDF). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106 (48): 20174–20179. Bibcode:2009PNAS..10620174C. doi:10.1073/pnas.0910803106. PMC 2787129. PMID 19920170. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)

The above articles provide a descent summary of global patterns of y-chromosome diversity. I found the maps informative when it comes to explaining the likely origins of a haplogroup. It is a pity PNAS doesn't issue copyright free material like biomedcentral, otherwise the maps could have been used in individual haplogroup articles or on comprehensive articles such as Y-DNA haplogroups by ethnic groups. Wapondaponda (talk) 23:41, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

New JOGG edition

See www.jogg.info for the new edition of JOGG, which is quite a big one. I think it is worth pointing out that one big problem in writing about human population genetics on Wikipedia is that academic authors working in this field do not often have the time, resources or knowledge to spend time on interpretation of the raw numbers in terms of archeology, history, linguistics etc. Indeed when they do try they often make mistakes. One particular problem for us which arises from this is that they almost never bother to write criticisms of old theories, even if everyone has come to think them wrong. (And remember we can not normally cite internet discussions.) So for Wikipedia editors we have nothing to cite in order to prove that a theory is no longer mainstream. For this reason I believe the JOGG is possibly now already becoming more important than any other journal in this HGH field. It is the only one that often prints articles that are really discussing the interpretation of numbers and not just printing raw data with some interpretation for show (e.g. a haplotype found in Spain and Morrocco: must be the Moors, even if mainly found in the wrong parts of Spain; a haplotype found Tunisia and the Middle East, must be the Phoenicians, etc.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:06, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. Should of course have mentioned potential COI: I have had an article published in JOGG in the past. The above is of course only intended as a personal opinion about a source and not about any specific editing going on.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:17, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I thought that JOGG was not a reliable source for Wikipedia since it is not written by scientifics ?--Boutboul (talk) 11:53, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Contour map lovers: to arms!

Remember, you may not simply scan copies into Wikipedia (copyright), but non-slavish graphical representations are as I understand it OK. Anyway, here is the treasure trove: http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2009/11/16/0910803106.DCSupplemental/0910803106SI.pdf --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:16, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I was wondering how to go about it as well, (see the above thread). PNAS, unlike biomedcentral copyrights many of its articles. We can always recreate some of these maps, but the usual problems such as original research or whether it is a slavish graphical representation will arise. I think fair use may apply temporarily since this article is the only one to broadly summarize frequency information from several publications. At present, the "krigging method" uses some mystery application that isn't widely available. Otherwise we could reconstruct our own maps based on frequency data and release them for free. I don't think that would be OR, but would be a lot of work. Wapondaponda (talk) 04:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

A picture of a picture, so to speak, does not violate copyright in such cases, if I understand correctly. Making your own contour map from raw data does unfortunately come at least close to what some would define as OR, and although there are a few being used around Wikipedia, several of them tend to be deleted and reinserted in slow edit wars over time.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:30, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Stefflova et al.

New frequency data from

• Stefflova; et al. (2009). "Evaluation of Group Genetic Ancestry of Populations from Philadelphia and Dakar in the Context of Sex-Biased Admixture in the Americas". PLOS ONE. 4 (11): e7842. Bibcode:2009PLoSO...4.7842S. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0007842. PMC 2776971. PMID 19946364. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)

The supplementary files, notable file S1 contains mtDNA and Y-chromosome frequency data for samples of African Americans, European Americans and Senegalese individuals. No unusual findings, however, there is high diversity of haplogroup E lineages among African Americans and Senegalese including haplgroups not frequently discussed such as E1a, E1b1*, and E2. Wapondaponda (talk) 14:40, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Haplogroup

The article haplogroup could do with some attention as I have noticed a few areas of concern. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:10, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

what are the most important articles for this project

Browsing through this wikiproject's article rankings, I notice we've been very modest in calling any subjects relevant to this project "high" in importance. At the same time I have seen complaints, even made complaints, that many of our articles with important subjects are little worked on and in a poor state. I wondered if there might be a link between these two things, and I have been trying to work out what our most important articles are. See [6] and have your say. For articles with no importance ranking at all yet see [7]. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Its a good question, unfortunately we have no set standards for deciding when a haplogroup is important or not. Possible factors could include,

• Demographics, if the lineage is shared by a lot of people
• If it is phylogenetically important, iow plenty of subclades
• if there is a notable demographic event associated with it.

