Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Template

Moved from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ethnic_Groups

 * Should contain a link to Ethnicity in the opening paragraph
 * Need to work out how we will deal with extinct groups and those whose identity is disputed
 * History
 * Origins of ethnic group and/or origins of its identity
 * Targeting in ethnic persecution
 * Population and Geographic distribution
 * Population history (i.e. change in numbers, geographic distribution; for many groups, the changes can be very dramatic)
 * Percentage of the population of different countries
 * Geographic history (e.g. migrations)
 * Countries, para-states, ethnic political parties, ethnically based liberation movements, etc.
 * Linguistic variability
 * Religious distribution
 * Sub-groups (and, vice versa, super-groups). We probably want to look into some anthropological hierarchy of ethnic groups
 * Cultural description, where this can't just be referred to an article on a geographic entity
 * Should include a discussion of kinship groups and the need for coalitions for survival [ + added by 169.207.89.188 11:52, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)]
 * Could include statement of the protecting agency, because minority groups are sometimes wiped out during times of ethnic cleansing. For example, the protection of Moslems and Jews during the Mongol rule over China; the Mongols were the protecting agency. [ + added by 169.207.89.188 11:52, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)]
 * As another example, the Civil Rights act is the protecting agency for ethnic minorities in the U.S.; however, the Human Rights declarations of the UN form no protections at the current time. Thus a statement of ethnicity (on Wikipedia, for example) could be a death warrant in the wrong place at the wrong time. [ + added by 169.207.89.188 11:52, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)]

Moved from article to talk page 16 Jan 04
==OTHER IDEAS, NOT YET ABSORBED INTO TEMPLATE==

*kinship groups and the need for coalitions for survival

Further Discussion
I've just added the section ==Applicability of the term "ethnic group" to GROUP== to the template. This is, for example, where one would discuss (often very controversial) issues like:


 * claims by Israelis and some others that the Palestinians are not properly an ethnic group.
 * status of a mixed-ancestry group of Native Americans not recognized as a "tribe" by the US government, but considering themselves in those terms.
 * whether the Chinese, taken as a group, have enough in common to constitute an ethnic group and, if so, which people who are Chinese by nationality might not be considered Chinese by ethnicity. (Consider, as interesting cases in the Chinese context, Tibetans, Chinese Moslems, Huks, Northern vs. Southern Chinese generally, Manchurians.)

I know I'm stirring up a hornets' nest here, but the fact is that we do have to talk about all of these issues somewhere in an encyclopedia, and the issue at hand is how? Right now, I may be featuring this section too prominently in the template article, but I'm trying to spark discussion here in the talk page as to how we intend to talk about these things in the Wikipedia. -- Jmabel 07:56, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

"Important" and POV
In the template,
 * and <"Sibling" groups>

aren't they duplicate and potential source of POV (as to importance)?Mikkalai 19:14, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

We're always having to decide what is important enough to merit mention. Truly always. The reason I wrote it this way was to indicate the lack of need to be exhaustive, just what's relevant. For example, we don't need to list every known Slav ethnic group in every article on a Slav ethnic group. Do you have a better wording to suggest? I'm open. -- Jmabel 22:17, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * The main issue is duplication. Your answer is applicable to both sections, and hence doesn't answer my question. (May be my poor command of English prevents me from seeing the difference between "subgroup" and "sibling group".) Mikkalai 22:24, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Maybe. Lets take the Jews as an example; it's the example I give at WikiProject_Ethnic_Groups. The Asheknazim and Sephardim are each a subgroup of the Jews. The Ashkenazim and Sephardim are each other's sibling groups. American Jews is a subgroup of the Jews along a different axis, geographic rather than cultural. They can be either Ashkenazaic or Sephardic, although the majority are Ashkenazi Jews. Does that make it clearer?

