Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes)

Namespace collision
There is a namespace collision here, which is the use of the word People.

For example, Elbonian people should have a category, called Category:Elbonian, that has articles about these people, and then Category:Elbonian people would be the category containing people who *are* Elbonian. Do you see the problem? Normally, a category should match the lead article - but in this case, the lead article has the word people. In some cases, Elbonian may describe a language. So this all leads to much confusion at CFD.

I suggest we get out of this, perhaps by eschewing the use of the word "X people" for ethnic article titles, and coming up with something that won't cause a namespace collision with a category. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:22, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Wow, someone else who sees the point of "FOO" alone, without stating it; PRIMARYTOPIC for "FOO language" is necessarily "FOO" and a whole bunch of WP:TWODABS were created by WP:NCLANG which was created without reference to this guideline as it didn't exist yet still being part of the "people" guideline for individuals at the time. Coordination of guidelines should be mandatory especially regarding affected WikiProjects; we now have Inuvialuk people which resulted from the imposition of "FOO people" and "FOO language" on Inuvialuit and Inuvialuktun, which are both common in English whereas "Inuvaliuk people" and "Inuvaluk language" are not = Inuvialuk people directly means "individuals who are Inuvialuk". The imposition of retitling without reference to current usage in the region in question (not just with reference to linguistics/ethnology academic writings on the global scale) plus the "name preferred by the people themselves" and COMMONNAME and MOSTCOMMON mean those titles and similar cases should be moved back; I won't add them to the RM but file separate ones..... Skookum1 (talk) 03:54, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Are black people acceptable subjects for a list?
Is it acceptable under this guideline for a list to be formed around the concept of "black people"? This guideline is currently being cited on Talk:List of African-American Academy Award winners and nominees as the reason it was recently moved from List of black Academy Award winners and nominees and as an objection to moving it back. It has in the past been cited for the same thing in Articles for deletion/List of black fashion models. All indications are that the next one will be List of black Golden Globe Award winners and nominees. I can't see anything in this guideline that would prevent a list of black people but that is how it is being used and, if possible, I'd like more guidance on this guideline. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 15:29, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

change needed
I don't know if anyone here is aware of the fracas over the imposition of NCL on what had been standalone names that became disambiguated to "+people", on the premise that languages are equally a primary topic as the people who speak it; or that adding that is mandatory based on that guideline, which it's not. Often TWODABS result, and very often all there is from "FOO people" is a redirect to "FOO". The problem with the "FOO people" usage is that that more often means, especially in category names, "individuals who are FOO". More on all that another time, what caught my eye while scanning this guideline (NCET) was this:
 * ''A people should not be called a "tribe" unless they are actually a tribe (sub-ethnicity) rather than an ethnic group or a nation

that should be amended, because the "old convention" was that federally-recognized tribes would take the "tribe" dab, and lower-casing meant that it would be "FOO tribe". The term "nation" there is also problematic. All this was discussed before NCL was rewritten to enable the "+people" change in the "old consensus" evolved and in place for a long time before the author of that passage of NCL went on thousands of unnecessary renames/moves....and is now resisting the RMs I've launched on the titles he's changed, even though most of them are only redirects to the current title......and now as before in a string of RMs last year he foughtR tooth and nail against .including anglicizations that are unworkable, obsolete and in some cases derogatory (Slavey for Deh Cho/Sahtu, Dogrib for Tlicho, Chipeywan for Denesuline, I was one of the participants in the "old consensus" and have been meaning to come by and try and codify it for discussion here; among our conclusions/actions was deciding that whether "people", "tribe" or "nation", those terms have too many complications and are in many cases redundant (e.g. Haida just means "people", on Secpwepemc and St'at'imc and Nlaka'pamux the -mc/mx ending means people, similarly the "tin" ending on Athabaskan people names.... . And btw the example for the Walla Walla "tribe" is now "Walla Walla people", and IMO Sahaptin people should be pluralized, which I may be able to do if a redirect is not in the way.Skookum1 (talk) 03:51, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * There are tribes outside of the Americas. Some articles work better as FOO; some work better as FOO people. A one-size-fits-all solution does not work for the world's thousands of ethnic groups, as WP Ethnic groups discovered years ago. -Uyvsdi (talk) 04:16, 21 March 2014 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * Then why did the revision of NCL not take any of this into account? "some articles work better as FOO" etc., similar to which I've seen other discussions you were in to the same effect.  "FOO people" has a bad problem, as you yourself opined re Category:Squamish/Category:Squamish people and when not needed to disambiguate it should not be used.Skookum1 (talk) 04:59, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

there was also no consensus for adding "preferred"
Re this you yourself, Uysvdi, have complained and taken action on the ambiguity of "FOO people". Discussions about this on the People and Ethnic groups naming conventions pages said nothing about including "preferred" in the table. What "consensus" was there for that???Skookum1 (talk) 05:11, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Previous discussions
Since this article was cut-and-pasted from Naming conventions (people), the previous discussions that led to the development of these guidelines can be found here: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)/Archive 7. -Uyvsdi (talk) 05:16, 21 March 2014 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * And yet, even though it's lifted from an approved/RfC'd guideline, we have someone claiming it's not valid. And I'm looking for that particular cut/lift, partly to see if and by who 'preferred' (which is POV on this matter IMO) and where the claim (disputed by yourself in many places) that "FOO people" is "unambiguous".Skookum1 (talk) 06:06, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Hm, since you won't deign to answer, though you probably know exactly who added it, I'll have to do some digging in the page history; and I will. That addition was both POV and untrue, as per "unambiguous" being utterly false as you made such a big case out of with you-know-where.  "Preferred" and "unambiguous" should be removed from here as disputed.  How curious to be told a centralized discussion has to take place, and then get ignored at that discussion; efforts will be made to draw non-NCL people here to broaden the scope and awareness of this guideline and remove the NCL-flavoured bits like "preferred" and "unambiguous" re "people" in titles; and an RFC on NCL's claims that a language (often a dead or nearly extinct one) is as much of a primary topic is going to filed; that is just not borne out by sources and searches, and is ORIGINALRESEARCH and, oh, POV also.  PRECISION in title is also clear on this issue, other than the phrase "If the topic is not primary, the ambiguous name cannot be used and so must be disambiguated", which appears to have been added to the original, and as with "preferred" and "unambiguous" in NCP's original version of this, I'm going to find out who and when did that and with how much discussion and its timing with the people=language primarytopic equation asserted by NCL's small and rather closed group of authors.Skookum1 (talk) 06:48, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Not surprising at all to discover it was you who added the "preferred" and "unambiguous" claims, while initially removing the table altogether though it was also you who added it without those terms; the table was recreated when the NCP section on ethnicities and tribes was moved to this newly-minted guideline on April 13, 2013 by User:Oncenawhile, who added the "preferred" claim to the table, which had not been on any of its earlier incarnations. In this change to NCP I note that when you added the table on that edit it was without "preferred" and remained so until removed, for unknown reasons, on a later edit, until restored with the creation of NCET with the "preferred" term inserted by Onceinawhile.  I note the following comments on that talkpage, indicating that consensus for the inclusion of the "preferred" and "unambiguous" wording on both NCP and NCET did NOT exist for their inclusion:
 * "I support avoiding two-item DAB pages. So, in general, when there is no ambiguity, I support making the name of the ethnic group (without a tag such as people or tribe) the primary topic, and linking to the language article from the article about the people, as is in fact done with Timucua." -- User:Donald Albury 21:56, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * "And in my experience, if some other article has a link to "Ojibwa" or "Chippewa" or "Ojibwe", it's far more likely to be in the context of talking about the people, rather than the language" from User:Miskwito
 * from yourself, citing TWODABS ''""If there are only two topics to which a given title might refer, and one is the primary topic, then a disambiguation page is not needed." The ethnic group naming conventions needs to be rewritten." on 24 October 2011
 * from yourself on 23 November 2011 ''" The basic ethnonym should go to the WP:Primarytopic, unless there is a genuine lack of a primary topic, as in the instance of Korean"
 * you had only Miskwito agreeing to the rewording of the paragraph as inserted on NCP and later transferred to NCET. Silence from others in WP Ethnic groups and IPNA who might have commented against that (including myself) should not be construed as "consensus".
 * Your restoration of those terms, which were removed by me because of widespread consensus across multiple RMs and closures disproving the claims made by the restored wording should therefore be reverted, including per your own discussion comments cited just above. As already observed, and ignored, the incorrect wording and original research re language and peoples being equally primarytopics, should also be removed.Skookum1 (talk) 04:35, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