I would like to think that macrohaplogroups should be of high importance and low level clades of less importance. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:34, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I have put only a few Y and mito haplogroups into "high" and these were all "macro" I think (A, B, CF, CT, DE; and L, M, N). You forget another good reason to treat something as important: lots of people write about it. Of course this often overlaps with your demographic reasoning (R1b, R1a, O, C) but there can be exceptions. Some small haplogroups interest people because they strike some sort of chord or raise some sort of question. I guess the Cohen Modal Haplotype discussions should be Mid for example? And of course E-M35 and E-M78? Also there is a sub-section of your demographic point you missed: not just a lot of people, but for example if a whole continent is covered by one haplogroup?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:00, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The maps question: a success?

I would like to complement Hxseek for a great "adapted" contour map. It is clearly an unbiased representation, but not a copy of the one from its source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GlobalR1a1a.png . I have used it in the R1a article with a caption saying "adapted from".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

can we get it done from R1a1a7.?PB666 ^yap 23:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The infobox

Does anyone think that the Haplogroup infobox looks kind of cheap, difficult to read.?PB666 ^yap 23:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I have posted a note about your concerns onto the infobox talk page, with reference to both this place and also your remarks on the R1a talk page. You key concern seems to be font size? This was changed recently, by User:TESTY who turned out to be a sock of blocked User:SOPHIAN. So I doubt anyone is going to defend it if you readjust it. (Concerning R1a specific matters of course see the R1a talk page.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I wanna know why we are not using the {{Template:Infobox}} standard? If one was going to deviate from the infobox standard it should be a higher quality box, we are clearly using a lower quality box.PB666 ^yap 13:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

So fix it?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

This is not as easy as you think, a user name:"Sasha I" added non-wiki-standard lines of HTML code to the box. One needs to check which pages are using that code, In looking around at the info-boxes the entire damn HGH project is a mess. People are added stuff to infoboxes that are not supposed to be in these boxes at all. Can you please just simplify R1a for now, it was designed for a comma separated series. What is there will probably work, but knowing this project someone will try to insert a hierarchy, and it will look screwy when updated. Y-DNA folken don't believe in standards do they?Haplogroup_A_(Y-DNA),Haplogroup_B_(Y-DNA),...PB666 ^yap 13:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, so just leave it I guess. I see no WP:DRAMA. No part of Wikipedia is finished work. There is no point making edits unless you can see a clear improvement. For example there is no point making an edit which does half an improvement in the hope that others will get the WP:POINT and finish it for you. You'll just be reverted. There continues to be no WP:DEADLINE.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

First off, don't tell me how to make templates, I have made a great many, probably more than any person you know on wikipedia. Second "An infobox template is an infobox that uses the template software feature. They are a broad class of templates commonly used in articles to present certain summary or overview information about the subject.". Infoboxes are designed for summary style information, not everything but the kitchen sink. It is quite obvious reviewing these pages that editors are not adhering to these guides. Throwing 50 frequencies points into an Infobox was never a part of its intended use. So don't get on my case. On the one hand fix an infobox, but on the other hand deal with 100 usages that violate the guidelines.PB666 ^yap 14:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Your first sentence shows that you did not read what you are responding to, which was basically saying that it is up to you what you try to do: do something if you can do it properly in a way that everyone can agree with; otherwise leave it. The rest of what you've written ignores the concept of working to build consensus which is essential to Wikipedia. Other editors are doing what they think best, no less than you. If you want them to take you seriously I think you'll need a different approach to explaining your points.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

That's nice, sweet, cute and everything touchy-feely, but lets talk reality. To ensure that the upgrades do not produce an explosion of an Infobox instances on 1/2 the Y-DNA pages, before the box can be upgraded I, you, or the other 1/2 editor that is monitoring this page' is going to have to go through what "Other editors are doing what they think best, no less than you." have done to the infoboxes, each one of these pages, reduce the run-on, non-summary style, dirty laundry list of information to summary style, then paste a note on the infobox "leftarro------summary style information only, please-------->" and after all that is done, hope that noone reverts the information or creates a new disaster and before finally going back and implimenting the upgrades.PB666 ^yap 15:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Again I think you are not reading carefully. I was not intending to express nice feelings. I am just telling you how Wikipedia works. You see a problem you want fixed, and other people apparently do not. It is up to you what you do, but it is also up to others whether they accept it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

