Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Archive 12

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Archive 10

The necessity of galleries of personalities in the infoboxes

Superseded by RfC below. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:30, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Note: Please see the formal Request for comment in the section below. Fut.Perf. ☼ 02:30, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I opine that a centralised discussion about all articles would be the ideal solution. We are talking about general arguments that apply for every ethnic group. I think that wikipedia should be consistent in the content that it provides or excludes on similar articles and the lack of a coordinated guideline regarding this issue makes this encyclopedia look messy.

I invite editors who already expressed their view on this aspect on other talk pages to post their comments here: User:Maproom, User:Spacecowboy420, User:Steverci, User:Anonimu, User:Iryna Harpy, User:Alessandro57, User:Cordless Larry, User:Ghmyrtle. Hahun (talk) 10:11, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

In principle I agree with Hahun: these galleries are intrinsically POV, its encyclopedic values is near zero (much better are pictures of single notables in the respective section of the article) and are source of recurrent edit wars among users. Because of that on itwiki some months ago they have all been removed. On the other side, I understand too that reaching consensus about a general removal is a quite difficult task. Last but not least, how could this consensus be enforced? Alex2006 (talk) 10:23, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

My primary concern with these galleries (and with notable people sections, for that matter), is that the inclusion criteria are rarely clear. At worst, all such galleries might be considered original research, because without a source, who is to say that the selection of people is representative of the group? Cordless Larry (talk) 10:24, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I see no difference between having someone's picture in a gallery, and having them mentioned in the article. You're going to have to make a judgement about who is notable enough and fits certain criteria. I would agree that whatever decision is made, it has to be consistent within all articles. I am very much in favor of the galleries, however I would rather see them all go, or all stay than some go and some stay. They do benefit the article and wikipedia, encyclopedias have pictures, they spark an interest. We are making wikipedia a nice place for readers, not a nice place for editors. We should deal with the problems for the benefit of those who read the article, they don't care about edit wars, they care about content. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 11:19, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I have found the galleries informative. I feel the articles are better with them. The attitude "it's too difficult to check the facts, so let's not bother with them" seems inappropriate in Wikipedia. Maproom (talk) 11:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Who is arguing that ""it's too difficult to check the facts, so let's not bother with them"? To be clear, I'm arguing that in none of the infobox galleries that I've seen have the inclusion criteria been clear. I've never seen a reference to a source that states that the particular selection of people are a representation of the group, for example. They all seem to be based on editors' own perceptions of who matters, and are thus original research. Cordless Larry (talk) 11:53, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

This is exactly the main problem. A clear example is the collage currently on display on Italians, for which there is clearly no consensus, and which is disruptive, since several of the people who are displayed there are simply not notable enough to be included among the 20-30 most notable Italians, unless special inclusion criteria are used (politically correctness, etc.). The problem is that also the decision about these criteria is POV. That's why I say: better no mosaic at all, than a bad assembled mosaic. Alex2006 (talk) 12:32, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Surely, the same rules would apply for inclusion on galleries as apply for notability in articles. Maybe this is a strange idea, but I couldn't care less if the gallery gets changed 10 times a day, as long as it is there, showing people who represent the article. Wikipedia manages to have articles about abortion, obama and hitler, editors can deal with this issue. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 14:07, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, a person would have to be judged notable to be included. But that is not selective enough since there are hundreds or even thousands of notable Italian, English, Indian, German-American, etc. people. The question is, of all those notable people, what criteria are being used to select those who appear in the infobox? Cordless Larry (talk) 14:18, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm leaning towards removal of galleries from ethnic group infoboxes. Yes, they are often informative, but even more often they are highly controversial and an arena for POV-pushing. I have myself been involved in several discussions and it's pretty hard to get a consensus on who is a representative of a certain nation. It'd probably be better to have images of notables in the respective sections of articles as proposed by Alex. Spacecowboy says he see no difference, but the inclusion of such images can easily be sourced, e.g. if we're talking about Germans's music section it's easily to find reliable sources pointing to a few composers as being the greatest and most influential German composers. --Երևանցի ^talk 14:21, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

@Spacecowboy420:, this was an idea which I had too to solve the problem: would it not be possible to rotate different galleries at certain times (something like FA on the main page)? I mean, if we have 200 notables on display, the criteria to choose them would not be so important anymore. Alex2006 (talk) 14:26, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Interesting idea, but I doubt it would work. We would still get the same kinds of fights over who is part of the 200 as we have now over who is part of the 25. How many slots among the 200 should be reserved for modern sportspeople? How many for women? How many for people considered national heroes in ethnicity X's favourite patriotic narrative? How many for figures included to score a point against neighbouring ethnicity Y, who are also claiming them as theirs? Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:35, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Personally, on my first thought there more pros than cons for galleries in infobox. The main con is the inclusion criteria, which for now does not exist, but there's no constructive reason to not be made. The personalities included should be from an array of society, like from politics, culture (art, literature, music), sport, science, religion and others. However, every gallery need consensus, and I just don't understand how it happened without it. It is clear editors omission, and that is not an excuse to remove galleries from infobox. One of criteria, like in the case of Croats for some specific field of dispute (like sport) was Wikipedia:Pageview statistics. Galleries have a significant contributon to ethnic group articles. For example, if someone wants to check some not so known ethnic group as Italians, like Volga Tatars, or for some Croats, visitors receive firsthand who are their most notable personalities, and how those people look like. It gives an impression no word can convey, an image "speaks thousand words". There's no replacement for an image. Just a list of names in respective section is not good enough. We're living in 21st century, and not just now, even centuries ago was felt the need to have portraits and pictures of people and events. Also would agree with note above, "all stay, or all go", there's no middle. Whatever discussion is here, it needs to include thoughts from each ethnic group projects editors.--Crovata (talk) 14:34, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, I'm going to take a look at the talk pages of articles with stable galleries and see how they got their stability. I have a question...can an admin make a specific rule, for a specific article? Sorry, I'm not the most experienced editor here. For example: The gallery will not be changed without consensus being gained on the talk page, any changes without consensus gained on :::the talk page will be reverted to the original state, without the reverting editor being subject to any 3RR (or similar) rules. Having said all that, I'm very much in favor of a rotating gallery, that might actually offer an significant improvement for readers. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 14:40, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

