Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Archive 1

message: Can we include Indians of Mexico too? They have no category and most of their articles are stubs (except Aztec).  Needs a lot of work.  I have some books on Mexican Indians in Spanish, so if the language is a barrier, maybe you could send those projects my way?--Rockero420 21:49, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As long as we have users with expertise in the subject, like you seem to do, Rockero, I think the idea is great. Please, feel free to add the proper template to each article's Talk Page in order to identify them. As the project has just begun, the first step is to identify all artciles under its scope, and list them at the project page as soon as we have categorized them. I'll remake the templates in order to include Indigenous peoples of Mexico asap. Thank you for your cooperation, and welcome! Phædriel ♥ tell me - 21:57, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Scope

message: hi.
question: how about including prehistory? (unless your meaning of "historic" includes prehistory as well). i note that the coverage of American archaeology is a rather weak point of Wikipedia. 
peace – ishwar  (speak) 00:09, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, dear Ish - in fact, now that we're going through the categorizing stages (an absolute must imho, in order to identify as many related articles as possible), I've already tagged a few artciles that fall into that period of time. Please, go ahead and include any others you see fit. Cheers! Phædriel ♥ tell me - 00:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: scope 2: prehistory?

message: The Inuit and other Eskimo-Aleut speaking peoples should also be included. What do you think? Also, it might be useful to invite the numerous people who have contributed to aboriginal-related articles. Luigizanasi 00:35, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Definetely, Luigi - in fact, I just went into a categorizing spree and tagged as many articles related to that group as I could. Again, I encourage you to seek any others you deem appropriate and tag them at their Talk Pages as well with the  template. I also created an invitation template to let as many interested users as possible know of the existence of this project; you can add it at their Talk Pages with . Welcome aboard, and happy editing! Phædriel ♥ tell me - 00:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Then the Wikiproject notification template should change to include them explicitly. They do not consider themselves First Nations, and would be insulted by the term. I would like to suggest the wording "Native American, First Nations, Inuit and Alaska Native". I would do it, but I fear I will probably screw it up. Luigizanasi 07:51, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good, point, Luigi - I'm on it! Phædriel ♥ tell me - 20:55, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inuit/Eskimo 

message: There are a number of redlinked articles at List_of_U.S._military_history_events#American Indian conflicts, wars, battles, expeditions and campaigns - it may be advisable to change the section title as well. Please note Native Americans in the United States instead of Indigenous peoples of North America as well - not sure if you want to move that. Another set of redlinks is at List_of_Native_American_Tribal_Entities - and I am sure you have more than enough to do without me mentioning redlinks so I will stop now. KillerChihuahua?!? 17:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry about the belated reply, KC - but please, don't shut up! On the contrary, your suggestions are most welcome. I had already noticed the many red links on the Indian Wars part of the list of US military events, since in fact it was my first interest in Wikipedia and my main one for some time. The difficulty to find information about several conflicts made me advance very slowly, but I managed to write a little about some of them, like Winnebago War and Peoria War. I find the subject fascinating (I actually joined the Wikiproject Military history to expand related articles), and I agree with you: at some point in the near future, thse topics should be included within the scope of this project. I recommend that we go a little slow at the beginning, since the task is already rather big and adding even more subjects may be daunting, but you're absolutely right - this can be (and hopefully will be) a very interesting area for future development. Cheers! Phædriel ♥ tell me - 23:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Redlinked articles

message: I would love to help out this project. I think one of the articles that needs immediate attention is Sitting Bull. Just reading through it, the tone is wrong, it is not comprehensive, and needs major clean-up. It sounds like a 13-year old wrote it. I will help out when I get a chance, but I'm currently busy working on two other article. Gflores Talk 18:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Sitting Bull]] 

message: Maybe we can come to a consensus to consolidate as much Indigenous information onto one page as possible, since everyone is Indigenous to somewhere? My current count for disambiguation pages is at least 20 (I stopped trying to count them). Anyone have any ideas on how to do this efficiently? -- 24.11.91.3 07:16, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See the talk pages on those articles. There was substantial discussion back in September 2005 about the jumble of stuff in Native American, Indigenous people of the Americas, etc. The consensus reached was that three separate articles were needed and stuff was moved to the appropriate articles: Native Americans in the United States for the strictly US-related material, Indigenous peoples of the Americas for an overview, and Native American name controversy for the material related to collective names. Luigizanasi 16:17, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lot's of Indigenous information out here - All jumbled around! 

