Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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jmabel, can you provide wikilinks to pages containing the sort of templates that you would like to employ here? tks --Ling.Nut 21:37, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm lacking context on that question: templates for what purpose? (& if you are directing a question specifically to me, you'll get a lot faster answer if you also hit my user talk page with a link to it: I have thousands of pages on my watchlist.) - Jmabel | Talk 01:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Ling.Nut clarified on my user talk page that he was talking about evaluation templates. He also suggested that we look at WikiProject Mesoamerica and {{WP Mesoamerica}} as a model for this. I'm all for that, but it sounds like neither Ling.Nut nor I are likely to get to this any time in the next couple of months.

Looking at that project also reminds me: I was only a few months into my time on Wikipedia when I starte this one, and I slavishly followed the suggestion at the time for how to set up a Wikiproject. There is probably a lot we could do better in the presentation of information on this project. I promise to get to this within a few months if no one beats me to it, but I'd be thrilled if someone else who knows what they are doing carries the ball sooner. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll copy the project page to my user space and try to remodel bit by bit over the next few weeks/months... but as Jmabel said, "...I'd be thrilled if someone else who knows what they are doing carries the ball sooner."--Ling.Nut 13:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

See discussion here: Wikipedia_talk:Africa-related_regional_notice_board#Free_books. - Francis Tyers · 14:15, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi,

1. I tried to avoid "doubling up" on WikiProjects. If I accidentally placed a tag on an article that was already in another project, please let me know which one(s) so I can apologize...
2. What does it mean that the FA articles have been "factored out"? Oh I think you just removed one from the table...
3. Keeping the original template wording is fine. I didn't know the new wording conflicted with the project's goals. I just thought that listing details about what aspects of an ethnic group could be covered might tweak someone's interest ("Hmmm. I could write an article about the X people's Y"). But the the original wording is fine; no arguments here.

Thanks!--Ling.Nut 21:34, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Template wording: mostly, I thought that to speak of civilizations as being of particular ethnic groups can be very inappropriate. Is China only a civilization of the Han Chinese? Is Western European civilization of some particular ethnic groups? That could head some pretty ugly directions. Also, the project is not just about ethnic groups in the narrow sense, it is also about nationalities and other cultural identities. Many of the pages that we cover in this project would be offended to be called an "ethnic group". - Jmabel | Talk 06:04, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds right. I overlooked that... --Ling.Nut 13:01, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Pashtun people is up for Featured article review here. The review period has just started so there'll be plenty of time to address concerns. Anyone interested may leave suggestions on the review to ensure the page retains Featured article status. Marskell 11:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

That's great news! I don't know if I can contribute, but I am definitely rooting for you! --Ling.Nut 11:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

When we set up the rating system, I was saying we should leave out "importance" because I thought this would only be ethnic groups as such. But now that I see the start of a list of articles, I see I was wrong. We have topics like Fort Mose Historic State Park and List of Scottish Americans.

The importance categories used on Wikipedia are "Top", "High", "Mid", "Low".

So maybe the approach is something like:

• Top: major, broad articles like ethnic group, nation
• High: actual ethnic groups

I'm not as sure what would go in "Mid" vs. "Low"; it is a matter of what would have broad interest... - Jmabel | Talk 07:49, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, since you want it, I'll set it up... I was afraid that people would be offended to see their paticular article described as "Low importance". --Ling.Nut 12:12, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I was mentally debating whether further discussion is necessary.. but heck, I'll just set it up.. I think it's easy to "turn it off" if you decide you don't want it.--Ling.Nut 12:17, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Ooops now it's my third (technically fourth) post. Setting up the categories would take about 20 minutes or so; maybe a little more. Fiddling with {{Ethnic groups}} might take longer than that by itself. Ummmm. How big a priority is this? I'll look at it.--Ling.Nut 12:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

... are not an ethnic group, only a language minority in Finland. This has been discussed on the F-S talk page, and the consensus was that F-S are the same ethnicity as Finnish people, at least nowadays. Read what the article says, in the "Identity" section! --Janke | Talk 07:03, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

As explained on the project page, this project is not confined only to ethnic groups in the narrow sense. It is about "ethnic groups and other closely related topics" and it includes "sub-national groups" other than ethnicities in the narrow sense. It is very unlikely that someone will set up a separate project to handle the specific topic of peoples of a given ethnicity within a particular state. Many article here are about things that are not exactly ethnic groups: British Muslims, for example. At least one article here, Negro is about a word, not an ethnic group. - Jmabel | Talk 07:39, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 20:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

This talk page contains many comments which I regard as racist against this ethnoc grouping. I believe they should be removed. Can I remove these comments or is this against policy? Downunda 02:43, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

HI Downunda,

I looked at the page & there's definitely some unsigned prejudiced remarks. It's easy to ID people who leave such remarks, however, by looking at the page history & diff (especially if you use popups).