The stability depends above all from the competence of the involved editors. :-) For example, the gallery of the Germans is one of the best which I ever seen, but the simple reason is that German-speaking are generally vey competent (it is enough to have a look to dewiki to notice that). Unfortunately, this is a kind of exception on wikipedia... :-) Alex2006 (talk) 14:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

In none of these cases does membership require notoriety. Why do we assume that any of these articles are about well-known or distinguished members of a given ethnic group? What is the point to showcasing well-known or distinguished members of a given ethnic group? Bus stop (talk) 15:17, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Agree, editors need to have certain level of knowledge of own nation to "see" who are more notable from the others. Hmmm, "What is the point to showcasing well-known or distinguished members of a given ethnic group?", that's actually a good question. Perhaps contribution to human civilization? To own nation?--Crovata (talk) 15:42, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I think the photo gallery dumbs down the article. Bus stop (talk) 15:51, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

What is wrong it dumbs down an article? Explain your thought.--Crovata (talk) 15:57, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

The depicted member is not necessarily representative of the group. Bus stop (talk) 16:18, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Aesthetically a group of c. 25 people is not, but people who politically and culutrally were significant ie. fought for, had and further developed ethnic identity and culture, I wouldn't say so easily they do not represent an ethnic group.--Crovata (talk) 16:28, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Now you are trying to concoct criteria. But the criteria that apply most are criteria of representativeness. Essentially this is a losing game. The choosing of people is a distorting process. If we were interested in accurately representing the group our highest priority would probably be randomness. That would probably include mostly anonymous members of a given ethnic group. Bus stop (talk) 16:57, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Even if the people are selected to be representative, that still seems like original research to me, unless we rely on a source that says "these people are representative of the group". I can imagine a source saying something along the lines of "Famous X-ian people include..." and us using that to base the selection on, but I'm yet to see one of these montages that is sourced in that way. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:27, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Should be no images of people at all. Nothing but a problem all over the place. Geneticists and social scientists agree that ethnic identity is socially constructed and cant be represented by individuals. Ethnic groups are represented/defined by communal and social norms ...not by individuals of said group -- Moxy (talk) 18:45, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I think that these mosaics are created mainly to self-glorify the different groups. In fact only "good" notables are chosen. None ever dreamed to put Toto Riina in the Italian collage, although he depicts well the Mafioso type, and Mafia is an important component of Italian society. Alex2006 (talk) 18:58, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Articles which can be illustrated with appropriate images should have them. This is an explicit part of the good article criteria. Appropriate images can be identified visually, just as for any other article. In fact, original images are permissible. Nobody is complaining that the photo in Rosa kordesii constitutes original research since it wasn't published in a reliable source as an example of the species, or that it is POV since a visually attractive specimen was selected instead of an old and dying one. Since the definitions of ethnic groups do have sociological meaning whether we like it or not, I would strongly refute the claim that articles about them cannot be illustrated, or need photos of ugly or infamous people for a false and blatantly disrespectful sense of balance. Nor should the presence of content disputes about which photos should appear in articles about ethnic groups imply that no images should be used, any more than we would delete an entire article the moment a dispute arises. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 19:45, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Actually during GA and FA nominations these info-boxs full of individual people linked get removed most times because they do not lead to information about said group ..they reappear after time and get overwhelming like at Tamils..... but the norm for our best articles can be seen at Toraja FA Taiwanese aborigines FA British people GA - Aboriginal peoples in Canada GA - Banat Bulgarians GA - Mikea people GA - Eskaya people GA - African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska GA - Antemoro people GA. Put it simply as per the essay Wikipedia:Image dos and don'ts - Don't overload articles with images. Don't add images that are not relevant. -- Moxy (talk) 20:35, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I first became aware of the OR issue in the discussion at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/British Cypriots/archive1. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:57, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)British people stopped having such images in September 2013, rather by accident (copyright problems with one element in a montage), and we eventually discussed it in February 2015 at Talk:British people#Infobox images?. Arguments for and against included: difficulty of selection; endless arguments; tiny image sizes; lack of encyclopedic value; ineffectiveness; inevitable failure to represent the subject of the article; the advantages of illustration in general; existence of collages in other such articles; GA articles don't have such images.
Americans dropped such images from the infobox in November 2014, soon after it had briefly grown to seven rows of six,[1] following discussions (Talk:Americans/Archive 3#Getting rid of the infobox mosaic for good and Talk:Americans/Archive 3#Infobox images) which cited British people as a good example of doing fine without such infobox images.
A recent discussion at Talk:Italians#Need a mosaic., where such images have been almost the only subject in 2015, mentions that Russians and Bavarians don't have such collections in their infoboxes while English people, Scottish people, Greeks, Catalans, Basques and Sardinians (maybe the current record-holder at 50) do. NebY (talk) 20:40, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Sardinians only has 40, NebY. I say only... Cordless Larry (talk) 22:01, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Oops - dizzy from keeping too many tabs open. Thanks. NebY (talk) 22:15, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

NebY, the Russians article didn't have such a collection in its infobox in October 2015 (during the discussion at Talk:Italians#Need a mosaic.), but meanwhile a gallery was added, with the motivation "every ethnic group article got its own infobox pictures". Probably this is how most the galleries appeared: by following what was seen at other similar articles. Hahun (talk) 22:17, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Yep, that's how these things spread. See the comment recently posted at Talk:White American#Pictures, for instance. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:21, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Oh! And now Talk:Russians is largely about infobox images, with even more disturbing arithmetic than mine, at least in this oppose: "Suvorov is though to have been 1/4 Armenian. I believe that the general rule should be that someone is at least 1/2 Russian." NebY (talk) 22:29, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Having just dipped my head into this stuff at Russians, I agree. If an infobox needs a picture, it can be geographical distribution: more informative, less controversial, less ILIKEIT. Max Semenik (talk) 22:41, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

We have guidance on this matter already as per (guideline) WP:LEADIMAGE about how the image should be widely seen as representing the topic. (essay) Wikipedia:Image dos and don'ts - Don't overload articles with images and Don't add images that are not relevant. To me this implies that the image should be of the topic hand and if its linked they would be to more info on the topic. Having random small mini images that are linked to random topics is not a good idea for any article on any topic. -- Moxy (talk) 23:32, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As a clarification as to where CON stood on the Russians article, the consensus last year was to remove it (see archived talk). The same goes for Romanians and a handful of other articles. At the moment there are disputes on the Ukrainians talk page about who can be defined as being Ukrainian, and how these definitions are arrived at. My take on it has not changed an iota: all of these galleries are POV and OR, and serve no other purpose than to act as an energy sinkhole for regular editors.

