Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups

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WikiProject Ethnic Groups is a project to coordinate among articles about ethnic groups and other closely related topics. This project, founded in January 2004, has produced an optional article template and infobox to be used for articles about ethnic groups and other similar entities. It also provides an opportunity for interested contributors to assess any article in the WikiProject, following the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team's assessment system. A concise overview of the articles associated with this Wikiproject can be found in the Ethnic groups articles by quality assessment table.

A few Wikipedians have gotten together to make some suggestions about how we might organize data in articles about ethnic groups. These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the below guidelines may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!

Contents 1 Motivation 2 Scope 3 Parentage 4 Descendant Wikiprojects 5 Similar Wikiprojects 6 Participants 7 Structure 8 Hierarchy Definition 9 Article naming 10 Categories and subcategories 11 General Strategy and Discussion forum 12 Templates 13 Partial list of pages covered by the project 13.1 New classification 13.2 Ethnic groups article statistics 13.3 Individual nationalities, ethnic groups, etc. 13.4 Ancillary articles 14 Open Tasks 14.1 Stubs

[edit] Motivation

First, let's start with what this project is not:

• There is no intention of identifying all individuals by ethnic group or even of increasing the number of ethnic/national identifications in Wikipedia.

Let's be clear: ethnicity is a minefield. However, that is all the more reason to have clear and consistent criteria for talking about it when we talk about it.

When this project was founded, Wikipedia had relatively few articles on ethnicities; in particular, discussion of many of the world's most prominent ethnic groups was wholly subsumed into the discussion of a nation-state or a region. That has now largely changed: it is pretty safe to say that Wikipedia no longer commonly confuses Romanian (person from Romania) with Romanian (person of Romanian ethnicity). It is now routine in Wikipedia to describe (continuing with this example) a "Romanian national of Hungarian ethnicity without linking to the arguably irrelevant article about the nation-state of Hungary (or similarly, to refer to a Hungarian national of Romanian ethnicity without linking to the article about Romania). Similarly, we do not treat the Transylvanian Saxons as misplaced nationals of Germany.

When this project started in January 2004, we noted that different ethnicities were very differently handled. This still remains somewhat the case. For example, most Native American ethnicities are dealt with mainly from a historical and anthropological point of view, whereas other groups such as the Overseas Chinese are dealt with from a contemporary political point of view. As of October 2006, this has undoubtedly improved somewhat, partly through the efforts of this project in providing an article template and, especially, an an appropriate infobox for these articles, which serves as a reminder that (for example) Native American groups are still present in the world today and (conversely) European ethnic groups also have anthropologically significant sub-ethnicities.

As remarked above, this area is a minefield. Ethnic groups have only slightly more epistemological validity than races, and the concept is possibly even more subject to hijacking by extreme nationalists than the concept of a nation itself. Nonetheless, it crops up constantly and we need guidelines for dealing with it.

In addition to the articles on individual ethnicities, this project also relates, in various degrees, to certain ancillary articles which describe concepts that are necessary in order to discuss ethnicities.

Also, almost every biography of a person who is not of the majority ethnicity of the country they are from already notes ethnicity. This project is a place where we can discuss such matters in a context that is not tied to work on one particular ethnicity, and try to reach some consensus by which different ethnicities will be treated in a parallel manner.

[edit] Scope

This WikiProject aims primarily to provide guidelines for articles about ethnic groups and nationalities independent of writing about nation-states. The motivation for this came in writing about Eastern Europe, but it should relevant to any other parts of the world.

This project construes the term "ethnic group" in its broadest sense. There may be identifiable ethnic (sub)-groups within an ethnic group (such as the Ashkenazi within the Jews). Any article templates, infoboxes, etc. we adopt must allow for a way to talk about that. Often, ethnicities border on being nationalities, such as the native "First Nations" of the Americas, or are heavily identified with a particular nation, such as the Ethnic Germans.

The scope of the project also extends to such Ancillary articles as Ethnic group or Self-determination. In those cases we do not so much expect to provide guidelines as simply to provide the informed input of a group of people who have been significantly involved in writing in Wikipedia about ethnicity.

As of October 2006, we are embarking on a somewhat ambitious effort to evaluate existing articles within the scope of this project and to add an appropriate template to their respective talk pages.

[edit] Parentage

No parent of this WikiProject has been defined.

[edit] Descendant Wikiprojects

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Pashtun

[edit] Similar Wikiprojects

The similar WikiProjects are WikiProject Clans of Scotland and WikiProject Languages.

[edit] Participants

See /Members.

