Talk:White people/Archive 16

message: As I've been reading the discussion on this page, I was thinking that I'd like everyone involved in the mediation case to make an optional statement about the dispute, i.e. what the dispute is, their opinion, and ideas for a compromise. Hopefully this will help everyone begin to come to a solution. Neranei (talk) 23:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, here, or on the mediation case talk page? SamBC(talk) 23:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, as all of the discussion is here, here. (I will probably transclude it later, if the need arises.) Thanks. Neranei (talk) 23:18, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I'm happy to go first, but I'd like to make one request and give people a chance to respond to that before I post my "summary". Based on my experience with mediation IRL, I'd request that everyone attempt to make their summary as polite as possible while also being full and frank, and also that no-one respond directly to any of the summaries until "everyone" has had a chance to make their own summaries. Avoid addressing point in other people's summaries in your own. This isn't point-counterpoint, although I'm sure we'll get back to that later. This is just everyone putting forward their own view without a context of conversation. SamBC(talk) 23:28, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not believe this article can ever reach a consensus. I hope I'm proven wrong. - Jeeny Talk 23:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To Sam: Thank you for being a proponent of politeness, and to Jeeny: That's what Singularity and I are for. We will try our best. Neranei (talk) 23:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

text:  Few Ex:  or pictures like this:. This article is not about who is non white.
2) Genetics and other population section is a POV fork. Either delete or add more arguments like this: .
3) Relations with blacks section is irrelevant. Again, it is afrocentricism by Muntuwandi. One drop rule may be mentioned with couple of words but a whole section is irrelevant.
4) This pic  should go because, for every 4 people whose skin color is similar like that, there may be 4000 with clear skin tone differences. Europeans are the lightest ethnic group (Spectrophotometry confirms that). That's why they are called white. And the pic is POV pushing. There seems to be no objective comparison, ie: suntanned Kerry vs other people in bright lightening. Also look at here: . Thandie Newton's skin color is clearly non-white compared to Matt Dillon...
5) If there will be a gallery and Mid Easterners will be included, they should be in a seperate gallery because their whiteness seems to be a minority opinion, given the quotes in the article. 
===Summary from my perspective — SamBC(talk)===
====Reason for dispute====
There have been some fairly polarised views as to what this article should be, never mind what it should contain. This has since developed into further evidence that there is disagreement as to whether this article should even exist. Should the article be based on the use of the term (broadly), on strictly ethnic interpretations, on particular ethnic interpretations, and so on.
====My opinion====
My opinion is largely that there should be a compromise; I don't have a firm opinion beyond that the article should exist, should be more than disambiguation, and should cover the full range of (verifiable/notable) uses and meanings.
====Suggested compromise====
I would suggest that the page become a sort of enhanced disambiguation. Sections and subsections to cover the ways in which the term is used and what it is used to mean, with pretty brief coverage, and "main article" links to articles with fuller coverage where possible. Because of the controversy over images, I would suggest that no images be used in the article lead or otherwise prominently. Instead, images directly applicable to a section/subsection should be included there only, and based on their appropriateness to that section rather than based on any idea of what should be in the article overall. For example, if there is a section on "racial/ethnic usage", with subsections on specific interpretations within that usage, the section would potentially include an image indicating a range of ethnicities to put the concept in context. General examples, however, of who is/isn't white should not be included, largely because they would have to be variations of such for each section/subsection, as there is no overall consensus on or off wikipedia as to what constitutes a "white person".
I think that covers it. SamBC(talk) 00:13, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I've just read my comments and I have no idea why I put them across so aggressively. I stand by the content of my statement but I apologise for the way I conveyed it.AlanD 08:34, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mediation suggestion