Further to the point, there are far more articles on ethnic groups that were not created by anyone from that ethnic group, and galleries have been added willy-nilly because someone, at some stage, thought that WP:ITSIMPORTANT to use the 'image' parameter in the 'ethnic group' template to create a gallery, therefore it's equally important that every ethnic group feature such a gallery. I've yet to come across anything in MOS suggesting that that's how the image parameter is designed to be used. I've been trying to copyedit and clean up articles on Latin American countries, as an example. Every time I get a watchlist alert for any of these articles, it's inevitably yet another IP popping in to change sportspeople, their favourite singers, etc. in the gallery. Much as I'd like to just remove all of the galleries on unwatched articles, neither do I WP:OWN them. Simultaneously, neither am I compelled to check on new celebs (et al) to ensure that they actually identify as being of that ethnicity. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:50, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Reply to Cordless Larry if "we rely on a source" which says "Famous X-ian people include..." - well, there exist books on Croats eg. "100 most significant Croats" and so on, but in that specific book's preface is written: "Author tends optimal objectivity, because he is aware that absolute objectivity in this kind of work does not and can not be ... deeply entrenched ideological divisions, and there are no unique scientific and historical criteria or undivided, generally accepted values ... [he] built and firmly established a criteria". I don't know what kind of criteria he built, but there several issues regarding so-called "small nations", but also "big nations". One of them is "small nations" proudly want to emphasize to "big nations" that they also contributed to human civilization, but here comes the problem - where begins and where it stops ethnicity and nationality, especially of those people who are of mixed ancestry, or specific ethnic ancestry, but later declared as members of another ethnic group, or cultural significance etc. There several cases among South Slavs (Croats and Serbs), where tried "stealing a national treasure" from each other, based on national, ethnical, cultural, historical reasons. For example, you'll find Nobel-winner Ivo Andrić, who was born a Croat in Bosnia and Herzegovina, initially declared as a Croat, to in later life while lived in Serbia, decided to declare as a Serb. He contributed in literature for all Yugoslavs, but he is claimed by ethnicity by Croats, Serbs oppose this and highlight it as their Nobel Prize winner, Bosnians claim his birth place. In the end, he is in infobox galleries and sections of all three ethnic groups, and not to mention that there were not controversies, kind of "yours Nikola Tesla (born a Serb), but Ivo Andrić (born a Croat) is ours", but this dispute was not settled on national and academical, far less on Wikipedian level. This is only one example, that shows, there's no strict criteria in the world, even less among editors to reach a perfect consensus for exact personalities. Now on second thought, galleries should be removed, it's not even fair for those ethnic groups who did not "contribute notable person", that does not diminish the value of human beings. This galleries are just "show off".--Crovata (talk) 00:51, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of the issues in that part of the world. I'm glad that you now agree on the problems of these montages. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:42, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Members of one community tend to a myopia about the humanity and achievements of other communities.

If Wikipedia "national" portrait galleries of a few "representative" individuals help counteract such chauvinist ignorance by whetting curiosity about other communities, they may serve a useful purpose.

The effort to find consensus on gallery inclusion may inspire editors to give intelligent thought to inclusion criteria.

Nihil novi (talk) 04:02, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

That's a nice idea but the problem is that, judging by my watchlist, there is very little evidence of that being the case, whereas there is a lot of evidence of edit warring and lack of criteria-based consensus. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:01, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I would strongly suggest getting rid of them. The informative value equals zero. There is too much room for interpretation (Was Mozart even an Austrian? Or Hitler?), and the potential for mischief of many sorts is endless. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 18:05, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Conveniences break

I have always found these galleries to be little more than a waste of space in the best case, and a massive quality and POV nightmare in the worst. In addition to the points raised by others above (unprincipled, no clear inclusion criteria, POV implications, frequent edit warring) I also observe the following:

Unstoppable bloat. There is apparently an inexorable inflationary trend that forces these things to get larger and larger. I remember a time when we had galleries with just four or eight heads. Then there were 12 to 16; currently most of the heavily edited ones have at least somewhere around 25 or even more than 30, and the worst I've seen had 56. We get enthusiasts fighting to increase numbers on the basis of comparison: if group A has x images, then B "deserves" at least y – a logic that will guarantee that the trend remains unidirectional, with no end in sight. Some of these boxes fill about half the width of the article space on my computer screen, and go well beyond screen hight, eating up prime-value real estate on screen and pushing the actual information content of the infoboxes out of sight, thus destroying the actual function of an infobox.
Inclusion of personalities without regard to quality and authenticity of depictions. Especially where patriotic editors are keen on including ancient founding figures of their group, we invariably end up with fantasy depictions of unknown provenance, dubious authorship or copyright status, low esthetic value and zero authenticity. You will find few boxes that don't include at least one or two entries that fail responsible editorial practice for historical portraits. Examples: 1 (at Greeks), 2 (at Berbers), 3 (at Turkish people), 4 (at Pashtuns), and so on. You could easily substitute each of these with this, without losing a single bit of encyclopedic information (and it would be more honest to the readers too), because their true information value is precisely zero.

In short, while I don't think we can (or should) come to some consensus here to actually deprecate the use of galleries altogether, and while I don't mind some galleries as long as they are well maintained, stable and moderate in size, I'd be strongly opposed to any renewed move towards universal use of galleries in the name of "consistency". Galleries are a Wikipedia fad, and there's nothing in them that would indicate they should be required across all articles. I'm extremely glad that editors on some articles (such as Russians and Romanians) have found the courage to resist the trend and demonstrate that an article can live well without one. If anything is to come of this discussion, it should be that we ought to recommend to local editors on other articles to give serious thought to this possibility, whenever a gallery starts attracting edit-warring or other editorial problems again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:10, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there never seemed to actually be any consensus on the Romanians article for not having a gallery. Numerous editors trying to revive the gallery were met with comments along the lines of "we have consensus, we won't discuss it, we won't have a gallery". This seems like a pretty poor way to claim consensus, especially when there are editors on the article in question who are more than willing to put the time and effort into improving the article. If an editor thinks it causes too much drama and conflict to have a gallery, then they should step back from that particular discussion and allow the editors who are prepared to deal with it, to deal with it. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 12:38, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I find the reason given by User:Future Perfect at Sunrise for removing a gallery (if "it starts attracting edit-warring") quite questionable. I thought that the argument for including something is the fact that it improves the article from the readers' point of view, not the fact that it is stable, creating no difficulties for the editors. The antidote for avoiding edit wars should be the protection of the article, not the deletion of the thing that generates disputes between contributors. If Albanian and Serb editors begin edit warring at Kosovo article should we just roughly eliminate the article or work harder for a compromise? Hahun (talk) 13:19, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