message: I notice your list of articles has no category for reservations/reserves. We have a number of these articles (List of Native American reserves in Canada, List of Indian reservations in the United States will help find them.) I also noticed that while we have a list of U.S. federally recognized tribes and a list of U.S. state recognized tribes, I couldn't find a list of U.S. unrecognized tribes. I only know 3 or 4 which is hardly enough to justify starting a list but there should be a large number in Virginia, New England and California. Rmhermen 21:32, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Reservations

message: Hi all - Currently the term "Indigenous" is capitalized the majority of the time when used on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America article.  However, over at Indigenous peoples, it is capitalized the minority of times it is used.  It would be quite helpful to establish a naming convention for use on Wikipedia regarding whether or not the ethnic group term "Indigenous" and its synonym "Aboriginal" should be capitalized all the time, none of the time, or perhaps some of the time and in which general cases.  Aboriginal peoples in Canada#Capitalization may be helpful to a discussion. Kurieeto 23:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a valid point, Kuri - I simply used the capitalization every time we mention the project's name more as a title than a naming convention for indigenous peoples themselves. My humble opinion is, that it should not be capitalized if we actually mean indigenous peoples, and only use the capitalization when mentioning the project's full name. Again, your input is more than welcome. Phædriel ♥ tell me - 23:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Arguments in favour of capitalization include that "Indigenous" should be capitalized like other ethnic terms, such as Arabic, Asian, or German.  Also, the policy of the Government of Canada is that "Indigenous means 'native to the area.' In this sense, Aboriginal people are indeed indigenous to North America. As a proper name for a people, the term is capitalized to form 'Indigenous peoples.'" .  Just so I'm clear on your rationale, what are your arguments in favour of not capitalizing the term? Kurieeto 12:56, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I think the most appropriate place for a discussion about the capitalization/non-capitalization of "indigenous peoples" would be Talk:Indigenous peoples, so I've begun a new discussion about the matter there. Kurieeto 13:36, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization of terms 

message: Not sure were it would fit on the project page, these lists are fertile ground for finding red-links.
*List of Indian reservations in the United States
*List of Native American Tribal Entities
*List of Alaska Native Tribal Entities 
*List of State Recognized American Indian Tribal Entities 
*List of U.S. Indian Tribal Government Web sites - not redlinks but very incomplete
*List of Aboriginal communities in Canada - on list of most red-linked Wikipedia articles
*List of place names in Canada of Aboriginal origin
*Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas - listed for possible merge
*List of Native American tribes - listed for possible merge
*Indigenous languages of the Americas
*Classification schemes for indigenous languages of the Americas - not wikified
*List of First Nations peoples
I couldn't find any list of Archeological cultures/complexes. (List of pre-Columbian civilizations is related but very incomplete and Cultural periods of Peru could be a format guide.) Rmhermen 15:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *List of First Nations has ample red links as well. Kurieeto 16:10, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: These lists can certainly provide rich reference to artciles that we need to work on. Perhaps it would be a good idea to broaden our Categories sections to "Working lists and categories", and add them to the proper subpage. What do you think? Phædriel ♥ tell me - 23:15, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: List of Indigenous people of the Americas is mostly blue-links but not very comprehensive (although it covers a slightly larger group than the topic of this project, it is sectioned by modern nations.) Rmhermen 16:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Lists

message: I feel that the article Flags of indigenous peoples should be addressed in this project, however, it is proposed for merger with Flags of non-sovereign nations (which proposal I am not in favor of).  At present Flags of non-sovereign nations has flags of more indigenous nations of North America listed than does Flags of indigenous peoples. --Aaron Walden 09:43, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am inclined to oppose that merge too. Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Aaron - I'd like to see Flags of indigenous peoples under our scope as well. On a side note, I'll have rough time logging in this week, but I'll try to asses and add as many articles to our lists as possible, and maybe create a new sublist or two as well. Hopefully, we'll have as many of the ancillary articles as our lists properly assessed soon, so we can get to work on the most important part of the project: expanding and improving them. Cheers, Phædriel ♥ tell me - 01:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Flags of Indigenous Peoples

message: Well I STARTED out to add the BIA as a relevant article, but I can never remember the color codes for the article types!!! So I added a column to the article types table with the hex code values. In doing so I decided that it would make sense to resectionalise (adding Grading scheme) so I could edit just that section and not all of the other tables at the same time (they get a lot of edit traffic), and that maybe a sample table would be good, explaining the columns of the article tables. Maybe redundant as they are mostly self explanatory but maybe it will be of use. Comments welcomed if you didn't like what I did. ++Lar: t/c 15:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article classification tables 

message: I created this ^^ messagebox template for those of us who use messageboxes to show project affiliations. It's bog standard, I just copied the  template, so it doesn't have the nifty image at left (that could be fixed I guess?)that the userbox does. Hopefully some will find it of use. ++Lar: t/c 21:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Template:User WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America 2]] 

message: Just thought I would bring this up here: Native Americans in the United States failed its first FAC nomination, largely due to issues of referencing and POV. Most of the issues have been worked on, but as one of the larger articles that is included under this Wikiproject, I think that this article deserves a bit more work. I have nominated this article at the United States Collaboration of the Week- please vote or comment. AndyZ 22:56, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Native Americans in the United States]] 