What the guidelines say
This also applies to Naming conventions (languages) as both sets of guidelines are being quoted. According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages) the correct procedure is "Languages which share their names with some other thing should be suffixed with "language". If however the language is the primary topic for a title, there is no need for this."

This guideline says ""Elbonian people" is preferred as a neutral and unambiguous term. "Ethnic Elbonians" and "Elbonians" are also acceptable. Generally speaking, the article title should use the common English language term for an ethnic group." and "How the group self-identifies should be considered. If their autonym is commonly used in English, it would be the best article title."

I have recently seen comments that give the impression some people believe the guidelines mandate or dictate that articles about Foo (be it the people or language) must always be at "Foo people" and "Foo language" (see here and here). However, the guideline does not say that, and can't say that because to do so would make it opposed to the policy Article titles. In some cases the people article will be the predominant term and the should be at "Foo" with the language (assuming it has the same name) at "Foo language". Of course if the language of the people of "Foo" is called "Fooable" and it can be shown to be a common term then it should be at that title instead.

So because of the belief in what the guidelines do not actually say we currently have things like Inuvialuk (a disambiguation) which has links to Inuvialuk people and Inuvialuk language. The word Inuvialuk is rarely used in English. The most common terms for the people and language are Inuvialuit and Inuvialuktun. So rather than having the articles, this applies to other articles but those were the ones I'm most familiar with, at titles that follow the policy and guidelines they are at titles that appear to be little used outside of Wikipedia.

I don't think that either guideline needs to be rewritten but that some clarification in them in required so it is obvious that there is not always a requirement for articles to be at "Foo language" and "Foo people". CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 16:50, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not eager to jump into this considering the recent climate; however, the unilateral moves of Foo to "Foo people" have stopped in the last year. Every time I find a disambiguation page with two links, I've redirected to the primary topic (usually, but not always, the ethnic group; sometime the language article is the primary topic, based on page views, incoming links, etc.), and these redirects have not been reverted. The discussion that developed these guidelines Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)/Archive 7 included people with different perspectives and was highly productive. One challenge is, even though trends will develop among WP:WP IPNA editors, people editing ethnic groups outside of the Americas have their own protocals, and WP:WikiProject Ethnic groups is no longer very active. Another challenge is this page is not easy to find; perhaps it needs to be linked from more places? -Uyvsdi (talk) 17:07, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Uysvdi


