Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Archive 3

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

message: One thing I noticed when watching some foreign films recently is that there are many minor ethnic groups around the world with which most people, especially in different geographic areas, are unfamiliar with.  And yet when you put a bunch of people in the same group together, the similarities really make an impression.  And when you already have an idea in your head about what people in that ethnic group look like, when you see a bunch of them together, you get an appreciation for the diversity of the group and fuzziness of boundaries.  For these reasons, I think it would be cool to have collections of faces on ethnic group article pages.  It would also create an interesting historical record of what the population of the Earth looked like at this point in time. -- Beland 02:05, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree, but in many cases (especially smaller groups) it will be hard to get GFDL images. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:29, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pictures 

message: Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-Class and good B-Class articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles on ethnic groups? FA's like Tamil people will deinitely be considered. Please post your suggestions here. Cheers!--Shanel 05:04, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

message: We've been having a lot of contention recently about the number of people of various ethnic groups (see Romanians and especially Talk:Romanians for one very heated example. I think the only solution to this is to work toward a set of standards independent of a particular ethnicity. I doubt this will be "one size fits all" (probably it is a very different matter to come up with estimates of the number of Lakota, the number of Roma, the number of Mizrahi Jews and the number of Bulgarians, but it would be good to get some standards in place as to what is citable.
I want to start with a few propositions that I hope we can agree on:
# Official census figures are always citable.
# Official census figures are not the only citable sources, but we need to decide what other sources are citable.
# When there are a range of estimates from different sources, the article or table should indicate the range, and notes should clearly cite the sources of individual numbers.
-- Jmabel | Talk 06:23, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just another note: Number of first-language speakers often corresponds to number of members of that ethnicity for African groups. Ethnologue is an invaluable source for this information, though their figures are often quite out of date. It's possible they'd be useful for other groups with a fairly high degree of cultural homogeneity. --Amcaja 12:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ethnologue is great for what it is. In many contexts, their numbers should be understood as minimum numbers, because (1) they are "splitters" — different dialects are usually counted separately — and (2) they tend not to count much anyone as dual native. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Right. But for most African groups (Bantu anyway), this isn't a problem -- a child is the same ethnic group as his or her father (unless the mother is very, very different, like a white person; then the child is considered a mix). As for dialect splitting, it can be pretty useful, as long as you know what groups fall into a single ethnic group in other literature. Ethnologue's been much more useful on Cameroon-related stuff than the Cameroonian government's official numbers, anyway. --Amcaja 13:01, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. If you know how to provide the context for the numbers, it's excellent. As I said, "great for what it is." I was just raising a word of caution about the two biggest problems I've seen with how Wikipedians have used it. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:28, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numbers 

message: I've been hoping for some interest in the Marinid/Merinid/Benemerines merging, but nobody seems to give a toss and both articles (Marinid and Merinid dynasty) continue to be edited. If you have a chance, please give your opinion on the name of the to-be-merged article at the Merinid talk page (here). Thanks! Donama 01:55, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Moved all to MarinidsMarinid — Донама 03:48, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually Donama, the article appears to remain at Marinid, while the talk page is at Marinids - ?--cjllw | TALK 04:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The admin who was helping me convinced me to put it at Marinid instead of Marinids, but then disappeared before they moved the talk page to Talk:Marinid. An admin needs to do this for us. — Донама 05:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

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

message: You're missing an ethnic groups at the list - the Montenegrins. --HolyRomanEmperor 18:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Then by all means, feel free to add them in, HRE. Indeed, there are potentially a thousand and more entries missing from the listing here, both created and awaiting creation. A comprehensive list is perhaps not entirely feasible, but rather a direction in which to aim for.--cjllw | TALK 00:13, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Montenegrins 

message: Are there any user boxes for this WikiProject lik there are for the "Indigenous peoples of North America" Wikiproject?  If not would someone be willing to make one?  I might be able to do it if someone could maybe send me in the right direction because I'm not to sure how to go about making one right now. RyGuy17
:No, there's not a project userbox for this at the moment. Perhaps the simplest way to go about creating one is to borrow (read:copy) the ones which the above-named project has created ( and/or ), with some small strategic alterations such as changing the project link and the img, and paste it holus-bolus into a new  template.--cjllw | TALK 05:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! I'll definitely play around with it and see what I can come up with. RyGuy17 13:26, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks, RyGuy, looks good to me.--cjllw | TALK 23:07, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I made a User Box for the project, (available here ), and here it is. RyGuy17 01:50, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I've made some amendments to both, standardising the img and colour schemes, and providing categories. They now look like this:
, messagebox format, produces: 
, Userbox format, produces: 
Each will add the User page they are placed on to :Category:WikiProject Ethnic groups participants.--cjllw | TALK 02:54, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks! Michael  04:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  User Boxes? 