[edit] Structure

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups Template for a prototypical structure of an article about an ethnic group.

[edit] Hierarchy Definition

No classification of ethnic groups has been defined. However, the notion of hierarchy is potentially relevant, probably yielding a directed acyclic graph, but probably not a simple tree. For example consider:

           Semitic peoples
                  |
                Jews
                 / \
                /   \
               /     \
              v       v
        Ashkenazim   Sephardim
               \     /
                \   /   
                 \ /
                  v  
           Jewish Americans

Also, there may be a need to consider a (necessarily controversial) designations such as nation, subnational group, etc. Mostly, this looks like an issue to postpone for now, and to discuss at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic Groups. However, it is probably relevant to discuss for an ethnic group to what extent it is defined by ancestry, heritage, and geography. For example, an Afro-Brazilian is defined by African heritage, typically by descending from slaves (the word would be unlikely to be used for a 21st century person whose parents had come from Ethiopia, or for a transplanted family of white South Africans), and by Brazilian birth or by one's family having lived several generations in Brazil.

Again, these are just preliminary notes on a subject we have not yet really engaged, and should probably be refined in the talk page before trying to work out any standard approach. For now, there is no standard.

[edit] Article naming

As of January 2006, there is no strong consensus on naming of articles about ethnic groups. In the following table the pattern is based on an imaginary Elbonian ethnicity.