message: This was my original comment on the article and I still stand by it.  Aside from census data, this article is mostly about the relationship between certain genotypic and phenotypic features associated with "white people." I have two problems with this. First, it utterly ignores a vast literature in anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies on the social construction of whiteness, how the notion of "white" people has changed historically, and its cultural dimensions. I realize that to write about this someone would have to go through peer-reviewed journals (including interdisciplinary ones like Critical Inquiry, Representations and Public Culture) to find the important articles and look through book reviews to identify the important books (I provide a list of some of the most important such books above) - but hey, that is what you have to do if you want to write an encyclopedia article, right? Until someone does this, the article fails to live up to our NPOV standards by ignoring many important points of view. Second, the sections on genoytpe strike me as original research insofar as they are synthetic i.e. making claims about "White people" in general. All the scientific studies are on specific populations, and different populations will have diferent features and it is not scientific to take results from different populations and average them unless you have a good reason. Here is a good reason based on the article itself: country by country. When the US does a census to identify White people, and the Ecuadorian census identifies White people, they are NOT referring to members of the same race or ethnic group. Censuses reflect states' views of their citizenry, although the degree to which they reflect the interests of bureaucrats, social scientists, or political negotiations with representatives of ethnic groups varies. But often time within many countries (certainly the US and Brazil) the boundaries between ethnic groups and how people self identify may vary from what is recorded by the census ... which is why you really need to look at work by historians, sociologists, and anthropologists - otherwisewhat you have is at best a distortion, or at worst amounts to OR (in the form of synthesis.
Although I have presented my position in terms of compliance with NOR and NPOV, Fourdee and others have challenged me arguing not only that I am pushing a POV but that it is a fringe POV.  Thee is no way to make sense of this dispute without my trying to understand Fourdee's position.  Fourdee writes, "I have repeatedly said that the material that slrubenstein and others are promoting can be included in the article however it should not overwhelm a topic with criticisms rather than a discussion of the actual topic and that I will be watching for anything that is willfully misleading, improprerly paraphrased, and arrangements of material that give undue weight to tiny minority views." It is true that Fourdee has said this, and I believe that his formulation here may provide one possible starting point for mediation. I am sure that all agree in principal that we want to avoid "anything that is willfully misleading, improprerly paraphrased, and arrangements of material that give undue weight to tiny minority views" and another way to frame the dispute is that people disagree over what material fits this description. My statement above asserts that much of the material in the article, although sourced, was misleading. Perhaps when first added it was not "willfully" misleading, but a number of editors (notably Alun/Wobble) besides myself have since explained how and why it is misleading. Nevertheless, this remains a point of contention that may require/benefit from mediation. Another point for mediation involves Fourdee's sugestion that the views I wish included are "criticisms" of the topic; my position is that they express alternate views. At stake is where the material would go in the article: in a special "criticism" section at the end, or in the beginning as one of several major views. A linked issue is Fourdee's characterizing these views as fringe or minority. I contend that they represent major views within the academy. It is true that many people are ignorant of or reject scholarly research, but I do not believe that this renders scholarly research "fringe" or "minority." I believe that "fringe" or "minorty" can have meaning in an encyclopedia only in relation to a particular community or constituency (mass media, the scientific community, and so on) and are not meaningful in absolute terms. I believe Fourdee and others disagree - so this too would be an important area requiing mediation.
There is in fact a huge body of academic literature on who Whites are and what it means to be White.  I list several such books above.  Some have suggested that discussion of this literature belongs in Whiteness studies.  But that article provides a general context for the academic trend - it does not provide a detailed account of thier findings.  I think there is a place for a Wikipedia article on Whiteness, as long as it complies with NPOV and NOR; I believe the starting point for such an article would be to present the findings of this massive body of scholarly research on whites. I would further propose that such an article should absorb the article on Caucasian race (which needs to be updated to take into account current evolutionary science/physical anthropological research on race as a biological concept), but could be separate from an article on European peoples, which would be about ethnic groups in Europe.  Slrubenstein   |  Talk 23:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Slrubenstein's position

message: ====Reason for dispute====
There have been some fairly polarised views as to what this article should be, never mind what it should contain. This has since developed into further evidence that there is disagreement as to whether this article should even exist. Should the article be based on the use of the term (broadly), on strictly ethnic interpretations, on particular ethnic interpretations, and so on.
====My opinion====
My opinion is largely that there should be a compromise; I don't have a firm opinion beyond that the article should exist, should be more than disambiguation, and should cover the full range of (verifiable/notable) uses and meanings.
====Suggested compromise====
I would suggest that the page become a sort of enhanced disambiguation. Sections and subsections to cover the ways in which the term is used and what it is used to mean, with pretty brief coverage, and "main article" links to articles with fuller coverage where possible. Because of the controversy over images, I would suggest that no images be used in the article lead or otherwise prominently. Instead, images directly applicable to a section/subsection should be included there only, and based on their appropriateness to that section rather than based on any idea of what should be in the article overall. For example, if there is a section on "racial/ethnic usage", with subsections on specific interpretations within that usage, the section would potentially include an image indicating a range of ethnicities to put the concept in context. General examples, however, of who is/isn't white should not be included, largely because they would have to be variations of such for each section/subsection, as there is no overall consensus on or off wikipedia as to what constitutes a "white person".
I think that covers it. SamBC(talk) 00:13, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Summary from my perspective &mdash; [[User:Sambc|SamBC]]([[User talk:Sambc|talk]])

message: I would suggest that the page become a sort of enhanced disambiguation. Sections and subsections to cover the ways in which the term is used and what it is used to mean, with pretty brief coverage, and "main article" links to articles with fuller coverage where possible. Because of the controversy over images, I would suggest that no images be used in the article lead or otherwise prominently. Instead, images directly applicable to a section/subsection should be included there only, and based on their appropriateness to that section rather than based on any idea of what should be in the article overall. For example, if there is a section on "racial/ethnic usage", with subsections on specific interpretations within that usage, the section would potentially include an image indicating a range of ethnicities to put the concept in context. General examples, however, of who is/isn't white should not be included, largely because they would have to be variations of such for each section/subsection, as there is no overall consensus on or off wikipedia as to what constitutes a "white person".
I think that covers it. SamBC(talk) 00:13, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggested compromise

message: My main concern is that the first photographs in this article be of the most widely understood concept conveyed by "white people" and that any photographs of "why other people aren't considered white" be located lower in the article and be tastefully selected, and should not overwhelm the article.  How can there be more pictures of "people who aren't white" than "people who are white"?  How can they appear first in the article?  I also strongly object to any user-generated collages unless they are created by consensus.
Integration with or absorption of the caucasian race article doesn't make sense because "white" is used as exclusive of many caucasians in my understanding of the most common meaning.  Perhaps some matters can be cross-referenced between the articles as appropriate.
As to alternate views I have zero objection to a fair treatment of all points of view on this.  I do think that if we are going to include material from left-wing political agendas (such as Muntuwandi cites at times), it should be equally balanced with any opposing points of view.  For example if someone is going to be introduced as a citation who is arguing white americans should be more inclusive of mulattos, equivalent counter arguments should be introduced, since the argument itself is not factual but is an appeal to belief or emotion.
-- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 05:40, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: fourdee's position