 * You'll notice that "Elbonian", the bare root, is not given in the examples of good titles, and this was very much on purpose. This is what many of the recent disputes have been about, like the Beothuk people → Beothuk discussion that led me here.  If we're to go that way, then, to be consistent across the world, English people should be moved to English, with the latter moved to English (disambiguation), and the same for Germans, Russians, etc.  Now, maybe that is the best way to go, but what we should not have are separate conventions for Americans (or just Canadians) or whoever.
 * I also think its a bad idea to decide primary topic based on page views, so that sometimes "Foo" is about the people, and sometimes about the language. The main reason for the current consensus was to avoid that and the inevitable (and likely both passionate and idiotic) arguments that would ensue.  When a language is named after a people, then the people are the primary topic, and it would be odd to have the language occupy the base name and the people be the dependent article.  But it would also be odd to have a 13-word stub on the people be the primary article when the language article is 13 paragraphs.  Our previous consensus, that neither should be accorded primary status, was an attempt to avoid such problems.  It may be that we should revisit that idea, but I think we should come to some agreement on if and how to change before we start setting up walled gardens of regional conventions.  — kwami (talk) 07:09, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
 * "You'll notice that "Elbonian", the bare root, is not given in the examples of good titles" - actually, yes, it is. Innumerable ethnic group articles follow this naming convention and have for years. Again, WP Ethnic groups, after years of discussion, determined there is no single solution to naming ethnic groups. Primary topic is also determined by incoming links, Google book searches, etc. as outlined in Disambiguation. Myself and many other editors who actively create ethnic group articles were never part of the discussion of "Our previous consensus," wherever it may have occurred. There is a pre-existing Wikipedia policy against wp:twodabs. Every ethnic group should clearly link to the corresponding language article, and vice versa. That way the users can most quickly find the articles they want (it's the user, after all, that any of this exists). -Uyvsdi (talk) 23:26, 24 March 2014 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * Basically these guidelines just reinforce implementation of Wiki pre-existing policies—how primary topics are determined, how dab pages are handled, and that move proposals need to be discussed and consensus built before a move can happen.-Uyvsdi (talk) 07:09, 25 March 2014 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * Which is partly why they have to be handled on a one-by-one basis, especially when in namespace conflict with settlement and region names; despite my most ardent opponent maintaining he wants a discussion (=delay) on the overall guidelines; an RfC on the shortcomings of NCL is indeed called for, and it's time that UNDAB had one too so it cannot be downplayed as "only an essay" even though everything it says is already in TITLE and elsewhere. Similarly WP:NCET may have had only two authors for far, but that bespeaks neglect, and also its fairly recent creation.  One question for you - who was it that added "preferred" to the table that was transferred from NCP?  And given your opposition and action to "FOO people" elsewhere, how could you ever maintain that "FOO people" was unambiguous; it is in relation to other dabs like "nation", "tribe" etc, but "people who are FOO" was your own point about this.  Please explain that conundrum, and why NCL says what it does, if so.  Don't tell me "consensus" decided that, that was hardly a large discussion, really not much more than NCET which certain others are trying to downplay for its two-editor authorship (unless you count all those at NCP like yourself who developed that section).Skookum1 (talk) 10:01, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Uyvsdi has replied about the Elbonian example. But if you look again at what I copied from the guideline page it says ""Elbonian people" is preferred as a neutral and unambiguous term. "Ethnic Elbonians" and "Elbonians" are also acceptable. I'll also point out that Russian people and German people are redirects to Russians and Germans. American people, Canadian people, Cree people and Inuk people (which does not actually exist) are all redirects to Americans, Canadians, Cree and Inuit. So there is no consistency across the Wikipedia world. Have there actually been any attempts to move move those articles? By the way I never said that all the articles about groups of people should be at "foo" as opposed to "Foo people". In fact I would be surprised to see that English was the title for English people. At a guess I would think the most likely meaning of English would be for the language. Also it was never my intention to suggest that all articles about people should be the primary and that would be decided on page views. Whichever is the most common term would be the main target, be in people, language or something else. The idea that all articles about groups of people should be at "Foo people" is not practical either as this guideline recognises. I am not trying to set up a special application for a particular region or country but trying to apply what the guidelines say. The only reason that my interest is in Aboriginal Canadians is because I am more familiar with them than ones in other countries. In the recent set of RMs I don't think I voiced an opinion on some of the US ones because I was not sure about them.
 * There's scads of such titles "FOOS" everwhere, and some e.g. Sorbs have categories named Category:Sorbian people which was moved from Category:Sorbs for unknown reasons, given the title of the main article; I've quizzed the author of Cydebot about that as to who and why; just in Category:Ethnic groups in Europe alone, without including subcats there are around 20 "FOO people" titles, and around 37 with "FOOS" or variants thereof; it is similar in subcats such as Category:Lusatia where we also find non-English names like Milceni; so re the objection that someone made in one of the closed bulk RMs that "FOO people" was a standard and was already in use as the only proper form of a title, IMO that "preferred" bit should come out of the guideline forthwith, likewise the false statement that the "FOO people" construction is "unambiguous", which it most certainly is not.Skookum1 (talk) 10:08, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Another example of the presence of the "Elbonians" form can be seen in Category:Germanic peoples where there are 25 articles as "FOOs" and only four as "FOO people" (not including the Alsatians (people) redirect, whichever class of the formula that would fall in).Skookum1 (talk) 10:12, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I looked today at articles in other parts of Wikipedia to see how they were handled. In the case of flora most articles are at the binomial name rather than the common name, Dryas octopetala rather than Mountain avens. That makes sense because they tend to have one scientific name but multiple common names. But even so there are some exceptions such as Mock strawberry and Lily of the Valley. For fauna there is a mixture of common and binomial names. So you have polar bear, Ursus americanus carlottae, Arctic fox, Vipera berus, Ailuropoda. Cities are all over the place. US cities are supposed to be at "City, state". So you get Albuquerque as a redirect to Albuquerque, New Mexico but Boston is where the US city is. In general other cities are at the "city" but there are some that are at "city, subdivision" when there is no need.


 * Another problem with one size fits all is that it is not always neutral and unambiguous. For example there is the article about the First Nations people that live in the area around Yellowknife who are called the Yellowknives, which is what the call themselves and here (has sound). Now according to one interpretation of the the guidelines that article should be at Yellowknife people but that would be confusing as it could be about people from or of Yellowknife and not neutral as it's not used. The same applies to the use of Inuvialuk people which is not used very much (if at all, hard to tell now because of Wikipedia mirrors and such) not only makes it non-neutral but original research.


 * By the way what about languages? There is no Inuk language as an article or redirect but there is an article on Inuit languages. One would think that based on the misinterpretation of the guidelines that Inuktitut should actually be at Inuk language. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 04:48, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Just to note in reply that Cree, Inuit, Inuvialuit, Mi'kmaq, Haida, St'at'imc, Ktunaxa are also plural forms as are many others of that kind; Haida is sometimes pluralized by adding -s but that's not mandatory and not regularly seen as much as "the Haida" referring to the collective (without "people" being attached 9 times out of 10).Skookum1 (talk) 14:56, 25 March 2014 (UTC)