You begin every patronizing reply with "you are not reading carefully", which assumes I don't know this. I was expressing to you the reality, its not an issue of likes or dislikes, its an issue of effort and carefulness (in the past, present and future tense), with the dearth of active membership in the improvement aspects of this project and the 'every man as he sees fit' attitude - reality is eminently more important than wishes. Sparing any other smoke-and-mirrors cross-talk, I translate this to "you can fix it but I sure Ain't gonna help you". Rather than this attitude why don't you take a NPOV stance and look around Wikipedia projects to see what style other projects are using. If you find our infobox ranks amoung even the middle of the road boxes, prepare me a list and I will leave the whole issue alone. Without any other facts, based on 10,000s of edits here on a wide variety of pages, I conclude that I have the better representation of reality. Therefore I am going to be disgruntled and gripe about the issue as I prepare mentally before going through 100 poorly written pages based on awful molecular anthropology to fix an issue of carelessness. If someone out there doesn't want me (self-admitted Y-DNA skeptic) doing resectioning of their precious Y-DNA pages I suggest they take the initiative. This is the very first page on WP I created, isn't that a nice infobox, now compare that the messy infobox here Haplogroup_R1a_(Y-DNA).PB666 ^yap 17:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, I think if you have such a deep issue with the Y DNA world, it is best for EVERYONE if you stay away from it? There are so many things in the world which can annoy a person, all of us included, and I think no one would deny that many branches of scientific literature, certainly including the Y DNA literature, are in this category. But Wikipedia is not the place to try to change the scientific literature, and definitely not a place to let off steam. There are heaps of people with less knowledge than you who are already attempting those things fruitlessly every day. The internet has so many better places for those things.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Forensic Science International

This organization has a wealth of haplogroup data. I suspect in the future, they will probably have the largest database of haplogroup frequency data. However they seem only concerned with frequency data, and less on demographic analysis and dating. Unfortunately they are subscription only. One recent article from Ethiopia

• Kohl (2009). "Distribution of Y-chromosomal SNP-haplogroups between males from Ethiopia". Forensic Science International. 2: 435–436. doi:10.1016/j.fsigss.2009.08.051.

A quote that google picked up

5 males belong to haplogroup E*, 19 to haplogroup E1b1*, 43 to haplogroup E1b1b1*, 19 to haploproup E1b1b1c* and 2 to haplogroup E2

Wapondaponda (talk) 04:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Haplogroup M in Madagascar

New study

• Ricaut; et al. (2009). "A new deep branch of eurasian mtDNA macrohaplogroup M reveals additional complexity regarding the settlement of Madagascar". BMC Genomics. 10: 605. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-10-605. PMC 2808327. PMID 20003445. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)

Has bearings on the origins of haplogroup M. New deep rooted clade m16 currently restricted to Madagascar. Most likely came from Asia, but possibly from Africa. Wapondaponda (talk) 06:12, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Request

I have recently created an article called Indigenous Amerindian genetics..I am no expert in the field ..but consider my self knowledgeable enough to write the article !!...What i am requesting is someone more familiar with the correct terminologies to take a look at the article and Copy edit were need be... and class the article properly !!!..O YES!!! pls add article to your watch list! ...Buzzzsherman (talk) 21:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello again guys ..thanks for the help so far..was looking for more help ..with a copy edit of this..I have asked a FA review that i know to look at it and she made some comments on its "Readability" to the average reader..After some more eyes look at it...and we fix the little things ..I will be sending it up for GA review then FA review. Mind you still a a little ways to go yet!!

Thank you for your time guys!!!..........Buzzzsherman (talk) 19:01, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

John D. Hawks AfD

Would like your help and comments on the article and/or AfD. The AfD is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John D. Hawks. --JWB (talk) 08:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

genetic studies on jews - khazar

Dear All, I would like to have your opinion about an argument I have with Jayjg about the possibility of some Khazar origin of Ashkenazim Talk:Genetic studies on Jews. We go round in circle and I think we need an external point of view. Could you please help ?--Boutboul (talk) 11:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

This came up previously on the Khazar page itself. Jayjg (talk · contribs) is quite a stickler for remaining very close to what the key published papers say, and questioning any glosses of them. But in the end, thanks to his attention, I think the Khazar page (specifically the section Khazar#DNA Evidence) has now reached quite a good treatment of what has been published on the subject. So it might be useful for you to look at that page, which shows what he would consider as acceptable.

The Genetic studies on Jews also now looks pretty well-grounded in the published data and academic interpretation. (Though some of the introductory sections could still be criticised as reading too much like a personal view, rather than a statement of unassailable impartial detachment). But is there actually now still any great distance between you, other than having to agree a couple of lines of summary on the subject for the lead? Jheald (talk) 19:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, I would like to thank you to consider my request. Yes, indeed Jayjg (talk · contribs) helped to improve Genetic studies on Jews. To summarize, we have only one difference. I would like to add the exact sentence coming from Nebel's paper (R1a1 haplogroup in Ashkenazim may represent vestiges of the mysterious Khazars) in the abstract and he thinks it is overweigthed.