The section "Applicability of the term 'ethnic group' to GROUP"
Now that I've tried using this a few times, I've made some minor revisions to better match what seems to be the texture of the material I'm encountering. I'm finding that the most problematic section is the one we are currently calling "Applicability of the term 'ethnic group' to GROUP". (1) That's probably not a good name for it, especially because it is often the case that we are proposing to use this template for things that are only loosely "ethnic groups": tribes, nations (but not states), etc. (2) I'm wondering if the placement so near the top of the article is appropriate.

Any thoughts or suggestions? -- Jmabel 04:23, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Also, I can't see any one systematic way to handle "related groups". There is no generally accepted hierarchy of ethnic designations, and I guess we should mostly be happy about that. I've amended the template to just make some suggestions here and leave the subject generally open. I could imagine a subproject (say, the First Nations of North America) being able to refine this, but I don't think it can be done across ethnic groups in general.

Any thoughts or suggestions? -- Jmabel 04:23, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Since no one else chimed in, I'm demoting "Applicability of the term 'ethnic group' to " to go under "Classification". I think this will work better. I already loosened up the approach to "Related ethnic groups". -- Jmabel 01:50, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Sorry to come so late to the party, but I do have some thoughts on this section: 1) I think that much of the information, e.g in the Cajun or Basque templated articles, is information on "acculturation" or "assimilation" and could be better placed in the "geography" section. 2) I think that this section should be handled very flexibly due to the different nature of the information.  If there's nothing to discuss, it could just be dropped.  For example, the information on differentiation between Cajuns and others in Louisiana could be moved to the geography section.  A small discussion could be combined with the paragraph about "ethnicity, tribe, or nation".  For example, the sentence in the templated Armenian article would be well-placed in that paragraph.  Finally, if there's a large discussion, like at Palestinian, it could have it's own heading, which might be adjusted to fit the article.


 * I know this makes the template harder to apply on a mass scale, but when I read, say, the templated Cajun article, I find the template to be getting a bit in the way. Just my 2 cents, DanKeshet 18:39, Feb 12, 2004 (UTC)

re: "issues of persecution"
I really don't like the "issues of persecution" section (not just the wording, the existence of the section). If the persecution is historic, it belongs in the history. If you look at articles like the templated Cajun and templated Pequot examples, the information in "persecution" is simply redundant from the info in "history". In other cases, the information should probably be handled on a country-by-country basis (in the country-by-country sections), and should include more than just persecution: for example, many ethnic groups have autonomy within a state structure that includes other ethnic groups and are not necessarily persecuted. This too deserves to be noted.

I think that the existence of this section in the template contributes to a broad POV of ethnic groups as "things that are persecuted", which is only one way of looking at things. DanKeshet 20:17, Feb 10, 2004 (UTC)


 * Dan, I don't necessarily disagree with you. There are 2 reasons this is currently there. (1) We're trying to accommodate the concerns raised by User:169.207.89.188 (see above). (2) This is a pretty frequent theme in the existing articles about ethnic groups. But maybe it would help to broaden it? Focus on "status" rather than "persecution"? Do you have any specific suggestions? Maybe suggest here possible substitute text for part of the template? If you don't, that's OK, I seem to be spearheading this project & I'll try to flesh out your idea, but of course it is usually simplest if the person with the idea can suggest how to flesh it out. -- Jmabel 23:22, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't really understand the concerns of the anonymous user above. Is "protecting agency" a jargon term that I'm not familiar with?  As to how I would change the template, I would add optional guidelines for additional information in the "COUNTRY" sections within geography, including:


 * formal status: e.g. in the United States, some Native American tribes are officially "recognized" by the government. In many other countries, there are set-aside parliamentary seats, recognized 'minority languages', etc.
 * levels of assimilation/acculturation (e.g. what is the predominant language among the ethnic group in that country)
 * formal and informal restrictions on ethnic culture/language in that country (e.g. laws against Kurdish-langague broadcasts in Turkey, laws against wearing the hijab in France, Germany)
 * formal and informal institutions of oppression in that country (e.g. chattel slavery with african-americans in the United states)