The inclusion of Ivo Andrić in Serbs gallery, or Ivan Gundulić and Ruđer Bošković among The 100 most prominent Serbs, generates dispute from Croatian readers' point of view, not only Croatian editors. The fact that galleries are based on OR consensus from real world, it is beyond our (Wikipedian) reach to compromise on something which does not have compromise in real world. Is it good we go against our NPOV principles and accept false criteria and status quo of the real world, or be an example to the world? And we can't see this galleries from "developed" nations point of view, but on a global scale for all nations and ethnical groups, eg. Amazon tribes. Showing off "notable persons" looks more like a nationalistic masquerade. A masquerade of national collective hiding behind individual deeds.--Crovata (talk) 13:59, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

@Hahun:, FPaS didn't give "it starts attracting edit-warring" as a reason for removing a gallery. Rather, I read him as pointing out that there are many reasons not to have a gallery and that that possibility could be recommended to editors especially when they are so engaged in an edit-war over selection of images that they may have forgotten it's questionable whether the very thing that they're fighting over must or even should exist at all. NebY (talk) 14:42, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise and Fut.Perf.:, this was exactly the problem by Italians: we reached a consensus to substitute the mosaic with an Italian flag, and after a couple of weeks someone arrived, started an edit war, and forced the others to accept the mosaic again. I am not interested at all to decide who has to stay in the collage, provided that is notable: Raphael can substitute Bernini, Baggio Pirlo, and Volta Fermi. But the problem starts when someone decides that a non-notable (or more) deserve to go there. For example, on the Italian collage a couple of months ago landed a wrestler (!!!) unknown person of a sport (sport?) which is not popular at all in Italy, and was put near Michelangelo and Dante...Another specialty of the house :-) are ancient Romans (like Caesar) who periodically appear on the collage of the Italians. Demonstrating that this choice is wrong takes away a huge amount of time, which could be much more usefully used to create new articles, correct wrong info, etc. Alex2006 (talk) 15:01, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Future Perfect at Sunrise, which article has 56 images in the infobox? I thought NebY's 40 was crazy enough. Perhaps there should be a prize (for finding, not creating, the article with the most). Cordless Larry (talk)

Seems it was Iranian peoples, a couple of weeks ago [2]. It's been reduced to 30 in the meantime though. Ironically, "Iranian peoples" (note the plural) isn't even an ethnic group at all. Greeks was at 40 for a while [3], now back at 25. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:49, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

How do we make the leap between "Iranian peoples" and well-known "Iranian people"? That is what I don't understand. The title of the article is not "Distinguished Iranian people". So, why the emphasis on celebrity? Bus stop (talk) 21:45, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

No idea, I never edited that article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:17, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

That article is just an example. Any article, on any group of people, ethnic or otherwise, is ostensibly about that group of people. It is not about outstanding members of that group of people. The sorts of articles under discussion are invariably about groups of people sharing some common traits resulting in some degree of group cohesion. The articles are never about famous members of that group. The fame of the members featured in photo galleries is often unrelated to whatever qualities unite the group. They achieve renown in some sphere of activity and they are a source of pride to other members of their group. But if the article is ostensibly about that group of people and their common traits, then we are going far afield by picturing people whose accomplishments often have nothing to do with the group of people to which they belong. Bus stop (talk) 07:52, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Ah, true. Sorry, it seems I totally missed the point you wanted to make. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:39, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I also think that editors are not aware of what these infoboxs look like in the mobile versions ...that Iranian people is so overwhelming with images (have to side scroll to see them all)..as a result I bet many simply navigate away from the page. Losing readers because of image spam of this nature. WP:LEADIMAGE talks about this problem. This type of image spam will be hard to stop -- Moxy (talk) 17:16, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As the person who started the thread Talk:Iranian peoples#Images in infobox I can see both sides of the argument. My original concern was the 56 images (and growing) which was unreadable on some phones etc. and suggested a maximum of 25 (5 x 5) or 24 (4 x 6), although I would prefer fewer, whilst User:Zyma thought more were appropriate. I think a limited number of pictures in the infobox can be helpful, to show the history and diverse range of people within the scope of the article. The problem is, once a gallery has been set up, editors repeatedly add their "favourite" often plugging their favourite politician, pop-star or sportsperson - hence my suggestion of one per century to emphasize the depth of the history, not the hear and now.
Presumably, as with other infobox parameters, it would be possible to limit the number of images, so that images after the agreed number do not show. There could also be a guideline in the template documentation, requiring talkpage consensus for inclusions/removals. - Arjayay (talk) 17:31, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

The entire premise for the photo box in these articles is faulty. Most members of the group under consideration have no fame. Most of the members are anonymous. Most do not have articles on Wikipedia. They might have lived comfortable lives. They might have lived impoverished lives. They may have been gems of humanity or they may have been the dregs of humankind. Why are we engaging in the value judgements necessary to choose the handful of people highlighted by a photo box? It doesn't matter what criteria are used. Are we really trying "to show the history and diverse range of people within the scope of the article"? That may be a minor consideration. But the major consideration is that we show the world the great people that emerge from a given milieu—be it ethnic, nationalistic, or by some other factor of cohesion uniting a given group of people. If we are to have this discussion we should be honest about what we are doing. We should acknowledge that we are omitting 99.99% of the members of that group from the outset based on their anonymity and their absence of renown beyond perhaps a small circle of family and friends—or they did achieve renown, as another editor pointed out above, but we don't approve of the renown they achieved. If the article is about the group of people—why can't we just stick to the subject? Why the ton of editorializing? When people are shown who do not achieve fame or who only garner a modicum of fame, we show the reader the appearances of members of the group and this may be helpful to the reader. I think the images matter insofar as the physical characteristics of facial structure, body type, attire, and perhaps setting and a few other factors can be seen. Images in a photo box are capable of conveying characteristics common to that group of people. Bus stop (talk) 19:09, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree with all above.. as seen by this edit the rational for inclusion is so odd. We should have a RfC on this matter...that is "not" to overwhelm the lead of articles with so many images that "do not" link to more info on the topic at hand. Add info to WP:LEADCLUTTER about this -- Moxy (talk) 19:42, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Wow, "people who aren't completely white, people for whom visual evidence is inadequate, and ugly people". Odd indeed. I think we have a rough consensus here, but agree that an RfC would be good to establish something with more support. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:46, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