Pattern Examples Elbonians American Jews, Romanians, Rusyns, Serbs, Taiwanese aborigines Elbonian people Basque people, Korean people, Kurdish people Elbonian¹ African American, Iyer, Jew Ethnic Elbonians Ethnic Germans Elbonians (ethnic group) Macedonians (ethnic group) (other) Asians_in_South_Africa The Youtai do not have an article of their own but are covered at History of the Jews in China. ¹ Since an ethnic group is group of people, a designation in the plural is probably the least ambiguous article title. [edit] Categories and subcategories There are currently two norms that generally apply in using categories. The Wikipedia:Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality policy says that racial/ethnic subcategories (for example, by occupation) should only be created if the topic has already been established as academically or culturally significant by external sources. The Wikipedia:Categorization/Categories and subcategories guideline for using subcategories is that in straightforward cases an article should not be in both a category and its subcategory. Obviously, valid exceptions to this do occur. For consistency in this Project, it will be helpful for the category page to say where an "all included" practice is being applied. For an example of that, see Category:American film actors.. [edit] General Strategy and Discussion forum We use the talk page as the discussion forum, and sometimes move content to more appropriate places as pattern develops. [edit] Templates Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic Groups Template. Suggestions towards improving that draft template are probably best made on its talk page. Template:Infobox Ethnic group: an infobox for use in articles about ethnic groups. You can (see which articles actually use the infobox.) Stubs in this area can be marked with {{ethno-group-stub}}: This article related to an ethnic group is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. You also may want to place {{Ethnic groups}} on the talk page of articles within the scope of this project. This will show as: This template is misplaced. It belongs on the talk page: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups. This page falls within the scope of WikiProject Ethnic groups, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating to ethnic groups, nationalities, and other cultural identities.If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project's talk page. NB: Assessment ratings and other indicators given below are used by the Project in prioritising and managing its workload. NA This page does not require a rating on the Project's quality scale. After rating the article, please provide a short summary on the article's ratings summary page to explain your ratings and/or identify the strengths and weaknesses. WikiProject Ethnic groups open tasks: Here are some open WikiProject Ethnic Groups tasks: Meta-tasks: Place the {{Ethnic groups}} template on the talk page of articles within the scope of this project. Articles about ethnic groups that currently have issues needing resolution: Category:Unassessed Ethnic groups articles Category:Ethnic groups articles needing merge action Category:Ethnic groups articles needing infoboxes Category:Ethnic groups articles needing reassessment Category:Ethnic groups articles needing attention Iyer Start an article: Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Article requests Feel free to edit this list or discuss these tasks. Adding this template to a talk page will automatically place the article in Cat:WikiProject Ethnic groups. [edit] Partial list of pages covered by the project We are currently (October 2006) in the process of switching over to a more automated method of tracking this: Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Assessment. The criteria have also changed somewhat; see Template:Ethnic groups and Template talk:Ethnic groups. The rest of this section should evolve into notes on articles where more than routine attention is currently needed. Note that there is a separate (and very active) WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America. Since that has been formed, this project has tended to "stay off of their turf". In particular, please do not place {{ethnic groups}} on talk pages that already have {{NorthAmNative}}. [edit] New classification Class parameter values (Category:Ethnic groups articles by quality) Value Meaning Category class=FA Articles which are currently Featured status articles FA-Class Ethnic groups articles class=A A-class articles; A-Class Ethnic groups articles class=GA Articles with a current Good article status GA-Class Ethnic groups articles class=B B-class articles; B-Class Ethnic groups articles class=Start Start-class articles; Start-Class Ethnic groups articles class=Stub Stub-class articles; Stub-Class Ethnic groups articles class=NA Not applicable; ie for miscellaneous pages such as disambiguation pages, which do not require an assessment Non-article Ethnic groups pages See Template talk:Ethnic groups for further details. [edit] Ethnic groups article statistics This list is generated automatically every night around 10 PM EST. Ethnic groups articles Importance Top High Mid Low None Total Class FA 5 5 A 4 1 5 GA 7 1 8 B 1 25 2 5 33 Start 2 38 5 7 52 Stub 35 3 2 16 56 Unassessed 4 103 330 437 Total 7 217 11 2 359 596 [edit] Individual nationalities, ethnic groups, etc. This section is currently being pruned to contain only comments on articles needing significant attention. To rate articles, please use the new classification scheme and use {{Ethnic groups}} on the articles' talk pages. There are still many articles in List of ethnic groups that have not been classified. The following have now been removed from the table below: Members of Featured articles on ethnic groups Members of Good articles on ethnic groups Articles that fall within the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America Articles for which we have done assessments, which are available at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Ethnic groups articles by quality (or will be once the nightly bot runs). In the following table, "~" marks articles that may better belong in Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America. Article Assessed Status Uses Infobox Pending tasks Acadian 12/05 needs expansion Yes Akha 08/06 Needs work Yes Needs more about