The first thing I'd do for sure is go thru the talk page and put this after every unsigned comment (especially, objectionable ones.. but really should do for all) that you find, once you've ID'd the person who made them:

{{subst:unsigned|user name|date}}

As for deleting the comments, I found this:

Deleting the comments of other users from Talk pages other than your own, aside from removing internal spam, vandalism, etc. is generally considered vandalism. Removing personal attacks is often considered legitimate, and it is considered acceptable to archive an overly long Talk page to a separate file and then remove the text from the main Talk page.

The comments I read were quite prejudiced, but not precisely personal attacks or vandalism. I suspect it flies below the threshold of things that are brought to any admin attention... I'll look into this!--Ling.Nut 03:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

You can definitely add a pseudo sig as described above. If it is really extreme spew, just delete it with a remark saying what you've done (e.g. Egregious racist remarks removed). If it's borderline, but you really believe it is above the threshold of acceptability and should be deleted, then I recommend a two-step process:

1. remove the remark
2. go to the history, find the diff for the edit you just made, and make a second edit saying something like "racist remarks removed" with a link to the diff so that if anyone actually wants to see what was removed, they can.

I'd be a lot more wary about removing something that actually has content than something that is just racist spew. For example—I'll use my own ethnicity here, so that no one can accuse me of being backhanded here—if on a page related Jews someone opines that the Allies should have let Hitler finish the job, that should be deleted (and the account should probably be blocked). If, on the other hand, they talk about how the people of Moldavia were (in their view) legitimate in resenting the Jews because the Jews so dominated local commerce, then I probably wouldn't delete the remark, and I'd have to decide whether I was willing to engage in that debate. I've also been known to just put Do not feed after certain remarks. - Jmabel | Talk 05:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the inputs guys. I wasn't sure if I was just being over-sensitive but the remarks really bugged me. I am not of Irish Traveler descent but having seen their plight first hand- These people live in real poverty- I was really disgusted by the underhanded quasi-racist comments. I will delete the more extreme comments and archive the rest. Once again Ling.Nut and Jmabel, thanks for your assistance. Downunda 05:39, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

{{SampleWikiProject}}

That's all well and good, but I, for one, am not yet happy with any of these articles. I've more been focused on bringing some unity of structure to a vast array of very divergent articles. I've really been focused more on improving structure than improving content (though I've certainly paid some attention to the latter). -- Jmabel 01:11, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The closest thing I see to this is Tamil people, though it is a bit short on inline citation. Two years in, this project has remained more focused on bringing some unity of structure to a vast array of very divergent articles than on pushing individual articles toward featured status. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I've put some effort into the Taiwanese aborigines page recently. I still think several things could be done (see my last entry on the talk page). If anyone can add info about Spanish, Ming & (new) info about Qing, that would be awesome. However, I think the page is looking pretty good. It may need some wikification. Unfortunately I have some other things to do at the present, but will revisit the page in the future.

Ling.Nut 15:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

The Tamil people article is quite nice. We could decide to work inside it to push it to featured article. I have never done that, so it could be a nice experience.

Later we could use that experience to improve other articles in good shape like the Taiwanese aborigins one. --Sugaar 06:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

(Unrelated comment) Did you see my comments below about moving an article by yourself? It's easy.

As for an FA drive, it has been discussed from time to time. I could help after Christmas but not now. If we do start something like that, we'd also want others involved, such as jmabel and Fsotrain09. :-)

Thanks for the good idea. I definitely wanna keep thinking about this.

--Ling.Nut 15:03, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Ethnic groups have to be ascertainable in objective terms. The clearest one of these is endogamy. It may not always be so easy to gauge since marriage stats don't always include ethnic identifiers, and not all groups have been examined for characteristic average genetic frequencies, but without endogamy, ethnicity is reduced to membership in a cultural club, and becomes almost entirely a matter of choice, i.e. subjective. Tmangray 18:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

So what? Endogamy is (normally) a myth. Cultural identity is what matters. It's not just a matter of choice, as it's not just self-identification but also identification by others. Aditionally, the normal way of becoming part of any ethnic group is being born inside it. --Sugaar 21:59, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Tamil people has been brought to FAR. Please be there and comment. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 15:46, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