 * No-one's arguing that they shouldn't be at FOOs, just that per the guideline they shouldn't be at FOO. BTW, if you're going to argue that the name for the people appears without the word "people" attached 9 times out of 10, it's also true that the name for the language appears without the word "language" attached 9 times out of 10. By that logic, Cree language should be moved to "Cree", Haida language to "Haida", etc. — kwami (talk) 11:18, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
 * IF the PRIMARYTOPIC there were the language; it's only your contention that a language is equally primary to a people; 9 times out of 10 when someone searches for "Haida", unless they're a linguist like you, they'll be looking for information on the Haida as a group/culture; language being only a component of culture. Your attitude flies so directly in the face of the wise and considerate thinking of the "old consensus" there are no words for the extremism and narrow-mindedness of your position, which is not supportable by any guideline than the one you wrote to suit yourself.  I have a question for you - what else other than linguistics analyses on the Haida have you ever read?  On the Cree?  The Denesuline?  Any??Skookum1 (talk) 11:44, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Skookum, WP is a cooperative endeavor. You really need to work *with* the other people here. Now, if they agree that the ethnicity should get preference, then that's what we'll do. But the last time we had this discussion, it was decided we should not do that. Perhaps it's time to change, but your attempts to dictate WP:TRUTH are unlikely to be productive, and your incessant charges that anyone who doesn't recognize your superiour wisdom is either stupid or perverted are likewise unlikely to be productive. — kwami (talk) 07:10, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
 * You are hardly the one to talk about working with other people given your attempts to shut down discussions, accompanied by personal attacks including those on this page. I have pointed out Uysvdi's own statements in guideline discussions that the ethnicity is the primarytopic and also statements by others; clearly the RMs you tried to shut down have been seeing widespread consensus to the effect that the ethnicity/group are the primarytopic, except perhaps in a very few cases; your guideline NCL is much in error t hat way (would have helped if you consulted other guideline pages and informed the affected wikiprojects, which you did not).  My "incesssant changes" have been approved and validated by a number of other editors and also closers; why do you continue to pretend that any further discussion is needed when you have resisted, stonewalled, and derided any attempt to discuss anything and indulged in endless and repeated derisions and insults?Skookum1 (talk) 07:31, 4 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Kwamikagami, I've asked before and got no answer so I'll ask again. Where in the guidelines does it state that it must be "foo people"? The guideline says ""Elbonian people" is preferred as a neutral and unambiguous term. "Ethnic Elbonians" and "Elbonians" are also acceptable. Generally speaking, the article title should use the common English language term for an ethnic group." which is not the same as saying they must be. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 10:45, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
 * AFAIK, I never said it must be. As you say, the people may be at "Elbonian people" or "ethnic Elbonians" or "Elbonians".  "Elbonian nation" and "Elbonian tribe" would also be appropriate, obviously.  The language may be at "Elbonian language", or potentially "Elbonian languages" or "Elbonian dialect" or "Elbonian dialects", as the case may be.  It's pretty straightforward; I don't understand what all the fuss is about.  If we want to change the guideline, let's change the guideline, rather than ranting about how anyone who doesn't hold their opinion (but instead holds the opinion that they themself held the last time it came up) is a racist, and then ranting about how they're not ranting.  When that happens, I just tune out:  It's not a conversation worth having.  — kwami (talk) 04:09, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I didn't say that it was you either. It is remarks like people should go at "XXX people" and the language at "XXX language" by JorisvS (ignore them calling it a policy) make it clear they think so. And your remarks here along with this and this give the impression (to me anyway) that you believe it. The whole idea that all articles should be at "foo people" and "foo language" on Wikipedia will not work. Some people will be the primary topic and some languages will be the primary topic, while for others there may be no primary topic, and each one will need to be decided on. If you look back at the discussions held at Articles on peoples (ethnicities and tribes) and New proposal for "Articles on peoples (ethnicities and tribes)" one thing that is quite clear is that "one size fits all" is not going to work. What makes the whole thing more bizarre is that while some were moved there are a lot that never changed. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 11:07, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Just realised. In the comment I liked to above I thought you were stating that the guidelines needed changing to allow for article to be at Foo rather than Foo people or Foo language. Now I'm wondering if that is what you meant or was there some other meaning intended? CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 14:30, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * It's clear that your stonewalling like this is your ongoing tactic, as it was in last year's RMs, also. Consensus has spoken, per Cuchulainn's closing remarks on what is now Talk:Heiltsuk:
 * ''"The result of the move request was: Move. As with other similar moves recently, we have consensus for the people to be at the base name as the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Though WP:NCL guideline recommends the former arrangement as noted, we seen to be seeing a new consensus that this should change to accord with PRIMARYTOPIC. As with the others, this will benefit from a more centralized discussion.--Cúchullain t/c 13:26, 4 April 2014 (UTC)""
 * Bold emphasis added mine; RM after RM has closed with "FOO" (not "FOOs") as the result, per PRIMARYTOPIC and also TITLE and its various points which NCL has not just not conformed to but seen fit to override. Your own attitudes towards native people in last year's RMs "we don't have to care waht they think" are both un-wikipedian and against guidelines.  It's also worth noting that a lot of the native endonyms are plurals, in fact I'd be hard pressed to think of one that isn't.  Your attempt to shut me out of a discussion you yourself invited me to is all too typical of your behaviour and bad attitude and is yet another AGF on your part.  Will you ever address actual issues instead of wheedle and wiklawyer by habit of being obstructionist and endlessly seeking to defray discussion rather than actually listen to it????  It is you who are "disruptive" and it is you who deserve the nasty epithets you wielded at me, here and elsewhere.Skookum1 (talk) 05:54, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * So he agrees with what I've been asking you to do for months. Yes, "stonewalling" is a good word.  Does that mean you'll stop now?  — kwami (talk) 07:56, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Stop citing guidelines that need addressing and several dozen, and counting RMs, which demonstrate that there are words that need removing from this guideline and NCL also?? Or do you mean stop taking part in pointing out issues and precedents you persistently ignore by attacking and sniping at me?? Points, since I know you have difficulty, like so many here, with reading blocks of sustained argument and topic points:
 * 1) Cuchulainn's point is about a new consensus based on the results you so avidly fought and tried to prevent item-by-item discussion on after also seeking to block group RM discussions; it's not by accident that you claim he agrees with you when the TRUTH is that he says " As with other similar moves recently, we have consensus for the people to be at the base name as the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC" - and THAT is the new consensus he is talking about.  Let me bold the critical phrase for you, since you have comprehension problems it seems:  As with other similar moves recently, we have consensus for the people to be at the base name as the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.  \


 * 2) I'm talking straightforward references to guidelines, you are making accusations and distortions and now "shut up and go away" subtexts "will you stop now?"  Why don't YOU stop refusing to recognize widespread consensus that is based on, as CBW has observed more than once, guidelines that you just want to ignore or nitpick by whatever means; when confronted by them you attack me.  I'm the one trying to have a discussion that points to "what must be done". ..... . you say it needs discussion.


 * 3) The guidelines that apply have been pointed out repeatedly by more than me, the precedents on ongoing emerging consensus is as clear as the bright day; and you still want to "have a discussion"....to what end? To block that consensus by some newly-contrived dissecting of words?  Or, as you have done here, claimed that a quote from a closer agrees with you and not with me.  He's very clear, very very very clear, and you are an obfuscator -  The people articles are the PRIMARYTOPIC vs the language articles and should not have disambiguation - so long as they're not at an archaic/incorrect name that matches a PRIMARYTOPIC town or region name (that's not exclusive to Canada Entiat and Walla Walla are examples like Lillooet, Sechelt and Chemainus and lots more).