message: :I've made some amendments to both, standardising the img and colour schemes, and providing categories. They now look like this:
, messagebox format, produces: 
, Userbox format, produces: 
Each will add the User page they are placed on to :Category:WikiProject Ethnic groups participants.--cjllw | TALK 02:54, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! Michael  04:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Updates

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

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

message: Am I correct in thinking that the ethnic template should be added to talk pages of articles and categories named such as ethnic groups, ethnic groups in the in the US, F00 Americans, list of F00 Americans, F00 American, etc  Thanks Hmains 05:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. - Jmabel | Talk 02:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

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

message: There is a discussion that will probably interest participants in this project at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_%28biographies%29#Nationality_and_ethnicity.2C_redux. - Jmabel | Talk 22:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nationality and ethnicity 

message: I would like to participate in this project.  How do I sign up?  Most of my knowledge is regarding ethinc groups and indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia, although I also dabble in South Asian and Middle Eastern ethnic groups.--WilliamThweatt 18:38, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you look on the project page, you will see a list of participants. You can simply add your name to the list and get to editing! — Amcaja 12:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly... Michael  09:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks!  I forgot to put this page on my watchlist so I just noticed the responses.--WilliamThweatt 17:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to participate in this Wikiproject? 

message: I'm categorising Catholic Encyclopedia articles not yet in Wikipedia, and there are a few articles that relate to Native American groups here:
Wikipedia:Catholic Encyclopedia cat Immigrants
To find the Catholic Encyclopedia article click on "CE" next to the name.
JASpencer 21:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Some more articles

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

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

message: How can an article be added be added to this project? Could Bisaya be included?--Nino Gonzales 05:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There isn't really a system for adding articles to the project; basically, every article about an ethnic group is automatically part. However, you may want to take a look at some of the formatting guidelines we've established; these help make all ethnic group articles on Wikipedia more standardized. See, for example, Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups Template for a suggested layout for these articles. You should also familiarize yourself with :Template:Ethnic group. See Azerbaijani people for a good example article. One last thing is that you can add  to the article's talk page to add the standard project disclaimer. And please let us know if you have more questions. — Amcaja 14:28, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

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

message: There's a big unresolved problem (did I miss the discussion?) about some large categories that are overflowing to multiple pages. Notably :Category:African Americans is not user-friendly. The root cause seems to be its non-hierarchical use, so that sub-categories about aspects of the ethnic group are fighting for screen space with articles about individual people. Of course every individual is entitled to their group identity, but there must be a way to clean up the practicalities. Would it be a mad or bad idea to head towards a convention that, at least for well-populated multi-page ethnic categories, all articles about individual people go into a subcategory of the ethnic group??--Mereda 10:51, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks, I've now put a few words at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Ethnic_groups#Categories_and_subcategories to make the position clearer. This also draws on a parallel discussion I started at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization_of_people#By_race_or_ethnicity. --Mereda 08:07, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  User-friendly categories 

message: Here is the structure: a category, such as 'Danish Americans' exists in the category 'European Americans' and in the category 'American People by ethnic or national origin'.  The category 'European Americans' also exists in the category 'American people by ethnic or national origin' Americans'. This makes for double level categorization, which may be uncommon.  After trying to eliminate this and facing opposition, I quit.  What sort of explanatory note should be placed in which of these categories?  Thanks Hmains 05:35, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It could be worse! The pattern at the moment is that articles themselves are subcategorised as 'nationalityoforigin-Americans' while :Category:European Americans holds the subcategories, not the articles. I've tried changing the words there to make that clearer for the European set. What do you think? --Mereda 07:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Categories within categories

message: There is a discussion in the July 3 'categories for delete' list whether to use hyphens or not in ethnic named articles and categories, such as 'English American' or 'English-American' article, English Americans or 'English-Americans' category, 'List of English Americans' or 'List of English-Americans' article.  While the question is narrow, the comments on what to change are more broadly based.  So far, most of the editors want hyphens or at least do not want to delete existing hyphens until there is some policy on subject.  Is there any position that this Project has on this?  Or which project members have?  Thanks Hmains 20:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My personal view of this is that someone must have far to much time on his or her hands, or loves wasting other people's. Not to suggest that the someone is you, I presume you didn't start this. - Jmabel | Talk 03:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  hyphens  