 * Note that we already have some pages like History of the Jews in the Soviet Union that can be linked to from these sections. DanKeshet


 * I think this is great. I'm going to take a slightly modified version of what you wrote into the template. -- Jmabel 06:46, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * I think your version is an improvement on mine. It's probably obvious, but one more optional guideline I didn't think of yesterday: any movements for seperatism, autonomy, self-rule, irredentism, etc in that country should definitely be included. DanKeshet 20:08, Feb 11, 2004 (UTC)
 * Good thought. Added. -- Jmabel 01:38, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Ready for prime time?
IMNSHO, we are about ready for prime time. My only concern is that, so far, I've written all the sample articles. I wouldn't mind too much if I find myself being the one who goes slowly through existing articles applying this, but I really think we will learn something the first time someone other than me tries to use this. Oh, well, we may learn it in a "live" context.

Thanks to lots of you for help & suggestions. I certainly could not have brought this so far alone. -- Jmabel 02:22, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Religion
I suggest adding Religion to the template, just below Language. The reason is of course that religion, along with language, is often one of the main characteristics (sometimes even a defining one) of an ethnic group. --Kpalion 09:24, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Seems like a good idea. Does someone want to follow up on this (in the standards document and in the places where the infobox or template used?) -- Jmabel 16:23, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC) Done -- Jmabel 09:57, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Color scheme
In my opinion, the current color scheme clashes and is kind of unappealing. Here are some fast ideas for better better color schemes just to toss out there. ☞spencer195 18:10, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Any of these would be reasonable. I prefer the middle one: I don't think the white background sets off the table as clearly. -- Jmabel 18:45, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)

I'll wait to get some more opinions and then I'll change it. Is there a template somewhere that contains the code for the table? ☞spencer195 19:11, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No template, but any changes we make here should be reflected at Infobox. Also, we should probably archive the old version of the table, & explain that it is obsolecent, but that (presumably) there is no specific plan to go through and systematically change existing pages. If you like, I'll take care of the archiving. -- Jmabel 22:35, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)


 * I like the middle one best, too, but I'd be tempted to try and adjust the black-on-brown in the title bar -- could the colour of the letters be changed to white, yellow, orange, or some weird and wonderful letter-code to get the contrast up? Otherwise it is kind of hard to make out. Samples below. –Hajor 13:39, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * 1) Can I assume that you see this as an issue only for the heading?
 * 2) How about one of:

I'm not totally happy with any of these, though still open to suggestions. -- Jmabel 20:26, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)


 * You're right -- the heading's the only thing I don't like about the middle one of spencer195's three proposals (where the three background colours harmonise particularly attractively). Of the six current options for "ink" in the header, I'd prefer the high-contrast of the yellow over your three, but maybe my eyesight is getting poorer or I need a new monitor. There are still a lot of colours we haven't tried... Disclaimer: I'm not involved with the Ethnic Groups articles, so my comments should be seen as those of an outsider (which I assume is what you were after with your posting on the VP). –Hajor 21:18, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * The suggestion has been made -- and I think it's reasonable -- that whatever color scheme we adopt, we also allow all-white background, especially for articles where the chart is big. This is what they've now done at Jew, and I think it looks better there. Unless anyone objects in the next 24 hours, I will add that as an alternative in the template. -- Jmabel 16:41, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)