And now someone has added Hitler to the gallery of famous Austrians. Who may very well have not regarded himself an Austrian. Just like Mozart. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 18:02, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Was the RFC ever called? Photo montages are being removed by citing this talk page thread, but I agree with User:Cordless Larry that a wider show of support is required. Meters (talk) 19:13, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Not that I'm aware of. I would be interested in taking part however. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 19:29, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I think all galleries must be changed with the national flags like in Americans or maps, when some groupe of people has no flag, like Slavs. --Targatron (talk) 19:49, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Flags don't work either for ethnicity articles, since an ethnicity is not a nationality. One nation may contain multiple ethnicities. A single ethnicity can span multiple nations. And diaspora are not directly connected to the original nation (if there even was one at the time that people moved). It's inappropriate visual labelling, so should be avoided per MOS:FLAGS. It simply isn't necessary for an infobox to be festooned with cutesy images. It's an infobox, not an "iconsbox". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:36, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal for individuals to be classified as what they identify as

I think all pictures included of humans should be what ethnic group they claim to identify as. It's 2016, and people have the right to be whatever ethnicity they choose to be, as such all pictures should also include the citation of that individual claiming to identify with the group they are associated on Wikipedia with, any pictures without such citation, or made by assumption, such as painting entitled "berber market" should be removed. As a transethnic individual, I don't let the black color of my skin and my south african birth passport and the fact that I have never been to sweden stop me from being ethnically swedish. When people ask me where I am from I say Sweden, and I am proud of my swedish ethnicity.

It's 2016, and I ask your support for ending transracialism. 71.17.109.113 (talk) 06:33, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Including those who self-identify as Klingon or Sindarin? --Taivo (talk) 07:36, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely, you no doubt brought them up because of their fictional origin, but origin stories are commonly linked to ethnic groups, and we commonly call them creation myths. Fiction and creation myths are indistinguishable from each other so we must treat them the same. I would say that by not accepting those that identify as Klingon and Sindarin, you are creating an unwelcoming environment, and it's the same as not welcoming transgendered people.71.17.109.113 (talk) 10:11, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

With all due respect, that extension of the argument is a load of horse manure. This discussion has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with gender identity or sexual orientation because neither of those are subsumed under the label of "ethnicity" nor "nationality". Stick to the topic. And fictional origin stories of real ethnicities are irrelevant to the question of fictional ethnicities to which some may self-identify. Ethnicity has the potential for predominant genetic markers. Please provide the predominant genetic markers for identifying either a Klingon or a Sindarin. Indeed, neither of these could be classified as human ethnicities because both are not just different (fictional) "ethnicities", but different species entirely. So the question of ethnicity is moot. --Taivo (talk) 10:35, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

those that are transpecies would be sad to hear that some wikipedia editors don't respect them, just because they were born into the wrong body, a human body instead of an cat/horse/dog/wolf/fish/etc body they were meant to have. It's 2016, I can't believe what I am hearing. 71.17.109.113 (talk) 10:47, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Can I just check that you are familiar with the guideline at Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality, 71.17.109.113? Cordless Larry (talk) 10:53, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Interestingly, this guideline used to state "When in doubt, err on the side of respect and the right of people to define themselves", but that was modified to "When in doubt, err on the side of respect" in 2011. Cordless Larry (talk) 11:28, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, that is indeed interesting. And I was not aware. the guideline states "national self-identity (which country the person feels closest to), although sometimes correlated with ethnicity, are not the same as ethnicity and are not addressed on this page." this is the only part that is about self-identification and ethnicity, but it is about self identifying as a national that relates to an ethnicity, I don't identify as a national of sweden, I identify as an ethnic swede. So the guide does not cover the self identification of ethnicities. The comment on erring on the side of respect, leaves me wondering if anything can be mentioned at all regarding any of those topics in the guide without citation. Being respectful is a very subjective thing, much like this complex issue of assigning identity to others and what they self identify as.71.17.109.113 (talk) 11:47, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

So don't use the term ethnicity when describing yourself. Don't confuse (pseudo-)identity and ethnicity. Also, if you've never even been to Sweden, have no ties (in any respect) to that country or its dominant ethnic group, you're a hypocrite. Trollmaster 1000.--Zoupan 13:09, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Where it's encyclopedic (= covered by secondary sources), we already do this and should continue to do so. See Category:New Zealand Māori people hierarchy. Classification of people by primary sources (such as self declarations) would make wikipedia a secondary source and not an encyclopedia. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:57, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Proposal for the deletion of all the infoboxes of articles about ethnic groups

WP:SNOW close. No tangible argument for removal has been presented here, and this seems to stand next to no chance of achieving consensus. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:02, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should infoboxes be removed as clutter from all ethnic groups articles? this has nothing to do about the galleries or any showing any point becase i support a wikipedia ethnic group articles free from galleries or infoboxes Dannis243 (talk) 12:46, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Strong oppose. The infoboxes contain useful information, unlike the galleries. This RfC is WP:POINTY, and starting to remove the infoboxes on articles about ethnicities even before starting this RfC, as the proposer has done (even doing it twice on both Swedes and Germans, i.e. continuing after being reverted), is even more pointy. Thomas.W ^talk 12:52, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
so just i becuase a have genuine proposal that you dont like makes it pointy?! nonsense Dannis243 (talk) 12:58, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Oppose. Infoboxes are a useful tool that sums up the major facts of the article for a quick look. De728631 (talk) 18:30, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Oppose - An infobox is useful to show significant information on the ethic group at a glance. STSC (talk) 18:43, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Strong Oppose These infoboxes are useful, and this RFC is WP:POINTY. Meters (talk) 18:51, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Oppose, no actual argument has been presented for why infoboxes are undesirable in this case.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:54, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

OTT

So because of a discussion started here by sock puppet, people are now going around deleting content whether it’s controversial or not. That seems a little mad to me. A less intrusive approach would be to move the content to a gallery at the end of the article if there was a true interest in consensus rather than just winning the point. The RfC focussed on the infobox and many of the rationalisations seemed to also be about the infobox, but now we’re told there shouldn’t be galleries either.