traditional culture and language. Needs more information on the lack of human rights, land rights. Albanians 21/10/2006 needs expansion Yes Needs expansion and review, particularly on the topic of their origins + POV issues. American Jews 01/06 needs review No Well under way, but has a ways to go. Amhara people 6/06 needs expansion Yes Anglo-African needs opinion Yes Arab 12/05 needs expansion Yes Armenians 12/05 needs a check-through Yes Armenians in Romania 01/06 needs expansion No Asian American 7/2006 needs clarity and streamlining No needs expansion of history; reduction of lists; redundancy reduction--it's been over-expanded Asians_in_South_Africa needs expansion, organisation No Assyrian people 04/06 needs opinion yes Has NPOV issues, and LOTS of suggested mergers Aymara 04/06 needs expansion Yes needs culture, history, more of most everything, including infobox citation. Baltic Germans 01/06 needs citations No Basque people 09/06 poor Yes POV dispute. Good information. Far too many red links. Almost nothing is cited. Some ugly instances of poor editing. The sections on sports are far too long & the traditional sports section is basically a list. Suggest keeping a brief summary of the sports info currently offered, and moving the rest off to a separate page. A huh? moment when I noticed that a section on politics has been merged into the section on traditional sports. If this article was once rated a 7/10, it has gone downhill since. Bengali people needs expansion Yes British Muslims 01/06 not started No Collectively, doesn't neatly fit the "ethnic group" model, but there are probably a number of other articles needed. Islam in the United Kingdom may be useful in sorting this out. Bubi 07/06 needs expansion Yes Burakumin 02/06 needs expansion No A good start on an article, but not conforming to our usual approach to writing about an ethnic group/perhaps not within Project scope. Buyei 04/06 needs expansion Yes Infobox incomplete, needs culture section. Cape Malays 01/06 needs expansion No Cajun 04/06 needs expansion Yes Caldoche 03/06 needs expansion No Catalan people 02/06 needs more on cultural history Yes Recently much improved, but still needs a lot of work Celt 12/05 needs org No Looks like it's a bit of a hodgepodge, could use some attention Chinese American 12/05 Lots of incomplete sections No Chinese Filipino needs opinion No Cochin Jews 12/05 needs opinion Yes Coloured 01/06 needs expansion,citations Yes Infobox lacks population information. SA Census 2002 should provide this. Cossacks 01/06 needs analysis No Does this fit the "ethnic group" model? If not, are there a number of other articles needed for related ethnic groups? Croats 04/06 needs opinion Yes Has a large 'Croatian cuisine' section, as opposed to a 'Croatian culture' one Dani people 03/06 Needs cleanup, expansion No Dutch people needs opinion Yes Filipino American needs opinion No Filipino Muslim needs opinion No Filipino people needs opinion Yes Finland-Swedes 01/06 Needs expansion No A reasonably mature article, but lacks the Infobox. Finnish people 01/06 Needs expansion Yes French people needs opinion Yes As of 12 Jan 2006, tagged for cleanup and tagged as POV. Also, listed on AFD, but it looks like there is a strong consensus to keep. Probably could use much attention. Frisians 03/06 needs opinion Yes Germans 02/06 at least a good start Yes Might even qualify as "good", someone might want to look. Goans 01/06 not started No Does this fit the "ethnic group" model? If not, are there a number of other articles needed for related ethnic groups? Greek American 03/06 Needs expansion No Mostly a list of names. Greeks 03/06 at least a good start Yes Not really following the recommended structure for articles on ethnic groups Gruzim needs opinion Yes Han Chinese 12/05 See pending tasks Yes At a quick read, needs expansion, better referencing Huaorani 01/06 needs expansion Yes Needs more on religion, culture, language. Hui people 12/05 Needs expansion Yes Infobox missing population figures Hmong 04/06 Needs expansion Yes Possibly even a "good article", but needs greater discussion of culture Ibanag needs opinion No Icelanders 01/06 stub Yes Infobox needs some numbers Igbo people 04/06 Needs expansion, fact-checking Yes Igorot needs opinion No Ilocano people 01/06 Needs expansion No Especially Culture section expansion Irish Traveller 1/06 Needs structure No There's a bit there, but we haven't really approached them along the usual lines we approach an ethnic group. Italian American 01/06 needs expansion No Currently has some content disputes. Italian people 21/10/2006 needs expansion Yes Iyer 12/05 needs org/NPOV Yes Japanese American 01/06 needs expansion No A lot of good material, but relatively few of the usual bases covered. Japanese people 01/06 needs expansion Yes Kapampangan people needs opinion No Karelians 1/06 Needs expansion No Karen people 04/06 Needs expansion Yes Kazakhs 09/06 needs exp/org/NPOV/citation Yes Good start. Needs expansion. Nothing is cited. Khanty people 04/06 needs opinion Yes Needs info on related groups Khoisan 04/06 needs expansion, sources No Also needs infobox.; Kirghiz 05/06 stub Yes Section on 'Kirghiz in China' probably not the best focus Korean American 04/06 needs expansion No Korean people 01/06 See pending tasks Yes Tagged with {{Expert}} Kven 03/06 Needs attention Yes Has been under siege by suspected sockpuppets of one or more unencyclopedic users for several months now, some of whom are compiled at User_talk:Mikkalai#Kven. Needs scrutiny and verification of unsourced claims. Laich-kwil-tach 01/06 Expand No Latvians 02/06 stub Yes Lao people 12/05 Needs expansion Yes Looks like at least a good start, maybe more Lhoba 01/06 Needs more references Yes The references may be implicitly there in the External links, but there is little explicit citation Li people 12/05 stub No Lisu 01/06 just beyond stub No Livonian people 01/06 Needs expansion Yes Very history-oriented. Lumad needs opinion No Macedonians (ethnic group) 05/06 Needs NPOV Yes &nbsp: Magyars 01/06 needs expansion Yes There is a lot here, but some of the basics are missing. For example, the only mention of religion is in the Infobox. Malagasy people needs opinion Yes Malay people needs opinion Yes Manchu 12/05 uneven, needs work No Mangyan needs opinion No Māori 01/06 needs closer assessment Yes Probably approaching "good". Maonan 01/06 stub No