Talk:Habesha peoples/Archives/2021/March

Eliminating Eritrea

Leechjoel9 has made edits removing mention of Eritrea in multiple locations. I reverted these. They reverted my reversion. I reverted their reversion of my reversion & suggested we take this to talk. My understanding of what Leechjoel9 is trying to do comes from two edit comments:

Er was not part of Abyssynia, it had the Kingdom of Medri Bahri and dont associate with the term

Eritrea was not included Abyssinia. Term is associated Abyssinyans, Er was not part of this kingdom and don’t associate with this term

Briefly:

• A recurring issue with this article has been that multiple definitions of Habesha are in use. We have tried to be inclusive of the various definitions, including both exclusionary & inclusive definitions, so far as they are documented in reliable sources. Our job isn't to prescribe a usage. Reliable sources show several definitions in use, multiple of which include Eritreans. Thus, our article should include Eritreans, & should be clear about the variety of definitions in use.
• In at least one case, your edits remove mention of Eritrea in a passage in which the source cited is specifically talking about the usage of the term "Habesha" to refer to both Ethiopian- & Eritrean-Americans. This turns the citation into a misrepresentation.
• History & ethnicity simply don't work the way your comments suggest. If it were true that Eritrea had never been part of "Abyssinia", that wouldn't mean that a cognate ethnic term isn't frequently applied to Eritreans.
• But also, it's just not true that Eritrea has never been part of something referred to as "Abyssinia". It has been so multiple times. In fact, the Ottoman Habeş Eyaleti only included parts of what is now Eritrea—none of Ethiopia.
• & furthermore the ethnic identifier "Habashi" predates the existence of a state referred to as "Abyssinia".

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Pathawi (talk • contribs)

Eritrea was not part of Abyssinia, during Abyssinia Eritrea was part of Medri Bahri Kingdom. These kingdoms were two distinct entities constantly at war which each other. As it has says in the lead Habesha refers to somebody of Abyssinian origin, it did not refer to Medri Bahri (Eritreans) whether they are Tigre, Tigrinya, or other ethnicity. Eritrea or Eritreans do not claim Abyssinian/Habesha origin rather strongly opposes this. Even if the term sometimes is used by some individuals who use it to highlight cultural similarities with the Abyssinians/Habeshas. Therefore the only appropriate place in this article would be under “culture” or other section, where it can be mentioned, that the term is sometimes also used to refer to the cultural similarities between the two (Eritreans and Ethiopians).Leechjoel9 (talk) 20:56, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

You mention Habesha Eyaleti. During this period Medri Bahri Kingdom already existed. It was invaded by Turks but they did not occupy the whole Medri Bahri, mostly the sea shore and the port city of Massawa. Just because invaders choose to call the port city Habesha Eyaleti don’t mean the people of Medri Bahri called themselfs Habeshas. The source you mention is a few cases, not even 0.001 % of the population, it’s not representative. Leechjoel9 (talk) 21:10, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

This does not address the majority or the core of what I wrote above, but fixates on one bullet point. The reasoning would not hold up even if the facts were correct. The lead does not state that "Habesha" refers to people of Abyssinian origin. It states:

1. That "Habesha" has multiple uses.
2. That the terms "Habesha" & "Abyssinia" are etymologically related.

I'm not going to respond to your historical assertions because they completely miss the core points, which are covered by my first two bullet points. Pathawi (talk) 23:51, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions?

@Pathawi: discretionary sanctions can be extended to this article, following an ArbCom decision of some weeks ago. Maybe time to set that in motion (I'm however not sure what the steps are to get there)? --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:41, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

From my observation this particular subject (excluding Eritrea) has not been up for the debate as I can see. So it shouldn’t’ be a matter of discretionary action. Like in most cases , such as this, it should be discussed. Leechjoel9 (talk) 22:44, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

It has indeed been up for discussion in the past, though I can't discern any real breakthrough one way or the other. For now I still feel the same way I did 8 years ago. I think the second paragraph of the Usage section covers both how the term is used and that not all agree with its usage. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 23:12, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