message: *My first issue regards the use of earlier versions such as 3rd August. This version has a section on "physiology and genetics". My impression is that the editors of this version were somehow trying to promote the uniqueness of people who are white. Statements like "Europeans are the big exception..." etc. and Dbachmann
* I am against the use of hair and eye color maps. I am not opposed to mentioning that Europeans have a variety of hair and eye color, but I believe it is not central to the concept of who or who is not white. Furthermore the emphasis on these trivial traits takes away the focus on more detailed information that could be added.
* I am for including information on racial taxonomy with regards to the social construction of whiteness. Such as not all light skinned people are considered white, and why they are not. For example some East Asians have skin reflectance that overlaps with Europeans. Some hispanics who are white sometimes complain that their whiteness in the US is compromised because they speak spanish. Historically also not all Europeans were granted membership to whiteness.
* I am also for including a discussion on the more flexible definitions of who is white that are found outside the US. People who are mixed race may often be considered white or have access to white privilege outside the US . Since the skin color line that divides whites, from "non whites" is arbitrary, I would like a discussion on the arbitrariness of this line. Henceforth the possible use of some of the controversial pictures. 
* I am for inclusion of a comparison between the terms White, caucasian and European. For example not all caucasian people are considered white, not all europeans are white, not every light skinned person is caucasian etc. 
* This article or the Black people article or any other race related article should not serve as an advertisement for its race, but should be an educational article. This is why I believe some of the editors on the "other side" are resistant to including information on any group or individual who they do not consider as belonging to white race according to their personal views.
* I am for caution with the use of pictures. Some editors have tried to make this article into a beauty pageant of young white women. Not all white people are women and not all are young. Though some of the images I propose are controversial, I believe they try to make meaningful comparisons rather than a random pictures of caucasian peoples.  
Muntuwandi 06:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Muntuwandi's position

message: I'll keep it brief as people have complained about overly long answers (a comment I find quite rude to be honest).
This is not an encyclopedic article. This is an attempt to write an article because "black people" exists as an article. There is no material in this article that isn't covered better elsewhere. Frankly this is a very subjective article with no focus and no point. This article has no place whatsoever in Wikipedia. I have never read a bigger collection of subjective POV tripe in my life. As one proceeds through the article it becomes clearer and clearer that the editors are simply grasping at straws to pad out an undeserving entry. 
I have no idea why on Earth this survived a AfD as one read through it is enough to show that it is an irrelevance and an embarressment to the project. The article fails to state what "White People" are objectively, it strays into other subjects frequently and it is a magnet to racists and white supremisists (who no doubt have articles already). 
What is a white person? Who cares? Everything that is relvant to this article is already contained in other article. 
Speedily delete this embarressment and replace with a disambig page please.AlanD 08:29, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've just read my comments and I have no idea why I put them across so aggressively. I stand by the content of my statement but I apologise for the way I conveyed it.AlanD 08:34, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User: AlanD|AlanD]]'s position

message: On the whole I tend to agree with AlanD's position. There is nothing in this article that cannot be presented in a more complete and contextually more appropriate way in many other articles. SLR may well have a better idea of what this article should look like, but I think he has suggested on this talk page that any appropriate information for this article could be included in the article Whiteness studies. On the whole this dispute is really about which group of people the term White people applies to. I'd frame it in the context of an absolutist versus a generalist approach. The absolutists take the position that White people are only those people with an European ancestry who also "look European" (though in the USA this does not preclude people with a significant or even majority of non European ancestry ). There is a tendency among the people supporting the absolutist position to state that although other points of view should be included, these should be presented as minority points of view, because the concept that White is synonymous with "looking European" is the most widely held view. On the other hand there seems to be little evidence that this view is held globally. In Brazil "'White' was (and continues to be) more an indicator of existence of a series of moral and cultural attributes than skin color" People who hold a more generalist view, as I do, tend not to distinguish between any "majority" or "minority" opinion, but think that we should treat all conceptions of White as equal and socially constructed. Personally I am of the opinion that the absolutist position is derived from systemic bias on the part of these good faith editors, after all we are all conditioned to think that our own world view is the norm. I support a situation where this article tries to disambiguate different meanings of the term White people and redirect users to articles where they can actually get detailed encyclopaedic information about what they are interested in. Cheers. Alun 10:44, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:Wobble|Alun's]] position

message: When I stumbled upon it, this article struck me as a cross between Caucasian race and Europeans, with the strong implied suggestion that one wanted to equate Caucasian race==Europeans. While Europeans are possibly the one major population group who are likely to be included in all possible definitions of "white", this doesn't sum many of the more interesting aspects of "whiteness": its much more restrictive membership than all other major racial groupings (see the One-drop rule, for example), the debate aout which ethnic groups are to be considered "truly white", and so on. This article, by its very subject is bound to be controversial and to be a magnet for many extreme positions. Also, in all fairness much of its content can be merged into other articles (Caucasian Race, Europeans, Whitesness Studies), and would probably look more at home there. As I said earlier, this article looks like a cross between subjects, and by this very quality represents a tremendous potential for OR. Given all these factors, and the faqct that many positions around this mediation table are diametrally opposed to each other, I honestly think the best and simplest way to deal with this article and resolve the many issues its nature raises is to merge all relevant content to other, less controversial articles (see above for three prime candidates) and to turn this into some sort of disambiguation page, which would refer the reader to the appropriate subject they're looking for, whether the racial, ethnic or sociological aspects of the term. I wouldn't oppose and would even welcome the inclusion of brief, summary-style paragraphs to complement each redirection target and to give the reader finding this page a something akin to a preview of what each redirection target represents. I would also welcome some sort of general introduction which would state that the "white" epithet has many different meanings, both historically, geographically, socially and politically.--Ramdrake 11:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:Ramdrake|Ramdrake's position]]