Many editors in the french version of Genetic studies on Jews pushed me to add what you consider as "personal view" but it is sourced, don't you think? --Boutboul (talk) 08:26, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I just checked Khazar#DNA Evidence and I agree with it, this is what I tried to report in Genetic studies on Jews summary with a worse english but I do not think Jayjg (talk · contribs) is ready to accept that or something similar because it is in the summary.--Boutboul (talk) 08:33, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

JOGG ?

Is JOGG a reliable source for wikipedia ?--Boutboul (talk) 15:21, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

There has been discussion on this. The short answer is that it depends what it is being used for. If it is concerning raw research please remember no single primary source is unquestionable for use on Wikipedia. All primary sources should be used with some caution because by definition they do not represent the whole field. For complex raw data and "big" surprising conclusions from them, we need to try to make sure that as much as possible we use articles that are obviously the big name mainstream ones that won't be considered WP:fringe.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:26, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Notice of ArbCom decision on Race and intelligence and related articles

The Arbitration Commmittee case on race and intelligence has just been decided. Thus articles that are either in the Race and intelligence controversy category or mentioned in the findings of the 2010 Arbitration Committee case on Race and intelligence or closely related to those are subject to active arbitration remedies that you may wish to review. The case decision seems to have resulted in an immediate improvement in the editing environment of several articles that previously were very contentious. Peaceful, collaborative editing that turns to sources and upholds Wikipedia policy is enjoyable editing. I thought I should let participants on this WikiProject know that this improved atmosphere now exists, because some of the articles related to that case have long been marked as part of this project. Your participation in editing those articles is welcomed and encouraged. You can look up sources to help improve articles in the source lists I have been compiling to share with all Wikipedians. And because the source lists span several different topics, and those topics fit quite a few articles in this WikiProject in whole or in part, suggesting new sources would be a very kind thing to do. The atmosphere has improved a lot, so the articles can improve a lot. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 02:02, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Ethnic/regional studies: some issues and call to consider

Obviously any article which links ethnic/national things with genetics has some potential for silliness. Historically this applied especially to Y haplogroup articles. I believe Y haplogroup studies are looking better these days, but one of the more scrappy and controversial styles which I think will probably increase in popularity are the ones about ethnic and regional studies. Here are the ones I know of so far:-

• Genetic studies on Jews
• Genetic history of Europe
• African admixture in Europe
• Genetic history of Italy
• Genetic origins of the Turkish people
• Archaeogenetics of the Near East
• Genetics and archaeogenetics of South Asia
• Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas
• Genetic history of the British Isles

Please feel free to add more to the list. Questions/ Calls for opinions...

1. Comments are raised frequently about the ugly, arguably illogical, and inconsistent names. Do we need a standard approach and if so what would it be? My personal preference right now is Genetic studies of... simply because it claims less for this new science. I think the terms "Genetic history" and "Archaeogenetics" are jargony, possibly not all that clear, and not necessary going to be understood or searched for.

2. I am not an expert on such things but should there be a sub-category for these, to make it easier for people interested in working on them as a group for whatever reason?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:31, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

It would probably be a good idea for the section Berber_people#Genetics to be split off to a separate article. Wapondaponda (talk) 05:27, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

That seems a different subject, except to the extent that there are a number of such sections in ethnicity related articles, and this shows that there will likely be an increasing numbers of these articles also. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:34, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

"Genetic studies of" sounds like a much more neutral and user-friendly kind of title than many of the other title patterns that have been tried. I would support making all of the titles over in that pattern. A separate problem here is that almost all of these articles or article sections run afoul of Wikipedia policy by being sourced mostly to unreplicated primary research studies, rather than to reliable published secondary sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:46, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

• Genetic studies of" sounds like a much more neutral and user-friendly kind of title than many of the other title patterns that have been tried. I would support making all of the titles over in that pattern. I guess if we are having this discussion we should also consider the logically prior question of whether it is necessary to have a standard way of naming them. The reason I raised it is because it always seems to be raised by others.
• A separate problem here is that almost all of these articles or article sections run afoul of Wikipedia policy by being sourced mostly to unreplicated primary research studies, rather than to reliable published secondary sources. I think it is not quite that bad, but it is good to have this WP:PRIMARY problem pointed out and considered more often. A lot of people working on these articles do not realize that there is actually a reasonable argument against even trying to cover such a new and fast changing field on WP. HOWEVER, the lucky thing is that the field's main conclusions are normally not very controversial. This is probably surprising if you watch all the ethnicity debates, but in fact most of those debates centre around people trying to insert original research or to give obvious undue weight to something. Weijibaikebianji do you have any examples in mind? (We might want to split this discussion out of this thread though?)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:02, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

FYI all, another discussion is going on about essentially the same subject at one of the relevant article talk pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Genetic_history_of_Europe#The_name--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:07, 17 October 2010 (UTC)