Talk:List of Israelis

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List of Israelis

1 Vaanunu
2 Infamous?
3 Criteria for inclusion?
4 Listed?

[edit] Vaanunu

I reckon the dude belongs to the "criminals" section. He broke the Israeli law and paid time in prision for it. Spikeballs 12:44, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

And the guy is not a scientist. He was a technician. I had no idea this was such a charged topic. Maybe we should make a new category for him: Political Prisoners. I'm removing him from the scientists category in the mean time - but I'll leave him under political activists. Spikeballs 21:34, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

Nobody's replying so I'm moving him to the criminal category. If you disagree, don't just edit it (to avoid edit wars). Please consult here first. Spikeballs 19:37, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

And again. Don't start an edit war please. Spikeballs 12:02, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Infamous?

The "Infamous" category is non-neutral in essense. Unless somebody objects, I'll rename this category to "Other." Maybe even put those categorized there under "Activists."

You are right! I believe these can definately be categorized as criminals, probably also as terrorists. In order not to make this category too narrow (the other categories aren't either), I have opted for the former definition. gidonb 19:02, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria for inclusion?

Recent edits have shown that there is no clear consensus as to who should be listed here as opposed to any of the sublists or sister articles (ie, Culture of Israel, List of Israeli politicians etc.) I suggest that we work these out, as opposed to reverting back and forth. One thing to keep in mind is that most of these articles have evolved independently, so that one might expect redundancy on the one hand and inconsistency in naming and other conventions on the other.

Here's what I suggest:

1.a. All the sublists should be merged into a single inclusive list, divided by subsections. The advantage of this would be to have a single, searchable document. More prominent individuals would be described (as opposed to listed) on relevant sister pages, such as Israeli literature, Israeli film etc.

b.(the model I'm assuming Juko would suggest) List of Israelis should contain only certain prominent or particularly representative individuals, with links leading off to more inclusive/comprehensive sublists.

2. In either case, I suggest that articles that do not contain "list" in the title, should not consist of lists, but rather of general descriptive paragraphs with links to relevant existing lists. Hence, the place to list an anonymous film maker would be List of Israeli filmmakers as opposed to Israeli Film. Culture of Israel is NOT the proper place to list all Israelis.

I believe we should choose one of these models, and coordinate our editing efforts as opposed to working against each other. Plus, we should either make the lists inclusive, or lay down some actual guidlines for a more exclusive list. For instance, I personally don't feel that being born in Israel or having an Israeli parent is enough to qualify one as an Israeli artist - let alone a PROMINENT Israeli artist - if the entire of your creative work has been done outside of Israel (see Natalie Portman, Sacha Baron Cohen, Shiri Appleby, etc.) --Woggly 12:47, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

First, sorry to Woggly and 82.166.133.142. I think I probably got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning, which might explain (but not justify) the snappy reverts. You are correct in noting that the current situation is unclear and in suggesting that some consensus should be reached.

You are also correct in guessing that I would personally favour option 1b. As far as I can see, there are four ways of marking out nationality: in categories, in a general list, in specialized sublists, and in longer discursive articles. The last, in my opinion, is best (see comment later), but the first three all have their advantages:

Categories: for quick unannotated access to people with writeups on Wikipedia.
Main list: for an overview of key/representative individuals (mainly those with, or deserving of, a writeup) without the background noise of less prominent figures.
Specialized sublists: for comprehensive searchable references.

My fear is that merging everything into one list would reduce the usefulness of that list for simple browsing.

Regarding your other points, I agree completely about Culture of Israel, etc. Unfortunately, it is much easier to make lists than write encyclopedic entries, which probably explains the current situation. (~~Furthermore, he.wikipedia.org doesn't seem to have a תרבות בישראל article yet that can be translated.~~ Oops, browser failed to render ישראל article properly.)

Regarding Natalie Portman, etc., again you're probably right, though I suppose it depends on whether you view 'Israeli' as possessing some cultural identity beyond nationality. This is definitely true for strongly diasporic identities like Lebanese or Irish (hence it is not ridiculous to identify the Mexican Salma Hayek as half-Lebanese). How true it is for Israeliness is another question.

— Juko 15:13, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry I don't have time now for a longer answer, but there actually is an article called תרבות ישראלית on the Hebrew wikipedia, which I believe was the origin for "Culture of Israel". But the Hebrew version wasn't much better, last time I looked at it. --Woggly 17:11, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Okay. Unless anyone else joins this discussion and raises an objection, I'm going to treat 1.b. as policy. But I still forsee problems deciding who is "Internationally Prominent". "Besame Mucho" directed by Joseph Pidchadze, was probably one of the important Israeli feature films of the year 2000, and "Shnat Effes" looks pretty serious - but this is apparantly not enough to make him "Internationally prominent"? Personally, I wouldn't want to add "Malka" Mayron, Omri Katz or Mayim Bialik - who all had Israeli parents - just because Americans have probably heard of Thirtysomething, Dallas and Blossom; but I do feel that Keren Mor and Moni Moshonov, deserve a place, even though most Americans have never seen anything they've been in. "Internationally prominent" is a prolematic criterion. --Woggly 20:34, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

How about just "prominent" then, allowing people to use whatever criteria seem relevant for the particular field? There will still be no 'right' answer, but that's inevitable for this type of list. (Regarding the not-really-Israeli people such as Bialik or Baron Cohen, they could be removed, or even put in a separate section.) Juko 00:07, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)