message: The white people article should only have definitions of white people.  Since these definitions of white people do not agree with each other, it would violate the ideal neutral point of view of the article to have information about physical appearence, population numbers, genetics and galleries of people. These sections would have to take a point of view about the definition of white people, violating the neutral point of view policy.  I think the whole dispute is due to these sections, since the editors do not agree on the definition of white people.----DarkTea©20:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:Dark Tea|Dark Tea]]'s position

message: Section initially created to hold comments moved from section above to discourage dialogue in that section — SamBC(talk) 00:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: May I also suggest Slrubenstein to try to be more concise? His answers usually seem to be long.. KarenAER 23:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sometimes it's necessary to be verbose in order to say exactly what you mean to say (or as exact as possible). Some people are more naturally concise than others. As long as we can all understand eachother, I think that everything else is pretty minor. SamBC(talk) 00:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: KarenAER seems to think that the views of blacks or the relationshiop between whites and blacks is either irrelevant or tangential or trivial in the context of this article.  I think this is evidence of a clash of points of view.  perhaps there is a verifiable POV that races can be understood on their own terms and in isolaion.  However, all of the literature I know of states that races exist and have meaning in relation to other races.  This is not a criticism of the idea of race let alone a criticism of the white race.  It is a well-established scholarly method for studying races.  Nor does this mean that how self-identified whites viw themselves doesn't belong in this article.  But it does mean that how non-whites have viewed whites may be relevant, and it means that many social scientists have interpreted how self-identified whites view themselves by examining the relationships between whites and non-whites.  And all thisw has to be in the article too. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 03:29, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Just a little comment on one of Ramdrake's statements. You mention "white people" as being a restrictive group and cite the One drop rule. I have to say this highlights yet another problem with the article. I had never heard of the one drop rule before reading this article and it is not something I recognise from daily life in the UK. For me, this just shows how subjective this whole article is (no offense meant to you Ramdrake quite the opposite as I support most of your comments). Surely the one drop rule must work in both directions (ergo a mixed race person could be considered white or black). Most people I know don't tend to categorise people into racial groups (an awareness of cultural background is a different thing altogether and is necessary in education where treating everyone equally can actually equate to discriminating against some people) but those who do (even the more racist of them) often consider mixed race people to be white. AlanD 13:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually, the "reverse one drop rule" is found all over Latin America .  Muntuwandi 13:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well... It is not as simple as that, Muntuwandi. Most of the time, in Ibero-America, namely Brazil (but you can also find something similar in Mexico), mixed people were called... mixed people! Of course social and cultural factors intervened in the exact type of category they would be placed at, and yes, the more higher the status, the more white people became (But not linearly! Even whites without Jewish ancestry, see Limpeza de Sangue, but born outside Europe were deemed inferior to European born ones!). Go and see articles like Pardo and Mestiço. The Ogre 14:39, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: By "reverse one drop rule" I mean that anyone with one drop of white blood is considered White, which is or has been found in the DR.  What is happening in Brazil is definitely different (and far more complex) - it is covered in the Race article as a case-study in the social construction of race.  Put simply, Brazil has a racial system of classificaiton that is far more complex and simply does not map onto either the US or the DR. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 14:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for that.AlanD 22:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes it is more complex in Brazil. I read somewhere that to some extent socioeconomic status can lead to "whitening", or upward mobility through the various racial categories. Muntuwandi 01:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mediation related - polite requests/feedback between users

message: The Mariah Carey picture is suitable for the article, I think, but who is the very dark woman next to her and why is she there? I think her pic should be removed.
Also, Carey's name is misspelled in the picture caption as Maria. Victor Chmara 12:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mariah Carey picture

message: Please create this on a subpage Talk:White_people/SamBC_version
:I'm going to put an initial skeleton on White_people/SamBC_version so it's in the right namespace and has a talk page for discussion. It's just going to be a skeleton from me to begin with, as I've not got a complete handle on the precise content, just the structure. If everyone's committed to this idea as a possible compromise result, then it makes sense for everyone to work on it once the structure is established and agreed upon. SamBC(talk) 17:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't comment on canvassing (haven't seen any or participated in it, or seen any, but that doesn't mean there is none), but I agree that voting (or even just a straw poll) isn't really appropriate here for all sorts of reasons (not being a democracy, to start with). SamBC(talk) 17:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, understood. What do you think would work better, then? Neranei (talk) 17:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's wait until there's a sandbox page and then have a discussion somewhat akin to an AfD for it, and try and base a final decision on the same sort of policy-and-sense based form of consensus. SamBC(talk) 18:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If everyone is OK with that, that should work. Neranei (talk) 18:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Thanks, we can get started on the compromising now. Neranei (talk) 18:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Looks ok. Makes sense.AlanD 22:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: SamBC's version