In my humble opinion, you should have gone through WP:GA before you went to WP:FA. There's no requirement to do so, of course, but the GA process can help you spot many things that would be questioned in FA.--Ling.Nut 15:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Tamil people is a featured article. It has been brought to Wikipedia:Featured article review (FAR) as the article seems not to abide by certain criteria of WP:WIAFA. Please visit the article's entry in FAR page for further information. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 16:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Confused? GA has nothing to do with FA, and because it is an entirely subjective process, is not particularly useful even in bringing articles to FA status. Tamil people is already an FA, and is at WP:FAR for review. Regards, Sandy (Talk) 16:11, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing. I was in fact a bit confused. I saw zero-point-zero inline cites. I was operating under the mistaken assumption that FA, whose standards you appropriately praise, would never accept that state of affairs. I am extremely certain that GA would have made some mention that rather glaring omission. However, I do apologize for suggesting that articles be taken to GA, or in fact for mentioning GA and FA in the same breath. I hope I did not offend you by doing so. Thank you for straightening me out on this matter, as well.--Ling.Nut 16:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

The American Anthropological Association Statement on "Race" (May 17, 1998).

We believe that it [the statement] represents generally the contemporary thinking and scholarly positions of a majority of anthropologists.

Apparantly Wikipedia does not take into account the "the contemporary thinking and scholarly positions of a majority of anthropologists" on the issue of ethnicity. -- Stbalbach 18:22, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Race is different from Ethnicity. Ethnicity can have absolutely nothing to do with genetics. It's much more cultural and historical. — ዮም (Yom) | contribs • Talk 00:50, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. Stalbach, you should better wave that in truly conroversial entries such as White people and Black people, not here, where we are concerned about cultural differences rather than anything regarding race. --Sugaar 21:57, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I was referred here by Stbalbach about how to present the names of historic (i.e. groups of people who either no longer exist or no longer are recognized as identifiable) ethnic groups, for example the Visigoths or Vandals. At the moment, the article about the Germanic people who once ruled over parts of southern France & Spain is at Visigoth; the accepted name for the entire nation is "Visigoths", and I would like to move the article there. However, Stbalbach argues that whatever we call these historic peoples should conform to this Wikiproject's standard -- which, after reading the project page, I am not sure exists yet. Comments, anyone? -- llywrch 19:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

No clear standard on this, and it would be too contentious to get a consensus. Either is OK. I'd lean toward Visigoths. Clearly, whichever way you go, the other should be a redirect. And please feel more than free to add {{ethnic groups}} to those historic groups, and to add them to the grid on the project page. - Jmabel | Talk 03:01, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear by common sense. All peoples are by definition plural, so either Visigoths or Visigoth(ic) people would be the logical names. Singular form should only be redirect (or in some cases maybe) disambiguation. (I've also commented in the Visigoth tak page in favor of the move). --Sugaar 21:52, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Romanians is either a high B or a low A. The revert wars etc. seem to have stopped (?). You may wanna assess it. Cheers.--Ling.Nut 02:25, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Roma people looks pretty good as well. --Ling.Nut 03:00, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Romanians doesn't look bad but I wonder what really makes an article A class. By the assesment tables it would seem that A is better than GA (I'm not really sure about it), what means that only articles with improved GA status (nearing FA) could be classed as such. Correct me if I am wrong.

And the article is protected right now. What is a pity because there's one history paragraph that needs to be moved from Middle Ages to Modern Ages quite obviously. --Sugaar 23:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I requested a multiple renaming of several ethnic group articles. I hope that you don't mind that I created a subpage at this WikiProject; it looked like the most reasonable place. The survey is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Renaming survey. Duja► 11:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

In the article Vascon, I have proposed a move to Vascones, now a redirect. It seems obvious to me but I'd like more opinions before I request the move. --Sugaar 18:48, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi- — you forgot to sign and date your comment at Talk:Vascon. :-) That's where the topic should be discussed.

It looks like it was proposed once or twice before, but nothing was done or even really discussed. Moreover, it doesn't generate much discussion: there was a full year between your first post there and the post that immediately preceded it.

I glanced at some mention of sources to justify using the name you suggest. You seem to have reliable sources to support the move, and (also important) no one has replied in three days. If you wanna be extra-judicious, you can wait another day or two for replies. But actually I don't see any reason not to do it. --Ling.Nut 19:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I have two supports with yours, so I've already requested the move. I was just shy about doing it without any support. --Sugaar 01:03, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Requested the move? Why not press the "move" button yourself? No need for an admin here...."--Ling.Nut 01:26, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Because Vascones was a redirect. It's alredy done, thanks. --Sugaar 21:42, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Ooops, sorry.. that possibility didn't occur to me. :-) --Ling.Nut 21:58, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I just added a bit of background to the confusing categorization issues regarding the Jingpo/Kachin (same page, different names) in China and Burma/Myanmar. Much of the confusion arises from the troublesome effort (IMHO) by the Burmese, British colonial and Chinese governments to create "ethnic group" or "nationality" categories that map to languages and territory. But never mind that, we have the categories, now how do we make pages that make sense.