If you want to outlaw galleries then start another RfC.

Personally I not strongly invested in either side of the argument, but this seems like just another example of how badly these things get handled here.

--☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 10:53, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I note that Hammersoft has been on a bit of a crusade enforcing this RfC and has moved from linking this discussion to using WP:NOETHNICGALLERIES but that just links to the MoS section on Images for the lead. A mystified editor might eventually (after reading 5 paragraphs) see that point 4 refers to ethnic groups but it does not summarize the text of this RfC.

RfC title: Proposal for the deletion of all the galleries of personalities from the infoboxes of articles about ethnic groups
Closing statement: The result of this RfC is that there is consensus to remove portrait galleries from the infoboxes of articles about ethnic groups.
WP:NOETHNICGALLERIES: Articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations should not be illustrated by a gallery of images of group members, because selecting them is normally original research, and often contentious (see the corresponding discussion).

This makes no mention of infoboxes whatsoever!

--☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 11:11, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Totally agree - the changes to many articles eg Japanese people aren't improving the articles. Someone did try to move the images to a gallery to be hounded for editing against the "spirit" of the RFC. WP:IAR is a farce, we have so many rules now and they're rigidly enforced. W C M_email 11:21, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I see the removal of the infobox montage from Japanese people, but I don't see any edit where the images were moved to a gallery. Am I missing something? Cordless Larry (talk) 11:35, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I didn't state it was that article [4]. Japanese people is definitely poorer for its removal. W C M_email 12:46, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry - in that case, I misunderstood your comment. That said, whether you think that article is poorer for the removal of the infobox doesn't change the fact that consensus was reached in a very well participated in discussion, the close of which has been endorsed at AN/I. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:58, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

There is clear and explicit mention of infoboxes at WP:NOETHNICGALLERIES. It anchors Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images#Images for the lead, which begins "It is very common to use an appropriate representative image for the lead of an article, often as part of an infobox" and introduces four numbered points with "Advice on selecting a lead image includes the following:". I do hope no-one's going to try moving a gallery from the infobox into the rest of the lead as being in accord with the wording of the close. NebY (talk) 22:33, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Just as a background point of clarification: note that when people began citing "NOETHNICGALLERIES" while removing stuff from boxes the other day, that shortcut link was still pointing to the RfC here. Somebody else then changed it later to point to the MOS page instead, evidently in the belief that the verbiage that had in the meantime been added there was an adequate reflection of the RfC outcome. If there is some remaining disagreement over this point, maybe it would be better to change the shortcut target back to here, until we figure out the best wording in the MOS. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:39, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I think that is a good suggestion, Fut.Perf.. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:41, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes. I was surprised when it took me to MOS rather than here. In the short term, it may be better to be clear right away that it's the close of a long RFC. NebY (talk) 23:15, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

As you two (Fut.Perf. ☼ and NebY) may have seen by now, it was Sandstein who changed the link. The wording for the NOETHNICGALLERIES consensus is currently being debated at the guideline talk page; see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images#"Articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations should not be illustrated by a gallery of images of group members". A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:59, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

No personality galleries or no photos period?

Even though the discussion was about "montages of notable people", there are edits like this that seem to interpret the new guideline as no images at all even though a lot of editors supported basic photos of everyday people in the place of galleries. Can someone clarify which it is? --Steverci (talk) 22:15, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

The RfC was only specifically about gallery montages. But per general editing policy if someone removes a picture that is not a gallery-montage it should only be reinserted when it is clear that there is a consensus on the talkpage that the picture is a good addition and is actually representative of the ethnic group in question.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 22:29, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Steverci, see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images#"Articles about ethnic groups or similarly large human populations should not be illustrated by a gallery of images of group members". A WP:Permalink is here. It seems that I need to go ahead and make that discussion a WP:RfC. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:18, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, since it's already being referenced in anticipation of a binding decision, as at Talk:Woman. --Taivo (talk) 23:24, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

It's erroneous to suggest that no images of people are allowed in the infobox period, as the discussion above only concerned galleries. Absolutely nothing was set in stone concerning other types of images. It's a shame this wasn't made clearer to the overzealous. --Katangais (talk) 13:59, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Please see the Question "Will this proposal continue to allow a single image, previously published in a reliable source, depicting a group of people (e.g. the image in the infobox at Evenks)? " in the RFC above (do a "find" for "Evenks" to locate it) - No-one took issue with the idea of an image of a person, or group of people, in traditional dress. - Arjayay (talk) 14:15, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Since I'm the one who made the revert linked to in the first post in this thread I thought I'd comment here. The problem with having an image in the infobox on articles about ethnic groups is that the selection invariably involves WP:OR when selecting the image, because there are very few if any ethnic groups where all members of the group look even remotely the same, so how do you decide what a "typical member" of the group looks like? And how do you find a dress that everyone in the group see as typical? The image I reverted on Russians is a photo of three non-notable individuals, made by Russian photographer Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii in a town in the Ural Mountains, an ethnically mixed area, a bit over a hundred years ago, but that and that they according to Gorskii had Russian-sounding names is all we know. But people of many different ethnicities in Russia have Russian-sounding names, so that's no clear indication of them being ethnic Russians, and the type of clothes they wear in the photo were worn by everyone there at that time, so how do we know they were Russians? Which people in a photo in the infobox of an article abut ethnic Russians, should be. My revert also shows that editors here have different opinions, because at the same time as the revert was brought up here I also received thanks for removing it... Thomas.W ^talk 14:39, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Thomas.W, following your logic, there are many types of pies in the world with different types of pastry, fillings and shapes, so how do you decide what a "typical pie" looks like? Shall we remove the image of an apple pie from the infobox in the Pie article? In my opinion, a proper image caption explains what is meant. The caption for the image in Russians did not say these are "typical Russians", but some Russian family from some area and some time period. --Off-shell (talk) 15:47, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