 * 4) That you support the use of terms known to be derisive in origin like Slavey and Sarcee and Chipewyan is, to put it mildly, noxious and also against guidelines, like a lot of other things you have done and fight avidly to resist reverting even though they were all you acting by yourself, and not just fielding discussions on the affected articles, and in fact refusing discussions as I recall long ago, re St'at'imc and the others, and refusing to acknowledge guidelines in the "guideline" you wrote and in subsequent discussions, referring always only to your self-authored guideline. "Why don't you stop now?" indeed.   YOU are the stonewaller - and "white man speak with forked tongue" also.  I happen to be white, but I'm a straight-talker and talk issues and guidelines and content.....Skookum1 (talk) 12:21, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * As a postscript, here is what Floydian had to say on discussion at Talk:Lillooet, which pertains to "oppose" votes whose subtext was the St'at'imc and/or their language, or even the Lillooet River as someone fielded; grasping at claims that they think there's a PRIMARYTOPIC different than the obvious one, even though they don't know anything about the name, the area, or the people:
 * ''"*Strong Support The nay'sayers here have very weak rationales, mostly consisting of IDONTLIKEIT by putting reverse onus on the person with local knowledge to verify your doubts from an international perspective. If you are not familiar enough with the various terms to be able to say without a doubt that "This is" or "This isn't" the primary topic, then your reasoning will be poor at best... because you don't know any better."
 * And as a remind of your abject failure to block last year's RMs from going through, I'm going to quote for the benefit of others who read this discussion, with my interjections as written originally:
 * ''""What a profoundly exotic line of argument, and against this? "The St'at'imc, Tshilqot'in, Secwepemc, Ktunaxa and Nlaka'pamux names, if not so much Skwxwu7mesh, are now a standard part of Canadian English and the accepted norms." That sentence is completely and unambiguously and (one would have thought) uncontroversially true. These (except for perhaps Skwxwu7mesh, I don't specifically recall) were the correct spellings at the Vancouver Sun while I was covering aboriginal affairs more than 20 years ago for goodness sake. The Vancouver Sun isn't exactly a linguistics newsletter." The profoundly exotic line of argument he's referring to is the "it's not English because nobody knows how to pronounce it" and "we don't do official names" criticisms of the proposed version(s).
 * Recognize those "exotic" lines of argument?? They were yours.  As was "we don't care what the people prefer to call themselves" (directly the opposite is stated in this guideline now and previously in NCP, and implied elsewhere in TITLE and in MOS)....I seem to recall you even had the presumption to call such a notion "parochial" - another word much better suited to you and the attitudes of your profession.  It took In Ict Oculi to add the self-identification passage to this guideline; that wasn't discussed and wasn't reverted, unlike my attempt to change it so that it does respect the consensus evident in all the other guidelines and in all the precedent RMs now closing, without "people" attached to them.....when are you ever going to admit you're wrong.  "Why don't you stop now?" and agree that the offending sections/wording of this guideline, and of NCL, be amended accordingly.  "Why don't you stop now" attacking me instead of addressing these matters honestly - oh and with a little bit of humble pie??  I know I know, because you don't really want a discussion that will show you as having been wrong all along.Skookum1 (talk) 12:52, 5 April 2014 (UTC)


 * In addition the "Self-identification" section says very clearly that if there is a native endonym that is common in English (it doesn't say "most common"), then it should be used in preference over others. Add onto that the portion of TITLE that says the interests of the general readership should come before those of specialists; and that newer sources after an official name change should be considered with more weight than those from before; also, as extensions of the official modern usages (which are shared not just by FN govs and people but in use by non-native govs, companies and media, as well as within local communities), the language names should be in the same form of spelling as that of the people, e.g. the language of the Wuikinuxv, that title now being confirmed by consensus/RM, is properly now Wuikyala and not Oweekyala language (which is redundant, as you noted long ago about St'at'imcets language before changing it to St'at'imc language just before turning back the clock a few decades and renaming it Lillooet language; if academic sources haven't caught up to the primary source's own use (which would apply in school and university/college curriculums among other things), then Wikipedia should not be engaged in resisting such uses which are now preferred by the people; that consideration was repeatedly refused, and rudely, in various RMs this year and last, until refuted by the "Self-identification" passage and, gee, in a lot of cases, by view stats and google searches.  Kwak'wala and Halkomelem especially are common in modern English; so is, increasingly, St'at'imcets and others.  It really is not suitable to have the people article at St'at'imc and the language article at the ambiguous and inaccurate Lillooet language (yes I know that's the title of van Eijk's book, I used to have a copy....and how many years ago was it published?  20 years is ancient history in this topic area); Gitxsanimaax and Sm'algyax are also increasingly seen in English, likewise Secpwepemctsin and various others); just as Inuktitut and Inuvialuit are now "standard English" across Canada.  Haad Kil for the Haida language I've been seeing around more and more also, as also Syilxtsn and others.


 * The further point, constantly rejected by "global English chauvinists", is that these terms are common in Canadian English and therefore also in English; that cites for Canadian titles with the "archaic" or "sunset" terms which happen to match those of towns are near-invariably cases where the PRIMARYTOPIC of those names; not surprising that the most common usages of Canadian terms would be within Canada. So that last bit you mention, CBW, "Generally speaking, the article title should use the common English language term for an ethnic group." which is not the same as saying they must be." does not even really apply for names like St'at'imc, Kwakwaka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Heiltsuk which are now words in English.  That they haven't yet penetrated the minds of publishing houses and academic writers in the UK or the US is really quite beside the point.  That the older terms weren't English in origin either adds a certain thick layer of creamcheese frosting to the many-layered ironies of the determined efforts to resist native names and apply needless disambiguation for no good reason at all.  I see "Lillooet" just closed (for the town), and "Heiltsuk" just had "people" taken off it, with some rather pointed comments from User:BDD about recognizing consensus; so can we just cut to the mustard and remove the offending/disputed words, and reword NCL so it's not omitting a lot said in other guidelines which it has been used to violate, over and over and over and over again?Skookum1 (talk) 16:27, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

re the group/people stubs and why it is they're not developed, and what can be done
Re" It's not like that's the group-articles' fault....and no reason at all to argue for a split decision on language vs group as equal contenders for PRIMARYTOPIC: the "old consensus" which is not the five-editor "our consensus" being referred to in sentences following that can be seen all over the category structure; i.e. the separation of group, government, reserve and/or community, and language articles and categories. The feeling at the time was (and I have already listed some of the major contributors to that collective of very considerate and cooperative thinking) that the "groups" (I'm avoiding the word "people" at this point) were ultimately the primary topic and that's why their categories (and originally their main articles) were all stand-alone undisambiguated titles.  "Your" consensus should have done some research before bludgeoning its small-group thinking across titles that are not language articles. Hut never mind that for now, though it's obvious that using one guideline alone, and applying it in a very narrow-minded fashion against th spirit of the underlying principles, is clearly proscribed by WP:Wikilawyering.Skookum1 (talk)
 * ". When a language is named after a people, then the people are the primary topic, and it would be odd to have the language occupy the base name and the people be the dependent article. But it would also be odd to have a 13-word stub on the people be the primary article when the language article is 13 paragraphs."

