Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/White race (history)

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Delete. If anyone wants it userfied they can contact me and I will review the request. kingboyk 03:27, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] White race (history)

Currently, this page is just a bunch of white-supremacist propaganda, but it seems unlikely that it could ever be made to fit a NPOV, as the concept of races is scientifically debated, and the term "White race" is extremely vague. Let those who are proud of their race contribute to the history articles of their favorite countries or figures. ThePedanticPrick 21:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete "The history of the white race is the story of the how civilization developed in the West...." *shudder* Personal essay and rather disturbing. CanadianCaesar The Republic Restored 21:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete Article name is probably not NPOV, and would serve as a magnet for this kind of garbage no matter what was put there. Thatcher131 21:23, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, beyond even the NPOV issues, the minimal content that exists is pseudo-science... not WP:V by a respected source.--Isotope23 21:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. WP:NPOV, WP:V. -- Krash (Talk) 21:50, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • COMMENT at the very least, this should be caucasoid history 132.205.45.110
  • Delete as inherently racist POV. Sandstein 22:16, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete Impossible to make NPOV. Pretty disturbing stuff. Chairman S. Talk 22:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete or merge to White (people). dbtfztalk 23:23, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete Already White (people), Caucasian race and Caucasoid, and the various civilizations have their own articles, so this is redundant. Schizombie 23:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Maybe I'm missing something, but I've read the article twice, and the only real problem I can find with this article is the title. "White Race" conjures up images of hate groups and genocide for me, but the information in the article isn't factually incorrect, as far as I know, and I'm a classicist who has taken two university courses on Indo-European linguistics, one at the graduate level. It is true that lingustic reconstruction, archaeological study, and, yes, even DNA studies (more popular in Europe) are done to further understand the Indo-European people. Ultimately, I don't think this is a useful article, because it is an attempt to unequivocally link the biology of all people with light skin color and European ancestry with ideas of Western Civilization. I don't agree, however, that it is "disturbing stuff." There are articles on this very deletion log that are many times worse, especially Unusual Sex Acts (see above), which is at best stuff made up in school one day, and at worst, a how-to manual on sexual torture and assault written by a group of sociopathic children. I've notified the original author of the article about this vote for deletion. If his talk page is any indication, ThePedanticPrick didn't tell him about this. I think hot coals of shame should be heaped upon anyone who nominates an article for deletion without making an honest effort to contact the author. Harry Bagatestes 00:20, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment Why can't a Prick and a Bagatestes just get along? Schizombie 01:03, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep Hey, hang on a moment. This is not actually an article, it is a stub, and no article links to it. I am the author, and have only spent a very short time exploring this topic as a possible article, and was curious how I could shape one up. All of this is very premature. I fail to see how one can judge an article before it is barely even started--it has a total of 6 sentences in it! I can see that none of the voters have given an indication that they have read the "rationale" for the proposed article that is on the talk page. This is not a "personal essay, nor is it garbage, nor is it racist." I am surprised, I must say at the depth of feeling it has engendered. Couldn't some of these thoughts have been put on the talk page first, so I had a chance to say what I hoped to do with it? And this many votes in the space of a few hours? How does that happen? I've created a number of articles for wikipedia with hardly any problems to speak of, and I believe I deserve, as a result, a little common courtesy. DonSiano 02:29, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
    • For the record, I don't think you're a racist. I just think the tone is wrong and the topic is fuzzy. Not everyone who thinks this is "disturbing" or cannot escape POV would necessarily think it reflects on you. CanadianCaesar The Republic Restored 02:46, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
    • I note your edit history and believe you're well-intentioned. That said, I hope you will take what I have to say here as equally sincere; feel free to check my own history before continuing. First, even if the article had no content whatsoever I believe the title alone would be controversial. There is, as far as I know, little consensus that such a thing as a "white race" exists. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but the article doesn't touch the question except for the title, which seems to imply that it does. That alone presents troubling NPOV concerns. Second, when "exploring [a] topic as a possible article," you might want to consider using a user sub-page, especially if the topic is potentially controversial. Third, writing about race for an encyclopedia is going to be controversial. That's not to say that you shouldn't touch the topic, but if it really surprises you that this is controversial you might want to read some of the other stuff that touches on this, particularly the talk pages and edit histories. Writing genuinely NPOV material on controversial topics is in my opinion a good thing but not for the faint of heart! If you'd like to turn this article into something encyclopedic, I'd strongly recommend you move it to a user sub-page for further work and seek peer review before going back into article space. --Craig Stuntz 03:52, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
      • Thanks for the comments. Well, I never thought of using a "sub-page" as a way to start an article, and in fact never saw this mentioned in any of the wiki articles aimed at new contributors either. Is this really a standard practice? I haven't seen any examples of handling controversy this way. But, as I say, I am comparatively new to this. Actually, I had hoped in starting the article that it might attract a good writer or two--it is too big a subject for me. I'll look into it. About the controversial nature, I must say I really am surprised. On the title question, there is already a long article on "The White Race" ( I worked on it a little) but it only covers the usage of the term, its history, and is mostly etymological (section headers use "the term". I read the article on "Caucasian" and it was much the same. They weren't very interesting. If there is an article "White Race," an article on "White Race (history)" looked reasonable to me.DonSiano 10:24, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Userfy for now per Craing Stuntz. DonSiano, this needs a new title before public unveiling, as "white race" is 1) just going to be a lightning rod for trouble and 2) there is no such "race" as "white", if you mean Caucasians or Indo-Europeans use that. The use of a work by Pat Buchanan as a reference in what is apparently intended to be a scientific (as opposed to a political) article is not a good sign, though. If writing an article about immigration controversies in the USA or whatever then Buchanan might be a perfectly valid source, but for a multi-millenium historical survey his credentials are, how to put this, weak. I'd advise you to check existing articles on the subject to see where yours fits in. Otherwise, good luck with the article, sorry about the piling on but as someone who's been in your position myself, recall that Wikipedia is made up of people, wherever there are people there is politics, and using the term "white race" is guaranteed to raise a ruckus, as you have learned the hard way. But don't let it get you down! I'm sure you'll be able to generate a good and encyclopedia article. Herostratus 05:12, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