message: Hard to have a vote on this when the people on one side have been canvassing heavily to bring in supporters.  I certainly am not agreeing to abide by any votes in this circumstance but let's see what the compromise version ends up looking like.  -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 17:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't comment on canvassing (haven't seen any or participated in it, or seen any, but that doesn't mean there is none), but I agree that voting (or even just a straw poll) isn't really appropriate here for all sorts of reasons (not being a democracy, to start with). SamBC(talk) 17:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, understood. What do you think would work better, then? Neranei (talk) 17:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's wait until there's a sandbox page and then have a discussion somewhat akin to an AfD for it, and try and base a final decision on the same sort of policy-and-sense based form of consensus. SamBC(talk) 18:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If everyone is OK with that, that should work. Neranei (talk) 18:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Thanks, we can get started on the compromising now. Neranei (talk) 18:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Looks ok. Makes sense.AlanD 22:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: I have put in a  request  for semi protection I know it is unusual for a talk page but it may give some respite from an IP block evading sock puppet. Muntuwandi 12:38, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Semiprotection isn't going to help when the disruption is coming from a registered user, even if that user is a sockpuppet. SamBC(talk) 13:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes it will, my bad, I'm not awake yet... SamBC(talk) 13:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a big step though. Can you not ignore the socks? Is that not possible? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  In the last 8 hours, most of the discussion has been about the sock and not the article. Muntuwandi 13:17, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see. Can you not simple remove obvious sock posts from this talk page? Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Given what I've observed of the psychology of trolls, I suspect they'd reappear, or worse. SamBC(talk) 13:22, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hayden is one of the most persistent socks one will ever encounter. As long as he can evade blocks he will continue to troll.Muntuwandi 13:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps it's easier for an admin because we can block as well as remove. What you all could do, is not reply in the meantime. I don't know. I will semiprotect if necessary, but I'd like for everyone to give ignoring a real good go first. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:30, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Trolls make statements that are hard to ignore. If you read some of the comments hayden has made, some pretty harsh stuff. He hasn't been blocked for nothing. See all the complaints from several independent editors at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Hayden5650 Muntuwandi 13:36, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know. It takes effort to ignore a troll. You could help each other out here. If you see someone reply, go to their talk page and ask them to remove it. I am willing to remove all statements by blocked users from this page and am willing to block sockpuppets. But I can't be here all the time, so in the meantime don't reply. If we all stick to this strategy then the sock cannot distrupt the page. Reply to each other, don't reply to him. I've told him if he wishes to talk he can do so on his talk page, not here. Let's give it a go first. I#m off out now. I'll check this page when i get back. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 13:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Semi protection

message: :::Yes! But the Revolution will eventually devore us...  The Ogre 13:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: LMAO! Good imitation, SLR. Pfft! - Jeeny Talk 13:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was thinking more like this revolution ;) Alun 13:11, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah! A Romantic...! The Ogre 13:14, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Then check this one! Of course afterwards we were vanquished by the inexorability of common life (versus the deadly virtues of the exalted kind...)...! The Ogre 13:17, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The Ogre 13:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I LOVED the commie hypocrit part. I laughed even before I saw who wrote it. - Jeeny Talk 13:27, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Me, it was the typo in the original version that read "citing at a cafe with your friends". I had this mental picture of people at a smoky cafe, smoking pipe and exchanging quotes on Marx and Lenin  and/or on Darwin and Dawkins (50s-style). That was hilarious!--Ramdrake 13:30, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That made me laugh too. The typos made it even more funny! LMAO! I still have tears. Oh, I love this place. :) - Jeeny Talk 13:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well... we pratically live here! The Ogre 13:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't but wonder: what does it mean when someone who deliberately writes something nonsensical unwittingly fools many other regular editors into thinking that the contribution may have been made by another regular editor, because it sounds so much like that last editor?--Ramdrake 13:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

text: LOL, I'm sharp as a bowling ball. It was a fun break. - Jeeny Talk 14:00, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Time for a smoke break