@Off-shell: In English the word "Russians" covers two different things, both ethnic Russians and citizens of the Russian Federation. The image I reverted would fit in an article about Russian citizens (россияне, "rossiyane", in Russian), but not in an article about ethnic Russians (русские, "russkie", in Russian; which is what Russians is about, as the lead of the article clearly says), since we don't know if the people in the image are ethnic Russians... Thomas.W ^talk 16:15, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Thomas.W, this image is still shown in the article, but not in the infobox. I did not introduce it there but just moved from section "Origins" into the infobox. There are also several other images of "alleged Russians" in this article. So how do you know if they were Russians? Shall one remove these images altogether? Do you require a DNA analysis or an Aryan certificate for each person shown? ;) --Off-shell (talk) 16:36, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

There is, IMHO, a big difference between having an image as one of several in the body of the article, and having it as the only image in the infobox of the same article. Your comment about "Aryan certificate" was waaaay out of line, BTW. Thomas.W ^talk 16:43, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

This is exactly the kind of absurd argument about who is a true Scotsman and how to prove that that always becomes the result of ethnic galleries. The very distinction between "ethnic Russians" and "Russian citizens" is of course at fault because it is spurious at its root. But since people make it we have to probably have articles about both. IF "ethnic Russians" needs a picture just put a picture of Putin - who could be more Russian than him?·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:44, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

The best way to avoid discussions about who is and who isn't is to decide that there should be no images of people in the infobox, not even a single one. It's a pity I didn't see the RfC about collages until it had been closed. Thomas.W ^talk 16:48, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

That decision can still be made by local consensus on a given article - most ethnic group articles dont have images in fact. But yes, I think it is problematic to treat ethnic groups as natural kinds in which an image can visually represent the entire group.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:11, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

The same arguments could be made against uploading any images on Wikipedia at all. What's the point when every single image represents a single POV and is automatically OR of the editor? That's not how the guidelines work though, the purpose of an image is to increase readers' understanding of the article's subject matter. The image in the infobox should have the same criteria as any other image on Wikipedia, the image used should have the best quality and being deemed an accurate depiction of the subject. The image on Russians is a high quality, colorized picture of a Russian family in traditional clothes. It's very ideal. I don't see the logic in keeping the image in the Russians article but not the infobox. Personality galleries were removed because they were very subjective and brought a lot of debate about who should be represented, but a single image is the same as any other image on Wikipedia. --Steverci (talk) 17:14, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

<nitpick mode ON> It's not a "colourised image", it's an early colour photograph made by combining three exposures made through differently coloured filters, which makes the photos Prokudin-Gorskii made in Russia 1906-1915 far more interesting from a historical point of view than colourised black-and-white images. <nitpick mode OFF>. As for the rest I'm not going to spend more time on this, do whatever you want. Thomas.W ^talk 17:27, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I feel compelled to switch on my nitpicking mode. It is not a matter of unilateral decisions, and it should not be subject to WP:EXHAUST in order that individual editors get their way. Please see the discussion here regarding the use of an image on the Ukrainians article. Unless we are talking about minority ethnic groups who still retain much of their traditional way of life, the concept of a 'typical' anyone/group photo of several unknowns is not informative. Historical images may be of value so long as editors (in the plural) have considered both the merits and demerits of trying to represent what 'ethnicity' actually is by use of a single photo. This does not prevent the use of images that enhance the information within the body of the article.

With regards to Off-shell's comparison of a pie to an ethnic group: a pie is a foodstuff object partially or fully encased, and evolved as being a convenient method for both cooking (rather than throwing bits of various edible matter straight into an oven), and far more convenient to carry off to the fields for lunch than holding goulash in your cupped hand when you do so. The object 'chair' is for sitting on. The object 'door' serves a particular function. 'Ethnic group' is not a pie, a chair, nor a door. How are they comparable? Why is this confusing? This should, hopefully, assist in clarifying Steverci's assertion that "...a single image is the same as any other image on Wikipedia..." as being a fully blown fallacy. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:12, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to object to the above assertion that unless it's a minority group still retaining a "traditional" lifestyle a single infobox image should be avoided altogether. The world isn't a monolith; again, see Cape Coloured, where we have an image that perfectly illustrates the ethnic spectrum of one of the world's most diverse communities, attired in non-traditional dress, and serves the article well. In my opinion as long as said diversity of any diverse group is proportionately represented there's no reason to clamp down on the use of individual images accordingly, much less demand the persons depicted illustrate some form of homogenous "traditional" culture of which quite frankly, people like the Cape Coloureds have none. --Katangais (talk) 03:48, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

@Katangais: I'll respond to that as being an exception to the rule. I was speaking in broader terms and provided a 'for instance' to demonstrate an example of where an image could be appropriate. As it stands, however, you are referring to a sub-ethnic group which has been given a name in recent history. I am speaking of ethnic groups with a long, long history and who are of distinct haplogroups. We also have a numerous colonised nation-states that are not made up of a fairly homogeneous ethnicity: Australia, the USA, Canada, etc. What sort of photo/image of people would illustrate 'Americans', 'Australians', 'Canadians'? The only requisite factor is that of citizenship: an altogether different concept to 'ethnicity' (unless we're talking about the indigenous people who inhabited those regions prior colonisation). No one is denying that there can be exceptions to the rule, and that an image may be used (so long as it is WP:RS and WP:V).

Furthermore, given that this is a photograph of an extended family, and that I've never been to South Africa, would I be correct in assuming that this is exactly how I would determine whether I could establish whether someone is a 'caped coloured'? If they were darker skinned, looked like Europeans, or were more Asiatic in their appearance, that person would not be a 'cape coloured'. There are no variations other than this extended family? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 08:58, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Notice of Neutral point of view noticeboard discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The discussion is about the topic South of the Border (attraction). Thank you. --Labattblueboy (talk) 18:31, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Title format for diaspora articles in various countries

Comment - IP 58.176.246.42, variants on the same objections were made on various Canadian diasporic groups and other nation-states prior the RfC for parity in the nomenclature for American ethnic group articles (Village pump rfcid=67A353C). Since that time, due to its logic, the WP:TITLE of hundreds of articles on diasporic groups around the globe has been changed as a matter of parity and WP:NC. Reading the arguments for not changing the article's title demonstrates that a Google search yields more hits for what, exactly? You are comparing an lengthy search string to WP:COMMONNAME. Added to this was another IP's declaration that Venezuela is not an English speaking country therefore, somehow, WP:ITSIMPORTANT not to change it because...? Please help me out here on the issue of how 'Venezuelan immigration to Mexico' is WP:CONCISE and is intuitive or natural for the Anglophone world (this is English language Wikipedia, after all).