message: In :Category:People by ethnic or national descent, there are mostly sub-categories named 'People of Foo descent'.  In :Category:Emigrants by nationality, there are mostly sub-categories named 'Foo emigrants'.  Looking down further into these sub-categories, they are both populated with sub-sub-categories named 'Foo Goo', where 'Foo' is the origin country and 'Goo' is the destination country.  Examples: see :Category:People of Canadian descent and :Category:Canadian emigrants, having :Category:Canadian Americans, :Category:Canadian Australians, etc.  Sometimes, in the matching sub-categories, the sub-sub-categories are the same; more often, there is partial or even no overlap. 
Is something wrong here?.  Should there be either be categories named 'People of Foo descent' or 'Foo emigrants', but not both.  Is there some naming decision somewhere that makes states what we should be using?  Was the decision never implemented or, worse, partially implemented?  What is happening here?  Thanks Hmains 01:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that any discussion about this has been entirely among the people focused on categorization, not here. And I think they have a very hard time developing a real consensus on anything, although it is a lot better than a year ago. - Jmabel | Talk 03:05, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  duplicative emigrant/descent categories 

message: A new user, User:Mallimak, is trying desperately to invent a new ethnicity (or perhaps nationality, it is unclear) called "Orcadian". Could some of you guys please look at his contributions, and especially his creation from a Redirect: Orcadian. Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Orcadian. --Mais oui! 09:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting...Michael  10:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Orcadian]] 

message: The List of Irish American Muscicians that is derived from the list of Irish AMericans still contains the "Articles for Deltion" Notice . I understand that the  decision to Keep the List of Irish Americans that is the source for this and other lists that are linked to it was made - therefore the  Articles for Deltion Notice should be removed from this article and other linked articles86.12.253.32 09:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, it should.  Have you done so? Michael  04:36, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

text: You should remind an admin at CfD to remove it since it should be replaced by a notice on the talk page of the result of the discussion.  --JeffW 13:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll actually try to do that. Michael  09:51, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did it. Michael  10:10, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm...Do we only have the singers category now? Michael 18:02, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of irish American Musicians 

message: Those who've been discussing U.S. census numbers on various pages may find the following interesting. This is the U.S. Census Bureau's paper on their microsampling PDF, which is how they estimate ethnicities. And here is their ethnicity coding. - Jmabel | Talk 04:46, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for posting that! Michael  10:12, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  U.S. census numbers 

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

message: Any input that may help resolve the issue at talk:Black people would be welcome. --Ezeu 23:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have expressed my views on the matter. Michael  06:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dispute about [[black people]] 

message: Who examines & rates the pages in this section? How does one volunteer to rate pages? How does one request a page that one is working on be checked by another participant?
Tks,
Ling.Nut 16:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is nothing very systematic. I've probably done more of this than anyone else. I occasionally cross-check what someone else does. I haven't seen anyone go seriously wrong yet. - Jmabel | Talk 22:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "individual nationalities" 

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

message: The problem with these ethnic pages there are a lot of propagandistic distortions of History. A lot
of people use this opportunity to write what they like....without thinking in the offence of other
nationalities. There is no way to correct these "mistakes". Has anyone else noticed this?? 
Csabap 4:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are certainly pages with that sort of problem. There are others that are really excellent. But I don't know what you mean by "There is no way to correct these 'mistakes'." There is the same way as on any other Wikipedia page. - Jmabel | Talk 06:58, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I ment that if u try correcting things as they are ment to be...they are changed over and     over.... Csabap 19:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Welcome to the world of wikis. - Jmabel | Talk 04:56, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Distorting History

message: Read my comments (immediately above) about Network effect. I propose that the first project be a way to improve networking; this talk page may not be sufficent. All in favor say "ethnographer."
--Ling.Nut 16:25, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: More thoughts occurred to me. People involved in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography may draw their sense of community (or identity.. in a lesser sense) from the task. OTOH people involved in Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups may get their -- focus? identity? -- from identification with the group that is the topic of a particular page. So the conclusion is, this project needs to consciously/proactively reach out to people who identify with the task rather than a specific group.. erm... anthropologists, linguists (ahem), etc etc ... uh.. socio-geeks. Like me. All that in addition to reaching out to the communities clustered around a topic, of course..Let me know if I'm making sense or babbling. --Ling.Nut 17:44, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project proposal:networking initiative 

message: Erm, just a way to increase visibility. Plus I have ulterior motives. I suggest a Featured article drive. Of course I'm nominating Taiwanese aborigines as the page. I have put aeons and decades of work into it, but it needs more. It has the added attractive feature of being pretty stable.
But the main point is the suggestion for a group FA drive. --Ling.Nut 19:00, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project proposal #2: FA Drive 

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