P.S. @Francis Schonken: what was that ArbCom decision (is there a link)? Was it about this topic area, or something that could be applied here? (It's come up before; see my last comment (June 7th) in Talk:Habesha peoples/Archives/2020/June#Definitions of Term) -- Gyrofrog (talk) 23:22, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

I think it’s outdated to use a 8 year old discussion as guiding (even though it can give some input). New users have certainly appeared with new perspectives. Sure, even some Ethiopians reject the usage of the term, even if they’re historically are Abyssinia/Habeshas. Eritreans and the other hand was not part of Abyssynia and have historically never, or today, used this term to identify themselves. To Eritreans it’s largely used by some individuals to highlight similarities in culture between some of the ethnic groups in both countries. This don’t implicate Eritreans were Abyssnians/Habeshas. Suggestion is to trim this article for Eritreans and only mention how the term is used by some Eritreans, possibly after second paragraph.Leechjoel9 (talk) 02:50, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@Francis Schonken: I'm not very clear on how this would work. It would mean that any editor making "bad" edits could be sanctioned thru a page or topic ban, or an overall ban from editing Wikipedia… Have I got that right? So in the present case, Leechjoel9 would have seen a notice telling them that this page was restricted, & then when they made controversial edits without building consensus first, an admin could have sanctioned them from, say, all articles related to Ethiopia & Eritrea? Is that how it works?

@Gyrofrog: Discretionary sanctions are authorised for pages within the topic "Horn of Africa". Pathawi (talk) 03:46, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Here's the link you asked for: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Horn of Africa#Final decision, with this scope: "defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes"; further, the "discretionary sanctions" system is explained at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions.

Further, to reply to something Leechjoel9 said: when every few weeks another know-all turns up with a novel theory, of course claiming to know better than all published sources taken together, and destabilizing mainspace content of this article as a consequence, then yes, that is sufficient reason to apply discretionary sanctions. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:59, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

That’s what not what I wrote. This is not a Novel story as you try to put it. There is factual errors in this article that I addressed, and as I wrote before you can’t fully conclude that all perspective has been brought up. I think it should be settled trough discussion. Leechjoel9 (talk) 15:22, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

If this page were restricted, you could still make the case on this Talk page for changes, build consensus, & then make the changes. It wouldn't end the possibility of change thru discussion. In the present case, you didn't address factual errors: You removed content in a way that introduced a citational error & that countered efforts to meet competing uses of the term. You haven't actually engaged the discussion here. Pathawi (talk) 23:02, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

(Cross-posting from WP:AN/I) I am not sure why I have so much trouble wrapping my head around WP:ACDS. I am not sure about applying sanctions myself, as I would seem to be fairly much WP:INVOLVED. It's unclear to me what a discretionary sanction would look like, in this case. Unless I'm mistaken, Hoaeter is already technically banned from editing here, as per WP:THREESTRIKES. They're already not allowed to edit, and (as of this writing & in my opinion) no one else has been so disruptive that page restrictions are justified. (I believe page protection is a separate remedy, and we've used that in the past.) Blocking sock accounts as they are identified seems just as effective and, as a normal admin action, is something that I can do (unless I am mistaken) even if I'm WP:INVOLVED. (I'm still logging blocked accounts at WP:SPI/Hoaeter for the sake of documentation and (for lack of a better term?) transparency.) As far as I know, there's really nothing else to do where Hoaeter's concerned that we aren't already doing. If there is an uninvolved admin who reads this far and wants to apply discretionary sanctions, then please do so, but where the Habesha-related articles (and templates etc.) are concerned, we're really only concerned about a single editor using multiple accounts. And if I am overlooking something really obvious that discretionary sanctions would do for us (e.g. some technical remedy I don't know about), then please point this out to me; the coffee is not doing it for me today and it's entirely possible I'm missing an important point. Maybe this comment is better suited for WP:ARE; again I'm not even sure what to ask for, in terms of a sanction. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 19:49, 20 February 2021 (UTC)