Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Draft guidelines for indigenous content

tribe/people/band/peoples/nation vs [nil]
This discussion Talk:Kalispel_tribe brought to mind one of the old talking-points of the "old consensus"...that because the context and terminology varied from band to band and people to people, there was no consistency possible and also because of "tribe" having a specific meaning in the US, and "band" the same in Canada, that in the articles that were not governments for a given people, it was best just to have the standalone endonym wherever possible...no matter how rare or relatively unknown (to most people the Nuxalk are every bit as obscure as their "former" name Bella Coola (which is also an exonym, which is another reason such terms were "not desirable"). Another point that more than a few people raised was the redundancy of "people" and the likelihood of a "FOO people" namespace collision, as I understand that term now, and also as in this case and Squamish and various others there is another primary usage...so rather than dealing with the POV-loaded usage lower case-n "nation" instead of "people" and NB in many cases it's peopleS and all the other copmlications, the simplest path was taken.....until tied in knots by people ignoring all this and applying one guideline without considering all and, more importantly, not really knowing or caring about the subject matter. These are just notes towards defining this parameter; the why and hwerefor of NOT using such dabs/modifiers wherever possible; as is also the cae in most of the categories now. NB for many things where separate category hierarchies exist I make the applicable redirect in the reserves/reservations category..maybe the way to deal with the "ethnicity" articles is when there's no separate people article to speak of, the category goes son the redirect, as I've done with the "Indian reserves in FOO" categories where FOO=Canadian province. Main point here is that the usage issue at the Kalispell one is a good case in point where "Kalispel tribe" according to the capital-T-become-small-case rule is not viable, and in that case there is no separate Kalispel Tribe separate from the Confederated Tribes of the Flathead and Salish. Similarly in the US there's often little distinction between a government and a reservation article, it makes most sense to use redirects in those cases. But how to deal with "the people title" for Kalispel is tricky and really can only be solved, unless someone comes up with something better, with "FOO people"....and as suggested by someone in the RMs there IS no hard-and-fast rule that the category titles MUST be identical with the main articles....that's insane when articles change names so much, all too often, and means that common sense gets outvoted by people wiki-lawyering over conflicting guidelines and using google, of all thigns, to decide language.....Skookum1 (talk) 16:45, 29 July 2013 (UTC)


 * It's Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation AND the Flathead Indian Reservation, by the way. FWIW.  Montanabw (talk) 19:04, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * There is Kalispel Indian Community of the Kalispel Reservation. Every ethnic group should have an article, and every recognized tribe/band should have an article. Personally, I combine Indian reservations and tribal government articles, since they are the same people/land/government but leave them alone if they are pre-existing. -Uyvsdi (talk) 21:10, 30 July 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * Largely works stateside, but not in Canada, where many reserves are not communities, and some bands are multi-people and so on; Colville's like that of course, even though it's only on reservation. What I've been doing sometimes is putting the relevant category on the redirect rather than on the tribe/reservation target article, when applicable.Skookum1 (talk) 04:59, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I see no problem having separate articles on the overall ethnic people and multiple governmental entities where they exist. Great example is the Lakota people, where we have separate articles (I think) for the seven sub-groups plus they have a bunch of different reservations, .e.g. Rosebud Indian Reservation, Pine Ridge Reservation, Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Standing Rock Reservation, etc... (same for the Cherokee people). Merge might be logical for very small tribes/nations/entities, with split off later, but for the majors, multiple articles pose no concerns from my end. (And FWIW, Kalispel and Pend 'o reille tribes also on CSKT, name notwithstanding)  Montanabw (talk) 17:30, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * That's the way almost every US tribe already is (one article for ethnic group, individual articles for each recognized group). The only time they are combined is where there is only one recognized tribe for an ethnic group—Quapaw, Osage, Plains Apache, etc (or I haven't written the article for the individual recognized tribe yet, but I'm in the home stretch!). Regarding CSKT, that's why I made the separate article for the Kalispel Indian Community. I'll flesh out/clean up the Kalispel people article, once I can make the move. Regarding Skookum1's comment about multiple ethnic groups on reserves/reservations, that's the way many, if not most, US reservations are as well, especially in California, but they correspond to the federally recognized tribes that also contain the multiple ethnic groups. Cheers, -Uyvsdi (talk) 19:04, 31 July 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * Montana is kind of weird that way in that we have several reservations that combine tribal groups, but then tribal groups are also found on multiple reservations - but I guess that's also true in neighboring states, the Shoshone are on Wind River with the Arapaho in Wyoming (and traditional enemies, to boot) and also have another reservation in Idaho. Yet the Sioux are scattered... it's a mess, really.   Montanabw (talk) 23:42, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * That's all over the Western US... and Brazil too, for that matter. -Uyvsdi (talk) 01:58, 1 August 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi

It's common in many parts of Canada for the reserve, or group of reserves, to be identified by the band-goverment name; it's one of the vagaries of the "First Nation" usage in all its possible meanings, it's often used as if that were a term for a place. An example would be Attawapiskat.....but places like Six Nations 40 or Glebe Farm have numerous bands on them and numerous peoples. In Newfoundland there are no IRs at all, not sure how Miauwpukek is governed (Conne River)....there are reserves in Labrador but not many; none at all in Yukon, or no Tlinkit (Cdn spelling) ones either. all Nova Scotia reserves are Mi'kmaq, so separate articles for each band population as if they were separate peoples doesn't work either. It's not like band=reserve/reservation=community=people, things just aren't that separate and case-by-case differences are across the board.Skookum1 (talk) 04:42, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the point we all agree on is ethnic groups≠reserve/reservation. -Uyvsdi (talk) 04:50, 1 August 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * Yup. We're just sort of chewing the fat, no argument at all. Do we have a "drahmahz" somewhere that actually needs some WP:INDIGENOUS involvement beyond the usual and endless category fights? (Will help where it counts, but rather weary of all the current stuff.)  Montanabw (talk) 17:12, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll go back over hte RMs and assemble the citations and particular principles used that helped win them, e.g. the essay from the former federal Translation Bureau person, Lili Charlie's comment about "strong national sentiment" and more......I'll make a section for them on this page for easy reference next time we're faced with some "dramahz" and terminology-challenges.Skookum1 (talk) 05:37, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Re the category fights and RMs/speedies and more, this is why the guidelines are needed; and I've realized this whole section/discussion should be on the talkpage here, I'll more it all in a sec, this particular page would be for guideline-statements...it's good that we all see eye to eye on this, thing is getting others to realize the contexts and not throw conflicting guidelines out as potshot-decision making, i.e. overriding indigenous-article guidelines are needed to override the mis-application of too many guidelines/"rules" without reference to indigenous realities. One of the points of WP:INDIGENOUS involvement is to make a native-friendly Wiki-realm where native contributors feel welcome and not confronted with the chauvinism, blind or otherwise, that's surfaced so often in RMs/CfDs and more.Skookum1 (talk) 05:32, 2 August 2013 (UTC)