 * I've switched from black to the same color as the one in the left column. We'll see how it goes. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; 19:42, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Over at Talk:Greeks we've just been alerted to this page. The colour scheme isn't much liked there, and we were discussing a proposed version: It's based, of course, on the colours of the Greek flag, though I don't think that's too overwhelming (or objectionable to Cypriot Greeks, et al.). Would this be found objectionable here? Mel Etitis ( &Mu;&epsilon;&lambda; &Epsilon;&tau;&eta;&tau;&eta;&sigmaf; ) 17:04, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
 * We've had so many issues over the color scheme that maybe we should just drop having a strong recommendation on color scheme. Each thing we've tried, someone has seemed not to like. I was hoping a year or so ago that we could just settle on something so people would focus on writing articles rather than on picking colors, but I can see that the result is just to keep revisiting the discussion about how that uniform table should look instead of arguing it in each article individually. I'm about to let go of the issue, except to oppose some of the garish ideas that periodically crop up, that want to use half a dozen wildly various colors in a single table. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:08, May 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * The present layout of the table is compatible with three principal colors (Header, Left Column, Right column). The last of these should be fairly light, since it underlies data; but why not have these three be the national colors (+white if necessary)? There would have to be a default for those cases where national colors are themselves controversial or non-existent; but I prefer any of Spencer195's suggestion above to the one on the project page. Septentrionalis 19:13, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Fine by me. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:51, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

The brownish table currently used is really bad, it adds way too much contrast to the rest of the page and the text within it is much less readable, too. The second and third top example by spencer195 would be much more reasonable, and the background color of the heading could also be less dark. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; 11:27, 24 May 2005 (UTC) Seeing how no one actually expressed any disagreement with the middle option, I'm going to be bold and change the template. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; 11:27, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

An anonymous user has contributed Template:Infobox ethnic group and used it at Koreans. It has a different color scheme. A minor glitch is that the parameter names differ between that and Template:Ethnic group, so a merge would need more work. We better synchronise that. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; 11:00, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

bold numbers
I don't think all the numbers in the taxobox should be bolded. It places an unnecessary emphasis on them – granted, the number of people is relevant, but it's not really something that needs to stand out that much. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;   19:23, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Category?
For languages, we have categories like Category:Languages of Kenya. Is there an equivalent category for ethnic groups? Something like Category:Ethnic groups of Kenya or Category:Peoples of Kenya? I've been searching some time but I haven't been able to find anything. &mdash; mark &#9998; 22:51, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I made it. The first one, that is. &mdash; mark &#9998; 22:41, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

New infobox
The new infobox format is very hard to read. The lines between sections are necessary to make it legible. Can we change it back? Amcaja 22:50, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm not familiar with any recent change to the Infobox. I must have missed something. Can you please indicate the page and section where the problem is? -- Jmabel | Talk 03:46, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
 * Sure. Go to Duala peoples or Zulu and look at the infobox there; I believe these articles use the current version. There are no lines separating sections. Ed g2s claims this is the "consensus" standard way to to infoboxes nowadays, and it looks nice, but only if it's legible. Amcaja 11:42, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Template:Infobox ethnic group was formatted differently from Template:Ethnic group (it looked much more like other infoboxes on Wikipedia), but it was replaced and redirected to the latter, and the latter was changed to have some bland generic design. I've reverted the last change until further discussion here. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;   22:28, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
 * User:Ed g2s reverted you back. If this is some new wiki standard, I think it looks good, and I approve. However, Ed g2s or someone else needs to add horizontal rules between each element in the template to make it readable. I tried to do so myself, but I can't figure it out. Amcaja 23:58, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Again, I sure don't remember having a discussion about changing this. Or did someone just do it unilaterally? Yes, without the lines it is very hard to read. This needs to be fixed. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:00, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

New Irish infobox
--Revolución 21:53, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

ISO codes
I would suggest adding the ISO 3-letter codes for languages to each ethnic group, plus a link to the Ethnologue (www.ethnologue.com) where more information about each language can be found TeamKayan 02:10, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * There are no ISO codes for ethnic groups. Language is only one of several markers for ethnicity. - Jmabel | Talk 16:34, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Classification section
Would anyone here object to the classification section being moved to the first section of the article following the introduction. As stated not all articles will need the classification section, but i think its important those that have a need for one present it at the start of the article rather than the end. Thanks BritishWatcher (talk) 20:48, 6 September 2009 (UTC)