I took it upon myself to go WP:BOLD on the premise that consensus can change. If this is not the case, then I would ask that you present a solid policy and guideline based argument as to why you would have it that French Argentines, for example, is incorrect, whereas 'French immigration to Argentina' is correct; why Japanese Brazilians is incorrect, whereas 'Japanese immigration to Brazil' is correct when discussing an ethnic group with long-established roots in any given country/nation-state; etc.

@Iryna Harpy: this is English language Wikipedia, after all is not a rationale for this move. "X immigration to Y" is perfectly understandable to English speakers, and there are multiple Wp:COMMONNAME title formats in the English-speaking world world: British Indians, Indian Americans, Chinese people in Burma, Mexican immigration to Spain. All are equally pluralisable, pluralisation was the sole concern addressed at the RFC you keep referencing, and attempts to move between title formats (rather than changing the pluralisation details within a format) have often failed. See Talk:Malaysian Chinese#Requested move 15 October 2015 for a recent example, and there are many similar ones for articles in the United Kingdom). I did not say that "Japanese Brazilians" is incorrect and I have not proposed moving that article whatsoever, so don't put words in my mouth. All I'm asking is, if you wish to change title formats rather than just pluralisation, open up a discussion so that interested editors can assess the Wp:COMMONNAME and other country-specific circumstances. 58.176.246.42 (talk) 02:51, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Additionally, see Talk:Chinese people in Burma (which was initially moved unilaterally to that title, but on a request to move back it was decided after much discussion that the Wp:CONCISE "Burmese Chinese" or "Chinese Burmese" title was too confusing). A similar issue comes up with Chinese people in Korea/Koreans in China where both groups are commonly called "Korean Chinese" or "Chinese Koreans" (keep in mind that interpretation of adjective pileups is a Wp:ENGVAR issue, c.f. British Indians vs. Indian Americans). 58.176.246.42 (talk) 02:55, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

You're pointing to RM's from 2011, et al. There are a number of editors going through these articles and moving them. It's a long process, and the articles themselves have had tumbleweeds blowing through them for years and years in terms of development. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of them, and editors from WP:ETHNIC can't address them all in one fell swoop.

Certainly, there are some circumstances under which a 'one size fits all' is not necessarily appropriate, but these are exceptions to the rule, not the rule. I believe you're also confusing the issue of ENGVAR with evaluations as to which descriptor is most appropriate for a region made up of several countries (being Britain, as opposed to the UK: the UK being the descriptor which has been phased out). In the case of any of the nation-states in the Americas, where is the confusion to parallel 'Chinese people in Korea'. In fact, you've drawn attention to far more confusing conventions being used such as Malaysian Chinese also, according to the article, known as Chinese Malaysians. The logical nomenclature is "Chinese Malaysians", being the diasporic group followed by their citizenship. Malaysian Chinese suggests Malaysians in China. There are Ethnic Malay Malaysians, and there are also Malaysian Indian Malaysians (which would be better served as being entitled 'Indian Malaysians'). Local consensus tussles long since abandoned do not make for a cohesive and coherent encyclopaedic nomenclature for articles. While on the subject of ENGVAR, please don't conflate ENGVAR with poorly thought out, unintuitive titles. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:28, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

British Bangladeshis, British Chinese, British Indians, British Iraqis, British Moroccans, British Pakistanis, vs. Bangladeshi Americans, Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, Iraqi Americans, Moroccan Americans, Pakistani Americans. Looks like an ENGVAR issue to me, not "unintuitive titles" as you accuse. The move request on Malaysian Chinese is not "long since abandoned", the request to move it to Chinese Malaysians was rejected less than six months ago. 58.176.246.42 (talk) 03:49, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm also pinging Moxy and Delotrooladoo on this one. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:09, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Do not support move back - these articles are about Diaspora and their decedents....not about recent immigration. The current titles is the norm and reflects its content. I think this is just an English comprehension problem ....in English " Brazilian immigration to Mexico" would be the wording used for the amount of new people that immigrated at a specific time (for statistical purposes) ...where "Brazilian Mexicans" means Mexican citizens of Brazilian heritage. Previous move talk at Talk:Venezuelan Mexicans not comprehensive (involved 3 people)..was based on a misconception of the meaning and not based on policy. On a side note more to fix at Category:Immigration to Mexico --Moxy (talk) 22:25, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
- Moxy, if you don't like the way an existing move discussion went, the way to get it changed is not to unilaterally override it, but to open up a new move discussion. We work by Wp:CONSENSUS, not Wp:ILLJUSTIGNORETHOSEDUMBIPS. Accusing other users of having "misconceptions" and "English comprehension problems" is not constructive. 58.176.246.42 (talk) 03:04, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Do not support move back per my comment above (and, obviously, as the initiator of the move). --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:18, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Do not support move back - As explained before, these articles are about the established communities of immigrants and their descendants in several countries around the world and translating article titles from other Wikipedias is not accurate in English. It doesn't matter if the article is about a Spanish-speaking country, here we are writing articles in English. I'm well aware of this because I work with the same articles in Spanish and it's not the same. Delotrooladoo (talk) 02:27, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Considering the level of discussion here, perhaps there should be an RfC on the appropriate titling and wording of these types of articles, perhaps at WT:ETHNIC or WT:MOS. clpo13_(talk) 03:15, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Clpo13. Considering the number of convolutions that have started emerging throughout so many regions, I think that may be the best place to tackle some form of parity. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 03:35, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Iryna Harpy for a start, shall I withdraw the move request for now, and we can unclog this technical requests page by deleting all the above discussion and copying it instead to WT:ETHNIC? Cheers, 58.176.246.42 (talk) 04:10, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, IP 58.176.245.42. I think that would be the wisest move. Obviously, this is a complex issue which would benefit from more editor opinions. It's opened up a bit of a can of worms in need of an appropriate dedicated venue for parsing. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:19, 4 February 2016 (UTC)