Um... this is going to be a lot of fun to sort out. Lots of red links out there that refer to either a language or a sometimes recognized ethnic group, and nearly all should probably redirect here. Before embarking on that, though, we should try to clarify a structure. Key questions:

Using Maru as an example for all the (sub)groups

• Do we mark Maru language and Maru people as their own pages?
• Alternatively, do we decide to treat the dominant meaning of Maru as the language, make a page for it called Maru and describe it as "one of the languages used by the Kachin ethnic group".
• Do we accept some dialect classification scheme for the languages and redirect the dialects to the "main" language? Leach (1965) for example, calls Lashi, Atsi, Maingtha, and Hpon (plus "Normal Maru") dialects of Maru.
• Where do we redirect Atsi, Lisu etc.?
• Adding links to disambiguate Maru, Guari and maybe more.

This is too much work for me alone, so I'm asking for input and creating a space to discuss it; go to the Talk:Jingpo page to chime in.--Carwil 03:17, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I put some initial thoughts on the page that you indicated, Talk:Jingpo. --Ling.Nut 04:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Can I add Wikipedia:WikiProject Basque as "descendant". I'm not sure what's the requirements but it seems somehow logical that it is "parented" by this one. --Sugaar 05:50, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 02:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

Correct me if I did it wrong: High priority, B class and needed of some attention.

My biggest doubts are about the class. I think is getting a high B class, it's not just a vague article with disorganized info and edit wars seem to have ceased totally. But I'm not sure if A is better than GA or lower. If it's better A articles can only be those that have been previously nominated as GAs and are approaching FA status. If A is lower than GA, then Basque people might soon deserve an A (after some cleanup I'm going to make tonight). --Sugaar 23:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi

I haven't looked at it in a long time, so I can't really say what it should be at this time. Did you see my evaluation in the table on the project page? Maybe it has changed since then.

I'm gonna start evaluating articles again in mid-late December, after I finish my semester papers. Until then, I appreciate the fact that you are carrying the ball. :-)

Don't forget to remove Basque people from the (large!) table on the project page when you're done, and to leave some comments on the /Comments page (a redlink in the Ethnic groups banner on the article's talk page)

Thanks again!!--Ling.Nut 23:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I am considering proposing this for deletion. It doesn't seem to distinguish between national groups by citizenship and ethnic groups, and the intro definition won't help decide that issue. I see some politically dubious entries (Frisians a "Germanic people", a term only used by the far right), and in any case most of the world's ethnic groups are not on the list. Formal ground for deletion would be maintainability and verifiability (what is not defined can not be checked).Paul111 20:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It all depends on whether the list is useful for managing various articles. You can make any kind of maintainability and verifiability arguments you like, but if it's useful, then it's useful. --Ling.Nut 20:54, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Just FYI, I was planning on doing LOTS of list-related work to the ethnic groups articles after Christmas. I dunno if this list was gonna be useful or not; hadn't planned things out.

BTW, instead of destroying things, why not add some :-) ?

--Ling.Nut 20:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been slowly using this list as guidance for things to evaluate; also looking at the redlinks as article requests. Like Ling.Nut, I was planning to kick into gear on this in about 4 weeks.

On the whole, I'd rather see it cleaned up, organized, and with groups better classified, rather than removing it. I don't have much opinion either way on it as an encyclopedia article, but it is useful to us as notes. If it is to be removed from mainspace, I'd like to see it kept somewhere until we have gone through the list, made sure all of the articles are tagged for this project, etc. - Jmabel | Talk 21:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Like jmabel, I was wanting to reorganize/improve. Keeping would be better than deleting.

I'll save the contents of this category to a page in my user space, just in case. ;-) --Ling.Nut 21:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The proposed grounds for deletion, as I would put them in the AfD are: List has no good definition of what constitutes an ethnic group and inclusion is consequentially unverifiable, list is potentially very large since some sources estimate over 10 000 ethnic groups, list is selective toward USA and groups involved in autonomy disputes. Most of the links come from Template:Female porn biography. I will wait for any more comments here, I still think it is inherently unimprovable as a list.Paul111 11:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

You're surely right that it is potentially too long and should be divided in regional lists (i.e. Europe, America(s), Africa, West Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, Siberia, East Asia, etc.). For the rest, I see no problem in it, though it should surely be expanded to include all ethnic groups by region and not just a few. --Sugaar 22:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)