message: I'm not part of this project, and I'm not qualified to make a decision on this (and don't have any stake in making one either).  The Ward Churchill article has the  tag on the talk page.  However, Churchill's North American native ancestry appears to be a false claim by Churchill.  So I was wondering if the Churchill article should really be part of this project? – Doug Bell talk•contrib 18:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Even if he weren't of Native American ancestry, his scholarly contributions to the field of Native American studies would merit his inclusion in the project, which is comprehensive of all topics and individuals relating American Indians.--Rockero420 19:20, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Strongly agree with Rockero420.  See Talk:Ward Churchill for more on this.  Basically, I think Doug Bell isn't particularly interested in NA issues, but just wants to snipe at Churchill.  Obviously, whatever his ancestry, Churchill wrote lots of books and articles that touch on NA issues. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:57, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not terribly interested in the motivations, whether it was just to "snipe at Churchill" or whatever, however, not only his contributions to the field of Native American studies put him within the scope of this project, so does the controversy regarding his alleged tribal membership, in my opinion. --Aaron Walden 20:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I already stated that I wasn't particularly interested/knowledgable in NA issues and I wasn't "sniping at Churchill".  I was merely raising an issue without any prejudice as to how to handle it.  Lulu, you don't have to always disparage my comments.  It's actually better to assume good faith, as I try to do with you. – Doug Bell talk•contrib 21:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Ward Churchill]] 

message: I have been a passive user of Wikipedia for a few years now, but havent ever really jumped into a project yet.  I fell into this discussion page researching the Dawes Act, and would love to get involved.  Growing up in the american midwest (Oklahoma) and being a successful debator (on the subject of native peoples) in high school and college, i have a somewhat extensive library of secondary research on philosophical and (less so) hystorical issues relating to natives.  In the hopes of contributing informative, useful, and in compliance with Wikipedia's NPOV, I was wondering if I should just back up and pick an unassigned subject, or get with a specific person to find out what needs to be done in what order.
cheers.
micheal. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cecilgol (talk • contribs) 14:57, 7 March 2006.
:Hi Michael, and welcome to Wikipedia! It's a Wiki, just jump in. Pick a topic that needs more references, or one that's empty, or one that strikes your fancy, and start editing. Source your work by providing cites if you possibly can, to reduce controversy. But... No need to check with other people about what to do. Hope that helps. PS: don't forget to sign your posts with ~~~~ so we know who you are... ++Lar: t/c 20:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For instance, you could start at the Dawes Act article which needs work. Any number of tribes and reservations have no article at all - it's easy to get a short article going. Good luck. Rmhermen 22:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, welcome to the project. --Aaron Walden  12:20, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about jumping in. 

message: It appears to me that we have just completed the first month of this project. I wanted to say thanks to everyone who's jumped in and brought things so far, and thanks to Phædriel for getting it rolling and lending structure. Not only has the project already come a long way in organizing things, but a lot of work has been done on the articles themselves as a result of the attention in this project. Keep up the good work. --Aaron Walden  13:48, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A Month's Worth of Progress

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians.  Over at Template talk:NorthAm-native-stub, Harmil has raised a concern about whether our existing image for the stub notice, looks good at the size we are using for the stub notice.  I share this concern.  Therefore, I am proposing a new image for the stub notice.  Please join in the discussion if you like.  Thanks, Johntex\talk 20:10, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What if we swapped it with the Sitting Bull image in the Project box?  Then both images could still be in use, and it would be easier to see. --Aaron Walden  20:32, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Aaron, I put your suggestion on the Template talk:NorthAm-native-stub page, and I also posted a sample there of what that would look like. Johntex\talk 21:11, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I vote for sitting bull too and its good, but has anyone tried Chief Joseph yet? If Aaron wants Sitting Bull, ni-go-di-s-ge-s-di (That's just the way it is). Waya sahoni 03:09, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I substituted an optimized version of the Curtis pic at Template:NorthAmNative.  Just a bit of gamma correction, color saturation reduction, brightness/contrast tweaking, then an optimized scaling.  It was way too orange in the existing version, IMO, rather than sepia.  I tried the 150px that it had been sized at; after looking, I thought 125px is actually plenty for that template.  I'm deferring to Johtex' judgement on which images to use where, but I figure I can make the chosen images look better with a slight bit of graphic manipulation. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:50, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Lulu - I think the two images look much better this way because the Sitting Bull image is so distinctive even at small size.  It seemed like there were no objections to this swap idea, so I went for it.  We can always go back (or go to a third option) if we want to later.  I like your modifications also, thanks for taking the time to improve the images. Johntex\talk 02:57, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: {{tl|NorthAm-native-stub}} Image