message: This is not an article on genetics, so lets stop debating genetics.  This is an article on White people, so lets start discussing the literature on White people.  Yes, there is a real body of literatur ethat is explicitly about "white people" so there will be no doubt about appropriateness of sources or NOR, these works direcly address the subject of this artilce.  Let's see who has read the, or divide up the readings, and discuss how to improve the article:
Perhaps the single most important reader
*Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic;
Both are law professors and it is published by Temple University Press, so it is quite reputable. As an edited volume it contains essays by a plethora of authors and thus represents a wide range if views - helpful for complying with NPOV, and all in one easy source.  I think this is generally considered the best collection of diverse essays.  But to help you guys out some more, here are some other books directly relevant to this article:
*Allen, Theodore The Invention of the White Race 
*Babb, Valerie. Whiteness Visible: The Meaning of Whiteness in American Literature and Culture (Valerie Babb is a professor of English at the University of Georgia)
*Bonnett, Alastair. White Identities: Historical and International Perspectives (Alistair onnet is a Reader of Geography in the University of Newcastle-upon-Thyne)
*Brodkin, Karen. How Jews Became White Folks: and What that says about Race in America (Karen Brodkin is a professor of Anthropology at UCLA)
*Dyer, Richard. White (Richard Dyer used to be in Media Studies at the University of Warwick)
*Hale, Grace Elizabeth. Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940 (Elizabeth Hale a professor of History at U. Virginia (and her book is very well-regarded, often assigned in college classes))
*Haney-Lopez, Ian. White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (Ian Haney Lopez is a professor of Law at UC Berkeley)
*Hill, Mike, ed. Whiteness: A Critical Reader (Michale Hill is a professor of Social Policy at U. of Brighton)
*Hollinger, David. Post-Ethnic America (David Hollinger is a professor of History at UC Berkeley)
*Ignatiev, Noel. How the Irish Became White (Ignatiev is a professor of Critical Studies at the Massachussetts College of Art and a Fellow at Harvard university; this book is one of the foundational texts in Whiteness studies and is very widely cited)
*Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Matthew Frye Jacobson is Chair of the American Studies Program at Yale) 
*Kincheloe, Joe, ed. White Reign: Deploying Whiteness in America (Joe Kincheloe is a professor of Education at McGill (and there is a Wikipedia article about him!))
*Lipsitz, George. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics (George Lipsitz is a professor of Black Studies at UC Santa Barbara) 
*McCarthy, Cameron and Warren Crichlow, eds. Race, Identity, and Representation in Education (Warren Crichlow is a professor of education at York University) 
*Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination 
*Thomas, K. Nakayama, Judith N. Martin (editors): Whiteness: The Communication of Social Identity (Thomas Nakayama and Judith Martin are professors of Communication at Arizona State U) 
*O'Donnell, James and Christine Clark, eds. Becoming and Unbecoming White: Owning and Disowning a Racial Identity (James O'Donnell is an associate professor of Education at New Mexico State U.) 
*Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1980s (Michale Omi is an associate professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley; Howard Winant is a Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara) 
*Rasmussen, Birgit Brander, et al., eds., The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness (Birgit Brander Rasmussen is a professor of Chicano Studies at U. Wisconsin-Madison) 
*Roediger, David. The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (David R. Roediger is a professor of History at U. Illinois Champaigne-Urbana (his book is another classic, it is assigned in LOTS of college courses),  
*Rogin, Michael Paul. Black Face, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Melting Pot (Michale Paul Rogin passed away but was a professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley) 
*Saxton, Alexander. The Rise and Fall of the White Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (Alexander Saxton is a professor of History at UCLA) 
This is only a partial sampling of the amount written by scholars on the concept of "White people" - there is much more than the very length of the list reveals just how inadequate this article is, how much it is leaving out.  Now, some of the above books are absolue classics.  But for more cutting-edge research, your best bet is journals (it takes less time to write and publish a journal article than to write and publish a book, so rejecnt journal articles are more likely to be "state of the art."  Of course, journal articles are also shorter which is a mixed blessing: obviously, they take less time to read, but they are much more focused.  Still, good articles review the literature and thus provide handy summaries of the range of views.  They can also provide great little case-studies that illustrate specific aspects of the concept "White people."  
*American Anthropologist (Hartigan's article in 1997 is a god starting point)
*American Ethnologist
*Cultural Anthropology 
*Current Anthropology
*American Journal of Sociology
*American Sociological Review
*British Journal of Sociology
*Journal of Historical Sociology
*Comparative Studies in Society and History 
*Critical Inquiry
*Representations 
*Public Culture
Any major library will have subscriptions to at least a few of these journals.  In hard-copies, one could look at the index at the back of any given volume; if one has J-Stor or another electronic version of the journal once can do a boolean search.  It woul dnot take long to search for "Whiteness," "White+Race" and "White+Ethnicity."  You will not come up with an overhwlming number of articles, but what you do come up with will represent the best scholarship (these are all top-ranked peer-reviewed journals; the authors of the articles did all the complex hard work, we just need to benefit from their labor).  You will also come up with book reviews and if the review is positive, it is probably worth reading the book.  In the end, you will know a lot more about White people (which presumably is what you want, if this article interests you) and you will be able to improve this article by ensuring it complies with NPOV and by ensuring that you are not violating NOR.  Like I said (I think!) above - good luck!  No article in Wikipedia is ever perfect - after all, by its very Wiki nature, all articles are perpetual works in progress.  But obviously this article can be much, much better.  