    • The question of the existence of "race" in man is exhaustively gone into in the article on "Race" ( I worked on it a little), so there is not much need to repeat all of in the proposed article, though I had certainly planned at some point to acknowledge the controversy. If I get a chance...On the references, I think one can see from the few that I included that I had hoped to use only very recent ones, with scholarly articles predominating, and with an emphasis on genetics and migrations, which is mostly pretty new. Actually, I know very little about how this deletion thing works--I put one up for deletion before (a duplicate article) but never really followed how it works. I guess I'm about to learn...DonSiano 10:24, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

On the NPOV issue, which I haven't adressed in my comments, I sincerely believe in it for wikipedia, and I believe one can be written on the topic under discussion, with some considerable amount of work. I really don't see where the problem is in what is there now. Each of the six sentences are not only neutral and true, they have references. Actually, it may be that the POV issue is actually some sort of reaction from people who have rather extreme views on the race issue. I note that ThePedanticPrick (does wikipedia permit obscene user names?!) recently modified the article on White Race on Mar 3. to include a picture. His nomination of my nascent article for deletion should be seen in this light. I (DonSiano 11:33, 4 March 2006 (UTC)) show this picture in its context here:

While you're pointing out my posting of pictures, you should mention to everyone that you keep insisting on using a painting of Venus by Botticelli to represent white people. I think your alleged good faith and commitment to NPOV should be seen in this light. ThePedanticPrick 16:22, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
For other uses, see White (disambiguation).

White (collection: White people or White race) is a term used as a form of ethnic or racial classification of people. Though literally implying light-skinned, "White" has been used in different ways at different times and places. Like other common words for the human races, it is somewhat fuzzy.

I've removed the gross image; it is available via the page history. Sandstein 12:04, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
And I am restoring the image here, with its context, so that the admin can easily see the point I (DonSiano 07:37, 8 March 2006 (UTC)) was making.
For other uses, see White (disambiguation).

White (collection: White people or White race) is a term used as a form of ethnic or racial classification of people. Though literally implying light-skinned, "White" has been used in different ways at different times and places. Like other common words for the human races, it is somewhat fuzzy.

Image:Nordish03.jpg
A white american male
I did indeed suggest using a picture of the painting by Boticelli to illustrate the article on White Race and I still think it is not a bad suggestion, contrary to the opinion of Pedantic Prick, nor was I the only one to revert to it either. I am proud of my work on this article and think my efforts improved it considerably--essentially none of it was reverted. PedanticPrick's suggested picture was reverted almost at once.

Userfy Don, the user space is a great way to work on complicated articles, whether they are controversial or not. Once an article is in the main space, it gets picked up but mirror sites and other search engines that search wikipedia. If you get distracted or something comes up and don't finish it right away, your half-finished article is perpetuated everywhere (like one of mine; I didn't know about the user space at the time and I need to get back and finish it pdq). Regarding the specific content, I have concerns such as have been expressed elsewhere. It's hard to write a good article; its especially hard to write a good article about a controversial topic. Good luck. Thatcher131 02:59, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

  • Delete, but give DonSiano a chance to Userfy it before it goes. Jayjg (talk) 19:16, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Jayig's suggestion (and the others that back Userfy) amounts to one that I do a lot of work on the article before it is tossed in the trash! That is not fair--I need help with this, and I'll not get it if it is Userfied. Other controversial articles are not developed this way.
I would further note the article by Nicholas Wade on my first ref in the NYT yesterday showed that the NYT is not afraid to publish an article reporting that the genes that differ in the three populations (=races) White, Asian and African, have evolved recently. The very idea that wikipedia is so PC that it would not allow an article on White Race (history) beause it, in its very concept, is not NPOV, is abhorrent, if not laughable.DonSiano 07:37, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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