Marathi people needs opinion Yes Mbundu 1/06 not started No Mizrahi Jew 04/06 needs opinion Yes infobox needs numbers, article needs culture section. Mongols 12/05 Needs expansion Yes Short on modern history Monpa 01/06 Needs more references Yes The references may be implicitly there in the External links, but there is little explicit citation Montenegrins 05/06 Needs more references and expansion Yes Stub-length Religion and Culture sections might be better merged Mountain Jews needs opinion Yes Mulao 01/06 stub No Nakhi 01/06 Needs references Yes The references may be implicitly there in the External links, but there is no explicit citation Negrito needs opinion No Normans 01/06 See notes No Not currently structured this way. Should it be? Norwegians 01/06 stub Yes Nung 12/05 stub No Nu people 01/06 Needs references Yes The references may be implicitly there in the External links, but there is no explicit citation Orang Asli needs opinion No Oromo people 06/06 needs expansion Yes Oroqen 01/06 stub No Overseas Chinese 12/05 See pending tasks No Probably a pretty good article, but at the least, needs Infobox Pākehā 01/06 stub No Palestinian 12/05 needs NPOV Yes Neutrality dispute (12/05) Pangasinan people 09/06 needs exp/org/citation No A lot of good info but very uneven. One section goes all the way back to the origin of the human species (!), but other sections (health, education, sports/entertainment) are two sentences long or simply a list. Nothing is cited. Persian people 5/06 needs expansion yes Off to at least a good start Poles 02/06 needs expansion Yes Polish American 01/06 needs expansion No Pumi 01/06 Needs references Yes The references may be implicitly there in the External links, but there is no explicit citation Qiang 01/06 Needs references Yes The references may be implicitly there in the External links, but there is no explicit citation Russians 01/06 Needs more references Yes The references may be implicitly there in the External links, but there is little explicit citation; also needs expansion Rusyns 01/06 Needs expansion Yes, needs numbers Salar 01/06 stub No Sami people 12/05 good Yes Scottish people 01/06 Needs cleanup No Quite a bit of material; has a {{cleanup}} tag on it. Secoya people 01/06 stub No Sentinelese 03/06 Needs expansion Yes Although data on the Sentinelese is necessarily thin on the ground, there are still a few material sources which could be exploited Sephardi 01/06 needs opinion Yes Shangaan 05/06 needs expansion No Little more than a stub.; She people 04/06 stub Yes Infobox missing items Shui 01/06 stub No Sinhalese people 04/06 needs citations Yes Population stats. need citation Sinti 01/06 stub No Siona people 01/06 stub No Slavic peoples 02/06 needs a serious review No Has a good bit of material, but it's rather non-standard in its organization Sorbs 02/06 needs expansion Yes Off to a good start Swazi 05/06 needs major expansion No Only two sentences and a navbox; Sweden Finns 1/06 Needs expansion No Just more than a stub. Swedish people 01/06 Needs cleanup Yes Quite a bit of material; doesn't follow the usual article structure. Tagalog people needs opinion No Tajiks 01/06 Needs references Yes The references may be implicitly there in the External links, but there is no explicit citation Tatars 01/06 Needs more references Yes Incorporates 1911 EB material. The references may be implicitly there in the External links, but there is little explicit citation. This one has a lot of material, probably could be turned into something solid. Thai people 04/06 needs opinion Yes Some sections might need expansion. Tibetan people 12/05 See pending tasks Yes Has infobox content as of now, accuracy is a different question; may have POV issues. Tigray-Tigrinya people 06/06 needs expansion Yes Tli Cho 01/06 stub No Torres Strait Islanders 03/06 poorly covered No Rather poor coverage, what little is there concerns their languages, key aspects such as culture & soc. not addressed Tuareg 12/05 See pending tasks Yes There's a lot there, but it may not all be right; see Talk:Tuareg Tujia 04/06 needs expansion No Has smallish history, culture, and language sections. Tu people 01/06 stub No Tswana 12/05 stub No Uyghur 04/06 Needs expansion Yes Uzbeks 01/06 Needs more references Yes The references may be implicitly there in the External links, but there is little explicit citation Venda people 12/05 not started No We have short article Venda on former bantustan, nothing on ethnic group Volga German 01/06 needs citations No Xhosa 01/06 needs expansion Yes Yemenite Jews 12/05 needs expansion No Zhuang 01/06 needs opinion Yes There are also some pages that are more about words that are, or have been names for ethnic groups, rather than being articles about ethnic groups as such. Examples are Chud and Negro. These articles are not expected to fit the standard form of an article about an ethnic group, and should link elsewhere for that sort of information. [edit] Ancillary articles Closely related: Ethnic group List of ethnic groups Nation Nationalism Self-determination Less closely related: Ethnic cleansing Language Language family Linguistics [edit] Open Tasks Use {{WikiProjectEthnicGroups}} to include the template below on your user page or elsewhere. Here are some open WikiProject Ethnic Groups tasks: Meta-tasks: Place the {{Ethnic groups}} template on the talk page of articles within the scope of this project. Articles about ethnic groups that currently have issues needing resolution: Category:Unassessed Ethnic groups articles Category:Ethnic groups articles needing merge action Category:Ethnic groups articles needing infoboxes Category:Ethnic groups articles needing reassessment Category:Ethnic groups articles needing attention Iyer Start an article: Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Article requests Feel free to edit this list or discuss these tasks. [edit] Stubs {{ethno-stub}}, which will show as: This article about ethnicity or ethnology is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. {{ethno-group-stub}} This article related to an ethnic group is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. {{Africa-ethno-group-stub}} , which will show as: This article about an ethnic group in Africa is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. {{Asia-ethno-group-stub}} This article about an ethnic group in Asia is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.