That's pretty exciting! Slrubenstein   |  Talk 21:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. This is not an article on genetics, and genetics doesn't have any place in it. Some editors erroneously believe that genetics support their case for the existence of a group of people they call "White" existing as a biologically defined entity. The problem is that biologists do not make this claim and the evidence does not support this claim, so they are resorting to original research and misrepresentation of the research to try and build a case. fourdee is the best example, he keeps making unfounded claims for Y chromosome haplogroups, but he admits right at the start that this is his opinion and has not produced a shred of evidence to support his spurious claims. We need to move on and stop discussing genetics. Genetics does not support the concept of a genetically identifiable "White people", this is evident from the paucity of evidence provided by it's proponents. I am also a bit fed up with the fourdee continually impuning my motives, it is at best an an example of not assuming good faith and at worst it represents a personal attack. This smacks of a lack of a real argument. commie scum 05:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are still misrepresenting what biologists have actually found, and intentionally misleading people about which aspects of biology are based in objective fact and which are based in arbitrary standard.  You know quite well that "subspecies" and even "species" are vague categories created by mankind to usefully label like groups of organisms.  You persitently try to apply the term subspecies to ethnic group or race when it does not have the same standards.  You also know every well that alleles related to appearance (at least) and dominant haplogroups vary between populations and are substantially associated with ethnic groups.  As to impugning your motivations, when the extremist political views you publish on your user page match the deceptions and misinformation you try to pack into articles under the guise of "scientific fact", this is just calling a spade a spade. -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 05:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 1) I have never applied the term subspecies to any' ethnic group. The term subspecies is a biological classification, ethnic groups are social-cultural constructs. I know the difference. Can you show any evidence that I have ever made this claim? 2) I have stated, supported by reliable sources that in biology the terms subspecies and race are near synonyms. These claims are supported, furthermore I have not claimed that these terms are always used in biology as synonyms. Your claim is without foundation, you provide no evidence that I have conflated ethnic group with subspecies. I have provided plenty of evidence that in biology subspecies and race are synonyms. Of course the terms subspecies and race are not synonymous in a non biological context. You are failing to differentiate between use of the term "race" in academic contexts (it means different things to a biologist compared to an anthropologist for example) or in general use by the public, which is undefined. Don't make accusations without evidence, don't accuse me of things I haven't done and don't make personal attacks. I am starting to get very fed up with this behaviour. Alun 06:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not clear which part you are objecting to.  You try to insert statements that imply there is no biological cause for apparent differences between populations (which as a geneticist you know is not true) through obfuscated wording and misconstrued findings.  This campaign against race, ethnicity, nation and probably all forms of exclusive identity explicitly matches the ultra-left-extremist nihilist politics you espouse at times on your user page.  You and others are certainly not-maximally-civil to me.  I don't really see a problem here, we are working out what should be in the article and I am questioning both your sources and how you are phrasing or interpreting them.  -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 06:40, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you ever read my posts? I have never claimed that there are no biological differences between populations from different geographical regions. I have not intentionally been uncivil to you, and I have never accused you of acting in bad faith, both things you have done to me. You certainly are questioning my sources and how I have interpreted them, this is not the problem, the problem is that you have provided no evidence of either 1) sources that contradict my sources 2) evidence that I have misrepresented the sources I use. Making accusations against me and the sources I have used is all very well, but your accusations carry absolutely no weight unless you can back them up by using reliable sources yourself. Simply claiming that I my sources are wrong or that I am distorting them is not evidence, it is just your opinion. I have asked you repeatedly to support your claims with reliable sources, which you have failed to do. I have also asked you to point out in my sources where I have misrepresented them, which you have also failed to do. As far as I can see you have offered little more than your own personal opinion while also making ad hominen attacks against me. I have also pointed this out to you previously, but you still don't seem to be able to offer anything concrete to support your opinion. To be blunt you appear to be flogging a dead horse here. Alun 06:54, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you are ready to have this article reflect that there are biological differences between different populations, I think we are done arguing.  Thanks.  -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 07:01, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We are not going to have this article reflect the personal opinions that you have expressed on this talk page, because they are not supported by any reliable sources. You do not appear o understand the distinction between the concept of variation by geography and "race". These are not the same conceptually. commie scum 07:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Races are geographical.  You do not appear to understand "negroes are not white" or "welsh are not english".  -- fourdee ᛇᚹᛟ 07:44, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, so all Americans belong to the same "race" then? So do all English people, even Black English people? Welsh people are not always English, I am Welsh and not English, but this has nothing to do with "race", and to claim it has is to show a breathtaking ignorance. commie scum 07:56, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Two points: Fourdee writes, "You know quite well that "subspecies" and even "species" are vague categories created by mankind to usefully label like groups of organisms."  This is true, and these are categories created by scientists who strive to be precise.  So it is even more true for categories like race and ethnicity which were not invented by scientists but are popular i.e. social constructions.  Fourdee refers to "This campaign against race, ethnicity, nation ... " but there is no such campaign.  In fact i actually listed a shole set of books specifically on Whites (as a race or ethnic group) and Alun agreed that this was a good direction to take the article in so at least he and I are most definitely not campaigning against race or ethnicity.  Look, I just tried to make a constructive proposal.  Can we keep on track? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 11:21, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A proposal 

