User talk:Mayumashu/Archives/2010/November

Ethnicity categories discussion
Given your past participation in this discussion, I thought you should see this recent one. Cheers, postdlf (talk) 19:44, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for letting me know. Mayumashu (talk) 19:51, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Some help
I would truly appreciate it if you would go back and remove uncited ethnicity category from the articles you add them to. It is truly frustrating to go through hundreds of BLPs to remove uncited categories and know that 90% of them have been added by an otherwise good editor.--TM 22:51, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I ve added maybe 20% - perhaps 90% for Canadians of European descent- but 99.99999% of all bios lack reliable sources for ancestry, ethnicity, and even nationality, so, especially for BLPs (and maybe only for BLPs), ethnicity, ethnic origin, and even nationality, political or religious affiliation, but even where one is from or when one is born categories should be scrapped, if we are to insist on reliable sources as a basis for inclusion.  What is even one reliable source for ethnicity or ancestry anyway?  Reliable genealogy is rarely done (that is, by genealogists recognized as being, what professional or licenced), as is research into one's citizenship - next to no sources have actually looked at official documentation for the citizenship claimed in bios, birthdates.  Claims as to where one is from - they too are taken at the word of a journalist if not self-made claims of the individual.  But where we are close to agreeing, I would say, is that so few ancestry claims have any source, yet alone a reliable one, so why don t we just scrap the whole tree, at least for BLPs.  As for your specific request, I certainly will not add any new links but I am not that active on WP now.  And I will certainly not try to revert any edits made to remove these links for BLPs Mayumashu (talk) 03:37, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I wrote this comment while going through . Perhaps 90% was a bit high, but you get the point. Here are my thoughts on this issue. If a generally reliable source states they are of X descent, it is fine to include the category. Descent is more about identity than actual parentage. If someone identifies as something, I have no problem including the category. It is very common for reliable sources to identify place and date of birth. Ancestry is less common, but still, there are enough reliable sources on most BLPs on Wikipedia to make the inclusion of the category both justifiable and useful. You mentioned in another place that if we need a reference to say Michael Jordan is African American, what is the point. However, it is easy to find such sources if the person identifies or is identified in the media as such. If they don't or are not, then it must not be that important to include the category. As for nationality, the same applies as ethnicity, religion etc.--TM 03:50, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If you go to, you can see for yourself. I have through A-G and removed the uncited ones or the ones with no proof. While I have removed around 45 so far, there are still many which were born in Germany, on lists of "great German Americans" or otherwise reliably cited as German American. It isn't hard to do, it just takes time and a willingness to find the sources.--TM 04:02, 13 November 2010 (UTC)