Point is that the lack of coverage of ethnographic content, vs the heavy-on-the-technical side "specialist" linguist articles (which are not "reader friendly" and because of the reliance on older, specialized sources and their out-of-date terminologies are perpetrating older usages and RMs and other debates about them persistently downplay modern usages and developing realities in modern indigenous cultural and political life. Concomitant with that was respect for self-identification, which finally reached guideline status after being left out of the loop for a very long time; and indigenous sensitivities were to be taken into account in all titling and writing.   THAT was also part of the "old consensus" in a very big way but that has been shoved aside and a consensus formed by a much smaller group, with narrow linguistics interests and "prejudices", has wound up adding unnecessary disambiguations and changing the nature of the PRIMARYTOPIC perceptions and good judgment of the collective decisions and joint actions of the "old consensus" which underlays the category structure and the "separation of articles of different topics" principle (WP:GOODJUDGMENT and WP:COMMONSENSE both deserve essays; they are in short supply around here, but were factors in the "old consensus"....). "Indigenous sensitivity" has been derided and downplayed via out-of-context invocations of NOTCENSORED and RIGHTGREATWRONGS....... and as feared if that were to happen, interest from potential indigenous contributors is low (when they come to a page featuring an archaic and at times offensive or incorrect names for themselves because of the reliance on older RS and narrow specialist interests, they just shrug and don't bother; or complain and are told that they don't matter and that they're not cited so shut up etc.); at least one indigenous editor at Wikipedia (OMR) has left because of this; Phaedriel left for reasons of harassment here, and also to pursue family life.Skookum1 (talk)

So to amend that, since those writing language articles show very little interest, or empathy for native culture in fact ("contempt" would be a better word...), I have started a campaign, joined by Kmoksy and I hope others, to explore other-language Wikipedias for more content for those articles; see here. Suffice to say German "group" articles are often way more extensive than their language articles, and the categories for groups and languages respectively are more heavily developed for groups than languages. Their group articles also make no separation with government content, when it exists (many are for vanished groups which until now had no Wikipedia article at all), are the same article, which does account for some of the longer content. I also note they don't play disambiguation or guideline games, and that's likely why more work has been put into coverage of ethnography (and current sociopolitical/cultural realities) than has yet, for the most part, been seen here. Skookum1 (talk)

It's a question of priorities...and the "old consensus" adjudged the groups themselves, and their self-identification and respect for that and for their cultures, as being of primary importance; THAT consensus (Uysvdi it was over by the time you joined IPNA; that's why you have been unaware of it; there was no central location like IPNA, though some of it may be found in archives there, or linked from discussions there; it's spread over various talkpages of the day, and various user pages, often of valuable contributors like User:Luigizanasi, who hasn't been with us since 2008. Skookum1 (talk)

If someone feels so compelled as to change a group article's title on behalf of a language guideline, doncha think they should also take the time to learn about the people over whose language they are studying/writing about? Doncha think they should care what those people think about what they find about themselves in Wikipedia? I guess not. It surprises me that modern linguistics continues to ignore actual connection with the peoples under study to update their terminology, but academia's failings are many; perpetrating the past and not keeping up with the times or with modern usage is something you'd think educated people would care about; but apparently not.Skookum1 (talk)

The narrow field of view of academia, particularly at the graduate level, means that topics like language get written up with an extremely narrow, confined set of parameters; language is part of culture though "the beating heart of a people" as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it (or so, that's a paraphrase/excerpt of something I found on a band website somewhere; not just phonology and syntax et al, it's important to the groups who remain and in some cases are today rebounding back, and should not be viewed in isolation from language; but it is. And so we have a plethora of very technical articles on languages, using out of date names, and very little work at all on the ethnographic coverage or modern cultural polity of the people speaking (or reviving) those languages; even Canadian English is being given short shrift as a "walled garden"....as if linguistics wasn't....Skookum1 (talk)

The solution to "odd" stubs is to EXPAND them - not just rejig their names....geez you might learn something in the process. Language is only part of culture, it is not its equal; again, "the old consensus" embraced the view that the peoples, and respect for them, is of primary importance. Technical specialist articles are interesting (for those who can understand all the arcane terminology that is); but even language articles need more content accessible to the general reader; overwhelmingly they are not. Both they and the group articles - and the band articles and the reserve/reservation and community articles also need a lot of expansion. And that takes reading and learning......and more than just tweaking IPA and infoboxes.Skookum1 (talk) 13:32, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm confused
Sorry to be a pain in the butt but... I would love to be in this discussion about Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes), but the way the current structure of the discussion is laid out, I can't follow it very well, and visually, I'm getting confused, which then makes my thoughts get all mushy and muddled. As comments from our friend User:Skookum1 that gets dominated on page presence is contributing to the visual muddling, may I ask User:Skookum1 to re-format discussion issues into digestible pieces, maybe even separate each issue into visually distinct subpart sections, so we all can discuss each subpart? Although the subparts are there into distinct units, currently the subparts all appear like a one super-long run-on paragraph, which makes it look super intimidating and uninviting for discussion (especially when trying to squeeze in a discussion in a super busy day), and I know User:Skookum1 really does want a frank discussion that is meaningful to all of us. So, reformatting would be appreciated. Thanks. After reformatting, please go ahead and this I'm confused section may be deleted, as it is not germane to the discussion at hand. CJLippert (talk) 16:12, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'll try to get to re-laying out my points; I've been busy "elsewhere" including dealing with the same kind of obstructionist deflections and evasions at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (languages), where the issues are much the same here, as is the cant being put up to resist obvious policy-based consensus based on policy, vs someone's preference for ignoring policy altogether.Skookum1 (talk) 08:07, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi User:Skookum1, when you find time to summarize, please note that you misrepresented my move above. When this article was demerged two years ago, the "preferred" was taken directly from the prior naming convention article (see this edit). I don't have a view either way, just keen to ensure you have the history correct. Oncenawhile (talk) 13:45, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
 * That "preferred" bit was added to NCP only just before that; a detailed history of the changes and the emergence of that notion (and the incorrect claim that is is unambiguous) were added by the same agenda that reformed WP:NCL around the same time; my bit about inserting preferred refers to the table on the guideline, which did not have "preferred" in it at NCP or in its original incarnation at WP:Ethnic groups. That preference is a certain opinion only and is not based in TITLE, CONCISENESS and more as currently under stonewall at the NCL talkpage, and though the debate is dormant for now there, at the NCET talkpage.  here's the history of the passage in question, re both NCL and pre-NCET NCP.  That "preferred" thing for people has caused various problems in its application-without-reading-the-article though it was NCL which was rewritten and misused to that end on people titles; most of which since their inception have always been disambiguated, and by now over 100 RMs and many more db-moves have removed needless redirects or corrected imposition of non-self-identification/archaic/obsolete names over long-standing modern-use titles.Skookum1 (talk) 14:58, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Presentations and pluralisations of peoples

 * The following OP has been multiply posted and my suggestion is that Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes) might act as a centralised location for related discussion.