message: This has really gotten out of hand. The mudslinging needs to stop, if you want to come to a compromise. Can you please discuss this issue like the civilized people you are? If not, I would recommend taking this to formal mediation, as informal discussion/mediation is not working very well. Thank you. Neranei (talk) 21:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to be sure: from exactly which point forward? Not wanting to belabor the point, just to give an exact answer.--Ramdrake 23:34, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From item 1 on this page, which was the last time all the players summarized their positions - and there has been LOTS of discussion since then.  Has it done any good?  Let's compare our positions now to our positions then (first section on this talk page as it currently stands) Slrubenstein   |  Talk
Since Neranei's last resquest on August 23:
* my position has not changed Slrubenstein   |  Talk 23:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

text: WP:CON is vague on this, but a strong supermajority ought to be considered as a consensus. I believe I've seen numbers anywhere from 60-80% so 4 out of 5 or 5 out of 6 would qualify.--Ramdrake 18:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  MoritzB is clearly a POV-pusher and has never demonstrated any desire or willingness to compromise or collaborate - after many kbs of discussion he has shown no interest in the views of others, and has never responded to any critique of his claims (save to repeat himself or make ad hominem remarks); I think his view at this point can be disregarded Slrubenstein   |  Talk 20:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: He has a right to disagree with consensus, and his views should be noted; however, this shouldn't prevent us from declaring consensus and acting on it.--Ramdrake 20:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'd like to ask SamBC to restate and detail the important points he'd like to see in the article in addition to the disambig part of it, see if we can have further consensus on the matter.--Ramdrake 23:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To be honest, the current version (as I've just edited) is about the best I seem to be able to articulate it. The page should be organised based on the contexts in which the term is used (the first level-2 header could probably be lost), with each one linking to one or more more specific articles and giving a basic summary of the contexts in which this is used and a précis of that usage/definition. I'd flesh out more of the subsections but I don't personally have the knowledge, nor the time to do the research. At the moment, I'm not even confident enough about the divisions between the given uses. SamBC(talk) 12:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Marxist studies are offtopic because this article is non-political. Dozens of reputable sources state that "the United States is an imperialist country". Yet that information is not added to the article about United States because such political/philosophical statements simply don't belong to the scope of the article. Other articles are the place for such criticism. In this case the right article is whiteness studies. MoritzB 14:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are the only one who keeps claiming that these studies are "Marxist" rather than simply academic studies by reputable anthropologists, and you have provided no evidence for this assertion besides your own personal opinion. No one here has said that "Whiteness is a social construct invented by the dominanting class as an instrument in class warfare" except you, and you haven't even claimed that this is either a conclusion of one of this "Marxist studies" or cited it to one. You keep mentioning the USA being "imperialist" is a Marxist point of view, so what has this got to do with "White people"? You say that Marxism is besides the point, so how is your opinion about Marxism and US imperialism relevant to "White people"? You claim above that "To my knowledge, nobody has even claimed that those books are not Neo-Marxist." But why should they make such a claim? There is no evidence that you have provided that they actually are Marxist. Maybe if you actually produced a shred of evidence for your repeated unsupported assertions someone would think they were important enough to rebut. Writing "Marxist lies" every time you post a comment hardly amounts to a considered response, and to be honest smacks of desperation. Bolshevik boy 18:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Rubenstein especially recommended: "Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic". As the name indicates the book is based on critical theory which is Neo-Marxist. Noel Ignatiev and other Marxist scholars who have contributed to the book are hardly mainstream. Ignatiev has been criticised for advocating a genocide, for instance.MoritzB 18:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So your whole argument is based on the fact that a single book that was recommended, is based on "critical theory", which apparently has the core concepts "(1) That critical social theory should be directed at the totality of society in its historical specificity (i.e. how it came to be configured at a specific point in time), and (2) That Critical Theory should improve understanding of society by integrating all the major social sciences, including economics, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and psychology." Obviously you have some problem with studies that are "directed at the totality of society" and that "should improve understanding of society". Why am I not surprised? The point is this, if it is a reliable source then it does not matter one way or the other. Besides this book has not been used as a source for this article, and if it is you are perfectly within your rights to give any other point of view or criticism, as per WP:NPOV Alun 19:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (ec) Marvellous, a combination of both ad hominem and guilt by association! Just to point out, MoritzB, the article that you link to (critical theory) indicates that it is 'no longer' inextricably linked to Marxism: "In the late 1960s Jürgen Habermas of the Frankfurt School, redefined critical theory in a way that freed it from a direct tie to Marxism or the prior work of the Frankfurt School." If these are the whole core of your arguments, then the best I can do in assuming good faith is to assume that you're sincerely misguided and haven't actually read the articles you're linking to. However, if this continues I think it will be fair to regard your behaviour as trolling, at which point I advise people to do their best to ignore you and avoid feeding the troll. SamBC(talk) 19:31, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Wrong. I have a problem with Marxist studies: . Do you realize that although there are dozens of reliable sources which say that "the United States is an imperialist country" you can't add that sentence to the article about the United States. The Frankfurt School agrees unanimously that the United States is an imperialist country. Please test your arguments in that article and maybe you will realize that you are wrong.MoritzB 19:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Saying "wrong" is not an argument. Saying that some reliable sources state "the United States is an imperialist country" is not an argument (and is irrelevant). Saying you have a problem with some sources is not an argument. Your personal opinion does not come into this. If a source is used that you disagree with there is absolutely nothing you can do about it unless you can show it is not a reliable source. You are entitled to disagree with the methodology of the work, you are not entitled to dismiss the work as irrelevant just because you don't like it. Indeed if someone were to use a reliable source to claim that the USA is an "imperialist" country in the article about the USA, then it would be a perfectly reasonable thing to do, of course if there was a consensus that this work should not be included, then Wikipedia works by consensus. This is not about your problems with any sources (which haven't actually been used, by the way) this is about the use of reliable sources. You can huff and puff as much as you like, but you personally do not decide what constitutes a reliable source here. You have singularly failed to make any sort of convincing case, as seen by the number of editors who agree with you, which currently seems to be a grand total of one (including you). You could attempt to change peoples opinion by making a case, instead of patronising them by just stating they are "Wrong". anarchist Al 20:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: He is an ignorant troll and they are just feeding him.  The problem is not toleramce, it is actually a willingeness to encourage a troll.  We would all be better off simply to ignore him.  Wikipedia would be better for it. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 21:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that anyone is keeping up the discussion because they want to "feed the troll", I don't think people want to have a discussion that's never ending, and I resent the implication that it's wilful. It's probably just an overextension of assuming good faith. Otherwise, I agree. SamBC(talk) 21:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, there's been so much antagonism that I think people want to make the effort to assume good faith. But it does feel a bit like flogging a dead horse after a while. Alun 22:06, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Please see proposal at the bottom of the page. Please can we all contribute to that and then act on concensusAlanD 22:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please