Use of the pluralisation of a demonym where this is possible

A recent successful RM was made for the following:

– And many similar articles which, on the same president, I would like moved - as would apply to all demonym based population describing articles in those cases those cases in which the plural form of the demonym differs from the singular form of the word.
 * Azerbaijani people → Azerbaijanis
 * Bahamian people → Bahamians
 * Bangladeshi people → Bangladeshis
 * Barbadian people → Barbadians
 * Bolivian people → Bolivians
 * Chilean people → Chileans
 * Colombian people → Colombians

(explanation was given)

As per: Albanians, Americans, Armenians, Australians, Austrians, List of Bahranis, Belarusians, Bosnians, Brazilians, Bulgarians, Lists of Cameroonians and Canadians, ...

As per WP:UCRN as demonstrated in searches ...

Designations that seemingly should remain as "... people" as the demonym retains the same form when indicating either singulars or plurals: Bhutanese people, British people and Chinese people,

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes)

On this basis I would suggest that any editor with authority to directly make sensible changes to article and category contents could go ahead and make sensible moves (as relevant to article content naturally).

I would say that this issue also relates to content in which two ethnicities are mentioned such that relating to Afghan American(s) and perhaps this will also need to be sorted out at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes).

I propose that the table on that project page might read as something like the following:

Peoples for which two nationalities/ethnicities/descents are referenced

In the case of people who are described by use of two national/ethnic descriptions I was interested to see the navigational content at: British Korean which reads as follow:

British Korean or Korean British may refer to:
 * Koreans in the United Kingdom
 * British people in North Korea
 * British people in South Korea
 * North Korea-United Kingdom relations
 * South Korea-United Kingdom relations
 * Eurasian (mixed ancestry) people of Korean and British descent

Mention of this content is also made at: Wikipedia talk:UK Wikipedians' notice board and, as potentially an example of good practice, I thought I would also present this content "here".

GregKaye 11:12, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment in general I think that a formula such as is presented in Afghans in the United Kingdom may have afford widened scope for content while better meeting the preferences presented in WP:PRECISE. I also see no need to make use of nationalistic terminologies without their uses being clearly warranted.  In general I think that the concrete issues are residence and citizenship.  A view as to whether to consider a person to be Fooian is arguably subjective.  GregKaye 11:43, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
 * we have a long-standing consensus among Wikipedia editors who deal with all American ethnic groups: we have German American, African American, Korean American, Chinese American, etc -- not "Americans" for all of them.   this a debate going on right now at Talk:Korean American.  User:GregKaye wants to use the form "Korean Americans", a noun.    I see two perspectives here:  one is a narrow demographic idea that the article should be about individuals (and therefore use "Korean Americans".) That leaves space for famous names, and tables of statistics, but little else.  The broader perspective, which I am trying to uphold,  says the article is really about a community &  includes far more  complex and subtle  factors  that cannot be summarized in a demographic table.   the Korean American  ethnic group is the community constructed by people of Korean descent in the US. This community is more than a bunch of people, it includes institutions, churches, publications, local organizations and national networks, and their adaptations to the American culture in their work realms of food, religion, politics, & family structure as well as attitudes toward Korea & other ethnic groups. And it includes the history of that community in terms of settlement patterns, assimilation patterns, intermarriage, language usage, & relations with relatives back in Korea, etc. I suggest that all of these characteristics are handled better at Wikipedia using the adjective form ("Korean American") and work poorly with the noun form ("Korean Americans"). Rjensen (talk) 09:44, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

For categories that cover culture or history as well as people, please see a proposal to append "society" to the name, at Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_May_17. – Fayenatic  L ondon 15:38, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Categories for ethnic groups

Notice: RfC at VPPOL may have implications for this guideline
There's an RfC at Village pump (policy) about the sentence in WP:Disambiguation that encompasses the long-standing practice at WP:RM of permitting natural and descriptive disambiguation for precision-and-recognizability reasons even in the absence of an actual article title collision. This frequently arises with breeds, cultivars, landraces, and other non-human populations the names of which may be confused with human ones (e.g. the move of Algerian Arab, now a disambiguation page, to Algerian Arab sheep, and of Argentine Criollo to Argentine Criollo cattle, among many others, e.g. British White to British White cattle, etc., to avoid confusion with White British, etc.). It could also affect the present practice of regularly disambiguating ethnicity articles with terms like "tribe", "nation", and "people" if a case can be made that the name can technically be shortened, even at the expense of reader understanding. The RfC is misleading and non-neutral due to failure to perform due diligence with regard to previous consensus discussions.

RfC notice: MoS ethnicity question
Please participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images. It is a proposal to vacate the previous consensus reached in the February 2016 RfC that resulted in the creation of the MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES provision at MOS:IMAGES, and also relates thematically to Village pump (policy)/Archive 127 (all of these discussions are ultimately about using infoboxes to identify individuals as members of particular ethnicities, and this relates also to MOS:IDENTITY). Notifying this guideline talk page because, while the RfC is not about article titles, this page has a concentration of watchlisters who are involved in ethnicity-related policymaking. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:24, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

More on "tribes"
Currently, the guideline advises that "A people should not be called a 'tribe' unless they are actually a tribe (subethnicity) rather than an ethnic group or a nation..." This presupposes the definition of "tribe" as a "subethnicity", linking to the article on tribe. However, our own article tribe does not give this definition of the term, and for good reason. It's only one of various definitions, and it's certainly not the best known. Most readers are probably not even familiar with the distinction. I removed one of the given examples, Walla Walla tribe, as the article has been at Walla Walla people for 6 years. That's probably as it should be: "people" is much more WP:CONSISTENT with other articles and much less likely to confuse. In fact, there are many cases where "tribe" is inappropriate although this guideline might suggest it is. The major exceptions I can see are proper names, a few cases of groups that really do appear to be sub-ethnicities, and things like Tribe of Benjamin that are always called "tribes". I propose we rewrite the entire section to encourage editors not to use "tribe" outside of those exceptions. My suggested wording:
 * The term "tribe" should generally be avoided in Wikipedia titles, as there is no consistent definition, and it may be inaccurate or offensive for some groups and contexts. In general, the disambiguation advice above should be followed, with a few exceptions:
 * Proper names, common among tribal governments and organized groups in North America, e.g. Seminole Tribe of Florida, Cowichan Tribes, or Spirit Lake Tribe
 * Cases where the "tribe" is a sub-group of a wider ethnicity and no other option is forthcoming, such as the Nochiya tribe of Assyrian Christians
 * Cases where sources always call the group a "tribe", such as the Tribe of Naphtali of the ancient Hebrews

Thoughts?--Cúchullain t/ c 21:01, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Self-identification
When I read this section of the convention, it seems to say that a group's autonym should be used if it is a commonly used form in English (in other words, that common use is the main criterion for deciding whether to use the group's autonym). However, at Talk:Mahican other editors claim that this section states that the group's autonym should merely be considered as one factor among many equal factors, not as the primary factor. If the intent is to give primacy to the group's autonym, I suggest removing the first sentence of this section. 2TWarren (talk) 15:33, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Demonyms, or ethnonyms?
Current text of guidelines on titles of articles related to ethnic groups has some unresolved terminological issues:
 * it seems that current guidelines are recommending the use of demonyms (!) for naming articles on ethnic groups;
 * in current guidelines, there is no mention of ethnonyms, proper names of ethnic groups;
 * demonyms and ethnonyms are two quite distinctive onomastic categories, that should be used properly;
 * demonyms are not related to ethnic groups, and therefore not relevant for this topic;
 * additionally, current guidelines do not recognize distinction between ambiguous and polysemic terms.

These guidelines should be reviewed, and improved by adopting proper onomastic terminology, recommending the use of ethnonyms for naming articles on ethnic groups. It goes without saying that use of ethnonymic variants that are most common in English language, should be preferred and recommended. Sorabino (talk) 12:09, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Germans
It appears that there is an effort underway at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups to re-write Germans so that it is no longer about an ethnic group, and instead either about German citizens regardless of race or ethnicity, or about anyone and everyone who is German in some respect. This page should probably be updated to remove the link to this article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:11, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Indigenous
Recently another editor capitalized Indigenous in an article I watch, so I did some research. The best justification for this usage fits with the pattern "Adjectival with people(s)"; if Black people and White people are capitalized, so should Indigenous people, or Indigenous alone when referring to people. --WriterArtistDC (talk) 14:19, 1 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Disagree. Capitalisation rules in English do not distinguish "adjectival with people(s)". Instead, they distinguish proper nouns from common nouns. Indigenous, like many adjectives, can be used either as a proper noun, an ethnonym of sorts (e.g., "Mr X had an Indigenous ancestry", "a business owned by the Canadian Indigenous") or as a common noun meaning "person living in the place" as opposed to an immigrant (e.g., "peoples indigenous to Siberia", "relations between immigrant and indigenous populations", etc.). By the way, same applies to the term native: "he was an Apache Native" vs "tribes native to Canada".
 * I get it that the difference is subtle and some editors might not fully grasp it, instead considering capitalisation as a symbol of respect or an attempt of not offending someone by mistake (these are the times, eh). Still, the rules of English spelling are unambiguous: proper nouns = capitalisation, common nouns = no capitalisation (with a few historical exceptions like months, days of the week, I, etc.). — kashmīrī  TALK  11:00, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't believe it should be capitalised as a general term. If it's a proper noun it can be treated as a proper noun, otherwise no. Traumnovelle (talk) 05:32, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It's quite clear from previous discussions:   that there is no consensus for the current version, hence why it was changed by an admin. Traumnovelle (talk) 06:49, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I restore the numerous style guides that advice journalists and writers to capitalize Indigenous when writing about people, thus many sources used in articles about Native Americans/First Nations and other Indigenous peoples now follow those guidelines. oncamera  (talk page) 07:02, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia doesn't blindly follow other style guides. There are numerous style guides that simply don't mention this because it's not even something considered. Traumnovelle (talk) 07:04, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It doesn't say to "blindly follow other style guides". They are there for reference to editors who may want to learn more and have questions about how other editors in more professional environments than Wikipedia write their articles. oncamera  (talk page) 07:08, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Traumnovelle Admins have no powers over content. They were acting, as I am now, as simply another editor. Doug Weller  talk 10:56, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Here's what I contributed:

The disagreement is coming from non-Indigenous editors, and style guides are overwhelming moving toward capitalizing Indigenous when referring to people. Since this is a conversation about an English term, the sources are going to be overwhelmingly from Anglophone countries. Yuchitown (talk) 14:05, 11 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Classifying editors as non-indigenous is unhelpful at best and disruptive at worst. You don't know what background most editors have. Traumnovelle (talk) 21:36, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * How a group refers to themselves matters. But to the second point of those sentences: overwhelmingly international style guides capitalize Indigenous when referring to people. Yuchitown (talk) 14:43, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Naming conventions for tribal nations
I don't believe that these conventions adequately account for the cases of tribal nations within the borders of the United States (and maybe other places as well, but I don't know as much about those cases). Tribal nations are political institutions, and aren't necessarily the same thing as "tribes" considered as cultural or ethnic units. As it stands, Wikipedia usually already has separate articles for these (as there should be), such as Choctaw people and Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Often this is because multiple tribal nations can correspond to a single "tribe" or people.

Tribal nations also aren't necessarily the same thing as the reservations over which they have sovereignty. This is less regularly reflected in the existing structure of Wikipedia articles. Cherokee Nation covers both the political institution and the corresponding reservation, while Tohono Oʼodham Nation is a separate page from Tohono Oʼodham Indian Reservation. Again, this is in part because a single tribal nation can have more than one discrete reservation, or share a reservation with another nation.

As it stands, these conventions are unclear about how articles concerning tribal nations ought to be named, because it does not acknowledge that they are political institutions as well as/more so than ethnic groups. It also doesn't address the three-way distinction between people/tribe, (political) nation, and reservation, which should (and often already do) have separate articles in some cases. As a result, this conflation is sometimes reflected in the way that articles about Indigenous peoples and institutions are written and collated. At the very least, the ambiguity caused by a lack of explicit guidelines could lead to confusion, conflicts, or mistakes.

I think we should either devote a section on this page to naming conventions for tribal nations, or make a whole new page for it. I don't have strong opinions about which of these is preferable, or what exactly the conventions should look like. I'm interested to hear what other people think. Aquaticonions (talk) 17:35, 10 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you Yuchitown and CorbieVreccan for getting this started! These guidelines look way better now. Others feel free to deliberate and add on as you see fit; I mostly just wanted to get the discussion started. Aquaticonions (talk) 21:42, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Why do we use plural demonyms?
Most encyclopedias stick strictly to the singular form of demonyms except where unavoidable, and on Wikipedia too, pages generally stick strictly to the singular unless unavoidable, per WP:SINGULAR ... so why, specifically with respect to demonyms, does Wikipedia stray from both its own and external third-party encyclopedic precedents? Iskandar323 (talk) 18:52, 5 September 2023 (UTC)